Top Items:
Sarah Kolinovsky / ABC News:
Biden says he did not see a way to withdraw from Afghanistan without ‘chaos ensuing’ — In an exclusive ABC News interview, Biden opens up on his decision to withdraw. — In an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, and the president's first since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban …
Discussion:
HuffPost, Politico, Breitbart, The Guardian, New York Post, NPR, Washington Times, The Daily Caller, CBS News, Townhall, HotAir, RedState, Forbes, The Gateway Pundit, Mediaite, Louder With Crowder, The US Sun, Insider, National File, National Review, Raw Story, The Hill, TheBlaze and IJR
RELATED:
Politico:
Biden scrambles to tamp down panic over Afghanistan — The White House is moving quickly to contain the fallout from the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, hoping to blunt possible damage to the rest of the president's agenda. — Since Sunday, administration officials have been issuing assurances …
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, The New Neo, Becker News, New York Post, Fox News, Townhall and White House Dossier
Molly Nagle / ABC News:
US troops will stay until all Americans are out of Afghanistan, even if past Aug. 31 deadline: Biden to ABC News
US troops will stay until all Americans are out of Afghanistan, even if past Aug. 31 deadline: Biden to ABC News
Discussion:
Insider, CNN, Breitbart, Fox News, MSN, National Review, Townhall, New York Post, The Daily Caller, The Hill, Bloomberg, RedState, Defense One, Mediaite and Just The News
Washington Post:
Biden administration moved slowly to help Afghan refugees as it prepared to exit
Biden administration moved slowly to help Afghan refugees as it prepared to exit
Discussion:
Politico, Christianity Today and Daily Kos
Jim Geraghty / National Review:
Biden's ‘I Am Not Sending My Boy Back There’ Comment in Context
Biden's ‘I Am Not Sending My Boy Back There’ Comment in Context
Discussion:
Washington Post, Power Line, Townhall and Jacobin
Tom Rogan / Washington Examiner:
US allies deeply concerned by Biden's detachment
US allies deeply concerned by Biden's detachment
Discussion:
Fox News
Becket Adams / Washington Examiner:
An evasive White House quietly hints that not all Americans will make it out of Afghanistan
An evasive White House quietly hints that not all Americans will make it out of Afghanistan
Discussion:
ABC News, Townhall and Power Line
Oli Coleman / Page Six:
Larry David ‘screamed’ at Alan Dershowitz at grocery store over Trump ties — It seems that Alan Dershowitz's ties to the Trump administration have made him persona non grata among the Martha's Vineyard elite — including Larry David. — A Page Six spy spotted the Harvard Law professor …
Discussion:
New York Magazine, Mediaite, Lawyers, Guns & Money, The Wrap, POLITICUSUSA, Boston.com and Raw Story
Patrick Tucker / Defense One:
Trump's Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says — Chris Miller now says talk of a full withdrawal was a “play” to convince a Taliban-led government to keep U.S. counterterrorism forces. — AFGHANISTAN - WHITE HOUSE - PENTAGON - TERRORISM
Discussion:
Raw Story, Bipartisan Report, Vanity Fair and Newsweek
RELATED:
Douglas London / Just Security:
CIA's Former Counterterrorism Chief for the Region: Afghanistan, Not An Intelligence Failure — Something Much Worse — While it's certainly convenient to depict the shock and miscalculation U.S. officials claim over Afghanistan's tragic, rapid fall to the Taliban as an intelligence failure, the reality is far worse.
Julian E. Barnes / New York Times:
Intelligence Agencies Did Not Predict Imminence of Afghan Collapse, Officials Say — The acknowledgment came as the Biden administration faces heavy criticism over its handling of the withdrawal of American-led forces from Afghanistan. — WASHINGTON — Intelligence reports presented …
Discussion:
Fox News, Axios, RedState and New York Post
Wall Street Journal:
Taliban Is Denied Foreign Aid but Taps Billion-Dollar Drug Trade
Taliban Is Denied Foreign Aid but Taps Billion-Dollar Drug Trade
Discussion:
Digby's Hullabaloo
Andrew Prokop / Vox:
Why Biden was so set on withdrawing from Afghanistan
Why Biden was so set on withdrawing from Afghanistan
Discussion:
CNN, New York Times and Wall Street Journal
Stuart Ramsay / Sky News:
Afghanistan: Desperate women throw babies over razor wire at compound, asking British soldiers to take them — As every day passes, the relief operation gets more and more urgent and desperate, as the British military tries to move thousands of people out of Afghanistan in just days.
Discussion:
New York Times, The Drive, Associated Press, The New Neo, RedState and Politico
RELATED:
Wall Street Journal:
Afghan Women Are Already Fading From Public View as Fear of the Taliban and Uncertainty Prevail — Women are afraid to go outside or speak out as crackdowns on freedoms begin — Dr. Zuhal used to drive herself to work. — This week, she started taking a taxi to avoid reprisals from the Taliban, who once banned women from driving.
