Mike Huckabee

Our “Good Catholic” President Joe Biden announced that he was launching a “whole of government” effort to fight the new Texas law banning abortions of babies after they have a heartbeat. So he’s literally enlisting all the powers of the federal government to go to war on babies with heartbeats. I’m so glad we have compassionate adults back in charge.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/09/02/joe-biden-launches-whole-of-government-effort-to-fight-texas-pro-life-law/

As previously noted, when they lost this round in the SCOTUS, Democrats quickly dropped their gaslighting nonsense about “birthing people” and men having babies, too, and starting couching the law not as a protection for unborn children, but as an attack on women’s health care or women’s rights (FYI: about half of all babies are girls, and they’re getting aborted, too. So I guess women only have rights if they’re lucky enough to make it out of the womb.)

All the talk about women’s rights is even more laughable when you consider it’s coming from a man who just consigned an entire nation full of women and girls to barbaric subjugation, rape, forced marriages, sex slavery and generally being treated worse than oxen.

And before you cut him any slack due to cognitive decline or the current chaotic conditions that he created, know that according to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s former special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, way back in 2010, Biden was advocating bugging out of Afghanistan and never mind the consequences. When Holbrooke brought up America’s obligations to Afghans like the girl in the Kabul school, Biden replied, “F--- that, we don’t have to worry about that.” Referring to the tragic fall of Saigon in 1973, he continued, “We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/17/joe-biden-told-diplomat-fck-that-when-asked-about-duty-to-afghanistans-women-and-girls/

He had zero concern for the hideousness that might be inflicted on the women and girls of Afghanistan. All he cared about was how it would affect his political fortunes. If it didn't, then (BLEEP) them. Likewise, he doesn’t care about the rights of women to feel secure in intimate spaces or to win sports scholarships as long as he can pander to the deep pockets LGBTQ lobby.

So when I see him tossing his alleged sacred religious beliefs overboard to pander to the “no limits on abortion” lobby, pardon me if I don’t believe he’s doing it because he just cares so very, very deeply about the rights of females.

PS – He accused the Texas law of “unleashing unconstitutional chaos.” Again, if he really believes what he’s saying and opposes the unleashing of unconstitutional chaos, he should resign immediately.

Mike Huckabee

There are some teachers who think their job is not to educate but to indoctrinate children into the leftist hivemind. Fortunately, though, the public is catching on, partly because of the pandemic exposing parents to what’s happening in classrooms. But also because, as with Harvey Weinstein, years of doing it in secret and getting away with it made them arrogantly think they were untouchable, so they got sloppy about exposing themselves. That was a bad idea. Today’s cases in point:

The Natomas, California, school district has fired an Inderkum High School social studies teacher after Project Veritas released an undercover video of him allegedly revealing how he works to radicalize his students “farther and farther left.” He said, “I have 180 days to turn them into revolutionaries.”

https://www.foxnews.com/us/pro-antifa-california-teacher-to-be-fired

The school found Antifa and Mao Zedong posters in his classroom, and stickers of communist dictators such as Stalin and Castro that he used to mark papers. He gave students extra credit for attending protests and described Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” in China that killed up to 20 million people as “fixing a problem.” When a student said that the teacher's Antifa flag made him uncomfortable, he replied, "Well, this is meant to make fascists feel uncomfortable, so if you feel uncomfortable, I don’t really know what to tell you.”

Ooh! Ooh! I know, teacher! What I’d tell the student is this:

“Antifa follows in a long tradition of duplicitous radical left groups that use misleading terms to trick you into supporting terrible ideas. Antifa claims it’s fighting fascism by using violence and intimidation to silence political opponents, which is a hallmark of fascism. So if their flag makes you uncomfortable, it means you can spot dangerous, lying fascists when you see them. You’re smarter than your teacher, so you get an A.”

Meanwhile, an Orange County, California, teacher who bragged on TikTok that she removed the American flag from her classroom because it made her “uncomfortable,” and suggested kids say the Pledge of Allegiance to her LGBTQ Pride flag instead, has been removed and placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-teacher-pledge-allegiance-pride-flag-removed-from-classroom

A group of parents rallied in protest outside her school, and a school district spokesperson said, “While we do not discuss employee related matters, we can tell you that showing respect and honor for our nation’s flag is a value that we instill in our students and an expectation of our employees. We take matters like this seriously and will be taking action to address it."

I’m very relieved to hear that. I’d be more relieved if it didn’t require exposure on social media and public parental protests just to get teachers to teach instead of indoctrinate.

Mike Huckabee

In just over a week, we’ll mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Manhattan’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as well as on United Airlines Flight 93, a plane that was crashed in a Pennsylvania field by its heroic passengers to protect its likely target, the White House. I wish people who aren’t old enough to remember all this or who chose to block it out could know what it was like and feel the raw emotion of that time. Other than the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan that took us into World War II 80 years ago, there’s been nothing remotely comparable to it in our history.

Almost 3,000 people were killed, most of them in the fall of the Twin Towers, and thousands more –- particularly first responders and clean-up crews –- have suffered lifelong disability resulting from conditions on the ground there.

https://www.app.com/story/news/local/how-we-live/2019/09/11/sept-11-workers-still-battle-beast-insane-stabbing-burning-pain/2229353001/

When planes flew into both towers on that bright and beautiful fall morning, and the towers collapsed upon themselves, it was a demolition of indescribable magnitude. A huge portion of Manhattan, 14 million square feet of downtown –- was turned into rubble. And it was a massacre. Video that is seldom played today showed human beings jumping a thousand feet to their deaths rather than be burned alive. Virtually everyone in New York knew someone who had perished. Many thousands of people lost spouses, brothers, sisters, dear friends and colleagues. Children lost parents. Parents lost children.

Literally tons of debris filled the atmosphere. The air was thick with toxic substances that ravaged the lungs of those who managed to live through the day. For first responders, it was like a war zone.

Every year on September 11, except for a modified pre-recorded version last year because of COVID, a ceremony has been held at the memorial in which all the names of those lost were read aloud by family members to a wide audience that included the families, police, firefighters, other first responders and emergency workers. Then, throughout that night, the twin beams of the “Tribute In Light” blazed straight up into the sky, as a statement of power and resilience against our evil terrorist enemies.

So what about this year? Regarding the reading of the names, there’s been so much back-and-forth about it that it's hard to know what they’ve finally decided to do. On August 15, it was announced that the Tunnel 2 Towers Foundation would hold an “alternative” ceremony, just south of the memorial, for the names because the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, citing covid again, wouldn’t be having one this year. (It's not clear to us whether they've changed their mind and are doing it after all or if Tunnel 2 Towers is still the sponsor.) Masks will be required, and the podium will be sanitized after every speaker.

Apparently, only 9/11 family members are invited this year, as officials want to discourage large crowds. It's a shame to see this moving ceremony diminished in any way --- especially for covid, since this event takes place outdoors, everyone will be masked, and most will likely be vaccinated. If another concern is budget, that really shouldn’t be an issue, either. They might need extra security for the larger crowd, but I’ll bet a lot of New York’s Finest would proudly volunteer for that job.

Believe it or not, for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the museum had decided not to have the “Tribute In Light.” They said they didn’t have the funds for it. They said that last year, too, but Gov. Cuomo contributed enough state resources to make it happen. Fortunately, the “Tribute In Light” is back on this year, too.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/08/15/9-11-tribute-twin-light-display-back-new-york/5592530002/

You can see how confusing this got when you add in this report from RedState.com, which says a group called the Sergeants Benevolent Association has stepped up to provide the beams of light. We're not sure now if the museum (with or without state funds) is doing it or the SBA is, but at least SOMEBODY is. Those lights had better be blazing. They need to be seen from space, till dawn breaks on September 12.

https://redstate.com/beccalower/2020/08/16/nyc-tribute-in-light-live-name-reading-to-honor-911-victims-back-on-after-public-outcry-n251381

Fortunately, New York Public Radio is doing quite a bit of special programming, which started September 1.

https://nypublicradio.org/2021/09/01/wnyc-wqxr-mark-the-20th-anniversary-of-9-11/

Here’s a list of the in-person events planned for that day.

https://911groundzero.com/blog/commemorating-the-20th-anniversary-of-9-11-nyc-events-and-legacies/

For a time, it looked as though this year’s memorial would be scaled way down, and that would not have been acceptable. As Steve Cuozzo wrote in the NEW YORK POST on August 14 –- the day before it was announced the “Tribute In Light” would light up after all –- “Today, many younger and newly arrived New Yorkers have little idea what 9/11 meant. To treat the 20th anniversary as business as usual threatens to consign the memory to just another unpleasant hiccup of history such as the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles or the 1965 power blackout.” Perhaps his commentary is what convinced officials to light up the night sky after all.

Yes, the museum has a budget crunch, he said, but “the catastrophe’s 20th anniversary should not be allowed to become a shadow of its past commemorations.”

https://nypost.com/2021/08/14/9-11-museums-decision-to-scrap-a-20th-anniversary-memorial-is-a-disgrace/

What a disgrace it would be to play down 9/11 on the 20th anniversary of that carnage. It also occurs to me that such a disgrace would compound the epic national disgrace going on right now: our botched exit from Afghanistan and the abandoning of U.S. citizens, Afghan friends and cutting-edge military equipment to the terrorists who have overrun the place and made it once again a haven for themselves. How ironic it would be for us now to diminish the 9/11 ceremony on the 20th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in history. Look at us now, with our own President putting himself in the position of having to negotiate with the Taliban. Sadly, this time, as we memorialize our lost and honor our brave, the terrorists will be celebrating just as they did 20 years ago. Except now when they wave their guns in the air, they'll have much better guns. Thank you, Mr. President.

……………………...

Michael Arad, the young architect (an Israeli citizen born in London who has since obtained dual citizenship here) whose design was chosen for the 9/11 memorial, was living in Manhattan at the time of the attack and said 9/11 had made him a New Yorker. He said he “would never forget how people poured into Union Square, Times Square, Washington Square, needing to be together, to stand side by side with strangers, bearing individual pain but sharing collective grief.”

