The Freedom to Be Left Alone
Posted By: earlybird, 8/31/2021 11:04:59 PM
If one were to come up with a bumper-sticker definition of personal liberty, it would be something like “the freedom to be left alone.” A society that respects the liberty of its citizens is one in which the citizen can be left to live his life as he sees fit, beyond the basic duties incumbent upon all citizens. (snip) At the root of this, the spring that provides the impetus for such an arrangement, is the cultural understanding that everyone has a duty to mind their own business. What must animate a “free society” is the understanding that you are not only free of the unwanted gaze from others, including the
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earlybird"
With two weeks of early voting left before the California recall election, Democrats are tracking a worrisome sign for Gov. Gavin Newsom and the party at large — the governor’s relative weakness with Latinos.
California is so solidly Democratic that it would take a near-total Democratic turnout collapse for Newsom to be recalled. But Latinos across the country shifted incrementally toward Donald Trump in 2020, with headline-grabbing defections from the Democratic Party in Florida and Texas in particular. Now, polls suggest this once reliable and fast-growing voting bloc for Democrats is softening on Newsom, even in this heavily Democratic state. It’s a reminder that Latino support for Democrats is not
The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) “remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19,” according to an unclassified report released on Aug. 27. “Two hypotheses are plausible,” the report explains, “natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”
In May, when President Joe Biden urged the agencies to “redouble” their efforts to find the origin of the virus, the IC had “coalesced around two likely scenarios but has not reached a definitive conclusion on this question,” he said in a statement. To reach essentially the same conclusion now, the IC must have ignored major revelations, and there’s more to the story.
Team-One (State Dept, CIA, Intel Community) continue to pummel Team-Two (Biden, WH, Pentagon, NSC) with leaks to media. After Joe Biden delivered his speech to the nation claiming no-one saw the collapse of the Afghan government coming, the intel group leak the transcript and recording of a July 23rd phone call between Biden and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani showing everything Biden said today was a lie. (Reuters) – […] Reuters reviewed a transcript of the presidential phone call and has listened to the audio to authenticate the conversation. (snip) […] In much of the call, Biden focused on what he called the Afghan government’s “perception” problem. “I need not tell you the perception
The Freedom to Be Left Alone
14 replies
If one were to come up with a bumper-sticker definition of personal liberty, it would be something like “the freedom to be left alone.” A society that respects the liberty of its citizens is one in which the citizen can be left to live his life as he sees fit, beyond the basic duties incumbent upon all citizens. (snip)
At the root of this, the spring that provides the impetus for such an arrangement, is the cultural understanding that everyone has a duty to mind their own business. What must animate a “free society” is the understanding that you are not only free of the unwanted gaze from others, including the
As news reports spread the word that the United States has officially ended its military presence in Afghanistan, one member of a group of former special operations warriors reminds the world of the terror faced by those the federal government has left behind.
“This is 1936 Germany Gestapo meets the Hunger Games,” Peter Quinn, director of Ark Salus, told The Epoch Times. “It is a high tension, high panic, Anne Frank-like environment.”
(snip) Quinn provided his on-the-ground assessment of the situation in Afghanistan as of Sunday. (Snip)“No matter who is trying to lead the country, no matter who is trying to form a sovereign state, the ISIS-K, Khorasan initiative,
“We have quite an exhaustive list of people. I won't tell you who they are.” With those words, House Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) confirmed that a subpoena storm was about to be unleashed in the investigation of the Jan. 6 riot in Congress. The targets would include Republican members, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who have already been told to preserve their phone records to be surrendered to the committee. The Democrats are reportedly trying to prove their prior claims that Republicans conspired or assisted “insurrectionists,” even though the FBI reportedly found no evidence of a planned insurrection.
The Democrats' move to
In the latest example of the complete lack of vetting in the ongoing evacuation of alleged Afghan refugees, a man who was previously deported after being convicted of rape returned to the United States on one of the last Afghan evacuation flights, the Daily Caller reports.
