It’s all a pantomime folks.  According to BBC News reporting on the Joe Biden teleconference call with G7 leaders, the sum total of the call lasted seven minutes.

Think about that.  With so much at stake and so much to be discussed and coordinated within the emergency situation in Afghanistan, the discussion between Joe Biden and the allied leaders of the U.K, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan, lasted only seven minutes:

(LINK)

It takes longer to get through the drive-thru at a McDonalds than the G7 spent on their Afghanistan briefing and coordination.

That conference call was for two reasons: (1) the White House talking point of a ‘collaboration with G7 leaders’; and (2) a photo-op.  That’s it folks, nothing more.

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The term “indulgency fee” is so much more appealing than “extortion“, just ask U.S. Ambassador John Christopher Stevens; oh,…wait. I digress.

It is being reported that CIA Director William Burns flew to Afghanistan to negotiate with Taliban leadership yesterday.  Earlier today,  Joe Biden tells the G7 nations that he is sticking to the August 31st withdrawal deadline imposed by the Taliban who are in control of almost all regions of the country including the capital city of Kabul.

For future reference, remember this CIA meeting with Taliban leadership in case the administration ever tries to say we do not negotiate with terrorists.  The Biden administration doesn’t have a choice.  The Taliban circle the airport in Kabul. The Taliban have U.S. made advanced technology surface-to-air missiles (SAMS) that we left with the Afghan army before their defeat.   As a consequence, the Taliban could easily begin shooting down any airplane attempting to take-off or land from the airport…

Hence… CIA Director Burns is almost certainly negotiating payment terms with the Taliban for safe passage.  We can only imagine how much money the Biden administration is paying the Taliban leadership to permit ongoing operations at the Kabul airport.   Think about how much Biden would pay to avoid the optics of a U.S. airplane carrying hundreds of Americans being blown out of the sky on CNN and BBC news.   That is how much we are paying.

Biden is telling everyone at the G7 he is sticking to the August 31st deadline date.  Biden addressed the leaders on the call for about seven minutes. The NATO allies are worried they will not be able to get their people out.  However, undoubtedly the extraction of Americans and allies AFTER August 31st is part of the agreement between the CIA (on behalf of Biden) and Taliban leaders.

The Taliban are not stupid, they have all the leverage in this dynamic.  The Taliban know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to gain massive ransom payments without the international media visibility of physically holding hostages.  They also know the desperation of the Biden administration to avoid any painful optics.

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Keeping in mind that State Department personnel are delicate wallflowers prone to exaggerated proclamations of situations, a report from U.S. embassy staff in Afghanistan trying to reach the airport contrasts a different narrative than currently outlined by the White House.

According to state department cables released to NBC news, some of the Afghan staff said they would rather take a bullet from the Taliban rather than attempt another effort to run the gauntlet and reach the Kabul airport.

(Via NBC) […]  The cable, which was sent Saturday, said memos were sent Wednesday inviting Afghan staff members at the embassy to head to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. It told them to take food and to prepare for difficult conditions.  “However, no one anticipated the brutal experience that occurred,” the cable said.

Staffers reported being jostled, hit, spat on and cursed at by Taliban fighters at checkpoints near the airport, it said, adding that criminals were taking advantage of the chaos while the U.S. military tried to maintain order “in an extremely physical situation.”

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The old axiom about being in a hole and quit digging applies here.  In some weird disconnected reality today, Joe Biden not only reflected his detachment, but he pulled Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Nat Sec Advisor Jake Sullivan, Def Sec Lloyd Austin and co-dependent enabler Kamala Harris into the hole with him with these remarks:

“I have seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world. I have spoken with our NATO allies, we’ve spoken with our NATO allies through our secretary of state (points to Blinken). Our National Security Advisor (points to Sullivan) has been in contact with his counterparts throughout the world and our allies; as has my […] secretary of defense (points to Austin), the fact of the matter is I have not seen that. As a matter of fact the exact opposite I have gotten”.

This statement is exactly the opposite of the reality.  The U.K. has roundly condemned Joe Biden’s poor and unilateral decision-making, even going so far as both parties in British Parliament holding Biden in contempt with their public criticism.  As noted by Newsweek, “Like much of the world, European countries have looked on with dismay as two decades of a U.S-led Western campaign in Afghanistan collapsed within hours,” and leaders of those nations have been very public with their criticism of Biden’s weak, ineffective and incompetent action.