“If the terrorists thought they’d sow fear and division,” he said, “they did not succeed.”

If you’ve never been to the memorial, stood at the edge of the waterfalls and looked at some of the names of all 2,983 who lost their lives that day, I urge you do make the trip and do it. (One of my writers said the moment during this experience that hit her the hardest was seeing a square simply carved with the words “Unborn Baby.”)

For when you have time, here’s a detailed article about Arad and the meaning behind the memorial he designed.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/09/02/9-11-memorial-new-york-10-year-anniversary-michael-arad/5682267001/

Mike Huckabee

There are so many stories out of Afghanistan that are heartbreaking and infuriating that I hate to have to relate them, but sadly, this is the news under President Biden. So in the hopes that this message will actually penetrate his thick border wall of arrogant, defensive stubbornness, I will share these stories:

Among the people Biden left behind to fend for themselves are 24 Sacramento school children who were prevented by the Taliban from reaching the airport and who are now in hiding.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bera-confirms-sacramento-students-trapped-afghanistan

There’s also a report of a pregnant American woman who was trying to get past a checkpoint with her husband when she was kicked in the stomach by the Taliban. She’s now in hiding as well.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/31/report-pregnant-american-kicked-in-stomach-by-taliban-after-stranded-by-joe-biden/

And then there’s the story of the Afghan interpreter who actually helped save Biden’s life in 2008 when he and two Senators were in a helicopter that was forced to land in a remote valley due to a snowstorm.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/afghan-interpreter-who-helped-rescue-biden-in-2008-left-behind-after-u-s-exit

After years of service and helping our soldiers in over 100 firefights, he and his wife and four children are in hiding from the Taliban because their efforts to get out were blocked by bureaucracy. He has a message from his hiding place: “Hello, Mr. President. Save me and my family. Don’t forget me here.”

I hope you’ll join me in praying for the safety of everyone who's been left behind, and for our President to stop congratulating himself on his "extraordinary success" and do something to help all these people, if it’s not already too late.

I would also suggest that the motto of the Biden Administration be “Accountability? What’s that?” if it didn’t have so much competition from “Competence? What’s that?”

But to show just how desperate the Democrats are to doge accountability for the four-alarm dumpster fire that Biden created in Afghanistan, House Democrats blocked efforts by Republican members who are Afghan war vets to introduce a bill requiring the White House to present a plan to bring the Americans Biden left trapped in Afghanistan safely home. Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell, who was presiding over the chamber, gaveled them out of session, not only blocking the legislation but also their efforts to read the names of the 13 service members who were killed in last week’s suicide bombing at Kabul airport into the Congressional Record.

https://www.westernjournal.com/dem-congresswoman-blocks-names-13-dead-service-members-read-house-floor/

Dingell shut down House debate as some members shouted at her, “How can you not read the names?” and “Turn your back on your country!”

I will remind you that these are the same House Democrats who arranged the equivalent of a State Funeral for a Capitol Police officer who died after the January Capitol riot that they’re trying to gin up into an actual insurrection attempt, even though he really died of a stroke unrelated to the protest. Yet they won’t even allow the names to be read of military veterans who really did give their lives fighting genuine violent terrorists in the service of their country.

I could tell you what I think about this and the remedy for it, but Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media saved me the trouble by writing an article titled, “Banish Democrats From Office Until They Elect Some Non-Commie Adults.”

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/08/31/banish-democrats-from-office-until-they-elect-some-non-commie-adults-n1473983

Kruiser traces the recent history of the Dem leadership and how it’s separated from regular working Democrats to become an insane, juvenile, far-left madhouse motivated almost entirely by spite against Trump and Republicans. He notes that their adult toddler tantrum has gone from tedious to disturbing to now having a body count, and that’s enough. What must be done? He answers:

“Should we make it to November 2022 relatively intact, it is imperative that American voters who don’t live in the coastal commie bubbles (or Chicago) rise up and make sure that this current crop of Democratic party rulers isn’t allowed anywhere near any kind of power again.

Ever.

The 2021 Democratic elite are a metastasizing cancer that is rapidly killing a lot of the good in America. Cut that you-know-what out.”

By the way, he makes it clear that he’s not calling for one party rule, only that the voters rid the Democrats, and all of us, of their current insane, America-hating cult. Maybe then, moderate adults like Sen. Krysten Sinema can once again fill the leadership of the Party instead of being a rare outlier whom the leaders are trying to destroy for standing in the way of them destroying the country.

Mike Huckabee

At this point, we’ve been all through the reasons President Biden is unfit to serve. Here’s some welcome news: after the debacle in Afghanistan (no matter how much lipstick Biden’s strategists try to put on that pig), a new Rasmussen poll of likely voters shows that 52 percent believe Biden should resign over his disastrous handling of the withdrawal. They see he’s simply not capable. And the world sees that, too.

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/52_of_voters_think_biden_should_resign_over_afghanistan_withdrawal

There’s a song that gets played at weddings a lot; it goes, “The more I see you...the more I want you.” The “Biden” version is more appropriate for a divorce: “The more we see him...the less we want him.” One way his campaign experts got people to vote for the man was essentially to hide him until after those votes had been cast (well, counted). Why, he was “Mr. Moderate,” so much more measured and likable than Trump, they said. It’s much easier to like an unlikable person when you hardly ever see him.

And now that he has to take center stage occasionally, we can hardly believe what we see. I’ve always thought his political views were as wrongheaded as could be, but now something really is wrong with his head. Biden seems like the empty husk of a man, and perhaps that’s what he really is.

This is not a partisan thing, but a national tragedy. If we’re honest with ourselves, we all know. And the Afghanistan disaster has brought home to us all what a huge job it is to be President of the United States. It’s the biggest job there is, and mistakes and lapses in judgment get people killed. Mistakes also upset the critical balance of power around the world that since World War II has allowed us the assumption that we would always live in freedom. That sense of security is being shaken now.

A take-down can also come from within, which naturally makes us curious about some who support a clearly unfit President. We also wonder who all those Afghans were who got airlifted to America. Apparently, about 110,000 are NOT the ones who were helping our soldiers. Is our President as clueless about this as he seems to be about most things?

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/09/01/state-dept-admits-the-majority-of-afghans-and-sivs-who-helped-us-did-not-evacuate-so-who-are-these-116000-afghans-we-evacuated/

The Constitution provides a few ways to remove a President who isn’t fit to serve. There’s the 25th Amendment, which may be invoked by Cabinet members if and when the decision has been made to put Kamala Harris in the Oval Office. (Shudder. That’s the downside to unseating Biden.) There’s impeachment in the House, of course; we have more than enough familiarity with that process, though we’ve never witnessed conviction in the Senate, which would also be required. No matter how much Republicans in the House or Senate talk about it, it’s empty chatter unless the GOP takes control of the House in 2022 and then there are enough Republican members courageous enough to actually push it. And even IF the Senate were to flip to the GOP in 2022, it’s highly doubtful there would be 2/3 of the members willing to vote to convict. We do have guys like Romney there, who voted to impeach Trump, but would never likely vote a Democrat out. Heck, he might not be invited back on MSNBC if he did that!

Or, the President could be forced to resign. I’m sure there are powerful inducements. Make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to have a “do-over” --- even if fraud is proved --- or a recall election as they’re currently doing for the California governorship. The framers of our Constitution apparently didn’t think about what to do if a President who’s spectacularly unfit to serve is still supported as a political puppet by those who are charged with unseating him. I guess they figured that at that point, only another revolution would suffice. Truly, I can hear Thomas Jefferson saying that very thing.

Dan Bongino, in his Wednesday podcast, made the case that we simply must immediately impeach President Biden, period. He called the people keeping him in office “disgusting filth.” The final straw for him was the REUTERS story that broke Tuesday about Biden pressuring the Afghan president to lie about the situation on the ground there in exchange for continued air support. He wanted Americans and the rest of the world to hear a positive report, “whether it is true or not.”

This act on Biden’s part is just obscene in two ways: 1) it’s deeply dishonest, and 2) it’s a quid pro quo, the very thing Democrats impeached Trump for even though that allegation was false. In Biden’s case, the official transcript of the call proves he did it. As Bongino correctly noted, if Republican leaders discovered a Republican President had done this, they would push for impeachment themselves. (Or, I would add, they'd pressure him to resign, as the GOP did with Nixon.)

Watch how White House press secretary Jen Psaki deflects a question about this during her Wednesday briefing. She never addresses it, ignoring what Biden asked the Afghan president to do and talking instead about the “crisis of leadership” in Afghanistan. We need to be concerned about our own crisis of leadership.

https://beckernews.com/2-jen-psaki-responds-to-bombshell-biden-phone-call-transcript-but-unearthed-comments-show-she-once-had-a-different-tone-41283/

Bongino warned that Democrats might assess Biden harshly right now, but it’s because they know his actions were so bad they have to say something critical now to protect their reputations later. They aren’t serious and will still cover for him. “Just give it a couple weeks,” Bongino said. “The Democrats’ story will change completely. They’ll focus on…‘the successful airlift.’”

Heck, they won’t even allow questions to Biden about Afghanistan. They’re VERY protective...

https://therightscoop.com/shouting-white-house-staff-chase-reporters-from-oval-office-to-prevent-any-questions-about-afghanistan/

Mark Levin was unsparing towards Biden and his top generals on Wednesday’s HANNITY, invoking George Patton, Omar Bradley and George Marshall. “No Commander-in-Chief has ever ordered any general to leave citizens behind,” he said. The Taliban “have our equipment, they have our people, they have our allies, they are going to threaten us, they’re working with the Communist Chinese...Putin...the Iranians.”

“Listen to me America,” he implored. “Can you hear the screams of the people of Afghanistan tonight?...They’re begging for help!” This is going on, he said, while the administration is celebrating. “My God, I’ve never been more disgusted with the top brass and the government of the United States than I am right now!”

“...Joe Biden lied to us over and over, and over again. This is a humiliation for our country,” he said. “This is part of our history that can never be wiped away.”

“And most of all, Joe Biden, you’ll have blood on your hands for the rest of your life.”

