HE HAS PICKED HIS ENEMIES: Joe Biden Threatens to Fight Texas Harder Than He Ever Fought the Taliban.

Related (From Ed): To be fair, that’s what Obama-era retreads simply do out of reflex: ‘Where the Obama Administration Sees War, and Where It Doesn’t.’

On the other hand:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Bridget Phetasy is right. Red states that have been getting a lot of blue-state refugees all need to pass legislation that will discourage immigration.

WELL, HE’S RIGHT. AND FOR THAT, THE LEFT — STARTING WITH THIS AXIOS REPORT — WILL MAKE HIM PAY: Silicon Valley investor dismissed racism, called BLM ‘the true racists.’

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Who Had ‘Dems Hate on Ghost of RBG’ on Their Bingo Cards? “Internecine squabbles abound in political factions, no matter where on the spectrum the group exists. They are, however, more likely to break out the farther left one goes. That’s the price that is paid when all politics is emotion-driven. American leftists have spaz meters that go from asleep-to-screech in approximately .0000000087 nanoseconds after a political battle doesn’t go their way.”

UNDER THE RUG: CNN’s Don Lemon On Hundreds Of Americans In Afghanistan: ‘We Don’t Know If We Left Them Behind Yet.’

COVER-UP: Biden Intentionally Hid Afghanistan’s Instability From Congress Before His Hasty, Humiliating, and Deadly Retreat.

WELL, GOOD: Long Covid in children ‘nowhere near scale feared.’

HANDILY: How Joe Rogan defeated Covid. “Turns out I got Covid. We immediately threw the kitchen sink at it. All kinds of adds — monoclonal antibodies, Ivermectin, Z-Pac, Prednisone, everything, and I also got a NAD drip and a vitamin drip and I did that three days in a row and so here we are on Wednesday and I feel great. I only had one bad day. Sunday sucked. But, Monday was better. Tuesday felt better than Monday. And today, I feel good.”

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

RECALL: George Soros’ Donations To Fight Newsom Recall Hit $1 Million. “Under state rules, Newsom alone is allowed to raise money in unlimited amounts, while other candidates must adhere to contribution limits.”

MAYBE THIS IS WHAT THEY MEANT BY PUTTING THE GROWNUPS BACK IN CHARGE: Biden Admin Has Lost One-Third of Illegal Alien Kids, Who May Now Be in the Hands of Traffickers.

IF THEY DO, FIRE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM: Colorado teachers sign pledge to teach Critical Race Theory even if banned in classroom.

SHE’S NOT EVEN GOING TO PRETEND TO CIRCLE BACK TO THAT: Jen Psaki Dodges Question About Damning Leaked Biden Call With Afghan President.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Joe Biden’s call to Afghan prez is impeachable: Devine.

Psst, Nancy Pelosi! Still looking for a phone call worth impeaching a president?

Do I have news for you.

Reuters has a bombshell report about a July phone call between Joe Biden and then-Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, in which the US president promises military aid in return for lies.

The “perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” says Biden in the July 23 call. “And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

Whether it is true or not.

No, things weren’t going well, three weeks after the US abandoned Bagram Airfield in the dead of night.

Biden’s solution was to create the “perception” that all was fine. He wanted to keep the illusion going long enough to cover his Aug. 31 self-imposed deadline to withdraw US troops and have a victory lap on September 11th, when he would preen as the first president to end the forever war.

“Whether it is true or not” seems like a good summary of the Biden Administration’s approach to, well, everything.

WELL, YES: ‘Everybody screwed up’: Blame game begins over turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

Current and former officials and lawmakers said there is little appetite for Biden to fire or demote top advisers over the handling of the U.S. withdrawal. The Democratic president, meanwhile, has strongly defended his administration’s actions.

Frustrated and angry, officials at the Pentagon have privately blamed the lack of urgency leading up to the airlift on the State and Homeland Security departments, who in turn have blamed the White House for slow decision-making.

