Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
August 20, 2021
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Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
Biden’s crisis of competence . . . The Biden-Harris Administration has failed at every turn since Inauguration Day. Their reckless policies have destabilized the world, undermined our national security, and led to record-high inflation. President Biden’s plan, or lack thereof for that matter, to withdraw from Afghanistan is the most glaring example of how he is unfit to lead our nation. What has transpired over the last several days in
Afghanistan has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian crises of my lifetime. We left our British allies at their embassy in Kabul behind and have seen a total collapse of foreign policy that will cost us our allies’ trust in our guarantees. We witnessed a negligent level of strategic planning by the administration that left behind thousands of American citizens, including women and children, not only in Kabul but also potentially elsewhere, as it is unknown whether we have people behind
enemy checkpoints. Opinion. Washington Times
Byron York's Daily Memo: ”Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up”. . . In his new interview with ABC News, President Joe Biden seemed amazed at the idea that Americans might have expected an orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, rather than the chaos that is going on day after day.
"You don't think this could have been handled -- this exit could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?" asked interviewer George Stephanopoulos . "No," said Biden. "I don't think it could have been handled in a way that -- we're gonna go back in hindsight and look -- but the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened." Biden's point: Of course there was going to be chaos.
Everybody knew that. How could anyone have thought otherwise? Opinion. Washington Examiner
The most useless vice president of the century . . . While anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 Americans have less than a fortnight to escape Afghanistan before President Joe Biden's withdrawal deadline, the president is missing in action. The only person even more unseen than Biden, who emerged from hibernation in Camp David for fewer than 20 minutes of remarks on Monday, is Vice President Kamala Harris. The supposedly "historic" vice
president who boasted of being the "last person in the room" when her boss decided on the Afghanistan withdrawal has not held a public event in nearly a week. More than half a year into the job, it's clear that Harris brought the Biden administration a few checkmarks to fulfill the White House's diversity quota and not much else. Unlike Biden, who for all his gaffes still succeeded in spinning the Senate, Harris never really ingratiated herself with her former colleagues on either side of
the aisle. Opinion. Washington Examiner
I've had enough of this, and am taking a more active approach to my fight against the radicals' dream to turn USA into USSR 2.0. I've signed up to serve as an election officer and for other volunteer activities, to help with election integrity. And I encourage everyone who is in a position to do so to please do the same. We can't afford having such incompetent '"leaders" in charge of our country any more. It costs American lives and treasure.
Biden to Deliver Speech on Afghanistan Evacuation Before Returning to Delaware . . .
President Joe Biden is scheduled Friday to deliver remarks on the evacuation efforts in Afghanistan, the first time he’s addressed the issue since Wednesday. Biden on Friday plans to deliver remarks on “the evacuation of American citizens and their families, SIV applicants and their families, and vulnerable American citizens,” according to the White House. SIV stands for Special Immigrant Visas. Epoch Times
Trump would beat Biden in 2020 election do-over, new poll shows . . . U.S. voters may be experiencing buyer’s remorse when it comes to President Bidenl. A Rasmussen Reports survey posted Wednesday found that “if the next presidential election were held today,” 37% of likely U.S. voters would support Mr. Biden and 43% would back former President Donald Trump, while 14% would vote for another candidate. “Among voters who say they voted
for Biden in last year’s election, 12% now say they regret their vote,” tweeted Rasmussen. “By comparison, only two percent (2%) of Trump voters now regret their vote.” Washington Times
VP Harris traveling to Singapore, Vietnam amid Afghanistan turmoil . . . Vice President Harris is leaving as scheduled for a trip to southeast Asia on Friday, amid overwhelming fallout in Washington and Kabul over the Biden administration’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan. The trip to Singapore and Vietnam was announced last month, but Harris’s trip is likely to draw intense scrutiny over U.S. credibility in following through on security
commitments with allies, amid the Taliban’s lightening takeover of Afghanistan following the pullout of U.S. troops. Her stop in Vietnam is also sure to raise stark comparisons between the U.S.’s desperate exit from Saigon in 1975 and near mirror images that emerged out of Kabul on Sunday as U.S. military helicopters departed the embassy while evacuating staff. The Hill
Biden says chaos in Kabul was inevitable but had promised orderly withdrawal. . . President Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired Wednesday evening: “The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens.” And yet a few months ago, he promised there would be no “hasty rush to the exit,” and that the withdrawal would be done “responsibly, deliberately, and
safely.” He also said it would be done in collaboration with allies, which did not happen. White House Dossier
Biden And Milley Inflated Afghan Army Numbers, Pentagon Report Shows . . . President Joe Biden and Gen. Mark Milley drastically overstated the size of the Afghan army in recent weeks, claiming it had more than 300,000 soldiers at its disposal when it in fact had less than 200,000, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report. The report, released July 31, details that the Afghan army had 182,071 soldiers as of April, far lower than
the numbers Biden and Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs, put forward publicly. Biden said as recently as Monday that the U.S. “trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong.” Biden was combining the Afghan military and police forces, the latter of which numbered 118,628. Combining the two would have resulted in a total of 300,699 security personnel in April, but the report stipulated that force numbers had decreased significantly between April and its July
release. Daily Caller
Soviet Playbook: Corrupt politicians lying to citizens. And now a top military officer is deceiving Americans. What disgrace.
