The Commentariat -- August 19, 2021

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Afternoon Update:

Dana Hedgpeth, et al., of the Washington Post: "A man who claimed to have a bomb with him in a pickup truck near the Library of Congress surrendered to authorities Thursday afternoon, ending an hours-long standoff in the heart of the nation's capitol. U.S. Capitol Police said in a Twitter message that they were checking a suspicious vehicle near the Library of Congress. The Cannon, Jefferson and Madison office buildings have been evacuated. Police said there is a possible explosive device in the pickup truck, though no explosives have been found at this point.... Two law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation identified the man as Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina." Roseberry, who was live-streaming on Facebook from his truck, said there were other vehicles in the area that were set to explode, too. He was demanding to speak to President Biden & talked about a revolution. MB: According to MSNBC, Roseberry demanded that Biden resign. Nicole Wallace of MSNBC pointed out that Roseberry's threats & actions were consistent with the nature of Homeland Security's recent warnings of domestic terrorism threats. ~~~

~~~ Emily Cochrane & Maria Cramer of the New York Times: "The United States Capitol Police were negotiating with a man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck outside the Library of Congress on Thursday, prompting evacuations from government buildings in the area. The man drove a black pickup onto the sidewalk of the Library of Congress at about 9:15 Thursday morning.... The man, whom officials identified as a North Carolina resident, was making anti-government statements, according to a law enforcement official." Update: "... A spokesman for Facebook confirmed that the company had taken down the man's profile from the site and Instagram, and removed a post with a video broadcast from the truck. The company said it would also remove any posts supporting or praising the man." A CNN report is here.

New York Times: "The United States Capitol Police were negotiating with a man who claimed to have a bomb in a pickup truck outside the Library of Congress on Thursday, prompting evacuations from government buildings in the area. The man drove a black pickup onto the sidewalk of the Library of Congress at about 9:15 Thursday morning.... The man, whom officials identified as a North Carolina resident, was making anti-government statements, according to a law enforcement official." A CNN report is here.

Here's the full transcript of George Stephanopoulos' interview of President Biden, at least part of which aired on ABC evening news Wednesday night.

Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: "The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday refiled a bolstered version of its antitrust case against Facebook. In the complaint, the agency argues that Facebook holds monopoly power in personal social networking, with no other competitor coming close.... The refiling is the FTC's attempt to course correct after it suffered a stunning setback earlier this summer, when a federal judge threw out its suit against the tech giant, along with a similar case from state attorneys general. The Facebook case is the most high-profile challenge that the agency has brought against a tech company in decades, and it's widely being watched as a bellwether of the growing movement in Washington to curb concentration in the tech industry."

This. Could. Not. Be. More. Idiotic. Dan Goldberg of Politico: "Republican governors in some of the states hardest hit by the pandemic are pushing expensive Covid cocktails over cheap masks. The governors in Florida, Missouri and Texas are promising millions of dollars in antibody treatments for infected people even as they oppose vaccine and mask mandates, saying they can potentially keep people with mild Covid symptoms out of hospitals that are being swamped by new cases. But the treatments and cost of providing them are thousands of dollars more than preventive vaccines, and tricky to administer because they work best early in the course of an infection. The push to medicate rankles public health officials and some within the Biden administration, who say the governors' stance misleadingly implies Covid-19 can be treated easily, like the common cold. They note treatments like Regeneron's antibody cocktail -- which was administered to ... Donald Trump during his bout with the disease -- are essential but part of a limited arsenal to keep patients from being hospitalized or dying, not a game-changer that could help end the pandemic."

Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "When Lauren Boebert, the pistol-packing Republican firebrand, was running for Congress last year, she traced her income to Shooters Grill, a restaurant she and her husband own in Rifle, Colo. She suggested her husband did some consulting, listing 'Boebert Consulting -- spouse' on her candidate form, but identified his income source as 'N/A.' Only now, with Boebert not just in Congress but on the House Natural Resources Committee, has she revealed that her husband made $478,000 last year working as a consultant for an energy firm. He made $460,000 the year before, she disclosed in a filing Tuesday with the House of Representatives. Her husband, Jayson Boebert, earned that income as a consultant for Terra Energy Productions, according to the filing.... Federal law requires members of Congress, as well as candidates, to file financial disclosure statements that include the income and assets of spouses and dependent children... Kedric Payne..., a former deputy chief counsel in the Office of Congressional Ethics..., said the matter should be reviewed by the Office of Congressional Ethics.... An intentional failure 'could be criminal,' he said, with the potential to result in 'large fines and possible imprisonment.'"

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The New York Times' live updates of developments in Afghanistan Thursday are here: "As the Taliban celebrated the anniversary of the nation's independence from Britain more than a century ago, they reaffirmed an 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan' on Thursday, even as tens of thousands sought flee the country.... The mammoth evacuation effort gathered pace, with Afghan refugees and international repatriates landing in Europe, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.... The road to the airport has been particularly dangerous, with Taliban patrolling checkpoints.... The Pentagon, which has deployed 5,000 U.S. troops to secure the airport, said that it had asked the Taliban to allow safe passage for American citizens, but that it did not have the ability to go out and fetch people from Kabul or other cities.... A Spanish military plane landed before dawn at Torrejon air base outside Madrid, one of three aircraft that the Spanish defense ministry has sent to evacuate citizens and Afghans who worked with the Spanish government, along with their families." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates of Afghanistan developments Thursday are here: "Waheedullah Hashimi, a high-ranking Taliban commander, told Reuters that [Afghanistan] would probably be governed by a council under sharia law. The movement's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, is likely to remain in charge, above the head of the council, whose role he likened to a president. 'There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country,' Hashimi said. 'We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it.' The Taliban has a particularly strict interpretation of sharia law. It has said that women's rights will be respected under the framework of the religious code and Hashimi told Reuters issues like what women can wear will be determined by a council of Islamic scholars."

Sarah Kolinovsky of ABC News: "In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, and the president's first since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, President Joe Biden stood firm in his defense of the United States' withdrawal, but asserted for the first time that he believes the chaos was unavoidable." ~~~

~~~ Molly Nagle of ABC News: "In an ... interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, President Joe Biden said the U.S. is committed to getting every American out of Afghanistan -- even if it means potentially extending the mission beyond his Aug. 31 deadline for a total withdrawal.... Biden told ABC News that in addition to the 10,000 to 15,000 Americans who need to be evacuated, there are between 50,000 and 65,000 Afghans and their families the U.S. also wants to get out." ~~~

~~~ Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Annie Karni of the New York Times: "As President Biden last month defended his decision to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, he delivered a promise as old as the war itself to the Afghans who had risked their lives to assist American troops. 'Our message to those women and men is clear: There is a home for you in the United States, if you so choose,' the president said. 'We will stand with you, just as you stood with us.' But his decision not to begin a mass evacuation of Afghan interpreters, guides and their relatives earlier this year has left thousands of people in limbo, stranded in a country now controlled by the Taliban after 20 years of war. Even before Mr. Biden announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops, his administration rejected frantic calls from lawmakers and activists to evacuate Afghans, who now find themselves in jeopardy.... Mr. Biden instead took steps to streamline a visa system plagued with backlogs, even though it was never intended for the mass transfer of people in a short amount of time. And in the United States, some officials were expressing concerns about potential political blowback over an influx of refugees." ~~~

