It will come as no surprise that Greg Abbott is now infected with Covid-19 and no one knows how many people he spread the disease to before the announcement today.  Just last night he appeared at a Collin County GOP fundraiser where hundreds of attendees  were maskless and refused to social distance.  Who knows how many knuckle dragging anti-vaxxers were in the room.

Another standing room only event in Collin County tonight.

Thank y’all for the enthusiastic reception.

Let's keep this energy up and send a message that Texas values are NOT up for grabs in 2022. pic.twitter.com/wlPZyrHpx3

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 17, 2021

This won’t be a wake up call, though, since Abbott is desperate to be re-elected so he can prepare for the presidential race in 2024.  He doesn’t care if Texans live or die…it’s all about staying in power.  No matter who has to die for him to do it.

On top of everything else we call him, we can now call him #superspreadergreg

Breaking News —-

Just in: @GovAbbott tested positive today for COVID-19, his office announces. He’s fully vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/Sbu6z0w0in

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) August 17, 2021

And that’s what happens when your Freedumb loving friends breathe on you.

And here’s Greg last night in the smack dab middle of no masks at all.

To add insult to injury, a guy named Abdul Ghani Marader has been named Afghanistan’s new president.  He was one of the founders of the Taliban in 1994 and brother in law to Muhammed Omar, the head of the Taliban who was forced into hiding by the US in 2002.  Marader was arrested and jailed in Pakistan by the request of the US in 2010.  Trump unilaterally released him in 2018 to negotiate the Doha agreement between the Taliban and US.  Since then he has consolidating his power especially after Trump surrendered to the Taliban at Camp David in 2020 and agreed to release 5,000 Taliban fighters.  On Monday, he waltzed into Kabul unopposed and immediately too up residence in the president’s palace after Ghani fled and the Afghan army delaminated in less than 10 days.

Trump seems to be the common thread throughout this entire catastrophe.  To make it perfectly clear:

• Trump released Marader in 2018
• Trump invited the Taliban (including Marader)  to Camp David in 2020, agreed to hand Afghanistan over to the Taliban and set May, 2021 as the date.
• As part of the deal, Trump released another 5,000 Taliban fighters from Afghan prisons.
• Trump then unilaterally withdrew half of US forces in December 2020, just before the insurrection, and the Biden inauguration.
• Trump trumpeted the withdrawal deal during his rallies in 2021, bragging about how he boxed Biden in.
• When the withdrawal turned into an easily predicted debacle, Trump immediately blamed Biden for the deal he had personally negotiated.

If you’re looking for anything else to be pissed at Trump about, this is it.

Wanna see the most disgusting and pathetic thing you’ll see all day and just get it over with?

Former President George W. Bush said late Monday that he and former first lady Laura Bush had “been watching the tragic events unfolding in Afghanistan with deep sadness.”

Holy crap. Holy damn crap.

He also says that our troops in Afghanistan “kept America safe from further terror attacks.” No, no, no Cowboy, you can’t stand on the 911 stack of rubble for eternity. You  made this mess and now you want to criticize somebody for trying to clean it up?

And suddenly Bush has all this love for refugees?

The United States government has the legal authority to cut the red tape for refugees during urgent humanitarian crises. And we have the responsibility and the resources to secure safe passage for them now, without bureaucratic delay.

Oh, but not those from South and Central America?

Bush, you are a piece of work and I don’t freeking care how much candy you give Michele Obama, you are still a war criminal and I still want to impeach you.

There, I feel a little better.

The rightwing noise machine, along with the circular firing squad of Team Progressive, are united in criticizing Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan and sticking to the plan as the government collapses, Afghan politicians flee the country, and the Taliban return to the violent and brutal regime they controlled when we ran them to the mountains in 2002.  As I write this, insurgents are entering Kabul and closing in on the airport where diplomatic personnel and military are trying to evacuate.  It’s without a doubt a total shitshow.

But, it’s not a surprise.  Whether the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2003, 2013, or 2023, THE RESULT WAS GOING TO BE THE SAME.  Like everything else W and Cheney fucked up, they most certainly fucked up Afghanistan.  The noble chase of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda into the mountains to kill him was botched, and rather than chase him into Pakistan, Bush/Cheney thought it was a really good idea to convert a culture born before the Dark Ages to a liberal democracy.  It was stupid, and anyone who can read a history book knew it.  Afghanistan is a 1st century culture in a 21st century world that has repelled invasions for centuries. At the time of Bush/Cheney’s decision to occupy Afghanistan, some of us predicted exactly what is happening today.  Oh, we were shushed by those who “knew better”, but it didn’t take a diplomatic genius to understand that the US was never going to succeed where the Russians, the Brits, the Greeks, the Mongols, and other empires attempted, and ultimately failed, to accomplish over that last 2,000 years.

Don’t get me wrong; I abhor every death and injury that occurred during the attempted occupation of Afghanistan over the last 20 years, but I said it then and will say it again now that the US incursion into and occupation of Afghanistan was almost as big a blunder as the invasion of Iraq which destabilized the region handing control over to Iran.  As bad a guy as Saddam was, he was better than handing more Middle East power to Iran and Russia.  NOW, not only is Iran dominant in the region, Afghanistan is again in chaos. Add that to chaos in Iraq and Yemen, and that is most certainly a major league shitshow.

This is not Biden’s fault.  This is the fault of over 100 years of terrible Middle East policy compounded by Bush/Cheney’s empire building and Trump’s idiocy.  That is where the blame lay.  Biden’s trying to clean it up.

I read somewhere last week that at some point after the election, Lindsey Graham called President Joe Biden to try to make up and be friends again.  Joe ignored him.

Lindsey tried again by sending a message that he only attacked Hunter Biden during the election to appease the Trump voters in his district. It is brutally obvious that Lindsey does not have any children because, not surprisingly, that didn’t work either. The first rule of living in a civilized world is that you do not ever attack someone’s children to hurt the parent. If you do, they will kill you and then they will eat you.

Lindsey seems to be at his wit’s end to want Joe’s love and attention.

For years I wondered what dirt John McCain had on Lindsey.  And then, I suspected that Trump had worse dirt.

But, I think maybe the Pulitzer prize winning guys at the New York Times have a better explanation.

Yet what emerges from interviews with more than 60 people close to him, and with the senator himself, is a narrative less of transformation than of gyration — of an infinitely adaptable operator seeking validation in the proximity to power. It is that yearning for relevance, rooted in what he and others described as a childhood of privation and loss, that makes Mr. Graham’s story more than just a case study of political survival in the age of Trump.

He just wants you to look at him. He wants to be relevant. You know, I can understand and forgive somebody doing something because they are scared. But for ego? Nah.

It’s a long article, but it’s good.