At Amazon, Andrew Biggio, The Rifle: Combat Stories from America's Last WWII Veterans, Told Through an M1 Garand.
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Teen Gender Transition (VIDEO)
Home Portable Counter-Top Ice Machine -- Great for Mixed Drinks and Holiday Parties
BONUS: Victor Davis Hanson, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming.
Looting and Rioting Break Out in South Africa (VIDEO)
At the Los Angeles Times, "Death toll rises to 72 in South Africa rioting after jailing of ex-president":
And watch: "Looting and rioting break out across South Africa in wake of former President Zuma’s imprisonment."More than half of South Africa’s 60 million people live in poverty, with an unemployment rate of 32%, according to official statistics. The COVID-19 pandemic, with layoffs and an economic downturn, has increased the hunger and desperation that helped propel the protests triggered by Zuma’s arrest into wider rioting.
Biden Lobbies for Democrats' Infrastructure Scam (VIDEO)
Passage of the bill really depends on one person: Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
At the New York Times, "Democrats Roll Out $3.5 Trillion Budget to Fulfill Biden’s Broad Agenda."
George Floyd Mural Struck by Lightning (VIDEO)
Leader McConnell May Back Biden's Infrastructure Boondoggle
Apparently this is the one piece of the Dems' legislative agenda that McConnell will support --- probably because the bill is larded with billions in bipartisan pork-barrel spending.
At Politico, "Pigs fly: McConnell weighs giving Biden a bipartisan win":
Something strange is happening in Washington: Mitch McConnell might go along with a central piece of Joe Biden’s agenda.The self-appointed “Grim Reaper” of the Senate, a minority leader who said just two months ago that “100% of my focus is on standing up to this administration,” has been remarkably circumspect about the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure deal. He’s privately telling his members to separate that effort from Democrats’ party-line $3.5 trillion spending plan and publicly observed there’s a “decent” chance for its success.
Other than questioning its financing, McConnell has aired little criticism of the bipartisan agreement to fund roads, bridges and other physical infrastructure, even as he panned Democrats’ separate spending plans on Wednesday as “wildly out of proportion” given the nation's inflation rate. His cautious approach to a top Biden priority reflects the divide among Senate Republicans over whether to collaborate with Democrats on part of the president’s spending plans while fighting tooth and nail on the rest. Many Democrats predict McConnell will kill the agreement after stringing talks out for weeks, but the current infrastructure talks are particularly sensitive for the GOP leader because one of his close allies, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, is the senior Republican negotiator. McConnell is aware of the conventional wisdom that he will ultimately knife the deal and is taking pains not to become the face of its opposition...
RTWT.
Wednesday, July 14, 2021
The C.R.T. Scam
From Jason Riley, at WSJ, "Critical Race Theory Is a Hustle":
Ultimately, Critical Race Theory is about blaming your problems on other people—based on their race—which might be the last thing we should be teaching our children, writes @jasonrileywsj https://t.co/RGzagC1qOv
— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) July 14, 2021
A majority of American fourth- and eighth-graders can’t read or do math at grade level, according to the Education Department. And that assessment is from 2019, before the learning losses from pandemic school closures. Whenever someone asks me about critical race theory, that statistic comes to mind. What’s the priority, teaching math and reading, or turning elementary schools into social-justice boot camps? Given that black and Hispanic students are more likely to be lagging academically, it’s a question that anyone professing to care deeply about social inequality might consider. Learning gaps manifest themselves in all kinds of ways later in life, from unemployment rates and income levels to the likelihood of teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and involvement with the criminal-justice system. Our jails and prisons already have too many woke illiterates. Wealthier parents will make sure their kids receive a decent education, even if it means using private schools or hiring tutors. But the majority of children are relegated to the traditional public-school system, where progressives now want to prioritize the teaching of critical race theory. In addition to being a horrible idea, the timing couldn’t be worse. As the country rapidly diversifies—for more than a decade, U.S. population growth has been driven primarily by Asians and Hispanics—liberals want to teach children to obsess over racial and ethnic differences. What could go wrong? Recently, the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, announced that they had jumped on the bandwagon. At its annual meeting earlier this month, the NEA adopted a proposal stating that it is “reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.” More, the organization pledged to “fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric” and issue a study that “critiques empire, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cisheteropatriarchy, capitalism, ableism, anthropocentrism, and other forms of power and oppression at the intersections of our society.” There was no proposal vowing to improve math and reading test scores, alas. Meanwhile, the NEA’s sister outfit, the American Federation of Teachers, has joined forces with Ibram X. Kendi, an activist-scholar who openly embraces racial discrimination against whites. “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” Mr. Kendi asserted in “How to Be an Anti-Racist.” Sadly, that sort of circular drivel is what passes for deep thinking on race today. Mr. Kendi spoke at an AFT conference last week, and the union announced that it will donate copies of his writings to schools, AFT members, educators and youth mentors. Critical-race ideology is also entering the classroom via the New York Times “1619 Project,” which claims that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery and earned its creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize. In a forthcoming book, “Woke Racism,” the humanities professor John McWhorter argues that proponents like Mr. Kendi and Ms. Hannah-Jones have mostly been given a pass because they’re racial minorities, they’re on the left, and criticizing them is politically incorrect. “On the issue of the Revolutionary War, Hannah-Jones’s claim is simply false, but our current cultural etiquette requires pretending that isn’t true—because she’s black,” Mr. McWhorter writes. “Someone has received a Pulitzer Prize for a mistaken interpretation of historical documents about which legions of actual scholars are expert. Meanwhile, the claim is being broadcast, unquestioned, in educational materials being distributed across the nation.” Mr. McWhorter is right to point out the racial double standards at work in elevating shoddy pseudoscholarship...
A lot could go wrong, apparently.
Still more.
