404 Comments

For your consideration via Robert Reich:

I'm as sensitive as anyone to the sufferings of Afghani's now, but I've had it with the sanctimony of journalists and pundits who haven't thought about Afghanistan for 20 years -- many of whom urged we get out -- but who are now filling the August news hole with overwrought stories about Biden's botched exit and Taliban atrocities.

Yes, the exit could have been better planned and executed. Yes, it's all horribly sad. But can we get a grip? The sudden all-consuming focus on Afghanistan is distracting us from hugely important stuff that's coming to a head at home:

(1) Republican politicians and right-wing media worsening the surging Delta variant of COVID by fighting masks and vaccinations, as cities and school systems struggle to decide what to do;

(2) wildfires and floods consuming much of America as House Democrats absurdly threaten to oppose Biden's $3.5 trillion budget blueprint containing important measures to slow climate change;

(3) Texas on the verge of passing the nation's most anti-democracy voting restrictions, adding to voter suppression measures in 24 other states, at the same time the "For the People Act" and the "John Lewis Voting Rights Act" -- which would remedy these horrendous laws -- languish in the Senate because Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema refuse to do anything about the filibuster.

Enough sanctimony over Afghanistan. Enough about Biden's falling approval ratings. We've had enough wall-to-wall coverage of the Olympics and then Andrew Cuomo and now the airport in Kabul. Can we please focus on the biggest things that need and deserve our attention right now? The window of opportunity to do anything about them will close sooner than we expect.

If we don't take action now on COVID and the critical importance of vaccinations and masks, on climate change and Biden's $3.5 trillion package, and on voter suppression and the necessity of the For the People and the John Lewis Voting Rights Acts, we may never.

That's my view. What do you think?

RR

Expand full comment

I just read an article in the nyt about hospital staff in Staten Island are refusing to get vaccinated. I am not surprised. I grew up in S.I. and it was always the most conservative borough. And what conservative meant then and now is hooray for me and the hell with everybody else.

Expand full comment

Dennis, I grew up on Staten Island as well and it is disheartening to see how it has devolved into such a right wingnut place. I still Zoom every other week with some of my HS friends and so I am kept up to date with the insanity there.

Expand full comment

They're white wingers.

Expand full comment

Sizzlin, TC. Sizzlin.

Expand full comment

Three percent of the population are on medications that block their bodies from making antibodies to the vaccine. They are people with organ transplants and others on immunosuppressants. These are also generally sick people who go to the hospital for their infusions regularly. For these people, the pandemic will likely never end. If anyone working at a hospital does not want to get vaccinated to protect these vulnerable patients, they need to quit and go pack boxes at Amazon. No excuses. Their behavior is more proof that the conservative world view is incompatible with a compassionate, inclusive, functioning society.

Expand full comment

I agree with you. Two weeks from now the MSM will find another shiny object and go there. It's not journalism any longer, it's 'angertainment' or the 'grievance grovel'. I've gto better things to do. Enough already.

Expand full comment

I agree with Robert Reich. And sometimes, I also think the whole mask/vaccination thing could an effort by the GOP to change the subject, distract us from crucial issues such as climate change, civil rights, voting rights, education, etc.

Expand full comment

I think it’s more than that. I think it is the way they deny the Biden administration a large victory over the pandemic, and keep democrats from demonstrating that good governance works, and delivers for the good of the people. Their supporters and their health be damned. It’s reprehensible, it’s immoral, and unfortunately I think it’s working.

Expand full comment

The typical Repuglican playbook. They will gladly let the ship sink if a Democrat is at the helm, just for spite and political points. Reprehensible.

Expand full comment

And, always at the expense of their own believers. Seek those donations and press coverages, but care not one iota for the lives of those people. The same will be true of their voters suppressions and oppressions. They are harming their own constituents' abilities to vote but care not.

Expand full comment

Add to that Trump's inexcusable handling of the pandemic - and don't give me the crap about his initiating "Operation Warp Speed." He did nothing but obstruct.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Catherine for Robert Reich's words of wisdom. What has been happening here is the usual story of Democrats eating their own, and the "liberal" press acting like Fox. If I see another image of Jake Tapper's furrowed brow, I'll reduce the television to rubble. As Reich points out, and I'm expanding on, if we don't act on what we can change, our democracy will be lost and we'll witness the results of climate change's rage, with no turning back.

Expand full comment

I think you are right on, time to show our support for Biden’s plan.

Let Congress know, I am.

Expand full comment

Yes! Communicating with our elected representatives remains, for now, a viable means of engaging in our government of, by and for the people.

Expand full comment

I think your thoughts are reflective of ALL of us who have been paying attention. Well expressed and exemplary.

TY

Expand full comment

Biden has found his footing after the initial shock. Unless there is terrorism, U.S. evacuation will become steadily more organized and efficient.

His first public responses were godawful in their “Problem? What problem?” tone.I felt then that it could be bad enough that Biden’s agenda would be swept aside as was LBJ’s after 1965.

I’m more sanguine now. But America is in an odd position domestically. The Republicans are madly and vainly trying to rewrite history, while the Democrats are trying their level best to turn a possible victory of gigantic proportions into an absurd defeat. Should they succeed, it will be the apotheosis of their all too frequent internal meltdowns. I’m sure the Republicans, themselves at the lowest point in history, can scarcely believe their good fortune.

Meantime the countrywide but primarily southern resistance to sanity in any way, shape, or form. When Trump is booed at a rally, it is conclusive evidence that spite and stupidity hold sway in a large segment of the population.

By comparison Afghanistan looks sane, but desperate.

Onward Ivermectin. :(

Expand full comment

Exactly right, Eric.

Let's also remind ourselves that DeSantis (would anyone buy a used car from a salesman who looked like him?) is resisting people getting free vaccinations and telling them if they get it they can be treated with Regeneron - and (surprise, surprise, to no one's shock at all) it turns out the owner of Regeneron is one of his major financial backers.

Expand full comment

Disgusting. He’s doughy and clammy looking. Great strategy. Get sick, sucker. I’ve got the cure for you.

Expand full comment

Eric: The following is a detailed report, copied in full, referring to your claim that, quote, ' Democrats are trying their level best to turn a possible victory of gigantic proportions into an absurd defeat.' :

Joe Manchin is opposing big parts of Biden’s agenda as the Koch network pressures him

PUBLISHED TUE, JUN 8 202110:11 AM EDTUPDATED TUE, JUN 8 20212:40 PM EDT

Brian Schwartz@SCHWARTZBCNBC

KEY POINTS

• The Koch network has been actively pressuring Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin to oppose key legislative items linked to Biden’s agenda, including filibuster reform and voting rights legislation.

• The lobbying effort appears to be paying off. Manchin, in a recent op-ed, wrote that he opposed eliminating the filibuster and that he would not vote for the For the People Act.

• The Koch network specifically calls on its grassroots supporters to push Manchin, a conservative Democrat, to be against some of his party’s legislative priorities.

'The political advocacy group backed by billionaire Charles Koch has been pressuring Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to oppose key parts of the Democratic agenda, including filibuster reform and voting rights legislation.'

'That lobbying effort appears to be paying off. Manchin, in a recent op-ed, wrote that he opposed eliminating the filibuster and that he would not vote for the For the People Act, which, advocates say, would limit the influence of big donors on elections.

President Joe Biden has called some of the voting restrictions proposed by Republican leaders in several states “sick” and “un-American.” The president has praised the For the People Act and has said the filibuster must be changed.'

'Sixty votes are needed to break the filibuster in the Senate in order to allow legislation to get a final vote. Democrats, who have 50 seats, have narrow control of the chamber because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.'

'CNBC reviewed an episode of a Koch policy group Americans for Prosperity’s video series, along with ads crafted by the organization. The network specifically calls on its grassroots supporters to push Manchin, a conservative Democrat, to be against some of his party’s legislative priorities.'

'Americans for Prosperity launched a website titled West Virginia Values, which calls on people to email Manchin “to be The Voice West Virginia Needs In D.C. — Reject Washington’s Partisan Agenda.”

'It then lists all of the items Manchin has promised to oppose, including the idea of eliminating the filibuster, the For the People Act and packing the Supreme Court. It then shows everything the group believes Manchin should oppose, including Biden’s infrastructure plan and the union-friendly PRO Act.'