I say Mark Levin sums up the need to impeach President Biden quite well, don’t you? In addition to the things we’ve already mentioned, Biden has certainly offered aid and comfort to the enemy. On the other hand, his administration is now hesitant to even CALL the Taliban the enemy. Not kidding…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9947463/Jake-Sullivan-refuses-call-Taliban-enemy-says-hard-label-it.html

Republicans must be resolute on this. I understand that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is considering political realities when he says no to impeachment, but we must express our thorough disgust and disapproval in every way available to us, including calls for resignation or impeachment, even if in the end we can’t pry an unfit President from office. Full articles of impeachment should be drawn up, kept and, if need be, added to, in the likely event that the House and Senate flip next year.

Then we’d have to accept the fact that IF we could get through an impeachment trial and articles of impeachment referred to the Senate, it will would not likely result in Biden being ousted. Only IF he (or whoever it is who “instructs” him) resigned for the good of the country (like Nixon), would he likely be shown the door. Which reminds us that on at least one thing, Barak Obama was right: “Elections have consequences.” So those Never-Trumpers who betrayed their own convictions about sanctity of life, taxes, regulations, energy independence, Israel, America as exceptional, and big government snooping to vote for Biden hopefully are now repentant of what they have done to America, the world, and specifically to those Americans STRANDED (yes, Jen Psaki—STRANDED) in Afghanistan and left to rot by the man the TDS-folks thought was so caring, compassionate, and competent.

This time it wouldn’t be a political show trial. This is for for real. We can’t go down in history as the party that just stood quietly by.

Mike Huckabee

Update: 

Our original story "Were U.S. working dogs left behind? Depends on who you ask,"  included a link to the Defense Department's denial of claims that any military service dogs were left behind, but Lead Stories now has more details to confirm that.

https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/09/fact-check-the-united-states-did-not-leave-behind-military-working-dogs-in-cages-in-afghanistan.html

You may read the story, along with the update above here. 

Mike Huckabee

From Gary L. P-G:

Question: I've read we had about 2,500 troops left in Afghanistan, intelligence and logistical support. If this is the case, why was there over $85B of equipment there? Were we going to leave it regardless? It doesn't make sense to have that much equipment there for 2,500 non-front-line fighting troops. Please answer in either your morning or evening newsletters, I read both.

From the Gov:

Gary, that highly sophisticated equipment provided logistical and air support for the Afghan army. Now that it’s in the hands of the Taliban, our guess is that they will use captive Afghan soldiers who had been trained by us on the equipment to train THEM how to use it.

Also, that base was of huge strategic importance. We should not have relinquished it –- have you looked at it on a map? It’s right across the border with China, a good spot to keep as heavily armed as it was. Every bit of that equipment should have been evacuated. Hang the “expense,” which, believe it or not, was one reason given for leaving it there. Another reason was the time constraint, which was bogus, too.

From Nitha V:

I am disappointed in you, Mike Huckabee. I believe I looked at all the videos included in your morning edition (Aug 31). I did NOT see a human body hanging from his neck. What I saw was the helicopter preparing to land a person onto the roof of some building. the body was hanging from the helicopter with attached around the mid section. The body was moving around and landed on the building; the person certainly was not dead. Maybe you looked at different videos. Please do not inflame people like this. What the Taliban does is bad enough without adding fuel to the fire.

From the Gov:

Unlike numerous news/opinion sites, we were careful NOT to come to any conclusions about whether the person at the end of that rope was dead or alive. (As of this writing, some sources are still reporting that he was dead.) We made it clear that there were multiple possibilities. Whatever the explanation, we were still inflamed, simply because one of our Black Hawks had been flown over Kandahar, pressed into service by the Taliban. And, oh, yes, there will be many hangings and beheadings, whether this was one of those atrocities or not.

USA TODAY has reported that this man was a Taliban fighter (one of the possibilities we had mentioned) being lifted by a Black Hawk to the top of the tall building housing the former governor’s office in Kandahar to plant a Taliban flag. Again, still infuriating.

From Sanford W:

What Biden has done is beyond a disgrace. It’s TREASON. Besides betraying our armed forces and stranded American citizens he has provided “AID AND COMFORT TO THE ENEMY.”

From the Gov:

Sounds like an impeachable offense to me.

From David:

TALIB TIMES? For a moment there, I'd read TLAIB TIMES, and thought you were going to sneak a word in about how many times Rashida Tlaib has condemned America and praised foreign terrorists. Whew!

From the Gov:

David, you get to do it for me today.

From Lawrence F (excerpt):

It may be too soon to start listing the lessons of our 20 years in Afghanistan, but a couple are so obvious they need stating now.

First, we left the Afghan military unequipped to go on without us, knowing that every few years the American electorate chooses some buffoon who knows nothing about military operations or foreign policy and will end a military operation disastrously...Granted, none of the earlier surrenders –- even Iraq –- were as disastrously fouled up as this latest one.

In 20 years, we trained Afghan pilots, special operations soldiers and infantrymen, but i am unaware of one single truck or aircraft mechanic trained by us. So when Sleazy Joe, without consultation with any allies and ignoring the advice of his military advisors, decided to suddenly end the contract to maintain aircraft and vehicles for the Afghan security services, the Afghan military who we had re-created in our image, were immobilized. Then he had the gall to say they were unwilling to fight, in spite of the 77,000 Afghans who gave their lives in what should be our battle against terrorists.

Lesson Two is, don't let either the left or the right infiltrate and politicize our military. When Republicans...control the White House and both houses once again. we need to have a thorough housecleaning of our senior military ranks, and we need to teach cadets at West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs the tradition of a non-political military. The current crop of political hacks in the top ranks is disgusting.

Finally we need to inculcate in the Washington civil service the concept that foreign policy is not a tricycle for children to learn how to ride; it is not a toy that a new administration takes off the shelf and "re-designs" without consultation with everyone. One of the impeachable offenses Joe Biden has committed is ignoring our allies. Public law (yes, when the NATO treaty was ratified by Congress, it became part of public law) requires consultation with our allies, and Sleazy Joe ignored them and his military advisors and waltzed off into rainbow flag la-la land all by himself.

From Mike H (excerpt):

Mike, thank you again for your honest, forthcoming commentary, day in and day out. That said, there are not words that can be said here to tell you the inter RAGE I am feeling against this CLOWN Biden, who I will not call President...If I see him on television, I will shut it off. Why? ...Not only can I not stand the sight of him but I know that if his lips are moving, if he is breathing, he is lying, spinning or covering up whatever it is that he is thinking or alluding to. I am very sure from conversations I have had with many, many people that they are feeling the same way...Biden, Harris, Schumer, Pelosi and their cohorts must be [out of power] ASAP. This is DEAD serious. These horrible Democrats are destroying this country!!!!!

From the Gov:

Thank you, Mike, for expressing what millions are feeling. I think you and all my readers would appreciate this passionately felt monologue from Tammy Bruce on Tuesday’s FOX NEWS PRIMETIME (sorry, there are a few seconds of Biden’s face in there). She speaks forcefully for all of us who love America and are disgusted by what is happening before our eyes.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6270389929001#sp=show-clips

From Anne T (excerpt):

Since the woke people are always comparing things to the Civil War or 9-11, as in worse than, etc., I would call this Afghanistan situation the saddest since those times. What can be sadder than people like me raised with pride in my country, raised by the “greatest generation” than to see this kind of ineptness, lack of leadership, cruelty, irresponsibility snd total incompetence from our government?

The idea that we left Americans in country when we knew we were going to leave, and also left many of those who helped us, is unbelievable. You folks who voted for this because you don’t like mean tweets and only watch mainstream media are guilty of gross negligence. You knew, as well as I knew, that Mr. Biden was failing mentally and that Kamala is grossly unqualified...Each of you bears some responsibility for what will happen to the women of Afghanistan and to the rape of little girls by disgusting men.

Dear Lord, please help me to forgive these people...I also blame Trump to a certain extent...It wouldn’t have taken him much to moderate his rhetoric to some extent and push him over the voting line. God bless America and please help us to get out of this pit.

From the Gov:

Before the election, one of our writers contributed a piece, “The speech I wish President Trump would give,” about that very thing. Sadly, Trump never gave a speech like that. Even so, support for him in key states that Biden “officially” won by a few thousand votes was enormously strong, and we still don’t know the real election story. I can never forgive those who knew what sort of person Biden really was and worked to get him into office anyway, by hook or by crook.

Mike Huckabee

Of all the disturbing and heartbreaking stories coming out of Afghanistan this weekend, this might be the most infuriating of all.

Two highly trusted sources, investigative reporter Lara Logan and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, are independently reporting that over the past few days, Americans have been turned away from entering the Kabul airport. Logan tweeted this on Saturday: “Most Americans don’t understand what’s happening in Kabul – been on this all night with no end. US citizens are fighting through enemy lines to get to the airport. When they show their blue passport to 82nd [Airborne] soldiers at the gate, many are turned away and sent back to the Taliban.”

Later, she tweeted, “All that stands between these Americans and safety/home is the US govt and military.”

President Biden had supposedly sent the 82nd Airborne to Kabul to facilitate the mass evacuation. What in blazes is going on there?

Dan Crenshaw tweeted, “America, all you need to know is this: Biden is not letting US citizens through the airport gates. It has been impossible to get anyone through for the past 24 hours. This administration has been lying about their intent to save Americans. Unforgivable.”

Also unexplainable, in a sane world with a sane Commander-in-Chief. But that’s not what we have.

Weirdly, the Biden White House is also trying to say that ISIS-K is the enemy, not so much the Taliban. One Green Beret and others in a position to know report that they’re really one and the same. I was on the same track a few days ago when I called this “a distinction without a difference.”

Bryan Preston at PJ MEDIA wrote at greater length about this.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/29/dan-crenshaw-lara-logan-bring-the-most-disturbing-reports-out-of-the-kabul-airport-yet-n1473930

We don’t know how many Americans are stranded in Afghanistan. Some reports have said 350, but it could be thousands more. The Biden administration says it’s evacuated “thousands,” but it never says how many of these are Americans.