The Sackler Family's Opioid Settlement and Billionaire Justice
On the opiod crisis, at the New York Times, "This Is What Billionaire Justice Looks Like":
In 2016, a small-time drug dealer in Leesburg, Va., named Darnell Washington sold a customer a batch of what he thought was heroin. It turned out to be fentanyl. The customer shared it with a friend, and the friend died from an overdose. To combat the opioid crisis, prosecutors have begun treating overdose deaths not as accidents but as crimes, using tough statutes to charge the dealers who sold the drugs. Washington had never met the person who overdosed. But, facing a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 20 years for “distribution resulting in death,” he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of distribution and is now serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison. I thought about this the other day when it became clear that members of the billionaire Sackler family will most likely soon receive a sweeping grant of immunity from all litigation relating to their role in helping to precipitate the opioid crisis. Through their control of Purdue Pharma, the families of Raymond and Mortimer Sackler made a vast fortune selling OxyContin, a powerful prescription opioid painkiller that, like fentanyl, is a chemical cousin of heroin. Though they are widely reviled for profiting from a public health crisis that has resulted in the death of half a million Americans, they have used their money and influence to play our system like a harp. It is hardly news that our society treats people like Darnell Washington with sledgehammer vengeance, and people like the Sacklers with velvet gloves. But it’s worth asking: How did they pull this off? For a long time, the families of Raymond and Mortimer Sackler simply evaded scrutiny, pruning their public image so that people knew about the philanthropic contributions like the Sackler Library at Oxford, but not about the source of their wealth. After the press started writing stories, in 2001, about how OxyContin had given rise to a wave of addiction, high-price spin doctors labored to keep the Sackler name out of the controversy. As the death toll associated with OxyContin grew, Purdue continued to argue in its marketing campaign that the drug was rarely addictive. When journalists raised tough questions, the company sent its lawyers to intervene with their editors. This “can I see your manager” approach works even with law enforcement. In 2006, federal prosecutors in Virginia were preparing to charge Purdue with felonies. They focused on three senior lieutenants who worked for the company, expecting them to flip on the Sacklers — the ultimate target, according to the lead prosecutor — when faced with potential prison time. But Purdue had enlisted two former U.S. attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Mary Jo White. Ms. White telephoned Paul McNulty, who was then the deputy attorney general: “It’s Mary Jo White,” Mr. McNulty recalled recently. “It’s somebody who thought of herself as having access.” The Justice Department informed the federal prosecutors in Virginia that they could not charge the executives with felonies, robbing them of their most significant point of leverage: the threat of jail. The executives did not cooperate with efforts to implicate the Sacklers; instead, they pleaded guilty to misdemeanors while maintaining that they had done nothing wrong. The company pleaded guilty to felony “misbranding” and paid a $600 million fine. You would not be alone in detecting a whiff of La Cosa Nostra...
Still more at that top link.
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Shohei Ohtani Bats and Pitches in All-Star Game (VIDEO)
At the video, Ohtani gets three outs in the bottom of the first (so he was the American League's lead pitcher for this year's game).
Apparently, he was the biggest star at this year's game as well.
At LAT, "Shohei Ohtani solidifies role as baseball’s biggest attraction in All-Star debut":
DENVER — They cheered their own, hometown ovations for Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black and shortstop Trevor Story, and a raucous welcome back to former Rockies star Nolan Arenado. They booed players from the Yankees and Dodgers, jeering even Chris Taylor for his place on an evil big-market team. For almost every other player introduced at the start of Tuesday’s MLB All-Star game, however, the crowd reception was routine. For only one other player did the 49,184 inside Coors Field make an exception, roaring to life at the announcement of one more specific name. “Leading off,” Fox broadcaster Joe Buck announced over the stadium public-address system, “the designated hitter, and starting pitcher: Shohei Ohtani!” Suddenly, as the Angels’ two-way star flashed across the video board, warming up in the bullpen in preparation for his first All-Star game appearance, a jam-packed ballpark went nuts. If ever there was a doubt about Ohtani’s place, popularity and impact within the sport, this week’s festivities had delivered one more moment putting them to rest. Over the first half of this season, Ohtani has become one of the biggest attractions in baseball. And this week, he looked like a natural in the role, calmly and confidently saying and doing all the right things. He participated in Monday’s home run derby, exhausting himself in an epic first-round defeat to Juan Soto. He walked the “Purple Carpet” before Tuesday’s game and made TV appearance after TV appearance leading up to first pitch. The first player in MLB history to be selected to an All-Star game as a pitcher and hitter, he did both in the midsummer classic too, grounding out twice as the American League’s starting designated hitter and pitching a perfect first inning as the team’s starting pitcher, hitting 100 mph in a game for the first time in three months. He called it the “most memorable” moment of his MLB career so far — “obviously I’ve never played in the playoffs yet, or World Series,” he noted, adding “once I do that, that’s probably going to surpass it” — and said he even got nervous being around so many other greats in the sport...
Nervous? Nah. The guy was out there with a big smile on his face, soaking up the adulation and having the time of his life.
A real pro.
Still more.
My Black Generation Is Fighting Like Hell to Stop the Whitelash
Pfft.
This guy, Elie Mystal, is a freakin' dork.
At the Nation, "My Black Generation Is Fighting Like Hell to Stop the Whitelash":
The thought that:
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) July 13, 2021
A: The white people who don't know what's been happening.
B: Are going to be the white people to rise up
C: Against fellow whites
D: IS FUCKING STOOPID
It now appears likely that I will be part of the first generation of Black people to do worse than my parents and leave a crueler world for my children than the one I inherited. When I say “worse,” I don’t mean by a metric of homes owned or acres plowed or yachts docked or whatever measure white people mean when they bemoan doing worse than their parents. In fact, I’m doing better than my parents economically, as are a visible minority of Black people my age (I’m 43). Instead, I mean that I inherited a legacy of civil rights, a stone of freedom each Black generation since emancipation has pushed relentlessly through peaks and valleys towards the summit of equality, but mine will be the first generation to lose more ground than we’ve gained. We will leave our kids further from the promised land than our parents left us. White Americans my age are one step removed from their “Greatest Generation.” It was their grandparents who went to Europe to fight the Nazis and then returned and settled right back into the apartheid system that was well-established here. The Black civil rights generation, our greatest generation, fought those forces of fascism and white supremacy here, on the home front, several years later, and in so doing forced America to live up to its empty promises of freedom and equality for all. Thanks to their efforts, my generation was born into more opportunity than any generation of Black folks in the history of the New World. We haven’t squandered it. My Black generation has enjoyed unprecedented social and cultural influence. Some of us have achieved wild economic success. We even got to see the very first Black president. If you start the clock in April 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball, you’ll see that Black Americans have accomplished one of the most successful nonviolent political and social revolutions in human history. But my generation has not been the cause of those victories, merely the beneficiaries of our parents’ and grandparents’ successes. Even Barack Obama understood that. When he met Ruby Bridges, the woman who, at the age of 6, integrated the first elementary school in Louisiana, Obama said, “I think it’s fair to say that if it wasn’t for you guys, I wouldn’t be here today.” Maybe that’s why white people are trying to ban Bridges’s story today. A new Tennessee law bars the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. While there is, obviously, no such teaching going on in Tennessee public schools—Critical Race Theory is, for the 1,000th time, an academic legal discipline—the white parents pushing this know what they’re after. They highlighted four books they wanted taken out of the Tennessee curriculum; Ruby Bridges Goes to School: My True Story, by Ruby Bridges, was one of them. Bridges’s generation made Obama possible. My generation has lived to see white people try to erase those gains...
Still more.
RELATED: I don't actually believe this story, at Truthout, "Right-Wingers Are Taking Over Library Boards to Remove Books on Racism."
Pfft.
