Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

When we show up, we win.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / President Biden Update on the Evacuation in Afghanistan (LIVE)

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    @MattF: Interesting!

    I wonder what this means (from the same tweeter that you linked to):

    Among the possibilities under discussion is a vote on two separate rules (one for the budget resolution and one for the bipartisan bill)

  6. 6.

    debbie

    @MattF:

    Is this the standoff about whether the Senate-passed infrastructure bill won’t be voted on until after the human infrastructure bill? Or is that a separate standoff?

  9. 9.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m really puzzled now. It’s totally calm here, no rain or wind, but Weather Underground is still predicting tropical storm conditions all evening.

  19. 19.

    JoyceH

    I got from the spelling that it would be on-Ree rather than “Henry”, but does anyone else find themselves mentally thinking “urricane on-ree”? Sort of Cockney-French.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    @debbie: I think there are four or five different legislative schedules coming together here. It’s an opportunity to throw sand in the gears and get your name in the paper. Also, I assume Fox continues to vilify Pelosi, so an aspiring red-state Dem needs to make a show of resistance. Being skinned and filleted isn’t a good look, though, IMO.

  21. 21.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zhena gogolia: The NWS prediction is that the storm remnants are going to go northwest to the Berkshires or so, then hook sharp right and come east tomorrow with the center tracking through southern New Hampshire, so the Boston area should get another blob of bad weather from that.

    They still claim tropical-storm conditions are possible tomorrow, though it seems more likely that it’ll be a mere post-tropical depression.

  23. 23.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: The problem is that he IS trying to do the right thing in a place where everyone is incentivized to shit on him.

    It’s a disaster of a quagmire – continual and permanent spends of American blood and treasure to prop up an unpopular and corrupt government. But the media, war experts who made their careers on it, republicans and other politicians can’t be held responsible for their own actions and words about Afghanistan. Biden is the guy in charge so even if he’s just executing the strategies that they literally advocated in June, they’re going to blame it on him.

    The media, meanwhile, knows that if it bleeds it leads, and that this plays into existing media/republican narratives about democrats being bad at foreign policy. Likewise, they know that the can get really good ratings with non-stop coverage about disasters and they have a scapegoat.

    Biden knew all this and did it anyway, and continues to try and do the right thing. And that’s why you know he’s a good president.

  25. 25.

    Ken

    I’m bemused by an earlier report that Henri was over “northwestern Rhode Island”, when it was larger than Rhode Island at the time.  I assume they meant the center of the storm.

  30. 30.

    Mike in NC

    I usually skim the useless Parade magazine that comes bundled with Sunday newspapers. Today in the back there’s an offer from American Mint to purchase the “MAGA Movement Commemorative Coin Set” which documents the Orange Clown’s alleged accomplishments. Sadly, the colorful coins don’t include his brain-dead COVID response nor the fascist January assault on the Capitol. Maybe they’re planning another set if this one sells well.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: Storm tracks are like that–one issue with the traditional “cone” diagram for hurricane forecasts is that it shows the expanding uncertainty in the position of the storm center, but it’s easy to misinterpret the width of the cone as representing the size of the storm, which can be much wider than that.

  37. 37.

    raven

    @WaterGirl:

    Biden scraps plans to spend night in Delaware
    BY MORGAN CHALFANT – 08/20/21 11:58 AM EDT 1,206

    Share to Facebook Share to Twitter

     

    Just In…

     

    President Biden scrapped plans to travel to his home in Wilmington, Del., on Friday as the White House grapples with the chaotic situation in Afghanistan.

    Biden had been scheduled to depart the White House for Wilmington Friday afternoon, but a White House official said that he will no longer be traveling and will instead remain in Washington on Friday night. It’s unclear if he could travel to Wilmington later on in the weekend.

    Biden is delivering remarks Friday afternoon on the ongoing effort to evacuate American citizens and Afghans who assisted U.S. forces in the 20-year war.

  38. 38.

    raven

    President Biden scrapped plans to travel to his home in Wilmington, Del., on Friday as the White House grapples with the chaotic situation in Afghanistan.

