Author: J.P. Knowles

The State Department was just a little cagey when asked about what would happen to Afghan refugees that fail the “rigorous” vetting process.

“Before anyone who is evacuated from Afghanistan comes to this country, they undergo a rigorous vet,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters. “Unless and until they complete that vet they will not be in a position to come to the U.S.”

When asked by reporters for an answer, the State Department spokesman said that he would not “detail publicly” what would happen if refugees did not pass the vetting process or if they might even face being sent back to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Time and again the Biden administration has assured that it will honor its commitment to Afghans that had worked with U.S. or coalition forces, by admitting them to the U.S. through the SIV program.

Price said that he expected the visa vetting process to be quick because the administration has added resources to address the tens of thousands seeking entry into the U.S.

The State Department is alleged to have set up “adequate facilities” for Afghan visa applicants to stay in while completing the vetting process.

Approximately 31,000 Americans and Afghans have arrived in the U.S.from Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover there over two weeks ago.

Central Park saw 3.15 inches of rain in a single hour on Wednesday night as the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept over New York City, smashing the previous one-hour record of 1.94 inches — set just over a week earlier, on Aug. 21 during Tropical Storm Henri. https://t.co/Nd8MHJ7htm

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 2, 2021

The tail-end of Hurricane Ida is causing tornadoes across Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Kathy Hochul declared an emergency for the city and state as torrential rain caused flooding https://t.co/3hCeqnWEWV #NYCFlooding #tornado pic.twitter.com/PNt2AAjvup

— Bloomberg Originals (@bbgoriginals) September 2, 2021

The remnants of Hurricane Ida caused flash flooding in and around New York and left at least 29 people dead. Here's what it looked like around the region. https://t.co/GuQoe40p93 pic.twitter.com/vdUTGKQR7k

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 2, 2021

Thousands lost power, 75,900 in Pennsylvania, 60,900 in New Jersey and 42,769 in New York were still without power Thursday morning, according to tracker PowerOutage.US.

“To be clear…this particular warning for NYC is the second time we’ve ever issued a Flash Flood Emergency, (it’s the first one for NYC), according to the National Weather Service in New York, “The first time we’ve issued a Flash Flood Emergency was for Northeast New Jersey.

The fatalities and damage sustained in the northeast occurred just 3 days after Ida crashed into the Gulf Coast as a category 4 hurricane.

According to reports, a covert CIA site outside Kabul acted as a base of operations for evacuations that bypassed Taliban checkpoints.

Eagle Base — which housed the infamous Salt Pit prison until 2004 — was used from Aug. 15 to Aug. 28 to aid with evacuation attempts following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, according to an article published Wednesday by The New York Times.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1433040543907450883

According to the New York Times story, analysts examined “satellite imagery, corporate records, active fire data, and flight paths” to ascertain how Eagle Base was used in the days before it was razed and abandoned permanently.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1433040823227199497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1433040823227199497%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2021%2F09%2F01%2Fsecret-cia-compound-salt-pit-avoid-taliban-checkpoints-evacuate-thousands%2F

“Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters flew evacuees from the compound to Kabul airport to avoid Taliban checkpoints. Flight data shows that three Mi-17s made at least 35 flights there since the Taliban took control on Aug. 15,” Evan Hill, a visual investigator for the NYT, tweeted Wednesday.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1433040994363138056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1433040994363138056%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2021%2F09%2F01%2Fsecret-cia-compound-salt-pit-avoid-taliban-checkpoints-evacuate-thousands%2F

Among those evacuated were the elite Afghan troops trained at Eagle Base by the CIA. “Agency-trained Afghan troops from the NDS, who faced severe reprisals from the Taliban, struck a deal with the Americans to assist with airport security in exchange for being airlifted out of the country,” Hill added.

https://twitter.com/evanhill/status/1433041553723957253?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1433041553723957253%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdailycaller.com%2F2021%2F09%2F01%2Fsecret-cia-compound-salt-pit-avoid-taliban-checkpoints-evacuate-thousands%2F

Tuesday morning Americans woke to photographs of Taliban supporters in Afghanistan having a mock funeral while lifting caskets draped with flags from the United States and other NATO countries.

Monday, the last U.S. flight left from the Kabul airport completing the mission to withdraw the U. S. military in Afghanistan, ending the longest war in American history.

The Biden administration will be remembered as commissioning what was possibly one of the chaotic missions in history, a mission of broken promises, deflection, and denial on the part of president Biden’s administration.

The Taliban took control of the Kabul airport Tuesday and celebrated the occasion with a victory lap on the airport runway.

“The world should have learned its lesson and this is the enjoyable moment of victory,” Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid said in a live stream. He spoke to reports from the Hamid Karzai International Airport and said that Americans “could not achieve their goal through military operations.”

The Biden administration claimed the U.S. holds fast to its commitments, deflecting blame onto the Trump administration for the crisis in Afghanistan.

