Week in Review

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Week in Review

08/21/2021

For the week 8/16-8/20

[Posted 9:30 PM ET, Friday]

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Edition 1,166…The Afghan Debacle…

What a depressing week for those of us who love this country and understand what it is really supposed to represent…a beacon of hope, especially for those being oppressed… “the shining city on a hill.”

As I’ve told you more than once over these years, my belief system and values were heavily influenced by a single trip, at the age of 15 in 1973, to visit my relatives in Prague and Budapest, at the height of the Cold War.  To see the living conditions of my uncles was an eye opener.  To see my Uncle Geza tear up while we were standing on the balcony of our hotel in Budapest, overlooking the Danube, and explaining how in 1956 he had fought the Russians from the other side of the river during the Hungarian Revolution.

This was the height of Watergate, and Geza was wondering why Americans were giving Richard Nixon such a hard time because at least we were free.  Yes, after that trip, I became a foreign policy hawk, and that aspect of me has never changed.  For the most part I defended both the Afghan and Iraq wars, though in the case of the latter blasted some of America’s leaders, including the generals early on. 

As a kid I learned to appreciate the plight of the Soviet dissidents, like Andrei Sakharov and Yelena Bonner.  It is a shame so few of our young people today are taught their stories.  America was indeed that symbol of hope, and American leaders, for the most part, did all they could to promote those values and rally to their cause.

And so we fast-forward to today and Afghanistan.  I have been a vociferous critic of withdrawal plans going back to Donald Trump’s first days.  I continually decried his idiotic use of the term “endless wars.”  What endless wars? I asked you.  Afghanistan was not an endless war.  At minimal cost, the last few years, in particular, we were doing a world of good, allowing most of the Afghan men and women to live in freedom, under a government that didn’t torture them, that allowed women to go to school, fulfill their dreams, laugh and play.

At minimal exposure, losing just a handful of troops in the last five years or so (and none the last year-and-a-half), the Afghan security forces were doing well enough, helped no doubt, critically, by our air support, while we maintained our on the ground intelligence contacts.  20 years after 9/11, the bottom line is the homeland has not suffered another attack on that scale.

America was accomplishing its mission!  But the American people were seldom told that…whether the president was Republican or Democrat.  America’s men and women in uniform undertook this mission with skill, heroism and compassion.  But they were seldom told that by our leaders as well, unless it was a throwaway line at a major address.  I sure appreciated what they were doing.

I’m the one who has told you since 2012 that then-President Barack Obama’s decision not to work with Turkish President Erdogan on a no-fly zone in Syria would go down as the single worst mistake of the century.  I stand by that.  But it is likely to be surpassed by President Biden and his disastrous, ill-conceived withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Like many of you, I was embarrassed and sickened to the stomach by the scenes we saw, America being humiliated, as our president was in the process of cementing his legacy as one of the worst presidents in American history in just his seventh month in office.

It started weeks ago when we pulled out in the dead of night from Bagram Air Base, without even telling those Afghans we left behind how to run the utilities. Why didn’t we keep just this single base if we were going to exit otherwise?  Why would we not have a base of operations for the counterterrorism efforts our president now tells us will not be impacted because of our “over the horizon capabilities.”  It’s a fantasy.

The United States, and, importantly, our NATO allies, who deserved a ton of credit as well, kept a lid on al-Qaeda all these years.

No more.

We used to stand for something.  We kept our promises.

And then this.  People will be slaughtered.

I hated how Donald Trump and his administration for some stupid reason tried to neuter Radio Free Europe.

Radio Free Europe?  As a kid growing up in the Cold War, we saw the old newsreel footage of how East Germans and others behind the Iron Curtain would huddle listening to its sounds, the message of hope, of freedom.

I thought of that today in watching CNN’s Clarissa Ward and her super reporting from Kabul.  While the president, and the Defense and State Departments, were feeding us garbage this week, brave reporters like Ward were giving us the facts we deserved…such as her observation from the airport today that not one American plane had taken off in eight hours, which became nine, ten….

I hope Americans appreciate and value a free press as they should, because Chinese and Russians, for one, sure don’t have it.

So I’ll close this segment with a passage from Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address, Jan. 11, 1989, that is so appropriate for today, as Trump supporters such as Stephen Miller, stoke fear over the thousands of Afghan refugees we need to welcome to this country of ours.

President Reagan: “You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to look out of early in the morning.  The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall, and the Jefferson Memorial.  But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore.  Someone said that’s the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the battle of Bull Run.  Well, I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.

“I’ve been thinking a bit at that window.  I’ve been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant, and mean.  And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one – a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor.