~~~ ** Anne Gearan, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration moved slowly for months to address the plight of vulnerable Afghans who had worked for the United States even as a deadline for U.S. military withdrawal loomed, refugee advocates said -- a lull some blamed on White House concern that the influx would invite partisan political backlash amid a rush of migrants at the southern border. Afghans who served as interpreters, fixers and other staff for the U.S. military and diplomats over the nearly 20-year U.S. military mission were among thousands evacuated in recent days, following the stunning collapse of the U.S.-backed government. Getting thousands more out of the country is a top priority now ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline to exit, the nation's top military officials said Wednesday. 'We have a moral obligation to help those who helped us, and I feel the urgency deeply,' Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the Pentagon.... But the administration showed little public urgency to expedite visas for Afghans in the months before and immediately after Biden's announcement in April that the United States would pull U.S. forces out." Read on.

digby points out that the U.S. & allies have nearly $10 billion in chips to play against the Taliban inasmuch as the West, particularly the U.S., is holding Taliban assets in that amount.

THIS. Intel Agencies Did Not Tell Biden Collapse Was Imminent. Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "Intelligence reports presented to President Biden in the final days before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan this past week failed to predict the imminence of the Afghan government's collapse, even after their earlier warnings had grown increasingly grim, senior intelligence and defense officials said on Wednesday. The intelligence agencies had been stepping up their warnings about the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan throughout the summer. Their reports grew more specific in July, noting how the Taliban had taken control of roads leading to Kabul and how the group had learned lessons from its takeover of the country in the 1990s. But senior administration officials acknowledged that as the pace of White House meetings on Afghanistan grew more frenzied in August and in the days leading up to the Taliban takeover this weekend, the intelligence agencies did not say the collapse was imminent. 'As the president indicated, this unfolded more quickly than we anticipated, including in the intelligence community,' Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement to The New York Times." ~~~

~~~ AND THIS. Julian Borger, et al., of the Guardian: "Both the Trump and Biden administrations were warned by US intelligence that the Afghan army's resistance to the Taliban could collapse 'within days' after an over-hasty withdrawal, according to a former CIA counter-terrorism chief.... On Wednesday, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley told reporters: 'There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army or this government in 11 days.' Speaking to the nation on Monday, Biden said: 'The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.' Douglas London, the CIA's former counter-terrorism chief for south and south-west Asia, said the president was being 'misleading at best.... The CIA anticipated it as a possible scenario,' London said. London left his post in 2019 but served as a volunteer adviser to the Biden campaign. In a detailed account on the Just Security website on Wednesday, he described intelligence briefings to the Trump and Biden teams which gave different estimates of how long Ghani and the Afghan forces could endure a Taliban offensive, depending on the speed and depth of the US retreat." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Both can be true; that is, imminent collapse was one of several possibilities presented. IMO, the government's biggest failure was not rushing the paperwork to clear U.S. assets & their families for emigration in the months before the collapse. While it might have been a mistake to actually put these people on planes, it would have shown reasonable foresight to hand them the documentation they needed to beat a hasty exit. And, for Pete's sake, why not keep Bagram Airfield open for U.S. & allied flights?

Yuliya Talmazan & Mushtaq Yusufzai of NBC News: "Images of the Taliban cracking down on a protest and bloodied women and children beaten by fighters are contradicting the more moderate image the militant group has been trying to project as it tries to consolidate power in Afghanistan. Less than 24 hours after the Taliban spokesperson delivered security guarantees during a press conference in Kabul, the militants on Wednesday tried to stop locals from installing Afghanistan's national black, red and green flag in the eastern city of Jalalabad, according to local resident Anwar Khan. A former police official told Reuters four people had been killed in the protest and 13 injured. Afghanistan's Pajhwok news agency shared video of what it said was the incident, showing crowds running as gunfire was heard. NBC News was not able to verify the footage." MB: The idea that Taliban leadership has control over its far-flung soldiers is rather fanciful. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Henry Austin of NBC News: "Ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been 'welcomed' into the United Arab Emirates on 'humanitarian grounds,' the country's foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. Ghani fled Afghanistan as the Taliban approached Kabul, the capital, on Sunday, less than 24 hours after he tried to rally his people in a televised address in which he pledged not to give up the 'achievements' of the 20 years since the U.S. toppled the Taliban." (Also linked yesterday.)

Just Kidding! Patrick Tucker of Defense One: "... Donald Trump's top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trump's last acting defense secretary. Miller said the president's public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a 'play' that masked the Trump administration's true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterrorism missions.... The new [Trump-engineered Afghan] government would then permit U.S. forces to remain in country to support the Afghan military and fight terrorist elements. That plan never happened, in part because Trump lost his reelection bid.... And at least one other former senior Trump administration official questioned Miller's retelling. But in revealing it, Miller challenged recent assertions that Trump is to blame for setting up this week's chaotic scenes unfolding across Kabul."

Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that it is banning a common pesticide, widely used since 1965 on fruits and vegetables, from use on food crops because it has been linked to neurological damage in children. The Environmental Protection Agency said this week it would publish a regulation to block the use of chlorpyrifos on food. One of the most widely used pesticides, chlorpyrifos is commonly applied to corn, soybeans, apples, broccoli, asparagus and other produce. The new rule, which will take effect in six months, follows an order in April by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that directed the E.P.A. to halt the agricultural use of the chemical unless it could demonstrate its safety.... The Obama administration began the process of revoking all uses of the pesticide in 2015 but, in 2020, the Trump administration ignored the recommendations of E.P.A. scientists and kept chlorpyrifos on the market. That set off a wave of legal challenges. Those challenges concluded with the court order in April...."

Vance Charges Friend of Jared. Jonah Bromwich & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: "Seven months after being pardoned by ... Donald J. Trump, a onetime editor of The New York Observer faces new charges of unlawfully spying on his former wife by secretly gaining access to her computer. The editor, Ken Kurson, a close friend of Mr. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was charged in state criminal court in Manhattan on Wednesday with eavesdropping and computer trespass, both felonies. Prosecutors accuse Mr. Kurson of using spyware to breach his wife's computer in 2015 as the couple's marriage fell apart. Each crime is punishable by up to four years in prison. 'We will not accept presidential pardons as get-out-of-jail-free cards for the well-connected in New York,' the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., said in a statement announcing the charges." The AP's report is here.

Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Wednesday threw out the permits for a controversial oil project planned for Alaska's North Slope, faulting the way the federal government had assessed its environmental impact, including how it might harm polar bears. ConocoPhillips's Willow project had been backed by both the Trump and Bide administrations, despite a host of concerns environmentalists and others raised about how the large operation might impact wildlife and the Indigenous communities. U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason -- an Obama appointee -- wrote in her ruling that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service incorrectly approved the project because it failed to adequately analyze its climate impact and other possible development plans, and didn't specify how polar bears would be protected." Politico's story is here.

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "Deep into the third hour of testimony in federal bankruptcy court by Dr. Richard Sackler, a former president and co-chairman of the board of directors of Purdue Pharma," Sackler testified that he, his family & Purdue Pharmacy had no responsibility for the opioid crisis in the U.S. During testimony, Sackler "was evasive and defiant."

Marie's Sports Report. Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "Jack Morris, the Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame pitcher-turned-TV analyst for Tigers games, was suspended indefinitely Wednesday by Bally Sports Detroit after using an accent often used to mock Asian people as Shohei Ohtani came to bat in [the sixth inning of] Tuesday night's game.... In the ninth inning, Morris said..., '... it's been brought to my attention, and I sincerely apologize if I offended anybody, especially anybody in the Asian community for what I said....' Reaction to Morris's remark was swift Tuesday night.... ESPN's Joon Lee tweeted, 'It's impossible for Jack Morris to play something like this off as "sorry if you were offended" when there's not any purpose in doing this accent other than to make a caricature of AAPI people.'"~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm not proud of the fact that in 1953, after watching a Saturday morning kids' movie program that included a B-movie about Pacific Theater WWII battles, we neighborhood kids ran around playing "Japs & G.I.s." But -- unlike Morris -- I'm not still living in 1953.

When Stars Collide -- on the Vineyard. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: Larry David & Alan Dershowitz got into a disagreement "on the porch of the Chilmark General Store [on Martha's Vineyard], according to a 'spy' for the New York Post. During the exchange, Dershowitz is reported to have said, 'We can still talk, Larry.' 'No,' said David. 'No. We really can't. I saw you. I saw you with your arm around [Trump's former Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo! It's disgusting!' Dershowitz told David that Pompeo was a student of his at Harvard Law School. 'I can't greet my former students?'... Dershowitz confirmed the encounter to the Post. He said he had been friends with David until he entered the Trump orbit." If only Larry were as brilliant & well-informed as Alan is! -- "'Larry is a knee-jerk radical,' Dershowitz told the Post, 'He takes his politics from Hollywood. He doesn't read a lot. He doesn't think a lot.'"

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Some schools in the Sun Belt are defying Republican governors by finding ways to mandate masks as cases in the region surge, while Democrats including President Biden lean into vaccination requirements for public institutions. In Texas, a school system has made masks a part of its dress code for the academic year, hoping to exploit a possible loophole in a statewide ban by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who currently has covid-19, on face coverings. And in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has ordered schools not to require masks, Miami-Dade County's school board defied the governor on Wednesday by voting to enact a mask mandate when classes resume next week. In Washington state -- in a sweeping mandate that is one of the strictest for U.S. educators -- all public, private and charter school employees will need to be vaccinated before Oct. 18 as a condition of employment, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) announced Wednesday."

Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times: "The Biden administration moved on multiple fronts on Wednesday to fight back against the surging Delta variant, strongly recommending booster shots for most vaccinated American adults and using federal leverage to force nursing homes to vaccinate their staffs. In remarks from the East Room of the White House, President Biden also directed his education secretary to 'use all of his authority, and legal action if appropriate,' to deter states from banning universal masking in classrooms. That move is destined to escalate a fight with some Republican governors who are blocking local school districts from requiring masks to protect against the virus.... Wednesday..., [Biden] said his administration would make employee vaccination a condition for nursing homes to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.... The shifts in strategy reflect the administration's growing concern that the highly contagious Delta variant is erasing its hard-fought progress against the pandemic and thrusting the nation back to the more precarious point it was at earlier in the year." ~~~

