Archive for 2021
August 16, 2021
WAPO: WHY DIDN’T BIDEN PLAN TO GET FEMALE ACTIVISTS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN? “In some sense, the Washington Post’s angle here is almost a self parody of the old joke about media bias: End of the world comes; women, minorities hardest hit. In this case, though, this angle is justified, especially given the politics of this administration. Joe Biden pledged to choose a woman of color as his running mate about this time last year in order to emphasize his support for women’s rights and access to power for the formerly oppressed. Apparently that only applies in the US, where the costs for such stunts are practically non-existent. In places where it matters, Joe Biden apparently couldn’t care less.”
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): From the comments to an earlier post;
THAT’S WEIRD, BECAUSE EVERYONE AHEAD OF ME IN LINE AT THE DRUGSTORE SEEMS TO HAVE THEM: Study: Prescription drug coupons used on fewer than 20% of purchases.
And they’re all fumbling at the bottom of their purse or pockets endlessly to find them.
IT’S COME TO THIS: Taliban Spokesman Gives Updates On Twitter, Trump Remains Suspended.
GIULIANI’S NEW YORK CITY IS DEAD AND DE BLASIO KILLED IT: Shoot Somebody and Get $1,000 Per Month to Play Nice. Way to Go, de Blasio.
SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: Academics’ Criticizing Third-Parties. “I had thought that this sort of mean-spiritedness directed to strangers and third-parties was the exception, not the rule. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I only first noticed this sort of criticism in 2017 because it had been directed at me?”
I don’t know if that photograph really is a leak of secret information. Here’s what bothers me about it. There’s Biden sitting behind a table that’s way too big for one man, and his advisers are heads on the TV. That was released by the White House yesterday, presumably to convey the message that Biden is on duty and working hard and to appease us as we’re watching TV, seeing Afghanistan collapse in a weekend.
We feel bad and confused and outraged, but we can only sit helplessly watching the TV. And what the White House tries to spoonfeed us is Biden stranded at a big table staring at a TV screen. Biden should have been sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office facing us, speaking directly, explaining, comforting, demonstrating that he is the President.
Why didn’t we get that? (Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?) Is it that no one noticed that it would be a good idea — it’s what’s expected, it’s what other Presidents would do? Did they just have no idea what would be appropriate to say or fear that anything they say will be used against them in the political discourse and that leadership must wait until partisan interests show the way? Or is it that Joe Biden wasn’t in a presentable mental state over the weekend and had to be kept off video camera? It had to be a still. Prop him up in a chair. That’s the best we can do. Look! He’s working. He’s alive. His eyes are open. Isn’t that enough?
It’s not enough, but it’s all we can expect.
Remember: The political establishment — including many Republicans — was so eager to rid us of a non-establishment President that they stuck us with this incompetent and his incompetent-buffoon staff. And they said they did it in the name of “principles” and “standards” and “competence.”
UPDATE: From the comments: “Where is Mattis now? were are all the former Intel officials, retired generals and other Mandarin courtesans’ that kept telling us how the drooling idiot Biden would get us back to norms and cooperation on the international stage or kept bleating about how character matters? Why are they not singing the same tune now? absolute despicable cowards all of them.”
That Mattis served on Theranos’ board and couldn’t see that it was a scam suggests that he is overrated. The more frightening thought is that, nonetheless, he was actually the best general we had.
“DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP”: Biden’s Afghanistan Predictions Were All Wrong.
THINK OF THE FBI AS THE DEMOCRATS’ POLITICAL SECRET POLICE AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG THESE DAYS: FBI dodged Ilhan Omar-‘bro’ wed probe. “Only hours after Minnesota GOP operative Anton Lazarro posted online DNA evidence that allegedly shows Rep. Ilhan Omar was once married to her brother, the FBI busted him.”
I question the timing.
WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1939: Is the Yellow Star Really an Inappropriate Reference for the Vaccine Passport?
SO IN THE FIRST WAVE OF THE PANDEMIC, HOSPITALS WERE A MAJOR LOCUS OF INFECTION: More than one in ten COVID-19 patients infected in hospital in first pandemic wave.
BIDEN WILL BE FURIOUS AT THE TALIBAN FOR RUINING HIS VACATION: Biden will return to DC from his Camp David ‘vacation’ and address the nation on Afghanistan at 3.45pm following intense criticism at his silence over the Taliban takeover.
Earlier: “Biden has never made any secret of his tremendous admiration for [George] McGovern, whom he views as a transformational and inspirational figure.”
THIS SHOULD GO WELL: Biden to give speech on Afghanistan as he faces mounting criticism.
Maybe somebody should ask him why this guy still has a job.
Meanwhile, on the diplomacy front:
SAD: Today’s trans-identified teen: bored, privileged, lonely and entitled.
There has been a lot of information out about teen girls suddenly declaring they are trans with Lisa Littman’s study that found it’s a social contagion and Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage,” which studied the transitioning trend among young girls and teens.
But there had not been much on boys within this so-called transgender craze, so I helped start a group for parents of trans-identifying boys.
What we noticed after a while was that the scientific and medical communities refuse to study this phenomenon, so we started doing our own research.
Quickly some interesting commonalities emerged: 85 percent of our boys had an IQ over 130. We learned that these are mostly smart nerdy boys who claim they are straight and want to identify as a lesbian. They also were also often on the autism spectrum, had suffered trauma, or had internalized homophobia.
But, as we dug deeper, we began to notice more common threads, and as we pulled on them, the story came into focus. On average, our kids are white kids coming from two-parent homes, with comfortable lives — sometimes even VERY comfortable lives.
What on earth can this mean? What are these kids so lacking that they hope to find by identifying as trans? One can speculate.
In a world in which the racially oppressed and marginalized are placed on pedestals and celebrated as brave heroes, where do these privileged white boys fit in? They’re called oppressors, supremacists, and toxic, so they seek to identify with an oppressed class.
Perhaps they are ashamed that they have it so good?
Read the whole thing.
THAT’S WHAT TYRANTS DO: First, the Taliban come for the guns.
THIS IS CNN: “[The Taliban are] just chanting ‘death to America’ but they seem friendly at the same time. It’s utterly bizarre,” says CNN’s Clarissa Ward.
But perhaps not that friendly: “Ward said those out on the street are ‘mainly’ Taliban, and that there are notably ‘far fewer women’ roaming about than normal. In fact, Ward said she herself was asked to step back. ‘They’ve just told me to stand to the side because I’m a woman.’”
As Robert Spencer notes: “witless Western feminists will continue to don hijabs in solidarity with alleged victims of ‘Islamophobia,’ while the real women of Afghanistan suffer if they dare to venture out without a hijab.” Which brings us to this “unexpected” juxtaposition of CNN’s Ward:
Chanting “Death to America” while seemingly friendly is of course old territory for CNN:
* Afghanistan: Taliban vows to respect rights of women, as long as they wear hijab.
REPUBLICANS POUNCE! NBC Whines GOP ‘Seized’ on ‘Optical Comparison’ Between Kabul/Saigon Airlifts.
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with Chyrons desperately trying to do damage control for the Biden administration, and it all makes sense:
I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY. This simply can’t be the best the United States of America can do, even in defeat.