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Up to 80K Americans, Afghans employed by US waiting for Kabul evacuation . . . As many as 80,000 Americans and Afghans who once worked for the US still need to be evacuated from Kabul amid the botched withdrawal that has been marred by violence and chaos. The US has evacuated 7,000 from Kabul since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan five days ago but there are still between 60,000 and 80,000 who need to get out.
That includes more than 10,000 Americans, according to CBS News. The Biden administration has so far refused to give an estimate of how many US citizens need to be evacuated.
Two thousand were evacuated within the last 24 hours, Army Maj. Gen. Hank Taylor said Thursday. He said the military now has enough aircraft to get 5,000 to 9,000 people out a day — depending on how many have been processed. New York Post
Biden Administration Continues To Tell Fleeing Americans To Pay Their Way Out Of Afghanistan, Hours After Telling The Press Otherwise . . . The Biden administration continued to inform American citizens in Afghanistan as of Thursday evening they could have to pay more than $2,000 to board an evacuation flight out of the country, despite the State Department telling the press hours before that it had no intention of levying any such
charges. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan has stated in multiple security advisories since Monday that any U.S. citizen seeking to evacuate the country must complete an online form in order to secure their repatriation flight. “This form is the only way to communicate interest in flight options,” the embassy said in a security advisory Wednesday. Daily Caller
Heartbreaking image shows crying baby handed over to US soldier in Kabul . . . An extraordinary photo shows the heartbreaking moment a wailing baby was handed over to an American soldier at the Kabul airport, where desperate Afghans have been trying to flee from the Taliban-controlled country.
The soldier plucked the child, reported to be a girl, over barbed wire during the chaos at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where families were attacked by the extremists as they sought to make their way to the airfield. New York Post
Monthly illegal immigration on track to make 2021 the worst year ever . . . As Afghanistan crumbles, so does out border. White House Dossier
FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated . . . The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials. Reuters
Leaks Show Durham Probe Is Making Progress . . . Recent media reports point obliquely to significant developments in John Durham’s special counsel investigation. He’s using a grand jury to subpoena documents and witness testimony regarding the FBI’s illegal spying operation against Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. And now stories in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post say Durham may be looking to make criminal charges against
“lower-level FBI agents” as well as outside sources who passed false information to federal law enforcement. If that’s accurate, the latter category could include political operatives, foreign spies, big-name Beltway lawyers, journalists, and computer experts. But current and former government officials say the reports seem intended to shape the narrative on behalf of those Durham may really have in his crosshairs—senior FBI officials, including former Acting Director Andrew McCabe. Epoch Times
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How Biden Broke NATO . . . ld respects”? Apparently President Biden forgot. Of the many consequences of his misbegotten Afghanistan withdrawal, one of the more serious is the way it has damaged America’s relationships with its allies, especially in Europe. Afghanistan was an operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and America’s NATO allies have invested significant blood and treasure in the conflict. That
includes tens of thousands of troops over 20 years, more than 1,100 of whom were killed, and billions of dollars spent on the military operation and reconstruction effort. This was a fulfillment of their obligations after the Sept. 11 terror attack led to the first invocation of the mutual self-defense clause in NATO’s founding treaty. European allies also have a stake in preventing a nation of nearly 40 million people from collapsing into a failed state that could trigger more mass
migration to Europe, or become a new breeding ground for terrorism. Yet everything about Mr. Biden’s Afghan withdrawal has been a slap to those allies. They didn’t want the U.S. to leave, but he did. The botched execution has left them scrambling to airlift out thousands of their citizens and thousands more Afghan translators and others who assisted each nation’s war effort. Wall Street Journal
CNN's Clarissa Ward has breakthrough media moment in Afghanistan . . . CNN’s Clarissa Ward and her reporting has stood out from the pack amid the chaos in Afghanistan.
Ward, 41, has roamed the streets with her crew for days covering the U.S. withdrawal of troops and the Taliban’s lightning-speed takeover of the country. Her dispatches from Kabul have shed light on the chaotic nature of the U.S. pull-out, the tense mood as the Taliban retakes power and the plight of the scores of Afghan civilians looking for a way out of the country. “It’s been a pretty mind-bending trip, honestly,” Ward, CNN's chief international correspondent, told The Hill
during an exclusive interview this week. “It certainly felt like we had a front row seat to history and it's an extraordinary moment to witness.” Ward has not flinched in covering a conservative Islamic group that brutally suppressed women during its previous reign in Afghanistan, and that may see Ward’s very presence as an affront to its values. The Hill
Putin at summit with Biden objected to US plan of bases near Afghanistan . . . Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Biden at their summit in June he objected to the U.S.’s plan to set up bases near Afghanistan, according to senior Russian and U.S. officials. Putin said he did not want any U.S. forces in Central Asian countries, showing Putin wants to keep control of the region rather than work with Biden regarding Afghanistan,
current and former U.S. officials told the outlet.
