Dem, GOP reps make secret Afghanistan
trip, angering US officials
Posted By: AltaD, 8/25/2021 8:34:59 AM
Two members of Congress caused a stir when they made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan Tuesday to witness the evacuation operation at Kabul’s international airport firsthand. Reps. Seth Moulton and Peter Meijer infuriated White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials who accused them of using vital resources in the midst of the chaotic American withdrawal.(Snip) “As Members of Congress, we have a duty to provide oversight on the executive branch,’” the two said. “We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand.”
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Rep. Adam Kinzinger is likely to lose his House seat after Illinois Democrats redraw the state map for the post-2020 redistricting cycle, according to a Politico report on Wednesday.
Kinzinger, who rose to prominence in the Trump era as a vocal critic of the former president, has represented Illinois' 16th Congressional District, which covers the exurbs of Chicago, since 2013.
Democratic state lawmakers, who are in control of Illinois' redistricting map, are planning to remove Kinzinger's seat, sources familiar with the process told Politico. If that happens, Kinzinger may have to run for another office in the blue-leaning state should he choose to remain an elected official next year.
Two members of Congress caused a stir when they made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan Tuesday to witness the evacuation operation at Kabul’s international airport firsthand. Reps. Seth Moulton and Peter Meijer infuriated White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials who accused them of using vital resources in the midst of the chaotic American withdrawal.(Snip) “As Members of Congress, we have a duty to provide oversight on the executive branch,’” the two said. “We conducted this visit in secret, speaking about it only after our departure, to minimize the risk and disruption to the people on the ground, and because we were there to gather information, not to grandstand.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker warned Tuesday that if Illinois' COVID metrics don't decline, "significantly greater mitigations" could be imposed in the state. (Snip) Pritzker said heightened mitigations could include things like "phases," which brought restrictions on both a regional and statewide level earlier in the pandemic, though he did not offer many specifics.
"Those are things that we don't want to go back to," he said, "Those are, you know, phases, situations, things on the menu that I think we don't want to go to but right now."
Pritzker noted that increased mitigations have already been implemented across the state, including an indoor mask mandate in schools, a vaccine mandate for state employees
CVS Health is holding a "conscious inclusion workshop" that aims to teach employees how to hold each other "accountable" for non-inclusive behaviors, FOX Business has learned.
An internal email obtained by FOX Business showed David Casey, SVP of Workforce Strategies and Chief Diversity Officer, discussing the four-week program.(Snip) the "workshop was announced in July 2020 as part of our nearly $600 million commitment to address racial inequality." He added that "our stated goal is 100 percent employee participation." It's unclear how employees would be held accountable and CVS did not comment when asked about this.
A school board member in Illinois who is also a doctor says state regulators are threatening his medical license over his criticism of Gov. J.B. Pritzker's mask mandate in schools.
Dr. Jeremy Henrichs, a sports doctor at Carle Hospital and sports team physician at the University of Illinois, also sits on the Mahomet-Seymour Board of Education.(Snip)In a separate email, a state medical investigator, whose name was redacted from the email, said a complaint filed against Henrichs “appears to be a parent or concerned citizen who did not agree with the doctor's opinion on the masking motion for schools.
“That would fall under the unprofessional conduct part of the medical practice act,”
Chicago - Masks must be worn in public indoor settings in Chicago regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status as the city continues to see an increase in COVID-19 transmission, public health officials announced Tuesday.
Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said everyone over the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status, will be required to wear a mask beginning Friday, Aug. 20, while indoors in public settings.
It will apply to gyms, stores, common areas of apartment buildings and in restaurants (Snip) Currently, Chicago is averaging 18 COVID-19-related hospitalizations a day, which is down from a peak of roughly 200 a day, Arwady said.
Dallas - Although delta remains the most prevalent variant, the lambda strain of COVID-19 is starting to emerge and there’s little known about it.
“We do not know whether this is going to be better or worse than delta, there’s not enough information,” said Dr. Andrew Yurochko, with LSU Health Shreveport.
According to the World Health Organization, lambda was first discovered in Peru last year. Since April, it’s been responsible for more than 80 percent of cases reported there.
