On our knees...

"On our knees. Our new posture when fighting terrorists. Sound familiar? Should be. It is a similar posture we have every time in recent history we have had a Democrat administration. The days of JFK are over. After JFK, we have had only Jimmy Carter Democrats. Except now. Now we are stuck with Joe Biden Democrats. We are doomed."  

You don't go into a gun fight armed only with a knife. Boy, that is an adage from the past. Right about now, I would settle for having a knife in our dealings with the Taliban. But we don't have a knife. Heck, we don't even have a slingshot. Nada. Zip. We are at the mercy of a bunch of throwbacks to the 12th century. A bunch of bloodthirsty reprobates, who we have so kindly given a world class air base to, as well as a zillion weapons.

The once great and powerful United States. Now relegated to being on our knees, begging the Taliban for mercy and favors. "Oh, don't worry. We are going to hold the Taliban accountable. We have over the horizon capabilities." Yeah, right. We don't have spit. We have maybe thousands of friendlies, as well as an unknown number of Americans, trapped behind enemy lines. How about our leverage? Red keeps telling the press pool that we have financial leverage with the Taliban. They will do what we ask. Really? I don't think so.

Ready for this? Even though our "new buddies" the Taliban, pinky promised us they would help those who were abandoned, left behind, help them safely leave Afghanistan, seems like they were not being truthful. In fact scuttlebutt has it, there are six planes of evacuees, waiting to take off from Mazir-i-Sharif airport in northern Afghanistan. One report states the Taliban are keeping them from leaving, another report says our State Department is blocking their exit. Huh?

Okay. I am going to get this off my chest. I have seen some inept boobs in government. More boobs than geniuses. But this trio of Blinken at State, Austin at DOD, and Millie in charge of our troops, is a trio to draw too. Under the fine leadership of POTUS # 46, they have led our nation into a box canyon. Grasped defeat from an honorable exit. They have made us the laughing stock of our enemies, and a disappointment to our friends. All three of these guys should have been fired yesterday.

The "new and improved Taliban" are not that at all. They are the same bunch of killers who have been around since 2001. Plus - now the cat is out of the bag. We know who their sidekicks are, in battles against the remaining government loyalists. Pakistan. Special Forces from Pakistan. Anybody surprised at that one? The last stronghold of sanity, the Panjshir Valley, was reportedly taken by a combination of the Taliban (using our weaponry), and Pakistani Special Forces. Meanwhile, Blinken and Austin are somewhere in the Middle East playing checkers. Playing checkers, while our enemies play chess.

General Millie came up with a real "Duh" the other day. He know thinks that somewhere in the 12 - 36 month timeframe, his newly reconstituted terrorist hotbed called Afghanistan, will be a threat to our homeland. And - then what? Let's not forget what Red told us. "We have financial leverage against the Taliban." I don't know who is laughing at that pile of goo harder - those of us who know better, or the Taliban. Bottom line is - we are "screwed, blued and tattooed". Our only hope would be to go back in country with resounding force and fix things. But with Slo Joe as POTUS, that will NEVER happen. 

On our knees. Our new posture when fighting terrorists. Sound familiar? Should be. It is a similar posture we have every time in recent history we have had a Democrat administration. The days of JFK are over. After JFK, we have had only Jimmy Carter Democrats. Except now. Now we are stuck with Joe Biden Democrats. We are doomed.  

  

From Warp Speed to Turtle Racing

"Do I think we would be in this pickle if Donald Trump won his second term? Nope. I think the boosters would just be a part of Warp Speed. Biden however, is managing the booster issue with the same precision he handled our exit from Afghanistan." 

For those who had the Covid - 19 vaccine, you might want to skip over this article. My purpose in writing this was not to be pro nor anti-vax. But it does have to do with the Covid - 19 vaccine. That is, how the vaccine and politics have mixed together to make a witch's brew. So here we go.

Donald Trump knew this novel virus which was hitting the WestPac in late 2019 would be in the United States before we knew it. He also knew that for some in our population, it would be a stone cold killer. He wanted a vaccine available for those who wanted to take it. A vaccine where none currently existed. What could the federal government do to help? Plow the road. Shorten a very lengthy FDA approval process. Trump got two or three reputable companies to develop a mRNA virus and go to town. Trump would take care of the red tape and cost. Thus was born Operation Warp Speed.

