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."

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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."

The Commentariat -- August 16, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Zeke Miller, et al., of the AP: "President Joe Biden will address the nation on Monday about the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan, after the planned withdrawal of American forces turned deadly at Kabul's airport as thousands tried to flee the country after the Taliban's takeover. The White House says Biden will travel back to Washington from the Camp David presidential retreat to speak at 3:45 p.m. from the East Room. It will be his first public remarks on the Afghanistan situation in nearly a week. Biden and other top U.S. officials had been stunned by the pace of the Taliban's swift routing of the Afghan military."

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."

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."

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.

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The New York Times' live updates of developments in Afghanistan Monday are here: "In Kabul, the international airport was under the protection of foreign forces, including thousands of U.S. soldiers sent to the country to assist in a hasty evacuation. It was a scene of desperation, sadness and panic. As thousands swarmed the departures lounge -- many waiting in vain for flights that failed to arrive -- reports of gunfire in and around the airport began to circulate. The U.S. Embassy, whose core employees had moved to a military-controlled section of the airport, urged U.S. civilians still in Kabul to stay away." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here: "Several people were reportedly killed Monday at Kabul airport, where thousands of panicked Afghans and foreign nationals have gathered in hope of leaving Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. At least five people were killed amid the chaos of people fearful for their lives trying to force their way onto planes, Reuters reported, citing multiple witnesses. It wasn't clear how the people were killed. U.S. forces previously fired in the air to warn unauthorized people from trying to board military flights...."

Ellen Knickmeyer & Colleen Barry of the AP: "The beating blades of U.S. military helicopters whisking American diplomats to Kabul's airport on Sunday punctuated a frantic rush by thousands of other foreigners and Afghans to flee to safety as well, as a stunningly swift Taliban takeover entered the heart of Afghanistan's capital.... Shortly before dawn Monday Kabul time..., the [Biden] administration announced it was taking over air-traffic control at Kabul's international airport, to manage the airlifts. Sporadic gunfire there Sunday frightened Afghan families fearful of Taliban rule and desperate for flights out.... NATO allies that had pulled out their forces ahead of the Biden administration's intended Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline were sending troops back in as well this weekend to protect evacuations of their own.... A joint statement from the U.S. State and Defense departments pledged late Sunday to fly thousands of Americans, local embassy staff and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals' out of the country."

Susannah George, et al., of the Washington Post: "Taliban fighters took control of Kabul on Sunday as the Afghan government collapsed, President Ashraf Ghani fled, and the long-dominant American presence appeared to be coming to an abrupt and chaotic end after nearly 20 years. The takeover of the sprawling capital city had been years in the making, but was ultimately accomplished in a single day. Insurgent fighters, fresh off their conquests in each of Afghanistan's provincial hubs, faced little to no resistance as they entered the city through its major traffic arteries on Sunday morning. By evening, the Taliban were giving television interviews in the presidential palace, just hours after Ghani had departed Afghanistan. And the Pentagon was speeding an additional 1,000 troops to Kabul's airport to assist with the withdrawal of U.S. personnel after the American flag was lowered from the embassy." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.)

Conor Finnegan, et al., of ABC News: "Another 1,000 soldiers from the [U.S.] Army's 82nd Airborne have been ordered to head directly to Afghanistan's capital instead of Kuwait to assist in the evacuation of U.S. personnel and Afghans who assisted the U.S. mission, a U.S. official told ABC News. That brings the total number of U.S. troops being sent back to Afghanistan to 6,000."

Missy Ryan & Kareem Fahim of the Washington Post: "Afghan activists, journalists and advocates for women's rights scrambled to identify escape routes Sunday as international civil society organizations intensified a chaotic effort to evacuate local allies under threat following the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.... Human rights organizations in recent days have sent the [U.S.] State Department flurries of emails with spreadsheets laying out the identities and personal details of thousands of Afghans who do not qualify for the priority visa consideration already announced by the Biden administration but whose lives are believed to be in jeopardy. The sense of peril was compounded by warnings some in the Taliban delivered to female activists to stay quiet."

