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Why Do Media Fact Checkers Keep Ignoring This Biden Big Lie?

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/26/why-do-media-fact-checkers-keep-ignoring-this-big-lie-of-bidens/

At a press briefing on Tuesday that was ostensibly about the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden opened his remarks by touting the $3.5 trillion spending disaster that Democrats are trying to ram through in Washington. Biden has spun a web of lies to defend both.

“Today, the House of Representatives has taken a significant step toward making a historic investment that’s going to transform America, cut taxes for working families, and position the American economy for long-term – long-term growth,” he began.

That phrase – “transform America” – ought to scare Americans. After all, what exactly does Biden want to transform the world’s biggest, most prosperous, most free nation into? An inflation-riddled, welfare-dependent, socialist basket case? That’s what the $3.5 trillion plan, which includes a massive expansion in federal entitlements and government meddling, is trying to achieve.

Then Biden went on to repeat the biggest of his Big Lies about the economy, one that media fact-checkers – too exhausted, apparently, from years spent fact-checking every utterance of President Donald Trump’s –  keep missing.

“When I became president,” he said, “it was clear that we had to confront an immediate economic crisis – the most significant recession we’ve had since the Depression, or at least since Johnson.”

Biden knows that’s not true. Reporters covering the White House ought to know that’s not true. The public deserves to know that it is a bald-faced lie.

‘Immediate economic crisis’?

As we now know, the “immediate economic crisis” Biden supposedly inherited had ended nine months before he took office. The National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the official judge of when recessions begin and end, says that the COVID recession ended in April. That’s April of 2020. After that date, Trump passed two huge economic stimulus bills, cleared away regulations, and spurred the amazingly fast development of three COVID vaccines.

In short, there was no crisis when Biden took office, much less an immediate one. Saying anything else is lying to the public.

Most significant recession since the Depression?

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Turns Afghanistan Into A Slaughterhouse, Taliban Into A Military Superpower

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/27/biden-turns-the-taliban-into-a-military-superpower/

A day after at least 13 U.S. soldiers were killed at the Kabul airport, it’s still unclear how many Americans will be abandoned in Afghanistan by the Biden administration. What we do know, though, is that most of the U.S. weaponry in the country will not be recovered. It’s as if Joe Biden himself was the military procurement chief for the Taliban.

Until Thursday, there had been no U.S. combat casualties in Afghanistan since February of last year. But a bloodbath that the entire world outside of the White House saw coming arrived, and it became the deadliest day in the country for American troops since 2011, when – yes, that’s right – Biden was vice president.

Homicide bombers and gunmen, reportedly from that brood of terrorist vipers called the Islamic State, killed at least 60 Afghans in addition to the American servicemen, and wounded more than 140. These horrific deaths and dismemberments are squarely on Biden, who rejected military leaders’ advice, has resorted to blaming the victims, and once again demonstrated that he has miserable, if not depraved, foreign-policy instincts.

Don’t bet Thursday’s deaths will be the last. The country is now a modern arms bazaar, overflowing with designed-to-kill equipment for the Taliban to use on Americans and anyone else they choose to murder, or sell to unsavory characters who want to massacre Westerners. Remaining in Afghanistan after the U.S. quits will be nearly 76,000 military vehicles, 208 American airplanes and helicopters, and almost 600,000 arms.

“We don’t have a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defense materials has gone, but certainly a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this week. “And obviously, we don’t have a sense that they are going to readily hand it over to us at the airport.”

The list of equipment, provided by Open The Books, a nonprofit determined to force transparency on governments at all level, includes: combat vehicles, armored personnel carriers, Black Hawk helicopters, aircraft that can fire Hellfire and anti-tank missiles, drones, rifles, machine guns, bombs, hand grenades, grenade launchers, rocket-propelled weapons, mortars, and howitzers.

And, we might add, uniforms, which the Taliban have already used to taunt the U.S. by wearing them last month while acting out the famous, and treasured, shot of Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in World War II.