Megan Parry's Mild Weather Forecast
My buddy up in Fresno emailed and mentioned it was up to 111 degrees up there, and of course we had the record-setting temperatures in Death Valley a few days back (130 degrees, yikes!).
But here in the Southland it's been a truly mild summer, with temps actually below average for this time of years.
Here's the lovely Ms. Megan, who is expecting:
Iranian Intelligence Operatives Arrested in Plot to Kidnap U.S.-Based Activist
Wow! A little international intrigue, and featuring the Iranians too, heh.
At the Justice Department, "Iranian Intelligence Officials Indicted on Kidnapping Conspiracy Charges."
And at the New York Times, "Iranian Operatives Planned to Kidnap a Brooklyn Author, Prosecutors Say":
An Iranian American journalist living in Brooklyn who has been a sharp critic of the Iranian government was the target of an international kidnapping plot orchestrated by an intelligence network in Iran, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. In an indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, four Iranians were charged with conspiring to kidnap the journalist and author, Masih Alinejad. Ms. Alinejad was not identified by prosecutors, but confirmed in an interview that she was the intended target of the plot. Last year, Ms. Alinejad wrote in a newspaper article that Iranian government officials had unleashed a social media campaign calling for her abduction. The four defendants all live in Iran and remain at large, the prosecutors said, identifying one of them, Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, 50, as an Iranian intelligence official and the three others as “Iranian intelligence assets.” A fifth defendant, accused of supporting the plot but not participating in the kidnapping conspiracy, was arrested in California. The indictment describes a plot that included attempts to lure Ms. Alinejad, an American citizen, to a third country to capture her and forcibly render her to Iran. The intelligence official, Mr. Farahani, and his network used private investigators to surveil, photograph and video record Ms. Alinejad and members of her household in Brooklyn, the government said. The extensive surveillance that Mr. Farahani’s network procured included the use of a live, high-definition video feed depicting Ms. Alinejad’s home, prosecutors said. “This is not some far-fetched movie plot,” William F. Sweeney Jr., the head of the F.B.I.’s New York office, said in a statement. Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said, “A U.S. citizen living in the United States must be able to advocate for human rights without being targeted by foreign intelligence operatives.” President Biden late last month ordered airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, telling Congress that he acted to defend American military personnel and deter Iranian attacks. At the same time, the two countries are working toward a resurrection of a 2015 deal to limit Iran’s nuclear power. Ms. Alinejad, who hosts a program called “Tablet” on Voice of America Persian, a U.S. government-owned broadcaster, has been harshly critical of the nuclear deal. In a brief phone interview on Tuesday evening, Ms. Alinejad said that learning details of the plot was shocking to her but that she had told her husband and son not to panic. “That shows that they’re not scared of America — they’re scared of me,” she said, adding, “Otherwise, they would not send anyone here to kidnap me.” In a 2018 essay in The New York Times, Ms. Alinejad described her decision to leave Iran a decade earlier. “As a journalist in Iran, I often got into trouble exposing the regime’s mismanagement and corruption until, eventually, my press pass was revoked,” she wrote. “I was often threatened with arrest or worse for writing articles critical of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ultimately, I was forced to flee my homeland in 2009.” According to the indictment, in 2018, the Iranian government tried to pay relatives of Ms. Alinejad who live in Iran to invite her to travel to a third country, apparently for the purpose of having her arrested or detained and taken to Iran to be imprisoned. Her relatives did not accept the offer, the indictment said...
Eiza Gonzalez and More
Here, "Eiza Gonzalez Braless Nipple Pokies in Silk Blouse."
And here.
Bonus: From Arizona State University:
ASU pic.twitter.com/vvigNjIJI1
— Old Row Rad Chicks (@OldRowRadChicks) July 12, 2021
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott Calls to Arrest Democrat Statehouse Legislators Who Fled to Washington, D.C. (VIDEO)
So craven.
They flew charter and took selfies the whole way, to protest a voting rights bill that the never block in the statehouse chamber.
See, "Greg Abbott Says Fleeing Texas Democrats 'Will Be Arrested' When They Return to State":
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said that Democratic lawmakers who have left the state can and "will be arrested" upon their return as he pushes ahead with changes in voting laws. Abbott, a Republican, gave an interview to KVUE on Monday about the Democrats' decision to leave the state and whether the special session of the Texas legislature the governor called can go ahead. The Democratic legislators flew out of Texas to Washington, D.C. on Monday in order to deny the legislature the two-thirds quorum needed in order to conduct business and to pass legislation...
RTWT.
Customs and Border Patrol Records Highest Level of Illegal Immigrant Deaths in 20 Years
At Pajamas Media, "Illegal Immigrant Deaths Soar During Heat Wave":
Illegal immigrants frequently traverse through desert and ranchland to avoid detection by CBP. The Rio Grande Valley sector in southern Texas and Arizona’s Tucson sector account for most of the summer deaths, which generally spike in tandem with illegal crossing numbers. Over the past 20 years, the highest number of deaths recorded by CBP was 492, in fiscal year 2005, and the lowest was 251 deaths in 2015. “To avoid death or injury from severe dehydration, a person walking across the landscape in the heat of summer must consume no less than two gallons of water per day,” CBP stated on July 1. “The average person cannot carry sufficient water to avoid life-threatening dehydration over the course of several days in the brush.” Some people crossing the Rio Grande drown...Read the whole thing.
Businesses Struggle to Hire Workers as Economy Picks Up Steam
There are signs of this all over.
Here's a report out of Kansas, "Burger King workers in Nebraska depart and leave message: 'We all quit'."
And out of Jackson Hole, "Businesses struggle to hire, keep workers as housing stock disappears: Out-of-town hires, even those with higher salaries, can’t find a place."
Consumer Prices Surged 5.4 Percent in Year-Over-Year in New Labor Department Report (VIDEO)
At the Wall Street Journal, "June Consumer Prices Climbed Sharply Again as Economy Rebounded":
U.S. consumer prices continued to climb swiftly in June, as the economic recovery gained steam and demand outpaced the supply of labor and materials. The Labor Department said last month’s consumer-price index increased 5.4% from a year ago, the highest 12-month rate since August 2008. The so-called core price index, which excludes the often-volatile categories of food and energy, rose 4.5% from a year before. The index measures what consumers pay for goods and services, including clothes, groceries, restaurant meals, recreational activities and vehicles. It increased a seasonally adjusted 0.9% in June from May, the largest one-month change since June 2008. Prices for used cars and trucks leapt 10.5% from the previous month, driving one-third of the rise in the overall index, the department said. The indexes for airline fares and apparel also rose sharply in June. Consumers are seeing prices rise for numerous reasons, as the U.S. economic recovery picks up. Richard F. Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial Corp., said the main driver of June inflation was booming demand that outpaced the ability of businesses to keep up. Another factor, he said, was the recovery in prices for air travel, hotels, rental cars, entertainment and recreation—all services hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. “Demand is coming back very rapidly, and businesses are normalizing prices in the sense that they are making up for declines” earlier in the pandemic, he said. Supply shortages and higher shipping costs also continue to drive rapid increases in goods inflation. Prices of goods, excluding food and energy, saw the two biggest monthly increases on record in April and May, Mr. Moody said. Rising prices reflect robust consumer demand boosted by widespread vaccinations, the ending of many business restrictions, trillions of dollars in federal pandemic relief and ample household savings. Stronger demand also has pushed employers to seek more workers and pay higher wages, as they struggle to hire...
