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10:40 AM ET, August 20, 2021

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
Politico:
‘This is Actually Happening’  —  President Joe Biden and his inner circle were in an ebullient mood.  —  It was Wednesday morning, Aug. 11, and they were basking in the glow of back-to-back legislative wins.  The day before, the Senate had passed a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
RELATED:
Vivian Salama / Wall Street Journal:
Confidential State Department Cable in July Warned of Afghanistan's Collapse  —  About two dozen State Department officials in Kabul sent an internal memo to Secretary of State Antony Blinken  —  WASHINGTON — About two dozen State Department officials serving at the embassy in Kabul sent …
Michael Crowley / New York Times:
Trump's Deal With the Taliban Draws Fire From His Former Allies  —  The former president and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, are attacking President Biden over Afghanistan even as their own policy faces harsh criticism.  —  WASHINGTON — Days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 …
David Ignatius / Washington Post:
The Best and Brightest never recovered from Vietnam.  Will Biden's team fare better?  —  The Afghanistan disaster has rocked the Biden administration's foreign policy team, which may need months to regain its sense of balance and momentum.  —  Senior officials don't have time or emotional bandwidth …
Ed Morrissey / HotAir:
CNN's Ward: Getting inside the Kabul airport “one of the more harrowing things I have experienced”  —  The good news: CNN's Clarissa Ward and her crew have finally made it into the airport in Kabul.  The bad news: It's not a heck of a lot better inside.  “There isn't a coherent mechanism yet …
Discussion: Euractiv and New York Post
DW.COM:
Relative of DW journalist killed by the Taliban  —  Journalists and their families are in grave danger in Afghanistan.  The Taliban have no compunction about carrying out targeted killings as the case of a DW journalist shows.  —  Taliban fighters hunting a DW journalist have shot dead …
Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times:
Encounter with the Taliban: Punched, detained — then offered an energy drink  —  FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT AND PHOTOGRAPHER  —  When I headed out to work, it had been five days since the Taliban took over Kabul.  And it was Independence Day, a national holiday, when Afghans celebrate their country's independence from Britain in 1919.
Discussion: The Daily Beast
Patrick Reilly / New York Post:
Oklahoma mom of 11 rescues members of Afghan all-girls robotics team  —  An Oklahoma mother of 11 flew to Afghanistan earlier this month to rescue 10 members of the country's all-girls robotics team, and hoping to save more as the Taliban takes power in Kabul.
Peter Nicholas / The Atlantic:
What Joe Biden Is Betting On  —  Call it the White House's dream scenario: In the end, the voters don't blame Joe Biden.  The president's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan simply aligns him with everyone else who has given up on the notion that the military could mold a fractious country into a stable democratic ally.
Reuters:
Biden's Afghanistan policy counts on issue fading in importance for war-weary voters  —  President Joe Biden is brushing off criticism of his administration's chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal because he and his aides believe the political fallout at home will be limited, according to White House allies and administration officials.
Katherine Tully-McManus / Politico:
Capitol rattled by standoff ahead of House's return next week
Wall Street Journal:
The Right and Our Afghan Allies
Kate Storey / Esquire:
Inside Clarissa Ward's 19-Hour Days Reporting From Kabul
Discussion: Washington Post
Amnesty International USA:   Taliban responsible for brutal massacre of Hazara men - new investigation
Politico:
Biden and the political fallout from Afghanistan
Discussion: New York Times and New York Post
Paul Krugman / New York Times:
The Quiet Rage of the Responsible  —  Let's talk for a minute about Lollapalooza.  After canceling in-person events last year, a few weeks ago Chicago once again hosted the long-running music festival, drawing more than 385,000 people.  Many feared that the huge, raucous crowds could produce a coronavirus superspreader event.
Discussion: Off the Kuff
RELATED:
Michael Gerson / Washington Post:   Govs. DeSantis and Abbott, in denial and risking lives, have betrayed the public trust
