CHANGE: ULA stops selling its centerpiece Atlas V, setting path for the rocket’s retirement.

That means no more having to buy rocket engines from Russia, but how is Blue Origin doing with getting those BE-4 engines delivered for the Atlas V’s replacement?

BIDEN BUGS OUT: A few of Scott Johnson’s 12 thoughts and observations:

• Biden is spent. His remarks were pathetic and stupid. He gives human form to our humiliation. He embodies it. Anyone can see that.

• Charles Lipson rendered this concise verdict after the attack but before Biden’s remarks: “This deadly fiasco didn’t just happen on his watch. It happened because of his decisions, a series of fundamentally bad ones, taken by the President himself.” Anyone can see that too.

• Our political system does not offer an appropriate remedy for the epic failure of the Biden administration. Has any president ever stood so exposed in the opening months of his administration? Have we ever had a more ridiculous vice president than Kamala Harris standing next in line? Next in line after Kamala Harris is Nancy Pelosi. Next in line after Nancy Pelosi is Patrick Leahy.

• Biden vowed: “To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget.” His vow made me reflect on Biden’s literal memory issues. He can’t even remember the name of his Secretary of Defense — you know, the General.

• It is hard to take Biden’s vow seriously in the context of our retreat and surrender. It has a Monty Python quality to it.

There’s more…and Scott gets bonus points for recognizing a good title when he reads one.

ADD BIDEN’S BAGRAM BLUNDER TO: Little Big Horn and Pickett’s Charge as among the biggest military mistakes in American history.

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! NBA To ‘Educate’ Incoming Rookies On How To Promote Woke Social Justice Causes.

Get back to me when the CCP’s Uighur concentration camps are on the list of the NBA’s “social justice” causes.

SO BRENDAN LOY SHARED ME THIS TWEET FROM TODAY, AND SOMETHING HE WROTE, PROPHETICALLY, ON HIS BLOG JUST BEFORE KATRINA:

Are we in for a Katrina rerun? The Biden Administration probably hopes so, since it would be a disaster that’s not their fault, and take the heat off the Afghanistan debacle.

CONSERVATION OF BOOZE CONSUMPTION: Liquor store sales rose during pandemic at rate similar to bar sales drop.

JIM TREACHER: On Second Thought, Keep Biden Away from the Cameras. “Biden blamed Trump for his own failures, and then tried to get a reporter to blame Trump, but the reporter wouldn’t knock over the straw man like he was instructed. So then Biden sank his head in… I dunno, despair? Frustration? The urgent need for a quick nap? Who knows. But it’s not the sort of thing I want to see from the Commander-in-Chief at a time like this. The press isn’t Biden’s enemy. The Taliban is. Just imagine being one of these military commanders trying to tell Biden anything he doesn’t want to hear. It’s impossible. He just shuts down like you saw there.”

VICTORIA TAFT: What Took You So Long? After Years of Antifa Assaults, Portland ‘Journalists’ Finally Muster Outrage at Latest Attack.

DISCIPLINE: What’s the cost of self-control? New study tabulates the bill.

WELL, YES: The more Progressive the President the quicker and more thoroughly the US military gets destroyed.

BETO O’ROURKE, CALL YOUR OFFICE! A high school in Kentucky is having a “furry” problem and if you don’t know what that means it’s people who identify as animals.

(Classical reference in headline.)

AFGHANISTAN: The Graveyard of Experts.

WINSTON SMITH, CALL YOUR OFFICE! Joe Biden Begins the Bid to Rewrite the History of His Bloody Botched Afghan Exit.

SAYING THE WORST THING IS KIND OF HER SPECIALTY, REALLY: Jen Psaki Says Probably the Worst Thing She Could After Biden’s Afghanistan Presser.

COURAGE: Reporters Barred from Kamala Harris Remarks to Troops at Pearl Harbor.

IN A NUTSHELL, WHAT’S WRONG WITH AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS: It is Not How Well You Do But How Well Important People Think You Are Doing.

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: We’re told to ‘follow the science’ — yet some of it is just plain wrong.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Afghanistan is ‘Biden’s Katrina?’ Afghanistan is dramatically worse.

COURT MARTIAL: Military expert says General Scott Miller gets the lion’s share of blame for Afghanistan debacle, claiming by abandoning Bagram he prioritized politics instead of questioning Biden’s flawed decision to reduce US troops to just 700.

OUCH:

THANKS, PRESIDENT TRUMP! Trump’s Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Worked: Big Tech Moved $40 Billion Of Profits To The United States In 2020.

HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? California businesses leaving state accelerates in 2021.

BRYAN PRESTON: Department of the Indefensible: Who Decided to Close Bagram Air Base and Why? “Gen. Austin ‘Scottie’ Miller was the commander at Bagram. Based on Biden’s requirement to pull all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by date certain, and with just 2,500 troops to work with an no room for any additional deployments, and with the embassy as the priority over Bagram, Gen. Miller faced the task of planning for it. The Biden administration’s priority was the embassy, so Miller drafted a proposal to close Bagram and concentrate defensive forces on the embassy. His boss, CENTCOM Gen. Frank McKenzie, greenlit that plan, then it went to Washington, where Gen. Milley, SecDef Austin, and the Biden White House all were briefed and bought in. Bagram would close. The die was cast.”

HE’S TOO KIND: A Total F*cking Disaster’: Inside Seth Moulton’s Secret Trip to Kabul.

Seth Moulton saw things during his trip to Afghanistan that were “truly out of this world.” He spent about 15 hours on Tuesday at the airport in the capital city of Kabul, the epicenter of America’s messy withdrawal from the nearly 20-year war there. The Massachusetts congressman described the scene as “the most visceral, raw view of humanity that I will probably ever see in my life,” with “thousands upon thousands” of refugees camped out and “desperate” to fly out of the country, which was overtaken by fundamentalist Taliban forces. The experience left Moulton more convinced than ever that President Joe Biden made grave mistakes in his handling of the exit.

“The thing that everybody needs to understand, even if you completely agree with the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw, the way they have handled this has been a total fucking disaster,” said Moulton, who traveled to the country with Republican representative from Michigan, Peter Meijer. “It will be measured in bodies, because a lot of people are dying because they can’t get out.”

Democrats have circled the wagons against one of their own: Seth Moulton’s ‘moronic’ trip to Afghanistan backfires.