~~~ Biden, Cardona Signal Mask Bans Violate Civil Rights Laws. Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "President Joe Biden is directing the Education Department to 'use all available tools' to combat Republican governors whose state policies prohibit Covid-19 mitigation strategies like masking in the classroom. Biden, in a memo sent Wednesday to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, said the Education Department must take action to ensure governors and other officials are allowing a safe return to in-person learning and 'not standing in the way of local leaders making such preparations.... Cardona, in an interview with The New York Times, signaled that he could use the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights to prevent states from banning mask wearing in schools. The department could launch civil rights investigations for school districts if their policies impede students' access to education." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mike Stobbe & Matthew Perrone of the AP: "U.S. health officials Wednesday announced plans to offer COVID-19 booster shots to all Americans to shore up their protection amid the surging delta variant and signs that the vaccines' effectiveness is falling. The plan, as outlined by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top authorities, calls for an extra dose eight months after people get their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The doses could begin the week of Sept. 20. 'Our plan is to protect the American people, to stay ahead of this virus,' CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at the White House. People who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will also probably need extra shots, health officials said. But they said they are waiting for more data." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Yasmeen Abutaleb & Lena Sun of the Washington Post: "When Pfizer representatives met with senior U.S. government health officials on July 12, they laid out why they thought booster shots would soon be necessary in the United States.... But officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, saying their own data showed something quite different.... Other senior health officials in the meeting were stunned. Why hadn't the CDC looped other government officials on the data? Could the agency share it -- at least with the Food and Drug Administration, which was responsible for deciding whether booster shots were necessary? But CDC officials demurred, saying they planned to publish it soon. That episode, say senior administration officials and outside experts, illustrates the growing frustration with the CDC's slow and siloed approach to sharing data, which prevented officials across the government from getting real-time information about how the delta variant was bearing down on the United States...." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is another story from the Bureaucracy Sucks Department. Sometimes the suckiness is just an inconvenience, an annoyance, or a source for minor unfairness. But today, we're seeing two egregious examples -- slow-walking visas for our Afghan friends and hoarding vital health data -- where Bureacracy Kills. (Meanwhile, I learned today that the IRS, which has been happy to accept my tax payments, doesn't know who I am and insists I "verify my identity," a process which apparently takes weeks. [What's a Social Security number for anyway?] This falls along the inconvenience/annoyance spectrum and is something I just don't get.)