Monday, July 12, 2021
Why America Failed in Afghanistan
At Foreign Affairs, "Chronicle of a Defeat Foretold":
In 2008, I interviewed the United Kingdom’s then outgoing military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, in a dusty firebase in Helmand Province, where international troops had been battling the Taliban on a daily basis for territory that kept slipping away. The war in Afghanistan could not be won militarily, Carleton-Smith told me. He was the first senior coalition military officer to say so publicly, and the story made the front page of the British Sunday Times. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates promptly denounced Carleton-Smith to the news media as “defeatist.” Thirteen years on, U.S. President Joe Biden appears to have reached the same conclusion as the British brigadier. In April, Biden announced that the United States would pull all its remaining troops out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of 9/11, ending what he referred to as “the forever war.” But by now, such a withdrawal was all but a foregone conclusion: the Taliban had proved a stubborn enemy that was not going anywhere and that indeed controlled close to half the country’s territory. How the conflict once known as “the good war” (to distinguish it from the war in Iraq) went so wrong is the subject of a new book, The American War in Afghanistan, which claims to be the first comprehensive account of the United States’ longest war. Its author, Carter Malkasian, is a historian who has spent considerable time working in Afghanistan, first as a civilian official in Helmand and then as a senior adviser to the U.S. military commander in the country. A sprawling history of more than 500 pages, the work stands in stark contrast to Malkasian’s previous book, War Comes to Garmser, which tells the compelling story of one small district in Helmand. In his new book, Malkasian considers just how it could be that with as many as 140,000 soldiers in 2011 and some of the world’s most sophisticated equipment, the United States and its NATO allies failed to defeat the Taliban. Moreover, he asks why these Western powers stayed on, at a cost of more than $2 trillion and over 3,500 allied lives lost, plus many more soldiers badly injured, fighting what the British brigadier and others long knew was an unwinnable war. FATAL BEGINNINGS The Afghan intervention seemed, at the start, a success story. The United States entered Afghanistan in October 2001 with the backing of the United Nations and fueled by worldwide outrage over the 9/11 attacks. It dispatched B-52 bombers, laser-guided missiles, and Green Berets, who worked alongside local militias to topple the Taliban within 60 days, with the loss of only four U.S. soldiers (three a result of friendly fire) and one CIA agent. The operation seemed a model of intervention and cost a total of $3.8 billion: President George W. Bush described it as one of the biggest “bargains” of all time. Observes Malkasian: “The ease of the 2001 success carried away sensibility.” The Taliban fell, Osama bin Laden fled to Pakistan—and the Bush administration no longer seemed to know what it was trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Bush made much of women’s rights, declaring in his State of the Union address in January 2002 that “today women of Afghanistan are free,” after “years as captives in their own homes,” when the Taliban forbade girls from going to school and women from working, wearing lipstick, or laughing out loud. But Washington had no appetite for rebuilding Afghanistan and almost no understanding of the war-ravaged country, let alone of how much work would be needed to secure and reconstruct it. Malkasian argues that the United States made mistakes between 2001 and 2006 that set the course for failure. The catalog of errors he recounts is by now familiar. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not want to invest in the Afghan army—and by the end of 2003, just 6,000 Afghan soldiers had been trained. Warlords, whom most Afghans blamed for the country’s descent into violence in the first place, roamed free and even became ministers and members of parliament. At the same time, the United States and its allies shut the Taliban out of talks on a political settlement, failing to appreciate that the group represented a point of view that many among the majority Pashtuns shared. The United States should have pressed its advantage, Malkasian suggests, at a time when the Afghan government had popular support and the Taliban were in disarray. Instead, it empowered militias and conducted overly aggressive counterterrorism operations that alienated ordinary Afghans and led the excluded Taliban to resort once more to violence. Nonetheless, the Bush administration classed Afghanistan as a success and turned its attention to Iraq. The Taliban fled across the border to Pakistan, where they regrouped, raised funds, recruited in the madrasahs, and trained with the assistance of Pakistan’s security service, the Inter-Services Intelligence. Many ISI officers had worked with Taliban leaders for decades and shared their worldview. Moreover, Malkasian notes that Islamabad’s strategic thinking centered on its rivalry with India. Pakistan had fought four wars with its neighbor and feared that India would encircle it by gaining influence in Afghanistan. India had 24 consulates in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials complained; in fact, it had only four. Pakistan’s role turned out to be fatal. Even as the United States prosecuted its war in Afghanistan, those it fought found refuge and training in the country next door. But the Bush administration not only turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s machinations; it provided Pakistan with $12 billion, more than half of which was a reimbursement for military operations, as American officials believed that Islamabad was helping in what they saw as the more important fight against al Qaeda. THE HEART OF AFGHANISTAN Afghan officials like to blame Pakistan for the deepening war. But the Taliban had something more in its favor—something Malkasian calls “the Taliban’s tie to what it meant to be Afghan.” The heart of Afghanistan, by Malkasian’s description, is the atraf, or countryside, with its mud-walled homes, hidden-away women, and barefoot children, a realm where “other than cell-phones, cars, and assault rifles, the 21st century was invisible.” Into this space came American soldiers with night-vision goggles and missiles the price of Porsches. The last foreigners the villagers had seen were the Russians who occupied their country in the 1980s. The Taliban were able to use that memory as a powerful motivator in a country that prided itself on defeating superpowers and never having been colonized. Malkasian believes that the Taliban profited from their posture as a force for Islam, against infidels. But my own reporting in Afghanistan suggests a somewhat more ambiguous dynamic. Mullahs in villages would rage against the foreign presence, but they collected their salaries from a government dependent on foreigners. Ordinary Afghans I spoke to suggested that religion was less important to them than pride in their history of defeating superpowers. The fact that the Taliban paid unemployed farmers further boosted the group’s advantage. Moreover, as Malkasian details, the Taliban exploited tribal rivalries that Western forces didn’t understand. Many powerful Pashtun tribes, such as the Ghilzais, the Ishaqzais, and the Noorzais, felt cut out. They resented foreign troops for disrespecting their culture (entering women’s quarters, bombing wedding parties) and attempting to eradicate their poppy crops. The United States had created conditions that called for a more robust Afghan state than it had built. As Malkasian writes, “If a state faces a hostile safe haven on its border and mistreats various segments of its population, it had best have capable military forces of one form or another.” When the Taliban reemerged in earnest in 2006, their forces were estimated at only 10,000, which should have been containable. But the foreign forces in Afghanistan were unfamiliar with the terrain, both geographic and cultural; the U.S. leadership was distracted by Iraq, where a civil war was spinning out of control; and Afghanistan had not even a small, capable army...
