Lost Cause: A Special Forces Soldier’s Case for Leaving Afghanistan

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. . .Several factors have allowed this conflict to become the longest war in American history. Through advances in equipment, medicine, and technology, the survivability rate for American soldiers is the highest on record. According to the Department of Defense casualty statistics, 20,354 American service members have been wounded in Afghanistan, with 1,868 killed in action — a 90 percent survivability rate for those wounded in combat in Afghanistan.

. . .In October 2001, 88 percent of Americans approved military action in Afghanistan. The military objectives at the time were to bring al-Qaida leadership to justice, prevent them from using Afghanistan as a safe haven, and remove the Taliban from power. From a practical perspective, all of these objectives had been accomplished by December of 2002.

. . .But instead of turning the country over to the Afghanis that U.S. Special Forces had fought alongside to defeat the Taliban, the U.S. military began increasing its footprint and became tasked with assisting the new Afghani republic with establishing effective governance. The mission changed from a clearly defined and realistic military objective to one beyond the scope and expertise of the entities involved. According to a letter by Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley, the stated mission is of the U.S. military is, “To deploy, fight, and win our Nation’s wars by providing ready, prompt, and sustained land dominance by Army forces across the spectrum of conflict as part of the Joint Force.”

While the U.S. military can help provide security to the frontiers of warzones, it is simply not designed to help establish civil governance. Even if its post-Taliban role in Afghanistan is defined as providing security assistance to the new government, this in itself is not an objective with a tangible end state but a recipe for the perpetual conflict the U.S. military finds itself mired in.

. . .Predictably, with increasing U.S. troop presence, casualties, and costs, members of Congress have occasionally attempted to clarify stated military goals and create some measure of accountability to the leaders of the war effort. But in December 2019, the publication of the so-called Aghanistan Papers revealed that high-ranking military and public officials lied to the American people for years. (Read more from “Lost Cause: A Special Forces Soldier’s Case for Leaving Afghanistan” HERE)

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Another Historically Violent Weekend Strikes Major U.S. Cities

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Violence continues to rise in some of the United States’ largest cities while pledges and calls to defund or cut the police department budgets become louder. In the last few months, cities such as New York City, Chicago, Portland, Minneapolis, and Houston all saw an uptick in violence, murders, and domestic abuse cases. . .

According to the New York Post, the city suffered another bout of “astronomical” violence after over 17 people were shot in multiple boroughs Monday. . .

Shootings claimed the lives of at least 11 people and injured over 64 as the summer violence levels continue to rise in Chicago. According to ABC 7 News, at least six of those injured were teenagers. One 15-year-old was also fatally shot over the weekend. . .

According to Fox 12 News, Portland has also had a recent uptick in violence as the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) began investigating at least 4 homicides in three days over the last week.

Earlier in the month, the PPB reported a 240 percent increase in shootings in the city since July 2019. (Read more from “Another Historically Violent Weekend Strikes Major U.S. Cities” HERE)

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Ghislaine Maxwell ‘Has Tapes of 2 Prominent U.S. Politicians Having Sex With Minors’; Feds Lay Out Case to Keep Her in Jail

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By CNN. Federal prosecutors urged a judge to reject a home confinement request by Ghislaine Maxwell, the confidant of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, saying she is skilled at hiding and had wrapped a cell phone in foil to attempt to evade detection by authorities. . .

They said Maxwell has shown a skilled ability to hide. When FBI agents went to arrest Maxwell at a mansion in New Hampshire on July 3, instead of obeying the agent’s order to open the door, Maxwell fled to another room and closed the door behind her, according to the court filing. After the FBI breached the door they found Maxwell inside and arrested her. . .

Prosecutors also cited Maxwell’s own wealth as a means for her to flee the country. Maxwell disclosed to the US Treasury Department that in 2018 and 2019 she held at times $2 million at an English bank and had a $4 million balance at a Swiss bank. But prosecutors say Maxwell’s finances are “opaque,” noting she has not filled out a sworn statement describing her assets. (Read more from “Feds Lay Out Case to Keep Ghislaine Maxwell in Jail” HERE)

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Ghislaine Maxwell ‘Has Tapes of Two Prominent U.S. Politicians Having Sex With Minors’

By Daily Mail. Ghislaine Maxwell ‘has tapes of two prominent US politicians having sex with minors’ and boasted of ‘owning’ powerful people, according to a former friend.

The ex-jewel robber, who used the pseudonym William Steel, said they ‘forced’ him to watch the footage as they wanted to convince him of their ‘power’.

He also claimed to have seen clips of ‘celebrities’ and ‘world figures’ having ‘threesomes, even orgies’ with minors. . .