All told, the U.S. “provided an estimated $83 billion worth of training and equipment to Afghan security forces since 2001,” says Open The Books founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski.

At least this administration didn’t set up the Taliban with a navy and long-range bombers.

Even before the Biden Retreat, the Taliban had “a wealth of armaments,” says a January report from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center. The military gear included “armored vehicles, night-vision devices, Western rifles, laser designators, and advanced optics.” We’ve also seen the Taliban firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds, and missiles out of the back of trucks.

Though the Russians denied it, there have been reports of Moscow arming the Taliban over the years. Gen. John Nicholson, at one time commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, said three years ago “we’ve had weapons brought to this headquarters and given to us by Afghan leaders and (they) said, ‘This was given by the Russians to the Taliban.’”

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Israel joins world’s carbon-free bandwagon, but some wonder if it makes economic and scientific sense David Isaac

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/israel-joins-worlds-carbon-free-bandwagon-but-some-wonder-if-it-makes-economic-and-scientific-sense/

Some praise the plan, saying Israel must act as the “science is in,” and the world faces an imminent global climate crisis. Others scoff at the “so-called science” and say there’s no justification for overhauling Israel’s economy—that it will be “all pain, no gain.”

Israel’s government unanimously agreed on July 25 to adopt a low-carbon economy, “part of its commitment to the global effort” to reduce greenhouse gases. It’s the first time that Israel has set a national goal to reduce carbon emissions. In doing so, it joins a host of countries that have made similar announcements over the last several years.

Some praise the plan, saying Israel must act as the “science is in,” and the world faces an imminent global climate crisis. Others scoff at the “so-called science” and say there’s no justification for overhauling Israel’s economy—that it will be “all pain, no gain.”

The plan calls for an 85 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 2015 levels by 2050 and sets an intermediate goal of a 27 percent reduction by 2030. To hit those targets, it calls for major changes to the transportation, manufacturing and energy sectors.

There already appears to be disagreement within the Ministry of Environmental Protection about the plan. As presented on the ministry’s website, the plan calls for natural gas to play an integral role. Natural gas has led to a “dramatic decline in local pollutant emissions,” it said. “Thanks to these measures, Israel already meets about 75 percent of the target required for reducing CO2 emissions within the framework of its obligations under the Paris Agreements.”

Yet the ministry’s head, Tamar Zandberg, criticized natural gas on June 29 during a climate change panel at an Israel Democracy Institute conference. “I want to correct a common mistake … natural gas is as natural as coal. It is fossil fuel,” she said, according to Israel Hayom.

Israel’s timing was meant to coincide with a new report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which will underpin the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in November, where participating countries will likely undertake to curb their emissions more sharply.

“It was to show support of the IPCC and the U.N. in general and to say that we are concerned with climate change,” Gideon Behar, special envoy for climate change and sustainability at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told JNS.

The first installment of the IPCC’s Sixth Annual Assessment Report, released on Aug. 9, lays the blame for global warming squarely on man-made emissions and for the first time (on the basis of what it says are improved models) links extreme weather to climate change.

“The evidence is clear that carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main driver of climate change,” the IPCC said in a press release about the report, painting a bleak future for the planet if global warming rises above pre-industrial levels by two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

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U.S. officials provided Taliban with names of Americans, Afghan allies to evacuate

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/26/us-officials-provided-taliban-with-names-of-americans-afghan-allies-to-evacuate-506957

By LARA SELIGMAN, ALEXANDER WARD and ANDREW DESIDERIO

The White House contends that limited information sharing with the Taliban is saving lives; critics argue it’s putting Afghan allies in harm’s way.

U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that’s prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.

The move, detailed to POLITICO by three U.S. and congressional officials, was designed to expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan as chaos erupted in Afghanistan’s capital city last week after the Taliban seized control of the country. It also came as the Biden administration has been relying on the Taliban for security outside the airport.

