Apparently, the communications goal from the White House team was to create a strawman argument around the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, and totally avoid the main point of crisis right now being the method and manner of the withdrawal.

However, he went one step further which makes it worse.

Joe Biden blamed the Afghan people, currently being hunted in the streets of Kabul by the Taliban, for not availing themselves of earlier opportunities for evacuation at the time when Joe Biden and his Secretary of State were telling them the country was in no imminent threat of collapse.

…”I know that there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghans — civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier — still hopeful for their country. “… [Full Transcript]

The entire speech delivered by Biden was a classic example of a non-sequitur argument.  Biden kept defending his decision to exit Afghanistan (which few disagree with) while avoiding the massive crisis created by his unplanned and haphazard manner/method of exit.  A point that was not missed by former President Trump:

Biden took no questions, ran away from the podium and immediately hopped back on the helicopter to escape back to his bunker in Camp David.

Joe Biden is an embarrassing joke, installed on our nation.

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The installed occupant of the White House is scheduled to deliver remarks to the nation explaining and justifying his complete failure to manage the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Most analysts agree, the dementia riddled occupant is expected to mumble his blame toward Donald Trump.

The White House has turned a deaf ear to those who asked the administration to turn around the teleprompters so we can read the remarks ourselves.  We will be forced to listen to Mr. Mumbles version of what the word assembly might be.  The effort is scheduled to begin at 3:45pm Eastern Time.  Livestream links below:

Fox News Livestream – White House Livestream Link – Time Mag Livestream Link

In early July, Joe Biden informed the American people of the coming drawdown of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after a 20-year occupation. The evacuation would be “secure and orderly,” he said, with little chance of a Taliban takeover. “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” he said.

Little more than a month later, the bumbling idiot with his feet in the oval office has been proven wrong on all counts.

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Facing domestic and international ridicule for his abject failure to plan, organize and successfully withdraw a U.S. military presence from Afghanistan without creating a massive international crisis and humanitarian nightmare, the installed occupant of the White House has announced he will address the nation today at 3:45pm ET.

The diplomatic and humanitarian crisis the Biden team have created is so bad, even CNN cannot cover for them. As a consequence, Joe Biden is being pulled from his bunker at Camp David and pushed to read the teleprompter from the White House. WATCH:

Four decades on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee….Eight years as Vice-President of the United States…. Eight months as acting President…. and the mess Biden has created is stunning.  Even the water-carrying media is having a hard time with it.

Biden’s key national security handler Jake Sullivan attempted to deflect earlier today, and even he made more of a hot mess over everything.

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The crisis unfolding at the international airport in Kabul has reached horrific levels.  Afghan nationals are swarming the airport in an effort to escape the onslaught, as Taliban fighters go door-to-door looking for people who have assisted the United States during the 20 year war.

At least seven people were killed at the airport, many fell to their deaths as they clung to the outside of U.S. C-17 transport planes.  Horrific videos have surfaced showing desperation amid the humanitarian crisis. The AFP is reporting:

KABUL – […] Residents raced to Kabul’s international airport, where the “civilian side” was closed until further notice, according to Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority. The U.S. military and other Western forces continued to organize evacuations.

Videos circulating on social media showed hundreds of people running across the tarmac as U.S. troops fired warning shots in the air. One showed a crowd pushing and shoving its way up a staircase, trying to board a plane, with some people hanging off the railings.

In another video, hundreds of people could be seen running alongside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane as it moved down a runway. Some clung to the side of the jet just before takeoff. Another video showed several falling through the air as the airplane rapidly gained altitude over the city.

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Whenever you review anything broadcast by CNN covering world events, it is important to remember this is the PR firm of the U.S. State Department. [Not figurative, literal]. CNN works directly with the State Department on messaging.

Today, CNN journalist Clarissa Ward gives a report from Kabul, Afghanistan [Full Video Report Here]. During part of the report Ms. Ward notes the Taliban are chanting “death to America”, but they seem so warm and friendly.  This is laughable, and hearkens back to the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots, but in a way it’s really sad. This is not only the outlook from CNN, this is the way professional leftists in the U.S. State Department view the situation. WATCH:

CNN Has Become a Meme of Themselves…

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During our previous discussion on historic, predictable and purposeful food inflation, on August 13th CTH noted “BigAg has likely already made deals for increases in government welfare payments (EBT and Foodstamps, WIC etc.). BigAg lobbies congress for higher reimbursement rates so they can raise the prices of food and export domestic product to other nations. Food assistance payments increase, and BigAg benefits. In essence, BigAg takes the fed food subsidies and fattens their profit margin. Then, they payback the politicians. It’s a circle of money.“….

If you know how the game is rigged, it’s actually easy to predict the background.  Today, exactly on cue, several media outlets are now reporting that Joe Biden is going to increase the amount of food stamp assistance by 25% per recipient, and expand the program.