The State Department, officially in charge of the evacuation effort, apparently is not helping. If soldiers are turning away Americans, it is on their order, not the Pentagon’s. Texas Rep. Ronny Johnson tweeted this on Saturday: “I am furious!! My team has been on the phone all day trying to get AMERICAN CITIZENS out. They have been just outside the airport numerous times, but the State Department WILL NOT help them.”

Congress won’t be looking into this anytime soon. Speaker Pelosi has adjourned them.

American citizens aren’t the only ones being turned away at the airport gates. As reported in THE NEW YORK TIMES, students and alumni from the American University of Afghanistan were, too. This came after about 600 of them had gathered at a safe house and boarded buses to take them, they thought, to freedom. After waiting for several hours, they were told that evacuations had been called off. An email told them to return home. (“Home”?) Because the U.S. troop deadline for evacuation is August 31, it said, the U.S. military was turning from evacuating civilians to getting its own personnel out.

Think that’s bad? Oh, it’s much worse. They're terrified for their lives now, as they also also learned the U.S. military, “following protocol,” had shared a list of their names and passport information with the Taliban who were guarding the airport checkpoints. Their identities are now known, and there's no way to evacuate.

The Taliban have already taken over the American University campus. The staff got out in time and are now safely in Doha. The president of the school says they’re committed to “ensuring all students would finish their degrees remotely.”

Well, isn’t that nice. And how are these students going to be receiving their degrees? Posthumously?

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/29/world/afghanistan-live-news-updates#american-university-of-kabul-students-and-alumni-trying-to-flee-were-sent-home

Brad Slager at RedState.com has an excellent commentary on the total incompetence surrounding the withdrawal.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/08/29/no-aspect-of-bidens-afghanistan-fiasco-was-handled-with-competence-n434910

Reading this, though, I have to wonder: Is this level of incompetence due to Biden’s lack of cognitive faculties, leading him to be fatally singleminded and stubborn about his arbitrary pull-out date, or is he actually an all-out traitor to his country? If he were the latter, what would he be doing differently? The one other possibility is that he is so monumentally stupid that...well, I have to wonder if even Joe Biden is THAT monumentally stupid.

It gets even crazier: As Nick Arama at RedState reports, at a time when military aircraft are at such a premium that commercial jets are being called into service, President Biden approved the use of a military plane by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to fly last Monday to a nonessential diplomatic summit in Ukraine. Why the frivolous waste of a military craft when it was so badly needed for the evacuation? This makes about as much sense as anything else going on right now.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/29/biden-diverted-military-jet-away-for-outrageous-reason-in-middle-of-kabul-evacuation-n434949

Also, recall the Marine officer who was relived of duty within hours of criticizing military leaders for the deaths of 13 service members last week? Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller had tweeted: “I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all way to say to my senior leaders, I demand accountability.” In case you missed that story, here’s a review.

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2021/08/29/marine-officer-relieved-of-duty-for-slamming-leaders-over-afghanistan-debacle-issues-blistering-warning-n434835

Scheller has given an interview with the NEW YORK POST. They also spoke to his dad, who proudly called him “a Marine’s Marine.” Here’s the link; highly recommended reading.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/28/marines-praise-lt-colonel-fired-for-slamming-afghan-exit/

Although we praise Scheller to the skies for having the courage to do what even Biden’s generals couldn’t do but should have, we do have one small quibble with something he said, relating to the age of his superiors. “The baby boomer’s turn is over,” he told the POST. “I demand accountability, at all levels. If we don’t get it, I’m bringing it.”

Speaking as a baby boomer, I would say that most Americans my age are appalled at what is transpiring and want to “bring it,” too. Much of my readership, including many veterans, would be considered part of the “baby boomer” generation, and we are just as horrified as he is and also demand accountability. I would not be surprised if some of those officials, say, from the State Department, giving orders behind the scenes are closer to his age.

That said, Scheller, who received a Combat V for Valor and a Bronze Star, has exhibited perhaps an even rarer form of bravery by standing up to his superiors when such action was badly needed. He’s a hero for daring to say that the U.S. should never have abandoned the strategic Bagram Air Base. Some of his fellow officers, even though they were supportive, have urged him to take his video down. But over 30,000, some of whom served under him, have liked and commented on it.

Saturday, Michael Goodwin in THE NEW YORK POST asked the question, “What if Biden and his administration really are every bit as bad as they look?

https://nypost.com/2021/08/28/in-the-midst-of-a-white-house-breakdown-goodwin/

Finally, in her grief, the mother of one of the Marines killed at the airport checkpoint has spoken out. We’ll just let her tell you in her own words what she thinks of the current Commander-in-Chief.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9936483/Biden-flies-Dover-Air-Force-Base-receive-remains-13-American-troops-killed-Kabul-attack.html

Mike Huckabee

With Americans stranded in Afghanistan, the credibility of the United States is shredded by our inept exit there. And now we’ve suffered the worst loss of American military personnel in 11 years and the first casualty in Afghanistan since Feb of 2020. It is so bungled that the British Parliament did something it had never in its history done—it voted to censure the President of the United States. Think about that. Joe Biden has continued to pretend world leaders are standing with him, but not one world leader has said a public positive word. In fact, it’s been the opposite. The Germans have said that Biden has virtually destroyed NATO, the French—yes the FRENCH—have lectured us about “moral responsibility” to the people being held hostage there by the Taliban terrorists. Even the Belgians have condemned the way this mess has been handled.

And how has President Biden responded? By stepping to a microphone, screaming into the teleprompter words someone else wrote and he has trouble reading, boasting about Democrats going on a wild shopping spree with your tax dollars to spend 3.5 TRILLION dollars on give-a-ways to try and buy some more voters. It’s clear Joe Biden wants to talk about his domestic agenda so we won’t pay attention to the collapse in Afghanistan. We’re not about to forget about those Americans stranded in Kabul, but I’ll oblige him and talk about his equally disastrous domestic plan.

He insists that we keep paying people to not work and indefinitely extending unemployment benefits to people who refuse to take one of the jobs being offered by desperate employers who are having to close restaurants, lumber mills, and construction sites. As long as Uncle Joe will pay people more money to get up at the crack of noon and watch Netflix than to work, people will take the government hand-out. I think instead of giving non-workers an extra $300 to sit on their ample backsides and stay away from work, we ought to give that $300 as a bonus to the people who actually showed up for work! We tax the wages of the workers, but not the welfare of the lazy. I don’t begrudge people who can’t work, but I have no sympathy for those who simply won’t work and are willing to let others lift THEIR loads while the only thing they lift is their federally subsidized forks. Take the taxes off those who are sweating through hot summer days on the job, and if a person is capable of working and won’t take a job, cut the benefits to zero.

And Biden’s energy plan has resulted in your gas to get to work costing $1-2 dollars a gallon more than it did just a year ago. He killed an American pipeline and the thousands of jobs that died with it, but he turned around and approved the Russians’ pipeline which gave them great riches at our expense. He has turned our Southern Border into a free-flowing firehose of human beings rushing into America without us having a clue who they are, whether or not they are drug runners, human traffickers or criminals, and not seeming to care whether they have been vaccinated, wear a mask, or socially distance. While Democrats are shutting down churches for fear of Covid, they turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. Tell your pastor if you have an idiot for a governor or mayor who is forcing your church to close, have him announce that the church will “identify” as the Southern border, and tell the masses to come on in!

I’m not sure we’ll hold out until the 2022 elections, but if we miraculously do, please think about who you vote for in the next election. Because if you keep sending socialists and socio-paths to serve in Congress and on your school board, then you’ll deserve the mess. But frankly, I’ll never vote for people who hate this great country because I believe we ALL deserve better!

Mike Huckabee

Our prediction that President Biden would come out in his late-day press briefing on Thursday and blame everyone but himself turned out to be, sadly, correct.

If you didn’t see it, imagine at the podium the weakest, most feeble, most pathetic excuse for a Commander-in-Chief you can dredge out of the recesses of your mind, and then somehow dial it back even weaker. The real thing was worse than that.

Think I’m exaggerating? The British news organization DAILY MAIL was merciless.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9931085/Joe-Biden-tense-forth-interesting-guy-Steve-Doocy-Fox-News.html

Yes, Biden did blame Trump, again: “I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that’s happened of late. But [editorial note: there’s always a “but”] here’s the deal: You know –- I wish that one day, you say these things –- you know as well as I do that [the] former President made a deal with the Taliban that we would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. In return, the commitment was made, and that was a year before.”

Biden keeps going back to that, when it’s clear to all of us watching that he didn’t have to follow that timetable at all. HE’S our Commander-in-Chief; it's not the head of the Taliban. WE’RE the superpower, not them. WE say when we leave. And President Trump certainly would not have conformed to some arbitrary deadline it if it meant leaving Americans and friends behind. Until now, I’ve always tried to conduct myself with enough class to avoid telling the President of the United States to shut his yap, but Biden is making that extremely difficult for me now.

Here’s the carefully-considered plan President Trump had for leaving Afghanistan that Biden scrapped, simply because it was a remnant of Trump’s administration. Kash Patel, Trump’s chief of staff at the Pentagon, wrote about it for the NEW YORK POST last week, and WESTERN JOURNAL summarizes it here. Highly recommended reading.

https://www.westernjournal.com/remember-trump-saved-americans-afghanistan-biden-said-no/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

Biden acknowledged during Thursday’s briefing that Americans would be left behind after August 31. Jen Psaki said later that we would “need to coordinate with the Taliban to get those people to the airport and out of the airport.” That's like "coordinating" with an alligator to help you cross the river.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/26/joe-biden-admits-americans-will-be-left-behind-in-afghanistan-after-withdrawing-troops/

Katie Pavlich has a good commentary on how Biden & Co. are talking about getting those Americans out who are still there after the deadline.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/08/26/psaki-after-august-31-us-will-coordinate-with-the-taliban-to-get-americans-out-n2594829

Actually, Biden didn’t blame Trump for EVERYTHING. He blamed his generals for the (incredibly stupid) decision to leave Bagram Air Base before the evacuation. The generals gave him bad advice, so what could he do?