Since the fall of Kabul in mid-August, nearly 100,000 people have been evacuated, most of whom had to pass through the Taliban’s many checkpoints. But the decision to provide specific names to the Taliban, which has a history of brutally murdering Afghans who collaborated with the U.S. and other coalition forces during the conflict, has angered lawmakers and military officials.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” said one defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “It’s just appalling and shocking and makes you feel unclean.”

Asked about POLITICO’s reporting during a Thursday news conference, President Joe Biden said he wasn’t sure there were such lists, but also didn’t deny that sometimes the U.S. hands over names to the Taliban.

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Taliban Secures World’s Largest Lithium Deposits After US Withdrawal From Afghanistan Tyler Durden’s

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/biden-withdraw-allows-taliban-secure-worlds-largest-lithium-deposits

It’s been more than a decade since we penned “The US “Discovers” Nearly $1 Trillion In Mineral Deposits In Afghanistan” in which we highlighted the colossal untapped mineral deposits that reside in Afghanistan. 

President Joe Biden’s decision to rapidly and completely withdraw from Afghanistan makes even less strategic sense if readers go back to our 2010 post where we quoted “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: Part 2, the 21st Century paradigm”? Which said, 

“Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact. Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.”

We continued: 

“Which is why it will be best to have the US military not only stay in Afghanistan indefinitely but to get a million man reinforcement surge.”

Readers have known for a while Afghanistan was never about the opium trade or the war on terror but rather the massive deposit of minerals essential for renewable energies. 

So in the Economic Hit Man context, why would the Biden administration suddenly pull out of Afghanistan after 20 years if the play all along was about securing rare earth metals? 

We don’t want to speculate the Biden administration’s intentions, nor do we have any idea. Still, one thing is sure is that the Taliban now control the world’s largest lithium deposits is becoming friendly with China. 

Conservative media outlet Free West Media says new relations between the Taliban and China could increase its global dominance in green energies, such as the lithium-ion battery supply chain market. 

Unbeknownst to many, the blog points China and Afghanistan share a 130-mile stretch border. For more on this, here’s Free West Media’s latest piece titled “Taliban now control one of the world’s largest lithium deposits.” 

A Bloomberg New Energy Finance Limited report in 2020 highlighted China’s global dominance in the lithium-ion battery supply chain market, due to its grip on raw material mining and refining. In 2019, the US imported 80 percent of its rare earth minerals from China, while the EU states imported 98 percent of these materials from China.

China incidentally also shares a small border with Afghanistan called the Wakhan Corridor – 210km long. While the length of the border may appear insignificant, its location is crucial.

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Benny Gantz’s Iran confusion Ruthie Blum

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/benny-gantz-is-confused-on-iran-677847

Defense Minister Benny Gantz may very well be correct in his assessment, which he shared with 60 ambassadors in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, that “Iran is only two months away from acquiring the materials necessary for a nuclear weapon.”

But he’s delusional if he thinks that a diplomatic “Plan B” – to replace the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – is going to stop it.

“We do not know if the Iranian regime will be willing to sign an agreement and come back to the negotiate[ing] table,” Gantz said, alluding to the recent rise to power in Tehran of Ebrahim “the butcher” Raisi, ostensibly less likely than his immediate predecessor to cooperate with the West.
It’s a fallacy, of course, since Raisi, like former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, takes his orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“At the end of the day, the goal is to reach a ‘longer, stronger and broader’ agreement than the previous one,” Gantz told the group of foreign-service diplomats.

Is it, though?

BY NOW, Gantz ought to be aware that even if the Islamic Republic consents, yet again, to reaching a deal with the P5+1 countries (the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany), it will not honor its commitments. It was not merely the content of the JCPOA that gave the mullah-led regime leeway to pursue its nefarious hegemonic aims, after all. 

On the contrary, the powers-that-be in Tehran violated all clauses of the worthless document, which in any event only postponed Iran’s inevitable nuclear capabilities; it didn’t prevent them permanently. Despite multiple attempts by the administration of former US president Barack Obama, abetted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, to obfuscate this fact, it wasn’t exactly a secret.