“The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces,” Biden said on Tuesday. “But if we stayed all bets were off. So we were left with a simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war. That was the choice. The real choice between leaving or escalating.”

The State Department is offering up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of a Chinese national suspected of leading an international fentanyl trafficking ring.

According to a press release Monday, Zhang Jian allegedly led a criminal organization that imported and distributed fentanyl in the U.S. between 2013 and 2016.

The reward is being offered by the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program (TOCRP). Over 75 criminals and drug traffickers have been captured under the TOCRP and the Narcotics Rewards Program since 1986. The State Department has paid more than $135 million in rewards.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Zhang, also known as “Hong Kong Zaron,” is the supposed owner of a biotech company in China’s Shandong province that was allegedly used to sell illegal substances throughout the U.S. and Canada. Zhang’s organization is suspected of producing fentanyl in no less than four labs in China, then selling the drug over the internet. According to federal officials, the majority of illicit fentanyl is manufactured in China.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that deaths involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl increased more than 15% between 2018 and 2019. The agency also reports that synthetics account for 73% of all opioid-related deaths in 2019

In a January 2018 indictment, North Dakota federal prosecutors charged Zhang and several other U.S. and foreign nationals with drug trafficking and money laundering.

The indictment is connected to Operation Denial, an ongoing investigation into drug trafficking cases involving fentanyl and analogous drugs brought into the U.S. from China.

The investigation started in Jan. 2015 after an 18-year-old North Dakota woman died of a fentanyl overdose. More than 30 defendants, including two alleged trafficking leaders accused of operating the ring from a Canadian prison, have also been indicted.

On Friday the Mississippi State Department of Health issued an alert ordering any coronavirus-positive individuals to isolate for at least 10 days or face up to a 5-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $5,000.

The isolation order was issued in light of the rapidly growing number of COVID-19 cases in Mississippi. On Friday the 7-day average for new cases in the state reached 4,316 Friday, that’s almost double the highest point during the second wave in January, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs issued the order on Friday which states, that anyone “infected with COVID-19 must remain in the home or appropriate residential location for 10 days from onset of the illness.”

Failure to comply with the isolation order could result in a fine of $500 or imprisonment for six months. Nonetheless, since COVID-19 is a life-threatening disease, those punishments could go up to $5,000 or five years in prison or both, Dobbs wrote on Friday.

In Mississippi, hospitals currently have more COVID-19 patients than any other time during the pandemic, with 1,660 hospitalized, 457in ICU, and 324 on ventilators according to state health data.

Bipartisan criticism of president Joe Biden continues to grow in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan. Biden’s own Democratic party’s complaints are primarily related to the president’s refusal to extend the August 31 evacuation deadline even though it meant leaving American citizens behind.

Meanwhile, the Republican party is discontented with Biden for many of his decisions, some of which led to the deaths of 13 military personnel as well as left American citizens behind.

The public scolding by his own party has fueled the fire started by already livid Republicans, many of whom have called for Biden’s resignation.

After the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members, The House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., said the evacuation “has been egregiously mishandled”

In a statement, Wild said, “In order to move forward, our country will need to receive answers and accountability regarding the cascading failures that led us to this catastrophic moment, and I look forward to using my platform on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to secure answers from the Biden Administration about what went wrong,” she continued “Our troops deserve nothing less than a complete and unvarnished account of the truth.”

Biden along with top administration officials were against extending the Aug.31 deadline, arguing that there was sufficient progress in evacuation efforts and it would pose potentially deadly threats to U.S. troops. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said on Tuesday that officials are committed to provide ongoing support to Americans left in Afghanistan who wished to leave.

Many Democratic lawmakers have been vocal in the matter of how Biden handled the evacuation.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.said in a statement last week, “I continue to urge the administration to do everything in its power to secure the airport and evacuate every American, as well as our partners who stood side-by-side with our troops to combat terrorism,” she continued, “We must complete this mission, regardless of any arbirary deadlines.”

Last week Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, VA, a former CIA officer, co-drafted a statement from the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that called on Biden to extend the deadline.

“From this week’s bipartisan Member briefing, it is apparent that the Administration’s set date for departure from Afghanistan on August 31 does not provide enough time to evacuate all American citizens and our partners,” the statement said. “We respectfully call on the Administration to reconsider its timeline and provide a clear plan to Congress that will result in the completion of our shared national objectives.
fairing well with either party.

Republican Florida Representative Michael Waltz adamantly disagrees with President Joe Biden’s decision to pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. In a statement, Friday Waltz said that “Biden gave all our bases away.”

“Biden’s own intelligence community is saying that ‘the Taliban equals Al-Qaeda,”‘Waltz said in an appearance on Fox News. “Al-Qaeda is going to grow back and they are going to attack the West again. That is absolutely going to happen and we need to have somebody to work with when future American soldiers have to go back again.”