Either the people around Joe Biden are lying to him about the perspective of the international community toward his incompetence; or Biden simply doesn’t pay enough attention to the world around him to see it.  Either explanation is alarming in the extreme, and the U.S. media’s willingness to keep pretending the emperor is not naked is only making things worse.  WATCH:

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The FUBAR in Afghanistan is so large in scope and failure, the Pentagon appears to be throwing the White House under the bus; and they are being considerably obtuse while doing it…. or are they?

If these reports from Daily Mail and Wall Street Journal are accurate, the Pentagon is claiming that Joint Chief’s Chairman General Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Joe Biden about the pending collapse of Afghanistan if 2,500 troops were removed.   However, both Milley and Austin are on record only a few weeks before the collapse saying exactly the opposite.

(Via Wall Street Journal) –  In his Monday speech defending America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden said he would not shrink from his share of responsibility.

That would include his decision to bring home U.S. troops, which was made against the recommendations of his top military generals and many diplomats, who warned that a hasty withdrawal would undermine security in Afghanistan, several administration and defense officials said.

The president’s top generals, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, urged Mr. Biden to keep a force of about 2,500 troops, the size he inherited, while seeking a peace agreement between warring Afghan factions, to help maintain stability. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who previously served as a military commander in the region, said a full withdrawal wouldn’t provide any insurance against instability.

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Many people have wondered how the Biden administration could get the collapse of Afghanistan so horribly wrong and botched completely the withdrawal of U.S. forces. To that point there is a little known Question and Answer session by Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO, CD05) that deserves some attention.

Approximately 7 weeks ago, June 23rd, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee about their budget requests. Rep Doug Lamborn took this opportunity, he only had 4 minutes, to ask some very specific questions about Afghanistan and his concerns for early reports of the Taliban surging back into control.

Lamborn asked about the hazard of closing Bagrham AFB given the tenuous nature of reliance on one airport in Kabul. Lamborn also asked about the evacuation of U.S-Afghan allies and the risk to women and girls if the Taliban were successful. What Def Sec Austin and General Milley said in response totally explains why the White House was blind-sided by the Taliban in the past week. [WATCH Video at 01:06:56, Prompted]

Given the nature of what has happened in Afghanistan, those totally wrong estimations of the situation in the region should be enough to see both Secretary Austin and General Milley fired.  At the very least reliance on this inept and totally wrong outlook explains why the Biden administration had no idea what was about to happen.

Congressman Doug Lamborn’s questioning was directly on point and in hindsight, stunningly prescient.   Great job by Lamborn!

Hopefully Austin was wrong when he said that any defense of women and girls in Afghanistan will be contingent upon the U.S. embassy in Kabul.  The U.S. embassy in Kabul is no longer there, the Taliban have it.

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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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CNN is reporting that the White House is contemplating pulling Joe Biden from the bunker in Camp David to give a national address “over the next few days”, in an effort to try and reset his transparent foreign policy failures.   Meanwhile, President Trump is calling upon Biden to resign:

(VIA CNN) President Biden is expected to address the nation in the next few days about the crisis in Afghanistan, according to a senior administration official.

One option under discussion is to have Biden return to the White House, though the official cautioned that they had not completely ruled out making the remarks from Camp David.

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Throughout the night and today U.S. personnel were evacuated from the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  The U.S. flag has been removed.  The airport in Kabul is no longer safe and flights have been suspended.  Afghanistan President Ghani has fled the country.  The Taliban are on the streets of Kabul as fighting around the airport continues.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is a stuttering and stammering mess as he appears on television attempting to obfuscate the complete FUBAR that is unfolding.  Joe Biden is being kept hidden in his bunker.  U.S. personnel who did not make it to the airport have been told to shelter in place and await rescue.  Some reports of negotiations with Taliban leadership for safe passage for Americans.  The embassy is being abandoned.

Why the rapid collapse? “In the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the U.S. pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore. The same happened with another failed American effort, the South Vietnamese army in the 1970s, said retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, who commanded the U.S.-led coalition’s mission to train Afghan forces in 2011-2013.” (WSJ link)

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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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