The Biden administration was reportedly looking to set up drones and counterterrorism forces in countries surrounding Afghanistan, but Putin’s objections complicated the issue. “The Russians have no interest in having the U.S. back in there,” former State Department expert on Eurasia Paul Goble told the Journal. The Hill
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It Turns Out All Those Plastic COVID Barriers Might Have Made Things Worse . . . Now that we've had more than a year of life peering through plastic at our fellow citizens, the science is starting to catch up with the craze and it turns out those measures may have actually increased the chances of people contracting the Wuhan coronavirus. As The New York Times recently reported, "scientists who study aerosols, air flow
and ventilation say that much of the time, the barriers don't help and probably give people a false sense of security. And sometimes the barries can make things worse." How is that possible? The Times explains: Under normal conditions in stores, classrooms and offices, exhaled breath particles disperse, carried by air currents and, depending on the ventilation system, are replaced by fresh air roughly every 15 to 30 minutes. But erecting plastic barriers can change air flow in a room,
disrupt normal ventilation and create "dead zones," where viral aerosol particles can build up and become highly concentrated. Townhall
Chinese Promote Rap Song Blaming US for Coronavirus . . . Chinese Communist Party officials and state media are circulating a Chinese rap video that claims the coronavirus pandemic originated in an American military lab in an effort to distract from mounting evidence that the virus emerged in a Wuhan lab leak. The Chinese paper of record China Daily, propaganda outlet Global Times, and foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian have all
circulated the rap video in the past month along with articles and cartoons alleging that the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in a military lab at Fort Detrick in Maryland. Zhao and Global Times shared a Chinese music video that accuses U.S. officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), of covering up the pandemic's supposed Maryland roots. "This RAP song speaks our minds," Zhao tweeted on Aug. 11. "Instead of caring about facts & truth, [the United
States] only wants to consume & malign China," Zhao wrote in a separate tweet. Washington Free Beacon
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Kohls CEO talks Amazon partnership, turning business into ‘lifestyle concept' . . . Retail giant Kohl's has been on a roll in the markets after a blowout earnings report and CEO Michelle Gass tagged the company’s success on its lifestyle approach. Kohl's partnerships with major brands like Sephora, Lego and others have increased foot traffic in stores which Gass explained drives relevancy and widens the department
store's demographic. "We’ve been on a mission to really evolve and… transform the customer experience," she said. "Take everything that’s been great about Kohl's for years – we have phenomenal private brands like Sonoma, Croft & Barrow and the like – but also to bring more relevancy with new brands and new partnerships." Gass mentioned Kohl's partnership with Amazon which has allowed customers to make returns and exchanges in-store, furthermore driving those relevancy and traffic
factors. Fox Business
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Critical Race Theory Promotes Discrimination . . . The Education Department told teachers that racism and slavery should be “at the very center of our national narrative.” At the National Education Association’s annual meeting earlier this month, union members approved a business item stating that they would make sure teachers continue to use critical race theory in class. So does critical race theory have something to offer
besides racial discrimination?
Critical race theory is a philosophy that law school professors developed in the 1980s. The theory says everything in public and private life—your job, government, school—must be considered with respect to racial identities. The theory is “critical” because advocates based the ideas on Marxist notions of oppressed workers, which stem from a school of thought from the 1930s called “critical theory.” Daily Signal
Indoctrinating Our Youth In Ways Of Socialism . . . opinion editor Cheryl Chumley, Washington Times Bold & Blunt Podcast
School boards become ground zero for country's culture wars . . . School board meetings across the country have become ground zero for the country’s culture wars, often resulting in combative and confrontational forums as students prepare to head back to school in the fall. In Tennessee, health care workers faced threats from angry crowds after a Williamson County School District Board meeting, while a school board meeting in Clarkstown,
N.Y., was called off after attendees refused to wear masks. The recent incidents come roughly two months after protests erupted in Loudoun County, Va., over the rights of transgender students. That school board recently voted 7-2 to expand the rights of transgender students. Mask mandates in schools have become the latest point of contention at meetings. The Hill
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AOC Goes To Afghanistan To Warn Refugees Not To Come To Oppressive Racist America . . . According to sources, AOC was alarmed after seeing thousands of people desperately trying to escape Afghanistan and come to America. "Oh no! Like, what are they doing?" shrieked AOC at her TV screen. "Don't they know America is full of systemic oppression? I need to go save them right now!" AOC then picked up her top-secret
squad phone. "Get the squad together," she said. "We have brown people to save." She then assembled the squad in their secret squad jet and flew behind enemy lines to warn the Afghans to stay out of America before it was too late.
"Salam Alaikum my fellow austere religious BIPOCs!" she cried through a bullhorn. "Don't come to America! It is a trap! There are microaggressions and racisms everywhere, and white people appropriating your culture! Please stay here where you'll be safe and your human rights will be respected!" She then ran over to the nearest aircraft and tried to slash the tires but failed, due to her being small and weak with no upper-body strength. The Taliban then threw her in prison for being
outside without a man.
The rest of the squad has petitioned Joe Biden to send in the military to rescue AOC, but so far have been unable to wake him up from his nap. Babylon Bee
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Rebekah Koffler
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