What did getting a vaccination do for this country? It allowed us to go from being "locked down", to going back to some kind of normalcy. Pfizer and Moderna were the first two on the scene. Two shots of each for those who wanted it. One vaccine was three weeks apart, and the other four weeks apart. Two weeks after the second shot, we were suppose to be 95% "bulletproof". Johnson and Johnson also became available with a single shot. It was good, just not 95% good.

The question many asked when getting the shot was this - "How long would it last?" Or, "How long does the 95% efficacy last?" That was unknown at the start of this process. Now we have better knowledge. Five to eight months after the second shot before the protection starts to wane. Whereas Trump knew how to get the vaccine here in record time, Biden is clueless in how to get a booster on the scene. Israel does not seem to have a problem with it, but with Biden, our shoes are tied together.

Here are the two bits of medical advice I have heard in the past couple days by informed doctors. First, if you were in the first tranche to get vaccinated, your protection is probably started to wane. It is time for a booster shot. Second, wearing a cloth mask only offers you about 10% protection. If you wear one, and think you are doing yourself a favor, you are not. Surgical masks like N95 or N100 are much better (but not perfect). 

Biden wants us to be like Israel, and start giving out Pfizer boosters in late September. His own CDC is balking at that one. We need to test, we need to do this, we need to do that. And because Biden is in way over his head, nothing is happening. We are in Operation Turtle Racing, instead of Operation Warp Speed. Meanwhile, every day, the protection our first line medical professionals have - gets weaker.

September could be an interesting month. If we start getting breakthrough cases which are serious enough to require hospitalization, the panic button might get hit. Why? Because one of the great promises for being vaccinated we received if used this conditionally approval vaccine, was this - even if we got Covid - 19, the jab would keep us out of the hospital. If people who got the jab, end up getting sick enough to be hospitalized, it will be Katie bar the door.

Do I think we would be in this pickle if Donald Trump won his second term? Nope. I think the boosters would just be a part of Warp Speed. Biden however, is managing the booster issue with the same precision he handled our exit from Afghanistan. 

Nation building, or terror building?

"Not only did we turn the country over to the Taliban (who are only outside invaders), we also left all the infrastructure we infested in. The bases, especially Bagram. And then the crown jewel. All those weapons. Tons and tons of ammo."

We have been criticized many times (mostly by our own citizens) for nation building. Not our job. Not our wheelhouse. Our brave men and women in the Armed Forces are not social workers, they have been trained to - well, brake things and kill people. Why? To protect liberty and freedom. It sounds harsh, but that is what the Armed Forces have been about since day one. You don't protect the homeland with diplomacy and words - that is for the State Department. The Armed Forces protects the homeland with weapons. Lots of weapons.

We tried to nation build Afghanistan. Tried to make a 12th century tribal country into a freedom loving democracy. We succeeded to a degree. But the care and feeding of this baby democracy needed more care and feeding. And we needed to make sure we had the right size club to beat back the Taliban should they every threaten this country again. Under Joe Biden, that all went out the window. Not only do we not have a baby democracy anymore to nurture, we lost the entire country to the bad guys. It is now a terror state (again).

How did this happen? How did we become so naïve? Quite simply, we got tired of it. Worn out. Our short term memory failed us. Like, what Afghanistan was like when we first went over there 20 years ago. How it was a festering cesspool of terrorists. And now? Now that Biden has all but divorced Afghanistan? It could end up being ever more of a threat than 20 years ago. Really? How?

Not only did we turn the country over to the Taliban (who are only outside invaders), we also left all the infrastructure we infested in. The bases, especially Bagram. And then the crown jewel. All those weapons. Tons and tons of ammo. We have taken this 12th century group of killers and given them the keys to the kingdom. Why? Because Biden wanted to take a victory lap on September 11, 2021. Well, guess what Joe? There is no victory to celebrate. Thanks to you, the country of Afghanistan is lost. 

