Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

He really is that stupid.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Second rate reporter says what?

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / President Biden – Afghanistan Decisions, Evacuation Update & Infrastructure / Build Back Better (LIVE)

President Biden – Afghanistan Decisions, Evacuation Update & Infrastructure / Build Back Better (LIVE)

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This post is in: 

They are changing the description on the fly.  Here’s the final description – bolded parts are new.

The President delivers remarks on our ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to evacuate American citizens, SIV applicants and their families, and other vulnerable Afghans, and his meeting with fellow G7 leaders on how our nations can come together in support of the Afghan people; he will also discuss the House votes to move forward on his Build Back Better agenda and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.

Things are moving rapidly!  So it’s no wonder that the start time changed.

The Associated Press is reporting that Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday that his group will accept “no extensions” to an Aug. 31 deadline,

Discussions with G-7 leaders and the new request by the Taliban NOT to exceed the August 31 deadline have apparently resulted in a decision by President Biden to consider August 31 a hard deadline.

h/t on the tweet goes to Another Scott, who saw it on southpaw.

Reader Interactions

148Comments

  5. 5.

    Ken

    @Old School: Started right on time!

    News orgs: “The already-weakened President further showed his uncertainty by holding to a rigid timetable….”

  7. 7.

    Elizabelle

    Taking in thousands of refugees.

    “And rebuild a system that was purposely destroyed by my predecessor.”

    *thwack

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:   I would take that deal in a heartbeat.  One side of that trade is hard working and adds value.

    The other side just follows the wind.  No sense of history.  Amnesia for the GW Bush administration.  Sad!

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    @Elizabelle:

    @rikyrah:

    Beltway media: “President Biden, taking a gratuitously belligerent tone towards the former guy…”

    Majority of US voters: “Shut. The Fuck. Up, beltway drones”

  14. 14.

    Ohio Mom

    I missed the first part about the infrastructure and Build Back Better bills — can I assume progress was made?

  15. 15.

    Ken

    @Elizabelle:  Receipts.  Joe has them.

    I can’t stream right now. Has he said “The Taliban leader, whom we know is an honorable man because my predecessor arranged for his release from prison…”

    Or (as I speculated in an earlier thread), will the CIA director return from his meeting with the Taliban leader with actual receipts for money that the Taliban paid to TFG?

  20. 20.

    Ohio Mom

    @WaterGirl: It hasn’t been set-up yet to replay but I know eventually it will.

    I found out what I wanted to know: the House has voted to have votes on both so-called infrastructure bills AND the John Lewis Act. So far, so good.

  22. 22.

    Cermet

    Incredible that no one is amazed that the head of the taliban met with the director of the amerikan CIA! How often has an enemy wanted to talk directly with a CIA director; further, that CIA director met in Kabul! Something serious is going on and not to our disadvantage. Further, I bet with we leave 31 Aug,. as promised, the taliban will continue to cooperate with us to get amerikans and other nationals freely out of the country. If this is all true it would be insane (i.e. an act bush would love to undermine – i.e. shoot one’s self in the foot with another party) not to get their help in this matter.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    Meanwhile, Bill Kristol has endorsed Terry McAuliffe for Virginia governor.  Hard pass on the Trumpkin wealthy guy.  17 other Republicans will endorse too.  WaPost:

    RICHMOND — Bill Kristol is just like all the other disaffected Virginia Republicans whom gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin needs to win over, only famous.

    The longtime conservative commentator, who settled in Northern Virginia three decades ago to join the Reagan administration, split with the GOP over President Donald Trump. With Trump out of the White House, Kristol says he’s ready to support “non-Trump Republicans.” But Kristol does not put Youngkin, a former Carlyle Group executive, in that category. On Tuesday, he will formally endorse Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor seeking a comeback.

    “He’s a moderate Democrat, and he’s not going to shut down Virginia’s business success, economic success and so forth. He’s the kind of Democrat I’m comfortable supporting,” Kristol said in an interview Monday, when he criticized Youngkin’s “reckless” public health and tax policies as much as his embrace of Trump.

    Kristol is one of 17 Republicans who will endorse McAuliffe on Tuesday in a coordinated rollout that the campaign bills as a sign of the former governor’s bipartisan appeal.

