Disgrace: Weak Biden Struggles Through Remarks After 12 Americans Killed

The day 12 American service members and an unknown number of Afghans were killed by suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, President Joe Biden was 25 minutes late to address the nation in a roaming speech marked with labored breathing and a few choked-up moments. Biden said he’s “outraged as well as heartbroken” after “ISIS-K took the lives of service members standing guard at the airport” in Kabul Thursday. “These American service members who gave their lives” in Kabul “were heroes,” Biden said. “Heroes who’ve been engaged in the dangerous, selfless mission to save the lives of others.” The dangerous mission is, of course, the result of the Biden administration’s misreading of intelligence that led the world to watch Afghanistan fall to the Taliban in a matter of days.

Biden delivered a message to those who carried out Thursday’s suicide attacks as well as others who may wish America harm: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said, refusing to give specifics about when, where, or how those responsible would be made to pay other than that the United States would strike ISIS-K leadership, assets, and facilities. It’s a departure from the President’s promise last week that “any attack on our forces or disruption of our operations at the airport will be met with a swift and forceful response.”

As the Biden administration has said, they had intelligence of impending ISIS-K attacks on HKIA for days — so why weren’t the group’s leaders, assets, or facilities attacked before? Instead of striking ISIS-K previously, Biden’s plan has been partially reliant on the Taliban checkpoints around the airport to deter or detect ISIS-K suicide bombers.

In his remarks, the President also touted his administration’s talking points on how many individuals have been airlifted so far while offering a vague commitment to “complete our mission” in Afghanistan — set to end by the Taliban’s August 31 deadline — that is not on track to get every American out of the country before the U.S. military withdraws from Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Again without specifics, Biden promised that the United States will “find any American who wishes to get out of Afghanistan” and “get them out” after the military has withdrawn without any explanation for how such missions will be carried out after a U.S. departure. And despite his administration’s claims that every American who wants to get out of Afghanistan would be evacuated, Biden stated that a war has not ended with a “guarantee that everyone who wanted to be extracted…would get out.”

Following his remarks, Biden again pulled out a preapproved list of reporters he “was instructed to call on” before attempting to again blame former President Trump for his deadly handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal after eventually calling on Fox News’ Peter Doocy.

The President, though, had extended the deadline negotiated by Trump. And his failure to successfully or safely bring the United States out of Afghanistan is squarely the fault of President Biden.

And SloJoe confirmed this in his latest presser this afternoon!
I’m unable to put down what I think about this level of idiocy – beyond it being crap-for-brains.
It’s beyond betrayal.
It has actually aided and provided assistance to the enemy.

U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuate

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official.

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 move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country.

It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

But 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.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment.

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Biden Prepares to Scapegoat Americans He Abandoned in Afghanistan

“Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home.” – Joe Biden, August 20, 2021

That’s been the talking point from a number of Biden administration officials over the past week as the situation in Afghanistan continued to deteriorate. If you’re an American who wants to leave Afghanistan, Biden will ensure your departure. This is a lie.

A close look at the language, combined with the official policy that the United States will be leaving the country on August 31 even as the airport in Kabul is blocked off by miles of Taliban checkpoints, gives away Biden’s strategy.

Americans can’t safely get to the airport and the administration knows it. They’ve had their passports confiscated and destroyed by the Taliban. They’ve been beaten in their attempt to follow instructions from the U.S. government.

When the mission to get Americans out of the country fails, Biden will blame the Americans for “not wanting to leave” or for not properly getting in touch with the State Department to file their paperwork. Keep in mind the Taliban has seized cell towers and shut off electricity in a number of areas, making it impossible to receive updated instructions from the U.S. government about how to proceed.

For days, the State Department has told Americans to go to the airport, not to go to the airport, to go to the airport, and yet, they are already being blamed for their demise.

“People chose not to leave. That’s their business,” Acting U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson told CBS News in an interview this week.

Wilson of course ignores Biden’s own statements in July that a Taliban takeover of the country was unlikely.

“The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,” Biden said during a press conference on July 8.

This was a lie and Biden told it anyway while Americans stood in harm’s way.

In just a few short days, pointing fingers at stranded Americans will continue to be the cynical, despicable excuse for the administration’s decision to leave our fellow countrymen behind. It will be invoked after President Biden allowed the Taliban to overtake the country in record time, abandoning Americans behind enemy lines.