Discussion:
Japan Times and Vanity Fair
U.S. Embassy / U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan:
Security Alert: U.S. Embassy Kabul (August 18, 2021) — U.S. government-provided flights are departing. U.S. citizens, LPRs, and their spouses and unmarried children (under age 21) should consider travelling to Hamid Karzai International Airport. You should plan to enter the airport at Camp Sullivan.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, HotAir, CNBC, The Captain's Journal, CNN, Washington Post, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, ABC News, Breitbart, New York Post, Forbes and NBC News
Zachary Evans / National Review:
Secretary of Defense: 'I Don't Have the Capability' to Escort Stranded Americans to Kabul Airport
Secretary of Defense: 'I Don't Have the Capability' to Escort Stranded Americans to Kabul Airport
Graeme Wood / The Atlantic:
This Is Not the Taliban 2.0 — When the Taliban first sacked Kabul 25 years ago …
This Is Not the Taliban 2.0 — When the Taliban first sacked Kabul 25 years ago …
Discussion:
CNN and Washington Examiner
Andrea Salcedo / Washington Post:
A mom of 4 who died of covid days after her husband makes one final wish: ‘Make sure my kids get vaccinated’ — A few weeks ago, Lydia Rodriguez thought her body was strong enough to fight the coronavirus without the vaccine. — But after a week-long church camp, she and other members …
Discussion:
The US Sun, Raw Story, ABC13 and ABC News
Claire McNear / The Ringer:
“A Smile With Sharp Teeth”: Mike Richards's Rise to ‘Jeopardy!’ Host Sparks Questions About His Past — The ‘Jeopardy!’ host search is finally over. New reporting reveals that concerns about Richards and the show's selection process remain. — One day in the fall of 2013, Mike Richards called Ken Jennings.
Discussion:
Variety, TMZ.com, Mediaite, The Wrap, Deadline, The US Sun, The A.V. Club and Hollywood Reporter
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Facebook shared new data about what's popular on its platform. The answers are deeply weird. — Report shows a Green Bay Packers alumni page and an online CBD store, not right-wing pundits, are among the most viewed links in people's feeds, as Facebook pushes back against independent studies.
Discussion:
About Facebook, Wired and Ethan Zuckerman, more at Mediagazer »
Arian Campo-Flores / Wall Street Journal:
Miami-Dade Votes to Mandate Masks in Schools, Setting Up Fight With DeSantis — The district and Hillsborough County voted to require masks, a day after the state sanctioned other districts — MIAMI—Two of Florida's largest school districts voted Wednesday to implement mask mandates …
Discussion:
Politico, Florida Politics and Fox News
RELATED:
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
The GOP is losing the PR battle on coronavirus mandates
The GOP is losing the PR battle on coronavirus mandates
Discussion:
Florida Politics, The Hill and Mock Paper Scissors
John Walcott / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
War correspondent Joe Galloway died on Wednesday — War correspondent and author Joseph Galloway, who covered the front lines from the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965 to an onion field outside Basra in 1991, died Wednesday of complications following a heart attack. He was 79.
Discussion:
Associated Press
RELATED:
Josh Partlow / Washington Post:
Federal judge rejects Trump-era permits for major Alaska oil project — Wednesday's decision is a setback for ConocoPhillips's Willow project, which aims to produce more than 100,000 barrels a day on the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska — A federal judge on Wednesday threw out the permits …
Discussion:
Anchorage Daily News and Politico
Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times:
Vaccines' protection against virus infection is waning, C.D.C. studies suggest. — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released three studies on Wednesday that federal officials said provided evidence that booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines …
Discussion:
Washington Post, HHS News releases, Reason, The American Independent, UPI, globalnews.ca and Politico
Kat Stafford / Associated Press:
Movement for Black Lives: Feds targeted BLM protesters — The federal government deliberately targeted Black Lives Matter protesters via heavy-handed criminal prosecutions in an attempt to disrupt and discourage the global movement that swept the nation last summer in the wake …
Discussion:
The Hill
New York Times:
Kushner Friend Who Was Pardoned by Trump Is Charged in New York — Ken Kurson, the former editor of The New York Observer, has been charged with two felonies. Prosecutors said he installed spyware on his former wife's computer in order to surveil her. — Seven months after he was pardoned …
Discussion:
CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Associated Press, NBC News and The Intellectualist
New York Times:
The Biden administration will use a federal civil rights office to deter states from banning universal masking in classrooms. — The Biden administration, escalating its fight with Republican governors who are blocking local school districts from requiring masks to protect against the coronavirus …
Ahmad Massoud / Washington Post:
The mujahideen resistance to the Taliban begins now. But we need help. — Ahmad Massoud is the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. — In 1998, when I was 9 years old, my father, the mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, gathered his soldiers in a cave in the Panjshir Valley of northern Afghanistan.
Discussion:
Washington Examiner, France 24, New York Times, The Drive and The Daily Caller
Cap / madison.com:
Ron Johnson is a crook — Ron Johnson is not the only con artist in the U.S. Senate. But he stands out as the senator whose grifting costs taxpayers — in Wisconsin and nationwide — the most. — Just last week, The Washington Post reported, “Sen. Rand Paul revealed Wednesday …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller
Oliver Darcy / CNN:
Fox News mandates employees disclose vaccination status, contradicting rhetoric from top stars — New York (CNN Business)The right-wing channel Fox News, whose top personalities have for months assailed the concept of vaccine passports and argued that asking about vaccine status amounts …
Discussion:
Media Matters for America and The Intellectualist
Peter Wehner / The Atlantic:
Biden's Long Trail of Betrayals — Why is the president so consistently wrong on major foreign-policy matters? — About the author: Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He writes widely on political, cultural …
Miru / CREW:
Judge: USPS must turn over DeJoy conflicts docs — A federal judge ruled last night that the US Postal Service must give Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington documents about potential conflicts of interest by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. — Over the past seven years …
Discussion:
Law & Crime, Bipartisan Report and Common Dreams
Renuka Rayasam / Politico:
Hitting the vax ceiling — BOOST, THERE IT IS — Are Covid booster shots going to become a yearly ritual, or is it going to be three jabs and you're out? Now that the Biden administration is finalizing a plan that would call for Americans to get a third vaccine dose eight months after their last one …