IT’S A HOSTAGE CRISIS, WHERE THE HOSTAGES ARE KEPT IN AFGHANISTAN BY . . . U.S. THE STATE DEPARTMENT? State Dept. won’t give private rescue flights OK to leave Afghanistan. “The State Department said it will not formally approve the departure of chartered planes from Afghanistan carrying Americans and allies — complicating efforts by private citizens to complete the evacuation of the left-behind, according to an email obtained by Fox News.”

Plus: “Since the American military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan ended Aug. 30, private citizens and nonprofit groups have scrambled to arrange transportation out of Taliban-controlled territory for the dozens of American citizens and estimated thousands of Afghans who assisted US-led NATO forces during the two-decade-long war. White House press secretary Jen Psaki argued last week that the notion that the Biden administration was stopping such initiatives was incorrect.”

Well, Jen Psaki argues a lot of things.

OPEN THREAD: Lean back, relax. Here come the snacks.

ROGER SIMON: America Lives Under Healthcare Fascism.

Attributed to V.I. Lenin is a statement to the effect that the fastest and surest way to communism or socialism—it varies according to the citation—is through the healthcare system.

The statement seems to be apocryphal. I say “seems” because no one appears able to locate it.

But, like so many possibly apocryphal statements (“A republic if you can keep it” and so forth), does anyone doubt its meaning is really true? That’s the reason such remarks continue to haunt us.

Since this is Rosh Hashanah, I will put it the way the old Jewish bubbes (grandmothers) did when I was a child. Apply the proper Yiddish accent: “So long as you’re healthy, it’s the main thing.”

And, to be clear, when I assert we live under healthcare communism, I don’t mean communism the way ye olde Karl Marx dreamed it up. I mean something even worse, more insidious—total state control of our lives, who wins and loses, who profits and who fails, who becomes a billionaire and who a pauper, even who survives… in other words communism as practiced in today’s People’s Republic of China and, increasingly, the United States.

You may not be interested in the gleichschaltung — but the gleichschaltung is interested in you.

KURT SCHLICHTER: The New Rules Bite Libs Right in the Uterus.

You know, there was a time when I might have thought that the Texas legislature’s creative lawmaking that lets random people sue those facilitating abortions was against my principles. But that was before “principles” became nothing more than a cynical codeword designed to tie our hands as the libs pillaged through our society like a bunch of hopped-up Visigoths who just got into Hunter’s secret stash.

The new rule is that you use your power ruthlessly to defeat your opponent. And so, I’m totally comfortable with it. The Dems, not so much – this legislative suppository is shaped like a starfish and it ain’t going in easy.

Read the whole thing.

PLENTY OF TAIL: The ‘megacomet’ Bernardinelli-Bernstein is the find of a decade. Here’s the discovery explained.

GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN’T PRODUCE NEWS HERE — THIS IS CNN! Liberals lash out at CNN for interviewing Caitlyn Jenner during California recall.

SNOWFALLS ARE NOW JUST A THING OF THE PAST: Biden Declares Climate Change a Pressing Issue After 48 Years in Government.

“Climate change poses an existential threat,” said Biden, raising his voice. “It’s here, it’s not going to get any better,” he added while insisting “we can stop it from getting worse.” If the Left’s climate agenda isn’t accomplished, Biden threatened, “the storms are gonna get worse and worse and worse.”

For his own record, then-Senator Biden voted against more stringent fuel efficiency standards a handful of times. And Biden’s words Tuesday suggest his time as Vice President in the Obama administration accomplished little to nothing. After all, if American policy could save the planet, wouldn’t eight years of Obama and Biden in the White House — which included negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement — have mitigated damage like that he spent Tuesday surveying?

“We’ve gotta listen to the scientists* and economists,” Biden admonished. “They tell us this is code red.”

“The world is in peril,” Biden claimed, insisting “that’s not hyperbole.”

Among Biden’s recommendations to solve the climate change he lamented is to, “by 2020, make sure all of our electricity is zero emissions,” a deadline we passed nine months ago.

It’s just a stutter.

* QED: President ‘has four years to save Earth.’

Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama’s first administration, he added.

—The Grauniad, January 17th, 2009.

(Classical reference in headline.)

THE HONEYMOON IS OVER:

● Shot: Biden says allies are not questioning US credibility.

—Nikkei Asia, August 21st.

● Chaser: Afghanistan crisis: How Europe’s relationship with Joe Biden turned sour.

—The BBC, September 3rd.

● Hangover: “How Others See Us.”

Boris Johnson has been told to order a “complete overhaul of Whitehall” so that Britain can fill the void of global leadership left by the US.

Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said the withdrawal from Afghanistan raised the prospect that terrorism would “once again be allowed to thrive and the limits of UK and western influence exposed”.

The Tory MP noted that with America’s new “isolationist policy,” it was “a dangerous geopolitical turning point”.

He added: “If Britain wants to fill that void – as we should do – it will require a complete overhaul of Whitehall, upgrade of our strategic thinking, our foreign policy output and our ability to lead.”