Still more.
Biden Administration to Begin Monthly Family Subsidy Payments This Week
Hey, three-hundred a month to families with kids under 6, and $250 who are older.
That's no chump change. In fact, the one-year cost for the first year is $105,000,000 ---- and extremist Dems want to add the program as a permanent feature of the U.S. social welfare safety-net.
At NYT, "Monthly Payments to Families With Children to Begin":
The Biden administration will send up to $300 per child a month to most American families thanks to a temporary increase in the child tax credit that advocates hope to extend. WASHINGTON — If all goes as planned, the Treasury Department will begin making a series of monthly payments in coming days to families with children, setting a milestone in social policy and intensifying a debate over whether to make the subsidies a permanent part of the American safety net. With all but the most affluent families eligible to receive up to $300 a month per child, the United States will join many other rich countries that provide a guaranteed income for children, a goal that has long animated progressives. Experts estimate the payments will cut child poverty by nearly half, an achievement with no precedent. But the program, created as part of the stimulus bill that Democrats passed over unified Republican opposition in March, expires in a year, and the rollout could help or hinder President Biden’s pledge to extend it. Immediate challenges loom. The government is uncertain how to get the payments to millions of hard-to-reach families, a problem that could undermine its poverty-fighting goals. Opponents of the effort will be watching for delivery glitches, examples of waste or signs that the money erodes the desire of some parents to work. While the government has increased many aid programs during the coronavirus pandemic, supporters say the payments from an expanded Child Tax Credit, at a one-year cost of about $105 billion, are unique in their potential to stabilize both poor and middle-class families. “It’s the most transformative policy coming out of Washington since the days of F.D.R.,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey. “America is dramatically behind its industrial peers in investing in our children. We have some of the highest child poverty rates, but even families that are not poor are struggling, as the cost of raising children goes higher and higher.” Among America’s 74 million children, nearly nine in 10 will qualify for the new monthly payments — up to $250 a child, or $300 for those under six — which are scheduled to start on Thursday. Those payments, most of which will be sent to bank accounts through direct deposit, will total half of the year’s subsidy, with the rest to come as a tax refund next year. Mr. Biden has proposed a four-year extension in a broader package he hopes to pass this fall, and congressional Democrats have vowed to make the program permanent. Like much of Mr. Biden’s agenda, the program’s fate may depend on whether Democrats can unite around the bigger package and advance it through the evenly divided Senate. The unconditional payments — what critics call “welfare” — break with a quarter century of policy. Since President Bill Clinton signed a 1996 bill to “end welfare,” aid has gone almost entirely to parents who work. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, recently wrote that the new payments, with “no work required,” would resurrect a “failed welfare system,” and provide “free money” for criminals and addicts. But compared to past aid debates, opposition has so far been muted. A few conservatives support children’s subsidies, which might boost falling birthrates and allow more parents to raise children full-time. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, has proposed a larger child benefit, though he would finance it by cutting other programs. With Congress requiring payments to start just four months after the bill’s passage, the administration has scrambled to spread the word and assemble payment rosters. Families that filed recent tax returns or received stimulus checks should get paid automatically. (Single parents with incomes up to $112,500 and married couples with incomes up to $150,000 are eligible for the full benefit.) But analysts say four to eight million low-income children may be missing from the lists, and drives are underway to get their parents to register online. “Wherever you run into people — perfect strangers — just go on up and introduce yourself and tell them about the Child Tax Credit,” Vice President Kamala Harris said last month on what the White House called “Child Tax Credit Awareness Day.” Among the needy, the program is eliciting a mixture of excitement, confusion and disbelief...
More at that top link.
Monday Hotties
Here's Addison Ray.
Bouncy honkers.
Patriotic:
Happy 4th of July! pic.twitter.com/KA9asZn43F
— Country Girls (@DownHomeGirls) July 4, 2021
Woman Duct-Taped to Her Seat After Attempting to Open Airplane Door (VIDEO)
As noted at the story, the woman had psychological issues.
'Astonishing': Cuban Protesters Take to the Streets (VIDEO)
Freedom protests.
Whenever protests break out like this --- anywhere in the world --- demonstrators always wave the American flag while calling for freedom. The U.S. remains the beacon of liberty for billions of people the world over, and radical, anti-American leftists can't stand that.
At the New York Times, "Cubans Denounce ‘Misery’ in Biggest Protests in Decades":
MIAMI — Shouting “Freedom” and other anti-government slogans, thousands of Cubans took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages, in a remarkable eruption of discontent not seen in nearly 30 years. Thousands of people marched through San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of Havana, with videos streaming live on Facebook for nearly an hour before they suddenly disappeared. As the afternoon wore on, other videos appeared from demonstrations elsewhere, including Palma Soriano, in the country’s southeast. Hundreds of people also gathered in Havana, where a heavy police presence preceded their arrival. “The people are dying of hunger!” one woman shouted during a protest filmed in the province of Artemisa, in the island’s west. “Our children are dying of hunger!” One clip circulating on Twitter showed protesters overturning a police car in Cardenas, 90 miles east of Havana. Another video showed people looting from one of the much-detested government-run stores, which sell wildly overpriced items in currencies most Cubans do not possess. In a country known for repressive crackdowns on dissent, the rallies were widely viewed as astonishing. Activists and analysts called it the first time that so many people had openly protested against the Communist government since the so-called Maleconazo uprising, which exploded in the summer of 1994 into a huge wave of Cubans leaving the country by sea. Carolina Barrero, a Cuban activist, went even further. “It is the most massive popular demonstration to protest the government that we have experienced in Cuba since ’59,” she said by text message, referring to the year Fidel Castro took power. She called the public outpouring on Sunday “spontaneous, frontal and forceful.” “What has happened is enormous,” she added. The protests were set off by a dire economic crisis in Cuba, where the coronavirus pandemic has cut off crucial tourism dollars. People now spend hours in line each day to buy basic food items. Many have been unable to work because restaurants and other businesses have remained on lockdown for months. The desperate conditions have triggered an uptick in migration by both land and sea. Since the start of the fiscal year last October, the U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted more than 512 Cubans at sea, compared with 49 for the entire previous year. On Saturday, the Coast Guard suspended the search for nine Cuban migrants whose vessel overturned at sea off Key West, Fla. The Cuban government attributes its longstanding economic problems to the American trade embargo, which cuts off its access to financing and imports. But the pandemic has worsened conditions, and in Matanzas, east of Havana, some patients and their families have resorted to posting videos on YouTube of furious people screaming about the lack of medicine and doctors. The Cuban Ministry of Health website says the nation of 11 million now has about 32,000 active cases of Covid-19. It reported 6,923 daily cases and 47 deaths on Sunday, breaking its prior record, set just Friday. Only about 15 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, the government said. The protest movement gained momentum after a number of celebrities started tweeting with the hashtag #SOSCuba...
