Free Republic

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/08/24/afghanistan-woes-sink-bidens-approval-41-usa-today-suffolk-poll/8244854002/

In the span of a week, the White House went from struggling to explain a rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan to beating its chest. Top Biden officials and administration allies have begun aggressively touting the success of their evacuation efforts in the war-torn country, offering frequent updates on the number of evacuees. They’ve framed the operation as historic —in line with the Berlin airlift — declared that they’re “over performing” their own metrics, and trumpeted the president as “defying expectations.” It’s a startling 180 from the defensive crouch Biden and his team occupied just days ago...

The man, who helped France during its embassy's evacuation, told authorities he previously manned a Taliban checkpoint. An Afghan refugee who was recently flown out of Kabul and is suspected to have current or past ties with the Taliban has been placed in custody in Paris, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin confirmed on Tuesday to franceinfo. On Monday, Darmanin initially announced that the man, who was taken on a French flight after he helped the French Embassy to evacuate, was placed under house arrest and surveillance because authorities "suspected this person to have or have had ties with the Afghan...

As the current quagmire in Afghanistan progresses, it becomes clearer each day the situation was grossly mishandled. There were claims by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley that no one could have predicted what happened. This was, in turn, questioned as reports emerged of a memo in the State Department predicting exactly what happened. As president, Joe Biden has received much of the criticism for the debacle. However, such criticism is a “low-hanging fruit argument.” The real blame lies with Biden supporters and voters. They were the people that voted him into office. Biden has been in government...

Former Republican congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik is suing Candace Owens for $20 million, alleging that the conservative commentator defamed her with multiple false claims of illegal activity.The lawsuit, first reported by The Baltimore Sun, revolves around a 44 minute Instagram live video where Owens made a series of criminal allegations against Klacik. These charges include tax and campaign finance fraud, money laundering, doing drugs, and working as the “madame” of a strip club.Law&Crime (Mediaite’s sister website) obtained court documents from the lawsuit Klacik has filed against Owens, and Klacik’s lawyer is arguing that the video was an extension of a...

This evening the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Texas in a lawsuit against the federal government. [View pdf Here] The outcome is a ruling requiring the Biden administration to reinstitute the “remain in Mexico” policy put into place during the Trump administration. The policy requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await hearings in the United States.The ruling was 6-3 with Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer dissenting from the majority opinion. The ruling is a significant victory for Missouri and Texas, the two states who sued over Biden’s repeal of the policy and won...

On this date in 1945, according to a fringe faction of American conservatism, the first victim of the Cold War was shot by Chinese Communists at Suchow, China, near Xi’an. John Birch, a military chaplain proselytizing in China and an agent of the CIA’s precursor entity Office of Strategic Services, had the kind of portfolio sure to rub Mao’s boys the wrong way. Apparently it was his personality that got him into trouble. On recon duty days after the end of World War II, he bumped into a patrol of Red Chinese. According to Time, he failed his diplomacy check....

Babbitt crossed a line that had been clearly delineated. The police obviously felt it was a last stand. The potential danger was obvious. Babbitt’s shooting appears to have stopped the forward movement of the crowd. All this happened on a day when the vice president’s life had been threatened, and when police were being savagely beaten elsewhere in the building.Could the mob possibly have been stopped without Babbitt’s death? Maybe. Perhaps there was a way to have avoided deadly force. But it’s not clear to me what that way would have been — and it is clear that if Babbitt...

(CNN)Several hundred US troops have left Afghanistan, on the same day President Joe Biden decided not to extend the August 31 evacuation deadline, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby confirmed Tuesday evening. "These troops represent a mix of headquarters staff, maintenance and other enabling functions that were scheduled to leave and whose mission at the airport was complete. Their departure represents prudent and efficient force management. It will have no impact on the mission at hand," Kirby said in a statement, confirming CNN's earlier reporting from two defense officials that the US' troop withdrawal from Afghanistan had kicked off. The fact...

The staffers were punctual: they moved velvety ropes from a briefing room to the Roosevelt Room, and got ready for the president's speech at 12:00 (16:00 GMT). They set up a sound system, and prepared the stage for an important moment: the president would speak about Afghanistan. But the president was late. He met aides in the Oval Office, worked on his speech. "What's going on?" my colleagues asked, sending me texts, wondering what was happening, and why his speech had been delayed, again and again. They were not the only ones who were wondering: many people in Kabul were...

He's just celebrated his 75th birthday but it looks like the party is well and truly over for Bill Clinton. Seen in these exclusive pictures obtained by DailyMail.com, the former president and wife Hillary, 73, looked more like glum and glummer than a couple enjoying the Hampton's sunshine when they went for a stroll on the beach earlier on Tuesday. And perhaps it's little wonder. Because, while the Clintons have long since enjoyed an annual getaway to the Hamptons town of Amagansett, there is no escaping the past. On September 7 the scandal that has dogged Clinton through the years...