Alabama. Dr. Valentine Is Tired of Trying to Reason with You People. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "In Alabama, where the nation's lowest vaccination rate has helped push the state closer to a record number of hospitalizations, a physician has sent a clear message to his patients: Don't come in for medical treatment if you are unvaccinated. Jason Valentine, a physician at Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, Ala., posted a photo on Facebook this week of him pointing to a sign taped to a door informing patients of his new policy coming Oct. 1. 'Dr. Valentine will no longer see patients that are not vaccinated against covid-19,' the sign reads. Valentine wrote in the post, which has since been made private but was captured in online images, that there were 'no conspiracy theories, no excuses' stopping anyone from being vaccinated, AL.com reported." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

Texas. Teach Your Children Well. Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: At recent public school events in Austin, Texas, the school district's superintendent said "Some parents physically and verbally assaulted teachers because of masks. One parent ripped a teacher's mask off her face.... Others yelled at another teacher to remove her mask because they claimed it made it difficult to understand what she was saying."

Beyond the Beltway

Texas. Azi Paybarah of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a Texas law banning the most common form of second-trimester abortion, ruling that a lower court had erred in finding that the law imposed 'an undue burden on a large fraction of women.' At issue is a Texas law that was passed in 2017 but has not yet been in effect because of legal battles. The law, known as Senate Bill 8, prohibits a dilation-and-evacuation abortion method and requires doctors to use alternative abortion methods, according to Wednesday's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.... The lower court 'committed numerous, reversible legal and factual errors,' according to the decision on Wednesday."

News Lede

Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Henri is expected to strengthen into a hurricane over the Atlantic, but its exact path and strength when it draws closer to New England are still uncertain. Residents of the Northeast U.S., especially New England and Long Island, should monitor Henri's progress closely since it might bring wind, rain and storm surge impacts to parts of the region late weekend into early next week. Hurricane and/or tropical storm watches could be required for these areas by Friday."

The Commentariat -- August 18, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Biden, Cardona Signal Mask Bans Violate Civil Rights Laws. Bianca Quilantan of Politico: "President Joe Biden is directing the Education Department to 'use all available tools' to combat Republican governors whose state policies prohibit Covid-19 mitigation strategies like masking in the classroom. Biden, in a memo sent Wednesday to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, said the Education Department must take action to ensure governors and other officials are allowing a safe return to in-person learning and 'not standing in the way of local leaders making such preparations.... Cardona, in an interview with The New York Times, signaled that he could use the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights to prevent states from banning mask wearing in schools. The department could launch civil rights investigations for school districts if their policies impede students' access to education."

Mike Stobbe & Matthew Perrone of the AP: "U.S. health officials Wednesday announced plans to offer COVID-19 booster shots to all Americans to shore up their protection amid the surging delta variant and signs that the vaccines' effectiveness is falling. The plan, as outlined by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other top authorities, calls for an extra dose eight months after people get their second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. The doses could begin the week of Sept. 20. 'Our plan is to protect the American people, to stay ahead of this virus,' CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at the White House. People who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will also probably need extra shots, health officials said. But they said they are waiting for more data."

Yuliya Talmazan & Mushtaq Yusufzai of NBC News: "Images of the Taliban cracking down on a protest and bloodied women and children beaten by fighters are contradicting the more moderate image the militant group has been trying to project as it tries to consolidate power in Afghanistan. Less than 24 hours after the Taliban spokesperson delivered security guarantees during a press conference in Kabul, the militants on Wednesday tried to stop locals from installing Afghanistan's national black, red and green flag in the eastern city of Jalalabad, according to local resident Anwar Khan. A former police official told Reuters four people had been killed in the protest and 13 injured. Afghanistan's Pajhwok news agency shared video of what it said was the incident, showing crowds running as gunfire was heard. NBC News was not able to verify the footage." MB: The idea that Taliban leadership has control over its far-flung soldiers is rather fanciful.

Henry Austin of NBC News: "Ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been 'welcomed' into the United Arab Emirates on 'humanitarian grounds,' the country's foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday. Ghani fled Afghanistan as the Taliban approached Kabul, the capital, on Sunday, less than 24 hours after he tried to rally his people in a televised address in which he pledged not to give up the 'achievements' of the 20 years since the U.S. toppled the Taliban."

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The New York Times' live updates of developments in Afghanistan Wednesday are here. The featured item at 5 am ET is about evacuations from Afghanistan. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live Afghanistan updates for Wednesday are here: "The United States and other countries operated military evacuation flights from Afghanistan throughout Tuesday, though not all seeking to leave the country were able to reach Kabul airport. 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.... President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the Taliban have agreed to allow 'safe passage' from Afghanistan for civilians struggling to join a U.S.-directed airlift from the capital, although a timetable for completing the evacuation has yet to be worked out with the country's new rulers. Sullivan said the United States is addressing reports of militants intimidating fleeing Afghans with the Islamist group.... Washington has moved some 3,200 people out so far, with an additional 2,000 Afghans relocated to the United States as special immigrants. About 11,000 people in Afghanistan have identified themselves as American, while more than 80,000 Afghans may need to be evacuated."

Ahmad Seir, et al., of the AP: "The Taliban violently broke up a protest in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, quashing a rare public show of dissent.... Dozens of people gathered in the eastern city of Jalalabad to raise the national flag a day before Afghanistan's Independence Day, which commemorates the end of British rule in 1919. They lowered the Taliban flag -- a white banner with an Islamic inscription -- that the militants have raised in the areas they captured. Video footage later showed the Taliban firing into the air and attacking people with batons to disperse the crowd. Babrak Amirzada, a reporter for a local news agency, said he and a TV cameraman from another agency were beaten by the Taliban as they tried to cover the unrest."

Mujib Mashal & Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times: "For the first time since retaking power in Afghanistan, the Taliban's leaders on Tuesday sketched out what their control of the country could look like, promising peace at home and urging the world to look past their history of violence and repression. 'We don't want Afghanistan to be a battlefield anymore -- from today onward, war is over,' said Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's longtime chief spokesman, in a news conference in Kabul, the capital. Mr. Mujahid, a high-ranking leader, said the Taliban had declared a blanket amnesty, vowing no reprisals against former enemies. And the group has in some places appealed to civil servants -- including women -- to continue to go to work.... But much of the world is wary of their reassurances.... Many Afghans, too, remain utterly unconvinced by the new face presented by the Taliban, and its promises of political pluralism and women's and minority rights...." ~~~

"While American troops controlled a large part of the airport, the Taliban took control of the approaches to it, and at times beat people with rifle butts and clubs to force back the crowds trying to get in. It was not always clear whether they were attempting to prevent people from reaching the airport, or simply prevent another lethal crush. The U.S. Embassy released a statement to Americans who want to leave that they should get to the airport, but added that the American government 'cannot guarantee your security' on the way there -- a vivid illustration of the confusion on the ground.... In the chaos at the airport, where U.S. troops shot and killed at least two people on Monday and others fell to their deaths trying to cling to a U.S. military transport as it took off, there were reports of several more deaths on Tuesday." A related AP story is here.