He added: ‘I saw videos of very powerful people – celebrities, world figures – in those videos having sex, threesomes, even orgies with minors.’

The former friend also referred to two ‘high-profile’ American politicians who were in videos with minors. (Read more from “Ghislaine Maxwell ‘Has Tapes of Two Prominent U.S. Politicians Having Sex With Minors'” HERE)

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Why Mike Pompeo’s South China Sea Statement Is So Significant

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s South China Sea statement on Monday is significant for two reasons: It shifts formal U.S. policy and it establishes a quiet jus ad bellum legal foundation for the use of military force against China in these waters.

Let’s start with the shift in U.S. policy. When the United States had previously condemned Chinese claims in the South China Sea, it had also called for regional negotiation to establish territorial ownership rights. This statement endorses a different approach, actively rejecting Chinese claims outright.

“Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful,” the statement said, “as is its campaign of bullying to control them.”

This includes, Pompeo said, the assertion that “Beijing’s harassment of Philippine fisheries and offshore energy development within those areas is unlawful, as are any unilateral [Chinese] actions to exploit those resources.” The U.S. now takes the same stance toward the “Vanguard Bank (off Vietnam), Luconia Shoals (off Malaysia), waters in Brunei’s [exclusive economic zone], and Natuna Besar (off Indonesia). Any [Chinese] action to harass other states’ fishing or hydrocarbon development in these waters — or to carry out such activities unilaterally — is unlawful.”

There’s a deliberate disdain in the U.S. language here. The Trump administration isn’t simply rejecting China’s claims. It is suggesting that other regional nations have far better rights to the waters in question. Pompeo wants to impress the idea not simply of China’s claims being unlawful in legal terms but also absurd in practical reality. We see this with his assertion that China has “no lawful territorial or maritime claim to (or derived from) James Shoal, an entirely submerged feature only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and some 1,000 nautical miles from China’s coast.” Fifty nautical miles versus 1,000 nautical miles. (Read more from “Why Mike Pompeo’s South China Sea Statement Is So Significant” HERE)

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JAW-DROPPING NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE REPORT: School Closures Based on Politics, Not Science

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Adapted from a Twitter thread by Newman Nahas

The most important evidence regarding pediatric transmission of COVID-19 comes from Iceland, and their study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Be suspicious of any expert ignoring this paper and discussing anecdotes instead.

The data for the study come from Iceland’s systematic screening of its population.

It was based on a population-representative sample (identified without respect to symptomatic status), and a sample based on presence of symptoms.

The study isolated SARS-CoV-2 samples from every positive case, sequenced genome of virus, and tracked the mutation patterns.

This analysis, along with contact tracing, allowed the authors to identify definitively who passed the virus to whom.

This study is unique.

Based on this, the senior author concluded that:

“[E]ven if children do get infected, they are less likely to transmit the disease to others than adults. We have not found a single instance of a child infecting parents.“

This is huge.

The genetic analysis in this study is the most direct evidence of the direction of transmission. And this evidence shows that children must be less likely to transmit than adults.

No other way to view this. These datasets are basically irrefutable.

Note: your cousin’s friend who heard about some stuff . . . almost certainly didn’t sequence any genomes.

The same is true of the news reports of isolated instances of school outbreaks.

Though these accounts usually proclaim hysterically that children are super-spreaders, their conclusions seem never to be based on actual tracing (much less deeper genetic analyses). Never.

Yet these stories are getting more press than Iceland.

This is especially weird here, as Iceland is not an outlier. It’s results are also corroborated all over the world.

In fact, at this point so many datasets on point, it’s overwhelming.

Here are two examples.

• Ireland: Researchers compared infected children with infected adults. Despite identifying a total of 722 contacts for the infected children, the study found not a single instance of an infected child passing on the virus. In contrast, the adults who were infected, had many fewer contacts – 102 – and yet did pass on the infection.

• Netherlands: A report by the ministry of health in the Netherlands, based on extensive contact tracing data, also found almost no disease spread by infected patients 20 and under at all. The authors of the study concluded:

Data from the Netherlands confirms . . . children play a minor role in the spread of the novel coronavirus. The virus is mainly spread between adults and from adult family members to children. The spread of COVID-19 among children or from children to adults is less common.

They included the helpful chart depicted above.

Thus, we are faced with two hypotheses

Children play an equal role in transmission
Children play a meaningfully reduced role in transmission.

Hypothesis 1 explains the stories out Israel and other isolated cases of seeming pediatric spread.

But it can not explain the data out of Iceland, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, and numerous other datasets.

