IMPORTANT READS

WORDS ON WAR - The victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan is looking unstoppable as they capture the big provincial cities of Kandahar, Herat and Ghazni without meeting effective resistance from Afghan government forces.

IN RETROSPECT - At a U.S. Special Forces camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, on December 5, 2001, the Taliban offered an unconditional surrender. Furthermore, they would disband and disarm: a military force would no longer exist. 

THE ROOT - Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its first trove of demographic data from the 2020 census, leading many to divest in cryptocurrency and put all of their money in the rapidly emerging washcloth market.  

TWISTING TWITTER - On Monday morning, during a live BBC news broadcast, journalist Yalda Hakim was interrupted by a phone call from a Taliban spokesman, Suhail Shaheen.

SOCIETAL TRUTHS - Rocky, the code name given to me by the far left in the Portland, Oregon protest movement, was born out of pure existential spiritual crisis, the kind that has plagued me my entire life.

EYE SPY - We have just learned about a powerful spyware known as Pegasus, manufactured and leased by the Israeli company NSO Group and capable of extracting just about every kind of data stored in a smart phone.

A LOST WAR - The United States lost the Afghanistan War a long time ago, as is quickly becoming apparent as the Taliban take city after city.

CLIMATE POLICIES--The first response many of us have to a cancer diagnosis is terror, horror, and the conviction that we’re doomed.

IMMIGRATION WATCH -  “It’s solidarity, not charity,” said Grace Kindeke, who helps people recently released from immigration detention with housing, food, legal and health services in her community of Concord, New Hampshire.

Jonah Goldberg and Michael Ledeen have much in common. They are both writers and also cheerleaders for military interventions and, often, for frivolous wars. 

The United Nations COP 26 climate summit this November was already set to be one of the most important diplomatic gatherings in history, a meeting where world leaders will, without exaggeration, decide the future of life on earth.

POLITICAL ECONOMICS - Democrats in Congress have a plan for their summer vacation: talk about President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, and then talk about it again and again and again.

This week we again observe the anniversaries of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW II – the only time nuclear weapons were used against human targets.

CLIMATE POLITICS-The world is on fire like never before:

ENVIRONMENT - At least 162 oil refineries and other petroleum-holding facilities in California have likely stored or used materials containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of synthetic chemicals that persist indefinitely in the environment and are linked to severe illnesses, according to state water regulators.

The recall attempt against Gov. Gavin Newsom is being widely—and wrongly—dismissed as a peculiar and illegitimate consequence of California’s strange direct democracy.

CLIMATE WATCH - Wildlife defenders on Wednesday denounced the Biden administration after the U.S. Department of the Interior issued a rule allowing fossil fuel companies operating in northern Alaska to harass polar bears and walruses while searching or drilling for oil and gas.

PLANNING WATCH-CityWatch contributor Robert Hunziker has written frightening columns alerting readers that the climate crisis has arrived, and the worst case climate predictions are the most accurate.

PEACE VOICE-Modern-day democracy has numerous weaknesses, as we’ve been made well aware: policy differences that cannot be resolved, corruption, manipulation of voting and elections, and the refusal of one side to allow the other to pass legislation. 

CUBA LIBRE - In the weeks following the protests in Cuba on July 11 questions about how US President Joe Biden would react have dominated headlines.

HEALTH CARE - Activists in more than 50 cities across the United States marched and rallied on July 24 to demand a Medicare for All or single-payer health care system.