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration on Sunday froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. bank accounts, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. institutions, according to two people.... The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions over the weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, 'Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Here's a transcript of President Biden's speech on Afghanistan, as delivered Monday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Video of the speech is embedded in yesterday's Commentariat.

Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Three Democrat-led Senate committees are vowing to investigate the Biden administration's bungled withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, as officials scramble to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies. Statements from the leaders of the Senate's Intelligence, Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees reflect the widespread bipartisan anger over what is widely perceived as a chaotic and poorly planned exit from America's longest war." (BTW, do you think Republicans would have vowed to investigate the Former Guy if this were his fiasco?)

Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials. By July, many intelligence reports grew more pessimistic, questioning whether any Afghan security forces would muster serious resistance and whether the government could hold on in Kabul, the capital. President Biden said on July 8 that the Afghan government was unlikely to fall and that there would be no chaotic evacuations of Americans similar to the end of the Vietnam War. The drumbeat of warnings over the summer raise questions about why Biden administration officials, and military planners in Afghanistan, seemed ill-prepared to deal with the Taliban's final push into Kabul, including a failure to ensure security at the main airport and rushing thousands more troops back to the country to protect the United States' final exit." (Also linked yesterday.)

Alexander Ward of Politico: "... the [Biden] administration wasted precious time and failed to prepare to evacuate thousands in danger as the Taliban plotted their comeback.... [Some observers] aren't convinced President Biden and his team prioritized the special visa issue, saying they've long expressed political concerns that delayed their response. They 'viewed it as the worst-case political outcome for them to bring Afghans to the U.S.,' fearing the domestic repercussions if one commits a terrorist act...." MB: The article details numerous screw-ups & foot-dragging exercises. I've been listening for the past two or three days to on-air stories about how difficult/impossible it is for Afghans to get SIVs (special immigration visas) and how it can take months or years -- and that was before the Taliban took control. Joe Biden had better sign an executive order compelling every bureaucrat in every applicable federal office to get off their asses and get vulnerable Afghans to safety. Move them now; check them out later. ~~~

~~~ Claire Hansen of US News: "A bipartisan group of [46] senators is urging the Biden administration to create a specific humanitarian parole category for certain Afghan women, including leaders, journalists, activists, security forces and others who are at risk in the wake of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal. Humanitarian parole is used to bring someone who is not otherwise eligible to enter the country, or who does not have a visa, into the U.S. temporarily because of an emergency or urgent humanitarian reason. Three Republican senators -- Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma -- joined Democratic colleagues in signing the letter."

Hans Nichols of Axios: "Senior national security officials presiding over a historic foreign policy collapse are privately expressing deep frustrations about the thin Afghanistan withdrawal plans left behind by Donald Trump.... Many experienced operatives in both parties are aghast that President Biden and his team didn't ready better preparations over nearly seven months since taking office. But two Biden officials who spoke with Axios on Monday on condition of anonymity bristled at the criticism.... 'There was no plan to evacuate our diplomats to the airport,' a senior national security official told Axios about the preparations they inherited from the previous administration.... 'When we got in, on Jan. 20, we saw that the cupboard was bare,' the official said, echoing a complaint Team Biden also made about Trump's vaccine distribution plan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I read the Trump plan & found it quite comprehensive: "Leave on a jet plane." For a $50 contribution to the Reinstate Trump PAC, you could get it with a Mary Travers CD.

Esper Blames Trump. Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday that he was concerned that ... Donald Trump 'undermined' the US' 2020 agreement with the Taliban by pushing for US forces to leave Afghanistan without the Taliban meeting the conditions of the deal..... '... in the fall [of 2020] when he was calling for a return of US forces by Christmas, I objected and formally wrote a letter to him, a memo based on recommendations from the military chain of command and my senior civilian leadership that we not go further -- that we not reduce below 4,500 troops unless and until conditions were met by the Taliban.... Otherwise,' Esper continued, 'we would see a number of things play out, which are unfolding right now in many ways.' Trump fired Esper in November 2020 in the wake of the presidential election.... Following the [2020] agreement, violence in Afghanistan grew to its highest levels in two decades and the Taliban increased their control of wider swaths of the country. By June of this year, the Taliban contested or controlled an estimated 50% to 70% of Afghan territory outside of urban centers, according to a United Nations Security Council report."

Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump gushed about the prospect of a Taliban-led Afghanistan last year, predicting that once they took over the country, they would devote themselves to killing terrorists.... Last February, months after canceling a planned meeting with the Taliban that would have placed the group's leaders inside the White House on September 11th, Trump gloried in the idea of a Taliban-led Afgh[a]nistan that would become a bane to terrorists.... And as recently as late June of this year, Trump boasted that the deal he'd made for the withdrawal made it impossible [for President] Biden to reverse course -- and explicitly predicted the collapse of the Afghan government as soon as the U.S. departed." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Luis Martinez of ABC News: "A U.S. official has confirmed that human remains were found inside the wheel well of a C-17 military plane that had been swarmed by hundreds of people on the tarmac as it took off at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. The discovery was made upon landing at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday. A dramatic video taken earlier Monday showed some people clinging to the plane as it taxied down the runway in Kabul." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Meet Your Trump Backer. Julian Mark of the Washington Post: "Hours before the special Senate runoff in Georgia was called for the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in the early hours on Jan. 6, Eduard Florea [-- a Proud Boys supporter --] went on the conservative social media platform Parler and wrote: 'Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he's swinging with the ... fish.' In a later post, he wrote in reference to Warnock: 'Dead men can't pass [expletive] laws.'... In addition to making threatening comments about Warnock on Jan. 6, Florea had also written on Parler about going to Washington to incite violence.... On Jan. 12, federal agents and police ... discovered more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, plus hatchets, swords and 75 military-style combat knives [in Florea's Queens basement apartment].... Florea surrendered and was taken into custody. Now, Florea is facing up to 15 years in prison for making those threats, prosecutors announced Monday. The 41-year-old from Queens pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting threats to injure and one count of possessing ammunition after having been convicted of a felony." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Wednesday are here: "There are more intensive care patients in Alabama than there are ICU beds in the state to treat them.... 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.

An Unusual Celebrity Endorsement. Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "Getting vaccinated against Covid-19 is 'an act of love,' Pope Francis says in a public service ad that will start circulating online and on television on Wednesday. Working with the Ad Council, a nonprofit group, in its first campaign to extend beyond the United States, the pope encourages people around the world to get inoculated. The ad shows the pope, speaking in Spanish with English subtitles, with church officials from the United States, Mexico, Brazil and other countries describing vaccination as a moral responsibility. 'Thanks to God's grace and to the work of many, we now have vaccines to protect us from Covid-19,' the pope says in the ad. 'They bring hope to end the pandemic, but only if they are available to all and if we collaborate with one another.'"

