No Mask Conceals Stupidity

Blue City governments apparently think banning matches will prevent fire.

No, it hasn’t quite gotten that stupid ytet. But give ’em time.

Banning guns (in the hands of the law-abiding citiizen, at least) is a pretty common…conceit? Deflection? Fig leaf? Anyway – the notion that barring law-abiding citizens from using legal things to do things they weren’t going to do in the first place will affect crime (positively) is the sort of thing you have to believe to be a modern Democrat.

But that sound you hear?

It’s the bottom of the intellectual barrel being scraped.

Philadephia bans ski masks in some public places.

Because crime:

“The City of Philadelphia has been under siege with individuals who use ski masks to commit crimes. It’s caught onto not just young people, but young adults who have made this a particular thing to do,” Phillips told CNN. “The Philadelphia Police Department can’t tell who’s a criminal and not a criminal, which makes it difficult for crimes to be solved in Philadelphia.”

Sarah Peterson, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, told CNN, “The administration will review the legislation, and in the meantime looks forward to our ongoing work with City Council on the urgent matter of ensuring public safety.”

The Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in people wearing various face coverings including ski masks, “complicated policing” because mask mandates made it easier for criminals to conceal their identities, Philadelphia Police Department Deputy Commissioner Francis Healy said during a committee hearing in November.

Philadelphia has a crime problem.

Too many ski masks? Could be.

Could also be all the depraved leftists:

Place your bets.

Berg’s Seventh Law Comes Screaming Back From The 1930s

I was warned that if I voted Republican, there’d be an explosion of Fascist sympathizers.

And they were right.

Berg’s 7th Law is called a “law” for a reason.

Senator Ron Latz – an anti-gun zealot about whom I’ve never, not once, said anything good or complimentary – came out in support of Israel finishing the job of removing a terrorist group that has spent decades training its children to hate Jews, and is currently not only deliberately using civilians as human shields, but bragging about it.

And his DFL colleagues were not amused:

The DFL responded “Nuh-uh” in defense of a group that has created a generation that in fact is trained to venerate killing Jews. Because the truth about “Palestinians” is to DFLers what sunlight and garlic is to vampires.

The Senate DFL Caucus went full-on fascist symp in response:

CAIR is trying to put the squeeze on.

I’d say this makes a good electoral “hit list”, although of this entire list of genocide symps, the closest to one to a “contestable” seat is Erin Maye Quade. One hopes Apple Valley does better. I, for one, am going to do my bit to make sure they remember this.

Just to be clear, this is what the MNDFL supports. It’s a long thread.

If you happen to know a “progressive” who supports this mob, push their snout to the screen and make them read the whole thing. :

Remodeling With A Smaller Overton Window

My friend, advice columnist and author Amy Alkon, has been chronicling the orgy of antisemitism bursting out in the Los Angeles area.

She filmed this encounter over the weekend:

Let’s take Judaism, Antisemitism and the Middle East out of this incident. Let’s say this was a domestic altercation. A man Two men use their physical bulk and subtly aggressive invasion of personal space to force a woman out of the way? That’d be considered abuse in court, and justification for a restraining order and, likely, loss of child custody if the woman really wanted to put her back into it, legally .

When I was working in bars, if I saw a man behaving like this around a woman, I’d have called the bouncers in. And there’s nothing those bouncers liked more than having a pretext to pummel guys who were threatening the ladies.

Big Left – maybe 5% of the population – is trying to intimidate the 55% that passively or actively disagree with them into submission.

And the subtle threat of violence implicit is there, in this “man’s” delivery and in Big Left’s approach to every issue today – be careful, or you’ll get Swatted/a visit from “Anti”-Fa/doxxed – is waiting out there for everyone – especially if you try to rally in response.

I’ll be interviewing Amy on my show this coming Saturday.

All Relative

The incredibly aptly named Representative Debbie Dingell lectures us on semantics:

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free“ means different things to different people in different times!“, says the font of wisdom, in rising to the defense of the loathsome modern Nazi Rashida Tlaib.

And she’s right, in a sense.

The phrase “the final solution” can mean a lot of different things; it can be the formula that gets rid of your Creeping Charlie, or solves your credit card debt. So, too, can the German phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei”, or “work will set you free” which, set free of other context, seems straight out of Horatio Alger

Except.