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The Cost of the Terrible Tragedy at Kabul Airport This deadly fiasco didn’t just happen on Biden’s watch. It happened because of his decisions.Charles Lipson

Posted By on August 27th, 2021

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/cost-tragedy-kabul-airport/

America’s frantic, confused exit from Afghanistan was a humiliating shambles even before today’s terrorist attack. Now, it is something much worse. It is a deadly tragedy, leaving victims dead and injured and trapping thousands of Americans and friendly Afghans in a lethal environment, where terrorists roam free.

There will be a huge political price to pay for this unfolding disaster, and President Biden will pay it. This deadly fiasco didn’t just happen on his watch. It happened because of his decisions, a series of fundamentally bad ones, taken by the President himself.

Gone are the days when the administration could trot out a press secretary to try and spin away the unfolding catastrophe, Jen Psaki could quibble over whether Americans were ‘stranded’. Now, there are far more pressing questions the President himself must answer. He cannot just turn his back on the press corps and walk away. Those questions are ‘how the hell did this happen?’ and ‘how on earth are you going to safely evacuate the rest of our own people and our friends? How can we prevent this from becoming a hostage crisis?’

Beyond those immediate questions lie larger ones about how to repair America’s standing in the world, now that the world’s greatest military power has been visibly defeated.

The consequences for the Biden presidency are equally grave. Only a month ago, President Biden privately told our Nato allies that Kabul would be stable during our exit. He overrode their entreaties to leave a residual force. Only a month ago, President Biden held a press conference (you know, the kind where he actually answers questions) where he told Americans he expected the friendly Afghan army to perform well against the Taliban and to prevent the terrorists from winning for many months, perhaps years. This was far different from our loss in Vietnam, he said, where Americans lined up on the embassy roof to escape by helicopter. He’s right. It’s different. It’s far worse.

Biden himself overruled the generals who wanted to keep a small residual force in Afghanistan to provide intelligence and air support for the Afghan army. Biden himself decided to execute this withdrawal in the middle of the fighting season, not during the winter lull, when Taliban commanders pull back temporarily to Pakistan. Moreover, we tried to execute the entire withdrawal from a single airport, having abruptly abandoned the major airbase at Bagram, literally in the middle of the night and apparently without arranging for our local partners to replace our troops there. That left the US with only one location to stage its evacuation and provided terrorists a rich target to attack. His perceived weakness and the lack of military resources on the ground invited attacks by our enemies and endangered every American who remained.

The Biden administration will pay a huge price for this slaughter and humiliating defeat. So will our country and our friends abroad.

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Does America Still Work? Until our officials can ensure a humane and sustainable standard of living, we have no business lecturing others abroad, much less conducting endless witch hunts of our own at home.By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on August 26th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/25/does-america-still-work/

For nearly two years, Americans have engaged in a great woke experiment of cannibalizing themselves. American civilization has invested massive labor, capital, and time in an effort constantly to flagellate itself for not being perfect.  

Yet neither America’s resilience nor its resources are infinite. We are now beginning to see the consequences of what happens when premodern tribalism absorbs Americans.

There are concrete consequences when ideology governs policy or when we take for granted the basics of life to pursue its trappings.

Who cares whether the blow-dried media is woke if it cannot report the truth and keep politicians honest?

Once journalists became progressive poodles rather than the watchdogs of government, the Biden Administration had no fear of audit. It took for granted that its disasters from the southern border to the chaos in Afghanistan would be excused by toady reporters.  

Government-engineered “equity” has replaced the goal of equal opportunity. But such utopianism birthed popular anger when personal initiative, excellence, and performance do not count as much as virtue-signaling groupthink. 

The United States just suffered a terrible and shameful defeat in Afghanistan. The catastrophe reminds us that the Biden Administration weaponized its politicized military and bureaucracy mostly to fixate on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to root out supposed internal American enemies. 