“Finger-pointing is an ugly Washington sport … in this case, fingers could be pointed in all directions and probably be right in each case,” said Dan Fried, a former senior U.S. diplomat now at the Atlantic Council think tank.

A lot of heads need to roll, but I’d be surprised if just one did.

GOOD QUESTION: Is It Any Surprise That A Military That Believes America Is ‘Evil’ Botched The Mission In Afghanistan? “Maybe there is a silver lining to the national humiliation that just concluded. If anything good can come of the tragedy in Kabul, it should be a national reckoning on whether we have the national unity and confidence that remaining a superpower requires.”

DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS OR WHATEVER: Illinois School Will Reevaluate ‘Gag Order’ Barring Parents From Recording Zoom Classes.

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: Joe Biden Needs to Stop Using His Late Son to Avoid Criticism. “This is hardly a new strategy for Biden. In fact, throughout the campaign, Biden would reference his late wife and infant daughter, as well as Beau’s death from cancer, to maximum political advantage.”

Bryan Preston: Austin Soccer Fans and the Club Deliver a Stirring and Patriotic National Anthem. “At the lines ‘rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air’ fireworks blasted from black boxes on the pitch up into the dusky sky. It was a welcome, fiery surprise. When the anthem was over the stadium erupted in cheers.”

Yours Truly: Code Pink Goes All Red Defending Tiny Little Communist China Against Imperial Taiwan. “Was Xi Jinping given a pass at the final edit of Code Pink’s press release?”

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Study promotes ‘princess culture’ for boys as way to combat society’s idea of ‘masculinity.’

LET THE COUNTERREVOLUTION BEGIN: Poor Lamb! Antifa Teacher on the Run, Claims He Fears For His Safety and Job After Project Veritas Blows His Cover.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The Actual Number of Afghan Allies Evacuated Leaves the Biden Administration Flailing.“New numbers on how many Afghan allies (translators, intel operatives, etc.) actually got out are exposing the reality of just how much of a boondoggle this was. While the administration has touted the total numbers of evacuees as some kind of vindication for their strategic and tactical blunders, it appears that most of those people were not former US military allies at all. In fact, while only 5,400 or so Americans were brought to safety, only about 8,500 SIV holders were rescued, with the vast majority left behind.”

SPOILER: HE WON’T. Biden Must Stop Blaming the Americans Stuck in Afghanistan for the Deadly Predicament They Are In.

WHAT A RIDE: NASA’s ‘quiet’ X-59 supersonic plane is coming together as space agency chases faster flight. “NASA hopes the X-59 could pave the way for a new era of supersonic travel that could see people zoom across continents in half the time it currently takes. After the plane takes to the sky for the first time probably at the end of next year, the space agency will run an extensive test campaign that will see X-59 fly over selected communities in the U.S. After each flight, local residents will be asked to answer questions about how much they had noticed the re-engineered supersonic sound.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Democrats Angry That Babies and Votes Are Now Safer in Texas. “There were a couple of stories out of Texas on Wednesday that made a little bit of sunshine peek back through all of the dark clouds that we’ve had to endure as a nation, all in the effort to avoid being exposed to mean tweets.”

IT DOES SEEM TO BE AN ONGOING THEME: Amazon asked FCC to reject Starlink plan because it can’t compete, SpaceX says. “SpaceX criticized Amazon for apparently putting more effort into delaying Starlink plans than into updating its own.”

DON’T GET COCKY: Democrats Running Scared in California Recall. “Backed by Gingrich? Newt Gingrich? He may be the most irrelevant Republican in California. Newsom is so scared of being recalled that he calls out a turn-of-the-century Republican speaker of the house? What’s next? A warning about Barry Goldwater?”

Flashback (From Ed): Remy: It Wasn’t Me (Shaggy Parody).

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Carolla, Dr. Drew Shred Comey, Media on ‘Insurrection’ Lies. “Neither podcaster is a de facto conservative. They just happen to share a common sense mien that overlaps with conservative thought. It’s why they didn’t buy the media’s ‘insurrection’ narrative regarding the Jan. 6 riots in the nation’s capitol.”