The New York Times' liveblog of developments in Afghanistan Sunday, also linked yesterday, is here: "The Taliban effectively sealed their control of Afghanistan on Sunday, pouring into the capital, Kabul, and meeting little resistance as President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, the government collapsed, and chaos and fear gripped the city, with tens of thousands of people trying to escape. The insurgents' return to power, two decades after they were ousted, came despite years and hundreds of billions of dollars spent by the United States to build up the Afghan government and its defense forces. In a lightning offensive, the Taliban swallowed dozens of cities in a matter of days, leaving Kabul as the last major redoubt of government control.

Ahmad Seir, et al., of the AP: "Afghanistan's embattled president left the country Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan. The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after they would move further into a city gripped by panic where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out." (Also linked yesterday.)

Kylie Atwood & Devan Cole of CNN: "The United States is pulling out all US personnel from its embassy in Kabul over the next 72 hours, including top officials, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN on Sunday. The withdrawal of embassy personnel marks a rapid acceleration of the process that had only been announced on Thursday, and is a situation that many State Department security officials expected would have to happen given the speed with which the Taliban has gained territory in Afghanistan in recent days." (Also linked yesterday.)

Kevin Liptak & Jason Hoffman of CNN: "The rapid fall of Afghanistan's national forces and government has come as a shock to [President] Biden and senior members of his administration, who only last month believed it could take months before the civilian government in Kabul fell -- allowing a period of time after American troops left before the full consequences of the withdrawal were laid bare. Now, months after his initial declaration that all 2,500 US troops would be out of Afghanistan by the end of the summer, a total of 6,000 troops are expected to help facilitate the evacuation. And officials are frankly admitting they miscalculated.... Biden is expected to address the nation in the next few days about the crisis in Afghanistan.... During a briefing for lawmakers on Sunday, top administration officials faced harsh questioning over the withdrawal plans, including the evacuation of Afghan interpreters and others who assisted the US war effort."

Your Tax Dollars at Work -- for the Taliban. AFP: "The United States spent billions supplying the Afghan military with the tools to defeat the Taliban, but the rapid capitulation of the armed forces means that weaponry is now fuelling the insurgents' astonishing battlefield successes. 'We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools -- let me emphasise: all the tools,' US President Joe Biden said when defending his decision to withdraw American forces and leave the fight to the locals. But Afghan defence forces have shown little appetite for that fight and, in their tens of thousands, have been laying down their arms -- only for the Taliban to immediately pick them up.... Footage of Afghan soldiers surrendering in the northern city of Kunduz shows army vehicles loaded with heavy weapons and mounted with artillery guns safely in the hands of the insurgent rank and file.... Experts say such hauls -- on top of unacknowledged support from regional allies such as Pakistan -- has given the Taliban a massive boost." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Art of the Deal. Susannah George of the Washington Post: "The spectacular collapse of Afghanistan's military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government's lowest-ranking officials. The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official. Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces.... The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan.... The Doha agreement, designed to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, instead left many Afghan forces demoralized.... Then, after President Biden announced in April that U.S. forces would withdraw from Afghanistan this summer without conditions, the capitulations began to snowball."

Anne Gearan & Cleve Wootson of the Washington Post: "... President Biden over the weekend first offered compassion for those left behind.... Bu then Biden pivoted to the cold calculation behind his decision to pull the plug on a mission that has cost more than 2,000 American lives. 'One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,' Biden said.... It was a harsh and bracing assessment from a president better known for misty-eyed empathy. It reflects an increasingly defiant and defensive tone from Biden and his aides amid criticism that Biden is condemning a U.S. partner to brutal rule by Islamist fundamentalists and opening the door to new terrorist threats.... Biden monitored the debacle on Sunday from Camp David in Maryland, where he held a video conference with national security advisers. White House officials briefed a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Sunday. Biden has not spoken about Afghanistan in public since Tuesday."