“We will continue to evacuate as many people as we can until the end of the mission,” Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said, indicating the mission is to leave on August 31, not to get Americans out.

As of August 26, the drawdown has started and 600 U.S. troops have already left the country. With dual suicide bombings outside of the airport Thursday, the exit is quickly escalating.

“Military continues to retrograde and depart airport. Almost a certainty that Americans will be left behind.  They will have to be extracted after-the-fact through either Taliban negotiation or unconventional means,” Fox News reports.

By August 31, Americans who can’t make it to the airport due to suicide bombings, Taliban checkpoints and Biden’s incompetence, will be abandoned. Without U.S. troops in the country to get them out, they are all but doomed.

UPDATE: Speech at 5 pm;
As U.S. Casualties Mount, Biden and Officials Are MIA

UPDATE: Biden will speak at 5 p.m. ET. Coverage of the Pentagon briefing can be found here.

***Original post***

At least 11 United States Marines and 1 Navy medic are dead after a number of suicide bombings outside of the Kabul airport Thursday.

The State Department has canceled their press briefing for the day. The briefing at the Pentagon has been delayed until 3 pm. The White House press briefing was scheduled for 12 p.m. ET, it has been postponed.

It’s been five hours since the attacks occurred and the country has yet to hear from President Joe Biden. His schedule, which included a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and governors, has been cleared. He’s reportedly going over options in the Situation Room and Oval Office.

During an interview last week with ABC News, Biden’s strategy included knocking on wood.

The White House has repeatedly argued President Biden planned for every contingency and that any attack on Americans would be met with force. We still haven’t seen a response.

“He asked yesterday for contingency plans, and he received a briefing on them this morning.  These are incredibly serious issues, and they’re discussions that are happening internally,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday. “And I’d note that, in addition to the contingency plans that he requested, he also, I will reiterate, as we stated yesterday, that this is all contingent on us achieving our objectives and our, and the continued coordination with the Taliban.”

Yeah, all those gun control laws in Illinois and Chicago sure kept this convicted felon from getting a gun.
And my guess is that the family of the murdered victim is going to own that business after their lawsuit is settled for them hiring that convict as a security guard.

Security Guard Says He Shot Unmasked Customer In Self-Defense

When can you legally act in self-defense? Laws vary from state to state, but generally, you are only legally authorized to use lethal force in self-defense if there is an immediate threat of great bodily injury or death to you or to another person. Still, it’s not uncommon for people to claim they were acting in self-defense even if the circumstances don’t fit the legal requirements.

That would appear to be the case for a security guard in Chicago charged with attempted murder and other charges after he shot a customer three times. 42-year old Chester Holmes claims he was acting in self-defense…  because the customer wasn’t wearing a mask and he was afraid of catching COVID-19.

The argument did not sway cook County Judge Mary Marubio.

“The victim fled the store, fell outside, followed by the defendant [who], according to the surveillance video, shot a second time. The defendant then paces back and forth and shot a third time,” Marubio said before ordering 42-year-old Chester Holmes held without bail.

Holmes, who is barred from possessing a weapon because he is a four-time convicted felon and registered child sex offender, was working as an armed security guard at the store on the 6000 block of South Racine when a 28-year-old man walked in without a COVID mask around 9:53 am. Monday, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Darryl Auguste.

Holmes and the victim argued about the mask policy and the victim eventually left. He then turned around and walked back in. When he did, Holmes met him with a drawn handgun and shot him, Auguste said.

After he was shot the victim fled the store, only to collapse on the ground outside. Prosecutors say Holmes then walked outside the store and shot the victim two more times before he himself fled the scene.

According to CWB Chicago, Holmes is a four-time felon who’s previously been convicted of sexually assaulting a 6-year old girl and sexually abusing a 15-year old. Holmes also served two stints in prison for failing to register as a sex offender for those crimes, yet somehow Holmes was hired as an armed guard for the store despite being prohibited by state and federal law from lawfully possessing a firearm.

Now, it is possible to legally act in armed self-defense even as a prohibited person, but if a gun is used you’re still going to be facing felon in possession charges. Still, Holmes’ attorney is apparently trying to make the best of a really weak case by arguing that his client was acting to protect himself when he shot the returning customer.