Perhaps most shockingly of all (and I would think criminal), Biden didn’t deny reports that the Taliban were given a helpful list of Americans stranded in the region. To, uh, help them get to the airport? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/08/26/jbiden-blames-generals-for-abandoning-bagram-air-base-admin-may-have-given-taliban-a-list-of-stranded-americans/

Clearly, Joe Biden is not fit to lead. The problem is, those around him don’t seem fit to lead, either, and somebody has to. That vacuum of leadership at the top might be the main thing keeping Biden in the Oval Office right now. Last night on Shannon Bream’s FOX NEWS show, Democrat strategist Kevin Walling, when confronted by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s call for Biden’s resignation, said that “this President absolutely has the will to lead,” pointing out that “this weighs heavily on the President’s heart” because he had a son who served in combat. He “has the will to finish this mission out in the next five days.”

Ah, so Biden is still planning to wrap this up in five days? Apparently so.

Walling continued: “Any calls for any kind of resignation or impeachment of him or his team, really, uh, are a distraction from this core mission that he is set to accomplish, uh, in these next couple of days. No one in the wake of 9/11 called for George W. Bush...to resign. This is just party politics, when we need to focus on the mission, supporting the troops on the ground, paying tribute to those lives lost, and supporting this effort in the waning days in Afghanistan.”

Well, if anyone knows about party politics, it’s a Democrat strategist. Okay, Mr. Walling, let’s all focus on the mission now that it’s been botched, support the troops now that they face new and unnecessary dangers, pay tribute to the lives that Biden needlessly put in harm’s way and got killed, and support this effort to dig out of the deep quicksand we’re in, thanks to our feeble-brained Commander-in-Chief.

Also, it doesn’t exactly instill confidence in our President when he reveals he’s been “instructed” to call on reporters from a list his helpful aides have given him. Not kidding.

https://redstate.com/tladuke/2021/08/26/joe-biden-reveals-in-latest-press-conference-he-is-instructed-on-whom-he-can-call-on-n433261

You might be able to tell that I and my research team have completely had it with the “leadership” of this administration –- on many fronts, not just this one –- and we have plenty of company. Thanks to Joe Biden and the people who put him in office, America has lost lives, experienced humiliation around the world, shocked and dismayed our allies, seriously risked our own national security, and now faces critical decisions on how to move forward from this.

Starting off our round-up is Spencer Brown, writing for TOWNHALL, who said, “[Biden’s] failure to successfully or safely bring the United States out of Afghanistan is squarely the fault of President Biden.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/08/26/biden-remarks-on-kabul-attacks-n2594821

Paula Bolyard at PJ MEDIA said he “stumbled badly...sounding more defeated and confused than resolute.” The quotes she included really show how incoherent he was at times. She noted the bizarre way in which he linked the loss of his son Beau (who did serve in Iraq but who died of brain cancer) to this situation. It WAS strange.

“Sadly,” she wrote, “we have a Commander-in-Chief who doesn’t seem fully able to grasp the gravity of the situation and the enormity of the disaster he’s wrought.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2021/08/26/biden-finally-addresses-terror-attacks-in-afghanistan-we-will-hunt-you-down-we-will-make-you-pay-n1473233

Nick Arama at RedState.com was unsparing in his description of this slow-motion train derailment.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/26/biden-finally-acts-tough-in-emotional-but-empty-speech-gets-nailed-by-peter-doocy-n433248

Earlier in the afternoon, before Biden’s briefing, he had this excellent assessment.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/26/joe-biden-is-mia-on-suicide-attacks-now-state-department-is-playing-the-coward-too-n433063

Donald Trump, Jr.’s, tweet after the briefing shows what the world is seeing right now: profound weakness.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/08/26/donald-trump-jr-s-devastating-tweet-sums-up-how-horrible-bidens-address-to-nation-was-n1473244

Finally, I might have saved the best for last. Stephen Kruiser at PJ MEDIA says it all with his headline: “America is now actually the mess Dems pretended it was under Trump.” He tells us that he started writing it a few weeks ago as just a general commentary, before the evacuation of Afghanistan went bad. This new horror took his original point to the tenth power.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/08/25/america-is-now-actually-the-mess-dems-pretended-it-was-under-trump-n1470737?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=582

You know, there aren’t many ideas from California that I give a thumbs-up, too, but in this situation, there’s one I dearly wish we could adopt (but we can’t): “recall election.” Do it over and get it right this time!

Mike Huckabee

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a revolt on her hands that’s endangering her party’s plans to saddle the American people with more bloated government and trillions more in debt. Nine “moderate” center-left House Democrats are refusing to back the $3.5 trillion “budget reconciliation” bill unless the $1.2 trillion “bipartisan” “infrastructure” bill passes first. Meanwhile, the far-left “Progressives” are refusing to back the “bipartisan” “infrastructure” bill (I’m going to run out of quotation marks) until they get the $3.5 trillion spending orgy bill passed.

https://www.westernjournal.com/pelosi-forced-scrap-key-vote-internal-revolt-moderate-democrats/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Personally, I’d be fine if they both canceled each other out and neither of these monstrosities passed. The Dems are desperate to shove them down our throats because they know their tiny House majority and Senate tie aren’t likely to survive the 2022 elections. But “moderate” Dems running in swing districts who have any hopes of being reelected don’t want to go on record as voting for that massive $3.5 trillion white whale of a bill before getting anything they want like the infrastructure bill.

Ironically, the $3.5 trillion bill may already be DOA because it needs all 50 Democrat votes in the Senate to pass, and Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have already come out against it. President Biden is pushing hard for it, but his stock is, to put it mildly, going down the toilet fast. The fact that in his latest appearance, he hawked this bill before bringing up the crisis in Afghanistan didn’t do the bill, or himself, any favors politically.

Here’s some more on the politics of all this from Rick Moran at PJ Media.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/24/house-delays-action-on-bidens-3-5-trillion-budget-bill-as-moderates-revolt-n1472213

Mike Huckabee

In a 4-3 ruling, with the three liberal Justices opposed, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order to the Biden Administration to reinstate the Trump “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring asylum seekers to stay on the other side of the border while their applications are considered. Border states sued, arguing that Biden’s move had brought back “catch and release” inside the US and spurred a massive wave of illegal immigration that endangers their citizens’ health, safety and security.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-reinstates-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy

Biden’s laughably-named “Department of Homeland Security” expressed disagreement with the ruling, saying, "DHS has appealed the district court’s order and will continue to vigorously challenge it. As the appeal process continues, however, DHS will comply with the order in good faith.”

That would be a refreshing change, to see the Biden Administration actually complying with a Supreme Court order. FYI, the appeals process normally ends when the Supreme Court rules against you.

In the meantime, if the DHS actually has any real interest in homeland security, they might ponder on whether there are any negative ramifications to the current policies of having an open border, releasing illegal border crossers inside the US, and encouraging America-hating jihadists all over the world by surrendering to the Taliban.

In a related story: If you forgot about the massive security problem represented by our porous border, that’s not by accident. Even though the illegal immigration crisis is worse than it’s ever been, the Biden lapdog media have been doing their best to wish it away by simply ignoring it. Newsbusters reports that coverage of the issue on the Big Three networks’ nightly newscasts has dropped by 96% since March, even as the crisis worsened.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2021/08/16/bidens-border-crisis-worse-ever-tv-coverage-drops-96-percent

The good news is that viewers are figuring out that they can’t rely on these sources to tell them the truth about what really matters, and they’re tuning out in droves.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/08/24/some-very-odd-results-in-the-cable-news-ratings-following-the-afghanistan-implosion-n432227

In Sunday’s cable news ratings, normally a big day for news networks, Fox News had 16 of the top 17 shows, with CNN’s highest place being “CNN Newsroom” at #15. MSNBC didn’t place a single show in the top 30. It’s no wonder, considering the jaw-dropping ways they are trying to ignore, spin, rationalize or blame Trump for Afghanistan.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-mathew-dowd-biden-extremely-good-job-afghanistan

The Redstate.com article linked above includes a screenshot of a recent MSNBC web homepage that doesn’t mention Afghanistan at all. The big story isn't about American lives being in jeopardy but the host of “Jeopardy!” stepping down over some offensive jokes he made years ago.

I assume people who want to avoid offensive jokes are no longer watching MSNBC.

Mike Huckabee

We had hoped to bring you updates from the White House and State Department this afternoon --- not that we trust anything they say, but we’d wanted to be able to report it --- but they’ve essentially gone silent. Their update earlier today was that there was no update. I am not kidding.

https://thelibertydaily.com/state-department-goes-into-hiding-following-kabul-airport-bombings/

But we do know that the situation keeps changing, hour by hour, and that it just keeps getting more grave. At the time of this writing, we can confirm that there two bombs were detonated. According to initial reports, four U.S. Marines were killed, but the death toll is now up to at least a dozen service members.

The suicide-bomb explosion closest to the airport entrance is described as a “complex attack.” The other explosion was outside the Baron Hotel, where Americans, Britons and Afghans had been told to gather in recent days in order to be evacuated. The only thing we’ve heard from the White House at this writing is that the President “has been briefed.” For more details on this poor excuse for an “evacuation,” here’s an excellent report.

https://www.q13fox.com/news/western-nations-warn-of-possible-attack-at-kabul-airport-amid-evacuation

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby did come out at 3PM Eastern Time to read a prepared statement and then take questions. He said they think there are “about a thousand” American citizens still in Afghanistan. He maintained that some of them do not want to leave. (!!!) He said they’ve screened “over 104,000 people.” He expressed pride in the actions of our service members and coalition partners and acknowledged that some evacuees have experienced “profound suffering.” In answer to a question, he said that, yes, they anticipated more attacks, perhaps rocket attacks. (Sure enough, later in the afternoon there were reports of another explosion.)

(We pause for this editorial comment: Hey, I thought the Taliban said they wouldn’t attack before the August 31 deadline! Does this mean they LIED? Ah, but, in breaking news, the attacks have been attributed not to the Taliban per se but to ISIS “K,” although this looks to us like a distinction without a difference.)