So, our top brass and functionaries talked of redirecting the military to every possible woke agenda—except ensuring military superiority and the safety of the United States. 

The result is the horrific mess of a premodern Taliban army routing the most sophisticated military in the history of civilization. We shudder when America begs premodern tribes please not to murder our citizens whom we abandoned in full retreat.

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Why Is Congress on the Sidelines as Afghanistan Burns? by Pete Hoekstra

Posted By on August 26th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17679/congress-afghanistan

But the oversight — the real-world exercise of the constitutional separation of powers, checking and balancing each other — that is what our host leadership wanted to avoid.

Importantly, it was the leadership–not those who served under them, often on the front lines–who resented the very thought of oversight and resisted at every turn. The troops and embassy staff were always thrilled that we took the time and ran the risk to see first-hand what was happening… Members of Congress, on the other hand, were just everyday people who knew nothing about what needed to be done or how to do it.

People are dying. America is suffering humiliation. And the president and the bureaucracy are trying to get away with it. Hats off to Meijer and Moulton, both military veterans, by the way, for showing us all that Congress is an equal branch of government — and for refusing to let the Biden administration cover up its catastrophic failure in Afghanistan.

Congratulations to the two members of Congress, Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who had the exceptional courage to pay an unannounced visit to Kabul. The situation in Afghanistan is screaming for immediate congressional oversight. Right now, before it’s too late, Congress might still be able to exercise an influence over, and perhaps help change, the disastrous Afghanistan policy of the Biden administration. Americans should applaud Meijer and Moulton for bucking the corrupt Washington system, despite intense pressure to bow to it.

When I heard about this “unauthorized” trip yesterday I knew exactly what would happen. The bureaucracy, congressional leadership, and the media would all strongly criticize the effort. Washington scorns and derides those who disrupt the system and don’t play by its rules. I felt that same pressure for 18 years as a member of Congress. The Washington elite consider themselves the ruling elite. They dedicate immense effort to controlling the story line in DC. They keep members of Congress in the dark, like mushrooms. They tell the elected representatives of the people as little as possible, and only divulge information when necessary.

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Europe Braces for Tsunami of Afghan Migrants by Soeren Kern

Posted By on August 26th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17680/europe-afghan-migrants

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has estimated that up to five million people will try to leave Afghanistan for Europe.

“I am clearly opposed to us now taking in more people. That will not happen under my chancellorship. Taking in people who then cannot be integrated is a huge problem for us as a country.” — Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

“As minister of the interior, I am primarily responsible for the people living in Austria. Above all, this means protecting social peace and the welfare state over the long term.” — Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer.

“It is clear to us that 2015 must not be repeated. We will not be able to solve the Afghanistan issue by migration to Germany.” — Paul Ziemiak, general secretary of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

Afghan criminals, including rapists and drug traffickers, who previously had been deported to Afghanistan, have now returned to Germany on evacuation flights. Upon arrival in Germany, they immediately submitted new asylum applications.

“Our country will not be a gateway to Europe for illegal Afghan migrants.” — Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi.

“We need to remind our European friends of this fact: Europe — which has become the center of attraction for millions of people — cannot stay out of the Afghan refugee problem by harshly sealing its borders to protect the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. Turkey has no duty, responsibility or obligation to be Europe’s refugee warehouse.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The Taliban conquest of Afghanistan is poised to trigger an unprecedented wave of Afghan migration to Europe, which is bracing for the arrival of potentially hundreds of thousands — possibly even millions — of refugees and migrants from the war-torn country.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, expressing an ominous sense of foreboding, has estimated that up to five million people will try to leave Afghanistan for Europe. Such migration numbers, if they materialize, would make the previous migration crisis of 2015 — when more than a million people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East made their way to Europe — pale by comparison.

Since 2015, around 570,000 Afghans — almost exclusively young men — have requested asylum in the European Union, according to EU estimates. In 2020, Afghanistan was the EU’s second-biggest source of asylum applicants after those from Syria.