It’s now taken over other parts of South America, including Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil. Now, 44 American states have reported lambda cases
Extended rent moratoriums and the slow distribution of billions in federal rent assistance are driving many small landlords to call it quits. “Nobody wants to become a landlord anymore,” said Diane Baird, (Snip) Mike Bodeis, president of the 450-member Port Huron Area Landlord Association, and himself the owner of 40 rental houses, told The Epoch Times, “It’s a myth that 3.6 million Americans may soon be made homeless. Two-thirds of them could be paying their rent, but are not because they choose not to. They did not choose to pay their rent or utility bills with all the stimulus money they received.
New Zealand is closing its borders for the remainder of the year, continuing the country’s embrace of a total isolationist strategy in its fight against the coronavirus.
On Thursday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the country’s borders “will never be the same after” the pandemic, likening the situation to the 9/11 attacks.
“Just like after 9/11, the border will never be the same after Covid … things can change, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adapt to them in a way that eventually feels normal again,” said Ardern.(Snip)Since the start of the pandemic, New Zealand adopted a strict border protection policy, which resulted in only 26 coronavirus-related deaths.
Chicago -- Chicago health officials on Thursday reported 203 cases of COVID-19 connected to Lollapalooza, casting it as a number that was anticipated and not yet linked to any hospitalizations or deaths.
“Nothing unexpected here,” Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said at a news conference. “No sign of a ‘superspreader event’. But clearly with hundreds of thousands of people attending Lollapalooza we would expect to see some cases.”
The four-day music festival, which started two weeks ago, drew about 385,000 people to a lakefront park.
A woman who endured a month-long hospital stay due to COVID-19 is speaking out as she struggles to pay roughly $163,000 in medical charges, and warns others after she postponed receiving the vaccine amid her recent pregnancy.
Charneseya Moye, a corrections officer from Raleigh, North Carolina gave birth to a son on Jan. 27. She was hesitant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine during her pregnancy, and soon contracted the virus on April 29. (Snip) Moye recalled her reaction to seeing the $163,000 dollar amount. "I think my mouth dropped and I didn’t say anything. I was like, ‘Oh my god. What am I supposed to do now?’" she said
American Express, which made a $2.3 billion profit last quarter, invited the great-grandson of the Nation of Islam’s founder to tell its employees that capitalism is evil.
It was part of the credit-card giant’s critical-race-theory training program, which asks workers to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, then rank themselves on a hierarchy of “privilege.”(Snip)In another handout, the instructions for white employees are even more explicit: “identify the privileges or advantages you have”; “don’t speak over members of the black and African-American community”; “it’s not about your intent, it’s about the impact you have on your colleague.”
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Biden Vows to ‘Hunt Down’ Terrorists
Behind Kabul Bombings, Says Evacuation
Will Continue 55 replies
Behind Kabul Bombings, Says Evacuation
Will Continue 55 replies
During an address to the nation Thursday evening, President Biden vowed to “hunt down” the terrorists behind the bombings at the Kabul airport and said the U.S. military will continue to evacuate American citizens and allies despite the disruption.
Biden spoke hours after two bombs were detonated outside the Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul. One suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device at the airport’s central Abbey gate, killing at least twelve American troops and wounding 15 others. A second bomber detonated his device outside the Baron Hotel, near the airport’s perimeter. It remains unclear whether any Americans were killed in that blast.
Joe Biden was filmed crumbling after he called on Fox News journalist Peter Doocy at a press conference, only to be accused of failing to answer Doocy's question. Biden, 78, looked lost for words after being asked if he bore responsibility for an ISIS-K suicide attack at Kabul Airport on Thursday that killed 13 US service personnel, before bowing his head and clutching a file tightly around his hands.He tried to throw a question back at Doocy about why Fox News was neglecting to mention that Donald Trump had confirmed the withdrawal when he was president
During his press conference on Thursday following the terrorist attack in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers, President Biden blamed his generals for the decision to leave Bagram Air Base behind and did not deny reports that his administration gave the Taliban a list of Americans stranded in the region.
