US Politics: Infrastructure Week End

[DMC]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How much abandoned US Materiale has the Taliban pick up in the last two weeks?

I dunno but I doubt much.  The US military haven't been directly engaging the Taliban for quite awhile.  The reason the Taliban has been able to take regions over so rapidly is that the main deterrent before was US airstrikes.  Without that deterrent the Afghan military was completely unprepared in terms of defenses - with is both their and our fault.

As for the Taliban attacking our troops, well, we'll see.  It would be very stupid to do so, as the success of their current campaign is wholly reliant on the US withdrawing - not only in terms of losing air support but the psychological effect on the Afghan military.  Assaulting our troops is a great way (maybe the only way) to force Biden's hand in changing course on a full withdrawal.  It should also be noted - and try not to laugh - that the Taliban's deal with the Trump administration included assurances they would not attack US troops.  A commitment I believe they've actually abided by to this point, as far as I can tell.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

25 minutes ago, DMC said:

I dunno but I doubt much.  The US military haven't been directly engaging the Taliban for quite awhile.  The reason the Taliban has been able to take regions over so rapidly is that the main deterrent before was US airstrikes.  Without that deterrent the Afghan military was completely unprepared in terms of defenses - with is both their and our fault.

As for the Taliban attacking our troops, well, we'll see.  It would be very stupid to do so, as the success of their current campaign is wholly reliant on the US withdrawing - not only in terms of losing air support but the psychological effect on the Afghan military.  Assaulting our troops is a great way (maybe the only way) to force Biden's hand in changing course on a full withdrawal.  It should also be noted - and try not to laugh - that the Taliban's deal with the Trump administration included assurances they would not attack US troops.  A commitment I believe they've actually abided by to this point, as far as I can tell.

Right but the US equiped the Afghan forces being beaten by the Taliban.  How much US materiale that we gave to Afghan forces are now in use by the Taliban?

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Right but the US equiped the Afghan forces being beaten by the Taliban.  How much US materiale that we gave to Afghan forces are now in use by the Taliban?

Fair point.  And again, I don't know, but the ease with which Taliban is taking over these areas strongly suggests they are not getting much of any resistance from the Afghan military.  Which would in turn suggest the Taliban isn't recovering much...thus far.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Fair point.  And again, I don't know, but the ease with which Taliban is taking over these areas strongly suggests they are not getting much of any resistance from the Afghan military.  Which would in turn suggest the Taliban isn't recovering much...thus far.

I keep hoping this “take over” is somehow a design by the Afghan army to lead the Talibs into a false sense of security before they drop the hammer.  

Problable a vain hope…

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Problable a vain hope…

Probably, yeah.  Why the Afghan military still hasn't appeared to mount any counter-offensive - when by all reports they still do have the massive advantage in personnel and capabilities - is quite confounding though.

[DMC]

So I recall quite a bit of whining about the "leftists" who demanded the Senate pass the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill before they would support the infrastructure bill.  Now a group of moderates are effectively threatening the exact same thing - in reverse - Moderates vow to block budget to secure infrastructure funding:

Quote

In the letter to be sent to Pelosi on Friday, the centrist lawmakers maintain that their districts simply can't wait for the infrastructure spending to go out the door. They're demanding that the Senate's bipartisan bill be adopted this month, or they won't support the budget resolution — a threat with real teeth given the Democrats' slim House majority and the Republicans' unanimous opposition to the Senate's budget bill. [...]

The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a co-chairman of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, and endorsed by eight other moderate Democrats: Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jim Costa (Calif.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), Filemon Vela (Texas), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Ed Case (Hawaii) and Carolyn Bourdeaux (Ga.).

 

[Mindwalker]

Never clocked Pelosi as a leftist...

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

Never clocked Pelosi as a leftist...

Well, actually way back in the day she was considered a leftist.  It's why when she originally took over as Speaker in 2006 the caucus insisted on Steny Hoyer as her deputy when she wanted John Murtha.  But anyway, that wasn't what I referring to.  I was referring to the "leftists" that attacked Sinema when she said she had problems with the $3.5 trillion number.

[Mindwalker]

I know, I'm just cranky even though we all knew conservative - er, centrist Dems would put up a fight.

Interesting info about young Pelosi, though.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

Interesting info about young Pelosi, though.

She was a sprightly young 66 back in 2006.  

