David Corn From the Land
Snip:

The arrogance and ineptitude of Bush, Cheney, and their henchmen have led to the horrible images and tales we have seen reported from Afghanistan in the past few days—which themselves are the continuation of many years of horrible images and tales from the double-debacle of these two wars.


As the Post put it, “senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

The 20 years of fighting did keep the Taliban at bay, and for many Afghans that was a true benefit. But the lies certainly were an offense against the American public and the Constitution. The war in Afghanistan—prosecuted in ignorance and sold with hubris and falsehoods—has been a scandal of the highest order, a fundamental violation of the national trust.


https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/the-afghanistan-debacle-this-land-sneak-peek/

“He ran out of Afghanistan instead of following the plan our Administration left for him,” the former president wrote in a statement Saturday. Then, barely 25 hours later, another statement from Trump: “Never would have happened if I were President!”

While we’ll never know exactly what a Trump administration-led withdrawal from Afghanistan will look like, we can make some educated guesses based on his words from barely a month ago. “I started the process, all the troops are coming home,” he told supporters at a rally in Wellington, Ohio in late June. “What are we going to say? We’ll stay for another 21 years, then we’ll stay for another 50. The whole thing is ridiculous.” And few months before that, in April of this year, Trump was clear about where he stood: “We can and should get out earlier…Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st.” Trump’s former National Security Advisor even agrees, saying the former president “would’ve done essentially the same thing” as Biden.

So let me get this straight, the only president to be impeached twice is blaming Biden for a mess that Trump took credit for in front of supporters?
][link:https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2021/08/donald-trump-statement-joe-biden-afghanistan/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-08-16-2021|

A university student tells of seeing all around her the ‘fearful faces of women and ugly faces of men who hate women’

Early on Sunday morning I was heading to university for a class when a group of women came running out from the women’s dormitory. I asked what had happened and one of them told me the police were evacuating them because the Taliban had arrived in Kabul, and they will beat women who do not have a burqa.

We all wanted to get home, but we couldn’t use public transport. The drivers would not let us in their cars because they did not want to take responsibility for transporting a woman. It was even worse for the women from the dormitory, who are from outside Kabul and were scared and confused about where they should go.

Meanwhile, the men standing around were making fun of girls and women, laughing at our terror. “Go and put on your chadari [burqa],” one called out. “It is your last days of being out on the streets,” said another. “I will marry four of you in one day,” said a third.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/an-afghan-woman-in-kabul-now-i-have-to-burn-everything-i-achieved|

Afghans who fled their homeland to settle in the UK express their fears for family and friends left behind


SNIP:
Dr Mohammad Haqmal, a public health director and academic who lived under the Taliban in Afghanistan and is now settled in the UK, says his fears for his sisters and brothers and their families trapped in Kabul are too great to put into words.

“I’m getting messages through the night from my family. Everyone is desperate to try to escape to India or Pakistan but they cannot do so. We never thought things would go back to this situation in Afghanistan. I have not been able to eat anything for the last few days. Things are getting worse and worse. We thought the Afghan government would resist but they have not.”

He is also distraught on a professional level. He worked in conditions of great adversity when he was a public health director in Afghanistan on an initiative known as the $1 project, which saved the lives of 2,500 women over an 18-month period in two districts with the poorest health indicators in the world. He believes the Taliban will undo much of that public health work.

“I used to lead the student association at the university in Kabul and I tried to speak to the Taliban. It is very difficult to explain to people here what it was really like living under their regime when you have not experienced that darkness. Life under the Taliban was like living in a graveyard. I remember a playground was built for children and the Taliban just tried to break all the equipment. They do not understand how to use resources. Everything has gone back to zero. Men are at risk but the risk is greatest for women. We do not want to let these stupid people take over but the world needs to stand with us.”

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/15/the-world-needs-to-stand-with-us-uk-afghans-watch-on-as-tragedy-unfolds|

The AI-generated nudes, which look horrifyingly realistic, are sweeping the web.

The website promises to make “men’s dreams come true.” Users upload a photo of a fully clothed woman of their choice, and in seconds, the site undresses them for free. With that one feature, it has exploded into one of the most popular “deepfake” tools ever created.