On the issue of Bagram Air Base, President Biden said that he made the decision to essentially abandon the location upon his generals’ advice:
On the tactical questions of how to conduct an evacuation or a war, I gather up all the major military personnel that are in Afghanistan, the commanders,
One of the things that disgusted conservatives following news of the bloody terrorist attack in Kabul that killed twelve Marines and one Navy corpsman was the fact that Nancy Pelosi, during a public appearance in San Francisco, not only didn’t mention, she was also in an exceptionally jovial, joking mood. My bet is that this wasn’t mere callousness on her part. (snip) I believe that the reason Pelosi is behaving in this way is to keep her base from realizing that something bad happened. It’s a form of gaslighting that involves her shaping their reality through lies, not to drive them crazy, but to keep them ignorant.
Seven US Capitol Police officers are suing former President Donald Trump, Stop the Steal rally organizers and members of far-right extremist groups, accusing them of spreading lies, using White supremacist sentiments to attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, and ultimately bearing responsibility for the riot that injured more than 140 officers on January 6.
"Plaintiffs and their fellow law enforcement officers risked their lives to defend the Capitol from a violent, mass attack — an attack provoked, aided, and joined by Defendants in an unlawful effort to use force, intimidation, and threats to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 Presidential election," says the lawsuit
The deep grief on President Biden’s face as his eyes swelled with tears was painful to watch. But his personal suffering cannot exonerate him from the responsibility for what happened in Kabul. Nor can his obscenely shameful effort to shift the blame to former President Donald Trump and even his own military commanders be taken seriously. Biden says the buck stops with him, but he doesn’t really mean it.When the enemy strikes with deadly results, it’s somebody else’s fault. That’s not leadership and it certainly isn’t presidential.
Leon Panetta said on Thursday that the Unites States military will have to return to Afghanistan to tackle terror threats posed by Taliban and ISIS-K after a suicide attack killed 13 U.S. troops and at least 90 Afghans.
Paneta, a Democrat who served as Defense Secretary in the Obama administration, said in an interview with Erin Burnett for her CNN show OutFront that the withdrawal of American troops left the United States in a 'very dangerous and difficult situation.'(Snip)'The bottom line is, our work is not done. We're going to have to go after ISIS. I'm glad the president said we're going to hunt them down
One of the most effective ways for the MSM to shut down an inquiry into misconduct is to say it is all a conspiracy theory. Besides avoiding an unwanted discussion, the charge also invites scrutiny of the "theorist" instead of the issue itself. Notice how quickly some even start off saying something like "I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but..." Expecting their reaction, we have become almost trained to do this.
But are there really no big conspiracies?
It has been claimed that the phrase "conspiracy theory" was invented by the government to discourage the questioning of official explanations for important events, especially the JFK assassination.
Four U.S. Marines were killed and three were wounded in an explosion at the Kabul airport Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Pentagon press secretary John Kirby later on Thursday confirmed "a number of U.S. service members were killed" in the airport attack, though he did not provide a number on the casualties.
"A number of others are being treated for wounds. We also know that a number of Afghans fell victim to this heinous attack," Kirby said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones and teammates of all those killed and injured."
The U.S. ambassador
In a move no one can grasp, U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies, believing the Taliban would allow them to enter the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport. Lawmakers and military officials are outraged. The insane move was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Kabul by the August 31 deadline. It also came as the Biden administration began relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport. ISIS-K has since set up forces around the soon-to-be-renamed Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Officer who shot Ashli Babbitt says he
was 'prepared to do the same thing'
to protect Trump 25 replies
was 'prepared to do the same thing'
to protect Trump 25 replies
The Capitol Police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6 defended himself against criticism from former President Donald Trump and others who claim he should not have used lethal force on the 35-year-old Air Force veteran.In his first public interview since the Capitol riot, Lt. Michael Byrd said it was "disheartening" that Trump, in particular, said Babbitt was "murdered," adding he would take the same actions if he was in charge of protecting the former president.
Washington—President Biden’s German shepherd Major attacked many more people than the White House has disclosed, according to newly released emails.
The documents indicate that Major bit members of the Secret Service eight days in a row in early March—though only one such incident was publicly acknowledged. At least one White House visitor also was bitten in early March, according to the emails, which were released Thursday by the conservative transparency group Judicial Watch, which slammed the “cover-up” of the incidents.(Snip)A Secret Service employee whose name was redacted emailed three colleagues on March 8: “At the current rate an Agent or Officer has been bitten every day