* * * * * * * *

The Brits are correct that the Biden administration’s incompetence has created a power vacuum, but the idea that they will be the ones to fill it seems much too optimistic.”

—Power Line, today.

EXCUSE ME STEWARDESS, I SPEAK TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE: Confused Joe Biden Doesn’t Think Tornadoes Are Called Tornadoes Anymore. “While it’s unclear exactly what the President was trying to say, it seems he is confusing a derecho that swept across the city of Nevada, Iowa in August of 2020 with not-tornado tornadoes that struck the states of Nevada and Iowa. Surely, the President knows that Nevada is not in the middle of the country, right? In any case, to clear things up: Tornadoes are still tornadoes and Derechos are still Derechos. Nevada is not in the middle of the country, but Nevada, Iowa is. Predictably, Biden’s gaffe drew a quick reaction from meteorologists and residents in the states Biden mentioned as reporters and members of Congress piled on.”

GET OUT OF YOUR CAR AND CUT OFF YOUR SLAUSON: Tennessee Man Leading Police Chase Severed His Penis. “If he made the dissecting decision amid fleeing the fuzz, it’s unclear how he thought it might have helped. Perhaps he felt the vehicle was sluggish, and he needed to cut weight. Or maybe he was already crafting an insanity plea. Either way, it was an extraordinary feat — especially if the Honda is a stick shift.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

FAUCI ON COLLEGE FOOTBALL FANS PACKING STADIUMS: ‘I Don’t Think it’s Smart.”

The photos also speak louder than experts and anchors on TV. Witnessing college football fans cheer, boo, dance, sing, and whatever else they do is persuasive. It erases some of the fears hesitant fans may still have.

Furthermore, fans across the country, those who feel they are at mild risk, showed that they were over COVID restrictions. COVID isn’t going away, but Americans will gradually realize that they can resume their lives anyway. Some were there a year ago — others won’t get there for another year. That’s up to them and their vulnerability to the virus. Adults can decide when that time is right for them. But based on Week 1 of the college football season, a significant number have reached that point.

Flashback: Ignoring Them Is the Only Way Out.

We can’t eat enough medium-well steaks to get the CDC to stop recommending that we not eat medium-rare, let alone steak tartare. If you ask epidemiologists whether human conversation is safe, their minds call up computer animations of people projectile-vomiting red and blue blocks of “droplets” on each other. If you asked public-health authorities for permission to be born and live a life, there’s no way they could just, you know, approve of that in an unqualified way. You just have to remember that you’ll never be in less danger to yourself or others until dead.

They’re waiting for us — the people. The people began locking down and shutting in and buying masks last February, when public-health officials were telling you that masks were racist and that you should attend Chinese New Year parades to show you weren’t afraid. The people began traveling out more — based on the Google traffic data — before the lockdowns were eased. When does it end? When we end it.

And speaking of college football: It sure looks like ‘F*CK JOE BIDEN’ chants will be a thing this fall at college football games and concerts.

The left chose to fundamentally change sports from an atmosphere where everyone was united simply by being part of the home team’s crowd, to yet another political battlezone. As Kurt Schlichter warned them in 2015: Liberals May Regret Their New Rules.

WHY ENROLL IN INSTITUTIONS THAT HATE YOU AND CALL YOU AN OPPRESSOR? A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: The number of men enrolled at two- and four-year colleges has fallen behind women by record levels, in a widening education gap across the U.S.

At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline.

This education gap, which holds at both two- and four-year colleges, has been slowly widening for 40 years. The divergence increases at graduation: After six years of college, 65% of women in the U.S. who started a four-year university in 2012 received diplomas by 2018 compared with 59% of men during the same period, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

In the next few years, two women will earn a college degree for every man, if the trend continues, said Douglas Shapiro, executive director of the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse.

No reversal is in sight. Women increased their lead over men in college applications for the 2021-22 school year—3,805,978 to 2,815,810—by nearly a percentage point compared with the previous academic year, according to Common Application, a nonprofit that transmits applications to more than 900 schools. Women make up 49% of the college-age population in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau.

“Men are falling behind remarkably fast,” said Thomas Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, which aims to improve educational opportunities for low-income, first-generation and disabled college students.

American colleges, which are embroiled in debates over racial and gender equality, and working on ways to reduce sexual assault and harassment of women on campus, have yet to reach a consensus on what might slow the retreat of men from higher education. Some schools are quietly trying programs to enroll more men, but there is scant campus support for spending resources to boost male attendance and retention. . . .

In 2008, Mr. Smith proposed a men’s center to help male students succeed. The proposal drew criticism from women who asked, “Why would you give more resources to the most privileged group on campus,” he said.

Funding wasn’t appropriated, he said, and the center was never built.

If campuses treated blacks the way they treat men, it would be called apartheid. And while college looks like it was a good idea in the past, it’s not so clear that college, and the associated debt, is a good idea in the future.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Does “Outland” take place within the Alien Universe? I always thought “Outland” was an underrated film.