  27. 27.

    debbie

    @Ken:

    Or (as I speculated in an earlier thread), will the CIA director return from his meeting with the Taliban leader with actual receipts for money that the Taliban paid to TFG? 

    Seriously, is there any truth to this?

  28. 28.

    RaflW

    re: the Build Back Better part of this busy day, Axios smears themselves in poo once again.
    I mean, really, this framing:

    @axios
    After hours of infighting, House Democrats have struck a deal that would advance their top 3 priorities:
    – Approve the $3.5 trillion budget resolution
    – Pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill by Sept. 27
    – Advance voting rights legislation

    Infighting. Because 9 or so primadonna ‘moderates’ wanted to posture and preen for a while. Meanwhile not a single Republican wants to do jack to help the public. With anything.

    I’m so fucking tired.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    @RaflW:   All credit to the Democrats, then.

    I think we should have a word with our media nincompoops about “divided.”  The DC GOP politicians are radical reactionaries. The American people are way more likely to support Biden’s initiatives.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:  Actually did not surprise me.  Terry Mac is a known quantity, and Bill Kristol has a lot of sane moments.

    I want to know who the 17 other GOP are.

  34. 34.

    Cermet

    @WaterGirl: But if not, why would a “terrorist” supporter openly meet with the head of the US CIA except to cut deals? Money talks and in Afghanistan, it buys what one wants and unlike Biden, the CIA can pay under the table freely. This looks like a good chance for a win/win for both sides. Of course this is wild speculation but having the CIA director there tells me someone with real authority (i.e. access to real money) was required for some reason known only to the higher ups. Otherwise, why not a state department person?

    This is something someone with high level working knowledge could better enlighten us …wonder who here that is?

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    Thank you for the alert, WaterGirl.  Glad to have seen Biden’s speech directly.  Be back in a while.

  36. 36.

    jl

    @Elizabelle: The corporate media found one D and one R old white guys arguing about policy in a diner someplace, and another ranting into empty space out by the dumpster about the Trump restoration and space aliens hiding in covid masks. Civil War!

  37. 37.

    Mike in NC

    Henry Olsen — right-wing crank employed by the Washington Post — put up a column a short time ago about how the Democrats can’t do anything right, such as passing a budget. He’s getting a very bloody nose as a result in the comments section.

  38. 38.

    RaflW

    @Elizabelle: Yeah. The NYT had some sort of analysis piece up in the last day or so that one could read as a paean to the good old days of the Tea Party. It’s just so g-d damned ghoulish.

  39. 39.

    jl

    @Baud: “But it lasted for hours! That’s some serious shit.”

    The company man empty suit empty headed moderates that the corporate media worships got called out for BS and lost this time. The sucky center-lefties to the commie Bernie-Lizzies won. So, the asteroid is imminent. We are doomed.

    Anyway, I hope this is the BFBD it looks to be.

  40. 40.

    James E Powell

    @Elizabelle: 

    I wonder what issues there are where our electeds would show the kind of energized solidarity that Rs bring to nearly every issue.

  42. 42.

    JoyceH

    Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor seeking a comeback.

    A “comeback”? McAullife wasn’t defeated, he was term-limited out of office and now he’s running again. Does that count as a comeback? To me, comeback implies return following a defeat.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    @Cermet: It could be that he was sent there to send a clear message.  Maybe something like:

    “We know a lot about you, your family, and your friends.  You know that.  Our eye and ears are everywhere.  We hope that you and yours have a long and peaceful life.  The United States has no interest in interfering with Afghanistan any more, but we do have interests in seeing Afghanistan develop into a place that is safe for women and girls and for all of your peoples.  We have said and impress upon you that we are serious that we will not tolerate Afghanistan being used as a haven for those who attack us or our national interests.  We look forward to seeing Afghanistan rejoin the community of nations and are prepared to help that happen, etc., etc.”

    Biden doesn’t have any interest in getting into a bidding war to buy temporary friendships in a country that really is not central to US interests.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @debbie: The part about the CIA director meeting the head of the Taliban was reported in BJ comments a few threads down, and I don’t recall if there was a link to the original source — which would probably turn out to be a tweet anyway. So it’s at the “I read it on the internet” level of reliability*.

    The part about TFG taking bribes from the Taliban in exchange for locking the Afghan government out of the talks and drawing down US troops is pure speculation on my part**, based only on his well-known history and psychology.  So it might be more reliable than the original report.