This coming Saturday is the anniversary of 9/11. While most of us will be remembering how brutal these Muslims were to our country twenty years ago, Slo Joe will be patting himself on the back. Why? Because he is Biden. The worst American this country has ever produced. Hands down. 

  

Et tu Brute (Biden)?

"Biden has now shown the world what his version of 'America first' is. It is much different than the 'America first' vision of Donald Trump. Biden has brought back the 'ugly American'. We have worked for years to get rid of that unfortunate stereotype. Biden brought it back in less than a month." 

Picture yourself as a citizen of Afghanistan. You have suffered for years, some say for generations, under some kind of brutal leadership. Being a tribal country, it usually depended on which war lord was stronger. Not a good way to live. Then something unexpected happened. With the Taliban in control of the country, a terror organization was given safe harbor. A tall man, named Osama bin Laden, who headed up this terror organization, master minded an attack on a country far away. Then everything started to change. The country which was attacked, all but declared war on the tall man and his organization. The Taliban were also targeted. Then in the first time in just about forever, things changed in Afghanistan - some of it, for the better.

The United States came to Afghanistan. Besides going after the baddies, they helped the people of Afghanistan learn how to live in the 21st century instead of the 12th. Woman were treated like humans instead of something less than human. Sharia Law was replaced by a court system with judges.

Many of the freedom loving people in Afghanistan loved the Americans, and trusted them. Some even worked for the Americans, as linguists and translators. America made tacit (and otherwise) promises to the good people of Afghanistan, they would NEVER be deserted by us. Never. Ever. That is what friendship is all about.

President Trump had told the Afghan people that the United States was going to end our participation in the war in May of 2021. It had gone on long enough. However, to ensure a continuing peace (of sorts) in Afghanistan, the exit of the United States was going to happen with conditions. In other words, if things started "going south" for the Afghan Army, we stood ready to come back in with resounding force.

Then the election of 2020 happened. With that, something unexpected took place. Trump was out, and a feeble old man was in.

As they say in the country, Biden did not give "two poops and a holler" about the people in Afghanistan. He hated Afghanistan when he was Veep under Obama. He hated it even more right now. Mix in some evil and visceral hatred of Donald Trump, and you have the perfect storm. The perfect storm on how to really screw over a friend and ally. Biden could not wait to cut the rope and get out of Afghanistan. But - what about our friends? The folks who helped us fight the Taliban? Our brothers in arms? "Screw em!", Biden said in so many words. "Sucks being you!"

Mean, somewhere in Kabul and beyond, are many of our friends, mostly hiding. Some are duel citizens, some are American citizens. All have been forgotten, abandoned, and stranded. The great and benevolent United States, the "shining city on the hill", has left our friends to drown in a sea of blood. I could almost see any loyal Afghan friend, standing with hands stretched in the air, saying with a loud and sorrow filled voice, "Et tu Biden?"

Biden has now shown the world what his version of "America first" is. It is much different than the "America first" vision of Donald Trump. Biden has brought back the "ugly American" persona. We worked for years to destroy that unfortunate stereotype. Biden brought it back in less than a month. 

Nice going Joe. You are not only ruining this country, but also ruining how this country is perceived by the world. You might possibly be the worst American this country has ever produced. And for some reason, 80 million idiots elected you to be in charge. SMH... 

    

Stranger in a strange land

"How do you like this new strange land? I hate it. I hate what our new 'government' has done to us. This is worse than the Manchurian Candidate. This is an invasion - not just by illegals, but by socialist traitors who have been coopted by a corrupt education system."

Ever wake up in the morning, turn on the news, and wonder if you somehow slipped into an alternate universe? I mean, many of us are feeling like we are strangers in a strange land (thanks Robert Heinlein). And not just with one thing - with many things. Sometimes, the newness of this new landscape we are living in, is almost dizzying. How so? Come along...

Abortion - What in the world is it about abortion, that has the Democrat machine so enamored with it? Anyone who knows anything about abortion, or saw the movie Unplanned, know that abortion is murder. In Unplanned, seeing where the fetus was literally fighting for its life before termination, still haunts me. The SCOTUS ruling on the Texas abortion law, has ALL the Democrats, including Slo Joe, tied up in knots. So much so, the ancient Ms. Nancy wants legislation to codify Roe. Never mind the fact, we have had over 62 million future citizens terminated since Roe was put into law. Shameful, simply shameful.

