"It isn't hard to make the case against vaccine passports: Requiring proof of vaccination is unnecessarily burdensome to business and a violation of individual privacy. ...

"Amusingly enough, liberals, the people most likely to support vaccine passports, have long made contradictory arguments. For years, we have heard Democrats insist that asking voters to present identification is a fundamental violation of civil rights, tantamount to Jim Crow.

"Who exactly belongs in this vast class of persons being denied the franchise has always been a mystery. Apparently, they are also people who have never had a job, driven a car, opened a bank account, flown on an airplane, received government benefits, ordered a beer, bought a pack of cigarettes or played the lottery.

"According to progressives, we need ID for everything in this country except the apparently sacred exercise of our voting rights. Liberals pretend that asking people to get the same ID they need to do almost anything else is an undue burden to vote, even though non-driver can get a government-issued picture ID in all 50 states. Yet now they pretend that using some cockamamie smartphone app dreamed up by bureaucrats in Albany or City Hall can be a requirement for participating in civilized life.

"The same people blithely dismiss the possibility of voter fraud out of hand while insisting that the honors system won't cut it for COVID. You can believe one of these things but not both."

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday rebuffed a demand from Sen. Joe Manchin to take a 'stretegic pause' on a $3.5 trillion economic package, making clear that she was moving on an aggressive timeline to push the measure through this month and setting up a clash with moderate Democrats eager to pare back the price tag.

"'Obviously, I don't agree,' Pelosi told CNN when asked about Machin's highly publicized demand for Congress to hit the brakes on fulfilling a bulk of President Joe Biden's domestic agenda this month.

"In another sign of a looming clash, Pelosi showed little desire to pare back the massive $3.5 trillion price tag, a top-level spending amount that Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have both indicated they do not support.

'"The number is the number, $3.5 (trillion), we can't go above that,' Pelosi said. Asked about the likelihood she will have to go below that level, the California Democrat responded, 'Why?'"

"The polarized views on just about every political and cultural issue in America have been underscored again in a new study from the non-partisan Pew Research Center. The study reveals a Grand Canyon-sized gap between Republican and Democratic perspectives on the national news media.

"Just five years ago, 70 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations. In 2021, that share has been cut in half, with just 35 percent feeling the same way.

"Meanwhile, Democrats are peachy keen on what they're seeing and hearing from the national news media, with 78 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents saying they have 'a lot' or 'some' trust in the Fourth Estate nationally. When breaking down the numbers between self-identified liberals and conservatives, the gap widens to 53 points. Eighty-three percent of liberal Democrats have at least some trust in the national media, while just 30 percent of conservative Republicans do."

Read the entire article here.

"Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Democrats should hit 'pause' on President Biden's $3.5 trillion spending package, firing a significant warning shot at his party's top legislative priority.

"Manchin, during remarks this week at a West Virginia Chamber of Commerce event pointed to concerns about 'runaway inflation,' the delta variant of the coronavirus and a botched withdrawal in Afghanistan to float slowing down what is the centerpiece of Biden's economic agenda.

'"If the country is facing what we're facing now. ... I would ask my colleagues and all of the Senate to hit the pause button on the $3.5 [trillion],' Manchin said at the event on Wednesday. 'Let's sit back. Let's see what happens. We have so much on our plate. We really have an awful lot. I think that would be the prudent, wise thing to do.'

"'I know they're going to go nuts right now ... because what I said is going to all my caucus in Washington,' Manchin added, referring to his Democratic colleagues. 'But I'm thinking of it from the standpoint of where we are as a nation today.'"

"A sharply and bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court has declined to block a novel Texas law that opponents say could effectively outlaw abortion in the state.

"In an order and opinions issued just before midnight Wednesday, the justices revealed that they split 5-4 in refusing the request from abortion rights advocates to put the Texas law -- which went into force early Wednesday -- on hold while litigation over the measure proceeds.

"The court's majority said in an unsigned order that procedural issues related to the unusual private enforcement mechanism the law sets up undermined the argument for blocking the statute at this preliminary stage.

"However, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's three liberals in publicly declaring that the court was erring by refusing to grant the emergency motion to stay the Texas law. In a highly unusual move for a case on the court's so-called shadow docket, all four dissenters authored opinions that lamented the court's decision."

"President Biden stressed the need for changing the 'perception' of the Taliban's progress in Afghanistan, 'whether it is true or not,' during a phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani less than four weeks before Kabul collapsed, according to a new report.

"According to a transcript of the July 23 presidential call reviewed by Reuters, Biden didn't anticipate the Taliban's rapid advance across Afghanistan, which ended when they stormed Kabul on Aug. 15 and Ghani fled the presidential palace. Instead, Biden focused much of the 14-minute call on the Afghan government's 'perception' problem, Reuters reported.

