U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
August 13, 2021 10:01 PM UTC
40 Comments
Anniversary of the Springfield Massacre
( before Barnes can exhort us to celebrate Creamsicle Day).
You're doing the Lord's work, kwtree.
BWAhahahaha!
That is just cruel.
Not unlike the 2017 inauguration, I see.
Yesterday was Reinstatement Day … according to Mike Lindell, the myPillow (head)case guy, it was going to happen because the Supreme Court …. something, something. So I checked
https://www.supremecourt.gov/
Scotusblog.com
Somehow, it appears that the Supreme Court has kept their reinstatement activity on the QT.
Knowing how most attorneys and judges are with numbers, . . .
. . . I’m wondering if, maybe, they weren’t having difficulty following Lindell’s spreadsheet??
Shadow docket!!!!1!
It goes without saying that Ttump was a shitty president, but In all fairness, however, I’ll be the first to give him this much credit, and admit . . .
. . . this second term of his is off to a much, much better start than the first!
This just popped up on a news feed. If it works, the damned COVID virus might have accomplished something good:
https://www.towleroad.com/2021/08/moderna-hiv-vaccine-human-trials/?fbclid=IwAR3M7MdvzRpYiXWNUvRu2_L9y7d5bzU1Bq3MgA1b8Oxo9CcLooUMngR2WQA
Congratulations to drugs for yet another flawless victory in the ongoing war on drugs.
Right?!? In 2013 the DEA Administrator had a weally, weally bad day in July. You’d think rogue agents would be at the top of her list, but not so much:
lol
That is EPIC. I've seen more than my fair share of ludicrous flag-related pearl clutching over the decades, and that's definitely Top 10 material.
Today (Sunday) is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of India from the United Kingdom in 1947.
Turn on CNN. It's looking like April 30, 1975 all over again. (For those of us old enough to remember.)
https://youtu.be/nS3l_TwPNRY
No, it is not.
This is night/day different.
Twenty years of Afghanistan mistakes in and out of theater of operations. But leaving is the right thing to do. There never was a military objective to rebuild the Afghani government. The departure is more like … the US abandonment of Afghanistan in the late 80's.
The "liberal" (lol) MSM is going absolutely apeshit. It's a new Benghazi, except this time it'll appeal to wingnuts and a substantial percentage of "libs" as well. This may be how the GQP wins back Congress next year.
I listened all morning to a bunch of Biden bashers. My question for all you Monday morning quarterbacks…
Which better option did he NOT choose? Let’s hear ’em.
The silence is deafening. At least if this happened on a work day, Moderatus would come in to MAGAsplain how this was all the fault of the Democrats.
Biden did not handle our withdrawal well, though a graceful, let alone victorious, exit was pretty well ruled out when the draft dodger president rose on his bone spurs and promised to cut and run on May 1.
Could the war have been won? Yes, given two things:
1. Ignore Iraq, which did not attack us on Sept. 11, and put all the resources wasted in Iraq behind Afghanistan.
2. Make the kind of Commitment we did in Korea for Afghanistan. Almost 70 years after the end of the Korean War, we have strong forces still in Korea.
If Presidents Bush and Bone Spur had faced up to the strategic necessities, yes, we could have had victory, of sorts, in Afghanistan. Biden was not the kind of Churchillian leader who could rally a nation to reverse the disastrous policies of his predecessors.
Yes. I would have fought on, at least until we evacuated our friends. Instead, the world has again learned that America’s solemn word doesn’t mean much.
We talk big and spend trillions. But a few thousand casualties will get us running for the exits in time.
Thank God FDR was made of sterner stuff.
I’m not disagreeing with any of your assessment.
Regarding the actual withdrawal, however, I have been puzzling over that all afternoon. How do you tell a government — a people — that, “We’re going home soon. Your government that we’ve been pouring blood and billions into over the last two decades — well, it’s time to finally tell you the truth, it was pretty much all BS and facade. The fact is you haven’t any chance, not a prayer — you’re weak, you’re corrupt (Why did you ever expect us to care more about your country than you do?), you’re not even that smart, you’ve never built anything, and you’ve never valued education. You’re doomed, (Maybe if you’d have had anything — anything — of any kind of value for some of our corporations to exploit, we could continue pretending things were different. Alas.) But now, best pack your bags and get to the airport while you still can. One, maybe two, more months — tops.”
How do you even admit the same to yourself and your own people? The American psyche is just not built for these kinds of truths when it comes to ending armed conflict or empire.
It is more than obvious that the Afghan government was a house of cards, or a paper tiger, or whatever fragile metaphor works. Twenty years of occupation, training the army, and propping up the Afghan government, and it collapses in 30 days. Would 30 years be enough? What about 50 years?
Something, something, something… "Hearts and minds", something.
What does "win" mean in Afghanistan?
Noah Smith has a useful discussion of the history of US interventions abroad, and which ones resulted in cultural or political transformations.
“Ignore Iraq, which did not attack us on Sept. 11, and put all the resources wasted in Iraq behind Afghanistan.”
Definitely the foundation of the failure. It was unnecessary and it was a major distraction. Even during WW II, FDR realized that the US could not fight on two fronts simultaneously and so he focused on winning in Europe, then turning towards Japan.
