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The Truth About the Taliban's Takeover of Afghanistan
President Biden continues to get widely criticized for his actions in Afghanistan, carrying out a plan to remove troops from the country which Republicans bragged about and cheered on when it was Trump’s idea. What followed was a swift takeover by the Taliban which led ultimately to the capture of the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday. So now right wingers in America are trying to argue that Biden went about leaving in the wrong manner and that if Trump was still in charge he would have withdrawn the troops in a way that would have prevented the Taliban from taking charge. If Trump had followed through with his plans to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban likely still would have taken over, perhaps even on an earlier timeline since Trump wanted to be out by May of this year. The peace deal Trump signed with the Taliban in February of 2020 said as much, an agreement which has now been scrubbed from the record on the Republican National Committee’s website.
Left out of this discussion of who deserves the blame for the Taliban’s takeover — Trump or Biden, is the most important piece in all of this which is that the war began under George W. Bush and it didn’t have to be this way. The twenty year attempt at nation building failed and at a certain point it was time to bring the troops home. Many argue that provided the US was going to go into the Middle East after 9/11, the appropriate time to leave was shortly after Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in 2011. Staying in Afghanistan for another ten or twenty years would have been great for the military industrial complex but not for the American taxpayers and the US and NATO troops putting their lives at risk in foreign lands. What we saw this week was the propped up Afghan government collapse under the slightest bit of pressure because there was no genuine belief in it, showing US-led efforts had failed. This outcome was all but inevitable short of a full-scale war. The Taliban was likely to take over had Trump pulled troops out a few months earlier than Biden, or many years down the road if the US decided to stay for even longer.
COVID Hellscape Florida WILL NOT STOP
COVID-19 is completely out of control in the state of Florida, in part because of the disastrous decisions made by the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis. Cases in Florida have spiked well beyond their previous pandemic highs, up to 20,000 or even 25,000 infections a day. A new report from the Florida Hospital Association shows that over 16,000 people in the Sunshine State are currently hospitalized with COVID. The situation has gotten so out of control that the reporting death totals is getting delayed in an attempt to make things look better. DeSantis has requested and received hundreds of ventilators from the federal government, while at the same time saying he does not need the Biden administration’s help and that he knows how to run his state better than federal bureaucrats do. This spike in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is happening at a time when the vaccines are readily available and if more Floridians were convinced to take them over the past few months, so many people would not be in the situation they’re in now. Despite the strain on the hospital system and the fact young kids still aren’t eligible for the vaccine, DeSantis remains adamant about enforcing his ban on mask mandates. He assesses that virtue signaling to his far right constituents is more important to him than protecting the lives of the people in his state.
From yesterday’s show:
Trump Jr. Gloats Over Afghanistan Turmoil
Some right-wingers have been gloating over the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan this week because they think it will help make Joe Biden look bad. One such example is Donald Trump Jr. who took to Twitter and said, “not surprising. Biden’s woke “intelligence” gurus are the same ones who were WRONG on Russian collusion…” The former president’s son also retweeted a video from the American embassy in Kabul saying “LOL, this is real!!!” Another Republican figure making light of the Taliban’s takeover is Congresswoman Lauren Boebert. She tweeted on Monday, “The Taliban are the only people building back better.” (The phrase “build back better” was Joe Biden’s slogan in the 2020 presidential campaign.) If Democratic politicians had mocked and gloated American military setbacks under a Republican president, conservatives would demand their resignations and try to ban them from all aspects of public life. Instead, because it’s right wingers making the statements, the social media posts are merely seen as funny observations. Folks like Donald Trump Jr. and Lauren Boebert are perfectly fine with making the Taliban look good so long as it makes Joe Biden look bad.
More on the show:
--Republican hypocrisy on small government, non-interventionist conservatism has reached new heights during the COVID-19 pandemic era
--Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott tests positive for coronavirus days after participating in multiple large indoor events, and will receive expensive monoclonal antibody treatment despite being vaccinated and having no symptoms
--Republican Texas official H. Scott Apley mocked coronavirus on his social media, and five days later died of coronavirus
--Vocal anti-vaccine and anti-Fauci right wing radio host Dick Farrell has died of COVID-19 complications
--The Department of Homelands Security is monitoring increasing demands for violence from Trump supporters in the event that Donald Trump is not reinstated to the White House, which he obviously will not be
--A large portion of unvaccinated Americans are blaming "the media" for the explosion in COVID cases being seen in the United States
--Voicemail caller explains that two of his friends are obtaining fake COVID vaccination cards
--On the Bonus Show: David's vacation stories, including COVID testing and much more
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