Therefore, it explains only a subset of the data.

Hypothesis 2 however can explain all the data.

It can explain Ireland, etc. and the stories of pediatric transmission (because it doesn’t deny the possibility of pediatric spread, just suggests its lower probability).

In fact, looking at the set of evidence taken as a whole, the obvious hypothesis that jumps out is not that children must play an equal role in transmission.

But rather that…

Children must play a reduced role

Thus, the alarmist claiming kids are super-spreaders are trying to base policy on a hypothesis that looks only at a sliver of the data.

That would be bad enough.

But what they are doing is worse.

They are not just ignoring tons of data. But ignoring the most systematic and in favor of the most anecdotal.

Ignoring the genetic analysis out of Iceland b ecause of an impressionistic news report is not science. It’s sleight of hand. And a poor one at that.

Footnote: I don’t discuss the risks to children here (but rather risk from). That is because at this point the first issue is settled. The risk to children is staggeringly low, as @d_spiegel has put it.

Here is an up-to-date literature review by Dr Munro. I have not seen anything as comprehensive.

[Editor’s note]: if you think school closures are about the children, well, then you’ve never heard the president of one of the largest teacher’s unions declare: “It’s not about kids, it’s about power“. They’re trying to stop you, stop charter schools, and stop Trump. Reject this bullsh**.

(For more from the author of “JAW-DROPPING NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE REPORT: School Closures Based on Politics, Not Science” please click HERE)

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Coronavirus Phase 4 Stimulus Bill Coming

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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday he could “conclusively” confirm a phase 4 coronavirus relief package is on its way as many Americans’ financial futures remain uncertain because of coronavirus.

“As you read the reports and talk to people on both sides of the aisle on the Hill, it is increasingly clear that there will be an additional package,” Kudlow told “Varney and Co.” “We will try to make it targeted, we will try to incentivize not just work, although work is crucial, and going back to work. We want to incentivize investments, we want a pro-growth package.”

The president has publicly supported provisions like a payroll tax holiday, “modest” return to work bonuses, unemployment reform, a Paycheck Protection Program extension, targeted direct assistance and a capital gains tax holiday, Kudlow said. (Read more from “Coronavirus Phase 4 Stimulus Bill Coming” HERE)

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California Shuts Back Down

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered a halt to indoor activities at certain businesses statewide as cases of coronavirus surge in the country’s most populous state.

Newsom, a Democrat, announced during a press briefing that all bars across the state must close up shop and that restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums and card rooms must suspend indoor activities.

The governor also announced that all gyms, places of worship, malls, personal care services, barbershops, salons, and non-critical offices in counties on the state’s “monitoring list” had to shut down under the new order. The order affects more than 30 counties which are home to about 80 percent of California’s population.

“We’ve made this point on multiple occasions and that is, we’re moving back into a modification mode of our original stay-at-home order,” Newsom said during his press briefing. “This continues to be a deadly disease.”

As of Monday, the state had reported more than 320,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 7,000 deaths, with 23 people dying from the virus since Sunday. Los Angeles County – the country’s most populous county – leads both the state and the country in number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 133,000, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. (Read more from “California Shuts Back Down” HERE)

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Man Accused of Murdering 11-Year-Old Was Released Under Coronavirus Jailbreak

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The same flat-earth “science” being used as a pretext to criminalize Americans for not wearing masks has been used to release violent criminals. Now, another one of those released from jail under coronavirus jailbreak policies has been charged with murder in the nation’s capital.

July 4 weekend was a horrible bloodbath for black children across many of our nation’s prominent cities. As I chronicled each of the cases last week, I predicted that most of the suspects would be repeat violent offenders, gun felons, parole violators, or all of the above. Well, that appears to be the case in the horrific D.C. shooting on Independence Day that left 11-year-old Davon McNeal dead.

McNeal was helping his mother at a neighborhood barbecue when a group of drive-by shooters fatally shot him. D.C. police have now arrested two suspects, have issued warrants for two more, and are waiting on a fifth.

During a press conference on Thursday, Police Chief Peter Newsham announced the arrest of 18-year-old Daryle Bond of Southeast D.C. and noted that he has a violent criminal history. Later that day, Christian Wingfield, 22, was arrested. Warrants have been issued for Marcel Gordon, 25, and Carlo General, 19, and they are still at large. Just this past spring, General was arrested on felony possession of a handgun, but rather than being jailed, he was placed into Maryland’s growing supervised probation program.

Marcel Gordon is a 25-year-old from Southeast D.C. who has two prior gun arrests as well as multiple other charges.

