IT’S SO NICE HAVING THE GROWNUPS BACK IN CHARGE: The Biden Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Many Americans Are Stuck in Kabul and Has No Plan to Rescue Any.

C-17 BRINGING A CHINOOK TO AFGHANISTAN: Photo taken June 16.

REMEMBER WHEN TURKISH ARMY TROOPS WERE SUPPOSED TO GUARD THE KABUL AIRPORT?: That was under discussion just three weeks ago. Turkey is still interested in guarding the airport. But — no surprise– tt’s a complicated mess.

CHANGE OF THE GUARD: Fox News’ ‘Gutfeld!’ Finally Overtook Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ in Viewers Tuesday: Greg Gutfeld set out to beat other late-night hosts in the ratings and on Tuesday he finally won.

WAIT UNTIL YOU TRY GETTING OUT: CNN’s Ward: Getting inside the Kabul airport “one of the more harrowing things I have experienced.”

MORE FROM ARKANSAS LAW: Naming of Little Rock law professorship raises questions: A missing memo led to a Little Rock law school professorship being briefly named for former President Bill Clinton in 2020 and then to questions from lawmakers on Thursday.

The professorship at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law was the subject of a legislative hearing after questions from two professors. Now known as the Distinguished Professorship in Constitutional Law, it was funded by a 1999 donation from the school’s namesake, according to a letter to legislators from UALR Chancellor Christina Drale. . . .

John DiPippa, dean emeritus of the law school, started using Clinton’s name on his position in the summer of 2020, under the guidance of current Dean Terri Beiner. Beiner gave that guidance based on a staff member’s discovery of the 1999 letter giving permission for the professorship to be named for Clinton, having assumed that was “the final word on the matter and that the omission of the Clinton name on the professorship was an oversight,” Drale wrote.

DiPippa retired in January.

In May, one of the law school professors, Tom Sullivan, raised an issue about the substance of the Clinton professorship, and another, Robert Steinbuch, asked how the professorship came about, Beiner told the committee.

Beiner and Steinbuch both testified before the House and Senate Committees on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs. Steinbuch had applied for the professorship, which ultimately went to another faculty member.
The Senate committee chairman, Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, said the rollout of the professorship’s name seemed odd. The name was the subject of several opinion columns by Mike Masterson in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this summer.

“We do have an interest in making sure that things are done appropriately, that fairness is reigning true, and that we don’t overpoliticize things,” he said, adding that he was “just wondering about the timing of it.”
Beiner said it took time for the administrators to go through the relevant documents and didn’t scour all the law school records until receiving an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request from Masterson.
She said it was “absolutely nothing political” and had to do with making sure the intent of the donor was carried out. Neither Bowen nor Smith are still living.

Steinbuch said the name issue was part of a pattern of politicization at the law school, which had he said become an environment of “cryptoleftism wokeism.” He said no other professorships at the school are named for politicians.

After about 45 minutes of discussion, Rapert said the school needed to make a better effort of handling those types of issues in-house.

Who names a professorship for a disbarred, sex-harassing, politician? Well, now we know.

PUTIN TELLS BIDEN WHERE HE CAN GO: Putin Rejected Role for U.S. Forces Near Afghanistan at Summit With Biden.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a June 16 summit meeting with President Biden, objected to any role for American forces in Central Asian countries, senior U.S. and Russian officials said, undercutting the U.S. military’s efforts to act against new terrorist dangers after its Afghanistan withdrawal.

The previously unreported exchange between the U.S. and Russian leaders has complicated the U.S. military’s options for basing drones and other counterterrorism forces in countries bordering landlocked Afghanistan. That challenge has deepened with the collapse over the weekend of the Afghan government and armed forces.

The exchange also indicates that Moscow is more determined to try to maintain Central Asia as a sphere of influence than to expand cooperation with a new American president over the turmoil in Afghanistan, former and current U.S. officials said.

Being held in contempt by Britain and bossed around by Russia does not say “America is back.”

