BAGHDAD BOB CALLED AND SAID THE PALACE GUARD DNC-MSM MIGHT WANT TO DIAL IT BACK A NOTCH: Biden Loyalists in the Media Embarrass Themselves as Afghanistan Crumbles. “So what would you call a journalist who’s so shameless that they’ll actually defend these catastrophic policy blunders from the Biden administration? Unfortunately, that’s not the setup to a joke, and there are multiple correct answers: MSNBC’s Joy Reid, CNN’s Brian Stelter, Salon politics reporter Amanda Marcotte, professional Biden compliment dispenser Matthew Dowd. All of them (and more) continue to dig in their heels and insist that things in Afghanistan are proceeding in an acceptable, even praiseworthy fashion.” (With video at link.)

DEVASTATING: What’s the Real Meaning Behind Trump’s Biden Ad?

BREAKING: Reports of Multiple Additional Explosions Near Kabul Airport.

MUSIC WILL BE BANNED IN AFGHANISTAN AND WOMEN WILL NEED A MALE CHAPERONE IF THEY TRAVEL ALONE FOR THREE DAYS, TALIBAN LEADER SAYS.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 7 Great New Pistols for 2021.

CRIMINAL INCOMPETENCE: U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuate: “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official.

We need — at the very least — mass firings in the defense and foreign policy bureaucracies.

BIDENFLATION: Krispy Kreme Warns Donut Price Inflation To Hit Next Month.

A FRIEND WRITES:

I wonder if the media will be waiting at Dover AFB?
Wild guess, no.

Dover AFB’s near Wilmington. I wonder if the president will meet the plane, and the flag/draped coffins. It’d be the decent thing to do.

Wild guess, no.

It’s a safe guess, I’d say.

LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, Preston, VodkaPundit.

Hot takes, cold drinks.

WATCH LIVE: Pentagon Briefing on Afghanistan Disaster.

DEADLIEST DAY FOR TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN SINCE 2011. “Jennifer Griffin, the national security correspondent for Fox News, said at least 12 service members died in the terror attacks. The attack is now the deadliest in Afghanistan since Aug. 6, 2011, when 30 Americans, including 22 Navy SEALs, were shot down over Wardak Province.”

FINALLY, SOME PLEASANT NEWS: ‘Calling On All The Influencers’: Models Rally Followers To Recall Gavin Newsom.

I’M SO OLD, I CAN REMEMBER WHEN ESTES ROCKETS WERE STILL G-RATED: Model of Jeff Bezos’ rocket that looks like a sex toy selling for $69.

Insert obligatory “Nice” here.

WE MODERN HUMANS ARE JUST IRRESISTABLY SEXY: 7200-year-old DNA suggests Denisovans bred with humans on Sulawesi.

CRITICAL RACE CAPITALISM: Verizon teaches employees that America is fundamentally racist and promotes “defunding the police.”

As part of the company’s “antiracism” education series, #Next20, Verizon vice president David Hubbard interviewed Khalil Muhammad, great-grandson of former Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and newly minted professor of race at Harvard. During his presentation, called American History 101, Muhammad argued that America is fundamentally racist and needs a “new origin story,” replacing the narrative of “American exceptionalism” with the narrative that America was founded on “systems of racism” that remain at the root of our society. Muhammad argued that the Founding Fathers built a slave economy and that “this early version of global capitalism” produced the “economic incentives” that prevail to this day, with modern corporations “exploiting poor people in low-income communities” in a similar way to the slaveowners of the past. “This isn’t just Marxist talking points,” Muhammad said. “It’s just the fact.”

Later in the discussion, Muhammad claimed that the current American police force is designed to maintain a “two-tier society,” enforce geographic segregation, and protect the “wealth gap” between white and black Americans. The raison d’être of policing, Muhammad said, is to “make sure that kids are locked up,” “make sure that people stay in their communities,” and “make sure that they’re criminalizing poverty”—what he called “the bread and butter of systemic racism.” Black crime statistics showing that black Americans commit crimes disproportionately, Muhammad contended, “are themselves an expression of systemic racism,” used to establish “the collective guilt of black people” and to “[justify] inequality and racism and discrimination.”

What should be done? In another #Next20 conversation on “criminal justice reform,” Verizon hosted an activist named Adrian Burrell who openly advocated for “defunding the police.” As Burrell told Verizon employees: “I feel like over policing doesn’t work. And I feel like those same resources that are aimed towards hiring [police officers] with racist biases . . . need to be aimed at bringing more resources to the community at a at a root level, and then you just won’t need so many police.” Burrell added: “If you want to call that ‘abolishing the police,’ or if you want to call that ‘defunding the police,’ so be it.”

If only the czar knew! In leaked recording, Biden says GOP used ‘defund the police’ to ‘beat the living hell’ out of Democrats.

OOPS: Morning Joe Predicted Afghanistan Disaster Would ‘Fade From the Headlines.’

COORDINATED WHITE HOUSE/MEDIA ALLIES LINE: Any Americans Left Behind Choose to Be Left Behind, And Whatever Happens To Them, It’s Their Fault.

FASTER, PLEASE: Team unveils widespread tumor suppression mechanism that stops cancer progression by interfering with cell metabolism.

4 US MARINES KILLED, 3 INJURED IN ISIS SUICIDE BLASTS OUTSIDE KABUL AIRPORT.

BATTLESWARM: Scenes From The Afghan Debacle. “Did the Taliban take over Afghanistan merely by telling everyone they were already in control?”

BREAKING: Kabul Airport Under Terror Attack, Reported Suicide Bombing.

Also breaking: Chaos and Confusion at the Kabul Airport as the 82nd Airborne Begins Evacuation Ahead of Schedule.

More: American Allies Halt Flights From Kabul.

And another update: 3 American Servicemen Reportedly Killed or Injured in Kabul Airport Suicide Attack.

Third update: Pentagon Confirms Multiple U.S. and Civilian Casualties At Kabul Airport.

GRAPHIC: Scenes of Terrorism in Kabul, Plus Brutal Reactions Against Biden.

Everything is going swimmingly.

(Updated and bumped.)

EZRA KLEIN’S BEST DEFENSE OF JOE BIDEN: ‘It Could Be Worse!’

It’s Deja Lindsay, all over again: “Sure he’s a lousy mayor, but hey, at least you’re not living in Newark:”

PROGRESS: Smell emitted by ladybugs may provide alternative to harmful pesticides.

TO BE FAIR, THEY’RE HORRIBLE PEOPLE: The Left Accuses the Media of Warmongering After Barely a Week of Biden Criticism.