So much is happening, and there’s so little time to process it all.
The need is real for another installment of news and views.
NEWS: Reports are coming out indicating that the long-running, almost forgotten John Durham investigation into the false Russian dossier regarding Donald Trump may be near to naming names of FBI agents and others who acted improperly in the sham attempt to discredit Trump.
VIEWS: Wake me when something actually comes of this long-running farce, which was supposed to be reported last year. The Hillary Clinton link to the false dossier already has been well-documented, as have assorted misdeeds by our so-called “intelligence community,” that being the same group who assured all that Afghanistan was not going to collapse quickly, but it did. Maybe a little public shaming of these arrogant types would be good for the nation’s collective soul, but somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough.
NEWS: Now that the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan, it is sending people door-to-door to confiscate guns from the citizens because, in the words of one Taliban official as quoted by Reuters “People no longer need them for personal protection.”
VIEWS: That Taliban official sounds a lot like our left-wing radicals here in the good, old USA, who want to ignore the Second Amendment and seize the guns owned by the public because we don’t really need them. Just ask the people in Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, or even the Moxham section of tiny Johnstown about the need for law-abiding citizens to own guns despite what progressive socialists maintain. And Joe Biden, who in one gun-control screed during June noted there was no sense in the public being armed here to protect from overzealous government because we in the public don’t possess F-15 fighter jets or nuclear weapons. Neither did the Taliban, but it kicked our collective butts. Take notes, Joe.
NEWS: New Zealand has gone on full lockdown because a single case of COVID-19 has been detected. One, in the entire country.
VIEWS: Just when you thought the likes of California and New York were the best examples of Covidiocy, along comes New Zealand to compete for the crown. Australia, which has been over-reacting longer than New Zealand, is finding lockdowns aren’t working. But just ignore that, stay home, wear five masks, and keep your distance from your friends and family.
NEWS: Crude oil prices have been falling lately, yet gasoline prices don’t seem to be following the trend.
VIEWS: It’s a common occurrence. The purveyors of retail gasoline note that the oil refined to make the gasoline was bought weeks earlier, so oil price declines have a lag before impacting gasoline prices. Fair enough, so why when oil shoots up quickly, within hours gasoline prices are being raised at the pump? You can’t have it both ways, people.
NEWS: Those forward-thinking Taliban types are warning that unless the thousands of American soldiers rushed to Afghanistan to cover the retreat of staff and civilians must be out of the country by Sept. 11 (a date no doubt just arbitrarily picked and not meant to convey any extra meaning).
VIEWS: There’s nothing wrong with Afghanistan that couldn’t be cured by some well-delivered neutron bombs, the kind of lower-yield nuclear devices designed to eliminate the people but spare the buildings and other infrastructure.