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WASHINGTON — The nation’s top national security officials assembled at the Pentagon early on April 24 for a secret meeting to plan the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. It was two weeks after President Joe Biden had announced the exit over the objection of his generals, but now they were carrying out his orders. The plan was a good one, the group concluded. Four months later, the plan is in shambles as Biden struggles to explain how a withdrawal most Americans supported went so badly wrong in its execution. On Friday, as scenes of continuing chaos and suffering...

One of the most insane and frustrating inconsistencies of the CDC’s maddening desire to vaccinate every man, woman, child in America with a vaccine that has a clearly waning efficacy has been the lack of an acknowledgment of natural immunity to SARS-CoV-2. The failure to address this has not only been tone-deaf, but Orwellian in its method and scope. It’s like the experience of at least a third of America with this virus - and the long-lasting, protective immunity conferred - means absolutely nothing to the powers-that-be, who still insist that those with natural immunity vaccinate, wear masks, and live...

CHICAGO -- At least 44 people were shot, seven fatally, acorss Chicago over the weekend, police said. A One person was killed and two were wounded outside a gas station Saturday morning in Austin on the West Side. About 2:55 a.m., a man, 52, and two women, 62 and 24, were outside a gas station with about 20 other people in the 5100-block of West Madison Street when someone in a black Dodge Charger opened fire, according to Chicago Police. The man suffered gunshot wounds to the head and leg, the 62-year-old to the head, abdomen and lower backside; and...

In a recently released propaganda photo, a Taliban unit reportedly called Badri 313 hoisted the Taliban flag in a re-creation of the iconic flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi by U.S. servicemen in World War II. The Taliban have adapted to the 21st-century battlefield using social media as part of a public relations campaign that emboldens our enemies and continues to humiliate the United States, even more so because they are wearing modern uniforms, equipment, body armor, and weapons, weapons that look eerily familiar to me. Tactically we are the most effective fighting force on the face of the earth. Operationally, we...

Pray For the Peace of JerusalemPsalm 143 A psalm of David. 1 Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. 2 Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. 3 The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in the darkness like those long dead. 4 So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. 5 I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what...

Californians wanting to attend events with more than 1,000 people will have to prove they have received a COVID-19 vaccine. The California Department of Public Health announced attending indoor events with 1,000 or more guests will require either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test within the last 72 hours. The requirement previously was triggered at events with 5,000 or more attendees. “The Delta variant has proven to be highly transmissible, making it easier to spread in large crowds where people are near each other for long periods of time,” CDPH Director Dr. Tomás J. Aragón said. “By requiring...

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Afghanistan is a mess, despite vain attempts by Democrats and the media to spin it otherwise. We left behind a trove of weapons and intelligence secrets in our abandoned air bases and embassy. This was a gift to the Taliban, overnight making them one of the best equipped military forces in the world. They reminded America and the world of this fact by recreating the famous photo of US soldiers raising the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima. People were left behind as well, American civilians, contractors, and other support staff necessary for the 20-year war which President...

The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the turmoil that has shocked ‎the world over has given the Iranian regime an opportunity to use it to ‎put pressure on the West, and especially the United States, to gain ‎more ground in the Vienna talks.‎ The Vienna talks have been stalled for almost two months now, and ‎with the change of government in Iran and the arrival of new President ‎Ebrahim Raisi, the prospect of a resumption and conclusion of these ‎talks seems darker than before.‎ The Iranian regime considers the fall of the Afghan government and ‎the Taliban's domination...

Fifty years ago, journalist Gary Allen set out to write a book to prove conservative anti-communists wrong. But while researching, he realized he had not seen the "hidden picture." There indeed was a conspiracy, shielded by a narrative advanced by liberal academia and the mainstream media, both actually in the service of an elite cabal that included Rockefeller, Ford, Morgan, Rothschild, Loeb, Kennedy, and Carnegie. No longer willing to dismiss "right-wing conspiracy theorists," he titled his book, published in 1971, None Dare Call It Conspiracy. It was a surprising bestseller: more than four million copies were sold during the 1972...

The current and former military members are getting people out "one at a time." Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they've become increasingly disillusioned and fed up with the U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned. One informal group, dubbed "Task Force Pineapple," began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death...

Police are painting rainbows on the side of their squad cars in a bid to beat online hate crimes and 'give confidence' to the LGBT+ community. Critics have said forces should be focusing on 'real' issues such as knife crime and that the colourful cars might seem less intimidating to the public. The cost of painting the cars, described as 'hate crime cars', is 'quite minimal' but are believed to give a 'huge impact' on the community.

People will put up with a little absentmindedness or occasional faux pas. But when creeping senility puts lives at risk and national interests in jeopardy, that’s entirely different. When it was clear Joe Biden’s victory would stand up, it was obvious to me that Biden’s mental troubles, to frame it gently, would result in him being out of office one way or another within six months of his swearing in. By then, the Trojan Horse would have served his purpose. Democrats would control all three branches of government and have pushed through many fundamental changes. Biden did his share. He...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is staring down the nine centrist lawmakers demanding an immediate vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package — all but daring them to sink President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. White House officials and congressional leaders have been pressing the nine throughout the weekend to withdraw their threat to vote against consideration of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package but the lawmakers aren't budging. “Right now, the position of the nine is we are not going to vote for the budget resolution until we get the BIF done,” Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) told Axios, referring to the...

A US Air Force F-15 fighter jet shot down a drone said to have come from Iran after it was deemed a threat to troops stationed in eastern Syria Saturday. 'Coalition aircraft successfully engaged and defeated a UAS through air to air engagement in the vicinity of Mission Support Site Green Village,' US Army Colonel Wayne Marotto, who heads the US-led coalition against ISIS, told Reuters, using an acronym for an unmanned aircraft system. Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson said an F-15E shot the 'Iranian' drone, which flew 'too close' to the 900 US troops in the area,,,,

Houston hospitals have “reached a breaking point” amid a COVID-19 outbreak, which struck weeks after 150 hospital workers were fired by Houston Methodist hospital, one of several hospitals struggling.

President Biden isn't inclined to fire any senior national security officials over the chaos in Kabul unless the situation drastically deteriorates or there's significant loss of American life, people familiar with the matter tell Axios. Why it matters: Dismissing national security advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin or CIA Director William Burns would be tantamount to admitting a mistake, and the president stands by his decision. While acknowledging the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has been “messy” and the Taliban captured the country quicker than he anticipated, Biden is deeply committed to his policy, the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that his country won’t accept Afghan refugees because he doesn’t want to deal with “militants” masquerading as asylum-seekers. The Russian strongman slammed Western nations for placing Afghan refugees in countries even near his border while their US and European visas are being processed. “Does that mean that they can be sent without visas to those countries, to our neighbors, while they themselves don’t want to take them without visas?” Putin raged to the Russian TASS news agency. “Why is there such a humiliating approach to solving the problem?’ He said he will not accept...

The shooting near the military side of the airport came as the Taliban sent fighters to the north of the capital to eliminate pockets of armed resistance to their lightning takeover earlier this month. The Taliban said they retook three districts that fell the day before and had surrounded Panjshir... ....Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group's forces have surrounded nearby Panjshir, the only one of Afghanistan's 34 provinces yet to fall to the militants.

HANOI, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Vietnamese soldiers on Monday were deployed on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City to help enforce a lockdown in the country's business hub, which has become the epicentre of its worst coronavirus outbreak so far during the pandemic. Panic-buying broke out at supermarkets in the city of nine million people over the weekend ahead of the tighter lockdown, which started on Monday and prohibits residents from leaving their homes....