Trump Rants to Sean Hannity
President Trump claimed in a Fox News interview that the Taliban, which formed in 1994, has been “fighting for a thousand years.”
Anatomy of a Disaster In Afghanistan
Nikkei Asian Review: “The full narrative of what has just happened in Afghanistan is still emerging — with the blame-slinging just starting — in Kabul as well as Washington. Afghan military commanders now in hiding have said they were betrayed.”
“What is clear is that the Taliban have just pulled off the most successful guerrilla campaign of modern times. Military strategists will be studying this one for decades.”
Florida’s Senate Race Is Close
A new poll from St. Pete Polls gives Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) a lead of 48% to 46% over Rep. Val Demings (D) for his Senate seat.
Texas School District Makes Masks Part of Dress Code
The Independent School District of Paris, Texas will require masks as part of its dress code when school starts Thursday after action by the Board of Trustees to work around Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) executive order attempting to ban masking in schools, the Paris News reports.
Cuomo Files for Retirement Benefits
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) filed for retirement benefits on Tuesday, Bloomberg reports.
“Officially filing for retirement sets Cuomo up to receive a monthly pension payment from the state after more than a decade in public office. The three-term Democrat could be eligible to receive at least $50,000 a year in pension benefits from the state.”
Afghanistan’s Collapse Wasn’t Quick Really
David Ignatius: “The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was like watching the collapse of the twin towers. In an instant, the edifice crumbled into a pile of rubble.”
“But it didn’t happen quickly, really. The structure of the Kabul government has been rotting from within for all 20 years of the United States’ war. And every U.S. commander knew its weakness. They worried about the corruption and incompetence of the government, devised elaborate strategies to fix it, kept convincing themselves they were making progress. Hope is not a strategy, as every commander knows. In this case, it was.”
“Too often, the generals brought the media along with them in this exercise of self-delusion. Looking back over a dozen years of my own reporting from Afghanistan, that’s one painful recognition. These columns often expressed skepticism about the larger enterprise, but they kept recording, year after year, the generals’ ambitions for success. It wasn’t a big lie so much as a series of little bubbles of false optimism.”
What Biden Knew
Alabama Has Run Out of Intensive Care Beds
“There are more intensive care patients in Alabama than there are ICU beds in the state to treat them,” the Washington Post reports.
“Hospitals in the South have for weeks been overrun by covid-19 patients as cases surged across the Sun Belt. But now, health-care workers across the country are also struggling to manage the waves of cases brought on by the delta variant.”
Biden’s Approval Rate Plunges
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds President Biden’s approval rate sank to 46% — down from 53% on Friday — in the aftermath of the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsing over the weekend.
U.S. Officials In Germany Hit with Havana Syndrome
“At least two U.S. officials stationed in Germany sought medical treatment after developing symptoms of the mysterious health complaint known as Havana Syndrome,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Quote of the Day
“We believe that our commitments to our allies and partners are sacrosanct and always have been. We believe our commitment to Taiwan and to Israel remains as strong as it’s ever been.”
— National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, quoted by Bloomberg.
Election Officials Grapple with 2020’s Long Shadow
Politico: “Interviews with a dozen state chief election officers at the National Association of Secretaries of State summer conference here, along with panel discussions and conversations with other conference attendees, paint a picture of a radically different American election system post-2020, reshaped by a once-in-a-generation pandemic on one side and a near-unprecedented wave of misinformation on the other.”
“Now, those officials — who in many states also manage bureaucracies around things like business registration and licensing barbers and hairdressers — find their jobs dominated by elections. They have been besieged by conspiracies about what happened last year, and they’re increasingly being targeted personally by those same misinformation campaigns.”
Iran Boosts Production of Uranium
“Iran has nearly doubled its enrichment capacity dedicated to purifying uranium close to the levels required for nuclear weapons, signaling it won’t de-escalate its atomic activities before meeting again with world powers,” Bloomberg reports.
California Recall Is Very Close
The FiveThirtyEight polling average in California shows Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) barely surviving the recall effort, 48.8% to 47.6%.
Pelosi In Showdown with House Moderates
Punchbowl News: “House Democratic lawmakers and aides privately believe the moderates have gone too far, but at this point, the group isn’t backing down. With only a three-vote margin to play with, Pelosi will need this issue resolved before the House takes up the rule for the budget resolution on Monday night.”
“There are some similarities to the schism inside the House Democratic Caucus now and that which occurred in 2009 and 2010, when the party’s factions were clashing over Obamacare. Yet at that point, there were also far more moderates and Blue Dogs than now, and Pelosi had a much bigger majority. So there’s a limit to how much room both she and the moderates have to operate. That plays in Pelosi’s favor, not the moderates. We’ll see how she handles it in the end.”
Axios reports that Pelosi and White House officials met for 90 minutes to strategize how to ensure passage of the bill.
Taliban Beating Women and Kids on Way to Airport
“Taliban promises of ‘safe passage’ to the Kabul airport for Afghans trying to flee the country have been undermined by reports of women and children being beaten and whipped as they try to pass through checkpoints set up by the militants,” The Guardian reports.
Washington Post: “The Taliban erected checkpoints throughout the capital and near the airport’s entrance, beating some Afghans who attempted to cross and intimidating others from leaving.”
New York Times: Taliban violently crush first public protest.
Troubling CDC Data Convinced Biden to Back Boosters
Politico: “The evidence, compiled by federal scientists over the past several months, showed a decline in the initial round of protection against Covid-19 infection that’s coincided with a resurgence in cases driven by the more contagious Delta variant. The data looked at vaccine effectiveness in individuals across age groups, with varying medical conditions and who received the shot at different times.”
Washington Post: Rise of delta variant and waning immunity are fueling breakthrough infections.