If Wishes Were Horses, Afghan Soldiers Would Ride. David Sanger of the New York Times: Rarely in modern presidential history have words come back to bite an American commander in chief as swiftly as these from President Biden a little more than five weeks ago: 'There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States in Afghanistan.' Then, digging the hole deeper, he added, 'The likelihood there's going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.'... Mr. Biden will go down in history, fairly or unfairly, as the president who presided over a long-brewing, humiliating final act in the American experiment in Afghanistan." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Sanger writes that Biden "has often noted that he came to office with more foreign policy experience than any president in recent memory, arguably since Dwight D. Eisenhower." But if you look at what happened on the world stage during Eisenhower's tenure, you won't be too impressed with how much good Ike's foreign-policy experience did to quell disasters. From Cuba to Iran to Vietnam (to name a few crises), a fair observer could say that Eisenhower's policies made things worse, not better. There are malevolent forces everywhere and all the time. It's only occasionally that the U.S. manages to help overcome them.

~~~ Here are two opinion pieces, both firewalled, that put the burden on Joe Biden for the abandonment of our allies in Afghanistan & our failed promise to the Afghan people: ~~~

     ~~~ George Packer in the Atlantic: "... our abandonment of the Afghans who helped us, counted on us, staked their lives on us, is a final, gratuitous shame that we could have avoided. The Biden administration failed to heed the warnings on Afghanistan, failed to act with urgency -- and its failure has left tens of thousands of Afghans to a terrible fate. This betrayal will live in infamy. The burden of shame falls on President Joe Biden.... [The collapse of the Afghan government] was foreseeable -- all of it was foreseen.... The administration's answers were never adequate.... The chaos produced by the Biden administration's delays has given an outsize role to sheer randomness, as twists of fate save one Afghan and doom another." Packer cites a couple of these random cases. Here (part of) a graf I think we can all agree on:

While some officials in the State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House itself pushed quietly for more urgent measures that might have averted catastrophe, Biden resisted -- ... as if he were done with Afghanistan the minute he announced the withdrawal of all remaining U.S. forces. This hardness is perplexing in a president who spent years in the Senate working on behalf of genocide victims and war refugees; who once promised an Afghan schoolgirl that he would make sure the U.S. didn't abandon her; who cares intensely about the welfare of American troops. ~~~

     ~~~ Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker discusses the collapse with his former colleague Steve Coll. Coll says, "I can understand the frustration that American decision-makers have had with their partners in the Kabul government for the past twenty years. It has been a very rocky road, and it isn't all the fault of U.S. Presidents and Vice-Presidents and national-security advisers. But to suggest that the Afghan people haven't done their bit is a kind of blame-shifting that I think is not only unjustifiable but outrageous. The Afghans now have suffered generation after generation of not just continuous warfare but humanitarian crises, one after the other, and Americans have to remember that this wasn't a civil war that the Afghans started among themselves that the rest of the world got sucked into. This situation was triggered by an outside invasion, initially by the Soviet Union, during the Cold War, and since then the country has been a battleground for regional and global powers seeking their own security by trying to militarily intervene in Afghanistan, whether it be the United States after 2001, the C.I.A. in the nineteen-eighties, Pakistan through its support first for the mujahideen and later the Taliban, or Iran and its clients. To blame Afghans for not getting their act together in light of that history is just wrong." And Coll concludes, "I don't expect the Biden Administration to change its policy, and even if it did I don't expect that it could reverse the Taliban&'s momentum without bombing Afghanistan to smithereens. But it can certainly take responsibility for the lion's share of the response to this unfolding humanitarian crisis...."

James Meek of ABC News: "... numerous U.S. officials tell ABC News that ... key intelligence assessments had consistently informed policymakers that the Taliban could overwhelm the country and take the capital within weeks.... '[U.S.] leaders were told by the military it would take no time at all for the Taliban to take everything,' an anonymous U.S. intelligence official told ABC News. 'No one listened.'" MB: If victory has many fathers, failure is an orphan. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: At the end of Meek's article, he cites an unnamed Pakistani official: "The Taliban should take their success with a grain of salt. To take a city is one thing, but to hold it is a different ballgame. Our fear is not their victories. But setting up a system of governance is very difficult. They will make mistakes, too. The arrogance of victory will lead to that." If the Taliban fail, they may fall to a velvet revolution, one led by Afghan women who have experienced nearly two decades of relative freedom & education. Afghanistan could indeed become far more "westernized" than it was in 2001 when the U.S. & Britain invaded the country.