Critical Race Theory Driving Teachers Out
At CNBC, "Critical race theory battles are driving frustrated, exhausted educators out of their jobs":
Battles over diversity and equity initiatives in public schools have resulted in administrators and teachers being fired or resigning over discussions about race.
[Connecticut high school principal Rydell Harrison] is one of a small but growing number of educators who have left their jobs after school districts became inundated in recent months by furious parents who’ve accused them of teaching critical race theory, an academic framework usually taught in graduate schools that posits racial discrimination is embedded within U.S. laws and policies. Administrators at virtually every district facing these conflicts — including Harrison’s — have insisted they don’t teach critical race theory, but conservative activists are using that label for a range of diversity and equity initiatives that they consider too progressive, prompting lawmakers in 22 states to propose limits on how schools can talk about racial issues.
In education, we have responded to opposition with truth and facts and being able to say, ‘Yeah, I can see why that’d be a concern, but this is what is really happening.’ In most cases that works for us,” Harrison said. “But when facts are no longer part of the discussion, our tools to reframe the conversation and get people back on board are limited.”
Against the backdrop of hostility to discussions of race in schools — and as five states have passed laws limiting how teachers can address “divisive concepts” with students — administrators and teachers across the country say they have been pushed out of their districts. Some have opted to leave public schools entirely, while others are fighting to save their career. The result in these districts is what educators and experts describe as a brain drain of those who are most committed to fighting racism in schools.
In Southlake, Texas, at least four administrators who were instrumental in crafting or implementing a plan combat racial and cultural discrimination in the Carroll Independent School District left the district this spring following a community backlash to diversity and inclusion efforts.
In Eureka, Missouri, the only Black woman in the Rockwood School District’s administration resigned from her position as diversity coordinator after threats of violence grew so severe that the district hired private security to patrol her house.
“This is going to cause an exodus among an already scarce recruiting field in education,” said Kumar Rashad, a Louisville, Kentucky, math teacher and local teachers union leader. “People aren't entering the field as much as they were, and now we have this to chase them away.”
In Sullivan County, Tennessee, Matthew Hawn, a white high school social studies teacher, is facing termination after assigning an essay on President Donald Trump by writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and showing a video of a poetry reading about white privilege that included curse words. The district accused Hawn, who is appealing to save his job, of not showing opposing viewpoints. Both Hawn and the district declined to comment.In Florida, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said “we made sure” that Amy Donofrio, a white English teacher in Jacksonville, was fired for displaying a Black Lives Matter banner in her classroom at Robert E. Lee High School. Donofrio, who was removed from teaching duties by school officials in March but has not yet been fired, has sued the district, claiming administrators violated her free speech rights and retaliated against her for advocating for Black students...
Richard Branson and Crew Go Weightless on Historic Virgin Galactic Space Flight (VIDEO)
So amazing --- absolutely breathtaking!
At LAT, "Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic crew go to the edge of space and back":
Richard Branson goes weightless in space and sends a message to future generations.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 11, 2021
Read more about his voyage to the edge of space: https://t.co/hYsLFJ1sQa pic.twitter.com/i77ytElH2q
In 2004, British billionaire Richard Branson proclaimed he would fly into space on his company’s spaceship in just three years to kick off what he hoped would become a routine travel experience, drinks and all. Nearly 17 years after that proclamation, he finally did it. Branson, along with five other Virgin Galactic employees — two pilots and three others who were testing parts of the in-cabin experience, including research opportunities — launched to suborbital space Sunday on the company’s first flight with a full crew aboard. The carrier aircraft with the spaceship attached to its belly took off around 7:40 a.m. Pacific time from a New Mexico spaceport near the city of Truth or Consequences. The crewed flight marks a shift years in the making, as companies edge into launching recreational trips to space — efforts they hope will eventually prove profitable. The flashy, Branson-flavored Virgin Galactic event — with a livestream hosted by late-night host Stephen Colbert and a concert by singer Khalid — aimed to increase potential customers’ confidence and interest in the flight experience, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for a seat. The spaceship carrying Branson and the others detached from the carrier aircraft about 45 minutes after launch, once it reached an altitude of about 45,000 feet and a designated release point in the airspace. The ship then rocketed to suborbital space. The craft reached a speed of Mach 3, or 2,300 mph, and a maximum altitude of 53.5 miles above the Earth. The U.S. military and NASA consider space to start at 50 miles above the Earth, though the world body governing aeronautic and astronautic records, as well as other organizations, define space as 62 miles above Earth’s surface, a designation known as the Karman line. A livestream of the mission showed the crew floating in the cabin once the craft reached space. As the ship returned to Earth, Branson — wearing sunglasses — told viewers on the livestream that it was the “experience of a lifetime.” The ship landed back at the spaceport around 8:40 a.m. Pacific time, about 15 minutes after it detached from the carrier aircraft. Video inside the cabin showed Branson clapping at touchdown. As he emerged from the spacecraft, he pumped both arms in the air and waved to the assembled crowd. Branson told reporters after the flight that it was impossible to describe the experience of accelerating to Mach 3 in seven to eight seconds and that the views of the Earth were “breathtaking.” He added that “99.9% was beyond my wildest dreams.” “It’s so thrilling when a lifetime’s dream comes true,” said Branson, who carried to space photos of his children, a woman who died but always dreamed of going to space, and a tiny image of the head of Colbert. The flight put Branson in space ahead of billionaire rival Jeff Bezos, who is due to launch to suborbital space July 20 in a capsule developed by his Blue Origin space company. Bezos congratulated Branson and the Virgin Galactic crew in an Instagram post Sunday, adding, “Can’t wait to join the club!” Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin plans to sell tickets to tourists who want to experience a few minutes of weightlessness in suborbital space. Bezos’ company is also developing a larger rocket called New Glenn intended to launch satellites, and it had hoped to win a NASA contract with Lockheed Martin, Draper and Northrop Grumman to build a lunar lander that was instead awarded to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Sunday’s flight marks a milestone for the 17-year-old Virgin Galactic, which spent years developing its SpaceShipTwo craft and larger carrier aircraft. The company has faced its share of setbacks...
Still more.
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Unholy Heat! Temperature Hits 130 Degrees in Death Valley! (VIDEO)
We've all been inside --- and running the air condition literally all day long.