Christian Wingfield was also arrested on felony gun charges in the spring but was placed under “active intensive supervision” with a curfew and GPS monitor. But like all supervised parole programs, there is no deterrent. He allegedly cut off the ankle monitor when he participated in the drive-by shooting. Gordon also had two gun-related arrests as well as other charges.

Here’s the kicker. Wingfield was released from D.C. jail on May 22 because of coronavirus. Mind you, the fatality rate in prisons has been lower than among the non-incarcerated population, but that has not stopped these liberal cities from releasing 94,000 criminals from prisons and jails, according to UCLA’s database. California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced the release of another 8,000 criminals. California has already released over 13,400 from county jails and over 3,400 from prison.

This is a perverted sense of “justice” in America’s major cities today. Politicians are now threatening jail time for those who fail to wear masks under the guise of combating coronavirus, yet they release violent gun felons from jail under that same pretext?

Repeat gun criminals are not rare. Every one of the suspects in this heinous July 4 shooting were arrested for gun crimes but were out on the streets to gun down an 11-year-old child.

Why is it so hard for Republicans to run against jailbreak, weak sentencing, weak policing, and gun felons? They have the perfect narrative against the Left’s gun control and racial jihad against law enforcement. Not a day goes by without an example of gun felons in major gun control cities being released into communities and killing more black victims, including children.

Over this past weekend, there were 15 shootings within 15 hours in black neighborhoods in New York City. On Sunday night, another family was enjoying a cookout in Brooklyn when four of them were shot, including a one-year-old baby who suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach! Shouldn’t these horror stories drive millions to the streets demanding tougher sentencing for career criminals?

Rather than using his national platform to pin the blame for inner city violence on weak-on-crime policies, Attorney General Bill Barr parroted the BLM lie about racial bias in policing during a recent interview with ABC news. “I do think it is a widespread phenomenon that African-American males, in particular, are treated with extra suspicion and maybe not given the benefit of the doubt,” said Barr in a wide-ranging interview last week.

Why can’t we the people have a political party that defends our right to self-defense while severely punishing those who commit violence with guns or possess them as felons? Isn’t that the ultimate message of equality that will actually save all lives, but black lives in particular?

Attorney General Barr should take his cues from former Attorney General Ed Meese. In a recent report from the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund showing an increase in crime and a drop in prosecutions of violent criminals in cities with pro-jailbreak prosecutors, Meese wrote, “The duty of every prosecutor is to serve the public’s interest, not their own. Ideological crusades have no place in the court of law, and criminal conduct cannot be sanctioned on personal whims.”

It’s time to put race, politics, and ideology aside and go after our nation’s gun felons. The lives of innocent children depend on it. (For more from the author of “Man Accused of Murdering 11-Year-Old Was Released Under Coronavirus Jailbreak” please click HERE)

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TO MY FELLOW INNER CITY RESIDENTS: Here’s How the Biden Family’s Crimes Were Handled vs. the Rest of Us

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Oh, I live in an urban area, just so ya know. It’s diverse, amazing and fun. And I ain’t leavin’, period.

But, say, in the interest of promoting the [INSERT COLOR HERE] Lives Matter movements (so many cats, so few recipes), I feel compelled to unleash the “double-standard” trump card. After all, we have seen Hillary Clinton preemptively exonerated for multiple, willful violations of the Espionage Act.

Had you or I violated these codes, we’d be part-way through a sentence at Leavenworth. Which is not as fun as it sounds.

That said, please note how the deep state Beltway notifies us of these kindsa stories…

In August 2019, Caroline Biden, 33, a niece of former Vice President Biden, was busted in Lower Merion Township, Penn., for driving under the influence and without a license, public records show. While the case is active, it’s unlikely Caroline will face much in the way of consequences — if history and Biden family rap sheets are any guide.

Her arrest, which was never made public, was at least the ninth among Joe Biden’s close family, and followed incidents involving his brother Frank, his son Hunter and his daughter Ashley. The cases — ranging from felony theft to drug possession — were all either thrown out, or resulted in light sentences with no jail time, according to a Post review of public records and published reports.

The Pennsylvania drunken-driving collar was the third run-in with the law for Caroline, who is the daughter of Joe’s younger brother, James Biden Sr. In September 2013, she was booked for allegedly hitting an NYPD officer during a full scale meltdown at her Tribeca apartment, following a dispute with a roommate over unpaid rent. The case was dismissed after Caroline agreed to anger management treatment.

Oh, wait. There’s more (emphases mine):

Joe Biden’s brother, Francis ‘Frank’ Biden, 66, won the prize for the most bizarre Biden family bust when he allegedly stuffed two DVDs from a Florida Blockbuster down his pants in October 2003, cops said. He was 49 at the time. He never showed up for a scheduled court hearing on the attempted theft and the state attorney declined to prosecute, according to records obtained by the Miami New Times.

He had more serious scrapes with the law. He was pinched in August 2003 for drunk driving in Fort Lauderdale, earning six months probation. He was arrested a year later for driving with a suspended license but avoided jail again by spending three months in rehab. In 1999, Biden was a passenger in a car involved in a fatal drunk-driving accident. He was found partially liable for the death of 38-year-old William Albano, and owes his family almost $1 million dollars, according to the Daily Mail.

But I’m sure the Biden kclan was treated just as you or I would have been.

THE BIDEN BUSTS
The rap sheets, and favorable court outcomes, of four Joe Biden relatives

Ashley Biden, Daughter, 39
Charge: Pot possession in New Orleans in 1999. No conviction recorded.
Charge: Attempting to obstruct a police officer in Chicago in 2002. Dropped.

Frank Biden, Brother, 66
Charge: DUI in Florida in 2003. Six months probation.
Charge: Petty theft in Florida in 2003. Dropped.
Charge: Driving with suspended license in Florida in 2004. Three months in rehab.

Caroline Biden, Niece, 33
Charge: Resisting arrest, obstruction of government administration, harassment in NYC, 2013. Case dismissed.
Charge: Grand and petty larceny in NYC in 2017. Two years probation; restitution of $110,000 in stolen credit card charges.
Charge: DUI, driving without a licence in Pennsylvania in 2019. Case pending.

Hunter Biden, Son, 50
Charge: Drug possession in New Jersey in 1988. Pretrial intervention program, records expunged.

Well, those are all probably coincidences.

But there aren’t really aren’t two systems of justice. No way.

I’m sure the Biden family — with Joe’s $10 million+ estate — is above reproach. I really believe that. (For more from the author of “TO MY FELLOW INNER CITY RESIDENTS: Here’s How the Biden Family’s Crimes Were Handled vs. the Rest of Us” please click HERE)

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Mass Fraud: Thousands of North Carolina Voters Double-Voted, Watchdog Group Finds

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Thousands of voters in North Carolina voted twice in one or both of the past two elections, according to a court filing in the key battleground state.

Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, announced Thursday that it had filed a brief in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina outlining the number of double votes.

A total of 16,700 duplicate votes were cast in the 2016 and 2018 elections, according to an audit by the watchdog group based on public records.

North Carolina was home to a disputed voter fraud case in 2018.

Public Interest Legal Foundation made the court filing in the case of Democracy NC et. al. v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, which seeks to suspend North Carolina’s protections for mail-in voters during the presidential election in November in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, the state’s public voter rolls show that even with election integrity mechanisms in place, voters registered in more than one precinct are credited for voting a second ballot.

This could be an individual voting twice or someone voting while using someone else’s identity. Such cases largely have resulted from poor maintenance of voter rolls at the local level—for example, not updating the rolls when voters move.

The audit found that in the 2016 presidential election in North Carolina, about 9,700 voters were credited with voting twice. Of these cases, about half—or 5,000—were mail-in ballots.

Two years later, during the 2018 midterm election, about 7,000 voters were credited with voting twice. Of those, 2,900 were mail-in votes, the audit says.

It is not clear how many of the same voters voted twice in both elections.

In one of the most high-profile voter fraud cases in recent years, the North Carolina State Board of Elections decertified the outcome of the 2018 race in the 9th Congressional District and ordered a new election after evidence of absentee ballot fraud emerged.

In that race, 61% of all mailed votes were cast for Republican Mark Harris over Democrat Dan McCready, although only 16% of those requesting a ballot were Republicans. In the new election, Republican Dan Bishop stepped in as the party nominee and won.

“This is a widespread concern in North Carolina,” J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of Public Interest Legal Foundation, said in a written statement. “We should be talking about how to strengthen our systems against misdeeds done out of the sight of election officials in 2020 instead of defending an imperfect system from total ruin.”

Those suing, Adams said, “are only raising the threat of worsening the settled fact that voter fraud is most common in the mail.”

The lawsuit in North Carolina by Democracy NC, the League of Women Voters, and others calls for waiving requirements that voter registration forms be submitted 25 days before an election, eliminating the witness signature on absentee ballots, allowing ballots to be received in ways other than mail, such as contactless dropboxes, and increasing early voting. (For more from the author of “Mass Fraud: Thousands of North Carolina Voters Double-Voted, Watchdog Group Finds” please click HERE)

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