WOKE NFL CANCELS VICTORY BOYD NATIONAL ANTHEM: Doesn’t matter that the singer/songwriter’s refusal to get the jab is religious belief. The NFL wants its show at Thursday night’s season opener in Tampa Bay to feature somebody singing on the field, no exceptions. Gotta remember those priorities, which don’t appear to include the First Amendment.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: When Robot Eyes Gaze Back at Humans, Something Changes in Our Brain And Behavior.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Educated women increasingly likely to have 1st baby before marriage.

JIM TREACHER: No, Emergency Rooms Aren’t Filling Up with People OD’ing on Horse Paste.

You’d think our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters at Rolling Stone would’ve learned their lesson after propagating that UVA gang-rape hoax back in 2014. That was a story based on the account of one person, and it went through layers of editors and fact-checkers without anybody noticing that the story didn’t add up. Now they’re at it again.2

And, also, in addition to that: You should get vaccinated. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, you should only take drugs prescribed by a doctor. An overwhelming majority of Americans are doing one or the other. There’s not a plague of horse-paste ODs, no matter what Rolling Stone and Rachel Maddow might claim.

A week ago you’d never heard of ivermectin, and a week from now you’ll have forgotten it exists. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: By the time I learn enough about a breaking news story to realize I don’t care, it turns out to be bull$#!+ anyway.

This all started when Joe Rogan got COVID and didn’t die even though he isn’t vaccinated, right? He said his doctor prescribed ivermectin, and then that instantly became “Joe Rogan takes horse medicine.” From there, it was a short trip to “People who probably listen to Joe Rogan are OD’ing on horse drugs.” It doesn’t need to be true, it just needs to make you feel superior to the people you hate.

As Kevin Williamson writes, “These stories don’t get published because nobody knows how to prevent that from happening — these stories get published because nobody cares, because these stories serve the purposes of a particular narrow cultural agenda and flatter the prejudices of a particular narrow set of educated and generally affluent American professionals.”

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

Shot: Is Anyone Willing To Call The Top Of The Everything Bubble?

Are there any limits on irrationality? Apparently not. But there are still limits in the real world and central bank liquidity is distorting the real world, not just the imaginary world.

At the grave risk of twisting in the wind as the S&P 500 goes to 5,000, 10,000 and 100,000, let’s call September 2021 the top of the Everything Bubble. Can extremes become too extreme to continue higher? We’re about to find out.

—ZeroHedge, today.

Chaser: Millennials will power a bull market in stocks for decades: Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood.

“So many people ask me, ‘Are we in a bubble?’ We couldn’t be further from it. I do not believe that the average investor understands how productive these next five to 15 years are going to be [for stocks] as these S-curves feed one another and enter exponential growth trajectories that we have never seen before,” Wood said.

—Yahoo Finance, today.

Hangover: Gloomy Americans give Biden low marks on Afghanistan, COVID and economy.

—Liz Peek, Fox News today.

OLD AND BUSTED: #Fightfor15!

The New Hotness? Some Progressives Are Flirting With a $24 to $26 Hourly Minimum Wage.

What could go wrong?

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I Will Sleep With You, But I Won’t Sleep Over.

A VIP WARNING FROM THE JEWS FOR GENTILES: Jeff Dunetz of The Lid explains why the next 22 days could be difficult. It involves baseball, too, because the first words of the Bible are “In the big inning …”

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Nancy Pelosi Flies To Afghanistan To Lecture Stranded Americans On How Bad January 6 Was.

THE 622 PROJECT: FBI-Most-Wanted Terrorist, NYT Op-Ed Writer Named Taliban’s Interior Minister.

Haqqani attempted to soften the Taliban’s image via a 2020 op-ed in The New York Times in which he claimed that his group was “committed to working with other parties in a consultative manner of genuine respect to agree on a new, inclusive political system.”

“We together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam — from the right to education to the right to work — are protected, and where merit is the basis for equal opportunity,” he wrote.

Earlier: As Brendan O’Neill of Spiked wrote last month, the Taliban are keen consumers of Western media:

This was always the West’s problem in Afghanistan: it lacked faith in the very values it claimed to be delivering to that benighted country. We will liberate women from life under the burqa, Western officials said. But isn’t it ‘Islamophobic’ to criticise the burqa, or any other Islamic practice for that matter? Our elites have insisted for years that it is. We will replace your intolerant Islamist system with a civil society fashioned by clever professors, the West promised. But isn’t it judgemental and possibly a tad racist – certainly an offence against the ideology of multiculturalism – to imply that Western democracy is superior to Islamist theocracy? As one British think-tank says, in its definition of the term ‘Islamophobia’, it is wrong to suggest that Islam is in any way ‘inferior to the West’. The West’s post-9/11 bluster was continually undermined by the West’s broader descent into moral relativism. How can you assert the civilisational authority of Western values when your entire educational and university system is devoted to questioning and demeaning Western civilisation? You cannot partake in a clash of civilisations if you loathe your own civilisation.

Anyone who thinks the Taliban did not pick up on all of this, on the Potemkin nature not only of the Afghan government but also of Western civilisation itself, is kidding themselves.

The trolling will continue until morale improves — in both nations.

OUT ON A LIMB: You Can’t Trust the Narrative on the Texas Abortion Law.