At the New York Times, "Death Valley Hits 130 Degrees as Heat Wave Sweeps the West":
FURNACE CREEK, Calif. — For Gary Bryant, the tenth-of-a-mile walk from his modular home to the air-conditioned restaurant where he was working on Saturday was “quite enough” time outside. Mr. Bryant, 64, knows the risks of summer temperatures in Death Valley. He once collapsed under a palm tree from heat exhaustion and had to crawl toward a hose spigot to douse himself with water. Mr. Bryant has lived and worked in Death Valley for 30 years, happy to balance the brutal summer heat with the soaring mountain vistas, but even he admits that the high temperatures in recent years were testing his limits. The temperature soared to 130 degrees on Friday and approached that again on Saturday. It was forecast to hit 130 again on Sunday. “The first 20 summers were a breeze,” he said. “The last 10 have been a little bit tougher.” The blistering weekend heat, one of the highest temperatures ever recorded on Earth, matched a similar level from August 2020. Those readings could set records if verified, as an earlier record of 134 degrees in 1913 has been disputed by scientists. Much of the West is facing further record-breaking temperatures over the coming days, with over 31 million people in areas under excessive heat warnings or heat advisories. It is the third heat wave to sweep the region this summer. The extreme temperatures that scorched the Pacific Northwest in late June led to nearly 200 deaths in Oregon and Washington State as people struggled to keep cool in poorly air-conditioned homes, on the street and in fields and warehouses. The same “heat dome” effect that enveloped the Northwest — in which hot, dry ground traps heat and accelerates rising temperatures — has descended on California and parts of the Southwest this weekend. Sarah Rogowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said that daytime highs between 100 and 120 degrees were hitting parts of California. Most dangerously, temperatures will remain high into the night, hovering 15 to 25 degrees above average. “When you start getting those warm temperatures overnight combined with those high temperatures during the day, it really starts to build the effect,” Ms. Rogowski said. “People aren’t able to cool off; it’s a lot harder to get relief.”
Richard Branson Blasts Into Space! (VIDEO)
Now this is something to be proud about. Civilian space travel is here.
Branson, along with crew, successfully launched and landed Virgin Galactic's spaceship, the VMS Unity.
At USA Today, "Virgin Galactic space plane carrying billionaire adventurer Richard Branson reaches edge of space, returns safely":
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. – Billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson's dream of space travel was realized and celestial tourism took a leap forward Sunday as Virgin Galactic's rocket ship reached the edge of space during a historic flight from Spaceport America. Branson and his crew experienced about four minutes of weightlessness before their space plane smoothly glided to a runway landing. The entire trip, delayed 90 minutes because of bad weather the previous night, lasted about an hour. An ecstatic Branson hugged family and friends who greet him after landing. "Thank you to every single person who has believed in Virgin Galactic and the team who has worked so hard to make this dream come true," Branson said after the flight. "It's 17 years of painstaking work, the occasional horrible down and large ups with it. And today was definitely the biggest up." Branson, who turns 71 this week, and a crew of two pilots and three mission specialists were carried to an altitude of more than eight miles by the aircraft VMS Eve, named after Branson's mother. Live video then showed the space plane VSS Unity release from the mother ship's twin fuselages, using rocket power to fly to the boundary of space, more than 50 miles above the Earth. Tributes – and criticism – rolled in on social media...
Sunday Hotties
What a great day --- I'm sure you're enjoying the scorching July heat!
Anyway, I'm back for another entry in our "babe blogging" series.
This is great, "Britney Spears posts topless photo amid conservatorship battle."
And some country gals, here and below. That's a nice catch!
Chicago's Climate Crisis
On "climate change" the jury's still out for me, but hey, maybe the climate really is changing. My issue is always whether the crisis is "man-made" (that this is a made-up boondoggle pushed by radical leftists to foment their revolutionary takeover of industrial civilization in the West).
Either way though, it's obvious that's something changed.
This report at NYT is pretty astonishing, in fact. See, "The climate crisis haunts Chicago’s future. A Battle Between a Great City and a Great Lake."
Chicago is a city built for a different time. The time before climate change.https://t.co/VqxrZy0eAv
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 8, 2021
Saturday, July 10, 2021
Haitian Politics
More Haiti coverage, at NYT, "Haiti’s Power Vacuum Escalates Kingmakers’ Battle for Control":
The contest for power is taking place on two levels. One battle pits current politicians against one another; the other is among power brokers vying for control behind the scenes.The assassination of Haiti’s president has thrown the nation into disarray, spawned shootouts on the streets and left terrified citizens cowering in their homes. But behind the scenes a bigger, high-stakes battle for control of the country is already accelerating. The fault lines were drawn long before President Jovenel Moïse was killed. For more than a year before his death, the president had been attacking his political rivals, undermining the nation’s democratic institutions and angering church and gang leaders alike. Then the president was gunned down in his home on Wednesday — and the power play burst into the open, with the interim prime minister claiming to run the country despite open challenges by other politicians. But even as that battle over who inherits the reins of government plays out in public, analysts say a more complex, less visible battle for power is picking up speed. It is a fight waged by some of Haiti’s richest and most well-connected kingmakers, eager for the approval of the United States, which has exercised outsized control over the fate of the Caribbean nation in the past. How it will all play out is unclear. Elections were planned for September, but many civil society groups in Haiti worry that doing so would only sharpen the political crisis. They question whether it would even be feasible to hold legitimate elections given how weak the nation’s institutions have become, and some civil society leaders are expected to meet Saturday to try to devise a new path forward. Many fear that Haitians themselves may not have much of a say in the matter. “This whole system is founded on the idea that legitimacy is determined by outside factors,” said Jake Johnston, a senior research associate at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “So while politicians in Port-au-Prince fight for power, the rest of the country will continue to be ignored.” The first to assert the right to lead the nation was the interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, who called a state of siege immediately after the attack and has spent the past several days trying to parlay general words of support for Haiti from the United States into the appearance, at least, of a mandate to govern. But his legitimacy has been directly challenged by the country’s last remaining elected officials, who are trying to form a new transitional government to replace him...
Still more.
'I'll Be There'
For some reason this song popped into my brain last night, and I've been singing it ever since.
The Jackson 5, with a very young Michael.