Except when you’re talking about people who wanted, or want, to remove Jews, from some corner of the world.

Then, they mean exactly one thing, and one thing only. And anyone who pretends otherwise is being disingenuous, precious, a useful, idiot, or lying like a sack of garbage.

And if Dingell is capable of being anything, it might very well be all four.

Review And Revise

Whatever opposition I’ve had to deportation of illegal immigrants is waning fast:

I’ll work my ass off for the first Presidential candidate to promise to deport aliens who are actively hostile to everything this country stands for.

I said “actively”.

And if the people in this mob are citizens? Deport whatever immigration official or politician OKed their naturalization.

Or at least tar and feather them.

History Talking

I wish more American – especially Minnesota DFL – politicians could speak with the moral clarity that German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck does:

While allowing that the Germans have a tighter definition of free speech than we do – when you let the depraved speak out loud, you can see what they’re doing in a way you can’t in Europe, and I vastly prefer the American way – this would still be considered pretty daring in the US.

And he’s a Green.o. Talking like a classical liberal, on this issue at least.

This is apposed to the avatar of modern left-liberal left-center-leftism, President Obama…

…who is right at the top of the short list for worst president ever, with Woodrow Wilson, and far and away the worst of my lifetime.

When Germans out-do Amercan pols on this subject, it’s time for some electoral bells to be rung.

(Links bogarted from Powerline).

History Rhymes

“The Devil’s greatest achievement was convincing the world he didn’t exist”
— “Keyser Söze”, The Usual Suspects

One of the greatest achievements of the modern Big Left is convincing the world, and itself, that the Nazi movement of the 1920s and 1930s was, like today’s “American” “Nazi” party, a movement of ignorant blue-collar and no-collar losers.

It was in fact a youth movement, led by academics and artists. Besides Hitler himself, most of the cabinet that ran Germany from 1933 to 1945, much of the party’s senior leadership were writers, playwrights, journalists, painters and academics.

Same as the Communists before them.

And same as today’s Big Left. This is Judith Butler,

And if you wonder if today’s Big Left is bigger and more powerful? You’re not alone.

Przioritiesz

SCENE: It’s September 1, 1939. In the command post of the Republic of Poland Armed Forces. Poland’s Minister of War, Jozef BECK, and the Marshal of the Polish Military chief Marshal Edward SMYGŁY-RYDZ, General Szymon NOWACKI of the Armored Force,, are at the center of a gaggle of staff officers, poring over a wall full of maps showing a dire situation.

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: The Germans have cut off Gdańsk, have broken through west of Krakow, and are threatening to cut off the Poznan Army.

GENERAL NOWACKI: Marshal, we’ve got the Seventh Armored Brigade in reserve. They could hit the breakthrough from the flank.

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: We’ll need the Sixth Corps to support them on the left.

STAFF COLONEL: They’re in OK position for that.

Corporal Filip PRZYBYL, the headquarters Administrative assistant, enters the command post and salutes.

PRZYBYL: Marshal, the MInister of Social Justice has arrived .

(The officers groan)

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: Show him in.

(Social Justice Minister Evgeny LYBRZELSZ enters the room and doffs his French-style top hat)

LYBRZELSZ: Marshal Smygły-Rydz? I’m told you’re planning a counterattack against the Germans.

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: Well..yeah, The Niemcy attack threatens Poland’s very existence.

NOWACkI: If they break past Poznan, there is no obstacle between them and Warsaw.

LYBRZELSZ: We can’t launch the attack.

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: (Stops short, dumbfounded) What now?

LYBRZELSZ: There is no humanitarian corridor for German civilians.

(As an air raid siren goes off in the background, the officers stand, agog).

NOWACKI: What on earth are you talking about?

LYBRZELSZ: Attacking the Germans when there’s no allowances for humanitarian aid to German civilians is immoral.

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: This is a literal threat to our existence, by a nation that’s completely mobilized for war.

LYBRZELSZ: So you are committing genocide against Germans.

Entire room falls silent. The sound of bombs in the distance swells.

SMYGŁY-RYDZ: So, see to the destruction of Poland, then

LYBRZELSZ: What are you, a bigot?

And SCENE

Compromise

Someone walks up to you with a baseball bat. They say they want to kill you.

Your response is “no, I don’t want to get beaten to death with a baseball bat”.