'Americans for Prosperity leaders took part in one of their video series with their West Virginia state director in May where they praised Manchin for voicing his opposition to abolishing the filibuster. Both Americans for Prosperity and Manchin have said they believe eliminating the filibuster would exacerbate partisanship.'

The video was reviewed by CNBC after it was posted to the group’s Facebook page.

“A wise man once said that it takes a lot of courage to stand up to your enemies but that it takes even more courage up to stand up to your friends,” Ted Ellis, director of coalitions for Americans for Prosperity’s government affairs team, told the audience. “And that’s what Joe Manchin is doing right now. He’s displaying, I think, a lot of courage and we should applaud that.”

“Our grassroots are critically important and it would be difficult to say that they are more important anywhere than West Virginia right now because of the dramatic impact that our grassroots have in West Virginia in encouraging Senator Manchin to stand strong on this point,” Casey Mattox, vice president of legal and judicial Strategy at Americans for Prosperity, said during the presentation.'

'Ellis is listed on a recent lobbying report as one of the Americans for Prosperity officials who in the first quarter of 2021 lobbied against the For the People Act and Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan. The lobbyists targeted House and Senate lawmakers.'

'In a statement to CNBC, a spokesman for Americans for Prosperity did not deny whether its officials have spoken directly to Manchin or his staff about the For the People Act. The representative praised Manchin’s stance on the bill and likened the group’s stance to that of the American Civil Liberties Union.'

“Sen. Manchin has long blazed his own path, and on this issue, we agree: Extreme partisanship gets in the way of finding positive solutions,” Lo Isidro, a spokesman for AFP, told CNBC in an emailed statement on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, this bill and the tactics some are using to pass it would make it harder to work together – chilling debate, worsening partisanship, and setting up a false choice between voting rights and free speech. We’re for both. Like the ACLU, our concerns focus on the portion that targets the First Amendment. And we’ll continue to defend those rights.”

'

A spokesman for Manchin did not return a request for comment.

Americans for Prosperity also launched a radio ad in West Virginia that quotes Manchin himself saying Democrats aren’t for the Green New Deal or Medicare for All. “Encourage Senator Manchin to keep his promise. To reject a partisan agenda that will host West Virginia’s back from meeting their full potential,” the voiceover says in the ad.'

'The Koch political network is just one of many groups that have orchestrated outside efforts to oppose the Democratic-backed election bill.'

'The New Yorker reported on a meeting between Koch leaders and representatives from other conservative-leaning groups about how they have tried to stop the bill from passing but that some of their own polling shows the campaign finance elements of the legislation is widely supported.'

'Heritage Action and other groups organized a rally in March in West Virginia that was meant to pressure Manchin to oppose similar legislation to the For the People Act, , according to the watchdog group Documented.net.'

'Manchin has defended the Kochs from attacks by his own party.

“People want jobs. You don’t beat up people. I mean, I don’t agree with their politics or philosophically, but, you know, they’re Americans, they’re doing — paying their taxes,” he said in response to questions about party leaders blasting the Kochs.

“They’re not breaking the law. They’re providing jobs,” he said.'

Expand full comment

More about Manchin --

All of the following has been provided by Open Secrets. See link below:

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01

Led by the oil and gas industry, this sector regularly pumps the vast majority of its campaign contributions into Republican coffers. Even as other traditionally GOP-inclined industries have shifted somewhat to the left, this sector has remained rock-solid red.

Since the 1990 election cycle, more than two-thirds of this sector's contributions to candidates and party committees has gone to Republicans. Besides oil and gas, the electric utilities industry is another big donor in this sector. Less generous, but even more partisan, is the mining industry'

Top Lobbying Clients, 2021

Client/Parent Total

Koch Industries $5,590,000

Royal Dutch Shell $3,750,000

Chevron Corp $3,700,000

Occidental Petroleum $3,670,000

Exxon Mobil $2,770,000

Please note the Manchin received the most from the oil and gas sectors. Four more Democrats, all from Texas, were also handsomely endowed by the sector. See below:

Top 20 Recipients

Rank Candidate Office Amount

1 Manchin, Joe (D-WV) Senate $179,450

2 McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA) House $113,117

3 Scott, Tim (R-SC) Senate $78,599

4 Herrell, Yvette (R-NM) House $77,026

5 Rodgers, Cathy McMorris (R-WA) House $69,001

6 Scalise, Steve (R-LA) House $66,757

7 Fletcher, Lizzie (D-TX) House $65,050

8 Kennedy, John (R-LA) Senate $64,672

9 Pfluger, August (R-TX) House $61,180

10 Zinke, Ryan (R-MT) $54,925

11 Lankford, James (R-OK) Senate $53,942

12 Cuellar, Henry (D-TX) House $53,700

13 Crenshaw, Dan (R-TX) House $53,163

14 Gonzales, Tony (R-TX) House $49,675

15 Cheney, Liz (R-WY) House $49,196

16 Roy, Chip (R-TX) House $48,929

17 Taylor, Van (R-TX) House $44,010

18 Crapo, Mike (R-ID) Senate $43,825

19 Gonzalez, Vicente (D-TX) House $42,750

20 Veasey, Marc (D-TX) House $39,300

Expand full comment

How interesting it is when the daw details are brought to light. The making of the sausage is in full view. As always, this is so helpful a post.

I was thinking however of the 9 Democrats threatening not to vote for the Budget Bill as a means of scuppering the big picture of Biden’s agenda.

When the incoming is from your own group, and you have to get past that before you can hope to make cause with Manchin, it seems hardly likely that the quicksand will dry up.

My conclusion is that it becomes ever more difficult to be optimistic about America in a time of great peril.

Your sobering research highlights that the will of the people scarcely matters except that they be coddled at election time, and the good of the people as expressed in legislation is not even on the far horizon for many.

Was it ever thus? Did creatures like Gaetz, Boebert, Brooks, and Taylor Greene emerge from one swamp to find notoriety in another in times past? It seems to me highly unlikely.

Mitch McConnell is one of a classical political type. There have been many of his ilk.

But the times have become so ineffably bizarre in such a short time that the wildest, least conscious and most self-promoting have been hurled up to surf the wave of ignorance that has engulfed America. And many more barbarians are at the gate, waiting to claw their way in in 2022.

It is sad that at a time of such deep peril the quality of leadership as expressed by state and federal politicians is at such a low ebb.

What really can be hoped for? The best of the bunch have the Hobson’s choice of engaging with the bigots, hatemongers, and presenters on their territory and being thoroughly sullied in the process, or taking the high road and conceding the playing field, such as it is, to them.

What happened to service? Expertise? Communality of spirit? Rising to the occasion?

I am passing through despair into a sort of indifference. It’s all broken broken broken. The same response is to just turn away.

There are no figures like John Lewis now. It is folly to think that “good trouble” can be made and there be any result other than passing (quickly passing) notice from the 24 hour news cycle, which has, incidentally, been co-opted by an institution from which Josef Goebbels could take lessons.

The Texas State Democrats were amazingly courageous and dignified and right thinking - and their effect has been wholly inconsequential.

It’s on the very precipice of being too late now. If the voting rights legislation fails, Americac will have ceded liberal democracy. It will flutter on, a bird with a broken wing and we shall pretend that not all is lost, for some sad months or maybe years. But the millions of Americans who know better and will face stark truth head on, will know better. Done like dinner, to coin a phrase.

Expand full comment

The Money, Eric, and the Corruption. I don't think of these factors without visualizing the Koch Bros. as perpetrators at the front of the line of our decline. One of them, David, died in 2019. There are others, of course, and there are good books on the subject. If you haven't read Jane Mayer's, Dark Money, I recommend it. A quarter to a third of our population represent another section of the dark shroud, which is ours. While always discouraging negativity about America's future, your words may be too close to the truth. I hope that you aren't on target, but we move closer and closer.

Expand full comment

Good recommendation on "Dark Money", Fern. I've heard of it but never picked it up or read it. After your mention here, I checked our online library; found they had it, and it was available; downloaded it to my phone; which I'll now carry to the kitchen and listen to while I'm cleaning vegetables from the garden and cooking for the winter. That's one mode of mixing the old style with the new one.

Expand full comment

I've read Dark Money. Great reporting. Appalling subject matter. Her subsequent New Yorker (?), Atlantic (?) pieces are also spot on.

