The curious case of the missing resignations
Posted By: Magnante, 9/13/2021 4:34:16 AM
One of the strangest things about the Afghanistan debacle is that in spite of extraordinarily harsh criticism world-wide, nobody has resigned and nobody has been fired. (snip) There are three obvious cases where resignation was and still is unavoidable -- and for more than one of the reasons I’ve cited. First, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. (snip) Second, Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (snip) Third, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. snip) It has been reported that Blinken and Sullivan had reservations about what the President was doing but didn’t press those reservations because they knew what the boss wanted.
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RIP: Norm Macdonald
0 replies
I was shocked and saddened to learn that after a private bout with cancer, Norm Macdonald has succumbed at the age of 61. He has long been one of my favorite comedians, a man whose sense of irony was sharp and whose courage was legendary, (snip) political correctness had no appeal for him. He delighted in outraging the sensibilities of pious leftists, such as this excursion into women and comedy [video] (snip) Here is Norm on white privilege [video] (snip) His 1987 roast of President Clinton (to his face) at the White House Correspondents Dinner is the stuff of legend [video]
The White House censors Joe Biden
10 replies
Last week, word emerged from the White House that Biden’s own staff can’t stand to listen to him. It’s not that they don’t agree with his policies (heck—they probably crafted them). Instead, it’s that he’s such a verbal loose cannon (snip) The White House abruptly cut the feed of President Biden‘s briefing on wildfires with federal and state officials. (snip) I do not see how his staff can keep propping him up if they’re reduced to silencing him whenever he gets a head of steam and starts moving his lips on his own.
I will never trust another doctor
47 replies
It happened again yesterday, twice. Reading through comments on a blog post I found this: "I will never trust another doctor again." I long ago lost count of the number of times I have seen that written.
You hear it, too. In private conversations with people they trust, American citizens are heaping contempt on doctors for forcing a narrative on us that had no basis in science. Many of us, perhaps even the majority, immediately recognized this virus for what it is -- a common flu virus
A popular catch-phrase among pro-Trump patriots is: “Nothing can stop what is coming.”
This is based on the theory that there are things quietly going on behind the scenes, that President Trump still has a hand in what is happening today.
Perhaps he is laying a giant trap for Democrats and the deep state establishment. Or perhaps the military is in control under the theory of devolution.
Or perhaps, this is all delusional wishful thinking.
Is China the next superpower? Is the media's depiction of the country as a ten-foot giant really accurate? That's dubious. For all its bluster on the global stage, China is a giant in trouble. (snip) Perhaps the biggest problem in China is its erstwhile "one child" policy, which created many single, self-absorbed adults with poor social skills and an entitlement mindset that included no great desire to marry young and bear the financial burden of offspring. (snip) Another problem is income disparity, with a vast gulf of differences between a tiny urban elite and the country's many urban and rural poor.
The curious case of the missing resignations
18 replies
One of the strangest things about the Afghanistan debacle is that in spite of extraordinarily harsh criticism world-wide, nobody has resigned and nobody has been fired. (snip) There are three obvious cases where resignation was and still is unavoidable -- and for more than one of the reasons I’ve cited.
First, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. (snip) Second, Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (snip) Third, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. snip) It has been reported that Blinken and Sullivan had reservations about what the President was doing but didn’t press those reservations because they knew what the boss wanted.
Will Gen Z Save the World?
13 replies
As a college professor for over 35 years, I’ve gotten to know three generations of students: Gen Y (born between 1965 and 1980), the Millennials (1981-1996), and now Gen Z (1997-2012). And because I teach rhetoric, I’ve read thousands of their papers, providing substantial insight into the way they think. (snip) In comparison to their Millennial predecessors, my Gen Z students tend to be more open-minded, more interested in facts and logic, more inclined to question the status quo, and more amenable to free markets. They also take a more nuanced view of history
I held off on writing about the “F*** Joe Biden” chants that began at college football games a couple of weeks ago. I had three reasons. First, I’m not a fan of obscenities because I think they cheapen speech. Second, these chants were initially small groups at Southern colleges, which really didn’t seem like a “thing.” Third, I wasn’t going to get excited until I learned whether the chants had legs. Well, it turns out they do have legs and they’re becoming large chants at multiple games (including New York baseball games). And most importantly, Joe Biden knows about them and isn’t happy.
George W. Bush appeared at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to honor those who died on 9/11. It was an interesting speech, but not necessarily in a good way. (snip) Bush said that Islamic violent extremists are the same as domestic violent extremists when it comes to their “disregard of human life.” The big question is whether Bush was referring to Antifa and BLM or to the January 6 protesters—and, interestingly, everybody assumes he was speaking about the latter. (snip) Considering that the January 6 protesters killed no one and destroyed nothing, the words are inapposite to them. They apply perfectly to BLM and Antifa
President Joe Biden and his team of military, intelligence, and diplomatic advisors oversaw America’s most epic surrender, on the world stage, under the lights and cameras of international media recording it for posterity, spinning the news to mitigate American failure. (snip) the U.S. government has no idea how many Americans remain in Afghanistan. (snip) How many have made it back to America? Where are the interviews of returning Americans, telling their stories to Oprah or Ellen, or any of myriad cable news anchors and hosts? Where are the feel-good stories in People Magazine?
Biden’s vaccine mandate speech!
18 replies
Thursday, President Biden delivered the most insulting, contemptuous and divisive speech by a president in US history. (snip) What is he truly worried about? The unvaccinated! In his addled mind, it is the vax resistant who pose the greatest danger to mankind. That the vaccines are failing does not alter his mindset. In his speech Thursday, he falsely blamed the unvaxxed for “the pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Most of the new cases are among the fully vaccinated, both here and abroad. It is the vaccines that are creating the variants.