    * EDIT: WaterGirl says it was reported in the Washington Post, so that presumably takes it up a notch or two.

    ** How does that line go?  Ah, thank you Google.  “Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.”  The Mikado.

  48. 48.

    debbie

    @Ken:

    Thanks for the clarification. I had heard they were meeting, but nothing about payments. Knowing the jonesing for quid pro quos of any kind, it sounded entirely plausible to me.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    @James E Powell:

    You know what’s funny? Watching this reported on the local Fox station, none of the students were bothered, but their parents were infuriated.

    The kids are alright.

  51. 51.

    Chetan Murthy

    @debbie: There are two big pots of $$ that the Taliban surely want their mitts on:

    1. the AFG treasury account at the Fed ($8-9B)
    2. the most recent World bank SDR allocation ($300m-ish)

    I wonder if the meeting was to negotiate under what conditions the Taliban are given access to those monies.

  52. 52.

    Another Scott

    @Ken: AlJazeera (live thread):

    10 hours ago (12:09 GMT)

    CIA director met Taliban leader Mullah Baradar in Kabul: Report

    CIA Director William Burns has met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul, the Washington Post and Associated Press reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    The official told The Associated Press the meeting between Burns and Baradar came on Monday amid ongoing evacuations at Kabul airport.

    The Washington Post first reported Burns’ meeting with Baradar. The US official confirmed the report on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.

    FWIW. I haven’t tried to breakdown the paywall to read the WaPo story.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    Geminid

    @Ken:  I expect the CIA Director had more pressing matters to work out than tracing bribes. He likely will bring back any evidence the Taliban gives him regarding trump’s cupidity, though.

    There may be no evidence. I don’t think the Taliban had to give trump any inducement to sell the Afghan government out. trump wanted an easy way out of Afghanistan, and all the Taliban had to do was agree to avoid killing Americans while they made war on the Afghan government forces, unmolested by American airpower. They knew trump cared about no one but himself.

  54. 54.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Geminid: The biggest bribe TFG could have gotten, was for the Taliban to be quiescent during the election season, and he got that above-board.  The crime is what’s *legal*, as they say.

  55. 55.

    Cermet

    @Ken: II read it in the CNN, MSNBC, Reuters and somewhere in the Post. It isn’t just a twitter line.

    Another Scott: As to we telling them threats – please. We have been killing them for decades. The director of the CIA does not go into the hostile country and directly speak to the head of the Taliban to threaten them. He’d get out how? Rather, striking a deal so the taliban rats out the people we want (i.e. ISIS, Al Qaeda) would make a lot of sense especially since money under the table talks and the CIA has access to such funds.

  56. 56.

    debbie

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Right, that I knew (my hope is he’s dangling them in order to get time to get everyone out of Afghanistan, then pull them back like Lucy’s football). But Ken posted about the Taliban paying TFG for that deal he made with them.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: @Ken:

    Washington Post

    CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting Monday in Kabul with the Taliban’s de facto leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

    President Biden dispatched his top spy, a veteran of the Foreign Service and the most decorated diplomat in his Cabinet, amid a frantic effort to evacuate people from Kabul international airport in what Biden has called “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.”

  59. 59.

    Ruckus

    @Cermet:

    We have a lot of power as a nation. Even if we waste a lot of what we spend on defense – and I’m not saying we are, we buy many things they can not, and that gives us power. On another note, the Taliban still has enemies in the area. They are not powerful enough to completely control the country and one has to look, are they the worst possibility for general stability in the area? The answer is no they are not. And the reason I mention this is that we haven’t gotten what we wanted, no matter what that actually is. Nothing is a simple as us vs them. There are levels of good and levels of not so good and levels of horrible. And those levels depend on, what’s that word, location, location, location as much as anything else.

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: Whatever deal the Biden administration makes with the Taliban will be honored on our side.  But I imagine that whatever the carrot is, Biden has made clear exactly what behavior will nullify the deal.

  62. 62.

    Ken

    @debbie: But Ken posted about the Taliban paying TFG for that deal he made with them.

    I do want to emphasize that I have no evidence for this yet. It’s just something that some people are saying, which of course makes one wonder if there might be some truth to it. Does TFG have something to hide?

