Americans Welcome Afghan Refugees with Donated Supplies, Compassion
By News and Guts


Last weekend, two groups of people arrived at Northern Virginia Community College: Afghan refugees recently airlifted out of Kabul, and locals who wanted to help them resettle in America.

“By [Saturday] morning, dozens of volunteers had assembled at the Annandale campus,” reports The Washington Post. “And by noon, the piles of donations had grown so high that volunteers had to turn some away.”
https://twitter.com/maddow/status/1429929894234968064

Many of the do-gooders were members of the local Afghan community. More from The Post:



The refugees were given places to sleep across campus. The college said they’d be transitory visitors; the U.S. government is set to ferry them to different military bases across the country. From there, permanent resettlement will be sorted out.

more...

https://www.newsandguts.com/americans-welcome-afghan-refugees-with-donated-supplies-compassion/

https://crooksandliars.com/2021/08/graham-was-against-impeachments-he-was

8/23/21 11:00am
Graham Was Against Impeachments Before He Was For Them
Lindsey Graham said that he wanted Biden impeached for Afghanistan withdrawal after he voted to acquit the former guy on both impeachments.
By Chris capper Li...


As if on cue, Old Lady Lindsey Graham proved himself to be indeed married to the game and nothing more than a political snake.

Graham went on Faux News and actually said this:



No, really, he truly did say that.

It's rather ironic considering that he voted to acquit the former guy during both impeachment trials - once for trying to shake down Ukraine for dirt on Joe Biden and the other for inciting the insurrection riot of January 6th.

To me though, the most amazing thing is that Graham Cracker was able to say that with a straight face.

**********************

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/21/lindsey-graham-changes-opinion-syria/4053524002/
'Trump is thinking outside the box': Graham now 'impressed' with White House handling of Syria
William Cummings
USA TODAY

https://www.politicususa.com/2021/08/24/republicans-silent-as-biden-gets-21600-people-out-of-afghanistan-in-a-single-day.html

Posted on Tue, Aug 24th, 2021 by Jason Easley
Republicans Silent As Biden Gets 21,600 People Out Of Afghanistan In A Single Day


President Biden is getting twice as many people out of Afghanistan as national security officials set as their goal, and Republicans are saying nothing.

The White House provided new numbers on evacuations to PoliticusUSA:



John Harwood noted that this is two to four times higher than the goal set by intelligence officials:


Nearly 64,000 People Evacuated Without A Single Life Lost

Republicans have been criticizing Biden for the Afghanistan airlift while killing hundreds of people a day in states where they are in charge of government with COVID.

It is not surprising that as the Biden airlift operation has ramped up, the only thing that Republicans and Fox News can do is absurdly claim that Americans are being stranded in Afghanistan.

The GOP was already planning an entire 2022 attack ad campaign around the airlift, but it those ads may backfire as, at the current pace, the US airlift will be a massive success.

Sun Sentinel
Ron DeSantis’ colossal COVID-19 gamble: schools, vaccinations, masks — and his political future
Anthony Man, South Florida Sun-Sentinel 16 hrs ago

snip//

The school battle is attracting the most attention. But what’s happening now with DeSantis and Florida’s struggles with COVID could ultimately impact not only his political future, but the 2024 presidential contest. DeSantis has bet the house, gambling that his approach is the right one, or at least good enough to keep his supporters enthralled.

Parents’ views

The denouement may be far off, but many Floridians already have rendered their verdicts, with energized supporters and outraged foes.

“I think he is more concerned about his public image than the safety of our children,” wrote Jaye DeCapua, parent of two students at Western High School in Davie.

Melina Degelsmith, a Broward parent of three children, wrote that DeSantis is “playing a dangerous, political game with our children’s education and health.”

DeCapua, Degelsmith and dozens of other parents described at SunSentinel.com how they, and schools, are dealing with COVID-19 as the school year starts — and of the governor’s handling of the issue.



snip//





more...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ron-desantis-colossal-covid-19-gamble-schools-vaccinations-masks-and-his-political-future/ar-AANEcNL?

New study paints dire picture for unmasked, unvaxxed kids
August 23, 2021, 9:44 AM


A new study on COVID-19 transmission done by researchers at Georgia Tech and North Carolina State University paints a dire picture for students who go to school unmasked and unvaccinated.

Model findings from the study found that in a 500-student school, an additional 70% of elementary school students may be infected with COVID-19 within three months without masks and 40% of elementary school students may be infected within three months with masks. Vaccinated middle and high schools face a 40% risk of infection without masks.

"Almost 160,000 new COVID cases have been reported on August 19. So COVID is not over as much as we would like it to be," Pinar Keskinocak, chair and professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, told Yahoo Finance. She joined Yahoo Finance Live to discuss her recent research on the impacts of masking and vaccines on the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

Keskinocak said that even though nearly 60% of Americans have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, those under 12 are at particular risk of contracting the Delta variant.

more...

https://www.aol.com/finance/study-paints-dire-picture-unmasked-134456073.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/08/23/1030277164/states-blocking-school-mask-mandates-could-face-civil-rights-probes-official-say

NPR
Back To School: Live Updates
States Blocking School Mask Mandates Could Face Civil Rights Probes, Official Says
August 23, 202111:02 AM ET
Deepa Shivaram


The Department of Education is preparing its Office of Civil Rights to investigate school districts that have blocked school mask mandates and other efforts to try to keep students and educators safe from COVID-19.

Republican-led states like Florida and Texas have imposed rules that say school districts can't impose mask mandates; the Department of Education argues that this could lead to discrimination against some students who cannot attend school because it becomes unsafe for their health.