Looks like you have a standoff. A controversy. A conundrum.

Someone else steps in and asks “How about we compromise? Will you settle for a traumatic brain injury?”

It’s the middle way, after all. The guy with the bat might even say “sure, I just wanna hit you, hard!“

You might respond “No – in fact, I don’t want anyone hurting me in any way. At all”

And the buttinski responds “Why won’t yiou compromise?”

Who’s right?

You?

The guy with the bat?

Or the person striving to find the middle ground between the two of you?

If your response is “I’m putting my foot down; nobody is hitting me with a bat for any reason at all“, and the other to ask “why do you hate the guy with the bat?“, does that change anybody’s mind?

Point being, sometimes the middle path, the compromise, is not the most moral path forward.

Rule #1: Know Your Audience

Hamas leader puts out a dog whistle to western leftists:

It’s not even close to the dumbest strategy.

Evil

The Nazis weren’t especially coy about their views on Jews. Hitler telegraphed his intent in Mein Kampf. The Nuremberg Laws were a pretty solid hint.

And yet in 1944 and 1945, as the wheels came off the Third Reich, they feverishly bulldozed the camps, shipped or force-marched the surviving inmates to other camps farther from the front, and tried to erase the record – because even the Nazis knew that their “final solution” wasn’t going to go over well with the outside world ,and could see war crimes trials in their futures.

Hamas, on the other hand, in carrying out the same mission as any of Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen, with the same exact methods they used in every shtetl in Eastern Poland (shooting, raping, smashing, burning), put it out on social media, with gleeful pride, to get eaten up by the gleeful masses of droogs on the “red/green” left…

….and, for whatever reason, ultra-right.


I was halfway through my trip when the worst atrocity agains the Jews, and one of the most ocncentrated orgies of violence against civilians since Rwanda, happened.

Ben Shapiro had probably one of the best hours of broadcasting ever last Monday. The video includes a lot of uncensored blood and gore and horrific violence in process – which is the point.

Here is is on Youtube, until it no doubt gets taken down.

Here’s the audio version, for when they do.

“Let’s not be picking black hats and white hats, here – this is a complicated situation”.

No, it’s not.

“The is a complicated situation”

Historically? Sure. .

In terms of this past week? Not complicated at all.

But let’s let you show us how complicated it *really really isn’t*. Answer this question; think of someone who did you wrong; the person who transgressed you worse than anyone in the world.

Q: What would it take for *you* to shoot that person in the face as he shielded his kids? What would it take for *you* to then rape, kill and mutilate his wife, to burn his siblings houses with his siblings and families inside, to give his daughter over to your rapey friends to haul off to another country to rape and kill, to saw his son’s head off, and use the other son as a human shield when the SWAT team arrived?

Did you answer “I would never do that?”

If not, why not?

It’s not a complicated answer at all. If you answered “No, under no circumstances would I do that”, it’s because you are not evil.

Which is what we’re talking about, here. Evil. There is no other word.

Figures

I take some time off from job, blog and radio show, and suddenly the biggest story in the world isn’t our senile president and Trump’s legal woes.

The fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur invasion, no less. Couldn’t see that one coming.

Quietly hoping that this time Israel ignores the international yapping about cease fires and diplomacy, and builds a pyramid of the skulls of HAMAS fighters, and puts it at the approaches to Yad Vashem.

They really need to push the notion that that “never again” thing wasn’t a polite request. It clearly hasn’t sunk in.

One thing that is sinking in: someone missed their cue:

“All of Israel is asking itself: where is the IDF, where are the police, where is the security?” said Eli Maron, a former head of the Israeli navy, on Channel 12. “It’s a colossal failure; the [defence] establishments have simply failed, with vast consequences.”

HAMAS is directly supported by Iran, whose intelligence and special forces are among the craftiest in the world. While Berg’s 18th Law is in full effect, I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and guess that Iran spent years helping HAMAS play intel-fu to conceal the attack plans.

This isn’t without precedent; even though the Yom Kippur War was a huge conventional operation with thousands of tanks and planes and hundreds of thousands of troops, it came as a complete surprise as well.

One thing that doesn’t need any post-attack study: Biden Administraiton policies have directly contributed to the situation. Reports say US weapons left in Afghanistan were used in the attacks; while I’m waiting for better confirmation there, it appears almost certain that US integrity and foreign-policy gravitas left in Afghanistan, or packed into boxes of money sent to Iran, was involved.