Any vindictive creep, for example, could easily “nudify” and post photos of his ex online to make it seem, very convincingly, as if her actual nudes had been leaked. “Holy mother [of] god,” one user raved about the tool’s “amazing” abilities in an online forum where men consume and discuss deepfake porn. “Ive never seen [results like this] before ... t


It’s unknown who is behind the site, which is riddled with spelling and syntax errors, just as it’s unclear where they are based. The operators did not respond to multiple interview requests from HuffPost. Last month, the U.S. was by far the site’s leading source of traffic, followed by Thailand, Taiwan, Germany and China. Now-deleted Medium posts demonstrating how to use the site featured before-and-after pictures of Asian women exclusively.

[link:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/deepfake-tool-nudify-women_n_6112d765e4b005ed49053822?link_id=19&can_id=bd85735f14962f3dd28c92002ae87091&source=email-erasing-january-6th-6&email_referrer=email_1261081&email_subject=kabul-falls-what-did-we-learn|

I don't know what to call this - so I will call it the freeper stare.

I am light skin and lately, when I go in to less blue areas. I feel the stare from a white male. A hostile stare. One was wearing khakis and a white shirt and had shades. I stared back, and he brought his glasses down to show me a look of hate. We left the bar.

In a restaurant, I saw the stare of another woman of color. Same thing, just stare without a smile.

Today we are out having a few beers. Another hard stare. Narrow eyes staring at me, not a smile anywhere. He sat with four other women, and they were oblivious to his behavior. We ready to leave and we did not linger.



Anyone else seen or experienced this behavior?

Every year, up to 7 billion day-old male chicks are tossed into shredding machines, gassed, or suffocated in plastic bags—a process known as “chick culling.” This grim ritual is underpinned by both biology and economics: Male chicks don’t lay eggs, and they fatten up too slowly to be sold as meat. Across the globe, culling has become the default strategy for the egg industry to eliminate unwanted hatchlings.


[link:https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/03/chick-culling-cruel-wasteful-and-tough-stop/618348/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email|

[link:https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-pasco/horses-in-central-florida-are-being-targeted-slaughtered-for-their-meat-says-officials|

Horses in Central Florida are being targeted, slaughtered for their meat, says officials
[link:Horses in Central Florida are being targeted, slaughtered for their meat, says officials|


PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — Horses in Central Florida are being targeted by thieves, and some may have even been slaughtered for their meat.

“Everybody’s watching, everybody’s nervous, everybody’s on edge,” said Brena Kramer.

PASCO NEWS | The latest headlines from Pasco County

Kramer is convinced that’s what strangers, who came onto her property twice in one week, were going to do. She says thankfully they didn’t get that far.

Powerful enablers who up until this week had stuck by Donald Trump as he incited and practically begged his supporters to unleash violence are suddenly over it. The very people who’d spent years treating Trump rallies as nothing more than walk-in dioramas of hate—cartoonishly evil but still just a cartoon—are suddenly issuing blistering statements. Tweeting curse words. Saying enough of this president. But let’s be real: The panicked efforts we’re seeing this week are nothing more than a performance of strained morality and self-pity.

Kelly Ann Conway:
The former Trump adviser and prolific liar once had quite the self-serving spin on the violence she now claims to reject. “The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns,” Conway told Fox & Friends in August, “the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”


[link:https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2021/01/trump-enablers-shallow-morality-gaslighting/?utm_source=mj-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-newsletter-01-08-2021|

When the Senate reconvened at 8 p.m., and the House of Representatives an hour later, the proceedings — including the objection debates — continued, although some lawmakers who had previously planned to vote with the objectors stood down following the occupation of the Capitol. Plans to challenge a number of states after Arizona were scrapped, as well — but one other objection, to Pennsylvania’s results, also advanced to a vote. Here are the eight senators and 139 representatives who voted to sustain one or both objections.



Senate

Tommy Tuberville, Ala.


Rick Scott, Fla.


Roger Marshall, Kan.


John Kennedy, La.


Cindy Hyde-Smith, Miss.


Josh Hawley, Mo.


Ted Cruz, Texas


Cynthia Lummis, Wyo.

House

Robert B. Aderholt, Ala.


Mo Brooks, Ala.


Jerry Carl, Ala.


Barry Moore, Ala.


Gary Palmer, Ala.


Mike Rogers, Ala.


Andy Biggs, Ariz.


Paul Gosar, Ar






More:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email