Fox News Channel, bolstered by viewers’ rapt attention to the U.S.-led evacuation from Afghanistan, was last week’s most-watched TV outlet on broadcast or cable, according to Nielsen company figures out Tuesday. The channel averaged just under 3 million viewers. Fox News Channel outpaced both its cable news competition and the broadcast networks that typically jockey for the top spot. The channel, which is popular with conservative-leaning viewers, surged following the Taliban’s sudden conquest of Afghanistan this month and as the Biden administration directed the chaotic removal of U.S. citizens and Afghans at risk after the nearly 20-year war’s end. …

Today marks 17.5 months since the institution of the infamous “Flatten the Curve,” AKA The Deep State’s Plot to Drive Us Crazy, Make Us Stupid, and Take Over the World (in order to make the world safe for China and/or the Deep State and/or New World Order cabal to take it over). Since my last post in this series, 15 days ago, the acting director of the FDA, a woman many believe would never be able to be confirmed as regular agency head, licensed the Pfizer vax under the suspiciously-named brand name of COMIRNATY. Sounds awfully close to CO-MORBIDITY to...

Disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo used his last hours in office Monday to grant clemency to several convicts, including a former member of the Weather Underground who is the father of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin. Cuomo granted clemency to David Gilbert, 75, for his role in what became known as the “Brink’s heist,” an effort to steal millions of dollars to fund the activities of radical left-wing organizations. David Gilbert is serving a 75-years-to-life sentence for his role in the crime as a member of the Weather Underground, which stole $1.6 million in cash from the armored...

On July 28, Pfizer and BioNTech posted updated results for their ongoing phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial. The preprint came almost a year to the day after the historical trial commenced, and nearly four months since the companies announced vaccine efficacy estimates “up to six months.” But you won’t find 10 month follow-up data here. While the preprint is new, the results it contains aren’t particularly up to date. In fact, the paper is based on the same data cut-off date (March 13, 2021) as the April 1 press release, and its topline efficacy result is identical: 91.3% (95% CI...

U.S. President Joe Biden’s choice for ambassador to Switzerland is Scott Miller, a leading figure at the LGBT advocacy patron The Gill Foundation. The foundation has funded groups that have split Christian denominations and threatened religious freedom in the U.S. Miller’s same-sex partner is Tim Gill, a vocal LGBT activist and strategist who after the 2016 election claimed his movement was headed into conservative states to “punish the wicked.” Miller is a former finance executive and co-chairs the board of directors of the Colorado-based Gill Foundation with Gill. Among the critics of the foundation’s work is John Lomperis, United Methodist...

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has agreed to be the ruling party's vice-presidential candidate, in next year’s elections, the PDP-Laban party said on Tuesday (Aug 24), laying the groundwork for the leader to stay in power beyond his term. The PDP-Laban party made the announcement ahead of a national assembly on Sept 8 where it is also expected to endorse Mr Duterte’s aide and incumbent senator Christopher "Bong" Go to be its presidential candidate in the 2022 polls. Mr Duterte is making "the sacrifice" and heeding "the clamour of the people," Mr Karlo Nograles, executive vice-president of the ruling PDP-Laban party,...

Images of thousands of Afghans desperately trying to flee their country following a hasty US withdrawal have provoked an international outcry. As of August 22, 2021, some 6,000 US troops were working to evacuate US military, American citizens and Afghans who are approved for Special Immigrant Visas. SIVs are a special program to protect Afghans who risked their lives working for US troops in Afghanistan. Germany, France, Italy and the UK are conducting smaller evacuation efforts for their nationals and some Afghans. The pace of these poorly planned evacuations has been slow. They are taking place amid chaos in Kabul,...

...In a 21-page decision, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously ruled that the memo was exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on the basis of the presidential communications privilege... The Circuit Court upheld the lower court’s ruling, writing that “records of what was said by or directly to the President lie at the heart of the presidential communications privilege.” The Circuit Court also rejected Protect Democracy’s assertion that the court should make a “narrow exception” and require portions of the memo to be segregated and disclosed ...

Police criticize a Sydney church for ignoring the city's Covid-19 restrictions by holding a serviceAustralian police have criticized a Sydney church for flouting the city's Covid-19 lockdown by holding a service for 60 people in a pandemic hotspot. The church is part of Christ Embassy, an international religious group headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, which has a record of spreading Covid-19 conspiracy theories. After being tipped off by residents on Aug. 23, police moved in on the Christ Embassy Sydney church, issuing a fine of 5,000 Australian dollars (US$3,600) to the organisation and A$1,000 fines to 30 parishioners. Australian media quoted...