[Ser Reptitious]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

So I recall quite a bit of whining about the "leftists" who demanded the Senate pass the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill before they would support the infrastructure bill.  Now a group of moderates are effectively threatening the exact same thing - in reverse - Moderates vow to block budget to secure infrastructure funding:

 

So a certain poster from Minnesota should be just as furious with this group as he was with those leftists, right? 

[Tywin et al.]

29 minutes ago, Ser Reptitious said:

So a certain poster from Minnesota should be just as furious with this group as he was with those leftists, right? 

I did say if either side blows this up they should be clubbed politically as if they were baby seals. Democrats have a giant victory just sitting in their laps. All they need to do is not act like idiots and take it.

[Mindwalker]

Oh, I forgot, today is the day that the Great Orange One will be reinstated! Just a few more hours left!

[Martell Spy]

Rand Paul's awful week

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/opinions/rand-paul-covid-whining-begala/index.html

(CNN)Rand Paul is whining, again. The Republican senator from Kentucky is having a bad week.

Quote

 

Thursday arrived with the news, first reported by the Washington Post, that, as the Post put it, "his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences -- which makes the antiviral drug used to treat covid-19 -- on Feb, 26, 2020, before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public...."

That disclosure came 16 months after it was due, which only compounds Sen. Paul's political pain. The STOCK Act -- designed to combat congressional insider trading -- requires that such buys be reported within 45 days. The senator's spokeswoman says the Paul family lost money on the investment, which Kelley Paul made with her own earnings. The delay in disclosure, we are told, was a mere mistake.

The "dog ate my disclosure form" excuse is merely a coda to a symphony of simpering coming from Sen. Paul and other conservatives. I read those explanations in the paper, in part because I love newspapers, but also because Sen. Paul has been benched from YouTube, so I could not see his smiling visage on that platform.

 

 

[A True Kaniggit]

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Thank you for the clarification.  Still if it gets hairy in Kabul pulling those troops out is going to be a tall order.  How much abandoned US Materiale has the Taliban pick up in the last two weeks?

I’m fairly certain the Taliban is now in control of at least a few of MY Sandbags.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 8/12/2021 at 4:34 PM, argonak said:

While I do not think we should have stayed in Afghanistan anymore, I'm also of the opinion that we should have told all the democracy loving Afghans that they were welcome to move to America, and we'd find room somewhere for them.  after what we put them through, seems like the least we could have done.

There's an effort to get Afghan supporters (interpreters and so forth) of the U.S., occupation to Quatar using that S.I.V. (special visas) program DMC menioned.

In the past Guam has been a staging area for getting war refugees processed until they could be placed permanently in the U.S.

These events bring back memories of chilling moments from the film "The Killing Fields" as the NYT reporter tries to get his assistant/driver/interpreter out of Saigon ahead of the Khmer Rouge takeover.

[Zorral]

On 8/13/2021 at 2:36 PM, Mindwalker said:

I know, I'm just cranky even though we all knew conservative - er, centrist Dems would put up a fight.

Interesting info about young Pelosi, though.

Huh? Who? Waawht?  Missed something, I guess!  

EDTA: Somehow the quote function mis-fired, because this was a response to the news about August 13!  

[DMC]

This is a really...REALLY long article, but even HuffPo doesn't blame "corporate money" for Nina Turner losing to Shontel Brown - How Nina Turner Lost Her Election.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

On 8/14/2021 at 9:36 AM, DireWolfSpirit said:

These events bring back memories of chilling moments from the film "The Killing Fields" as the NYT reporter tries to get his assistant/driver/interpreter out of Saigon ahead of the Khmer Rouge takeover.

Bit confusing, Killing Fields and Khmer Rouge are/were in Cambodia, while Saigon (or Ho-Chi-Minh-City as it is called these days) is in Vietnam. So the City you had in mind was probably Phnom Penh. Ironically, it was the Vietnamese who put an end to the Khmers, which kinda pissed off the Chinese.

[Mudguard]

On 8/13/2021 at 9:46 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Right but the US equiped the Afghan forces being beaten by the Taliban.  How much US materiale that we gave to Afghan forces are now in use by the Taliban?

Apparently pretty soon all of it is going to belong to the Taliban. Many news sites are reporting that Kabul is about to surrender.  From what I've read, most of the territory captured by the Taliban was done through surrender after negotiations.  The Taliban would cut off an outpost or city and then offer the military forces in that area safe passage out in exchange for their arms and a promise not to oppose them in the future.  Occasionally there was resistance, but I think that was relatively rare.