Texas. However Could This Have Happened? Dan Levin of the New York Times: "Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday, though he has no symptoms, the governor's office announced.... Mr. Abbott, who is fully vaccinated, will now be isolated in the Governor's Mansion while receiving monoclonal antibody treatment, which can help Covid-19 patients who are at risk of getting very sick.... Mr. Abbott, 63, has faced withering criticism as coronavirus cases have increased sharply in Texas and available intensive-care beds have dwindled in Austin and other cities. But he maintained his ban on mask mandates, which prohibits local officials from imposing restrictions in their communities." This is an item from the NYT's live updates Tuesday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Weber of the AP: "The positive test comes a day after Abbott tweeted a picture of himself not wearing a mask while speaking indoors near Dallas to a group of GOP supporters, most of whom were unmasked.... The governor had been getting tested daily...." MB: So instead of buying a few $1 masks, Abbott gets a daily test and now special treatments -- not available to most of us -- which according to CNN cost $1,500 each. Seems reasonable. (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Texas. A Court Win for Abbott; a Loss for Democracy. Joshua Fechter of the Texas Tribune: "Texas House Democrats who refuse to show up to the state Capitol in their bid to prevent Republican lawmakers from passing a voting restrictions bill can be arrested and brought to the lower chamber, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. The all-Republican court sided with Gov. Greg Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan -- and ordered a Travis County district judge to revoke his temporary restraining order blocking the civil arrest of Democratic lawmakers whose absences have denied the chamber the number of present members needed to move any legislation."

Wisconsin. Mark Guarino of the Washington Post: "The family of Anthony Huber, who was fatally shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during riots in Kenosha, Wis., last summer, filed suit in Milwaukee on Tuesday, alleging that the city of Kenosha and its police and county sheriff's departments openly conspired with White militia members, which gave them 'license -- to wreak havoc and inflict injury.' In the first major federal lawsuit against the city, police and county resulting from the riots in August last year, attorneys say that Rittenhouse and other gunmen were given preferential treatment because of their race." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Haiti. Anatoly Kurmanaev & Constant Méheut of the New York Times: "The death and injury tolls leapt by many hundreds on Tuesday from the weekend earthquake in Haiti's southern peninsula, as survivors soaked from Tropical Storm Grace struggled to keep safe in makeshift shelters. Haiti's National Emergency Operations Center said that as of Tuesday evening the number of dead totaled at least 1,941, with 9,900 injured, compared with the official tallies of about 1,400 dead and 7,000 injured reported 24 hours earlier."

The Commentariat -- August 17, 2021

Afternoon Update:

How Could This Have Happened? Dan Levin of the New York Times: "Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday, though he has no symptoms, the governor's office announced.... Mr. Abbott, who is fully vaccinated, will now be isolated in the Governor's Mansion while receiving monoclonal antibody treatment, which can help Covid-19 patients who are at risk of getting very sick.... Mr. Abbott, 63, has faced withering criticism as coronavirus cases have increased sharply in Texas and available intensive-care beds have dwindled in Austin and other cities. But he maintained his ban on mask mandates, which prohibits local officials from imposing restrictions in their communities." This is an item from the NYT's live updates Tuesday. ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Weber of the AP: "The positive test comes a day after Abbott tweeted a picture of himself not wearing a mask while speaking indoors near Dallas to a group of GOP supporters, most of whom were unmasked.

Here's a transcript of President Biden's speech on Afghanistan, as delivered Monday.

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration on Sunday froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. bank accounts, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. institutions, according to two people familiar with the matter. The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions over the weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, 'Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.'"

Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "Classified assessments by American spy agencies over the summer painted an increasingly grim picture of the prospect of a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and warned of the rapid collapse of the Afghan military, even as President Biden and his advisers said publicly that was unlikely to happen as quickly, according to current and former American government officials. By July, many intelligence reports grew more pessimistic, questioning whether any Afghan security forces would muster serious resistance and whether the government could hold on in Kabul, the capital. President Biden said on July 8 that the Afghan government was unlikely to fall and that there would be no chaotic evacuations of Americans similar to the end of the Vietnam War. The drumbeat of warnings over the summer raise questions about why Biden administration officials, and military planners in Afghanistan, seemed ill-prepared to deal with the Taliban's final push into Kabul, including a failure to ensure security at the main airport and rushing thousands more troops back to the country to protect the United States' final exit."

Hans Nichols of Axios: "Senior national security officials presiding over a historic foreign policy collapse are privately expressing deep frustrations about the thin Afghanistan withdrawal plans left behind by Donald Trump.... Many experienced operatives in both parties are aghast that President Biden and his team didn't ready better preparations over nearly seven months since taking office. But two Biden officials who spoke with Axios on Monday on condition of anonymity bristled at the criticism.... 'There was no plan to evacuate our diplomats to the airport,' a senior national security official told Axios about the preparations they inherited from the previous administration.... 'When we got in, on Jan. 20, we saw that the cupboard was bare,' the official said, echoing a complaint Team Biden also made about Trump's vaccine distribution plan." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I read the Trump plan & found it quite comprehensive: "Leave on a jet plane." For a $50 contribution to the Reinstate Trump PAC, you could get it with a Mary Travers CD.

Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump gushed about the prospect of a Taliban-led Afghanistan last year, predicting that once they took over the country, they would devote themselves to killing terrorists.... Last February, months after canceling a planned meeting with the Taliban that would have placed the group's leaders inside the White House on September 11th, Trump gloried in the idea of a Taliban-led Afgh[a]nistan that would become a bane to terrorists.... And as recently as late June of this year, Trump boasted that the deal he'd made for the withdrawal made it impossible [for President] Biden to reverse course -- and explicitly predicted the collapse of the Afghan government as soon as the U.S. departed."

Luis Martinez of ABC News: "A U.S. official has confirmed that human remains were found inside the wheel well of a C-17 military plane that had been swarmed by hundreds of people on the tarmac as it took off at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. The discovery was made upon landing at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday. A dramatic video taken earlier Monday showed some people clinging to the plane as it taxied down the runway in Kabul."

Meet Your Trump Backer. Julian Mark of the Washington Post: "Hours before the special Senate runoff in Georgia was called for the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock (D) in the early hours on Jan. 6, Eduard Florea [-- a Proud Boys supporter --] went on the conservative social media platform Parler and wrote: 'Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he's swinging with the ... fish.' In a later post, he wrote in reference to Warnock: 'Dead men can't pass [expletive] laws.'... In addition to making threatening comments about Warnock on Jan. 6, Florea had also written on Parler about going to Washington to incite violence.... On Jan. 12, federal agents and police ... discovered more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, plus hatchets swords and 75 military-style combat knives [in Florea's Queens basement apartment].... Florea surrendered and was taken into custody. Now, Florea is facing up to 15 years in prison for making those threats, prosecutors announced Monday. The 41-year-old from Queens pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting threats to injure and one count of possessing ammunition after having been convicted of a felony."

Mark Guarino of the Washington Post: "The family of Anthony Huber, who was fatally shot by Kyle Rittenhouse during riots in Kenosha, Wis., last summer, filed suit in Milwaukee on Tuesday, alleging that the city of Kenosha and its police and county sheriff's departments openly conspired with White militia members, which gave them 'license -- to wreak havoc and inflict injury.' In the first major federal lawsuit against the city, police and county resulting from the riots in August last year, attorneys say that Rittenhouse and other gunmen were given preferential treatment because of their race."