A bipartisan group of legislators has called on President Biden to extend his August 31 deadline to pull out U.S. forces. An excerpt from their statement: “As Democrats and Republicans, we stand united in our commitment to protecting U.S. citizens, diplomats, intelligence officers, and our foreign partners who are currently attempting to flee Afghanistan.” We’ll see if there’s any response to this from the White House, or if the President is just going to abandon all those people just to be able to say he obeyed the Taliban’s order.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/dozens-of-lawmakers-call-on-biden-to-extend-afghanistan-deadline-as-u-s-prepares-to-leave-thousands-behind

In another update just before our deadline, a reported 60 people have been killed in these bombings, including children.

Also, the White House announced mid-afternoon that our esteemed Commander-in-Chief will make an appearance later in the day, in which he will blame everyone but himself for this travesty. I made that last part up, but that's our prediction. We’ll have an analysis of that and full updates in our Friday morning newsletter.

In the meantime, our Thursday report wouldn’t be complete without this: Taliban fighters joyriding in a Black Hawk helicopter. Just a little something they picked up at Kandahar Airport.

Video appears to show Taliban taking joyride in US Black Hawk helicopter

https://nypost.com/2021/08/26/taliban-appear-to-take-joyride-in-us-made-helicopter-video/

Mike Huckabee

As of this morning, Andrew Cuomo is no longer Governor of New York, and that sound you just heard was millions of New Yorkers heaving a simultaneous sigh of relief. Cuomo being Cuomo, he couldn’t even leave without controversy, involving both his dog and his commutations of sentences for several convicted murderers.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ari-j-kaufman/2021/08/24/andrew-cuomo-commutes-sentence-of-weather-underground-terrorist-father-of-san-francisco-da-on-final-day-in-office-n1472146

But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t trying to abandon his dog. As radioactive as he is in the Democratic Party, if he wants any friends at this point, he’s going to need his dog.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-responds-he-reportedly-abandoned-dog-captain-executive-mansion

Lieutenant Gov. Kathy Hochul is being sworn in today as New York’s first female Governor. As someone who also became Governor during a turbulent and divisive time, due to the resignation of a corrupt Governor, I know the challenges she’ll face and sympathize. While our politics are obviously not in alignment, I wish her well in repairing the damage and restoring confidence in the state government. I hope she will consider how both bad policies and arrogance brought Cuomo down, and that she will work across the aisle, listen to the people and hear their grievances, and try to unite rather than divide or dictate.

If I could offer her a piece of friendly advice, it would be to read this article from the Federalist:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/23/the-nine-worst-unemployment-rates-in-the-country-are-in-areas-run-by-democrats/

It’s about how new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks New York as the fourth-worst state in unemployment. But beyond that, there’s a wider message. Note that the bottom nine states for employment all have Democrats in control of both the legislative and executive branches, while nine of the top ten states are run solidly by Republicans.

One of the first issues Gov. Hochul will have to deal with is the expanded federal unemployment benefits ending on September 6th. Many red states cut them off early because they were preventing people from taking jobs by paying them more to stay unemployed than to work. When they end, many New Yorkers will need to get back to work. That might be difficult if businesses are still being locked down, or ordered to turn away half their customers for not being vaccinated. Some harsh economic reality is barreling toward New York like a subway train. It’s best to start working to get off the tracks now.

FOR MORE POLITICS, GO HERE.

Mike Huckabee

Investigative reporter Lara Logan made a good point about the fiasco in Afghanistan on last night’s Tucker Carlson show. She said that “this doesn’t just empower al-Qaeda, and the terrorists’ offensive. It empowers every enemy the United States has.”

That observation might apply most specifically to China, which, according to China analyst Gordon Chang, has ties with the Taliban that go back over 20 years, to before 9/11.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/china-taliban-connection-hold-beijing-accountable-gordon-chang

Did anyone think it was odd that the Chinese Embassy in Kabul stayed open as the Taliban took over Afghanistan? The Taliban and the CCP must have had some sort of “understanding.” In contrast, we know what happened to OUR embassy as the Taliban advanced and Biden retreated and, in effect, surrendered. Our State Department abandoned their embassy building, the Taliban sacked it, and they took all the files left behind that identified Afghans who had helped America. God help those Afghans who were our friends.

As Chang reports, on July 28, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with senior Taliban officials in the Chinese city of Tianjin. The next step is for China to officially recognize the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

This association between the Taliban and China is nothing new. I wonder if we’ll ever know what role, if any, China might have played in the attack on the Twin Towers 20 years ago. Apparently, Huawei, along with another telecommunications company, ZTE, worked on Kabul’s telecom system two years before that. Right after 9/11, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said that China had no “formal relations” with the Taliban, that the only ties they had were on the “working level,” and that reports of China building telecom networks and dams for the Taliban were “unfounded rumors.”

Does anybody buy that? If recent events have brought about one thing, I hope it’s a total lack of patience with being LIED TO, over and over. Seriously, can we believe anything the CCP tells us about the virus? Can we believe anything the Taliban tell us about letting Americans into the airport? For that matter, can we believe anything our own administration tells us? Biden, Harris, Jen Psaki, the Joint Chumps of Staff? Tragically, no. As I said to Sean Hannity on his TV show last night, our administration is lying to us. Allies must assume they’re lying, too.

When Psaki, with a fleeting smile, can “call out” reporter Peter Doocy as “irresponsible” for suggesting that Americans are stranded outside the airport in Kabul, when we know that’s exactly what they are, then we can’t trust anything our leaders are telling us. When Biden assures us he’ll get all Americans out “who want to leave,” his implication that some Americans DON’T want to leave is such a huge whopper, it insults our intelligence. They all want to leave. I’m tired of being lied to.

Anyway, Chang says that ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES reported in the aftermath of 9/11 that Indian intelligence officials believed Huawei India (yes, there’s a Huawei India!) supplied communications surveillance equipment to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Huawei denied the charge, and a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman called it “misleading.” Not untrue, it should be noted; misleading.

China has also been a main supplier of small arms to the Taliban and insurgents in Iraq, a vast array of weaponry and ammo, some of which were shipped by dirty arms merchants directly from China’s factories. Some weapons were routed through intermediaries in Iran and Pakistan, but central Chinese authorities had to know where they were headed, as there would have been government surveillance every step of the way. Chang singles out a “series” of U.S. Presidents, notably George W. Bush, for looking the other way.

So, why would our leaders just let this go on? Recall that at the time, the thinking was to bring China in to the international system, to “engage” China, to indulge China, to trade with China, to fund Chinese virology labs hard at work studying bat viruses. Well, I made that last part up, sort of.

It turned out we couldn’t trust China, and the optimism is gone when it comes to dealing with that totalitarian state. After what Chang calls “two decades of aggressive, malicious and provocative acts,” we can no longer overlook their dangerous conduct. It’s not just the Taliban who must be held accountable for their terrorist atrocities, but also their #1 sponsor: China.

I have to wonder what Chang, who wrote the book THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA, is thinking of China’s position of power right now. Who, exactly, is collapsing? Our once-dependable power center, the Oval Office, is now a vacuum, a void, a cipher, a blank, a Black Hole in our universe that compares to nothing in our previous experience. So China is sitting in the catbird seat at the moment and will use this time as productively as possible.

China has also said it plans to coordinate with Iran and Russia on joint naval drills in the Persian Gulf, either late this year or early next year. The three countries pulled together for similar exercises in 2019. They plan to make it an annual event.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/23/iran-holding-joint-naval-drills-with-russia-china-in-coming-months/

The Russian ambassador said that these drills are being done “to practice actions to ensure the safety of international shipping and the fight against sea pirates.” Okay……

Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, met with the president of China, Xi Jinging, last week, reportedly to tell Xi that Iran was “ready to cooperate with China in establishing security, stability and peace in Afghanistan.” Ah, so this is who holds influence in the "new" Afghanistan as we depart. Raisi said, “We believe the departure of foreigners [NOTE: by “foreigners,” he means America], as well as past experiences in this country, has highlighted the need for the support and participation of all Afghans to ensure the security and development of Afghanistan more than ever.”

Raisi also spoke to Russian President Putin, saying much the same thing, that they should “make the U.S. withdrawal a turning point for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan.” He’s also spoken with Japan’s foreign minister, who traveled to Iran for the meeting.

Incidentally, Iran’s nuclear program is chugging right along, with the U.N. confirming that they’ve produced uranium metal enriched to 20 percent for the first time and have upped their production of enriched uranium by 60 percent. Of course, Iran insists this is for its civilian nuclear program; they’re not interested at all in developing a bomb.

I wonder if even Jen Psaki could tell a lie that big. On second thought, sure she could.

China and its growing circle of friends need to know that Americans won’t stand for the current situation and will soon be tossing out our worthless “leaders.” We’d do it today, if we could. Time to admit the biggest national mistake in history. It’s obvious we need leaders like Trump, maybe Trump-to-the-tenth-power, to reassure our allies that we haven't lost our minds and impress upon our adversaries that there are consequences to stepping out of line with us.

“Huckabee” writer/pop culture guru Pat Reeder

We’re all very sad to have to report that Don Everly died at home in Nashville Saturday at 84.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/don-everly-everly-brothers-dead-84

Along with his late brother Phil, who died in 2014, they formed the Everly Brothers, one of the most important early rock groups. Their famous harmonies influenced many performers, particularly the Beatles. Paul McCartney once said that when he and John Lennon first started singing together, “I was Phil, and he was Don.” Keith Richards also called Don Everly “one of the best rhythm guitar players I’ve ever heard.”

Their original hits remain some of the most-played classics of the ‘50s and early ‘60s and have been covered by countless other artists, including “Bye-Bye Love,” “Devoted to You,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Till I Kissed You,” “Cathy’s Clown,” “When Will I Be Loved?”, “Let It Be Me,” “Crying in the Rain,” and of course, “Wake Up, Little Susie.” That song reached #1 on both the Billboard Pop and Country charts, despite being banned in Boston due to its “suggestive” lyrics about two teens who ruin their reputations by falling asleep at the drive-in and not waking up until long past curfew. When you look at what’s on the charts now, you can tell that was a very different era indeed.