*****
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love, I'll be there (I'll be there)
I'll reach out my hand to you
I'll have faith in all you do
Just call my name and I'll be there (I'll be there)
And oh, I'll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you
I'm so glad that I found you
I'll be there with a love that's strong
I'll be your strength
I'll keep holdin' on (holdin' on)
Yes I will, yes I will
Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness, girl, is all I'm after
Whenever you need me, I'll be there (I'll be there)
I'll be there to protect you (yeah baby)
With unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name and I'll be there (I'll be there)
And oh, I'll be there to comfort you
Build my world of dreams around you
I'm so glad that I found you
I'll be there with a love that's strong
I'll be your strength
I'll keep holdin' on
Ooh ooh ooh
Yes I will (holdin' on, holdin' on)
Yes I will
If you should ever find someone new
I know he better be good to you
'Cause if he doesn't
I'll be there (I'll be there)
Don't you know, baby, yeah, yeah
I'll be there, I'll be there
Just call my name, I'll be there (I'll be there)
Just look over your shoulders honey, ooh
I'll be there, I'll be there
Whenever you need me, I'll be there (I'll be there)
Don't you know, baby
I'll be there, I'll be there
Just call my name, I'll be there (I'll be there)
Oh, oh, oh, oh, I'll be there
The Terrible, Awful, No Good Xavier Becerra (VIDEO)
At the Washington Examiner, "The wretched Xavier Becerra wants to control your life":
How to weigh the rights of the individual versus the authority of the government? That question became trickier over the past 18 months. In an otherwise free country, governments forbade us from gathering to worship, instructed us not to congregate with our families, forced businesses to shut down, and even ordered us to wear masks while going about our business outdoors. The contagion and lethality of the coronavirus stretched to its limits our notions of personal autonomy and duty to one’s neighbor. Federal, state, and local governments took a central role in subsidizing the development, manufacture, and distribution of vaccines. Some governmental entities are even considering requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for certain purposes. Again, there are tough questions involved here, questions that the public, the press, and our government officials need to debate and discuss in the coming weeks, months, and years. Leave it to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to take a tough and nuanced debate and make it simplistic, political, and stupid. Becerra is, of course, unqualified for his Cabinet job. We believe nearly everyone in the Biden administration understands this. He was appointed to serve as a cultural warrior — a lieutenant to the vice president and top culture cop, Kamala Harris. Becerra's record as a lawmaker and as California’s attorney general was similar to Harris’s: He saw his job as prosecuting the people with “bad” politics, notably pro-lifers and Catholic nuns. So when Becerra took to the airwaves last week to defend President Joe Biden’s bad wording about “door-to-door” vaccine administration, it was no surprise that he presented the administration's position in the worst possible light. “We need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, oftentimes, door to door — literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus,” Biden said last week. This may have been simply poor wording by the president. His administration now claims the “we” wasn’t federal officials but health authorities and community leaders. And the “door-knocking” it promised supposedly didn’t involve interrogation or coercion but more of an offer: Hey, we have a vaccine right here. Would you like it? But that wasn’t Becerra’s line. Asked on CNN whether it’s “the government's business knowing who has or hasn't been vaccinated,” the cultural warrior turned Biden proxy replied, “Perhaps we should point out that the federal government has spent trillions of dollars to keep Americans alive during this pandemic. So it is absolutely the government's business. It is taxpayers' business if we have to continue to spend money to try to keep people from contracting COVID and helping reopen the economy.” The answer was both stupid and clarifying.
President Jovenel Moïse’s Assassins Seen Captured by Mob in 'Shocking' Video
I'm not easily shocked, but you be the judge here.
At Fox News, "Haiti President Jovenel Moïse’s ‘assassins’ seen captured by mob in shocking video."
COVID Rent 'Moratorium' Screws Queens Landlord --- and More
My wife has been been hammering these rent "moratoriums" since practically Day 1 of the corona-lockdown. I mean, tenants can't pay back thousands upon thousands in back rent, so who pays? We all will, taxpayers, of course.
Now that's some sneaky-ass socialism.
At NYT, "A Landlord Says Her Tenants Are Terrorizing Her. She Can’t Evict Them":
For more than a year, Vanie Mangal, a physician assistant at a Connecticut hospital, called relatives to tell them that their loved ones were dying of Covid-19, watched as patients gasped their final breaths and feared that she herself would get sick. Ms. Mangal found no respite from stress when she went home. She is a landlord who rents the basement and first-floor apartments at her home in Queens, and for the past year, conflicts with her tenants have poisoned the atmosphere in her house. The first-floor tenants have not paid rent in 15 months, bang on the ceiling below her bed at all hours for no apparent reason and yell, curse and spit at her, Ms. Mangal said. A tenant in the basement apartment also stopped paying rent, keyed Ms. Mangal’s car and dumped packages meant for her by the garbage. After Ms. Mangal got an order of protection and then a warrant for the tenant’s arrest, the woman and her daughter moved out. All told, Ms. Mangal — who has captured many of her tenants’ actions on surveillance video — has not only lost sleep from the tensions inside her two-story home but also $36,600 in rental income. “It’s been really horrendous,” she said. “What am I supposed to do — live like this?” In years past, Ms. Mangal, 31, could have taken her tenants to housing court and sought to evict them. But during the pandemic, the federal government and many states, including New York, imposed eviction moratoriums to protect renters who had lost their income. The moratoriums have been widely praised by housing advocates for preventing millions of people from becoming homeless. At the same time, those broad protections have created tremendous financial — and emotional — strain for smaller landlords like Ms. Mangal, who often lack the deep pockets to survive without payments. And in New York City, there are a lot of those small landlords: An estimated 28 percent of the city’s roughly 2.3 million rental units are owned by landlords who have fewer than five properties, according to JustFix.nyc, a technology company that tracks property ownership. Landlords can seek pandemic financial assistance, and the federal government has allocated $46.5 billion for emergency rental relief. But the aid has been slow to flow to property owners, and it comes with certain strings attached: It requires the landlord to allow a tenant to remain and not raise the rent for a year after the aid is received. Ms. Mangal has not applied for those reasons. Further complicating matters, while the moratorium technically allows landlords to evict unruly tenants, a review of court records and interviews with landlords suggest that in practice, it is all but impossible to do so. “Some people like to say these cases are outliers, but it is more common than people think,” said Joanna Wong, a Manhattan landlord and a member of the Small Property Owners of New York, a landlord group. “I agree with the spirit of the protections, but not how they were passed. It created this situation where there is a subset of people who were not intended to be protected who ended up being protected.” The federally imposed tenant safeguards expire this month, but New York extended a separate statewide moratorium for an additional month, through August. New York’s housing courts are preparing to reopen for in-person hearings soon after the state moratorium is lifted, but it could take many months, and most likely longer, for the backlog in cases to clear. Even before the pandemic, an eviction case could take up to a year to be adjudicated. Before the outbreak, New York City landlords filed between 140,000 to 200,000 eviction cases every year against tenants, who often found themselves on their own in court, without legal counsel, fighting to stay in their homes. While most cases were resolved without a court-ordered eviction — 9 percent of the cases in 2017 resulted in an eviction, the city said — tens of thousands of New York City residents still lost their homes every year, while the rest had their names added to “tenant blacklists” shared among landlords. Across the country, more than seven million households are behind on rent because of unemployment and lost wages, including about 500,000 in New York State, according to the census. Renters nationwide owe $5,600 on average in unpaid rent, according to a Moody’s report...
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