The criminal in question is 47-year-old Ghader Heydari, who is currently on parole as a result of his conviction. He had boarded an Ethiopian flight that was meant to take evacuees, but was detained after arriving at Dulles International Airport in Virginia. (snip), his return to the country marks yet another failure in the chaotic evacuation process that appears to have little to
Angry Joe Biden Refuses to Admit Mistakes
or Accept Accountability in Disastrous
Afghanistan Exit 22 replies
or Accept Accountability in Disastrous
Afghanistan Exit 22 replies
A defiant President Joe Biden defended his tumultuous exit from Afghanistan on Tuesday, refusing to admit mistakes or accept blame for lives lost or Americans left behind.
“Some say that the evacuation from Afghanistan could have been started sooner and completed in a more orderly fashion,” Biden said. “I respectfully disagree.”
Biden began by describing the military evacuation as a success, defying critics of his rushed exit from the country after the Taliban seized control of Kabul on August 15.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday acknowledged that Americans were stranded in Afghanistan despite earlier comments to the contrary made by White House officials. He said it’s not clear how many remain.
“Right now I think the tools we have available to us and that we’re going to use as a U.S. government is going to be more in the diplomatic, economic lanes, and we don’t really see a military role right now,” Kirby told MSNBC on Tuesday morning when asked if the U.S. military would play a role in rescuing those individuals.
When asked about whether the State Department could help evacuate Americans from the country amid Taliban terrorist rule,
Just 24 hours before a suicide bomber detonated an explosive outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, senior military leaders gathered for the Pentagon’s daily morning update on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
Speaking from a secure video conference room on the third floor of the Pentagon at 8 a.m. Wednesday — or 4:30 p.m. in Kabul — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin instructed more than a dozen of the department’s top leaders around the world to make preparations for an imminent “mass casualty event,” according to classified detailed notes of the gathering shared with POLITICO.
During the meeting, Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of “significant” intelligence indicating
Almost 90 Retired Flag Officers Demand
Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin Resign
After Afghanistan Debacle 24 replies
Mark Milley, Lloyd Austin Resign
After Afghanistan Debacle 24 replies
Nearly 90 retired U.S. generals and admirals penned an open letter asking Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to resign from their positions following their “negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
“As principal military advisors to the CINC [Commander-in-Chief]/President, the SECDEF and CJCS should have recommended against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms,” the letter states. “If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign. Conversely, if they did do everything within their ability to persuade the CINC/President to not
The Western world is living a massive COVID lie. That lie is strangling the life out of liberty, and it will destroy our constitutional order if we do not end this horrifying charade.
A recent article in The Guardian discussing France’s vaccine passport unconsciously provides the perfect example. It describes the Great Plague that struck Marseille in 1720 (the final contortion of the Black Death), noting that it “kill[ed] more than half of the city’s population.”
“[S]truggl[ing] to find a delicate balance between halting the spread of the disease and damaging vital commerce,” the city authorities,(snip) ordered travelers “to carry a ‘bill of health’ and ships arriving at the Mediterranean port underwent
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President Joe Biden received praise from an unlikely source on Tuesday: Ann Coulter.
Biden had just concluded his address to the nation on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending a war that had lasted 20 years. The president has been criticized for failing to anticipate the rapid crumbling of Afghan security forces in the face of the Taliban’s advance.
That caused a chaotic scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military hurried to evacuate more than 123,000 Americans and Afghans despite being surrounded by the Taliban and ISIS-K.
The World Health Organization has issued a warning about yet another new COVID-19 variant it fears could potentially evade vaccines. That variant, called Mu, was first detected in Colombia in January, and has been announced just as the Delta variant finally appears to be peaking in the U.S. Over 4,600 cases of the variant, whose scientific name is B.1.621, have been spotted since then, and it has spread to more than 40 countries. Almost 2,000 cases of the variant have been detected in the United States. The WHO's weekly bulletin claimed its mutations suggest it may be more resistant to vaccines, as was the case with the South African
How many times has Joe Biden ranted at us about why he is right on Afghanistan? I’ve lost track, but I think this at least the fifth “official” rant.
But this one was the worst yet and you could feel it. He was just so angry. He’s not angry at the Taliban. He’s not angry at his own failures or those of his people. He’s angry at the people left behind. And, he’s angry at you. He’s angry at you for not simply accepting what an “extraordinary success” this all was.