    Biden had been scheduled to depart the White House for Wilmington Friday afternoon, but a White House official said that he will no longer be traveling and will instead remain in Washington on Friday night. It’s unclear if he could travel to Wilmington later on in the weekend.

    Biden is delivering remarks Friday afternoon on the ongoing effort to evacuate American citizens and Afghans who assisted U.S. forces in the 20-year war.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    Via LGM

    Maybe if you got all the wars wrong you are not an expert for a TV show but just a person who keeps getting foreign policy wrong.

    — Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 22, 2021

    Schatz’s Twitter game is strong. He doesn’t get enough recognition.

  46. 46.

    zhena gogolia

    @zhena gogolia:

    That isn’t the one I was trying to copy, but now that twitter is screwed up, I can’t. It was when he told the reporter he didn’t trust the Taliban or the reporter.

  47. 47.

    Tony Jay

    @MattF:

    that group tantrum among ‘moderate’ House Dems.

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that whichever political party shall be designated ‘The Party of the Left’ in any given media environment, the faction thereof that shall be most ideologically ‘of the Right’ shall be known as ‘moderates*’.

    *see also, ‘centrists’, ‘common-sense reformers’, ‘mainstream’, ‘bipartisan compromisers’ and ‘Sunday Show regulars’.

  48. 48.

    PJ

    @zhena gogolia: ​
      The White House press corps loves “gotcha” questions, and has little interest in questions based on what Biden has said, or that will shed more light on a situation beyond whatever Biden has said.

  51. 51.

    James E Powell

    @Baud: 

    Schatz is from that exotic, foreign place, as Cokie Roberts put it, and the press/media don’t consider it RealAmerica®

  52. 52.

    Raoul Paste

    Maybe dead threaded, but I heard Biden‘s speech live on the radio.  He was extremely plainspoken, straightforward, and did a hell of a good job

    And he handled the questions well.  I hope a lot of people heard this speech, and realise that he is handling the situation exceptionally well.  And the critical press be damned

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    @Tazj: That was a total bullshit question.  Baiting Biden to answer – either way, it would have been bad.

    Yes, I trust them.  No, I don’t.  Fuckers.

    I thought it was great that Biden laughed.  He wasn’t born yesterday.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @craig scanlan:

    I think Rahm Emanuel is awful awful awful, and I thought that even before he covered up the murder by a police officer.

    On the other hand, this hopefully keeps Rahm out of US politics.  And who knows, maybe Rahm was thinking of running for some position and that would have been divisive and would have negatively impacted 2022 races and 2024.

    I imagine that Biden has a good reason for making this choice.  Sometimes it really does come down to the lesser of two evils.

  58. 58.

    aliasofwestgate

    @WaterGirl:  If anything it’ll keep him busy with japanese protocol and whatnot. Much less his manners. Which in such a formal posting he’ll actually need.  They’re about as rigid as the british when it comes to formality, if not more so. I’d say it’s a good way to keep him up to his neck in busy work and out of the way, yeah.

  63. 63.

    Dan B

    @craig scanlan: Politics is the art of the possible, not the perfect.  Biden pushed horrible policies- crime programs that sucked young black men into a prison industrial complex.

     

    And it’s essential to demand better.  I love LZ Granderson’s writing and his perspective on the US and the world.  Thanks for the link!

  64. 64.

    Dan B

    @WaterGirl: I too thought that sending Rahm to Japan was a move to get him out of this country.  The Japanese will treat him with paralyzing politeness, as they do to all foreign infidels and the uncivilized.

    Not that Rahm is in any way infidelishious or uncivilly grotesque.

  65. 65.

    J R in WV

    Me too, on Rahm being sent to the other side of the world. So long, MF !!! Plus, he’ll have to learn a foreign culture’s very complex set of standards and manners. Our own society’s manners seem to be impossible for Rahm, so Japanese manners, Oh Boy!!

  71. 71.

    Lee

    We are getting 350 afghan refugees in the DFW area.

    Helped out with some items on Refugee Services of Texas’ Amazon wishlist.

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