The pressures of show business, drugs and personal issues caused acrimony between Don and Phil, who each went solo and didn’t speak to each other for years before they reconciled in the early ‘80s. It was such a thrilling turn of events in the music world that their comeback album, “EB84,” was produced by Dave Edmunds with songs contributed by such famous admirers as Jeff Lynne of ELO, Nick Lowe and Paul McCartney, who wrote their comeback hit, “On the Wings of a Nightingale.”

As another duo, the Righteous Brothers (who weren’t actually brothers) once sang, “If there’s a Rock and Roll Heaven, well, you know they’ve got a hell of a band.” Now, that band certainly has two great harmony singers.

Mike Huckabee

This week President Joe Biden, Sec of Defense Austin Lloyd and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley should do our nation a favor and resign and let us replace them with Moe, Larry and Curly. Forgive my bluntness, but our nation stands in humiliation and dishonor before the world for the inept, incompetent, and disastrous manner in which this administration exited our 20 year involvement in Afghanistan and allowed the Taliban to take full control in a matter of mere hours. Getting out of there wasn’t the controversy. Most Americans felt 20 years of war there were more than enough and all 4 Presidents who oversaw our involvement wanted to bring the troops home. But this week, our exit from Afghanistan was a goat rodeo. The worst wasn’t that the ill-prepared Biden team embarrassed us; it’s that the sloppy way in which they did it put thousands of Americans’ lives at risk, and created an almost certain death sentence to the Afghans who fought alongside of us these 20 years and who were promised safe passage to America only to be betrayed in spectacular fashion and left behind like worn out shoes. But it’s not all we left behind. Over $83 BILLION worth of US taxpayer funded Blackhawk helicopters, airplanes, Humvees, and every kind of weapon and ammunition imaginable weren’t brought back to the taxpayers or even left in the hands of the Afghan freedom fighters. It was hurriedly abandoned and fell into the hands of the Taliban. It would be bad enough if they had actually defeated us to win such prizes, but it’s much worse. We just gathered it up and left it under the Christmas tree, wrapped and with a ribbon!

We betrayed the trust of more than the Afghans in spectacular fashion. We betrayed the trust of our NATO partners and signaled to our adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea that with Joe Biden in the White House, our word is dirt.

Did you see President Biden’s speech that he came out of hiding to deliver? After pointing fingers at the Afghan army, the Afghan people, and of course Donald Trump, he pretended to take responsibility for the messed up mission but you can’t blame everyone BUT yourself and then say “the buck stops here,” after you’ve passed the buck to everyone and anyone in sight.

Most disgusting was his flippant response to a question as to what he felt when he saw people lose their grip on the outside of a C-17 who were so desperate to get to the American safety and freedom they had been promised that they physically held on to the plane’s fuselage as it took off only to plunge helplessly to the earth. When asked what he felt when he saw those pitiful souls beg for passage out only to die a gruesome death of spiraling to the ground, he angrily retorted that that was 3 or 4 days ago. As if time will erase those images of human beings risking death to escape the brutality of the Taliban.

Sadly, no one has been fired for the dumpster fire that substituted for diplomacy in this Biden bungling. And probably no one will. But I hope whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or Independent, you will objectively be outraged by the incompetent failure of those entrusted to protect our nation and in whose hands our young servicemen and women live or die. We are a better nation than this. We can elect better leaders than these. And it’s time we purpose that we’ll repent of our sins against the civilized world and never let something so inexcusable disgrace our nation again.

Mike Huckabee

The adults are back in the room, the best and the brightest are once again in charge, and competence and normality have returned. At least, that’s what we were told when Mr. “40 Years in the Senate and Never Right About a Single Issue” replaced Trump as President. Here’s today’s round-up of how well that’s going:

We now know more about why Afghanistan’s government and armed forces collapsed so swiftly, and it wasn’t inevitable at all. It was due to catastrophically dumb decisions made by Biden and his crew, who ignored warnings from military experts, closed down Bagram air base and pulled all the US air power and maintenance support that the Afghan forces needed before Americans were out or the nation was secured. He also did it during what’s known in Afghanistan as “fighting season,” when the Taliban are primed to attack, rather than waiting until the bitter winter was starting, when they tend to go home and hunker down.

In short, the disaster wasn’t necessarily in the pullout, but in the way the pullout was handled. Biden can point all the fingers on both hands, but this tragic and humiliating military, security and humanitarian catastrophe is his to own.

https://www.westernjournal.com/recent-biden-blunder-wrecked-afghan-army-doomed-rapid-defeat/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

And here’s some more on that from Austin Bay…

https://strategypage.com/on_point/202108172241.aspx

There are as many as 15,000 Americans essentially trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, and the Biden White House apparently has no plan to get them out.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/no-plans-to-evacuate-americans-outside-kabul-report-says

Well, other than assuring us everything will be fine and assuming the Taliban will keep its promises. That’s already working out just great…

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/17/planes-flying-out-of-kabul-half-empty-as-taliban-beat-people-on-road-to-the-airport-n428460

I particularly enjoyed this statement:

"Our message remains for American citizens and for others who have expressed interest in relocation out of Afghanistan: shelter in place until and unless you receive a communication from the U.S. embassy." Yes, I’m sure a number of people have “expressed interest in relocation out of Afghanistan.” They make it sound like they're looking for a real estate agent.

Here’s some info on the billions of dollars’ worth of US military equipment that’s being left behind for the Taliban to use against us.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/08/18/left-behind-billions-in-u-s-equipment-for-the-afghanistan-taliban-to-use-against-us-n1470346

Another thing Biden was supposed to return to the White House was the respect of other nations. That’s going just swimmingly…

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/nato-allies-urge-rethink-on-alliance-after-biden-s-unilateral-afghanistan-exit-1.4649515

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/15901759/boris-johnson-takes-swipe-at-joe-biden/

https://www.westernjournal.com/israeli-publication-slams-biden-afghanistan-issues-warning-americans-need-hear/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

It appears likely that the Biden White House inadvertently revealed the identities of CIA operatives in dangerous places for the sake of a photo op.

https://www.westernjournal.com/white-house-makes-massive-mistake-1-photo-outs-intelligence-officials-twitter/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

One of the current leaders of the Taliban that helped it rise back to power is a familiar name, since he’s one of the five terrorists released from Gitmo by Barack Obama in exchange for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

https://www.westernjournal.com/mastermind-behind-taliban-takeover-part-gitmo-5-released-obama-2014/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

China, seeing Biden’s obvious weakness and reluctance to stand by our allies, is setting the stage for war and threatening to retake Taiwan.

https://www.westernjournal.com/china-thrilled-bidens-afghanistan-disaster-immediately-sets-stage-war/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

So all told, the country’s in the very best of hands! Well, if voters wanted "normal" back, they got it. Personally, I preferred prosperity, secure borders, energy independence, Middle East peace and the occasional mean tweet.

Mike Huckabee

Immediately after Monday’s brief speech, President Biden went back to his Camp David vacation, and the White House continued its silence. For those who wonder how the Administration can just shut down at such a time, conservative commentator Ian McKelvey believes that both the Afghan debacle and the silence are intentional.

https://twitter.com/ian_mckelvey/status/1427232830103371778/photo/1

McKelvey unearthed an article in The Atlantic magazine reporting that Biden had always been the strongest advocate in the Obama White House for pulling out of Afghanistan, regardless of the consequences for the Afghan people because he didn’t think there would be any political price to pay for it. Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, wrote in his diary in 2010 that when he reminded Biden of America’s obligations to Afghans like the girl in the Kabul school, Biden replied, “F--- that. We don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam; Nixon and Kissenger got away with it.”

So if he seems uncaring about the fate of the Afghan people who trusted us, he is. And if he refuses to talk to the media for a week or let anyone in his Administration talk, maybe it’s because he thinks that after a week of silence, the lapdog media will just let this story “blow over” and forget about it.

You know who won’t forget that we have a weak President who puts political calculations ahead of principle and commitment to our allies? Every enemy we have on Earth, starting with China, which claimed it shows that the US abandons its allies and pointedly asked, “Is this some kind of omen for Taiwan’s future fate?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/afghanistan-withdrawal-china-taliban

Mike Huckabee

The Biden Administration now has a humiliating, tragic, international disaster on its watch that will go down in history (if we still have any honest historians) alongside the Bay of Pigs, the fall of Saigon and the siege in Benghazi. If any book is written about Biden’s handling of this latest and most tragic of his string of disasters, it could easily be named “Profiles in Fecklessness.” Biden has ordered 5,000 US troops in to help evacuate people, and there are reports of attacks by US bombers, but not on the Taliban. They're blowing up our own military planes and other weapons that the Afghan forces abandoned before the Taliban can seize them.

Biden was on vacation at Camp David when Afghanistan began to fall apart, and his silence was deafening (even his spokesperson, Jen Psaki, is gone for the week.) Filling the void were replays of his now-notorious July 8th press conference in which he assured us his Afghanistan pullout would be orderly and it was unlikely the Taliban would come back. Other high Administration officials also assured us that a Taliban takeover could be repelled because it wasn’t the type of thing that could happen between a Frida and a Monday --- which is precisely what happened.

https://www.westernjournal.com/former-cia-officer-looks-back-bidens-july-speech-infamous-devastating-news-conference-us-president/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-lying-just-ignorant-said-asked-taliban-takeover/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Biden is facing heavy criticism from across the political spectrum in the US and internationally.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/biden-admin-faces-bipartisan-criticism-over-collapse-of-afghanistan_3949755.html

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/boris-johnson-blames-us-and-biden-for-afghanistan-collapse

Former President Trump called on Biden “to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy.” There have also been calls for the resignations of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley for bungling Afghanistan while focusing on wokeness in the military, Trump’s nonexistent “coup” plot and Tucker Carlson. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was reduced to imploring the Taliban to act civilized, which is like begging a charging rhinoceros to behave itself and not trample you.

https://redstate.com/jerrywilson/2021/08/15/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-embarrasses-us-in-front-of-the-taliban-again-n427090

In return, Biden tried to blame Trump for sticking him with the Afghanistan pullout decision, which I guess was the only Trump policy he thought was not reversible.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/16/no-biden-cant-blame-trump-for-the-afghanistan-withdrawal-disaster/

But while it would be easy and politically expedient (and not unfair) to blame Biden for this catastrophe, the truth is that the real failure here is of our “intelligence” agencies and the current military leadership. Trump also planned to remove troops from Afghanistan, and his plans also relied on the “intelligence” he was receiving about the relative strength of the Taliban (although I assume that unlike Biden, he would have paid attention to military leaders who’d actually been there.)

