Author: J.P. Knowles

In an interview published on Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told Vogue Magazine that she considers it sexist to be referred to as “nice.” Psaki said the sound of the vague compliment was like hearing “nails on a chalkboard.”

“I was introduced to a foreign delegation in the hallway the other day as ‘This is Jen. You may have seen her do the briefings. She’s a really nice person.’ I’m like, really?” Psaki said during the interview. “You can’t think of a better description?” Psaki went on to argue that it was sexist and even a little demeaning to be described in such a way.

“It’s also this desire to put people in a box,” she added. “Yes, sometimes I’m friendly and joyful, and sometimes I’m tough, and sometimes I’m straightforward.”

The article complimented Psaki for not complaining about CNN’s coverage or “spouting flagrant, easily disprovable lies,” a likely dig at former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who often expressed former President Trump’s Criticism of the media.

Vogue wrote that most White House reporters are fans of Psaki, some saying they enjoyed her way of developing a “personable rapport” with journalists.

Traditionally, Vogue features political figures, in particular, the first ladies of Washinton. The magazine was scrutinized for looking over former first lady Melania Trump, deciding to omit her from the cover. Vogue continued the tradition when Jill Biden became First Lady.

Press Secretary Jen Psaki reminded Fox News reporter Peter Doocy why then-candidate, now-President Joe Biden said he didn’t trust then-President Donald Trump on COVID vaccines during the 2020 campaign.

At the White House daily briefing Wednesday, Doocy tried to get Psaki to place blame on the president for the publics’ hesitancy to be vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus that is plaguing our country.

Once he’d asked about the vacant FDA commissioner position, Doocy said “As the president tries to reach unvaccinated Americans, has there been any thought given, looking back, to the possibility that he may have created some vaccine hesitancy when last year around this time, the previous administration was rushing to get a vaccine authorized, and the now-president said ‘I trust vaccines, I trust scientist, but I don’t trust Donald Trump at this moment, and the American people can’t either?”

Those remarks were made by Biden in September of last year.

“Well I think it’s safe to say he still doesn’t trust Donald Trump, so that hasn’t changed, but he does trust scientists, he does trust data experts, and he does trust the people leading the CDC, the FDA, which is the gold standard of approval for vaccines,” Psaki said, and noted that the president has credited the Trump administration for “their role in moving the vaccine forward.”

“Yes but at the time when Donald Trump was out there saying we’re going to have a vaccine in the next couple of weeks, the next couple of months, and Joe Biden is out on the campaign trail saying don’t trust Donald Trump, did that create any kind of vaccine hesitancy? Doocy asked.

“Not that we’ve seen in the data,” Psaki said, then added “I would note that at the time, just for context, the former president was also suggesting people inject versions of poison into their veins to cure Covid. So I think that’s a relevant point.”

Psaki referenced the suggestion Trump made during a Covid briefing last April.

“And Joe Biden, then president, was saying we’ve got to wait until something is fully authorized, and it’s still not,” Doocy said, misspeaking Biden’s position at the time.

“Well the FDA works on the timeline of science,” Psaki said. “At the time, we’ve also seen tens of millions of people’s lives saved who have gotten the vaccine. That data is clear across the country.”

Janet Woodcock, Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, does face some Democratic opposition to her potential nomination to the post.

The shocking footage was acquired by the New York Post, who posted it to illustrate the horrific details of the incident in Manhattan, New York.

In the footage, a 51-year-old man is shown standing inside a Chase bank on Broadway near Beaver Street in the Financial District while a man holding a hatchet approaches him from behind.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1427785614540353540

As the injured victim keeps his attacker at bay, the assailant returns to hit him with the hatchet once more. Footage shows the man tumbling to the ground after being knocked down, and the assailant approaches the cash dispensing machines, smashes them, and then casually drops the weapon and walks away.

Shocking video shows bloody hatchet attack at Manhattan ATM https://t.co/FHRu719IQO pic.twitter.com/PtEhysdk1a

— New York Post (@nypost) August 17, 2021

The victim was brought to Bellevue Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. The victim told the news source that “a man was there with a hatchet and [struck] my head … and my leg.”