We are just at a bad, bad place in the historical cycle and we've navigated there blindly. Most don't care about long term possibilities (like that the trickle down effect doesn't). Another sizable group feels that the point of life is to make more money than anybody else and direct their lives to that point. Huge numbers of people have been smashed to their knees by pointlessly stupid incarceration, the opioid epidemic, Facebook with the weird and dark culture it spawned, the Covid tragedy, and in the end Donald Trump who has understood both more and less than we ever imagined.

It feels like the bread and circuses time for this great empire. Were it not for the existence of fast foods and the giant maw of television, we might have had a revolution.

Now we are at the stage where people of good instinct say, "Just when you think he/she can't say/do anything stupider/viler, this happens".

And having satisfied their sense of sagacity, they get on with their day.

I'm feeling defeated. If this was a horse race, insanity would have the pole position coming around the home stretch. The bad guys would be a not too distant second. And the good guys have pulled up lame.

I long to be proven decisively wrong. I long for a sense of moral outrage and propriety to take hold of the mass of Americans, expressed in something profound like a general strike. I'm desperately keen to see the Biden team's brilliant legislation make it to his desk. I'd love justice to come down on the Trump circle like a scythe, with not a scintilla of mercy. I'd love to see America humble - not humbled, united rather than isolated, healthy in mind and body.

Hell, I'd take any two of those at this stage.

Rambling. I just heard the gong go off. :)

Expand full comment

'...the will of the people scarcely matters...', Eric, this was the phase of yours that I found the most piercing because suppressing and subverting our elections is the point of the Republican legislatures in the states. You also wrote, 'There are no figures like John Lewis ...', there are, however, many outstanding activists and elected representatives. How much difference could Lewis make now; how much of a difference can they make -- and don't forget the American people -- that is the question.

Expand full comment

Caught me. :)

I phrased that wrongly. There are many Americans of the courage, grace and intelligence of John Lewis. However, we live in an age of celebrity and round the clock cable news coverage. Ironically, nothing survives that. Too many value the trivial and sensational to amplify and appreciate extraordinary and quiet heroism.

And of course it takes time to make one's mark.

I was momentarily excited by the talk of the "People's Summer". The people who spoke for the activism to come were bracing. They have backbone, deep life experience, and scars (and are mainly Black).

Nothing that I would call consequential resulted. The march to Austin was duly noted. Their meetings with members of Congress were recorded for posterity.

And the Democrats returned to the legislature and an odious bill is now a part of the fabric of Texas.

And the band played on.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this List Fern!!!😡 Hopefully I can Share it on Facebook!!!😊

Expand full comment

LouAnn, It would be great if you could get the culprits and their fossil fuels payoffs on Facebook. Here we are engulfed by the Climate Crisis, burning and flooding, thanks to our use of fossil fuels and the corrupt climate crisis deniers in our government. Here is a list of major companies maximizing their damage with payoffs to likes of Manchin, Tim Scott, James Lankford, Mike Crapo and on and on:

Top Contributors, 2021-2022

Contributor Amount

Samson Energy $419,230

Koch Industries $339,746

Midland Energy $274,370

Devon Energy $255,800

Excelerate Energy $255,500

Occidental Petroleum $245,445

Chevron Corp $238,282

Cox Oil $214,887

Berexco Inc $161,950

Otis Eastern $153,896

Williams Companies $144,475

Exxon Mobil $144,356

Performance Contractors Inc $132,805

Enterprise Products Partners $131,929

Kent Distributors $131,616

Hilcorp Energy $122,754

Marathon Petroleum $120,402

Magnolia Oil & Gas $115,800

Edison Chouest Offshore $115,225

Geosouthern Energy $101,000 (OpenSecrets Oil & Gas)

Thank you, LouAnn. Salud!

Expand full comment

Ditto. RR continues to impress me all these years after the Clinton years. Maybe even more so.

Expand full comment

I agree. I left my TV off for most of the week for reasons above. I'm glad for this summary, since I chose not to tune in to the daily hand wringing over Biden. I would tune back in if they also focused on the January 6th insurrection and the Sedition Caucus that enabled it.

Expand full comment

Ellen, I did the same thing last week, except to check in to see whether Nicolle Wallace had retreated from negativism, after her beginning commentary had been favorable to Biden, then slid downhill. Apparently, she was sufficiently chastised, and returned to objectivity. I'll tune out this week, too, if there's too much finger-pointing at Biden, ignoring the fact that there's plenty of blame for the last 20 years. The real culprits in our country's ills are escaping.

Expand full comment

I like your view in its entirety. Well said.

Expand full comment

Yeah, Robert Reich's right, there are some big things we need to concentrate on and get right and do it ASAP. Biden and his advisors screwed up the "end" of the war in Afghanistan but they are earnestly trying hard to fix it. Hard to imagine Trump might have done any better, easy to imagine he would have washed his hands of it.

I dumped on Biden a couple of times last week, but he's still doing pretty well with the big picture and his heart's in the right place. Can't ask for more than that.

Expand full comment

I'm with you, Robert Reich! I have thought the press has been over the top from the very beginning, and have lost sight of what needs to get done NOW!

Expand full comment

Absolutely, 100% agree with you!

Expand full comment

Totally agree. Well said.

Expand full comment

There's a reason why I call them the Imperial Press Corpse.

Expand full comment

One of the jerks holding up Biden's agenda is my very own jerk, Kurt Schrader. He only gets my vote because his R opponents are totally off the deep end. I think it's time for a phone call. I realize that part of his district is Clackastan (Clackamus County), but that's no excuse.

Expand full comment

I'm ready now to give President Biden and his administration some slack on the execution of the withdrawal after learning what a mess anti-immigrant, xenophobe Stephen Miller left the immigration system and the Special Immigrant Visas for those who aided the US in Afghanistan in. Where he couldn't tear apart and destroy about the immigration system, he created more and more red tape adding years to the immigration process. While I don't understand why the Biden administration didn't anticipate the speed of the Taliban take-over since the Taliban started negotiating with all the Afghan regional leaders once the US withdrawal was announced, I am heartened by how far the Biden administration has come this past week in turning around the situation which is becoming more effective every day getting people out of Afghanistan and even taking refugees especially women and children. Actually, with the Taliban promising to not attack the US during the withdrawal may be a major factor in why now is the best time to leave. The war was only prolonged because the Defense Contractors wanted to make more money on arms sales. There was no other reason for it to continue.

Expand full comment

And I find it ironic we are promoting democracy when we seem unable to hold on to our own.

Expand full comment

I find it soul crushing.

Expand full comment

Agree with your assessment Cathy. I don’t believe anyone understands how hollowed our many of our agencies are. The deep well of institutional knowledge and relationships were dismantled by djt in the US and the rapid drawdown of troops under djt left us blind throughout much of Afghanistan. djt salted the fields and left Biden with multiple disasters and few resources.

Expand full comment

Well, dah! Remember Steve Bannon declaring that TFG's 'administration' goal as 'to destroy the 'administrative state'? Bingo, bango here we are.

Expand full comment

You are so right, Cathy. Steven Miller (and his sleazy wife) exacerbated the situation. I am learning more and more about his god awful wife, Katie Miller, from "I Alone Can Fix It" by Leonnig and Rucker which I am reading now. All I can say is that they are a match made in hell.

Expand full comment

Praying they don't reproduce!

Expand full comment

They already did. Their son was born November 30, 2020 and is named Mackenzie. This is the guy promoting child separation at the border!

Expand full comment

Ughhh. With any luck he'll be a beautiful child who completely rebels against his parents' ways, as children often do, causing them angst and highlighting their moral shortcomings.

Expand full comment

Oh dear God. Didn't know that. Normally I am not in favor of forced sterilization, but in this case I'd make an exception.

Expand full comment

Thought it was a daughter.....

Expand full comment

You're right! I think I assumed MacKenzie Jay Miller was a masculine name. Born November 19, 2020, exactly nine months after their marriage in mid-February 2020. Yes, a daughter.

Expand full comment

Annette, there was much much more about her in one of the reporter's books before that one - now if I could just remember THAT reporter's name!!

Expand full comment

Yes, Cathy. As “everyone” is trying to flee, I wonder how many of the civilian power base in Afghanistan, American and other international contractors, dealers, and business interests—sit comfortably in place waiting for next customers.