The news of possible investigations also comes as Republican leaders in Florida recently announced they would start withholding pay for superintendents who didn't reverse their current mask mandate policy.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/school-covid-mask-rules-have-sparked-parent-teacher-violence-we-ncna1277415

School Covid mask rules have sparked parent-teacher violence. We can't ignore it.
The teacher is now viewed by a small, loud contingent not as a public servant but as a public enemy.
Aug. 23, 2021, 4:31 AM EDT
By Anne Lutz Fernandez, high school English teacher


One of the first pieces of advice a veteran teacher gives a novice is to set the classroom tone in the first few weeks of school: Letting early disruptions slide can mean ongoing misbehavior that hinders learning. This year, it’s the adults who are misbehaving, with few educators prepared for the verbal and physical attacks that have marked the start of another not-normal year.

These protests are taking place at town halls and school parking lots, but they have their genesis elsewhere.

Protestors burning masks, ripping masks off educators’ faces and hurling obscenities have disrupted and derailed education board meetings nationwide this summer as local officials have sought to allow in-person learning despite a new wave of Covid-19 cases powered by the delta variant of the coronavirus.

These protests are taking place at town halls and school parking lots, but they have their genesis elsewhere. They’ve been sparked and fanned by right-wing media personalities with national platforms and by politicians and social media agitators who’ve taken to calling school mask mandates “child abuse” — and the teachers who support them child abusers. Protests have reached a fever pitch as the topic dominates school board agendas alongside and often intermingled with issues like the manufactured panic over critical race theory.

snip//

Public schools are one of the last, most important spaces where we are “we.” They’re where the greatest number of a town’s residents physically gather daily to promote the success of the same project. They’re where community happens, where people from different neighborhoods and backgrounds meet, collaborate and compete and where mutual decision-making takes place. Often, the decisions listed on school board agendas seem small: How much will we pay a coach, or when will we hold graduation? But they are frequently bigger: choosing to fund another counselor who ends up saving a suicidal child’s life. And they are always, essentially enormous: deciding what and how the next generation of Americans should learn about themselves, one another, their country and the world.

Schools have, as Charles Blow explained in a recent column, “always been auxiliary battlegrounds for the country’s larger culture wars.” Now community divisions are not only reflected but also created and deepened there. The teacher in that space is viewed by a small, loud contingent not as a public servant but as a public enemy. The parent becomes to the teacher an object of fear, not respect. Without trust, children won’t be able to learn to identify with something bigger than themselves, to know and care about more than just family. Without trust, the community at the center of the community breaks apart.

What happens when we turn away from schools not because of distractions but because of rage and self-righteousness? We turn away from both community and democracy, of which public schools, as their forefather Horace Mann stated, are “the cornerstone.” Lose this and we become not a nation but a series of towns filled with people who make decisions based solely on self-interest. To preserve it, we need to de-escalate, to remember who we are: neighbors and fellow citizens. And we need to remember what we are arguing about: a piece of cloth designed to keep us individually and collectively safe. It cannot become the flag we wave in surrender.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/8/23/2047660/-Looks-like-Sturgis-was-a-super-spreader-again

Looks like Sturgis was a super spreader - again
tln41
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Monday August 23, 2021 · 11:13 AM EDT

?1629730844

The Sturgis Rally is in Sturgis, South Dakota at the far western end of Meade County. This year the rally ran from August 6-15.

The main graphic above shows an incredible spike just one week later — far higher than the spike in 2020.

snip//

Things will probably get worse in the coming weeks. The positivity rate of 27.8% means there are a lot more cases not being tested. An infection rate (Rt) of 1.6 means there is a lot of virus floating around.

So anyone who attended Sturgis may have brought COVID home with them.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/israel-finds-protection-from-covid-infection-four-times-higher-after-booster-shot?ref=home


Israel: Protection From COVID Infection Four Times Higher After Booster Shot
TRIPLE-JABBED
Philippe Naughton
Updated Aug. 23, 2021 6:29AM ET /
Published Aug. 23, 2021 4:16AM ET
AHMAD GHARABLI

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/team-trump-struggles-defend-former-president-s-taliban-deal-n1277418

Team Trump struggles to defend former president's Taliban deal
Asked about the Trump administration's 2020 deal with the Taliban, Nikki Haley tried to change the subject. That's understandable, but it's insufficient.
Aug. 23, 2021, 8:00 AM EDT
By Steve Benen


There was a curious moment on CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday in which Major Garrett asked Nikki Haley whether the Trump administration's 2020 deal with the Taliban "set in motion what we're seeing now" in Afghanistan. The former ambassador to the United Nations apparently didn't like the question.

"You know, I think everybody's wanting to go back and talk about Trump," Haley said, quickly changing the subject in her next breath.

snip//

And yet, other leading voices on Team Trump have condemned the Biden administration for not hewing closely enough to the same deal some Trump administration officials have condemned. The former president, Pompeo, and former Vice President Mike Pence each insisted last week that Biden didn't do enough to follow the Republican administration's blueprint, which called for a precipitous U.S. exit three months ago.

But they're not just contradicting their former allies; these same voices from the Trump White House are also contradicting reality. Slate's William Saletan wrote a detailed, brutal piece documenting Pompeo's role, explaining that the former secretary of state "laid the groundwork for the Taliban takeover." The piece added, "[N]obody has lied more about the Afghan collapse than Pompeo. At every stage, he aided the Taliban and sabotaged the Kabul government. And now he dares to blame others."

Nikki Haley is annoyed that "everybody's wanting to go back and talk about Trump." With the benefit of hindsight, it seems everybody should talk about the extent to which the Trump administration created the conditions that Team Trump is so eager to complain about now.