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Sorry Grannies, I think you too are going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

Grandmothers Against Gun Violence Target Missouri Governor’s Pro-Second Amendment Stance

Grandmothers Against Gun Violence founder Judy Sherry is targeting Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s pro-Second Amendment stance and subsequent pro-gun policies.

Sherry founded her Missouri-based group after the December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School attack in Connecticut. Since that time, Sherry admits that Missouri has only increased protections of gun rights, rather than passing “meaningful” gun control, Yahoo News reported.

Sherry is especially bothered by the Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA), which Gov. Parson signed into law on June 12.

SAPA “prohibits the enforcement of federal gun laws by local law enforcement agencies,” WLBT noted. Continue reading “”

Man shoots person in self-defense on West Side

CHICAGO – A man shot someone in self-defense Wednesday morning in Austin on the West Side, Chicago police said.

Police said the man, 39, opened fire after another man started attacking him with a knife. The attack happened around 8:50 a.m. in the 1700 block of North Lockwood Avenue.

The man who was shot, a 23-year-old, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said.

I think they are going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

Activists Urge Biden to Bypass Congress, Create Gun Violence Office

Advocacy groups are urging President Joe Biden to bypass Congress by creating a White House office of gun violence as the confirmation of his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives remains in jeopardy, Politico reported.

Four groups send Biden a letter on Wednesday and complained the president’s actions on guns “fall significantly short of the promises you yourself made while running for the presidency,” Politico reported Thursday.

The activists said weapons had not been a Biden priority as 28,000 Americans have died from gun violence this year.

“Your administration is hard at work pursuing important priorities from infrastructure reform to reducing the disastrous impacts of climate change,” according to the letter obtained by Politico.

“But with rising gun deaths and the heightened threat of armed political extremism, gun violence can no longer be seen as a back burner issue.”

With David Chipman’s nomination to lead ATF languishing in the Senate, the groups asked Biden to establish a White House office led by a Cabinet-level aide, who would not need Senate confirmation.

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Comment O’ The Day

This country created an army in Afghanistan that was dependent on resupply from helicopters that had enormous fuel and maintenance requirements. We never created the refueling infrastructure, and we used American contractors (who were withdrawn) to maintain the helicopters.

Any objective observer looking at the system we setup would conclude that it had one purpose: to enrich crony contractors who banked on our patriotism. 

This is not a Red vs Blue thing. This is a government thing. Our government has been captured by enemies who have no interest in a restrained governance for the people and by the people. Their sole purpose is to extract dollars from us all, “rich” folk if necessary, to pocket. If they have to pay 30% or 40% back to the government, it’s no big deal. They’ll get even more grift next year.

Afghanistan and the Surrender-Monkey-In-Chief: what’s really going on here?

Today’s latest abomination:

President Biden on Tuesday said he will stick to an Aug. 31 deadline for removing US troops from Afghanistan after the Taliban said it would not allow him any additional time to evacuate US citizens and refugees…

He was scheduled to brief the US public with a noon speech, but his remarks were repeatedly delayed as criticism mounted.

I have come to dread the news. I assume, and usually correctly, that it will rouse in me a very familiar sense of impotent rage. There are so many infuriating actions (or sometimes inactions) taken by the Biden administration in its precipitous surrender-retreat from Afghanistan that mentioning them all would make a lengthy list.

And that’s one of the odd things about it. It’s as though the “plan” was designed by a madman (certainly possible), an abysmally stupid person (also possible), or a saboteur (another possibility) – or a person or group of people having some combination of those characteristics (possible as well).

I have no military training or knowledge except what a person of reasonable intelligence would figure out through common sense. Certain things are so basic as to be obvious, such as the order of one’s withdrawal actions. For example, don’t leave your citizens in the country that you are abandoning to the enemy; get them out first. If you think you will have enough time to evacuate them safely because you calculate that the enemy will take a certain estimated amount of time to reach the capital city, and then you see that the enemy is advancing and taking territory ahead of your assumed schedule, beef up defenses and get those vulnerable citizens out of there, pronto. In other words, don’t leave before the task is complete, no matter how much you’d like to do so.

And don’t prematurely abandon your vital air base and leave it in the care of an armed forces you have trained to rely on your close air support, while at the same time withdrawing all that air support. Don’t expect them to be able to fly planes that they are unable to maintain, as you simultaneously withdraw maintenance crews (without telling them in advance). In other words, if you are relying on those forces to hold the line against the enemy, don’t make it impossible for them to do so.