Cha-ching$

Expand full comment

I was in Hong Kong in 1998, a year before the lease was up and it went back to China. It was interesting that everyone who was going to leave had already left at that point. Vancouver became the go to place to relocate. Wonder how many who stayed are now regretting their decision because the promises of semi-autonomy are eroding. It will be the same with the Taliban if they can solve their economic dilemma. Also, think back to the 1930s in Germany. As soon as Hitler became prime minister, the intelligentsia started leaving. That's one reason Germany didn't have the Atomic Bomb when we did. The German scientists came to the US. That and not gaining access to the heavy Hydrogen in Scandinavia.

Expand full comment

I read a book some time ago about the incredible effort made to get into Norway and destroy the heavy water plant that the Nazis had been counting on. I've identified several titles on the subject which look good but I'm pretty sure the one I read is "The Winter Fortress" by Neal Bascomb. It was better than any fiction I've read about WW II sabotage.

Expand full comment

I think I learned this from "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes which is one of the most readable and comprehensive histories I've ever read. I highly, highly recommend it.

Expand full comment

You also have to remember the decimation of the State Department under Rex Tillerson. He got rid of the experienced and educated among the staff and dwindled its numbers considerably. There is no way that Biden could build this staff and department back up enough to handle all the applications for asylum needed from the Afghanistan allies.

Expand full comment

Cathy: I'm picturing Trump with his hands in the air: "Who could have known?"

Expand full comment

The administration didn't anticipate the speed of the Taliban takeover b/c it evidently had conflicting advice. The CIA claims to have warned "in increasingly stark terms about the potential for a rapid, total collapse of the Afghan military and government, current and former U.S. officials told NBC News."

However, "The White House won’t confirm whether President Joe Biden ever received such a dire forecast from his national security team. The president himself appeared to dispute a month ago that intelligence suggested the increasing likelihood that the Afghan military would fold."

On July 8 he had said, "“That is not true. They did not reach that conclusion.”

There's finger pointing and blaming between the National Security Team and top military officials and Biden is side-stepping the intel issue.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/cia-warned-rapid-afghanistan-collapse-so-why-did-u-s-n1277026

Expand full comment

Reciting the facts as they are known is helpful since our headlong plunge into the conflicts of the Middle East, after the September 11 attack, has proven, over time, to be not the wisest response. Our military possesses many capabilities not the least of which involves commando style special operations under the control of an elected Commander in Chief. First: it really matters who we elect as President and who we elect to represent us all the way down to the School Boards. Second: the elected President and our various representatives need to make good decisions during the emotional heat of conflict. Third: many of the decisions reached can’t be fully understood at the time they are taken. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis President Kennedy, a WWII veteran, was urged to go ahead and bomb Cuba….others counseled restraint. He made the decision, backed by Khrushchev, not to attack which saved us from nuclear war. It matters who we elect to represent us. President Biden probably regrets that he didn’t start getting everyone out from Afghanistan much sooner because, as it turns out, there are many thousands, beyond those in our military, who need to leave. Their pain and terror is really ours as well; we need to feel and understand that. Of course, it’s easy to complain about incomplete media coverage because their efforts are so emotionally charged and often incomplete. It’s what it is. We have a Free Press and thank goodness for that. They ultimately do a good job. Lincoln felt the sting of the media during the worst years of the Civil War when the war went on and on. He faced so much pressure to just end it and negotiate a settlement with the Confederacy. He didn’t but his assassination cost us a durable peace which unfortunately threw us backwards into the arms of the very same people we fought against at Gettysburg, Antietam and Petersburg. President Biden, like Lincoln, is trying very hard to reunite our Nation now after years of efforts to weaken it by powerful forces who don’t really understand, care about or respect our democracy. “We the People” need to see through all this smoke. Not easy. Never was before…why should it be any different now? President Biden has the right ideas and he has the support of the majority; the complicated and fraught withdrawal from Afghanistan had to finally happen. Perhaps there will be valuable lessons learned from it but there will always be the temptation to use the fire we possess to fight fires imposed on us. We have to struggle hard, and thoughtfully, not to just react again in the future because there are so many ways we can overcome an enemy without engaging as we did in Afghanistan and Iraq and of course, Vietnam as well. We’re moving in the right direction again as a country. The Biden Administration isn’t perfect and will make errors along the way. It’s up to all of us to try to see and understand this as we now work together try to overcome the many very difficult challenges to our democracy and cherished way of life…I believe, we will.

Expand full comment

Keith, Your holistic summary comprised of the difficult pieces our country needs to put together was a welcome addition to the forum. I was particularly grateful for your nod to the Free Press.

'Of course, it’s easy to complain about incomplete media coverage because their efforts are so emotionally charged and often incomplete. It’s what it is. We have a Free Press and thank goodness for that. They ultimately do a good job.'

The incredible demands, strain and efforts to get it right by reporters from Richard Engle, Chief Foreign Correspondent at NBC News, in Kabul, David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times and Clarissa Ward, CNN to correspondent, to MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan in Afghanistan and news program host/commentator Rachel Maddow are not known, understood or acknowledged by readers/viewers. How could they know of the sleepless nights, relentless digging for the facts and struggle to sort through the noise that journalists must do, let alone synthesize the information to compose a news story? Unhappy about reflections on Biden, DeSantis, Trump, etc., or other news, which may tarnish the hopes and political, religious, scientific, etc., positions of readers/viewers often leads to bashing the press, so familiar from the mouths of Trump, Republican Party Stars and the MAGA crowd. Clearly blaming the messengers in the free-press for 'unwanted' news reports has a fair number of cheerleaders on both the left and right. Criticism is warranted for poor and biased 'news' outlets as well as by reporters, however, I am witnessing wholesale rebukes of ;unfavorable' stories. Much of social media is comprised of a gigantic and smaller enterprises making their fortunes by spreading misinformation to also have a public turning against the free-press -- what more could autocracy ask for?

Expand full comment

Fern, thanks. Clarissa Ward has been amazing, as have others. She has been so even in her reporting but even she could barely handle the level of chaos she was in at the airport and she struggled to even speak. She IS a reporter and there are some others. But so much of 24 hr tv and talk "news " is built around interviewing endless "experts" who offer personal opinions. We are inundated with opinion, which is not on the ground, source-based reporting. In addition, the ones "anchoring" programs long ago crossed the line into editorializing and have become celebrity opinionators themselves. It is so important to have a functioning Free Press, as both you and Keith point out. It is just getting harder to find the real journalists in the cacophany of filling 24 hrs of "news" programming. ( the state of social media info is a whole other dilemma). We may not have to wait for a Fascist take over to lose our Free Press; we may be losing it all on our own!!!

Expand full comment

Carol, I agree with your opinion. My viewing has been rewarded by the knowledge and original research done my Rachel Maddow and solid reporting by Brian Williams. Lawrence O'Donnell with a keen mind and experience having worked for Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is I believe an excellent political analyst and presenter. It's important to know which reporters and programs are journalistically strong and trustworthy. Too many of us drown in the cacophony of voices.

Expand full comment

A very rational comment, thank you. However I expect better from a FREE fourth estate. If we truly valued their freedom from corporate influence we the people would invest more in their search for TRUTH.

Expand full comment

Isn't that why we subscribe to Dr. Richardson's letter? To get unvarnished history in the making? I can suggest NPR and Link TV also.

Expand full comment

I support and listen to NPR & PBN. I will check out LinkTV, the more worldly perspective looks interesting. Could you tell us how Link TV is funded?

Expand full comment

Donors like you and me.

Expand full comment

Thank you Keith.

Expand full comment

Thank you for being the voice of reason, Keith. We're sorely lacking in that arena.

Expand full comment

Oh HCR thank you for this quiet statement of facts. It is balm against the onslaught of flatulent, flapping gums.

Expand full comment

“… flatulent flapping gums.”

Where is Rudy G lately? Haven’t heard much from him. (Thank God!)

Expand full comment

He’s busy planning his bankruptcy.

Expand full comment

Ditto

Expand full comment

Quick, someone photoshop a whoopie cushion onto a random Fox reporter torso. I'll turn the sound up.

Expand full comment

Gailee! Your description today takes top prize. What a picture to accent the talking heads!