Let's Ask Mikey! David of Crooks & Liars: "Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo falsely asserted on Sunday that President Joe Biden had put the U.S. embassy in Kabul at risk by focusing on critical race theory instead of foreign policy." David does point out (very unfairly!) that "the discussion over critical race theory has been largely fueled by right-wing media." Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. See also his commentary below. Akhilleus, probably inadvertently, typed "critical face theory," but that works just as well for Mikey & me.

Jason DeParle of the New York Times: "The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program's history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds one in eight Americans. Under rules to be announced on Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last. For at least a decade, critics of the benefits have said they were too low to provide an adequate diet. More than three-quarters of households exhaust their benefits in the first half of the monthly cycle, and researchers have linked subsequent food shortages to problems as diverse as increased hospital admissions, more school suspensions and lower SAT scores." Politico's story is here.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.

Texas. Caroline Anders & Max Hauptman of the Washington Post: "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's ban on mask mandates will be allowed to stand, at least temporarily, the Texas Supreme Court announced Sunday. The stay marks the latest development in the battle between local governments and the state over pandemic-related restrictions, and it comes as the state's covid-19 hospitalizations have increased 400 percent over the past month. The all-Republican court temporarily blocked mask mandates in two counties until their cases can be heard, affirming Abbott's executive order that prohibited government entities from issuing mask mandates." The Texas Tribune's story is here.

Vatican. Claire Giangravé of Religion News Service: "A message from the Twitter account of Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a conservative prelate and outspoken skeptic of the COVID-19 vaccine, confirmed Saturday (Aug. 14) via Twitter that he had been placed on a ventilator after testing positive for the virus.... Burke served as bishop of the diocese of La Crosse from 1995 to 2004 and later became the archbishop of St. Louis.... It is unclear whether Burke has received the vaccine, but speaking at the May 2020 Rome Life Forum, Burke said that 'vaccination itself cannot be imposed, in a totalitarian manner, on citizens.' He also quoted groups that suggested that COVID-19 vaccines inject 'a kind of microchip' that allow citizens to 'be controlled by the state regarding health and about other matters which we can only imagine.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So, see, when they inject that mysterious (and entirely liquid) substance into your sacred body, floating unseen within that devil's fluid is a teeny weeny, itsy bitsy kind of microchip that travels straight to your brain & programs you to become a liberal/libertarian or something. If I didn't have the Holy Eminences to explain science to me, I'd be lost.

Beyond the Beltway

California. Vote No! Los Angeles Times Editors, reprinted in Yahoo! News: "Removing [Gov. Gavin] Newsom and replacing him with an untested and unprepared alternative who wouldn't represent the values of most Californians would be a disaster. It would doom the state to months of political and bureaucratic dysfunction and economic uncertainty. And for what purpose?... [Newsom's shortcomings] do not justify using the extraordinary power of recall to remove a legitimately elected governor in favor of someone who may only have a sliver of support from voters.... The 46 candidates vying to replace Newsom -- most of them men, most of them Republican, and most of them utterly unqualified -- offer an endless litany of grievances that are little more than objections to his liberal policies -- policies, we may add, that were clear to everyone when 62% of voters chose Newsom in the 2018 election." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Canada. Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post: "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, betting that his standing has been improved by his government's response to the coronavirus pandemic while his main opponent has failed to gain traction with voters, on Sunday called a snap federal election for Sept. 20 in a bid to regain a majority in the House of Commons.Trudeau, first elected prime minister in 2015, has led the country for the past 21 months with a minority government. Winning a majority would mean he would no longer need to rely on opposition parties to advance his agenda and stay in power." (Also linked yesterday.)

Haiti. One Million People, One Surgeon, No Supplies. Maria Abi-Habib of the New York Times: "A day after a magnitude-7.2 earthquake killed at least 1,300 people and injured thousands in western Haiti, the main airport of the city of Les Cayes was overwhelmed Sunday with people trying to evacuate their loved ones to Port-au-Prince, the capital, about 80 miles to the east. There wasn't much choice. With just a few dozen doctors available in a region that is home to one million people, the quake aftermath was turning increasingly dire. 'I'm the only surgeon over there,' said Dr. Edward Destine, an orthopedic surgeon, waving toward a temporary operating room of corrugated tin set up near the airport in Les Cayes. 'I would like to operate on 10 people today, but I just don't have the supplies,' he said...."