Citizens on the Upper East Side told police that a 37-year-old man matched the attacker’s description. In addition, the police took him to Bellevue Hospital for an evaluation. It was not until Tuesday night that the suspect had not been charged, according to the New York Post.

In a statement released on Sunday, Donald Trump urged President Joe Biden to resign immediately from office due to the disastrous state of affairs in Afghanistan.

“What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary. It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history!” Trump said. “It is time for Joe Biden to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy.”

In another statement yesterday, Trump used the term “disgrace” to criticize the situation in Afghanistan.

“After I took out ISIS, I established a credible deterrent,” said the former president. “That deterrent is now gone. The Taliban no longer has fear or respect for America or America’s power. What a disgrace it will be when the Taliban raises their flag over America’s Embassy in Kabul. This is a complete failure through weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence.

Biden made the assertion that he “inherited a deal that was cut by my predecessor” in a statement he released on Saturday.

“Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500,” Biden added. “Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice — follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies’ Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict.”

Foreign policy experts pushed back on Biden’s assertion, stating that he bore responsibility for the situation.

During an interview last week, Mike Pompeo, who was the former director of the CIA and US secretary of state, claimed that Trump had a different strategy for Afghanistan’s exit.

“I don’t know exactly what they are doing, but we had conditions attached to how we were thinking about this withdrawal — I was part of those negotiations,” Pompeo said. “I was also in the room when President Trump made very clear to Mullah Baradar, the senior Taliban negotiator, that if you threatened an American, if you scared an American, certainly if you hurt an American, that we would bring all American power to bear to make sure that we went to your village, to your house. We were very clear about the things we were prepared to do to protect American lives. And indeed, since we began those negotiations back in February of 2020, there wasn’t a single American killed by the Taliban. We had established a deterrence model.”

An LAPD officer has been placed on administrative leave after a video surfaced online showing him striking a suspect who was being loaded into an ambulance following a failed carjacking.

According to a report on KTTV-TV on Monday, the officer who was involved in the Saturday incident has been removed from his police powers.

The police report that the two suspects involved in a carjacking were apprehended when the chase ceased with a crash near San Fernando.

According to witnesses, the suspect spat on the officer prior to the assault, became “aggressive” toward first responders shortly after the crash, and then fled the scene.

The Daily Mail reports that after an emotional outburst, the suspect reportedly referred to a group of cops as “b*tch”

One witness made the statement to the station, “The guy [the suspect] was lying on a gurney and they were preparing to restrain him as he was shouting. He was demanding that the cop remove his badge, and then all of a sudden he spat on him. That’s when the police physically struck him.”

Being spit on is being physically assaulted and the criminal deserves more than a single punch to the face after endangering the lives of so many.

The Daily Mail further reported that an officer said, “Don’t do that s**t again to any officer.” to the suspect.

The LAPD revealed on Sunday that it was investigating the officer’s behavior and initiated an investigation into the matter.

The case is still under investigation.

The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement following the video footage’s release, in which he said, “The images in the video are deeply disturbing and while we must wait for the investigation to be completed, the department will act swiftly in any instance of excessive or unnecessary force.”

This coming week’s increase in the number of patients affected by the Delta version of the H1N1 virus might push the United States back to the most dangerous period of the pandemic, warned the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, on Sunday.

“This is going very steeply upward with no signs of having peaked out,” Collins said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Due to the highly contagious characteristics of the Delta form, Covid-19 instances have risen once again. In July, about 130,000 new instances were being reported every day, which is 700% greater than what had been reported as of July 1st. There could be over 200,000 additional cases every day by the end of the week, Collins added.

“Here we are with [the] Delta variant, which is so contagious, and this heartbreaking situation where 90 million people are still unvaccinated, who are sitting ducks for this virus, and that’s the mess we are in,” Collins said.

“We are in a world of hurt,” he said, “and it’s a critical juncture to try to do everything we can to turn that around.”