Expand full comment

The war in Afghanistan is 20 years old. It encompasses now 4 presidential administrations; 12 years of Republiqan, and 8 years and 8 months of Democratic administrations. President Biden took over the country on 20 January 2021 in the midst of a global pandemic and having NO assistance in the transition of administrations from the former guy, having seen an insurrection at the Capitol in an attempt to change the results of the election, and the current Republiquan party continuing its efforts to discount the free and fair election of 2020. He inherited a gutted State Department and a Department of Justice that has been tainted and corrupted. He inherited an Afghan withdrawal agreement brokered by a one term President that was engineered without the inclusion of the Afghan Government that the US had installed. He is looking down the barrel of a weapon that is having voting rights gutted in a majority of US states to insure that a Repuliqan minority can regain control over the two elected branches of government.

What I see is that Biden has been in office for 8 months, and has been fighting an uphill battle the entire time. To put the blame of the debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan entirely on Biden is to ignore the previous 19 years and three presidential administrations that created this mess. Personally, I put the most blame on President Obama, who has been the best Republican President we've had in this country since Dwight Eisenhower.

Further, I believe that there is a huge problem with the main stream media and how they are covering most everything these days. It is apparent that corporate interests rather than any semblance of actual reporting are the largest portion of any broadcast/news reporting seen.

Expand full comment

I agree with all that you've said, with the exception of blaming Obama most. He didn't invade, but did manage to kill bin Laden, after W clutching at Tora Bora early on. Obama might have been able to exit when he killed bin Laden, but keep in mind that he largely lost control in the midterms. His errors pale in comparison to every decision on Afghanistan made before or since.

Regardless of should have/could have, the current debacle can be laid squarely at the feet of TFG, Steven Miller, and the fascist enablers. Tragic that the feckless press could upend a moral, competent administration. Shame on them and on us for taking our eye off the ball.

Expand full comment

How does a Democrat president waging two Republican president wars accept the Nobel Peace Prize?

Expand full comment

Clearly, we have differing opinions.

Expand full comment

You didn't answer my question.

Expand full comment

Nor must I.

Expand full comment

You answered by not answering.

Expand full comment

Why was he selected and than awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?

Expand full comment

There was more on my mind when I answered you last night. A dream before dawn left me feeling I should say more.

My dreams ongoing point me toward something to do, or do differently. Some dreams are pretty rough, some dreams take me hard to task about me. I am not a church person, but I have lots of experiences that remind me of stuff I read in the Bible happened to some people there.

Anyway ...

Unlike Donald Trump, who will hold up a Bible before the national Capitol to get applause from what I view as unaware Christians, Joe Biden is devout Roman Catholic.

It looks to me, whether he consciously or unconsciously knew it, Trump was somehow moved from Above to start the process of getting America out of Afghanistan militarily, but he did not finish it during his first term, because he figured it might cost him the 2020 election.

So, he lost in 2020 because he didn't get America out of Afghanistan militarily?

Enter Joe Biden in the White House, who was directed by his conscience and from Above to get America out of Afghanistan militarily, regardless of damage to his political career.

3 nights before 911, a by then familiar voice I associated with Archangel Michael asked me in my sleep, "Will you make a prayer for a Divine Intervention for all of humanity?" I awoke, wondered what that was about, made the prayer. On 911, my concern was America would get into another Vietnam type war. It did not occur to me America would get into two such wars. A few days later, as I left the Key West post office, I heard, "America should get out of the Middle East altogether."

After Barack Obama was elected in 2008, I thought it was obvious that his God assignment was to get America out of the 2 Bush-Cheney wars. I was astounded he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize while continuing those two wars.

An interesting thing then happened, which I did not connect with Obama.

My bowel shut down. For several weeks, I got nothing from Above about why. Then, a violent poem burst out of me about what Obama had done by accepting the Nobel. I read that poem that night at a monthly meeting of the Key West Poetry Guild. There was another Guild function in a public park that week, and I read the poem there. My bowel unlocked.

Back when Bill Clinton was still Arkansas' governor, I wrote to him and we exchanged couple of letters. I told him, if he got elected, his God assignment was to make a national US apology to Vietnam. He did that during his second term. I wondered if that had something to do with him surviving the all out effort by the Republicans to impeach him?

Expand full comment

Sloan, It was ridiculous that the Nobel Committee awarded Obama with the Noble Prize for Peace. That is a poor reflection on the Nobel Committee. I couldn't care less about Obama accepting it. He did get the country out of Afghanistan or a few other things that would have been beneficial to the country. Obama is a good writer and an imperfect person as we all are. I hope your bowel movements are normal now. It would be unfortunate if they were regulated by current events. Stay well. There is nothing more that I can say.

Expand full comment

You meant Obama did NOT get America out of Afghanistan?

Expand full comment

My bowel reacts to many things that "disturb the Force", and as I work through whatever it is, my bowel responds. That Obama accepted the Nobel disturbed the Force hugely, to borrow a Donald Trump affectation :-).

Expand full comment

Don't know what was in the Nobel Committee's minds. I have wondered if it was because Obama was half black? During his campaign he promised hope and change? My question, though, was not why he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but why he accepted it while waging the two Bush-Cheney wars? What was he thinking?

Expand full comment

You put more blame on Obama than GWB???? Obama was our first non white POTUS and he had more of a conscience than half of all our previous POTUS’s put together. How do we acknowledge the challenges he faced in that office because of the color of his skin? Strongly disagree with that POV Ally.

Expand full comment

I think it is naive to think that the mil/ind complex doesn’t have leverage on both parties and all Presidents. Eisenhower warned of us this decades ago. George Wa warned us of “foreign entanglements”. Colin Powell reminded us of always having a clear exit strategy before ever committing to any invasion. I miss clear words of common sense and action based on centuries of learning from mistakes. There is no easy exit strategy. We all share the blame for going in, staying to long, arguing about what and how to build a democratic country full of corruption, a drug /opium trade, bad state bordering actors, impossible terrain, and rampant illiteracy.

So now how to get out of a mostly failed mission with dignity? We can’t fix it. Every staying is bad, every leaving is bad. We are all to blame.

The only thing we can control is how long and how bad the leaving is going to take. Maybe then we can finally learn something from our own vanity of false determination of other nations.

Expand full comment

I think its also naïve of us ( this includes me) to think ALL the media outlets are not directly and indirectly influenced by the mil/ind/media complex (adding media, because this is the information age now).

Media is part of it, knowingly and unknowingly embedded in a structure that seeks to profit from both reporting and explaining the crisis, monitoring and gauging our attention to it, then adding criticism of it, and thus taking advantage of our emotional reactions to it.

In a way, we are unknowing dragged into a forced "after action report debrief", before the action/mission is even completed. No wonder we are all so emotional about it. Imagine trying accomplish something complex and dangerous with a manager always looking over your shoulder, criticizing every move.

Just get out as many allies, women, and children as we can. Give everyone left behind a camera/ phone and access to communicate inside and to outside the country. Give the people a way to document atrocities that could come. Document and identify those who perpetrate atrocities.

Leadership can let the Taliban know violence and cruelty won't be tolerated and even if we are not there on the ground. We have cruise missiles that will find them and theirs, sooner or later. We have other tools as well. Carrots and sticks are a part of diplomacy. This is what we should have done in the first place. A lot cheaper in both treasure and blood. There is no perfect way out ever. That is why you never go in on the ground in the first place. When will we ever learn?

Expand full comment

Thanks for this link. If people want more detail--and can deal with the outrage-driven rises in BP--her "Thieves of State" from 5 or so years ago is both incisive and thorough. This current post outlines issues that far pre-date our 2002 invasion: endemic corruption, and Pakistan's multiple manipulations of regional power struggles. Add these to your previous points that Afghanistan has never been a national state (and that doesn't seem likely to change), and the perennial dithering, spineless refusal of Congress to its jobs.

Expand full comment

20 Years. 2 Trillion Dollars. 2,443 American Soldiers. 20,000 American Soldiers wounded and maimed. 83 billion in weapons lost to the Taliban. 100,000 Plus Afghan civilians killed.

And did Dick Cheney get his pipeline to take gas from the north 'stans (away from Russia to Europe) to Pakistan and India and to an Indian Ocean port?

Thank you Sarah Chayse for setting it all straight.

Expand full comment

Luv Sarah Chayse. What an amazing soul.

Expand full comment

100 times, Ted.

Expand full comment

President Bush initiated the whole thing, and bears the horrid responsibility for the escalation into multiple countries.

President Obama was President when we got Bin Laden. We should have declared "mission accomplished" then (which was Bush's rationale for going into Afghanistan in the first place). He didn't. He was at a pivot point where we could have done the right thing and we didn't. That is the rationale for what I say.