Afghanistan - Our longest war. Finally ended. Or is it? As gallantly as our fighting men and women performed in that far off land in the past two decades, it only took one oaf in the White House to turn this war into a national disgrace. Joe Biden has allowed Afghanistan to return to the same festering cesspool of terrorists it was when we first went to war. For Biden, it is like 9/11 never happened. Or maybe he just forgot. Our armed forces credo of "leave no man (or woman) behind", has been replaced with pure sophist bull crap, spewed by the most ill equipped bunch of boobs ever to be in charge of the DOD. Instead of "we have your sixes", all the new DOD management wants to talk about is the loony left's number of different sexes. We left thousands in harm's way, living under bloodthirsty killers. As a bonus, in exchange for the citizens and friendlies we left behind, we brought over thousands of unknown people in the final days. Many of those unknowns, were not vetted. Maybe some of those unknown and unvetted strangers are going to plan the next 9/11. SMH.

Southern Border - Must be getting better, right? Have not heard much as of late. It is not getting any better. Our southern border continues to be a wide open entry way for anyone and everyone. Disease, drugs, weapons, gangs, illegals, trafficking, you name it. All so Slo Joe and the Democrats can change the demographics of this country - forever. Why? To make us a perpetual socialist, give away country. America the ordinary, instead of America the exceptional. Is help on the way? Maybe - but not for over a year at the earliest. By that time, we should have another 2 million illegals flooding the zone. All thanks to Biden the traitor.

Energy - Ever stop to wonder where we are going to get the power we need going into the next decade? When we have scads of these mandated EVs on the road? With coal off the table, and nuclear still having a black eye with the Greenies, where does that leave us? Our energy woes are yet another self inflicted wound, brought on by the gang who cannot shoot straight. John Kerry, who knows as much about climate change as ALGORE does (and both know as much as a rock), is leading the charge. As we have gone from energy independence under Donald Trump to energy dependence under Slo Joe, our gasoline has gone up 30%, and the Chinese are laughing at us - all the way to the bank. 

How do you like this new strange land? I hate it. I hate what our new "government" has done to us. This is worse than the Manchurian Candidate. This is an invasion - not just by illegals, but by socialist traitors who have been coopted by a corrupt education system. Is help on the way? I hope so. But I can't see it as yet.   

     

 

What have we learned?

"Potable water is still the number one thing victims of these storms need. Same as it was in 1969 during Camille. What has FEMA learned? What have the coastal states learned? What have coastal cities learned. Not much."

Have you even noticed that we don't seem to learn our lessons, even when we get hit between the eyes with a 2 X 4 (figuratively)? Like what you might ask? I could make this about the lessons forgotten, from Viet Nam to Afghanistan. The endings of both wars were similar. And both were long and costly. But this is not about that. This is about our weather. In particular, hurricanes. We just refused to learn anything, as we lurch from one disaster to the next one. 

I have told this story from time to time in the past. In August of 1969, I had just arrived in Pensacola, Florida. It was hot, it was humid. And the locals were buzzing about some big storm in the Gulf. Hurricane Camille was sitting in warm Gulf waters, growing in strength, and trying to decide what part of the Gulf coastline it was going to hit. When it did hit, it was somewhere between Biloxi and Pascagoula. It was one of the five most powerful storms (to this date) to ever hit the Gulf coastline. 

At the base I was stationed at, we only got the outer bands. That was bad enough. As a Minnesota kid, I had been through all kinds of thunderstorms and a twister or two, but NEVER anything like Camille. It took weeks to clean up the damage in Pensacola. There was sand everywhere. Where the eye hit, looked like an asteroid had hit. 

That was 1969. Katrina hit New Orleans in August of 2005. It was a major killer. It killed 2,000 citizens, and displaced about 1/3 of the population New Orleans. It took years to recover. What did we learn from Camille to Katrina? Nada. Zip. Houses had pretty much the same building codes, and nothing could withstand a Cat 5 storm, with high winds and tons of rain.