He keeps screaming about ending the war, a point that no one is even contesting
Appearing Tuesday on CNN’s The Lead, The Bulwark editor-at-large and Never Trump pundit Bill Kristol said people in his social circle who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 will likely not support him again in the wake of the fatally botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
JAKE TAPPER: You’ve been fairly supportive of President Biden, but not of the execution of this withdrawal. I think you also support a residual counter-terrorism force left in the country, right?
BILL KRISTOL: I would have, yes.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki dodged a question about President Biden looking at his watch during a transfer ceremony in honor of the slain 13 U.S. service members killed in a suicide bombing near Kabul airport.On Sunday, Biden and the families of the 13 fallen troops attended the ceremony as the bodies of the service members arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Biden was caught on camera glancing at his watch after flag-draped caskets were brought off the plane.He was blasted by family members at the event, with Darin Hoover - the father of killed Marine Staff Sgt Taylor Hoover Jr
We’ve written about Biden checking his watch while he was at Dover AFB yesterday watching the transfer of those who died in Kabul from the airplane to the hearses (snip) Marine Lance Corporation Rylee McCollum was one of those who died. (snip) his wife, Jiennah went to meet with Biden. (snip) Roice [McCollum’s sister] said. The president brought up his son, Beau, according to her account, describing his son’s military service and subsequent death from cancer. It struck the family as scripted and shallow, a conversation that lasted only a couple of minutes in ‘total disregard to the loss of our Marine,’ Roice said.
President Biden asserted that a new Texas law banning abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat “blatantly violates” Roe v. Wade in a written statement on Wednesday.
“The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the health care they need, particularly for communities of color and individuals with low incomes,” said Biden.
The president added that “my administration is deeply committed to the constitutional right established in Roe v. Wade nearly five decades ago and will protect and defend that right.”
The law went into effect on Wednesday after the Supreme Court declined to act on an emergency petition to block it. The law’s unusual enforcement mechanism
A private airplane that was flying into Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) in Kabul, Afghanistan to rescue stranded American citizens and Afghan allies allegedly was told to turn back or they would be shot down.
In the past 24 hours, American officials in charge of giving clearance at the airport told fellow Americans they would be fired upon if they didn’t leave, Mary Beth Long, a former Department of Defense official, told American Greatness in an exclusive interview. (Snip)
Some American citizens, she said, have made the perilous journey to HKIA four times, only to be turned away at the gates each time. As a result of the Biden Administration’s
I ask this question for two reasons:
I have seen enough videos and read about enough officer-civilian interactions to know that the act of subduing a lethal threat requires several rounds.
If an intruder entered my home and threatened my wife and child, I would shoot until I was able to ensure the target was immobilized.
As to the first statement, there are plenty of examples of police officers firing multiple shots at a suspected threat. In the past year, the American public has been thoroughly able to parse through the shootings of criminals like Breonna Taylor and Antonio Brown, to name just two examples.
Exclusive: In secret texts, U.S. military
officials lamented leaving Americans
behind in Kabul 30 replies
officials lamented leaving Americans
behind in Kabul 30 replies
"We are f*cking abandoning American citizens," Army colonel wrote in a frantic series of texts that detail how a group of Americans were rejected at airport as rescue flight awaited.
President Biden declared to a puzzled country on Tuesday that the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan was an "extraordinary success," while his Pentagon portrayed a prosaic, workaday process to repatriate Americans still stranded in the war-torn country.
Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) has reportedly gone missing after attempting a rogue evacuation mission to rescue five American citizens that President Joe Biden’s administration left behind in Afghanistan.According to the Washington Post, U.S. officials are now “unsure of Mullin’s location” after he requested help from the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan on Monday with his evacuation of a woman and her four children. From the report: The call to the U.S. ambassador to Tajikistan came in Monday. On the line, two U.S. officials said, was Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) with an unusual and urgent request: He needed assistance in transporting a huge amount of cash into the country, saying he was
A day after the U.S. officially pulled out of Afghanistan, and less than a week after a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. Service Members, Rep. Carlos Gimenez has just tweeted that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) has blocked the names of those dead servicemen and women from being read on the floor of the House of Representatives. Rep. Brian Mast (R), a wounded combat veteran from Afghanistan, tells The Floridian that during a Republican-only “moment of silence,” Speaker Pelosi refused to recognize them to” read names or bring up bills or anything.”
Comments:
MYOB: Mind your own business.