And the administration remains an embarassment:

That didn’t sound “unequivocal” at all.

Never Forget

Yesterday was the date of a horrific atrocity.

No, not some people kicking Ilhan Omar off of something. The 21st anniversary of the – words fail – supernaturally brutal murder of Daniel Pearl.

You should read Yid With Lid’s entire piece on the subject, which writ larger is the fiction of the notion that “Antizionism” isn’t in fact antisemitism. Pearl’s murder showed this to anyone who isn’t too blinded by bigotry to see it.

Twenty-one years and one day after Daniel Pearl was brutally murdered, Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was tossed off a committee because of her putrid public Antisemitism and regular use of anti-Jewish canards on Twitter. Omar was tossed because of her hatred of Jews, but many in congress, the media, and their supporters are claiming it’s political.

If you ask people why Daniel Pearl was murdered, they will give several reasons but leave out the Antisemitism part. Because the key lesson was never learned.

May God teach the people in the world to recognize that Antisemitism is real and pervasive.

“Never Forget”, they used to say.

The black hole of Aghanistan

SIGAR (the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) was established in 2008 to serve as an oversight body. It conducts audits of reconstruction projects and its mission is to look for waste and fraud.

In the wake of the collapse of the Afghan government last year, SIGAR was asked by Congress to look into the causes of the rapid collapse and today it issued an interim report. The text of the report is here.

Here is a summary of the conclusions.

SIGAR found that the single most important factor in the ANDSF’s collapse in August 2021 was the U.S. decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan through signing the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February 2020 under the Trump administration, followed by President Biden’s withdrawal announcement in April 2021. Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on U.S. military forces, these events destroyed ANDSF morale. The ANDSF had long relied on the U.S. military’s presence to protect against large-scale ANDSF losses, and Afghan troops saw the United States as a means of holding their government accountable for paying their salaries. The U.S.-Taliban agreement made it clear that this was no longer the case, resulting in a sense of abandonment within the ANDSF and the Afghan population. The agreement set in motion a series of events crucial to understanding the ANDSF’s collapse.

The report identifies “six factors that accelerated the ANDSF’s collapse in August 2021.”

1) U.S. decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan through signing the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February 2020 under the Trump administration, followed by President Biden’s withdrawal announcement in April 2021
2) the change in the U.S. military’s level of support to the ANDSF
3) the ANDSF never achieving self-sustainment
4) Afghan President Ashraf Ghani frequently changing ANDSF leaders and appointing loyalists
5) Afghan government’s failing to take responsibility for Afghan security through an implementation of a national security strategy
6) the Taliban’s military campaign effectively exploiting ANDSF weaknesses

In addition, the report identifies “nine factors that explain why, after 20 years and nearly $90 billion in U.S. security assistance, the ANDSF was ill-prepared to sustain security following a U.S. withdrawal”.

1) no country or agency had complete ownership of the ANDSF development mission,
2) the length of the U.S. commitment was disconnected from the reality of the time required to build an entire security sector
3) the U.S. created long-term dependencies that would require significant time to overcome, such as providing the ANDSF with advanced equipment they could not sustain and leaving them out of the equipping process
4) the U.S. military, driven by political deadlines, struggled to balance winning battles with letting the ANDSF gain experience by fighting on their own
5) U.S. metrics created to measure the development of the ANDSF were unable to effectively measure ANDSF capabilities
6) Afghan corruption harmed ANDSF capabilities and readiness
7) U.S. control of the battlespace and of key governance systems restricted Afghan ownership of important military and governance systems
8) U.S. and Afghan governments failed to develop a police force effective at providing justice
9) advisors were often ill-trained and inexperienced for their mission, and personnel rotations impeded institutional memory

SIGAR has been issuing quarterly reports and “lessons learned” reports as part of its mission. Last August, SIGAR issued one of these “lessons learned” reports, the text is here, and this is from the executive summary.

The U.S. government has now spent 20 years and $145 billion trying to rebuild Afghanistan, its security forces, civilian government institutions, economy, and civil society. The Department of Defense (DOD) has also spent $837 billion on warfighting, during which 2,443 American troops and 1,144 allied troops have been killed and 20,666 U.S. troops injured. Afghans, meanwhile, have faced an even greater toll. At least 66,000 Afghan troops have been killed. More than 48,000 Afghan civilians have been killed, and at least 75,000 have been injured since 2001—both likely significant underestimations.