    (Practicing for my career as a network pundit, or perhaps a chyron operator. Note the practiced use of punctuation to convert a potential libel into a legally-unactionable question.)

  64. 64.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ken:

    Does TFG have something to hide?

    In this case, maybe.  In general?  Daily.  daily.  Maybe even hourly.

  69. 69.

    Anya

    This whole Afghan situation has challenged my world views. Generally, I am pro some level of interventions when certain regimes are doing some awful things. I am also in support of interventions to stop genocide. However, a lot of interventions do more damage than good. I was hoping our intervention in Libya would help the country transition from Gaddafi into a functioning government. But we all know how that turned out. Afghanistan and Iraq are a whole different level of American world fuckery. I do sympathize with the Afghan people and I know the Taliban are an awful choice but so is the Saudi regime. So is Iran and so many other regimes in the world. I just don’t know anymore. Why are we okay with the suffering and gassing of Yamanis but we are losing our collective minds over Afghanistan? I guess what I am saying is, I have no idea about anything so I’ve decided to just STFU about world affairs and do what good I can in the world.

  70. 70.

    jl

    @Anya: I am in your position to some extent as well. The history is infuriating. We could do some good in the world, even on rare occasions with the military. But recently (if you call decades ‘recently’), we never learn from past successes and mistakes. We seem to double down on doing the same mistakes worse. Bigshots make a lot of money off the wretched messes, so I guess some missions are accomplished.

  71. 71.

    Cermet

    @rikyrah: So cutting a deal with funds from the CIA for “favors” then seems a good idea for them to do. Afghans pride themselves on taking bribes and forming new alliances with previous enemies – lower level fighters would appear to respect such leaders. Strange country.

  72. 72.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Cermet: Societies of roving bandits don’t need to construct reliable long-standing systems of governance: there’s always somebody else’s territory to raid, after all.  Mancur Olson’s theories of state formation are probably relevant.

  74. 74.

    Cacti

    Does it seem to anyone else that the warmonger media is practically rooting for Americans to die during the withdrawal?

    The 0 American deaths is sort of harshing the narrative that “This is the worst disaster in the history of anything ever!!1!”.

  77. 77.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Good thinking.  That would make a lot of sense.

    edit: did you listen to Biden?  he said there are threats from ISIS K (whatever that is) and other groups, and that the risk grows with each day we are there.

  85. 85.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI.

    NEW: the House just passed a rule approving the Senate budget resolution. This measure paves the way for legislation to enact @POTUS' Build Back Better agenda, invest in our workers, families, and children, and create millions of jobs.

    I voted YES; this was the final vote count: pic.twitter.com/d7Z0VDZVFF

    — Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) August 24, 2021

    Straight party line vote – 220:212

    Speaker Pelosi didn’t lose a single Democrat.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  88. 88.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Cermet: ​

    a deal with funds from the CIA

    The funds aren’t coming from the CIA or anybody else. We froze their access to their government’s bank accounts.

  96. 96.

    Cacti

    @JPL: I also heard Tony Bliar was piping up about what a mistake it is to leave Afghanistan.

    Fuck him and every other Neocon motherfucker who wrought this shit.

  97. 97.

    CaseyL

    One of the many things I’m loving about Biden (and Psaki, as WH Press Secretary) is: no one pulls their chain.

    The MSM was freaking out seven ways from Sunday over Afghanistan, and it had no effect on what the WH did or said about what it did.  MSM played up a huge “Democrats in revolt!” over the infrastructure bills, and the WH just repeated they had faith in Pelosi (which turned out to be exactly right). MSM keeps trying to find a gotcha, and the WH keeps not playing that game.

    Biden and Psaki don’t insult reporters, don’t babble nonsense, don’t throw them out, and certainly don’t threaten them.  But they also don’t seek to placate, or get thrown off-message.

    I do like that.

  98. 98.

    Roger Moore

    @Cermet:

    The director of the CIA does not go into the hostile country and directly speak to the head of the Taliban to threaten them. He’d get out how? Rather, striking a deal so the taliban rats out the people we want (i.e. ISIS, Al Qaeda) would make a lot of sense especially since money under the table talks and the CIA has access to such funds.