“It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people, and the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea.  The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart and fiercely observant.  The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat – and crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America.  The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship, and safety.  As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck and stood up and called out to him.  He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor – Hello, Freedom Man.’

“A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn’t get out of his mind.  And, when I saw it, neither could I.

“Because that’s what it was to be an American in the 1980s; We stood, again, for freedom.  I know we always have but in the past few years in the world – again, and in a way, we ourselves – rediscovered it.”

President Biden’s actions of the past weeks, especially this one, have thrown away much of what has made this country great…made this country good…a good nation, a good people, a kind heart.

It’s depressing.  U.S. credibility is shot.

Once again, I’ve been thinking about an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal of now a few months ago that I referenced by Walter Russell Mead.

Mead wrote of how the West has no wins…how it’s the bad guys, Russia, China, Iran…who get all the wins these days. 

Thanks to abysmal U.S. leadership, the trend continues.

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Joe Biden, July 8, 2021: “The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army.  They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.  There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy…of the United States from Afghanistan.  It is not at all comparable….

“The likelihood three’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

Monday, in his first speech to the nation on the exploding crisis, Biden took zero responsibility and blamed others, including the Afghans, whose security forces can count over 60,000 dead!

Incredibly, Biden also snubbed our allies, failing to return British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s call for 36 hours after the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

On Wednesday, British lawmakers united across party lines to condemn the botched withdrawal as well as Biden’s remarks defending it, using some of the strongest parliamentary language toward an American president in memory.

Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative MP and former British Army officer, went viral for his remarks in which he called the U.S. president’s impugning of Afghan security forces and their will to fight “shameful.”

“Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have,” said Tugendhat, who concluded by telling his colleagues: “This doesn’t need to be defeat, but at the moment, it damn well feels like it.”

Labour Party MP Dan Jarvis, another veteran of the Afghan War, called Biden’s comments “particularly distasteful and dishonoring,” while Ed Davey, leader of he center-left Liberal Democrats, described the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as “not just a mistake [but] an avoidable mistake, from President Trump’s flawed deal with the Taliban to President Biden’s decision to proceed, and to proceed in such a disastrous way.”

Theresa May, the former prime minister and Johnson’s predecessor, recalled how Johnson and Biden had said as recently as last month “that they did not think that the Taliban were ready or able to take over control of the country.”

We then learned Thursday that an internal State Department memo last month warned top agency officials of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline in Afghanistan.

The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it.

The cable, dated July 13, warned of rapid territorial gains by the Taliban and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces, and offered recommendations on ways to mitigate the crisis and speed up an evacuation, sources told CNN.  The cable also called for the State Department to use tougher language in describing the atrocities being committed by the Taliban.

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Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Monday accused President Biden of ignoring the advice of military commanders when it came to dealing with Afghanistan.

While appearing on Fox News’ Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show,” Cheney said she was not surprised by the chaos being seen in Afghanistan and called the scenes being shared on social media “devasting” and “heartbreaking.”

“You know, my view has been that having 2,500 to 3,500 U.S. forces on the ground to conduct counterterrorism, counterintelligence, to help us make sure this Taliban wasn’t able to take over, that they weren’t able to continue to provide safe havens for al-Qaeda (was appropriate),” Cheney said.

Kilmeade asked Cheney whether she believed Biden had been given bad advice or simply ignored what they had been told.

“I think he ignored the advice of his military leaders,” Cheney said.

“You know, Jake Sullivan is right.  This isn’t Saigon.  It’s far worse,” she said.  “The damage to our national security is significant.  The prisoners that have been released, the extent to which this is going to change what we have to do in order to keep ourselves safe, just a massive, massive failure.”

Cheney was among the first GOP lawmakers to condemn the Biden administration when the fall of the Afghan government became all but inevitable.  On Twitter, Cheney wrote:

“The Trump/Biden calamity unfolding in Afghanistan began with the Trump administration negotiating with terrorists and pretending they were partners for peace, and is ending with American surrender as Biden abandons the country to our terrorist enemies.”

After the Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday, Cheney tweeted: “This is American surrender, empowering our enemies, and ensuring our children and grandchildren will have to fight this war, at much higher cost.”

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) on Monday called the fall of the Afghan government “worse than Saigon” in a statement blasting Biden.

“While President Joe Biden cowers at Camp David, the Taliban are humiliating America. The retreat from Afghanistan is our worst foreign-policy disaster in a generation.  As the Taliban marches into Kabul, they’re murdering civilians, reimposing their vicious Islamist law, and preparing to turn Afghanistan back in to a bandit regime,” Sasse said.

Sasse said the Biden administration failed to protect the U.S. Embassy and is “turning their backs on the women and children who are desperate for space on the remaining flights out of hell.”

