Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Mike]

I happened to catch the presser with SECDEF and Gen. Miley this afternoon. It’s clear that we will not be getting all our people out, they both know it. There really isn’t any way to round up the Americans in other parts of the country.

Milley had to grit his teeth when speaking to the spectacular collapse of the Afghan army.

We are only guarding the airport itself. Nothing outside those walls and are relying on the Taliban to provide safe passage to travelers with U.S. passports. Apparently there is an agreement in place that will allow us until the end of the month to get out as many as we can.

IOW, lots of folks are royally fucked. I don’t mind leaving Afghanistan entirely but FFS, the military is supposed to be the LAST people to leave. I couldn’t believe it when I saw there’s still 10,000 to 15,000 Americans still there. This is an absolute disaster.

[Dr. Strangelove]

It's possible the only explanation is that Biden and maybe some other top people genuinely believed the Afghans would hold out for a year or so and they'd have time to evacuate civilians. Maybe he delusionally ignored everyone warning him, maybe he got bad info from either DOD, State, or the CIA. A lot of "cover your ass" and finger-pointing is emerging and I don't know who is most trustworthy yet.

I've heard, without seeing proof of this, that Ghani and the Afghan govt made an explicit plea to him to not evacuate everyone because the Afghan Army would immediately lose morale if they saw the Americans leaving town. If that actually happened, Biden got played and I understand why he might be pissed at Ghani for running away himself. It's a bit unusual that we didn't grant him asylum and he had to head to the UAE instead. Some reports say (again, unconfirmed) that he took over a hundred million dollars with him.

From things said this evening, Biden's prepared to go beyond Aug 31 if there are still American citizens left.

[Mike]

Beyond how? He’s quick to say what he thinks is the right thing but how the hell are we gonna get people out of Herat and Kandahar? Transport them safely to Kabul? It’s absurd. This is gonna go down as one of the lowest moments in American history. I’m still playing catch-up as I was vacationing and not paying attention until Sunday night. But these idiots in the administration are making me hate bureaucrats like never before. This Blinkin guy is a retard.

[Kapture1]

Second in command to the guy that led from behind.

[Tom W]

It's possible the only explanation is that Biden and maybe some other top people genuinely believed the Afghans would hold out for a year or so and they'd have time to evacuate civilians.

Anybody that believed that is a complete idiot and has no business being in any position to handle anything more hazardous than a crayon.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I wouldn't trust Joe Biden with a crayon...

[lineygoblue]

I'm concerned that any remaining Americans are going to be pawns or even hostages used by the Taliban in the future to gain concessions from the US. "We'll release another 1,000 of your citizens if you'll give us spare parts for the Apache helicopters you left behind".

[THE_WIZARD_]

I wouldn't trust Pass The Buck Joe running a lemonade stand...

[Dr. Strangelove]

Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Hillsborough counties are all openly defying DeSantis now and passed mask mandates in schools. 4 largest counties in the state.

A new poll shows almost 2/3 of Americans support mask mandates and nearly 70% support doing it in schools. And a whopping 77% are against punishing schools or local governments that enact mandates by withholding their funding. Only 30% of Republicans think school districts should be punished.

https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index

[THE_WIZARD_]

Bullshit.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Meanwhile FoxNews sent around a letter a few days ago requiring ALL employees to disclose their vaccine status to them and enter it into a central database.

Sounds an awful lot like a so-called vaccine passport.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/media...tus/index.html

[iam416]

I don't agree with the State taking away local control. I definitely agree with not implementing a statewide mask mandate, but I disagree with what Florida has done. If there's overwhelming support for a mask mandate in the school district then that community ought to be able to implement.

I made precisely the same argument when States were implementing one-size-fits-all shutdown policies instead of allowing communities to figure out what best serves them.

[Mike]

DeSantis is overplaying his hand with this one and it could bite him in the ass.

[Dr. Strangelove]

One of my brother's kids goes to an elementary in Hilliard and they have a "meet the teacher" day before the school year starts. He was telling me some parent brought their kid in just to tell the teacher that the kid just tested positive and wouldn't be around for a couple weeks. How considerate. Guess all parents got an email shortly after alerting them covid had been in the building or whatever.

I'm not worried about kids dying or anything panicky like that but it's going to be a rough fall for schools.

[Kapture1]

Funny how the WHO, CDC, FDA, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson all do not require the vaccine.