    We don’t need access to special CIA slush funds to pay them off.  We’re holding a lot of Afghanistan’s money, and we can refuse to release it unless they play ball.  IMO, that’s an important reason they’ve been on best behavior during the evacuation: we have something they want.  As for why it’s the CIA director, someone else posted an article pointing out he’s career foreign service and possibly the best diplomat in the cabinet.  When it’s time to get the best deal you can, you send your best negotiator to cut the deal.

  102. 102.

    Roger Moore

    @Cermet: ​

    Afghans pride themselves on taking bribes and forming new alliances with previous enemies – lower level fighters would appear to respect such leaders. Strange country.

    If your country is surrounded by more powerful neighbors, taking a payoff and switching to the new winning side is a practical survival strategy. The belief you must always stick to your allegiance no matter what is a privilege of the strong.

    ETA: “Buying us off is cheaper than running us over” is not a bad message to send to people who are mulling their options on the matter.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    Likely even if this is true we won’t hear about it for a while.

    But think about what this bozo has done his entire life, there aren’t many people who are as likely do have done it but he sure is.

  104. 104.

    Baud

    Are Infighting Democrats Finally Getting Their House in Order?

    Slate Magazine / by Jim Newell / 21min

     

    Finally??? When has Nancy Pelosi’s house never been in order?

  105. 105.

    Subsole

    @Cacti: Tellin’ ya – all of those uppity Democrats will henceforth be Cartered. Facts be damned.

    I should probably lay off…but damn I am disgusted with the press. Almost as much as I was back on 11/ 16.

  107. 107.

    Morzer

    I like the cut of this guy’s jib:

    https://news.yahoo.com/served-afghanistan-us-marine-twice-100000389.html

    So when people ask me if we made the right call getting out of Afghanistan in 2021, I answer truthfully: Absolutely not. The right call was getting out in 2002. 2003. Every year we didn’t get out was another year the Taliban used to refine their skills and tactics against us — the best fighting force in the world. After two decades, $2 trillion and nearly 2,500 American lives lost, 2021 was way too late to make the right call.

    You’d think when it all came crumbling down around them, they’d accept the truth. Think again.

    War-hungry hawks are suggesting our soldiers weren’t in harm’s way. Well, when I was there, two incredible Marines in my unit were killed.

    Elitist hacks are even blaming the American people for what happened last week. The same American people that they spent years lying to about Afghanistan. Are you kidding me?

    We deserve better. Instead of politicians spending $6.4 trillion to “nation build” in the Middle East, we should start nation building right here at home.

    I can’t believe that would be a controversial proposal, but already in Washington, we see some of the same architects of these Middle Eastern disasters balking at the idea of investing a fraction of that amount to build up our own country.

    The lies about Afghanistan matter not just because of the money spent or the lives lost, but because they are representative of a systematic dishonesty that is destroying our country from the inside out.

  110. 110.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ken: If the director of the CIA wanted to have a secret meeting, I have no doubts about his abilities to do so. This was “secret” wink-wink, like the secret encounters between celebrities who happen to have a professional photographer on standby.

  115. 115.

    debbie

    @CaseyL: 

    Biden and Psaki don’t insult reporters, don’t babble nonsense, don’t throw them out, and certainly don’t threaten them. But they also don’t seek to placate, or get thrown off-message.

    I do like that.

    Couldn’t Jen insult Doocy just once? Please?
    .

  117. 117.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    God bless her old blood

    Daniella Diaz @DaniellaMicaela
    I asked Pelosi about the deal she reached with moderates when she walked off the House floor. “What deal?” she responded. “They wanted clarification about how we go forward and that’s what we did.”

  125. 125.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:

    Can we get him to run for Senate in Missouri? Asking for a friend…

    He’s way ahead of you.  From the byline on that column:

    Cole County native Lucas Kunce is a Marine veteran and antitrust advocate. He is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.

  126. 126.

    Steeplejack

    Indulge me in a little speculation about how misinformation/​disinformation gets spun up.

    Occasional commenter Ken started like this downstairs:

    Baud: Something is up. [CIA director meeting with Taliban.]

    Ken: I’ll say less than a 15% chance he returns with documentation showing Trump took payments from the Taliban to cut the Afghan government out of the negotiations.

    Which seems to say the CIA director probably will not be bringing back evidence or “receipts.”