And yet these are just some of the things the US seems to have done in Afghanistan. We have not been told why this administration has made these choices; all we hear is lying obfuscating gobbledygook, and then another heaping helping of the same.

It seems, as Paul Mirengoff wrote in this post, Biden chose to lose this war. It was stalemated prior to that with a very small force that really was more of a policing action, casualties had been very low for years, and the enemy we were keeping out of power was a particularly cruel one. So there was no special intense rush to get out and there was no obvious reason for the reckless speed other than the idea that Joe wanted to brag about the withdrawal in a speech on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

It’s one thing for us to believe that a single addled, stupid, narcissistic old man might plan something this bad. But why would so many people go along with it? Are they all merely dumb? I doubt it. Frightened of Joe? I doubt it. The proper remedy, if they couldn’t change his mind or stop him, would have been to resign en masse – or begin to invoke the 25th Amendment. Or was this level of destructive stupidity intentional, in order to harm this country and keep it from ever being a world leader again? To get it to join the international world order chastened, its tail between its legs, a country on a par with any other, its people ready to meekly follow?

That is a sobering thought, and it’s not the sort of thing I usually believe unless there really are few alternatives that make sense. Ordinarily I do not ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity and/or ineptitude. And large conspiracies are difficult to control without leaks from someone.

But it’s hard to escape the thought of a planned takedown of the US from inside, as an actual working theory about the truly shocking level of seeming ineptitude and cowardice displayed here. It would explain what looks like a literally unbelievable level of destructive stupidity on the part of way too many people.

BLUF:
We are at a moment now like none other in our history. The American political order has been made a mockery of since November 3rd, 2020. Much will be necessary to sort that out. But our credibility on the global stage has now been eradicated and Americans will reasonably wonder whether our union can endure. Now is the time for men of good will to rise to the defense of the American experiment in free government. We should pray it is not too late.

Biden Embraces Defeat

The Administration leaves Afghanistan—and abandons America.

It would be easy to attribute the disaster of leaving Afghanistan, both human and strategic, to the incompetence of President Biden and his administration. After all, human incompetence normally explains a lot. But the affairs of a great nation like ours and its military are not the work of one man. There are generals, well-credentialed foreign policy experts, and senior intelligence officials who have devised how best to leave Afghanistan in order to achieve certain strategic and political objectives. The notion that there was a single incompetent decision made to abandon Afghanistan defies both logic and common sense. It was a matter of high government policy that the United States depart Afghanistan, abandon military equipment, and leave both Americans and our allies to the tender mercies of the radical Islamic Taliban.

The exit from Afghanistan, then, appears designed to accomplish two things: first, to demoralize the American military and the American people. Over 22,000 American service personnel have been killed or injured in Afghanistan. Every American knows someone who served there. Knowing full well that the Afghan military would not defend the country, there could be little doubt that the United States was turning the country over to the Taliban. Moreover, the US did so with the appearance of being run out of the country in shame and defeat. One can only assume this was meant to demonstrate to American servicemen that their sacrifice had been in vain, and to the American people that our cause of defending America from the scourge of radical Islam was not just.

How else are sensible people to view the footage of killings, chaos, desperation, harassment, and contempt for the US and our citizens in Kabul? Taken together these images are far more effective tools of propaganda than nearly anything Al-Qaeda and ISIS has employed over the past two decades. Their message is clear: America is weak and resistance to Islam is futile. That is the lesson the Biden Administration has made possible. It is one for which radicals such as Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have signaled their approval throughout their tenure in Congress.

The second purpose of the Afghan debacle was to signal to the world that the United States has no interest in defending a liberal world order and that from here on out we will not defend either human freedom or our own self-interest, however bizarre that may sound. Even the most serious isolationist would not have left Afghanistan the way we have. A minimum requirement would be to preserve the prestige and credibility of the United States with our allies and to ensure that our enemies would not be emboldened by our fecklessness.

What must Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea think of the United States and our commitments to defend them against the Communist Chinese and their predations in the region? To be sure, Afghanistan does not play a similar role to that of these other nations, whose economies are closely tied to the prosperity and the security of the United States. But for the US to withdraw in this dramatic fashion is to send a signal that we are no longer concerned whether our enemies fear us. They do not, apparently, and that is just fine.