Speaking of tons of rain, we can't forget what happened to Houston when Hurricane Harvey hit in August of 2017 (why do the bad ones always seem to hit in August?). Harvey killed 100 citizens, mostly by drowning in the 30 inches of rain which fell. Was Houston prepared to funnel away that much rain? Not a bit. It was a mess, and took months to get back to halfway normal.

Now in August of 2021, we had Hurricane Ida. Another monster storm. It laid waste to over a hundred miles of coastline. Tens of thousands in New Orleans and the surrounding area, were without power. Many still are. Some might be without power for a month. In that horrible heat and humidity. Why was there so much damage? Because we never learn. We don't think the "big one" will ever hit again. 

Now the leftovers from Ida, are ripping up the East Coast and New England. More people are dying, mostly from the huge amount of water this once Cat 4 storm was dumping. NYC was particularly hard hit. One would think that after Super Storm Sandy, NYC would have learned how to deal with the kind of rain that Ida dumped on her. They did not, and people died.

I am just for a minute, agree with the climate alarmists and say our storms are getting stronger. Would it not make sense to change our building codes? Our local and individual bunkering? Potable water is still the number one thing that victims of these storms need. Same as it was in 1969 during Camille. What has FEMA learned? What have the coastal states learned? What have coastal cities learned? Not much. 

Next year come August, we should look for more of the same. And the more of the same, will continue until we learn. Will we ever learn? Good question.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

"Say it ain't so, Joe! This is the job you have dreamed about. And you can't even tie your shoes the right way now. You are a disgrace to the nation. Your family is a disgrace for allowing you to be put into this position."

When I was a kid, I would cut the grass for my folks. We had a huge yard, and I often took great care in the kind of job I did. One day, after a week of rain, the grass was very thick and long. I decided I would not only cut it as well as pick it up, I would also trim around the sidewalk. I worked very hard and had it just about done. So I stopped and went in to tell my dad I was done. When he came out to examine my work, he was shocked. "You left 10% uncut. Your job is not yet finished". I told him it was good enough, and what I did cut, I did in record time. Besides, I got 90% of the job done. That was my story, and I was sticking to it!

Sound familiar? My story was fiction, but what the President did was not. Yesterday, we saw a bitter old man, yelling at his citizens, about the job he left unfinished. Never mind the fact, there are at a minimum, 100 Americans left stranded in Afghanistan. At a maximum, there could be over a thousand. The State Department simply does not know (even though it is their job to know). The Defense Department does not know. Everyone is guessing right now. 

Because of this major cluster ****, which Slo Joe is blaming on Trump, the Afghan President, and the Afghan Army, we left American citizens in Afghanistan. Plus, we also left Afghan citizens (and their families) who befriended us, almost 100 billion dollars worth of assets, and our service dogs.

The frosting on the cake was this - we also left an Afghan citizen named "Mohamed" (not his real name), his wife, and four kids. What is so special about him? In 2008, he helped save Senators Biden, Kerry, and Hagel, when their copter crashed in the mountains of Afghanistan. Now "Mohamed" is stuck, abandoned, by the man he helped save in 2008. He is begging Joe Biden to help him and his family. But help is not on the way. That is Joe for you.

Slo Joe is so inept, he could not even handle meeting the grieving families at Dover the right way. First off, nothing should have been more important than meeting the thirteen coffins of our fallen heroes, and then sharing our national grief with the families. But he screwed that up also. First off, as the coffins were coming off the plane, Biden kept looking at his watch. WTF? Then, when Biden was talking to the families, he kept bringing up his son Beau. Why? No idea. Biden did lose Beau, but not to combat. He lost him to cancer. That had nothing to do with why these families were grieving. They lost their loved ones because the Commander-in-Chief mucked up our exit.

Say it ain't so, Joe! This is the job you have dreamed about. And you can't even tie your shoes the right way now. You are a disgrace to the nation. Your family is a disgrace for allowing you to be put into this position. If you had a shred of patriotism running in your veins, both you and Harris would resign. I know, I know. Then we would have President Pelosi. One thing at a time.