Those agencies were completely blindsided by the Taliban’s swift advance and by news that they already had shadow governments set up in various cities and were paying off officials to surrender. Any President’s decisions are only as sound as the “intelligence” he’s given, and both Trump and Biden were assured that the Afghan government was strong enough to hold and any assault would take months and could be repelled. They were devastatingly wrong on every count, and a lot of people should lose their jobs over it, not that anyone is ever held to account anymore.

Biden’s not responsible for the failure of intelligence, but he is responsible for being caught flatfooted and freezing when things began to spiral out of control.

Countless lives will be lost and innocent people tortured, raped and enslaved, and other nations will hesitate to trust us again, because our CIA and top military brass failed miserably. Maybe they were too preoccupied with trying to frame the last President and his associates, or focusing on the “real” threat to America (white supremacists), and couldn’t be bothered to notice what was happening in Afghanistan. In a better world, they’d be going to prison, but let’s hope and pray that the next Republican President – in 2024 – will at the very least issue a blizzard of pink slips to the FBI, CIA, NSA and Pentagon, and have these deadly incompetents and useless political operatives forcibly escorted off the premises.

Mike Huckabee

Last week, the Texas Supreme Court made news when it ruled that the nearly 60 Democrat state legislators who ran away to Washington, DC, to prevent the vote on a Texas election integrity bill could be civilly detained and returned to the Texas House chamber.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-supreme-court-allows-for-arrest-of-democrats-who-dont-show-up-to-legislature

They lifted a district judge’s temporary protection order that had blocked the threat of arrest for those legislators. Not only had they been lying shamelessly about the bill, calling it “the voter suppression bill” and, of course, “Jim Crow” when it is nothing of the kind, but they were staying away from the Capitol so the Republicans wouldn’t have the requisite 51 Democrats for a quorum. The Court made it clear, however, that in evading their responsibility, they were in the wrong. Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said, “We look forward to the Supreme Court upholding the rule of law and stopping another stall tactic by the Texas Democrats.”

The Democrats had said that while they were in DC, they would be busy lobbying for federal election legislation. As we’ve discussed here, the Constitution clearly intends state legislatures to run elections, not the federal government. But since when have Democrats cared what the Constitution intended when that was at odds with what THEY intended?

Anyway, now to the breaking news, which again involves the Texas Supreme Court. On Sunday, they issued another ruling, this time regarding the ongoing power struggle between Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been fighting for personal choice in the response to COVID-19, and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who has taken just the opposite tack with his reimposition of compulsory mask-wearing in schools, government offices and indoor business locations. To cut to the chase, Abbott won this round.

https://trendingpolitics.com/breaking-texas-supreme-court-sides-with-gov-abbot-and-says-mask-mandates-illegal-knab/

I’ll walk you through the legal steps that led us here.

On July 29th, Gov. Abbott issued an executive order that “removed local authority over measures to lessen the severity of the pandemic,” effectively prohibiting local mask mandates throughout the state. Importantly, the ban didn’t prohibit anyone, anywhere in Texas, from wearing a mask if they preferred to; they just couldn’t be MADE to. Parents who wanted to mask-up their kids before sending them to school were perfectly free to do so.

Judge Jenkins, set on requiring masks for everyone, declared a “local emergency,” which he argued gave him the power to issue such a dictum. (You’d think everyone would see the problem with one person, a county judge, being able to hand himself the authority to exert that level of control on personal behavior.) He did this on the basis of a reported surge in covid cases and the threat of the new “Delta” variant, which, though apparently more contagious than the original covid, has not been shown to be more virulent.

On Friday, a decision by the 5th Court of Appeals allowed local officials such as Judge Jenkins to require masks in schools and indoor spaces, so Dallas businesses geared up to enforce mask-wearing with their customers, some of whom they knew would be angry about it. But what could they do? For your entertainment pleasure, here’s a portion of a message one exasperated Dallas business owner sent out to his clientele and posted on the door of his building...

“Dearest Clients:

"On Wednesday, August 11th 2021 at 2:11 PM, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins issued an executive order requiring all commercial businesses to develop and implement a health and safety policy. This policy must require at a minimum universal indoor masking for guests and employees alike. This notice will serve as [our] health and safety policy.

“In accordance with the above executive order, effective the moment we swing open our doors on Thursday, August 12th, all team members and clients will be required to wear a mask while inside the [building]. Don’t give us any sh** when you come in, don’t complain and don’t start trying to enlighten anyone about the risk/reward of wearing masks.

“We don’t care. We’re as sick of wearing and talking about them as you are. However, we have neither the time nor inclination to mount any kind of resistance.”

This message should give you some idea of how divided and on-edge the citizens of Dallas are about this issue. For many months, business owners bent over backwards to comply with lockdowns, “distancing” and mask-wearing. Many Americans lost their businesses, some for good. And after all that, after a year-and-a-half, when people seem to have pretty much come to terms with the risks and were starting to live their lives somewhat normally again, a local judge acts all by himself to slap them down once more.

There’s one big problem, though, with using covid infection rates to declare a state of “local emergency” in Dallas County. Judge Jenkins is also welcoming immigrants who cross illegally at the Texas-Mexico border, many infected with COVID and not being tested, let alone vaccinated, before they arrive in Dallas. They are being bused here from the Rio Grande Valley, and Jenkins apparently has no problem with the threat posed to public health by this.

It’s happening because the border city of Laredo, Texas, sued President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security in July in the Laredo Division of the Southern District Court of Texas for making them accommodate thousands of people crossing illegally in the Rio Grande Valley. Their city just wasn’t equipped to do this, they argued. So they reached a settlement with the DHS --- which I assume pleased Laredo but which involved busing the immigrants to Austin, Dallas and Houston instead! Buses reportedly arrive throughout the day now in Dallas, with no word on when this might ever stop.

https://myrgv.com/local-news/immigration/2021/08/10/laredo-dhs-reach-compromise-on-migrant-lawsuit/

If Jenkins wants to argue that rising COVID rates are causing a “local emergency” in Dallas County, doesn’t he also have to do something about the busloads arriving there every day filled with untested, unvaccinated migrants, many of whom are surely infected and highly contagious with the “Delta” variant? Mexico’s infection rates are very high.

https://www.infobae.com/new-resizer/dP_PAg_9vWWCtE7YBXtiwoViURM=/1200x628/filters:format(jpg):quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/KYYQAVEXL5CS7HX4XUQGI5PYXQ.jpeg

And yet the buses keep rolling into Dallas. Austin and Houston, too.

Either we are fighting a pandemic, or we’re not. Either covid is an emergency, or it’s not. I hope that in making their final ruling in this case, which could take weeks or months, the Texas Supreme Court will think about that.

Mike Huckabee

We should all give a big thanks to Sen. Ted Cruz for being awake and alert at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and saving American democracy.

https://www.westernjournal.com/sleeping-ted-cruz-saved-america-democrats-election-takeover/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

After 15 mind-numbing hours of amendment votes on the Democrats’ $3.2 TRILLION spending orgy bill, Senate “Majority” Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to sneak the “For The People” Act (aka, the “Legalize Vote Fraud” Act) into the mix, in hopes that sleep-deprived Republicans wouldn’t notice and would fail to object, thereby approving it by unanimous consent. But Cruz rose and objected repeatedly, stopping Schumer in his tracks.

Cruz called the bill a “federal takeover of elections” and a “massive power grab by Democrats” that would do the opposite of its title by ensuring that the people can’t vote politicians out of office. He elaborated that it would “strike down virtually every reasonable voter integrity law in the country, including voter ID laws supported by the overwhelming majority of this country, including prohibitions on ballot harvesting, again widely supported by people in this country. It would mandate that felons be allowed to vote, and it would automatically register millions of illegal aliens to vote. It would profoundly undermine democracy in this country…”

Yes, but “for the people!”

The defeated Schumer hilariously grumbled, “Let there be no mistake about what is going on here. We have reached a point in this chamber where Republicans appear to oppose any measure — any measure, no matter how common sense — to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy.”

That’s funny, because if you replaced the word “Republicans” with “Democrats,” that would be a perfect description of what Democrats are trying to do all over the nation to block common sense election integrity measures and to destroy them completely with the “Legalize Vote Fraud” Act.

Mike Huckabee

As predicted, the ratings for the Tokyo Olympics have been pretty dismal. While the media try to blame it on COVID or the lack of cheering crowds, viewers have made it clear that they have no interest in seeing US athletes use their spotlight to make leftwing political statements and disrespect their own country. This latest iteration of “Get woke, go broke” forced NBC to rerun commercials free of charge to advertisers, to help make up for the lower-than-promised viewership.

https://www.westernjournal.com/woke-politics-backfire-nbcs-olympics-coverage-hits-ratings-rock-bottom/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

It is a shame that the angry grandstanders cause people to miss some truly inspiring moments by great, patriotic young Americans. But as is often said, “Leftism ruins everything it touches.”

In a related story, Subway Sandwich shop owners, all of whom are independent franchisees, are begging the woke corporate office to yank the commercials featuring radical US women’s soccer team leader Megan Rapinoe. Store owners say they’re been flooded with complaints from customers who say they will never eat at Subway again as long as it's represented by that “anti-American” “creep” who kneels during the National Anthem.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/subway-franchisees-megan-rapinoes-tv-ads

Corporate didn’t respond to requests for comment from Fox Business News. But they’d better respond to their franchisees.

As for Rapinoe, if she loses the Subway gig, don’t worry about her. Victoria’s Secret recently signed her, and I’m sure that will work out much better.