In a tweet, Waltz said that the Americans that were left behind are now “Taliban hostages,” that will have to be smuggled out to the Panjshir Valley safe zone or across borders. He said that Congress and private organizations, everyone “but the White House,” are taking actions to get them out.

Waltz compared The Biden administration’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan to the Obama administration’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq that was “too fast and too soon and that led to the ISIS caliphate that launched attacks around the world.”

“But we had courage to go back,” he added. “We had bases in the region. In Afghanistan, we have nothing.”

He voiced serious concern that it will be very difficult for future soldiers to find allies to work with as the now left behind allies are being “hunted down.”

In another tweet, Waltz said, “Pres Biden gave away everything we had in Afghanistan & our local allies are being hunted down. All we have left is VP Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud and the Panjshir Valley safe zone. Biden must stand with those that stand with America and oppose terrorism.”

In an interview on The Brian Kilmeade Show Thursday, Walz said that members of Congress had been demanding that the Biden administration start the evacuations months ago.

“Abandoning Americans will lead to a large mass hostage situation and every time the Taliban have a demand going forward, for access to billions and reserves, for access to economic assistance or international recognition, if they don’t get their way, they go down the street and take a hostage,” Walz said.

Biden has been under fire from many government officials over the botched
military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

On Friday Waltz along with Senator Lindsey Graham called for Biden to support launching a “humanitarian safe zone” for the Americans left behind in Afghanistan. The president was also encouraged to brand the Taliban as a foreign terrorist organization.

With the support of two of Robert F. Kennedy’s sons, California’s parole board voted Friday to give parole to the killer of the former US Attorney General.

Kennedy served as a Massachusetts senator and as US Attorney General during his older brother, John F. Kennedy’s, administration in the early 1960s, according to The Associated Press (AP). Sirhan Sirhan assassinated RFK on June 6, 1968, at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel, minutes after he finished his California primary election victory speech.

Douglas and Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. convinced the panel to grant Sirhan parol more than half a century after their father’s assassination, claiming that his release would symbolize RFK’s “commitment to fairness and justice,” the site stated.

“I’m overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan face to face,” Douglas said. “I’ve lived my life both in fear of him and his name in one way or another. And I’m grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love.”

“While nobody can speak definitively on behalf of my father, I firmly believe that based on his own consuming commitment to fairness and justice, that he would strongly encourage this board to release Mr. Sirhan because of Sirhan’s impressive record of rehabilitation,” RFK Jr. wrote in a letter to the panel.

SAN DIEGO (@AP) — Robert F. Kennedy's assassin granted parole by California board after 2 of RFK's sons say they support his release.

— Stefanie Dazio (@steffdaz) August 27, 2021

Parole was met with widespread criticism from the Los Angeles Police Department and the general public, Parole Board Commissioner Robert Barton told the Associated Press. His attorney, Angela Berry, contended that the choice should be made on the basis of the person he is today, rather than his late 1960s acts.

Sirhan reportedly grinned, expressed gratitude to the board, and gave a thumbs-up following the panel’s approval of his 16th parole plea, the station stated. According to the AP, the board’s staff will evaluate the decision for 90 days before transferring it to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will have 30 days to approve, disapprove, or amend the board’s approval.

Sirhan will spend six months in a transitional home if the governor agrees to the request. He will be obliged to enroll in an alcohol dependency program and receive counseling. Sirhan’s most recent hearing in 2016 determined that he lacked remorse and demonstrated an inability to comprehend the gravity of his crime.

Sirhan testified in 2011 that he has no recollection of shooting Kennedy but did recall being there. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death during his 1969 trial. According to the site, his death sentence was reversed as a result of the California Supreme Court’s 1972 decision to temporarily abolish capital punishment.

Recent evidence coming to light reveals that North Korea has restarted a nuclear reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

According to the report released by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday, the reactor is located in the city of Yongbyon. In the past month, there have been “indications consistent with the operation” of the reactor. One important indicator of the reactor being restarted is the discharge of cooling water at the facility, according to the report.

Leif Eric Easley professor of international studies at Ewha Woman’s University in Seoul theorizes that North Koreans were not intending to be discreet in restarting the nuclear reactor and may be planning to use Yongbyon as a pawn in negotiations.

“But even if Pyongyang is considering returning to negotiations…it may lead off with a missile test rather than diplomatic engagement,” Easley said.

The Reuters’ report cites North Korea’s last nuclear test was in 2017, however, the United Nations no longer has access to the site since being expelled in 2009. The U.N. currently uses satellite images and other methods to monitor facilities in North Korea.

According to the report, there were indications of activity at Yongbyon’s radioactive laboratory from mid-February through July of this year.

“North Korea’s nuclear activities continue to be a cause for serious concern. Furthermore, the new indications of the operation of the 5-megawatt reactor and the radiochemical laboratory are deeply troubling,” the IAEA said.