Last December, President-elect Biden promised no mask or vaccine mandates: [Twitter video] He broke that promise Thursday, in a speech demanding federal employees (except the 644,000 Postal Service employees – see below) receive the experimental gene therapy injections, and that government contractors and large employers require either vaccination or weekly testing for their employees. (snip) in India and the UK, where the delta variant spread earlier than here, it appears to fizzle down of its own accord. So, Biden may be seeking to claim a “victory” by taking credit for a decline that is already in the cards.
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I will never trust another doctor
47 replies
It happened again yesterday, twice. Reading through comments on a blog post I found this: "I will never trust another doctor again." I long ago lost count of the number of times I have seen that written.
You hear it, too. In private conversations with people they trust, American citizens are heaping contempt on doctors for forcing a narrative on us that had no basis in science. Many of us, perhaps even the majority, immediately recognized this virus for what it is -- a common flu virus
California voters overwhelmingly chose to keep Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in office in a recall election on Tuesday.
Newsom was spared after a projection by the Associated Press showed that a majority of voters opted against recalling him.
With 61 percent of the estimated vote in, early returns showed that 5.3 million voters supported keeping Newsom in office, while 2.5 million Californians voted in favor of his removal.
The September 14 recall election was triggered after a petition to remove Newsom received more than 1.6 million verified signatures — a sign of Californians’ frustration
The Pentagon defended a deadly August drone strike in Kabul on Monday – despite a report that the attack actually killed an innocent man and his family.
The second of a pair of drone airstrikes in the waning days of the Afghanistan war is now being investigated by Central Command, but details are scarce and there remains a question of how much information will be shared once the probe is completed.
“I would say that the assessment by Central Command is ongoing and I’m not gonna get ahead of that,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said during a news briefing on Monday.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley took a series of extraordinary actions after the Jan. 6th Capitol riot because he was concerned an 'unstable' President Trump might undertake military action in a desperate bid to stay in office, according to Bob Woodward's bombshell new book. The efforts included Milley as the top ranking military officer meeting with top military officials in the Pentagon two days after the MAGA riot and telling them to keep him in the process for all military actions, including the use of nuclear weapons. It also involved outreach to Milley's counterpart in the Chinese military to provide reassurances the US would not strike
President Joe Biden has often shown pride in his Irish Catholic roots, but on another side of his ancestry, the progressive commander-in-chief's family lineage can be traced back to America's shameful past of slave ownership.Jesse Robinett, Biden's great-great-great grandfather, owned two enslaved people in Maryland in the 1800s, according to a Politico story adapted from a bombshell new book, The Bidens. Biden shares an apparent connection with Robinett through his full name - Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Another ancestor of Biden's also reportedly owned a slave in Maryland - a 14-year-old boy.
A popular catch-phrase among pro-Trump patriots is: “Nothing can stop what is coming.”
This is based on the theory that there are things quietly going on behind the scenes, that President Trump still has a hand in what is happening today.
Perhaps he is laying a giant trap for Democrats and the deep state establishment. Or perhaps the military is in control under the theory of devolution.
Or perhaps, this is all delusional wishful thinking.
New reporting from The Washington Post, detailing the contents of a new book, shows General Mark Milley reassured China's People's Liberal Army General Li Zuocheng that he would give the communist country a heads up if President Donald Trump launched an attack in the final months of his presidency. He did so in a series of reported phone calls and reassured Li he would stand between Trump and an attack on Chinese assets. In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army
Former President Trump on Tuesday said the United States' top military officer was guilty of treason if he went behind his back and promised to warn China of an impending attack.He was responding to bombshell revelations in a new book claiming that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, twice called his Chinese counterpart last year over concerns that then President Trump was ready to go to war. 'If it is actually true - which is hard to believe that he would have called China, and done these things and was willing to advise them of an attack or in advance of
The Taliban has thanked the world for pledging more than a billion dollars in emergency aid to Afghanistan, and urged the US to show 'heart' by donating more. Amir Khan Muttaqi, the regime's acting foreign minister, told a press conference the terror group would spend donor money wisely and use it to alleviate poverty. He was speaking a day after the United Nations said a total of $1.2billion in aid had been pledged to Afghanistan, $64million of which came from the US.(Snip)He also asked Washington to show appreciation for the Taliban allowing the US to complete a troop withdrawal and evacuation of more than 120,000 people last month.
Back on January 8, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she had spoken with Gen. Mark Milley about limiting President Trump’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. Here’s how NPR reported it at the time: In a letter to her Democratic House colleagues on Friday, Pelosi said that she had spoken with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, about “available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.” Pelosi later told her caucus she had received assurances that there were safeguards in place, according to a source on the call. It is unclear what
Corporate tax increases are necessary for the U.S. to better compete globally, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told Yahoo Finance Live in an interview. House Democrats are out with a proposal to raise the tax rate on companies with income of at least $5 million to 26.5%.
“If American business is going to compete, we need these investments,”
The full Versailles: Met Gala ruling class
pour on the hypocrisy -- led
by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 23 replies
pour on the hypocrisy -- led
by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 23 replies
In the decrepit, doddering Joe Biden era, the odor of decay, decadence and borrowed glory from the entitled ruling class is the order of the day based on what was seen at last night's Met Gala, "the party of the year" according to the New York Times.
Nobody embodied that better than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wore a custom-designed white evening gown graffitied with 'Tax the Rich' in red spray paint on the back of it, just perfect for an event brimming with the superrich. She knows they like that 'beat me, beat me' vibe.
Here she is preening and showing it off for the cameras, every inch the center of attention: