'Residents'

 I sat and read a piece this morning, and the topic was....an announcement by a sheriff (up in Wisconsin) that he's going to start using the phrase 'residents' instead of 'inmates'.  He says that it's more human to use the term.

I sat and pondered over this.

Generally, when you use the term residents to me....it usually means folks who stay and live in a 'community'.....long-term.  

Sheriffs tend to run jails....not prisons.  So this is usually where the judge has passed some sentence and you got 30 to 90 days of 'time', and you stay right there in the county jail....NOT some state prison 300 miles away.

Would most guys care for the term being introduced?  I doubt it.  Maybe if it meant an extra muffin, or a private 3-minute shower, or new mattresses being part of the deal....it'd make a difference, but I doubt that you get anything new.

Failures Story

 I sat and watched a bit of CNN today, with Clarissa Ward.  At some point, talking over the Biden business and Afghanistan, she hyped-up and asked....."If this isn’t failure, what does failure look like exactly?"

I worked in various military-related organizations in my life, and we had projects which were deemed by members of the unit as 'failures'.  Some of us (not myself) even got medals for the 'failed' projects.  Some folks even got promoted (even Captains to Major) by accomplishing a doomed and utter failure.

I sat and looked at a renovation project....probably involving $50,000 in funding....where the end-work could not be used as projected, and simply became a storage room.

I could point at a dozen construction projects in the DC area, where tens of millions were spent, and were utter disasters at the half-way point....requiring tens of extra millions to renovate the screw-ups.

There's a hotel/BX project at Ramstein.....which came to be a serious crappy project.  The opera-house in Hamburg, went way over the original estimate because of failures.  The BER airport in Berlin?  Massive failures.  The Stuttgart-21 railway project.....massive failures.

I'm sure that I could sit down with twenty folks and probably identify well over 300 failed situations.  

CNN itself?  Well....it's a failed news media organization.

Trying to get President Biden to admit his decision doomed this whole Afghanistan thing?  No, he has no will-power to go and admit this.  

So it's just something better left lying on the street....like dog-crap.  Don't pick it up.....don't worry about it, and don't hype color or texture of the dog-crap.  Just leave it.  

Something To Make You Pause Over

 When you consider twenty-odd years of US-war on the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the ISIS thugs in Syria and Iraq, and various Muslim groups in Africa, with the Saudi-war itself in Yemen....there are tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of dead Islamic guys.

This 2021 Taliban group?  The CIA says....there were around 80,000 Taliban warriors who made the 'win' in Afghanistan possible.  How accurate were the CIA on this assessment or any other assessment here in 2021?  You really can't say.  They might be 100-percent correct.....they might be 60-percent correct.

Here's the thing....how many of the Taliban crew were originally Afghan Army members, and simply defected over to the Taliban?  It wouldn't surprise me if in six months....the CIA come to admit almost half of the Taliban membership for this drive into Kabul.....were former Afghan Army folks (disenchanted with the corruption of the Afghan state).  

If that was the case, you'd probably ask a lot of questions about what went on for that entire twenty-year period, with no one really willing to answer questions. 

Poll Story

 I sat and read a piece today over a new poll from Rasmussen Reports.

So, here's the deal....ten percent of people who identify as Democrats....say now that they regret their vote for Joe Biden in 2020.

Yeah.  One out of ten.  Now, maybe the poll asked the question in a funny way and half of them just didn't grasp what was meant.  Maybe they were even under the influence of narcotics, booze, or paranoid schizophrenia.  

We are eight months into this Biden-era, and it's a bit shocking that ten percent admit this already.  Getting into mid-summer of 2022?  I would imagine it might be twenty percent by then.

But here's the odd thing....from these same polling folks, they broke it out to minority status, and blacks came up to around 14-percent admitting they were regretful over their vote for Biden as well.

So out of every nine blacks who were hyped-up and voted for Biden....one of them has regrets now?  Yeah.  They aren't saying they would have voted for Trump....just that there's regret over Biden.  

If you had a black co-worker or friend in this category?  You can console them and offer up a beer.  

Afghanistan, Biden and Observations

 1.  I went back yesterday and watched the Monday evening Biden 'talk'.  It's an odd thing...I counted just in a five-minute period, about twenty-five moments where he was about to say something 'else', caught himself, and corrected.  Maybe it was the speed of the text machine in front of him, some personal style of his, or just being tired, but it was noticeable.

2.  Why have these reporters in the room, and pretend it was a news conference....when he would finish and just walk out of the room?  Unknown.  I would imagine they were all standing there at the end...wondering why the hell they got the phone-call to show up.....when nothing could be asked.

3.  Yesterday, President Biden said 15,000 Americans (non-military, non-embassy) may be in Afghanistan still in the end, with no way out.  An accurate number?  Well...no one can be sure about this.  Just in journalists, it wouldn't shock me if there were fifty-odd Americans walking around.  Contractors?  I seriously doubt if any of them remain.

4.  This 'good Taliban' suggestion?  It's probably multiplied over the past twenty-four hours.  I know....it sounds like 'good Nazis' or 'good KKK members'. 

5.  Serious use of smart-phones and Twitter by the Taliban?  This has been brought up a number of times.  A lot of the messages received by the public....come from Taliban leadership via Twitter.  Twitter wasn't around in the 1990s, and the cellphone technology was just beginning to really take off.  It's an odd factor in this whole game.

6.  The idea that the Russians or Chinese are supporting the Taliban this time around?  The rumor is continuing to be pushed.  

7.  When the Americans left Bagram Air Base on 5 July (Monday), in the evening hours without saying a word to the locals....that was the moment when everyone (the Afghans, the Germans, the Brits, etc) should have realized how messy and unplanned the next two months were.  That was the moment to pack up in Kabul and get a plane out of the country.

8.  If this mess elevates to the point where a thousand Americans are left after the rescue concludes, and are arrested/detained/held?  This will mean 'talks' and some 'gift' for the Taliban.  In this scenario, I would suggest that President Biden's strategy will have reached a point where impeachment or the 25th Amendment will be openly discussed.  At the very least, back in June....he should have asked for an evacuation plan to be prepared, and positioned enough troops to carry it out.  

9.  Where is VP Harris?  In Vietnam, visiting.

10.  On the bizarre scale....this ramped up and I'd give it a 'solid-TEN'.  As weak as President Carter was, and the severe marginalized skills of President Harding....you are just left wondering how the remaining 3.3 years of Biden can go.  You almost need a full-time person standing there and asking him to explain why his decisions go this way, and force him to evaluate priorities in a totally different way.  It's ridiculous to suggest that you need to teach a 78-year old guy but that's the simple blunt truth.

Seven Things I Expect for Remaining Months of 2021 With Afghanistand/Biden

 1.  I don't think you will see a live Q-and-A with President Biden for remainder of 2021.  There might be an agreed upon format....one moderator, and agreement NOT to bring up Afghanistan at all.  It'll be January of 2022 before he does a real interview session. 

2.  The Taliban, within the next month or two....will give out a statement thanking President Biden for his help in conquering the opposing force.  It'll be a serious statement but done in a cynical way.  Even comedians will laugh over how the 'insult' was created.

3.  President Biden will try to drum up a European 'visit' (I'd suggest October, after the German election).  He'll find that virtually no one really at ease in having him visit.  The visit discussion will come and go.  Maybe by December....India or Russia will agree to a visit.

4.  Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, said she'd leave before the end of the year.  I suspect she'll speed it up and probably be gone by the end of September.  Whoever comes....I will go and predict that they last no more than four months, before resigning.

5.  Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to President Biden, is going to be 'rewarded' with a lesser-position in the State Department (you will perceive as a demotion).  Several bungled episodes leading back to him (even in the Obama White House) will add up and he'll be eased out.  Pointed questions to Psaki will get responses that indicate her dislike for the guy.  

6.  VP Harris distances herself even more from the insider meetings at the White House....realizing that competent authority is marginal.  

7.  Finally, some rumor by January will start up about the DNC reviewing options for the 2024 Presidential election.  Both the WaPo and NY Times will be covering the confidential talks and Biden hostility will brew over how he is excluded from the discussions.  The DNC will eventually suggest that they don't want any support statement or 'blessing' from Biden for their top two or three choices.  

WaPo Article: 80,000 Afghans on Some List for a Green Card

 It's an interesting story, with no idea given on who joked around or started this story in the Biden White House.

So, what happens if 80,000 get the 'card' and a free ticket into the US?

I would suggest massive cultural shock, and a three-year period where half of the incoming folks fail miserably integrating.  I wouldn't even say it'd be their fault.

You'd go support a group of 500 into some community in SF, and this whole fake wokeism would be an extremely tough thing to grasp, or having some tell you that there are 39 genders, or that BLM actually does matter.  

Educational level?  You'd wake up a year into this and find of the eighty-thousand....a quarter them were educated to what you'd say is the sixth-grade level.  You'd tell the mayor or local federal guy that integration gets tougher day by day, and frankly....they don't care.  Eventually, the term 'fake-integration' would be uttered.  

At some point, four years into this...ten-thousand of them would ask to be helped to fly back into Afghanistan....giving up because the American culture is 'too-crazy' for them to adjust to.