    But then in this thread that becomes:

    Or (as I speculated in an earlier thread), will the CIA director return from his meeting with the Taliban leader with actual receipts for money that the Taliban paid to TFG?

    Which morphs into:

    The part about TFG taking bribes from the Taliban in exchange for locking the Afghan government out of the talks and drawing down US troops is pure speculation on my part**, based only on his well-known history and psychology. So it might be more reliable than the original report.

    (Emphasis mine.)

    But that gets people talking about it. Debbie tells Chetan Murthy: “But Ken posted about the Taliban paying TFG for that deal he made with them.” Geminid posts: “I expect the CIA Director had more pressing matters to work out than tracing bribes. He likely will bring back any evidence the Taliban gives him regarding trump’s cupidity, though.”

    Ken covers his ass while doubling down:

    I do want to emphasize that I have no evidence for this yet. It’s just something that some people are saying, which of course makes one wonder if there might be some truth to it. Does TFG have something to hide?

    (Emphasis mine.)

    WTF, Ken? Seriously. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but this reads like some cheesy trolling bullshit.

    And it strikes a nerve with me because I fully expect that sometime in the next week I will read a comment on this blog from someone talking about how they read on Balloon Juice (or “somewhere—sorry, I don’t have a link”) that Trump might have taken bribes from the Taliban.

  127. 127.

    trollhattan

    @Morzer:

    Good piece.

    I bet we got some damn fine maps of Afghanistan in those twenty years. Boy howdy, next time we’ll know every rock in the joint.

  128. 128.

    CaseyL

    @debbie: I’d love it, you’d love it, a whole lot of people would love it… but I think a big part of Jen being Doocy’s Kryptonite is that she doesn’t do things like that.

  129. 129.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia:

    I read Nichol’s commentary and I think on the merits it’s fairly accurate. Essentially, the public has no bone in fight in regards to Afghanistan so of course they didn’t give a shit – but they should have given a shit about the 2000+ people who died and the vets that came back traumatized from both Iraq and Afghanistan.

    So yeah, it’s on us. But it’s pretty much on conservative thought leaders and their constituents. I think those of us on this top 500 blogs very much to wanted to support the troops and not just when they are in the theater of war, but when they come back.

  133. 133.

    Fake Irishman

    @James E Powell:

    Even this Wolverine appreciates tOSU’s decision to mandate vaccines here. Good on them.

    I must say your football team totally dodged a bullet last year when Michigan had an outbreak. Our club with two injured QBs, cornerbacks stuck in molasses and a gaping hole where most teams field defensive tackles was totally going to whip your team of five-star recruits and all-Americans.

  140. 140.

    Steeplejack

    @debbie:

    By the Taliban? Yeah, probably I would be surprised. I think he would see them as “dirty” and beneath him, not like the fancy emirs of the Gulf states.

    In any case, maybe let’s get something more to go on than the suspect musings of one commenter.

  141. 141.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    What a stupid and self-indulgent stunt

    The Associated Press @AP
    U.S officials say two members of Congress flew into Kabul airport in the middle of the ongoing chaotic evacuation. The unannounced visit stunned beleaguered State Department and military personnel on the ground, the officials say.

    Moulton and Meijer

    Richard M. Nixon @dick_nixon
    Moulton is such a grandstanding little shit he reminds me of Evan Bayh.

    My God, apart from the distraction and the use of resources, how big of a damn fool do you have to be to disrespect in public the President of the United States, and your Speaker who drinks blood for sport? (thread)

  146. 146.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: The speculation grew out of the commenter’s pre-disappointment that CIA Director Burns would not be bringing back “the goods” on trump. I thought the commenter was centering his vindictiveness towards trump, when the discussions between Burns and the Taliban leader held life and death implications for hundreds of people in the coming days. I could have been more explicit about this though.

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Geminid:

    I got that. I wasn’t criticizing you.

    I thought it was odd and noteworthy that one lone commenter took this thing from “Ha-ha, I’m sort of joking” to “It’s a real thing that some people are talking about.”

    I documented it mainly because I think there will come a time when somebody here says, “Hey, I read that Trump took a bribe from the Taliban.”

  148. 148.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack (phone): I did not think you were being critical, beyond the fact that my  comment was a good example of how rumors can gain traction just by being talked about. It is something to look out for.

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