There is a new world order and America has chosen a new place in it. Whereas we were comfortable “leading from behind” during the Obama administration, today the United States is merely one of many other nations doing our best to cooperate in what some have termed a Great Reset. Defending human freedom may have been fine for earlier generations, but what matters today is understanding the grievances and ambitions of other peoples, be it the Islamic world and their deeply held religious convictions or the Communist Chinese and their struggles to find their place atop the world order.

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White House Cuts Audio as Joe Biden Jokes About Stranded Americans

Joe Biden’s inability to control his faculties has become more and more obvious over the last seven-plus months of his presidency. In what is almost certainly a symptom of his declining mental state, the president has had numerous angry outbursts and tone-deaf moments since taking office. Today was the scene of another awkward interaction that crossed the line into being outright offensive.

While talking about cybersecurity — because there’s apparently nothing more important going on — NBC News’ Peter Alexander asked Biden about what would happen if Americans still remain in Afghanistan after the 8/31 deadline.

That’s when the White House cut the audio feed to obscure his answer.

Luckily, there was a radio pooler in attendance who was recording and we now know what the president said. Per Alexander and multiple other people in the room, Biden actually made a joke about the Americans left stranded in the collapsed, war-torn nation, cracking a smile as he did so.

You can see why they cut the audio………………….

Yet, because this is Joe Biden, no one says anything. It’s the starkest double standard in politics.

Regardless, on the merits, this is about as gross as it gets. Just this morning, I read the harrowing account of an American citizen from New Jersey who has tried to get to the Kabul airport multiple times. She’s been turned back and is now hiding out in her home with a group of SIV applicants who were also denied passage. These people have nowhere to go and are being forced to make impossible decisions. Does she leave children behind to die? Or does she stay and attempt to protect them? That’s not a decision she should have to make, but she does because Joe Biden is a complete failure as president.

The point is that this is a deadly serious situation. It is not funny to make light of the ongoing suffering by popping off at reporters with smart-alec remarks instead of just answering basic questions. None of this is a joke, and that Biden is treating it as one is more proof he’s unqualified to hold the office he holds.

Let’s also pay attention to the fact that his handlers simply can’t protect him anymore. They tried to cut the audio but the president’s remarks got out anyway. Biden may not be in control of his own administration, but those who are can’t keep him in line. His mental state is becoming more of a liability, with him being five hours late for a presser yesterday only to show up half-alive being one of the latest examples.

None of this is normal. None of it should be treated as normal. The only reason this isn’t a major scandal is that Biden has the right letter next to his name.

An update

Remember last week when I received back interstate transfer forms for my Uzi as  ‘DISSAPPROVED’ because the ATF document examiner couldn’t find the serial number in my inventory?

Well, my voice mail for a call back was never returned within the timeframe ATF says they can take (typical) so I called back this morning and was quickly routed to a supervisor.
The problem was figured out in about 20 seconds and the man requested I email new forms directly to him – which I did – and he’d show the examiner where she made her mistake and get the approval process back on track.

The problem, as had been earlier speculated, is that the original transfer to me was back when I had my Federal Firearms Dealers license, along with paying the Special Occupational Tax to deal in machineguns, and my business trade name, as well as my name, is listed on the form.
If a person doesn’t pay attention, they miss my name and only see the business name, which apparently was the case, and *whambo!* out comes the ‘You Are A No Go At This Station™’ stamp.
So, we’ll see how long it takes to get the approved forms back to me this time.

Now, here’s the interesting part of the whole rigmarole.
When the supervisor emailed me back acknowledging he had received my email, his signature block ended with: “si vis pacem para bellum”
Latin, or course, for: “If you want peace, prepare for war”.

Quite unusual, one might think, for a bureaucrap who’s job deals with gun control laws and regulations to include a phrase that’s well known in the gun world for promoting a ‘pro gun’ attitude

I’d tag this as an example of cluelessness, but she’s not clueless, she just has no moral or ethical base. And she probably thinks she’ll never have to account for her hypocrisy and lies, since, so far, she hasn’t.
I often wonder what the looks on their faces will be when the bill comes due.

Disabled veteran says the pistol stabilizing brace helped him find purpose

Rick Cicero is still able to shoot today, in large part thanks to the pistol stabilizing brace.