~~~ The New York Times' live updates of developments in Haiti Sunday are here: "Haitians trying to evacuate the injured packed the main airport of the earthquake-devastated town of Les Cayes on Sunday, as patients overwhelmed local hospitals and officials raised the death toll to more than 700. A magnitude 7.2 earthquake shook Haiti on Saturday morning, a devastating blow to a country that is still reeling from a presidential assassination last month and that never recovered from a disastrous quake more than 11 years ago." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Commentariat -- August 15, 2021

Late Morning Update:

12 noon ET: CNN has reported on-air that the American flag over the U.S. embassy in Kabul has come down. MSNBC reports that the Taliban have entered Kabul "to prevent looting" as the police have abandoned the city.

Ahmad Seir, et al., of the AP: "Afghanistan's embattled president left the country Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan. The Taliban, who for hours had been on the outskirts of Kabul, announced soon after they would move further into a city gripped by panic where helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out."

Kylie Atwood & Devan Cole of CNN: "The United States is pulling out all US personnel from its embassy in Kabul over the next 72 hours, including top officials, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN on Sunday. The withdrawal of embassy personnel marks a rapid acceleration of the process that had only been announced on Thursday, and is a situation that many State Department security officials expected would have to happen given the speed with which the Taliban has gained territory in Afghanistan in recent days."

Your Tax Dollars at Work -- for the Taliban. AFP: "The United States spent billions supplying the Afghan military with the tools to defeat the Taliban, but the rapid capitulation of the armed forces means that weaponry is now fuelling the insurgents' astonishing battlefield successes. 'We provided our Afghan partners with all the tools -- let me emphasise: all the tools,' US President Joe Biden said when defending his decision to withdraw American forces and leave the fight to the locals. But Afghan defence forces have shown little appetite for that fight and, in their tens of thousands, have been laying down their arms -- only for the Taliban to immediately pick them up.... Footage of Afghan soldiers surrendering in the northern city of Kunduz shows army vehicles loaded with heavy weapons and mounted with artillery guns safely in the hands of the insurgent rank and file.... Experts say such hauls -- on top of unacknowledged support from regional allies such as Pakistan -- has given the Taliban a massive boost."

California. Vote No! Los Angeles Times Editors, reprinted in Yahoo! News: "Removing [Gov. Gavin] Newsom and replacing him with an untested and unprepared alternative who wouldn't represent the values of most Californians would be a disaster. It would doom the state to months of political and bureaucratic dysfunction and economic uncertainty. And for what purpose?... [Newsom's shortcomings] do not justify using the extraordinary power of recall to remove a legitimately elected governor in favor of someone who may only have a sliver of support from voters.... The 46 candidates vying to replace Newsom -- most of them men, most of them Republican, and most of them utterly unqualified -- offer an endless litany of grievances that are little more than objections to his liberal policies -- policies, we may add, that were clear to everyone when 62% of voters chose Newsom in the 2018 election."

The New York Times' live updates of developments in Haiti Sunday are here: "Haitians trying to evacuate the injured packed the main airport of the earthquake-devastated town of Les Cayes on Sunday, as patients overwhelmed local hospitals and officials raised the death toll to more than 700. A magnitude 7.2 earthquake shook Haiti on Saturday morning, a devastating blow to a country that is still reeling from a presidential assassination last month and that never recovered from a disastrous quake more than 11 years ago."

Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post: "Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, betting that his standing has been improved by his government's response to the coronavirus pandemic while his main opponent has failed to gain traction with voters, on Sunday called a snap federal election for Sept. 20 in a bid to regain a majority in the House of Commons. Trudeau, first elected prime minister in 2015, has led the country for the past 21 months with a minority government. Winning a majority would mean he would no longer need to rely on opposition parties to advance his agenda and stay in power."

~~~~~~~~~~

Susannah George & Bryan Pietsch of the Washington Post: "Taliban forces entered Kabul through the city's four main gates Sunday morning, according to two Afghan security officials and civilian eyewitness accounts, in a move that could trigger the collapse of the national government and signal a return to power for the Islamist group two decades after the United States invaded Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that the group's fighters had been instructed not to push further into the city with force. The militants had made recent gains after negotiating with local leaders. 'We want to enter Kabul with peace, and talks are underway' with the government, he said. There is an agreement that there will be a transitional administration for orderly transfer of power,' said acting Interior Minister Abdul Satar Mirzakwal on Sunday. He added that security forces were being deployed across Kabul to ensure order. The Taliban's lightning quick advance to the Afghan capital came as helicopters landed at the U.S. Embassy early Sunday and armored diplomatic vehicles were seen leaving the area around the compound, the Associated Press reported. Diplomats scrambled to destroy sensitive documents, sending smoke from the embassy's roof, the AP said, citing anonymous U.S. military officials."

Missy Ryan, et al., of the Washington Post: "The lightning collapse [of the Afghan government] is rooted in misplaced assumptions -- including a failure to account for how the U.S. departure would catalyze a crisis of confidence in Afghan leaders and security forces, enabling the Taliban blitz -- from the moment [President] Biden announced the withdrawal this spring. It is equally the product of two decades of miscalculations about transforming Afghanistan and overly optimistic assessments of progress that have plagued the war from its start.... The disintegration of the hoped-for [orderly] withdrawal scenario has left the administration racing to protect U.S. diplomats and struggling to respond to criticism from Republicans and advocates alike. It has also deepened questions about how Biden will reconcile his realpolitik, including the abandonment of women and human rights defenders, with promises to restore core values to U.S. foreign policy." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Assuming this analysis is correct, there was no path for a graceful U.S. exit from Afghanistan, assuming it's not possible to remove tens of thousands of Americans, allies, and Afghan aides from the country in the dead of a single night. So Republicans can play the "shoulda, coulda, woulda" game to their heart's content, the exit Trump precipitated was destined to end in a U.S. embarrassment.

The New York Times' live updates of developments in Afghanistan Sunday are here: "The Taliban's relentless, rapid advance across Afghanistan brought them on Sunday to the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, the last major city controlled by the government.... The U.S. military, meanwhile, has arrived in force to evacuate American diplomatic and civilian staff."

** The End of the Longest War. David Sanger & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "In the end, an Afghan force that did not believe in itself and a U.S. effort that Mr. Biden, and most Americans, no longer believed would alter the course of events combined to bring an ignoble close to America's longest war. The United States kept forces in Afghanistan far longer than the British did in the 19th century, and twice as long as the Soviets -- with roughly the same results." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** President Biden's statement on Afghanistan. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Karen DeYoung, et al., of the Washington Post: "With the Afghan capital among the few areas left to conquer, President Biden warned that any moves to threaten American personnel or interests there would be met with a 'swift and strong' U.S. military response from thousands of American troops flooding into the city. Biden, in his first public statement since the administration on Thursday announced the deployment of 3,000 troops to aid in the evacuation of American diplomats and civilians and Afghans who have aided the U.S. government, said the force being dispatched to Kabul would grow to 5,000."

Rachel Pannett, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Taliban's blitz across Afghanistan pushed closer to Kabul on Saturday, as U.S. diplomats appealed to the militants to stop the advance or risk conflict with thousands of U.S. troops flooding into the capital to evacuate U.S. diplomats and other personnel. But in Qatar's capital, Doha, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met with Taliban political leaders who had a message of their own: calling for an end to escalating U.S. airstrikes trying to hold the fast-moving push by Taliban forces to gain territory, occupy provincial capitals and hold key roadways. With Kabul in the Taliban crosshairs, the fate of the country's Western-allied government also hung in the balance. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in his first public appearance since the Taliban's stunning sweep of provincial capitals over the past week, said he was turning to the international community for help even as events appeared to be overtaking him and his administration." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Eyal Press in a New York Times op-ed: "Contemporary America runs on dirty work," work done -- usually by low-paid workers -- in penal & mental institutions, immigrations centers, slaughterhouses, overseas sweatshops, & drone-war facilities.... This work sustains our lifestyles and undergirds the prevailing social order, but privileged people are generally spared from having to think about it.... Though more difficult to quantify, the moral and emotional wounds that many dirty workers experience can be as debilitating as material disadvantage.... Pinning the blame for dirty work solely on the people who carry it out can be a useful way to obscure the power dynamics and the layers of complicity that perpetuate their conduct." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Aya Elamroussi of CNN: "The US remains among nations with the highest rate of new Covid-19 cases, driven mostly by a surge in the South, where many states are lagging in getting people vaccinated against the coronavirus."

Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "With a stockpile of at least 100 million doses at the ready, Biden administration officials are developing a plan to start offering coronavirus booster shots to some Americans as early as this fall even as researchers continue to hotly debate whether extra shots are needed, according to people familiar with the effort. 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. They have discussed starting the effort in October but have not settled on a timetable."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

California. Lexi Lonas of the Hill: "One person has been hospitalized with a stab wound after fights broke out at an anti-vaccination and anti-mask rally between demonstrators and counter-protestors in Los Angeles on Saturday.... A video of an altercation posted by television producer Alex Kimmel showed a man in camouflage punching a man in yellow shirt before he took a swing at another man with an American flag face covering. Other men can be seen pushing each other and throwing errant punches. One person can be heard in the background yelling 'unmask them all.'"

Mississippi. Nick Judin of the Mississippi Free Press: "Hours after the worst report of new COVID-19 cases in the pandemic thus far, Gov. Tate Reeves gave Mississippi a full-throated endorsement of vaccinations -- but offered inconsistent and hostile messaging on the subject of masks. 'I want to be clear,' the governor said at a press event Friday afternoon, 'I have been vaccinated. My mom's been vaccinated. My dad's been vaccinated. My grandma has been vaccinated. I believe the vaccines are safe, effective and the best tool to beat the virus.'... The governor questioned the value of masks for the vaccinated entirely Friday.... 'If you really want to virtue signal, why are you in this room? Why don't you go to your house and lock yourself up?' Reeves asked Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison, after Harrison questioned him on his position on masking.... The governor has no training in medicine or health care; he has a bachelor's degree in economics from Millsaps College." ~~~