Mac Stipanovich / Tampa Bay Times:
Ron DeSantis has ‘made a monumental mess of masking in public schools’ | Column
Discussion: Raw Story
Reuters:
EXCLUSIVE FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated-sources  —  The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.
Anne Applebaum / The Atlantic:
Liberal Democracy Is Worth a Fight  —  Of all the empty, pointless statements that are periodically repeated by Western politicians, none is more empty and pointless than this one: “There can be no military solution to this conflict.”  That was what Ban Ki-moon, then the UN secretary-general …
New York Times:
The new ‘Jeopardy!’ host, Mike Richards, quits.  —  Mike Richards, who was named the new host of “Jeopardy!” last week, is abruptly leaving the role as the beloved game show after a report this week resurfaced offensive and sexist comments he made on a podcast several years ago.
Dave Lieber / Dallas Morning News:
If North Texas runs out of ICU hospital beds, doctors can consider a patient's vaccination status  —  This would be a big change in health care, but doctors have yet to announce it.  So The Watchdog does it for them.  —  North Texas doctors have quietly developed a plan that seeks to prepare …
Daily Mail:
Fox News' Greg Gutfeld is crowned new king of late night television after he scores 220K MORE viewers than Colbert's Late Show on CBS  — Comedian Greg Gutfeld's show pulled in the most viewers during Tuesday's late night time slot with about 2.12 million  — Gutfeld! debuted in April …
Sam Karlin / The Advocate:
‘Locate us a ring’: Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins challenges Facebook user to a fight  —  Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins has once again threatened someone on Facebook with violence.  —  The Lafayette Republican, who has a long history of bizarre social media antics …
Discussion: Talking Points Memo
J. Patrick Coolican / Minnesota Reformer:
Carnahan resigns as chair of Minnesota Republican Party  —  Jennifer Carnahan, who rocketed from nowhere to prominence in Minnesota politics just four years ago, resigned as chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota Thursday in the face of explosive allegations that she presided …
RELATED:
Adam Serwer / The Atlantic:
Demography Is Not Destiny  —  In the more racist corners of the mainstream right, the 2020 census findings that the white American population has declined are cause for panic.  —  “Democrats are intentionally accelerating demographic change in this country for political advantage,” …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Roger Sollenberger / The Daily Beast:
Newest House GOP Star Teams Up With Nutty MAGA Conspiracy Theorist
Discussion: Raw Story
Jordan Fischer / wusa9.com:
Suspect in Capitol bomb threat echoed ‘Big Lie,’ demanded free health insurance
Discussion: UPI, Raw Story and Associated Press
Emma Green / The Atlantic:
Why America's Largest Teachers' Union Refuses to Support Vaccine Mandates
New York Times:
China's Vaccine Diplomacy Stumbles in Southeast Asia
Zachary Faria / Washington Examiner:
Democrats increasingly embrace censorship from the government and Big Tech: Poll
Discussion: The Western Journal
Adam S. Minsky / Forbes:
Biden To Automatically Cancel $5.8 Billion In Student Loans For Over 300,000 Disabled Borrowers
Discussion: New York Post
 Earlier Items: 
Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
Unvaccinated terror: Proud Boys push the anti-vaccination movement into a violent threat
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Are You Ready for Sentient Disney Robots?
Discussion: HuffPost UK and Gawker
Carla Marinucci / Politico:
Elder's ex-fiancee said he brandished a gun at her
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
OnlyFans to Block Sexually Explicit Videos Starting in October
 

 
From Mediagazer:

John Koblin / New York Times:
NBC names Craig Melvin as Hoda Kotb's successor on Today, teaming up with Savannah Guthrie, starting January 13; Melvin has been Today's news anchor since 2018

Mia Sato / The Verge:
Facebook makes Views its primary metric for content, bringing it in line with Instagram; each time a piece of content appears on a screen, it counts as a View

Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
On Fox News, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong discussed his new approach to publish “views from both sides”, and said the paper had conflated news and opinion
 
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