A Horrible Day for Our Troops

They tried to withdraw from Afghanistan, but the only thing they are withdrawing are the bodies of 13 service members killed by ISIS. 

All week, the situation at the airport reminded me of that scene in the movie "Gandhi": "Massacre of Amritsar, incident on April 13, 1919, in which British troops fired on a large crowd of unarmed Indians in an open space known as the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in the Punjab region (now in Punjab state) of India, killing several hundred people and wounding many hundreds more." And unsurprisingly, the terrorists attacked at the airport.

It's too bad that Biden,  Harris, Blinken, Milley and Austin can't all resign tonight. I don't trust any  of them, or the Taliban. What's happened this week has been a disgrace and a tragedy for our country, and it hasn't ended.

Just When You Thought You've Heard Every Lunatic COVID Conspiracy Theory..

Anti-vaxxers are refusing blood transfusions from vaccinated donors because they believe they're 'tainted,' report says

"Some patients who are skeptical of the coronavirus jab are refusing life-saving blood transfusions from vaccinated donors, according to a report by The Daily Beast.

"Dr. Geeta Paranjape, a medical director at Carter BloodCare in Bedford, Texas, also had to intervene after a father of a boy who was scheduled to have surgery had asked whether his son could get blood from unvaccinated donors. 'A lot of people think there's some kind of microchip or they're going to be cloned,' Paranjape said, according to The Daily Beast."

It's anti-vaxxers and their ignorant, dangerous notions that are prolonging the pandemic in this country. No wonder we despise them so much.

For Those Who Think The Pandemic is Over

These shocking statistics come from the 8/24/21 edition of USA Today's Coronavirus Watch newsletter:

"America's delta-driven surge of COVID-19 has entered a deadlier phase.

Deaths are now increasing in 43 states — the worst tally since December, before America's deadliest month of the pandemic, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

U.S. deaths in the week ending Monday totaled 7,225. At that pace, America experiences the loss of a Pearl Harbor attack three times a week, or the human cost of a 9/11 attack every three days."

Something Cute For a Change

I saw this today in the August 19 Covid Act Now Daily Download newsletter's "On a Lighter Note" section:

"Mom’s Zoo Pic is Adorably Photo-bombed by Stingray With Remarkable Resemblance to Her Daughter"

You have to go look.

Where is Our Dunkirk?

Why haven't we heard about any resignations or firings at the Pentagon and State Department over this shameful, inexcusable, nightmarish debacle in Afghanistan?

This is from National Review: "Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the U.S. will continue to evacuate all the Americans 'they can' from Afghanistan, although the U.S. is currently unable to 'go out and collect large numbers of people' from outside the Kabul airport.
'It’s obvious we’re not close to where we want to be,' Austin said at a press conference at the Pentagon. 'We’re gonna get everyone that we can possibly evacuate evacuated, and I’ll do that as long as we possibly can, until the clock runs out, or we run out of capability.'
Austin admitted that U.S. capabilities to venture outside the airport are already limited, however. 'I don’t have the capability to go out and extend operations currently into Kabul,' explained the defense secretary. There are currently up to 15,000 Americans still in Afghanistan, U.S. officials have estimated."

Yet in 1940, over 338,000 British and French soldiers were rescued from Dunkirk! Yet we can't manage to evacuate 15,000 Americans from Afghanistan?

Our Ignominious Exit From Afghanistan

You couldn't tear your eyes away from the terrible scenes on TV this weekend, and you couldn't stop reading the headlines:

"Videos show desperation at Kabul airport as Afghans crowd planes, cling to jets to escape. Hundreds could be seen in videos sprinting alongside a U.S. military aircraft in an apparent attempt to stop it from taking off."

"640 People, One Jet: Flight Trackers Reveal Heroic, Desperate Effort In Chaotic Afghanistan Evacuation"

And a must-read: "The shocking speed of the Taliban’s advance: A visual timeline. U.S. intelligence warned on Aug. 10 it would take 30-90 days for the Afghan government in Kabul to collapse. The capital fell five days later." 

For a few horrible hours, even the Delta variant was overshadowed by this news.  Let's see if there are any firings or resignations in this administration.

Some Friday Links

Check out Harold Ticktin's Yiddish Vinkl column for August 13. The word is tseyln, meaning to count.

Don't forget to check out the interesting links at Maggie's Farm! 

