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9:45 AM ET, August 20, 2021

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 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 …
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 …
New York Times:
Live Updates: Biden to Address Afghan Crisis as Desperation Builds at Kabul Airport  —  President Biden will speak on Friday amid intense criticism of the evacuation effort.  A 17-year-old boy was identified as one of the Afghans who fell from a U.S. military plane as it lifted off.
German Election / 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 …
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.
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 …
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
New York Times:
How News Organizations Got Afghan Colleagues Out of Kabul  —  The evacuation of those who worked for outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post came after a global rescue effort stretching from the Pentagon to Qatar.  —  For hours, they waited on the tarmac in the relentless heat …
BBC:
Afghanistan: Taliban carrying out door-to door manhunt, report says  —  The Taliban have stepped up their search for people who worked for Nato forces or the previous Afghan government, a UN document has warned.  —  It said the militants have been going door-to-door to find targets and threatening their family members.
Ed Morrissey / HotAir:
CNN's Ward: Getting inside the Kabul airport “one of the more harrowing things I have experienced”
Discussion: Euractiv and New York Post
Wall Street Journal:
The Right and Our Afghan Allies
Kate Storey / Esquire:   Inside Clarissa Ward's 19-Hour Days Reporting From Kabul
Amnesty International USA:   Taliban responsible for brutal massacre of Hazara men - new investigation
Politico:
Biden and the political fallout from Afghanistan
Discussion: New York Post
Quin Hillyer / Washington Examiner:   Nobody has all the answers on still-deadly COVID-19, so please tone down the rhetoric
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:
CNN:
I live in Texas and I am really angry  —  Gov. Abbott tests positive for Covid-19 after months of blocking mask mandates  —  Stephen I. Vladeck is the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Court at the University of Texas School of Law, a CNN contributor and an expert on the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism.
Michael Gerson / Washington Post:   Govs. DeSantis and Abbott, in denial and risking lives, have betrayed the public trust
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.
Discussion: Townhall and Summit News
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 …
Carla Marinucci / Politico:
Elder's ex-fiancee said he brandished a gun at her  —  PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Alexandra Datig, the former fiancee and longtime radio producer for California GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder, says she broke off an 18-month engagement with the conservative talk show host in 2015 …
RELATED:
Joe Hoft / The Gateway Pundit:   California Rigging the Governor Election Against Larry Elder and Those Who Voted for Recall
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 …
Bob Christie / Associated Press:
Appeals court orders Arizona Senate audit records released  —  PHOENIX (AP) — An appeals court on Thursday rejected an effort by the Arizona Senate to keep secret records of its ongoing review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County that are in the possession of the contractors conducting the recount.
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 …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Adam Serwer / The Atlantic:
Demography Is Not Destiny  —  In the more racist corners of the mainstream right …
New York Times:
China's Vaccine Diplomacy Stumbles in Southeast Asia
Sam Karlin / The Advocate:
‘Locate us a ring’: Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins challenges Facebook user to a fight
Discussion: Politico and Talking Points Memo
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
Talking Points Memo:
Man Who Claimed To Have Bomb Surrenders To Police Near Capitol
 Earlier Items: 
Amanda Marcotte / Salon:
Unvaccinated terror: Proud Boys push the anti-vaccination movement into a violent threat
Mac Stipanovich / Tampa Bay Times:
Ron DeSantis has ‘made a monumental mess of masking in public schools’ | Column
Discussion: Raw Story
Brooks Barnes / New York Times:
Are You Ready for Sentient Disney Robots?
Discussion: HuffPost UK
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
OnlyFans to Block Sexually Explicit Videos Starting in October
 

 
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Shakeel Hashim / Transformer:
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Jay Peters / The Verge:
Bluesky says it has “no intention” of taking user content to train AI tools, ahead of X implementing new terms of service that let it train AI on user content

Ellen Huet / Bloomberg:
A look at the challenges facing the Trump administration for regulating AI; policy analysts suspect Trump will dismantle or reshape the US AI Safety Institute
 
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