Expand full comment

Obama and Trump didn’t want to end the war for the same reason. Neither wanted their legacy to say they lost the war and abandoned our allies to the Taliban.

Biden had the courage they didn’t.

We’ll see if that decision makes him a one term President.

Expand full comment

Unless you were in tfg’s head or inner circle of evil doers I question how you might know of his motivations. Biden had over another decade’s worth of knowledge. Having to follow after that criminal deconstructing our administrative state he had his own set of severe challenges. For me intentions matter.

Expand full comment

Trump listened to the military when they told him chaos would follow the withdrawal of all our troops. He wanted no part of that.

Obama was focused on his legacy. He wanted no part of the chaos.

Biden ignored the military and bit the bullet.

Long term, I agree with Biden’s decision.

Expand full comment

TFG planned for chaos on every front and planned to sit in the Oval Office for infinity. So, no.

Expand full comment

Frum has never been a voice I would promote before. But as GW’s speechwriter he knows stuff.

Nothing about foreign policy or war is linear.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/bin-laden-2001-end-war-afghanistan/619767/

Expand full comment

He had all of that. Unfortunately, he also lacked experience, which was crucial. Had he come to the office after 10 years in the Senate, I think things would have been vastly different.

His major mistakes were two: 1) appointing Vichy Democrats like Rahm Emmanuel (the man personally responsible for the 2010 disaster we still are digging out from) to positions of power and influence so they could make the exact wrong decisions at the exact right time, and 2) failing to recognize The Enemy for what they were until it was too late.

Expand full comment

100% TC. Thank you for your response. Also IMHO, Obama, being the conscientious deep thinker that he was, and certainly more cognizant of the fascist, racist elements in our country than most, I imagine he felt an obligation to not give that element any more energy than possible.

Expand full comment

You have hit the nail on the head. The comedy routine Key and Peale did about his "alter ego," the angry black man, was dead-on. He knew he couldn't be anything else than as he was in public because of that.

Expand full comment

I’ll have to look for that. TY!

Expand full comment

Be sure you do, Christy it was great - so was the Press dinner with Obama himself, with Key? doing some of that routine.

Expand full comment

Exactly!

Expand full comment

Yes, charisma and good intentions don’t make up for lack of experience and poor council. His star rose too quickly.

Expand full comment

Upvote (can I do that here?) for "...best Republican President we've had in this country since Dwight Eisenhower."

Expand full comment

Well said, Ally. I would have added that Congressman Joe Biden voted in favor of invading Afghanistan and Iraq, and does not have exactly clean hands himself. But to lay the blame on him for what his predecessors in the Offal Orifice did, well, that's just pure out house dredgings. Where have the now outraged journalists and Americans been for 20 years? Why were they not outraged about both wars even being launched? Especially, why were they not outraged when President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize as he continued the two Bush-Cheney wars? How does a president with a soul accept the Nobel Peace Prize, while waging those two wars? I will never figure that one out. Perhaps if President Obama's daughter was over there in the Army or Marine Corps, suited up and armed, on the frontlines, getting herself shot at, that would have affected her father's views and actions regarding both wars? Perhaps if Black American troops in those two wars had stopped to ponder who was making great gobs of money off those two wars - rich white American men - those Black soldiers would have wondered if they were picking cotton? Funny, not really, I have not seen any outcry in the media or on Facebook about the Kabul evacuation maybe being a Covid super spreader op. I don't belong to a political party and voted very reluctantly for Joe Biden, because (a) he and his followers did not cause me to fear for the physical safety of my children and their families, and (b) he was at least talking about trying to save the planet from humanity. I can imagine the planet and Mother Nature are in cahoots rooting for Covid to save them from humanity. Meanwhile, what's going on in Afghanistan right now, as horrible as it is for many Afghans and westerners still trapped there, is just another defect Corporate America work product.

Expand full comment

After seeing the overwhelming and almost uniformly unfair media response to troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, I see how biased the media is towards corporate interests. And it’s largely corporate interests in favor of staying in Afghanistan since there’s been lots of money made there.

[For the record, I don’t believe Biden Administration handled it perfectly, but Americans have never handled anything in the Middle East perfectly in the past, so it is unreasonable to expect it now. I do hope we at least stop repeating our mistakes though.]

Our current situation with the media is beyond dangerous.

This is why our air, water, and society are poisoned beyond repair. News gets squelched or discredited.

Our healthcare system is profit oriented rather than healing oriented. The products we use at home, such as fragrance products, are slowly chipping away at our health. Zealotry and ugliness in the name of religion has been allowed to expand to harmful proportions.

This is all because corporations and their owners have been carefully tended and protected by wealthy media owners and the money surrounding the media industry and vice versa. It’s all one big network of peers protecting each other’s interests: Wall Street, Corporations/Manufacturers, Religions (follow the money), Special Interest Groups / Foundations, Politicians & Lobbyists, Healthcare & Pharma, Universities (who owns & supports them?), Research facilities (who owns & supports them?), Oil & Gas, etc.

I’m not saying its all had a completely bad effect, because it’s probably kept things stable in the Age of Social Media.

We have a huge tasks in front of us: Fix our voting system to ensure everyone is heard, fix our educational system because ignorance is helping destroy America, fix our media system so that it is as fair and unbiased as possible, fix Social Media to limit its destructiveness, fix the wealth disparity, fix the separation between Church and State - freedom OF religion must include freedom FROM religion, etc.

Expand full comment

PS: The people not trusting “science” and Pharma always had a point, unfortunately, it’s just been misguided regarding masks & Covid vaccines. Science isn’t without errors. We learn new things every day. Science learns what it learns. What people take from it and do with it is another story entirely.

Expand full comment

Well said.

The symbiotic bonds between media and other corporate institutions are the ruling factor in our national transactions—transactions which establish national policies and subsequent expenditures. These national policies have enriched the war machine, the politicians, and any other corporate endeavors which place profits before people. Now, there are so many major issues facing Americans (e.g., endless wars, voting rights, healthcare, privatization of education, poisonous agriculture [thanks Monsanto!], and a plethora of other serious issues—so many that we can’t keep track of them. And the beat goes on….

Two factors which have contributed to the current U.S. lifestyle of eternal wars are the elimination of the draft and the matter of no fiscal responsibility in paying for them. When the Vietnam War required the drafting of young men, eventually much of the population rebelled against the draft. When President Carter was faced with paying for much of the Vietnam War, inflation rose quickly to 20% or so. Reagan brought his “voodoo economics” into the White House; that was an irresponsible approach which pushed national debt into the future. Reagan essentially told the nation, “Don’t worry about paying for wars. Let your children and grandchildren pay for them.” That was the economy of “junk bonds” and hostile takeovers which created megacorporations too big to fail. As long as the populace knew the draft was over and wars didn’t have to be paid for at the time, Americans seemed to lose interest in how many wars were going on. (And, Bush Jr. charged the cost of the Iraq War to Chinese credit cards.)

At the end of WWII, the U.S. was on top of the world in terms of international reputation and production capabilities. Those assets have mostly been squandered now.

Somehow, we have to reestablish a principled and honorable nation. Or we’ll end up with completely polluted air, water, and food as well as the damning effects of climate change. Time is short.

Expand full comment

You’re a smart one indeed.

Expand full comment

None of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Christians. Freedom of religion includes agnostics and atheists.

Expand full comment

Many have considered the Founding Fathers "Diests" and Thomas Jefferson famously created a "new" version of the Bible by cutting and pasting "his arrangement of selected verses from a 1794 bilingual Latin/Greek version using the text of the Plantin Polyglot, a French Geneva Bible and the King James Version of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in chronological order—putting together excerpts from one text with those of another to create a single narrative." [Wikipedia]

Expand full comment

Whatever their beliefs, the Founders came from similar religious backgrounds. Most were Protestants. The largest number were raised in the three largest Christian traditions of colonial America Encyclopedia

Expand full comment

Freedom from Religion. Gosh, maybe you need to move to Cuba.

Expand full comment

David, I use that phrase to mean I don’t want anyone telling me how to live my life based on their religious beliefs. I don”t believe any one religion has the right to impose their “morals” on me or society at large. That smells to me like the beginning of the road to a “state religion.”