"'I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,' Biden said. 'And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.'"

Read the entire article here.

"Nearly 90 retired U.S. generals and admirals penned an open letter asking Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to resign from their positions following their 'negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.'

"'As principal military advisors to the CINC [Commander-in-Chief]/President, the SECDEF and CJCS should have recommended against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms,' the letter states. 'If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign. Conversely, if they did do everything within their ability to persuade the CINC/President to not hastily exit the country without ensuring the safety of our citizens and Afghans loyal to America, then they should have resigned in protest as a matter of conscience and public statement.'

"This 'hasty retreat,' the letter continues, not only left thousands of vulnerable Americans and Afghan allies stranded at the hands of the Taliban but also contributed to the 'catastrophic' loss of 'billions of dollars in advanced military equipment and supplies falling into the hands of our enemies.'"

Read the entire article here.

"The Biden administration has racked up a long line of losses in federal courts in what is one of the worst records in the first six months of any modern presidency.

"While most administrations tend to minimize such test cases to avoid creating bad precedent, the Biden administration has litigated with an utter abandon -- elevating political over legal considerations in litigation. The latest is one of the most disturbing.

"Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down President Biden's renewal of the controversial eviction moratorium. It was the second time that a majority of justices declared the moratorium as unconstitutional but, as in other areas, the Biden Administration has become openly and chillingly dismissive of such legal considerations. ...

"What is most worrisome about these moves by the Biden administration is that they are neither subtle nor defensible. They are acts in open defiance of the existing law or recent rulings of the Supreme Court.

"After running on returning the country to strict adherence to 'rule of law, our Constitution,' Biden is honoring that pledge primarily in the breach."

"The United States' effort to strengthen the Afghan security forces has come to an ignominious end. The U.S. military spent 20 years and $83 billion building up a force that melted away in a matter of weeks, ceding the country to the Taliban over that period with barely a shot fired.

"The swift collapse of the Afghan security forces is not an outlier. In fact, it is closer to the norm for local security forces built up with U.S. military assistance. The United States' three largest efforts to build partner militaries -- in Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan -- have all failed spectacularly. There is good reason the images coming out of Kabul conjure up Saigon in 1975 and Mosul in 2014.

"What the military calls 'security force assistance,' 'security force assistance,' 'building partner capacity,' or 'tran-and-equip operations' remains a pillar of U.S. defense strategy. Setting Afghanistan and Iraq entirely aside, the United States spends billions of dollars every year and deploys thousands of personnel to train and assist foreign militaries from countries all over the world. Although the purpose of such assistance varies, its main goal is to increase the capacity of partner militaries to shoulder local security burdens so that the United States can shift its own resources to higher priorities.

"The problem, however, is that the United States' partners are often uninterested in building militaries that can fight. As Georgetown University Professor Caitlin Talmadge has shown, political and military leaders have to foster the promotion of competent officers, enforce a chain of command, encourage rigorous training, and put a lid on corruption to create an effective force. But in the weak or failed states where the United States focuses its security assistance, leaders often prioritize their personal and political survival over strengthening their nations' militaries. These leaders often aim to use their military as a source of patronage or as a cudgel against their domestic political opponents. They may welcome the largess of U.S. military assistance, but they fear building a professional force that could threaten their own power. So they ignore the pleas of U.S. military advisers, implementing policies that keep their militaries weak. ...

"Too often, the United States' efforts to train and equip foreign militaries have been motivated by bureaucratic logic rather than sound strategy. The fall of Kabul exposed more than the rot within the armies the United States builds. It also exposed the rot within the United States' approach to building them."

Read the entire article here.

"It is appropriate that House Democrats wore masks at their press conference following passage along party lines of their bill allowing Democrats to permanently steal every election in America. Gushing with platitudes about 'voting rights' and 'access to the ballot,' they gleefully celebrated the final House vote of 219-215, with no Republicans voting for the federal takeover and bludgeoning of the American voting process.

"Because not a single reporter likely bothered to read the 'new' House Resolution 4, introduced only days before it was rushed through the House, the fake news loudly echoed Democrats' false claims that this is a voting rights bill. Nope. It isn't.

"Instead, the bill cynically adopts into federal law every losing argument advanced by the vast leftwing elections industry to courts across the country for years. Every theory rejected by the courts has been enshrined in HR 4. The bill also hands control of our elections over to the radical leftwing attorneys in the Voting Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. ...

"HR 4 indeed is transformative: it eradicates the precious American principle of free and fair elections, imposing a permanent ruling class of tyrannical left-wing elites, forever beyond the reach of the American voters. Stopping HR 4 in the Senate becomes the existential effort of our time. Get out the prayer beads."

Read the entire article here.