New York Times – WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds one in eight Americans.

Under rules to be announced on Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last. (read more)

This announcement is actually revealing in more ways than just the predictability of it.

♦ First, the 25% permanent increase is an admission by the Biden administration that food price inflation is here to stay.  The massive scale of the increase also highlights the actual reality of how much food prices are rising.   This massive and permanent increase directly undercuts the previous White House and Biden claims that inflation was “temporary”, “transitional” and likely to end soon.

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This is a painful interview between furrowed brow Jake Tapper, painfully wanting to defend the administration and yet the total failure is too insurmountable to defend, and an abjectly overwhelmed and clueless Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – who is trying to explain the complete mess they have created.

The background here is the history of foreign policy failures and boondoggles by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton…. and the transferring of those same geopolitical outlooks into the Biden administration.  Blinken talks in platitudes of diplomacy that are irrelevant today.  The Chinese, Russians and Afghanistan Taliban don’t give a tinkers-damn what the dementia nurses around Biden are talking about.

The pearl-clutching Biden/Blinken approach is just as irrelevant as the bomb-dropping Obama/Clinton approach.  Team Biden act as if the Taliban cares about what Facebook, Twitter and Instagram voices say about them; it’s nuts.  The single-minded totalitarian Taliban don’t care about the United States or United Nations any more than they care about Tik Tok or CNN opinions.

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I’m left wondering where Ayman al-Zawahiri is in all of this?

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Random and related stuff that might help make sense of the next few days, weeks and months as the Taliban retake control of Afghanistan.

(1) The Muslim Brotherhood.  Already reports from Qatar that MB leadership is heading back into Afghanistan.  This is predictable.  The Muslim Brotherhood is the political umbrella for authentic Islam (ie. extremists).  The Brotherhood supports the al-Qaeda regional affiliates including the Taliban, al-Nusra, and others.  Qatar is the financial center of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood is political Islam.

(2) China.  Most people don’t realize that China shares a common border with Afghanistan and has issues with Islamic extremists and sympathizers.  China has benefited from the U.S. in Afghanistan keeping the Taliban in check.  A U.S. retreat now means China needs to engage with the Taliban to bolster their national security interests.  China will establish diplomatic ties with the Taliban partly because Beijing uses duplicitous diplomacy as a strategy.  [It ain’t because China likes the Taliban]

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People keep sending me emails about a Wall St Journal article [SEE HERE] highlighting John Durham and a grand jury receiving evidence.  According to the article: “Special Counsel John Durham, appointed during the Trump administration to examine the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, is presenting evidence to a grand jury and preparing a lengthy report expected to be completed in the coming months, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The article goes on to say Durham is looking into whether any informant or tipster to the FBI intentionally gave false information, ergo they have committed a crime:

…“Mr. Durham has been examining potential criminal charges against several lower-level Federal Bureau of Investigation employees, and people who aren’t in government, according to people familiar with the matter.” (link)

…”Prosecutors working for Mr. Durham have focused on people outside the FBI who provided information that helped fuel the 2016 investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.”

It gets a little frustrating reading these articles, yes I said plural – because the New York Times ran an almost identical article in April {See Here} –  because NOTHING is going to come of Durham except for the possibility of another obtuse report that will look almost identical to the report issued by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

How can we be so certain?… Because of Robert Mueller, that’s why.

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In July, Biden said Kabul would never fall.  Four days ago Biden said it would take more than 90 days for Taliban to reach Kabul, if at all.  Today, Biden sends 1,000 more additional troops to Kabul as it is expected to fall within 72 hrs.   That is correct.  By Monday the Taliban could control all of Afghanistan.

The AP is reporting that emergency evacuations have sped up the timeline to avoid the most embarrassing optics for the Biden administration.  An additional 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne are en-route to support the previously announced 3,000 U.S. troops handling the evacuation.  That is a total of 4,000 new military troops sent to Kabul to support the previous 1,000.  Keep in mind the original Afghan withdrawal was 2,500 troops in total.

(VIA AP) – The Latest developments on Afghanistan, where a weeklong Taliban offensive is now approaching the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, after the insurgents captured most of the north, west and south of the country, just weeks ahead of the final pullout of all U.S. and NATO troops:  “WASHINGTON — A defense official says President Joe Biden has authorized an additional 1,000 U.S. troops for deployment to Afghanistan.

That raises to roughly 5,000 the number of U.S. troops to ensure what Biden calls an “orderly and safe drawdown” of American and allied personnel. U.S. troops will also help evacuate Afghans who worked with the military during the nearly two-decade war.

The Pentagon said earlier that 3,000 troops are being sent to Kabul to join the nearly 1,000 already there. Biden’s statement on Saturday didn’t explain the breakdown of the 5,000 troops he said had been deployed.

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