Expand full comment

💯🎯

Expand full comment

Remember, or maybe learn, that it was following General Zia-ul-Haq's declaration of martial law (coup) that he began the Islamification of Pakistan's military and government (actually the two "arms" of government in Pakistan, with the military being dominant) which moved Pakistan away from democratic structures and control.

That led to a paranoid group of the military, in control of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency to decide on its own to create the Taliban to help it control Afghanistan and keep India's influence there to a minimum.

Religion generally does not allow questioning of its precepts, and once its leaders decide something, it can become something that may not be questioned but must be followed without objection. That builds into a drift into various fantasies divorced from reality and catastrophes which are hard to recover from.

That is why the Founding Fathers wanted government to be separate from religion. Thomas Jefferson explicitly called out for a "wall" between religion and government.

It gives religion room to believe what people need to believe to live lives in an uncertain world, but also allows government to act on what it believes will help the most people based on actual studies and data about the real world.

Expand full comment

Go away troll.

Expand full comment

From the outset of our withdrawal from Afghanistan I have been outraged by the media coverage. Biden’s withdrawal of 2500 troops is the cause of the fall of the Afghan government. Shame on the media. We have been building a Democracy in Afghanistan for 20 years and if falls apart because we are pulling out our 2500 troops? I would say our failure at building a Democracy in Afghanistan was quite apparent. A 20 year military involvement and this is what all our money and loss of troops reaped.

We are in a major crisis at home supporting our Democracy. So media does not focus on our own war on Democracy. If we don’t attack the states who are supporting voter suppression by assuring all citizens have the right to vote we will lose our Democracy.

If we don’t focus on climate change there will be no planet. If we don’t attack the states who refuse to protect the most vulnerable our children under 12 by instituting mask requirements then we are supporting genocide. 5000 people died in the USA of covid last week and the media focuses on Biden’s failure in withdrawal of 2500 troops last week. The media and capitalism may be the true enemy here in this country.

Expand full comment

Speaking of protecting children, how come parents who “abuse” their children according to the state can have their children removed but refusing to allow them to wear masks and shouting maniacally at a school board meeting are okay?

Expand full comment

KISS message for those simple minded parents: failing to put a mask on your kid is neglect. Just like failing to put a seat belt on them.

Expand full comment

Democracy can not just be exported at the barrel end of a gun. It has to come slowly and from the growing pressure of the people who will nolonger cower under the force and threats of their "betters" and, as always, those infinitely more wealthy than themselves. It has to evolve with the unstoppable emergence of values that are innate to true individual and collective freedom and security for all within a people and a nation.

America has often thought of itself as a beacon for this movement but has rarely understood that it takes more than just the idea and the opportunity for the concept to take root and flower....it takes time and the willpower of each people. Each of us has a different conception of time time. Our institutions each have a different sense of time. The Media has difficulty going beyond the "here and now", whilst the politicians sense of time tends towards the 2 years between elections. The judiciary think in terms of decades and centuries. All of these different attitudes towards time must come together to achieve, improve or maintain democracy. Only when it becomes the overriding priority of the great majority of the people and the institutions will this be achieved with the necessary urgency, efficiency and perrenity.

Expand full comment

Stable democracies around the world, I am thinking mainly of ex-British colonies, took decades to take root and usually involved a grass-roots effort to get rid of the colonizer. None of these grass roots efforts succeeded without some kind of outside help. In the USA, it was the French. The Taliban are not a democratic (or even particularly unified) movement. They have been without a country for 20 years, selling opium is lucrative, but not enough to conduct their operations of the last 20 years. They had help. mainly from Pakistan, I believe, in the form of safe-havens, funding, and intelligence. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan did not take 9 days, it took years of negotiations, village by village, to lay the groundwork. The US was out maneuvered. The Monday morning quarterbacks among us who now say they saw this coming have had ample opportunity to speak up. I was completely surprised by the "speed" of the Taliban takeover. The ones who did see this coming, the Taliban, the rank-and-file Afghan Army, and most other Afghans, were not consulted, or even considered, by our decision makers. I respect Joe Biden for taking the political hit on this, it was inevitable. BTW Stuart,thanks for the word 'perrenity', it's a new one for me!

Expand full comment

It was the Pakistan military (the other government in Pakistan, and the more powerful of the two) that created the Taliban in order to keep what they felt was India's hegemony from "surrounding them." See Sarah Chayes's article, "The Ides of August."

Expand full comment

Great suggestion, Donald. This letter is presented with a succinct preview and point of view on another Substack column. Reading it yesterday presented me an ability to discern Prof Richardson’s LFFA today with greater depth.

https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/the-ides-of-august

Expand full comment

Her article nails it. The ISI now has a major headache. Being a pain-in-the-ass guerilla force is one thing, governing a 'country' is quite another - especially when the 'country' is only a loose collection of tribes with no loyalty beyond their clan. Good luck with that.

Expand full comment

In in particular, their ver "particular" intelligence service which seems to have a mind of it's own.

Expand full comment

A retired CIA officer has written an article posted by the Middle East Institute (MEI) that goes into the origins beginning when General Zia-ul-Haq took power in a coup (1977) and began the "Islamification" of the government:

https://www.mei.edu/publications/youre-all-going-die-persuading-pakistans-generals-see-light

MEI has a full history of how Pakistan "went wrong."

Expand full comment

The French were not the only ones giving a helping hand in the War of Independance....it might be argued that the lack of enthusiasm of much of the English establishment for any act that would disrupt the flows of trade and profits was possibly greater than the motivation to support George 111's and the government's powers over the land. The English establishment would have been reasonably happy with a negotiated agreement that allowed them market access. They certainly didn't like any such disturbances that disrupted the relationships with their cousins, brothers, sisters etc who were running the colonies at the time. There was never a great deal of enthusiasm in England for either funding the war or for reinforcing their armies in the field.....and the xtra taxes that it implied A shortage of troops eventually put paid to the military distraction.

Expand full comment

I think there is often a misconception by us in the USA of American Democracy. We see it in its ideal, how we would like it to be. We leave out the parts where it exists at the barrel of a gun.

Expand full comment

...and all of these institutions, with their different senses of time, are being herded and steered along at the breakneck speed of cyber-world with its lack of space-time boundaries.and its glut of fragmented information and mis-information. No wonder we are nauseous and have whiplash!

Expand full comment

Thank you Stuart, that was apt use of the word "perrenity". From the Latin 'perennitas' the quality of existing for a long time.

Expand full comment

Nitpicker here. I too appreciate Stuart introducing us to a new word today. As an avid gardener, I throw around the word "perennial" all the time. It took me years to remember how to spell it correctly - one R and two Ns, not the other way round. "Perennity" is the same, having the same Latin root and meaning.

Expand full comment

Accurate observation Beth. i have not sen the word since kaw school in British common law meaning long term use. l Love the Flowers, the Perennials, too.

Expand full comment

Thanks for the definition! I'd never heard of the word.

Expand full comment

Brilliant! The more I read Heather's letters, the more I see that my thinking is aligned to hers. The failure of the media to inform the world honestly and WITH FACTS both pre- and post-withdrawal is abysmal. I'm personally disgusted by the coverage even of the NYT and FT, my favorite editions. Thus, the people in Europe, for example, are divided on the ongoing events in Afghanistan and Biden administration's preparedness, wrongly fed by ideologically biased media who do not dare send reporters to the ground. The story is like Covid: scare the people, pump up disastrous comments, and get more readers. People love sensations.

Expand full comment

You have to keep constantly cognizant of what sells in the news and information industry.

Expand full comment

"...while in the same period of time, 5000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and 500 have died from gunshots."

All those dying Americans had the temerity to expire far apart from each other, away from the bright cameras and microphones of big media. Those people might as well not exist, in a system which values us almost exclusively as consumers, who can barely tear ourselves away from our narrow, addictive little screens.

What else in the world are we missing while we have our heads down?

Expand full comment

Christopher Johnson (Ohio)just now

Regarding the lopsided reporting as described by Josh Marshall and Matthew Dowd, Judd Legum's Popular Information newsletter dug deeper into the epidemic of Judith Milleresque reporting. This quote from a veteran (unnamed) communications professional lays it out nicely:

"I’ve been in political media for over two decades, and I have never experienced something like this before. Not only can I not get people booked on shows, but I can’t even get TV bookers who frequently book my guests to give me a call back…

I’ve fed sources to reporters, who end up not quoting the sources, but do quote multiple voices who are critical of the president and/or put the withdrawal in a negative light.