RIGGED: A monthslong investigation into the 2020 presidential vote has found that Democrat-run cities and states used the COVID-19 crisis to change the rules that likely helped Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: ‘Team Optics Fail’ Is Sending Kamala Harris to Vietnam. “It’s been a rough week for the administration and their relationship with their beloveds in the MSM. I mean, they made Rachel Maddow cry. Given that, one might assume that they’d be a little more aware of how they want themselves to appear to the public.”

WHY DOES OBAMA WANT AMERICANS TO DIE? ‘Obama Variant’ Strikes Martha’s Vineyard: Super-Spreader Birthday Bash Overwhelms Island’s Only Emergency Room.

GOOD: Apple photo-scanning plan faces global backlash from 90 rights groups.

“The undersigned organizations committed to civil rights, human rights, and digital rights around the world are writing to urge Apple to abandon the plans it announced on 5 August 2021 to build surveillance capabilities into iPhones, iPads, and other Apple products,” the letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook said today. “Though these capabilities are intended to protect children and to reduce the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), we are concerned that they will be used to censor protected speech, threaten the privacy and security of people around the world, and have disastrous consequences for many children.”

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) announced the letter, with CDT Security & Surveillance Project Co-Director Sharon Bradford Franklin saying, “We can expect governments will take advantage of the surveillance capability Apple is building into iPhones, iPads, and computers. They will demand that Apple scan for and block images of human rights abuses, political protests, and other content that should be protected as free expression, which forms the backbone of a free and democratic society.”

Background here: Apple Will Soon Begin Scanning Your iPhone for Child Porn.

THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE, AND IT SEEMS PRETTY CLEAR WHAT IT IS: How Chinese pressure on coronavirus origins probe shocked the WHO.

One might even say that the CCP’s multiyear plan to secure control of the WHO is itself damning evidence.

GET USED TO THESE: Taliban Humiliates Joe Biden Again With Symbolic Troop Removal Demand.

NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: SpaceX adding capabilities to Starlink internet satellites, plans to launch them with Starship.

OUCH:

OPEN THREAD: Change my pitch up.

THE SOLAR WIND CRIES MARY: BepiColombo spacecraft records the sound of solar wind at Venus.

IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE EATING HUMAN FOOD: Many Mammal Species Are Unexpectedly Growing Bigger, And It’s All Because of Us. So whatever’s making people fat is making them fat, too.

I SUSPECT BIDEN HAS HAD A BREAKDOWN IN THE FACE OF THIS MASSIVE FAILURE:

HMM. I’VE BEEN DONATING CONVALESCENT PLASMA, BUT POSSIBLY TO NO GREAT BENEFIT. Study shows no significant benefit of convalescent plasma for COVID-19 outpatients with early symptoms. “We were hoping that the use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma would achieve at least a 10% reduction in disease progression in this group, but instead the reduction we observed was less than 2%.”

That said, this is different from the usual use, which is in people who are already quite sick. Plus: “Additional studies of COVID-19 convalescent plasma are ongoing or planned in different populations. These included the Pass It On trial, a nationwide, NIH-funded randomized clinical trial using convalescent plasma to treat hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19 infection to see if the treatment can help them recover faster. Other trials include one in outpatients who are recovering at home and one in individuals with high risk of exposure to COVID-19 to see if COVID-19 convalescent plasma can prevent infection.”

OUR TROOPS ARE LIONS LED BY JACKASSES JACKALS:

HMM: U.S. plans booster for Pfizer, Moderna COVID-19 shots starting in September. “The booster will be available only to those who have received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Officials said, however, that they also expect to make available a booster for the Johnson & Johnson shot.”

So for the past year or so we’ve been warned that you need a vaccine because natural immunity may only last a few months. But I just had an antibody test and my levels are high, while people who got the vaccine need a booster.

HMM: Survey: 1 in 5 medical researchers reports pressure from funders to change study results.

THE KINDER, GENTLER TALIBAN: Taliban Militants Have Burnt Down An Amusement Park A Day After They Were Enjoying Rides.

Previously: Biden Says Taliban ‘Going Through Sort Of An Existential Crisis’ About Whether They Want To Be A Legitimate Government.

No, they know exactly what they’re doing — unlike anyone in the Biden Administration.