~~~~~~~~~~

The New York Times' live updates of developments in Afghanistan Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Tuesday are here: "The Taliban announced a general amnesty for government officials and ordered its fighters to maintain discipline Tuesday, as an uneasy calm settled over the capital, Kabul, and some evacuation flights resumed at the airport.... Media reports suggested, however, that access to the airport remained difficult for many residents seeking a way out."

The CEOs of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal & Washington Post have written a joint letter to President Biden urging him to ensure "Facilitated and protected access to the US-controlled airport[;] Safe passage through a protected access gate to the airport[; and] Facilitated air movement out of the country."

"The Buck Stops with Me." Michael Shear & David Sanger of the New York Times: "President Biden offered a defiant defense on Monday of his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, blaming the swift collapse of the Afghan government and chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport on the refusal of the country's military to stand and fight in the face of the Taliban advance. Speaking to the American people from the East Room after returning briefly to the White House from Camp David, Mr. Biden said he had no regrets about his decision to end the longest war in United States history. But he lamented that two decades of support failed to turn the Afghan military into a force capable of securing its own country. 'We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries. Provided for the maintenance of their airplanes,' Mr. Biden said. 'We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide was the will to fight for that future.'... As the fourth president to preside over the war in Afghanistan, though, he said that 'the buck stops with me.'" ~~~

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "President Biden's unapologetic defense on Monday of his decisions in Afghanistan rallied some Democrats to his side, but the president still faces angry and increasingly public criticism from lawmakers in both parties over the chaos descending on Kabul. After leaving the White House largely undefended, some Democratic leaders voiced tentative support after the speech.... But other lawmakers were unmollified. Many moderate Democrats remained furious at the Biden administration for what they saw as terrible planning for the evacuation of Americans and their allies. Liberal Democrats who have long sought to end military engagements around the world still grumbled that the images out of Kabul were damaging their cause. And Republicans who months ago cheered for ... Donald J. Trump's even faster timetable to end U.S. military involvement in the nation's longest war have shoved their previous encouragements aside to accuse Mr. Biden of humiliating the nation." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I think it was Nicole Wallace of MSNBC who pointed out that 95 percent of politicians & pundits have excoriated Biden for the precipitous fall of Afghanistan while 95 percent of the public stand behind his decision to leave. See also Margaret Sullivan's column, linked below.

Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "Joe Biden presented voters with a core argument why he, more than anyone else, was the best choice to replace the wildly unorthodox Donald Trump: He would bring competence.... But over the past few days, the images from Afghanistan have put on vivid display an inability to plan, an underestimation of a foreign adversary, an ineffective effort to scramble and make up for it -- and, as Biden demonstrated in a brief address Monday, an attempt to deflect full responsibility.... A scathing assessment of Biden's performance came from Ryan Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan under [President] Obama.... 'I'm left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander in chief,' he said. 'To have read this so wrong -- or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.' A senior administration official ... said there had been months of planning and various contingency plans, but the administration was surprised at how rapidly the situation deteriorated."

Miriam Jordan of the New York Times: "Tens of thousands of Afghan nationals risked their lives to assist the United States military in Afghanistan, many of them working as interpreters alongside American soldiers in combat. Now, after the Taliban's takeover, they are more desperate than ever to leave -- but swift, safe passage to the United States may prove elusive. More than 300,000 Afghan civilians have been affiliated with the American mission over its two-decade presence in the country, according to the International Rescue Committee, but a minority qualify for refugee protection in the United States. Among them are those who worked with the U.S. military, qualifying them and their families for special immigrant visas. However, thousands are stuck in a yearslong backlog that is only ballooning as the situation on the ground deteriorates after the withdrawal of American troops. About 2,000 such people whose cases already had been approved have arrived in the United States on evacuation flights from Kabul, the capital, that began in July."

Ahmad Seir, et al., of the AP: "Thousands of Afghans rushed onto the tarmac of Kabul's international airport Monday, some so desperate to escape the Taliban capture of their country that they held onto an American military jet as it took off and plunged to death in chaos that killed at least seven people, U.S. officials said. The crowds of people rushing the airport came as the Taliban enforced their rule over the wider capital after a lightning advance across the country that took just over a week to dethrone the country's Western-backed government. While there were no major reports of abuses, many stayed home and remained fearful as the insurgents' advance saw prisons emptied and armories looted." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "... thousands of U.S. citizens are trapped in and around Kabul with no ability to get to the airport, which is their only way out of the country. As Taliban soldiers go door to door, searching for Westerners, these U.S. citizens are now reaching out to anyone and everyone back in Washington for help. The Biden administration must get moving on a plan to rescue them before it's too late.... The No. 1 job of the U.S. government and the roughly 7,000 U.S. troops in or on their way to Kabul must be to rescue American citizens first and then all the Afghans who risked their lives based on America's promise of safety."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "... knowing the U.S. was going to leave, the administration has no excuse for its failure to evacuate our allies and prepare for a refugee exodus.... It was only two weeks ago that the administration started the P-2 visa program for Afghans who worked for American contractors, nongovernmental organizations and media outlets.... [Now] there is no time for bureaucracy.... There is no moral argument against vastly expanded refugee admissions."

Marie: In hindsight -- and from the Department of Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda -- my take is this: While the Taliban was busily coercing goverment forces to stand down (see Craig Whitlock's report below), the U.S. should have been negotiating with the Taliban to allow the free passage of Americans & Afghans to the Kabul airport & to Bagram Airfield (which the U.S. inexplicably handed over to Afghans July 1). To ensure Taliban compliance with such a deal, U.S. & allied military personnel would monitor & secure main routes to the airfields. The deal could have included a date-certain end. Even if our intelligence community hadn't figured out how fast Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban, they knew it would fall, and there should have been a contingency plan to adequately protect our assets & allies in Afghanistan. There was not. BTW, for those who think the U.S. should have been "sneaking" our friends & operatives out of Afghanistan these past few months, well, no. There was no way a "secret" airlift would have remained secret for more than a few hours. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Absent any reasonable planning, it appears the U.S. has figured this out after the fact: Joseph Choi of the Hill: "The U.S. has reached a deal with the Taliban to ensure that evacuations from Kabul's airport can take place without interference from the group.... The deal was reached in talks in Doha, Qatar, between senior Taliban officials and Gen. Frank McKenzie. The two sides apparently agreed to a 'deconfliction mechanism' in which operations at the airport in Kabul are permitted to continue without interference from the Taliban. McKenzie reportedly told the Taliban that any interference would be met with force from the U.S. military, who would move to defend the airport if necessary."

