Opinion

I don't think most people fooled themselves into thinking that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan was going to be a great moment of triumph for America. It would be an ignominious end no matter how the last chapter was written. And regardless of the execution, it was clear that the poor wartorn country was either in for years of civil war or a swift takeover by the oppressive Taliban. (The mere fact that the Trump administration had been negotiating directly with the Taliban gave credence to the notion that the latter outcome was likely.) Nonetheless, watching the chaotic scenes from Kabul that have been blanketing the airwaves for the past week has been heartbreaking. It's hard to imagine that it could have gone much worse.

This article was originally published at Salon

Fox News host Mark Levin's new book, "American Marxism," has reached the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction. But there appears to be a problem. Levin, best known as a right-wing radio host able to fly into a rage at any moment, has made repeated substantial errors when speaking and writing about the supposed topic of his book.

"American Marxism" largely concerns the supposed influence of post-Marxist European intellectuals in shaping the American left. Levin isn't the first right-wing commentator to identify German émigrés like Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse as the source of a nefarious tendency in American life they often call "cultural Marxism." Those figures are collectively described as belonging to the "Frankfurt School" (although the term is somewhat ambiguous).

Four weeks from now, a right-wing Republican could win the governor's office in California. Some polling indicates that Democrat Gavin Newsom is likely to lose his job via the recall election set for Sept. 14. When CBS News released a poll on Sunday, Gov. Newsom's razor-thin edge among likely voters was within the margin of error. How this could be happening in a state where Republicans are only 24 percent of registered voters is largely a tale of corporate-friendly elitism and tone-deaf egotism at the top of the California Democratic Party.

This article originally appeared at Salon.

For a few moments, I wondered if the Republican opposition, which is so reveling in the discomfort that Joe Biden's decision-making on Afghanistan has evoked, actually was expressing concern about the fate of myriad Afghans who helped the American and coalition cause.

Naturally, a certain hypocrisy in messaging from the Right took only another day to kick in.

It seems like only yesterday that the President of the United States was standing on the pile of rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn telling the world, "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." That iconic image of President George W. Bush promising vengeance 20 years ago was America's primal scream in the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the echoes of that scream still reverberate today.

But to watch the febrile pundits on TV and read the agitated screeds of hundreds of observers and experts over the past few days, you would never know that the Afghanistan "mission" came out of such a primitive war cry. The sad truth is the war was an act of revenge. The attacks of 9/11 were truly terrifying and wanting to hit back was a natural human response. But leaders are supposed to rise above such emotions and make rational decisions in the national interest. Clearly, that doesn't always happen. For a variety of reasons, they instead start wars, which are the most irrational human activity of all. America has been acting irrationally about Afghanistan ever since.

Results from a Saint Louis University poll suggests that disgraced former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens is the frontrunner in the race to fill retiring Sen. Roy Blunt's seat.

This article was originally published at Missouri Independent

For a few moments there, I was wondering if the Republican opposition, which is so reveling in the discomfort that Joe Biden's decision-making in Afghanistan has had, actually was expressing its caring about the fate of tens of thousands of Afghans who helped American and coalition efforts as translators, drivers, among other ways.

Naturally, a certain hypocrisy in messaging from the Right took only another day to kick in.

Apparently, the bodies of sick or dead children are not a motivator for today's Republicans.

Then again, when were they?

Let's never forget that what we are watching happen right now in Afghanistan is the final act of George W. Bush's 2004 reelection strategy.

After 9/11 the Taliban offered to arrest Bin Laden, but Bush turned them down because he wanted to be a "wartime president" to have a "successful presidency."

The most striking thing about President Joe Biden's Tuesday speech about the sudden fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban was the underlying message to his Republican critics and their handmaidens in the Beltway press corp: Jesus Christ, start acting your age already.

"I want to remind everyone how we got here, and what America's interests are in Afghanistan," Biden said before he went on to level with viewers about how he "came to understand firsthand what was and was not possible in Afghanistan."

Tucker Carlson recently full-on embraced Hungary's authoritarian leader Victor Orban, who has attacked immigrants and LGBTQ people with a vengeance. Carlson, broadcasting his show from Hungary for a week earlier this month — meeting with Orban and speaking at a far-right conference there — held Orban's anti-democratic regime up as a model for the U.S.

This article was originally published at The Signorile Report

Channeling Charlton Heston in the original "Planet of the Apes" film: "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!"

America is now experiencing a second wave of the deadly coronavirus pandemic. At least 600,000 people have died from the pandemic in the United States. That number will likely surpass one million by the time it is over. The country may even be forced to endure another wave of lockdowns and forced business closures intended to slow the spread of the disease. The economic and human consequences will be dire.

Do you really think our pull-out from Afghanistan would have looked any different under the man who handled the coronavirus pandemic so well that he cashiered 400,000 American lives? He claimed over and over that he was going to end the "forever wars" and get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan once and for all. He was the president who said he could "make a deal" with the Taliban that was supposed to lead to a peaceful reconciliation with the Afghan government upon the withdrawal of American troops.

This article first appeared in Salon.