I turn on TV and watch CNN and, frankly, a lot of MSNBC shows, and they’re presenting it as if there’s not a voice out there willing to defend the president and his decision to withdraw. But I offered those very shows those voices, and the shows purposely decided to shut them out.

In so many ways this feels like Iraq and 2003 all over again. The media has coalesced around a narrative, and any threat to that narrative needs to be shut out."

With such slanted/biased reporting by the mainstream media, it's no wonder people are flocking to independent sources like LFAA and other good Substacks, TMP and Popular Information.

https://popular.info/p/where-are-the-anti-war-voices

ReplyDelete

Expand full comment

This makes me so angry. Didn’t they learn anything from 2016? I am close to fed up enough with the NYT as to cancel my subscription. Thank you for your posts about it; it helps to know that I’m not alone.

Expand full comment

I feel you pain but keep my NYT and WaPo subs to be able to read the opinions. The front pages of both rags make me want to slip into a hot tub with a straight razor most days. Thankfully I'm adverse to massive bleeding. ;-)

Expand full comment

Same reason I have WaPo.

Expand full comment

Thank you for raising this. I recently watched the movie "Shock and Awe" on Amazon Prime and (re)learned how much the mainstream media piled aboard the Iraq War bandwagon after 9/11. Only the Knight Ridder reporters and newsroom were reporting the real story. So much of the coverage of the Afghanistan exit looks familiar. Grateful for Josh Marshall and Judd Legum and others delving into the facts this time around

Expand full comment

Wow. That is a stunning post.

Expand full comment

I, for one, am tired of these Tя☭mp enablers now blaming Biden for the situation in Afghanistan. Listen to Rachel Maddow's Friday night show with Olivia Troye who clearly stated that Steven Miller's (and others') opposition to getting Afghans out was deliberate and calculated. Or, read this story : https://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-miller-racist-hysteria-blocked-help-afghans-ex-pence-adviser-2021-8

Expand full comment

If we have learned nothing else since tfg shockingly made his way to our Oval Office we should have learned to believe evil when they tell us who they are. Tfg has never had a good intention in his life. He is in bed with Russia and the Saudi’s, both having a vested interest in Afghanistan. The media have never been more disappointing than they are today when they cannot look behind the deception right in their face. People with any curiosity to ask WTF would ask WTF is going on here. TFG set this current chaos up with the help of Miller and numerous others. He has said so in black and white, loud and clear. If the media can’t do their job we are effed. Justice (and finding the truth that is drowning in the demagoguery) is too slow.

Expand full comment

Well put Christy! I could not agree more.

The piling on of the MSM on every sensational story in order to sell advertising/clicks/whatever, is what gives oxygen to the whole “fake news” lie.

When will we ever learn?🎵When …will we ever learn. 🎶

Expand full comment

Third Pfizer dose significantly lowers risk of infection in seniors, Israeli data shows

Fresh data out of Israel is providing encouraging news about the effectiveness of coronavirus boosters in seniors. A study by the Israeli Health Ministry found that a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine provided four times as much protection against infection as two doses in people 60 and older.

The level of protection was five to six times higher against serious illness and hospitalization, according to the study published Sunday, which looked at protection provided 10 days after a third dose. Israel approved booster shots for people 60 and older late last month, and lowered the age of eligibility to 40 last week. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, 49, received his third Pfizer shot on Friday.

Although the World Health Organization has criticized wealthy countries for moving forward with booster shots while much of the world’s poorer populations have yet to receive a first dose, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s plan to offer third shots first to immunocompromised people and then to the broader population starting in late September. “We don’t have a choice. We have to do both,” he said on ABC’s “This Week,” referring to the administration’s plans to both administer booster shots at home and donate doses abroad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/23/covid-delta-variant-live-updates/

Expand full comment

Christopher, I’m thrilled to see this. I got my third shot a week ago, and I’m finally beginning to feel a clenching in my gut start to release a little, despite the bad Delta news. I have felt only partially vaccinated, since I was immunosuppressed when I got my first two shots, and especially the second. I’m now beginning to feel fully vaccinated.

My understanding from reading various epidemiologists is that this is expected news. The two dose regimen was instituted the way it was in order to provide as much immunity as possible, as quickly as possible, even knowing that a wider spacing would provide more immunity. It was, and still is, an emergency.

I think the vaccines seem like a miracle. Their efficacy is truly remarkable. The notion that people continue to refuse them baffles and angers me.

Expand full comment

As news continue to come out about the efficacy of a third dose, there are some of us waiting to find out what will happen to the 13M people (like me) who got the J&J one dose. There is little attention paid to us other than articles saying studies are still being conducted. I'll wait like the rest of us, but sure wish we would be more regularly recognized.

Expand full comment

Yes, you all deserve better coverage and communications from J&J and FDA, CDC et. al.

Expand full comment

Am I incorrect in thinking I heard that J&J one dose could be “boosted” by a Pfizer or Moderna shot? And I believe it was reported that the Moderna booster which is stronger in quantity, would be the better booster for J&J?

I apologize if that reporting has changed. There’s been so much on this.

Expand full comment

I heard this a while back, but I'm waiting for Fauci and/or the CDC to say what is best of us J&J folks.

Expand full comment

HCR, thank you for putting the Afghanistan withdrawal in context.

As my wife & I discuss the history and circumstances of two Bush Iraq wars and the Afghanistan war, we find ourselves agreeing with Matthew Dowd's observations. Further, as we reflect on HCR's news summaries with historical references and context, we see that Americans are particularly vulnerable and negligent in isolating events into little boxes where we fail to keep them in context, fail to appreciate where they came from, how we got here, and what historically happens when we finally address them.

The first H.W. Bush Iraq war accomplished exactly what President H.W. Bush set out to do, in a very limited narrow scope. It was a success in extracting Iraq from Kuwait. But that President was punished by the media, politicians and eventually voters for not taking out Sadam Hussein. US leaders and oil companies had been guilty of supporting Sadam Hussein for decades, but that's another story. The unwarranted punishment of H.W.Bush led to the G.W.Bush trying to undo the so called H.W. mistake by not accepting the Taliban surrender and then doubling their mistake by going back after Sadam Hussein. This double whammy has cost our nation dearly in trillions of dollars, lost lives, lost credibility, domestic political terrorism, distractions and political abuse of our greatest domestic and international needs, and leaving most Americans behind on every topic and issue.

Afghanistan regardless of how you slice it is a Vietnam War sequel for all the same reasons, getting into something, another country for all the wrong reasons, staying too long and no good way out. We need a free and independent media not the media that Trump would have, and not the media that is somehow tied to a military, industrial, corporate complex using the same pundits that get us into wars, flit around looking for headlines while ignoring the data and significance of issues decades before they become disasters, and then criticize the messy reality of cleaning up these messes.

Expand full comment

I would add we need FUNDING for independent media. That is if funding and independence are not in fact mutually exclusive.

Expand full comment

Excellent summary of recent (for us older folk) history but I think your paragraph beginning "The H.W. Bush Iraq War...." is essential for how we ended up back in Iraq and stuck in the quagmire of two countries. Iraq, for the moment, is pretty much quieted down but we still have a lot of troops there. I just checked and it appears there are 2,500 troops and we have 12 military bases in Iraq so still looking long term to me.

Expand full comment

There is so much press attention being paid to Afghanistan, that the news at home is being lost. How many have died due to flash floods in Tennessee? A terrible tragedy.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/22/14-dead-dozens-missing-tennesee-north-carolina-flooding/8234256002/

How many died yesterday from Covid? How crazy are DeathSantis and Abbott and their ongoing stupid threats about mask mandates? When will the TX legislature actually vote on the bill grossly restricting voting rights? When will the US address the issue of voter restrictions and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and/or the Voting Rights Act? This is the important news that we need to see and regularly Come on journalists. Let Biden move ahead with evacuation plans, and give us some important national news. (I know these items are being covered, but not loudly enough.)

Expand full comment

It's not just flooding that is killing Tennessee folks. After the crazies on Faux Noise touted Ivermectin as a cure for COVID (it is a horse deworming medication), people in Mississippi are getting very sick. https://www.wvlt.tv/2021/08/22/fda-warns-people-not-use-animal-dewormer-treat-covid-19/

Expand full comment