While monitoring public health data, experts are concerned that the virus may no longer be immunogenic, thus a booster dose will be required.

Collins assures that vaccinated individuals are protected from serious disease and hospitalization, the decision to make the vaccination mandatory has not yet been made.

Until there’s greater evidence, he cautioned individuals not to receive extra shots on their own.

“At this time, the only people who are at risk are those who have not been vaccinated,” said Collins.

“The big message right now this morning,” he said, is “for the people who aren’t vaccinated, this is the moment to absolutely get off the fence and take care of this because you are a sitting duck for this virus. It’s looking for you.”

Cuomo stated in his first interview since announcing his resignation earlier this week that he did not want to “drag the state” through a months-long impeachment probe just to win.

“I feel like I did the right thing. I did the right thing for the state,” Cuomo told New York Magazine of his decision to resign. “I’m not gonna drag the state through the mud, through a three-month, four-month impeachment, and then win, and have made the State Legislature and the state government look like a ship of fools.”

He insisted that it was impossible for him to subject New York to the rigors of the procedure.

“I’m not doing that. I feel good. I’m not a martyr. It’s just, I saw the options, option A, option B,” he said.

As the release of a study that indicated that he sexually assaulted almost a dozen women raised more pressure on him to quit, Cuomo announced his resignation on Tuesday, effective August 24th. Following an initial investigation by the Assembly, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was placed on leave by the Assembly on Friday.

“The purpose of the Assembly Judiciary Committee’s impeachment investigation was to determine whether Governor Cuomo should remain in office. The governor’s resignation answers that directive,” Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said Friday.

As of today, it is unclear where the governor will reside. The governor has resided only in the Albany governor’s house in recent years. Cuomo replied, “I have no idea what I’ll do.”

But he insisted that he wasn’t “going away.”

Cuomo made the comment: “I have a voice, I have a perspective, and that’s not going to change.” It really doesn’t matter to me which little information I do tell you. You know, don’t you? I am a New Yorker and I have lived here, so that’s… I have no problem with that. That’ll be taken care of. “To me, I believe I did the correct thing.”

President Joe Biden continually mischaracterizes the amount of job growth that has taken place since he took office, claiming that it is a product of his administration’s economic agenda.

Last week’s jobs report showed the economy had added 943,000 new jobs in July, The numbers are misleading, though, as no U.S president has taken office under similar circumstances as Biden according to multiple media fact-checkers.

The White House has not yet acknowledged that states reopening, and ending pandemic-related business restrictions are likely at the center of such growth. Biden gives credit, though to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan he signed into law in March for driving job growth.

“The Biden plan is working, the Biden plan produces results, and the Biden plan is moving the country forward,” Biden commented on the report.

He added, “We’re now the first administration in history to add jobs every single month in our first six months in office, and the only one in history to add more than 4 million jobs during the first six months,”

Monday the president tweeted that economic growth was at the fastest rate in 40 years because of the “Biden plan.” He likened the rapid growth since January to the relatively slight growth that happened during former President Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump’s first months in office.

We created more than 4 million jobs in six months.

Economic growth is the fastest in 40 years.

Jobs are up. Unemployment is down.

The Biden plan is working — and we're just getting started.

— President Biden Archived (@POTUS46Archive) August 9, 2021

The labor market has grown precipitously since the economy lost 20.7 million jobs in April 2020 when the job market dropped sharply due to COVID-19 restrictions. About 12.6 million jobs have been added to the economy between May 2020 and January 2021.

According to Labor Department data, U.S employers have added roughly 4.1 million jobs during Biden’s first six months in office but had added 3.2 million in jobs during the six months prior. The job market remains about 5.7 million jobs shy of its pre-pandemic level of the 152.5 million recorded to be employed in February 2020.

“The jobs record in the first months of any administration is mostly a matter of circumstances, good or bad, that awaited the president when he took the oath of office,” commented a Washington Post fact-checker.

In the face of Taliban pressure, the Afghan military lost control of the country in a quick and devastating manner that called into question the prior accolades that American military authorities had given them.

American generals have long maintained that Afghan forces are getting better and better at fighting the Taliban for years.

“The Afghan army is increasingly effective,” Gen. James Mattis told Congress in July 2010 at his confirmation hearing when he was nominated for commander of U.S. Central Command. He added that the Afghan military – alongside U.S. forces – was “the worst nightmare for the Taliban.”

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in December of that year that Afghan troops were “performing well” and were “responsible for security in Kabul.”

With the surge in US forces, NATO commander Gen. John Allen is confident that “We remain on track to ensure that Afghanistan will no longer be a safe haven for Al Qaida and will no longer be terrorized by the Taliban.”

In closing, Allen explained that “as the potential unifying influence in Afghanistan, the Afghan forces are better than we thought they were, and they’re better than they thought they were when tried in combat.”

General John Campbell, then the Commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, told NPR in November 2014 when asked if Afghan forces could fight on their own if they received military support that “whenever the [Afghan security forces] get involved with the Taliban, the Taliban cannot hold ground, they can’t hold terrain.”

“I’m telling you what I’ve seen; from two years ago to now, there has been a notable difference. It is a fact that they are capable of protecting themselves. Afghanistan’s most important institution is the Taliban.”

That same month, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson touted the success and capability of the Afghan military.

“The Afghan National Security forces are winning, and this is a hugely capable fighting force who have been holding their ground against the enemy,” he said during a press briefing.

Despite these words of praise, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko told NPR on Sunday that he’s been warning the government about the Afghan military since 2012.

“I mean, we’ve been warning – my little agency – for the last almost 10 years about issues with the ANDSF, that’s the Afghan security forces’ capabilities and sustainment. All the signs have been there,” he said.

Republican members of Congress chastise President Biden for vacationing at Camp David while the Taliban are taking over Afghanistan.

On “Sunday Morning Futures, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan wanted to know, “Why is Biden on vacation?” he further stated, “I don’t think he’s taken one question from the press this entire weekend, so this is a frightening situation.”

As Fox News confirmed on Sunday morning, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country at the same time as Taliban fighters descended on Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Both House Democrats Cotton and Beobert posted comments on Twitter about the way the Biden administration for the way they have handled the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Why is Joe Biden in hiding? He should immediately address the nation and answer for the catastrophic situation in Afghanistan. Conference calls between cabinet secretaries and senators don’t cut it in a crisis.

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 15, 2021

Colorado Representative, Lauren Boebert chastised the President for “dereliction of duty.” Both New York Rep Elise Stefanik and Rep Jim Banks voiced agreement with Boebert.

No person who calls themselves the President of the United States should be on vacation while the world crumbles down around them.

The dereliction of duty continues…

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) August 15, 2021

Camp David has been visited by U.S. presidents for work and relaxation purposes. Camp David is thoroughly equipped with secure video-conferencing capabilities. White House press secretary Jen Psaki commented last week that President Biden “likes Camp David.” “It’s a place to be outside, spend time with family and certainly has beautiful scenery there,” she further commented.

President Biden speaks with Vice President Kamala Harris and members of his national security team from Camp David in Maryland, Saturday, Aug. 14, 2021. (Photo: White House)
President Biden speaks with Vice President Kamala Harris and members of his national security team from Camp David in Maryland, Sat)

On Sunday, a White House official reported to Fox News that the President had “spoken to members of his National Security team on the situation in Afghanistan and will continue to receive updates and be briefed throughout the day.”

Rep Jordan said he believed that nothing this “crazy” has been witnessed in foreign policy since the Vietnam War, referencing the shocking culmination at the Saigon embassy, where Americans had to be evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter in 1975.

“Let’s hope we can protect American lives. But this would not happen. This would not happen if President Trump was in the White House. We know that we would not be treated the way we are from our adversaries,” Jordan said. “We would not have what took place up in Anchorage, Alaska, a few months ago where Secretary Blinken was treated the way he was by his Chinese counterpart. That just would not happen when you project strength and confidence from the White House. But unfortunately, we don’t have that today.”