What, really, do we have to show for all that blood and treasure? Will anyone be held accountable, even if it’s only at the ballot box? If the American people don’t have the fortitude to hold their leaders accountable, we shouldn’t hold out hope that said leaders will hold themselves accountable.

Rumor Of War

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Ukraine and Kazakhstan border on Russia. They are all mobilizing troops along the borders.


Secretary of State Blinken says NATO never promised not to admit new members, and that the United States is fully committed to defending the principles NATO stands for. The US has moved an aircraft carrier group into position in preparation to defend those principles.


China and Taiwan both agree there is only one China; they disagree whether the mainland or the island is the wayward province which should be ruled by the other. Lesko Brandon said the United States will defend Taiwan if China moves against it.


Defense experts argue over whether Brandon should get the US involved in a two-front war, or only one land war in Asia.


I ask why the United States is promising to go to war against Russia and China at all? What is our vital national interest in Ukraine? How many Americans should die for Kazakhstan? We already have hyperinflation caused by dumping Covid money into the economy – how will we pay for a war against China?


The United States played World Policeman for a century. It’s time to end the farce. We should solve our problems at home before attempting to solve problems elsewhere.


Joe Doakes

I don’t know about you, but I’m half expecting a whole lot of government push on the patriotism of supporting the war effort. Just like our victorious vaccination drive.

It’s Veterans Day

I’ve said it in the past; I’ve always found the practice of thanking veterans for their service to be a little…off.

Nothing against those that do say it – but it’s always felt a little strange to me.

“Thanks for taking a couple years out of your life, in many cases going around the world and undergoing a lot of unimaginable stress, danger and horror. Thanks so much!”.

So for my part – to all you veterans out there: I’m glad you made it home.

Let’s make this nation worth your time, and the sacrifice of those who didn’t come back.

The Math

The Biden administration did its unearned victory lap yesterday, in of the most catastrophically bad speeches I’ve ever seen – a formidable bar indeed for our senescent president.

But the worst part?

The Administration brags about getting around 120,000 people out in the “biggest airlift in history” (not even close to the Berlin Airlift 73 years ago, but whatever).

Ed Morrissey notes:

We know the evacuation carried out perhaps 6,000 Americans. Add in 8,500 SIVs, to whom we owe some degree of safety, and who will likely make better Americans than 30% of our current electorate.

Let’s further assume that some of them brought out family; let’s say it’s 25,000 as a generous guesstimate.

That means about 35% of the evacuees are the people who actually needed to get out.

That’s like the Dunkirk evacuation bringing back 50,000 British solders, 25,000 French troops, and 250,000 Belgian farmers who happened to make it to the beaches.

This, as the military left Americans behind in droves:

Text message between Michael Yon and a US Army colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division, writing from the Kabul Airport.

Saigon, Jimmy Carter, and the CIA people who botched the US Embassy in Teheran in 1979 can breathe easy; they are no longer the greatest humiliations in US history.

Hey – at least no mean tweets.

The First Domino

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

So the US got tossed out of Afghanistan, so what? How does our retreat-in-disgrace affect the rest of the world?

Maybe not so good. If the US isn’t willing or able to exercise competent military actions, the nations which have been relying on us for defense, begin to look vulnerable. They might need to arm themselves to defend themselves, or risk be conquered by rivals.

Domino theory is back and I’m wondering how many weapons and how much ammunition will be required to survive the fall of the final domino.

Joe Doakes

Japan has got to be seriously rethinking its post World War II agreements on military posture.

The Drones Of August

One of my favorite rhetorical easy hits – one I use a lot, but then it’s apposite so very very often – is “I don’t believe so and so intended to (implement some current fiasco that so and so is involved with) – but if he did intended it, what would he have done differently?”

It’s snarky, but it’s appropriate so very often.

Especially this past couple of weeks.