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "... according to documents obtained for the forthcoming Washington Post book 'The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,' U.S. military officials privately harbored fundamental doubts for the duration of the war that the Afghan security forces could ever become competent or shed their dependency on U.S. money and firepower. 'Thinking we could build the military that fast and that well was insane,' an unnamed former U.S. official told government interviewers in 2016. Those fears, rarely expressed in public, were ultimately borne out by the sudden collapse this month of the Afghan security forces, whose wholesale and unconditional surrender to the Taliban will go down as perhaps the worst debacle in the history of proxy warfare. The capitulation was sped up by a series of secret deals that the Taliban brokered with many Afghan government officials. In recent days and weeks, Taliban leaders used a combination of cash, threats and promises of leniency to persuade government forces to lay down their arms."

Josh Marshall of TPM: "Americans, or at least the commentating classes, are watching aghast as events unfold in Afghanistan. Some are second-guessing the wisdom of withdrawal -- after all, how hard is it to maintain a few thousand soldiers there permanently? Others are taking the more comfortable position of saying yes, we had to leave but this just wasn't the right way. I must be the only person in America who is having exactly the opposite reaction. The more I see the more I'm convinced this was the right decision -- both what I see on the ground in Afghanistan and perhaps even more the reaction here in the United States. It is crystal clear that the Afghan national army and really the Afghan state was an illusion. It could not survive first contact with a post-US military reality. As is so often the case in life -- with bad investments, bad relationships -- what we were doing there was staying to delay our reckoning with the consequences of the reality of the situation.... If anything, given the outcome, quicker is better -- since a protracted fall is necessarily a bloodier fall.... Someone had to make the decision that Bush, Obama and Trump did not and apparently could not. Biden did." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Katherine Huggins of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump called on President Joe Biden to 'resign in disgrace' on Sunday over the messy withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.... Around the same time that Trump's statement was published, journalists noted that the RNC appeared to have removed a page from their website in which they highlighted their support for withdrawing from Afghanistan." Uh, routine maintenance, the RNC said in a huff. (Also linked yesterday.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: "If ever a big, breaking story demanded that the news media provide historical context and carefully avoid partisan blame, it's the story of the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Instead, what we largely got over the past few days was the all-too-familiar genre of 'winners and losers' coverage. It's coverage that tends to elevate and amplify punditry over news, and to assign long-lasting political ramifications to a still-developing situation.... Here's the predictable headline on Miranda Devine's column in the Murdoch-owned New York Post: 'Joe Biden's defeat in Afghanistan will echo for eternity.' [MB: also my favorite headline.]... Throughout [the 20 years since the war began], the American government has lied to the American people about how well things were going in America's longest war.... Maybe the pullout from Afghanistan really will go down as Biden's Waterloo. But maybe deciding that should take more than a few hours."

AP: "U.S. officials on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought. Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River -- Lake Mead -- have fallen to record lows. Along its perimeter, a white 'bathtub ring' of minerals outlines where the high water line once stood, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The Biden administration has decided that most Americans should get a coronavirus booster vaccination eight months after they received their second shot, and could begin offering third shots as early as mid- to late September, according to administration officials familiar with the discussions. Officials are planning to announce the decision as early as this week. Their goal is to let Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines know now that they will need additional protection against the Delta variant that is causing caseloads to surge across much of the nation. The new policy will depend on the Food and Drug Administration's authorization of additional shots.... The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents and health care workers, followed by other older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year. Officials envision giving people the same vaccine they originally received." The AP's story is here.

Tennessee. Andrea Salcedo of the Washington Post: "Michelle Fiscus met with state investigators in July to report the suspicious package mailed to her office containing a silicone dog muzzle. During the meeting, the then-medical director of Tennessee's immunization program told agents she suspected the Amazon package from an unknown sender was a 'veiled threat.' The muzzle, she said, was meant to make her 'stop talking about vaccinating people.' But ... state agents [soon] learned the muzzle was purchased with a credit card under Fiscus's name, according to a department report obtained by The Washington Post. (The findings were first reported by Axios.)... Fiscus has denied purchasing the muzzle, tweeting Monday that her 'credit card was charged with the incorrect billing address -- my state work office -- to an Amazon account I didn't know existed.... No, I didn't send it to myself,' Fiscus added." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm tempted to give Fiscus the benefit of the doubt. Just last week, PayPal denied a claim I made for an online purchase because they said they had proof the item was delivered to me. When I called to ask where the purchase -- a toilet -- was delivered, they told me it was delivered to my mailbox. Really? sez I. I don't have a mailbox, and if I did, I don't think the postperson could stuff a toilet into it. PayPal paid my claim.

Texas. Jonathan Allen & Laura Strickler of NBC News: "With Covid-19 surging across the state, Texas has requested five mortuary trailers from the federal government in anticipation of an influx of dead bodies, state officials told NBC News.... Department of State Health Services spokesperson Doug Loveday said the trailers were requested Aug. 4 after officials reviewed data about increasing deaths as a third wave of the coronavirus struck the state.... [Gov. Greg] Abbott issued an executive order banning vaccination and mask mandates July 29 as cases rose in the state. The order was challenged and recently upheld by the state Supreme Court."

Beyond the Beltway

New York. Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "Reversing course, the New York State Assembly will continue its broad investigation of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and issue a report with its findings, lawmakers said on Monday, following fierce bipartisan backlash over the decision to suspend the inquiry. Carl E. Heastie, the speaker of the Assembly, had announced on Friday that lawmakers would close their investigation of Mr. Cuomo and would no longer move to impeach him, despite finding 'credible evidence' regarding allegations made against him. Mr. Heastie, a Democrat, made the announcement days after Mr. Cuomo said that he would resign, citing constitutional concerns about impeaching a governor who was leaving office. The reversal on Monday does not mean that lawmakers will move to impeach Mr. Cuomo; Mr. Heastie had cited a six-page legal memo on Friday that argued that lawmakers lacked the constitutional authority to impeach an official who was out of office.... Last week's announcement had prompted an outcry from both Republican and Democratic legislators, who said that the Assembly had a duty to, at the very least, make public the findings of the taxpayer-funded investigation, which began in March."