But we had an imbecile as president who was angry that Saddam Hussein had tried to kill his parents and, in the best tradition of Sonny Corleone, recklessly sought his revenge.
It’s also significant that the Vietnam War draft dodgers (Bush, Cheney, et alia) rejected the advice to stay out of Iraq given by the one high-level guy in the administration who actually served in Vietnam and learned what went wrong – Colin Powell.
But Cadet Bone Spurs put the cherry on top of this failure sundae. Everyone knew what America First meant – the same thing it meant in the 1930’s – isolationism. Non-involvement is fine until someone in the outside world attacks your isolationist ass (to wit: Pearl Harbor, 9/11).
Some of the Biden people were tepidly pointing the finger at “the previous administration” which laid the groundwork for this. I was happy to see that but they were not doing it forcefully enough.
I watch for 12 years while Ronald Reagan and then Daddy Bush successfully blamed virtually everything that went wrong on their watch on Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. If they managed to work it for 12 years, we should get at least 4 years out of pointing out what Trump did wrong.
Two reactions I've seen that make sense to me …
If Biden is responsible for the Afghanistan collapse, Gerry Ford gets all of Vietnam placed at his door.
Biden accepted the "Trump & Sad!-ministration" negotiated deal of "draw-down in exchange for no attacks on US troops." So, for all those arguing Biden caused the collapse — how many Taliban attacks on US troops are you backing? How many more "last deaths" of US troops in Afghanistan should there be?
Other questions I've seen hinted at:
* if the reason to go to war was "the Taliban refused to surrender Osama bin Laden and close the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan," were there better options at the outset to accomplish the goals? For example, a campaign of bribery to the existing Afghani authorities or a raid inside Afghanistan like the one in Pakistan which eventually killed OBL? Could there have been better approaches through influence on Pakistan?
* How much of the $83 billion the United State spent (and the additional funds from our partners) was lost to corruption in Afghanistan (and the partners in corruption outside Afghanistan)?
* If we were going to intentionally PLAN to spend to get the biggest impact for the money, what programs would have been a better investment? How much of a change would there have been if we invested half the money in development and micro-loans for entrepreneurial women in Afghanistan?
"Biden accepted the 'Trump & Sad!-ministration' negotiated deal of 'draw-down in exchange for no attacks on US troops.'"
Precisely, and his people need to get that message out to the US public.
Ask any of us veterans how it feels to watch what is happening in Afghanistan or Iraq. Better yet, do not ask. Many of us Vietnam era vets can see Saigon under siege. Some of us were expecting orders to Vietnam in those final days so long ago (but, still very sharp in memory), just as several brigades are with orders to Kabul today. Some of us were on standby to go to Vietnam after it fell, just as I am sure there are some planning on returning to Afghanistan. Fifty years from now, who knows which country will be wasting their lives there, the way so many countries have over the last two thousand years.
Yep, TDN. there they go: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/us-requires-embassy-staff-afghanistan-telework-amid-covid-19-outbreak-2021-06-17/
Quick reading: there are a few suggesting China will be the next empire to try to influence Afghanistan — with a number of China experts immediately responding that China MAY have a relationship (lots of recent pictures of Chinese diplomats with members of Taliban leadership), but they don't expect any effort to engage beyond a very limited economic exchange and assurance that Afghani forces will not try to provide a haven for Muslims opposing China.
A few others I've seen say there could be closer ties to Pakistan, relying on the overlap in Islam of a general Sunni ideology. There is an extensive border, long term traditions of trade, and on-going effort by Pakistani intelligence & military forces to "guide" Afghanistan. There could easily be a common willingness to oppose the Shia-dominated Iranian ambitions. I've not read of anyone thinking Pakistan is enough of an "empire" to try to unify or extensively dominate Afghanistan.
Why would China have any interest in Afghanistan at all? Industry? Natural resources? Opium?
Surveillance.
There’s reportedly a LOT of lithium in the hills of Afghanistan.
"China have any interest in Afghanistan………."
Muslims there. China has Muslim populations in the northwest (the Uyghurs) and elsewhere. China wants internal stability and so will want to have influence over the Taliban. And incredible amounts of undeveloped natural resources, as Michael references.
meth and poppies? Seems like a troublesome combination.
China has a couple of interests in there:
1)Afghanistan has a ton of natural resources (copper, lithium, iron ore, gold, etc) in the north and north eastern provinces. USACE has pre-Soviet survey and post-2001 surveys done highlighting the vast mineral wealth in the country, but also stresses the total lack of transportation infrastructure to monetize the deposits. China has poured some money into strengthening the highway system in the country via their Silk Road intiative, but a rail connection to China would be the ideal, albiet expensive and difficult.
2) Xinjiang Province borders Afghanistan in particularly mountainous areas with a myriad of smuggling routes. You now have an self-proclaimed Sunni Islamic Caliphate laden with small arms with a direct connection to China's Uyghur population. So the kafirs in China are a bit concerned that they could have a Chechnya on their hands.
(CNN)The federal government on Monday declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time, triggering mandatory water consumption cuts for states in the Southwest, as climate change-fueled drought pushes the level in Lake Mead to unprecedented lows.
I get it- there are approximately 357 things more
newsratings worthy.But not really- this is a big deal. So far, it's going to be ag in AZ and NV and some peripheral development in NV. But soon it will golf courses in CA and AZ.