CHANGE: NSSF: America Added 3.2 Million New First-Time Gun Owners in the First Half of 2021.

BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE: Who Is the Incompetent POTUS Now?

In its top leader, The Economist writes that the Afghanistan debacle “is a dangerous moment for [Joe Biden’s] presidency” (“Where Next for global Jihad?“, August 28).

What a contrast with the Lexington column of January 5, 2019, in which Donald Trump was described as “ill-disciplined”, with “little attention span”, or with any “long-time view of almost anything” (in addition to holding “awkward” addresses). The 45th President, we learned then, “has made many bad moves in security and other policy against the generals’ advice”, while, luckily, “strong, reliable public servants” like Jim Mattis and John Kelly have tried to act as “safeguards against calamity.” In January 2021, we were told that Republicans face a choice between Donald Trump and reality.

The Democrats’ 2020 election message was that the grown-ups would be back in charge. So who made the moronic decision to close Bagram air base and to remove America’s soldiers from Kabul before (not after) it removed its civilians? Joe Biden? His generals?

As Jim Geraghty wrote last month, “Every four years, the message is the same: Trust us, we’re the ones who know what we’re doing. And yet, the oddest thing happens — the Democratic foreign-policy establishment gets in power, and a short while later, so many things go wrong.”

SO WHICH OFF-LABEL USES FOR COVID DO WE CHEER, AND WHICH ONES DO WE MOCK? Medicine that treats gout could also battle COVID-19. “Published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, the study found that probenecid has broad antiviral properties, making it a prime candidate to combat not only SARS-CoV-2 infection but also other common and deadly respiratory viruses like RSV and flu.”

WASN’T THAT THE BACKSTORY OF ROBERT HARRIS’ FATHERLAND? What If We Had Fought World War II the Way We’ve Fought Jihadis?

WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT EISENHOWER’S WARNINGS CONCERNING THE “MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.” But he also warned of the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific/technological elite.” He added: “Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.”

That gets less attention. Worse still, of course, the two elites are now corruptly entwined.

GEORGE W. BUSH IS GETTING A LOT OF FLAK FOR THIS SPEECH:

And maybe he’s referring to Trump voters — that’s the usual use of “domestic extremists” in today’s political parlance — but he could just as easily be talking about Antifa and BLM with his reference to violence and defiling national symbols. He never names anyone.

It says a lot about the decline in his reputation, though, that people just assume he’s talking about the GOP base here.

PRESIDENT IN NAME ONLY: Louisiana Resident Asks What Most Americans Are Probably Wondering About Joe Biden Right Now. “Where’s the President? Where’s FEMA?”

WELCOME BACK, CARTER! Democrat Budget Committee Chairman: ‘We Have Power to Create as Much $$ as We Need to Spend.’

Such statements invariably end well:

TO BE FAIR, ULTIMATELY THEY JUST WANT YOU DEAD: The Left Doesn’t Just Want to Censor You on Social Media. It Also Wants to Close Your Bank Accounts.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: On Covid and Texas, Biden Courts a Constitutional Crisis.

It’s largely “stray voltage” to distract from the intersection of Joe’s bungled Afghanistan bug-out and the 20th anniversary of 9/11. As Jim Treacher writes, “Well, if these clowns are trying to make me angry at unvaccinated people to distract me from being angry at the White House, it’s not going to work. I’m vaccinated, and therefore, because of that, I don’t care if you get vaccinated. I think you should, but that’s all my opinion is: my opinion. It’s not gonna work, Mr. President. Rogan isn’t the bad Joe here, you are.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

THEN WHY ARE SO MANY DEMOCRATS STILL SO CRAZY? Getting vaccinated for COVID-19 found to improve mental health.

U.S. HALTS OPERATION ALLIES WELCOME FLIGHTS DUE TO SEVERAL MEASLES CASES AMONG AFGHANS WHO RECENTLY ENTERED THE U.S.

NEVER FORGET EUROPE’S REACTIONS TO 9-11: The Ugliness Which Led Two Regular Joes in Paris to Join in Starting the No Pasarán! Blog.

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER:

● Shot: White House: Biden’s Vaccine Mandates Are for You, Not the Hundreds of Thousands of Illegals Pouring Over the Border.

—PJ Media.com, yesterday.

● Chaser: Postal Service Takes Wait-and-See Approach on COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates.

—Government Executive, yesterday.

● Hangover: Members of Congress and Their Staff Are Exempt From Biden’s Vaccine Mandate.

—Newsweek, yesterday.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Long Strange Trip Edition.

BEHOLD, MY SHOCKED FACE:  Door-to-door canvas of voters in Arizona finds extensive evidence of vote tampering.

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Producer inflation accelerated in August, as wholesale prices rose record 8.3% from a year ago.

OUT: “NEVER FORGET.” IN: University of Kansas student body president shares ‘Death to America’ tweet.

The student senate Twitter account and the @KUPresident account both retweeted a September 3 post that said “happy friday everybody. death to america” with a laughing emoji. She shared a different tweet after that that said “The more you read American history, the more the whole “Death to America” line sounds less like a terrifying, chaotic sentiment, and more like a perfectly rational, if anything remarkably reserved, statement.”

Hey, it’s not as if she misgendered somebody.

And this is the kind of person that the higher education industry produces in large numbers. It’s the educational equivalent of pumping out asbestos as your product: Toxic. Except that asbestos is actually useful.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Michael Moore ‘flabbergasted’ by the ‘grace and precision and safety’ of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal.

America’s withdrawal from the Minutemen: “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win….I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle…the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe — just maybe — God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.”

—Michael Moore, April 14, 2004.

And speaking of grace and precision and safety: Biden Is Running a Hostage Negotiation With the Taliban.

OUT: “NEVER FORGET.” IN: Students think 9/11 lessons should omit ‘gruesome’ details, ‘avoid placing blame.’ Well, it’s ancient history, you know. Not like 1619.

NOW OUT FROM THE EXCELLENT TOBY HARNDEN: First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11.

FIGHT THE POWER: Kentucky Lawmakers Override Governor, Expel School Mask Mandate.

TWENTY YEARS AGO, THE TOWERS FELL. We said “never forget.” Well, we haven’t forgotten the heroism of people like Rick Rescorla, the Flight 93 passengers, the firefighters who charged up the WTC stairs, or the volunteers who set up the American Dunkirk evacuation of lower Manhattan by boat.

But we have forgotten the criminal negligence of our political leaders and intelligence services that got us to that point. We should have purged the incompetents then. Now they’re running the show. The country is still sound, but the people in charge of it have only gotten worse.

Those are my not very encouraging thoughts, twenty years later.

THE FALLING MAN: An Unforgettable Story.