I’m an armchair…well, not “general”. I’m an armchair corporal. But in reading a metric poo-ton of military history, a few things seem fairly elementary:

  1. Abandoning Bagram – a highly defensible base with multiple runways and enough residual capacity to support tens of thousands of troops, to say nothing of housing thousands of refugees – in preference to running a combat evacuation out of a single runway on the edge of a hostile city? It’s a little like Churchill evacuating the Royal Navy before the Army at Dunkirk. Stupid.
  2. Purging generals and admirals (starting under Obama) that were focused on fighting, and promoting the ones who were onboard with Big Left’s social agenda? Stupid.
  3. Making the withdrawal contingent on zero conditions to be obeyed by the enemy? Stupid.
  4. Taking a pass on maybe defusing the whole thing long enough to make the evacuation at least nominally orderly, to say nothing of less of a humiliation?

Wait – what?

OK, I’ll say it – if Joe Biden and/or “his” administration were trying to humiliate the United State, isolate us from our allies, make us look completely impotent and untrustworthy, what would he be doing different?

Too conspiracy-minded? Just an accident, fomented by a senile man?

had an interesting, and ultimately intensely sobering about Afghanistan with Michael Yon on Satursay. It’s the first half of this hour.

It’s his theory that it’s actual, deliberate sabotage from within the Administration.

And if you ask yourself “Even in a Democrat administration “led” by a senescent fool and a cackling lawyer-turned-petty-authoritarian, who would be this stupid, accidentally?”, and come up with no good answers, it’s worth a thought.

Dear Hollywood

To: Hollywood
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant and Lapsed Movie-Goer
Re: Planning

Dear Moguls,

Get an option in on this story. Stat.

And don’t put some moron who cut his/her teeth writing comic book movies on the job of writing the screenplay; the story calls for someone of David Mamet’s stature and talent. Nothing less.

Don’t f*** this one up.

(NARRATOR: “Hollywood will f*** this one up”)

UPDATE: And in case anyone tries to morph some credit over to the civilian and/or military chains of command?

“This Herculean effort couldn’t have been done without the unofficial heroes inside the airfield who defied their orders to not help beyond the airport perimeter by wading into sewage canals and pulling in these targeted people who were flashing pineapples on their phones,” Mann said.

Which brings up a troubling question: if one must defy orders to do the right thing, what does that do for unit cohesion and morale? The authority of the chain of command?

Hidden in this one bit of scarce good new is a lot of really awful stuff for the future of this nation’s institutions.

Our New, New Normal

Over the past few days, there’s been an undercurrent on social media of people saying the implosion of Afghanistan, culminating [1] in yesterday’s suicide-bomb attack killing (so far) 10 Marines and close to 100 people all told was “the angriest/saddest they’ve felt since 9/11”.

For me? In some ways, it’s worse.

9/11 wasn’t a “surprise”, per se – if you’d been paying attention through the ’90s, with the USS Cole, the Khobar Towers and the first WTC Bombing, it was a natural progression. But it was enemies doing what enemies do. We were attacked – like Pearl Harbor, like the Norks crossing the 38th Parallel, it was people who hated us, doing what people who hate us say they’re going to do.

This past two weeks? That same motivation was – let’s not delve into conspiracy-land here – colossal incompetence on every level of our own government, humiliating this country. It’s basketball team doesn’t just shoot a three-pointer into their own basket, but every member of the team slamming a dunk into their own bucket, as the coach says “yep, that’s the plan – score 100 points for the other guys; then we’ll have ’em where we want ’em”, and the other team does casual free-throws when there isn’t one of our guys hanging from the rim.

They say “never chalk up to malice what can be better explained by stupidity”. But if the Biden Administration had planned from the very beginning to humiliate this nation, what would they have done differently? Make Robin DiAngelo the chair of the Joint Chiefs, and put Steven Colbert in charge of Special Operations Command?

Seeing our nation blind-sided twenty years ago was bad enough.

Seeing our nation humiliate itself? Over and over?

This is a new one for me.

This is not the nation I wanted to leave for my kids, my grandkids.

And as far as I can help it, I won’t.

[1] And when I say “culminating”, I mean “so far”. This seems to be a barrel with no bottom.

They Say…

…to never ascribe to malice what can just as easily be chalked up to stupidity.

I try to live by that advice.

But with God as my witness, sometimes it’s so, so very very hard:

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials… the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

If they had a plan do make not only the wrong choice at every single turn of this debacle, but surgically home in on the worst possible choices in every possible circumstance, what would our Houseplant in Chief be doing different?