~~~ Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "An eighth-grade girl died [Saturday] morning in Raleigh, Miss., mere hours after testing positive for COVID-19. Multiple sources told the Mississippi Free Press that the student attended classes at the school most of the week, including Wednesday, before testing positive for COVID-19 at week's end.... The Raleigh student's passing came the morning after a press conference on Friday in which Gov. Tate Reeves reiterated that, unlike last year, he will not mandate masks in schools this fall.... 'If you look at those individuals under the age of 12, what you find is that it is very rare that kids under the age of 12 have anything other than the sniffles [as the result of the coronavirus],' the governor said."

North Carolina. Robert Romero, et al., of WNCT-Greenville: "NC Rep. Keith Kidwell, who serves District 79 and Beaufort County, announced on Friday that he is in the hospital after his wife was diagnosed with COVID-19. It has since been learned both have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.... Kidwell has been vocal about not wearing a mask. He is the chief sponsor of House Bill 572, which would not allow Gov. Roy Cooper to issue an executive order to require vaccination. The bill passed the NC House in May but has not moved further in the NC Senate." MB: Kidwell looks just like a GOP poohbah, with all of the quirks & biases that go with the stereotype.

Washington, D.C. Anne Tate of the Washingtonian: "Unvaccinated DC residents can now get the Covid-19 vaccine brought to them at home. Previously, only homebound residents qualified for the program, but it's now open to anyone. Both the vaccine and the delivery service are free." The article tells you what-all is involved & how you can make an appointment.

News Lede

New York Times: "Tropical Storm Grace formed in the eastern Caribbean on Saturday morning, generating tropical storm warnings for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other parts of the Caribbean, and is now expected to bring heavy rain and potential mudslides to Haiti, which was hit by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said."