Here are two stories we already could have guessed without even seeing the headlines:

1.  Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) The Taliban have seized Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, and a number of other provincial capitals, as the insurgent group accelerates its rapid advance towards the capital Kabul.

2. US warns 9/11 anniversary could inspire extremist attacks.  "Extremist attacks"?  Whatever happened to "terrorist attacks", or is that now on the politically correct list?

Arnold Schwarzenegger Says, "Don't Be A Schmuck, Put on a Mask"

Unfortunately, these very schmucks are not going to read his column, but I enjoyed it immensely.

"Generations of Americans made incredible sacrifices, and we’re going to throw fits about putting a mask over our mouth and nose?"

Shocking COVID Maps

Perhaps even the unvaccinated can understand the significance of these maps, by Priya Krishnakumar at CNN:

"More than 98% of US residents now live in an area where there is a 'high' or 'substantial' risk of Covid-19 community transmission, up from 19% of residents only a month ago. This sharp turn has been driven in large part by the highly infectious Delta variant and low vaccination rates in many regions."

Andrew Cuomo Resigns - But Not Over Nursing Home Deaths

Better late than never. I agree with the headline at the New York Post for Jonathan Tobin's column:  Don’t let Dems bury Cuomo’s nursing-home horrors by ousting him only for sex charges.

This is the real scandal: more than 15,000 nursing home deaths from COVID under his watch. Fifteen thousand mothers and fathers dead in one year. He has to be made to pay for this atrocity.

Anti-Vaccine Terrorism

What kind of people are these?  This is disgraceful sabotage of our public health crisis and jeopardizing people's  lives. These employees should be fired, especially those who work in hospitals.

"'Walk Out Wednesday' to protest COVID vaccine mandates planned nationwide.  A walkout is being planned for Wednesday by employees across the country in protest of vaccination mandates. Walk Out Wednesday is set to take place on August 11th from noon to 1 p.m. The website for the event says 'no one should be forced, coerced or pressured to inject the COVID shots.'"

In a few weeks, we will be marking the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed 2,977 people on our soil. Al Qaeda must be watching the anti-vax defiance and protests with amazement. These virus collaborators are doing the terrorists' work for them.

A Tale of Two Headlines

Here's a headline I spotted in my Vox  newsletter: "How to fight climate despair."  I can't even relate to this, since we're in a pandemic and the despair I see includes the fact that our heroic doctors and nurses are forced to exhaust themselves further caring for deliberately-unvaccinated COVID-spreaders, and even walking off the job!

A headline at Hot Air reads, "COVID compassion fatigue: How long can we keep caring about the unvaccinated?" That's easy: WE don't   care -- at least I don't. How long can "we" keep making excuses for these people as the hospitals fill up? How long can we keep begging and pleading and bribing day after day, months after the vaccines became available?

How long can we vaccinated, responsible, unselfish Americans continue to accept this never-ending nightmare we're living through?

In Support of Vaccine Passports

This is from a column in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Stay home, anti-vaxxers: while we part-ay! Our COVID passports are coming

"In terms of vaccine passports, there are myriad roadmaps around the world, but the best justification I have seen came from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said a fortnight ago.

'Those who refuse vaccines,' he said, 'are endangering their health, those around them and the freedom of every Israeli citizen. They are endangering our freedom to work, the freedom of our children to learn and the freedom to hold celebrations with the family. Those who refuse vaccines hurt us all because if all of us were vaccinated, we would all be able to maintain daily life. But if one million Israelis continue to not get vaccinated, this will oblige the eight million others to shut themselves in their homes.

'Therefore, the cabinet decided today that as of 8 August, those who refuse vaccines will not be able to go to the cinema, the theatre, the synagogue, the amusement park, the soccer game or any activity with over 100 people, indoors or out, unless they bring negative results from a coronavirus test, at their expense.'

Bravo! More, Prime Minister Bennett, more!"

Bravo indeed! We need Biden to say the same thing, replacing the word "Israeli" with "American". Stop worrying about the feelings of the anti-vaxxers, and think instead of the positive reaction of the vaccinated.

Shut Up, and Consider Yourself Lucky!

The coverage on Fox News has been disgraceful, as they rail against masks and vaccines every night. Between Fox and the continuing excuse-making, complaints, and attacks on medical experts by the American people, it's been very childish, disgusting, and ungrateful.

Think of this: you could be living in Australia, where they have the military helping to enforce the lockdown in Sydney.

Or. you could be dying in the hospital. Your choice!