Sasse also took issue with the low number of Afghan aides who helped U.S. forces who have been approved for visas.

“This bloodshed wasn’t just predictable, it was predicted.   For months, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee have warned the Biden administration that this would happen.  Now the administration is acting like this is a surprise.  It’s shameful, dishonest spin,” he said.

“Make no mistake: The Taliban will exploit every image of American retreat,” Sasse added. “Pictures of desperate Afghans perilously crowded around the unguarded airport in Kabul are painfully reminiscent of images of Saigon – images that cemented communist victory in Vietnam and showed American weakness to the world.”

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The Taliban have begun rounding up Afghans on a blacklist of people they believe have worked in key roles with the previous Afghan administration or with U.S.-led forces that supported it, according to a report by a Norwegian intelligence group, RHIPTO Norwegian Center for Global Analyses.

The report said the Taliban were hunting individuals linked to the previous administration.

“Taliban are intensifying the hunt-down of all individuals and collaborators with the former regime, and if unsuccessful, target and arrest the families and punish them according to their own interpretation of Sharia law.  Particularly at risk are individuals in central positions in military, police and investigative units.”

The non-profit group makes independent intelligence assessments and shares them with agencies and the UN.

Separately, according to Amnesty International, the Taliban recently “massacred” and brutally tortured several members of the Hazara minority. Witnesses gave harrowing accounts of the killings, which took place in early July in Ghazni province.

The Hazara community, which mainly practices Shia Islam, is Afghanistan’s third largest ethnic group and has long faced discrimination and persecution in predominantly Sunni Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In a report published Thursday, Amnesty said nine Hazara men were killed.

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Chuck Todd (last Sunday, “Meet the Press”): “The top U.S. general in Afghanistan warned last month that a Taliban takeover could allow al-Qaeda to rebuild.”

General Kenneth McKenzie: “If that pressure comes off, I believe they’re going to regenerate.  And I think it’s only a matter of time before we see them assert themselves and begin to plan attacks against our homeland.”

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NBC’s Richard Engel, reporting from Kabul last Sunday: “This was a city that felt different from the rest of Afghanistan.  It was a cosmopolitan city that wanted to be an international hub.  There was an optimism here, even in the worst days.  Now there are a lot of hard stares. And people are preparing for the worst.  They are thinking about where to move their families, and there are many people who don’t know what to do because they worked for the U.S. military.  Not only translators.  You have contractors, subcontractors, cleaners, security guards, and they don’t know what they’re supposed to do. And this city’s preparing for a Taliban takeover….(Afghans are) worried about the Taliban’s imminent arrival….And they’re very angry. They’re angry at the U.S. They’re angry at everybody.  They’re angry at the government.  And they’re worried.”

Chuck Todd: “You know, Richard, Ryan Crocker, the long-time ambassador to Afghanistan under the Obama administration, said the Taliban are perhaps even meaner and more deadlier as a, whatever you want to call them, as a governing entity, than they were 20 years ago.  Is that your observation as well?

Richard Engel: “Much so.  A thousand percent.  A thousand percent.  They are much better fighters.  They’ve been fighting against the best military in the world, the U.S. military, for 20 years.  That’s how guerrilla groups, insurgencies, get better.  They sharpen their knives on the army of their adversaries.  And that’s what the Taliban has been doing for 20 years.  And they are victorious.  They can use this as a recruiting tool.  They are now the champions of the Jihadi movement because they pushed out the United States.  And they’re going to be able to live on that for a long time and attract a lot of recruits.  And will this country once again be a center of terrorism, a center of al-Qaeda?  Already today, thousands of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were freed from jail today.”

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Former Ambassador Ryan Crocker, in an interview in the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.).   Crocker said the rapid collapse of Afghan security forces is largely due to cratering morale and the loss of U.S. air power.

“We’ve spent the last almost two years delegitimizing the Afghan government and its security forces,” he said.  “It has destroyed the morale (of both).”

By cutting the Afghan government out of the peace talks, while agreeing to terms that included the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners, Crocker said the U.S. government “effectively sided with the Taliban” in the eyes of Afghan forces.  “It is not exactly a climate in which these young troopers can be reasonably expected to hold that line, having been sold out by us,” he said.

The predictable collapse of Afghan forces without air support, Crocker said, suggests “a total lack of coordinated, post-withdrawal planning on our part.”

“That’s why this is all so sad,” he said.  “It is a self-inflicted wound.”

Crocker said the Taliban victory will embolden other Islamist militants around the world.

“We’re going to pay for that for a long time to come, and that’s why it is insane – just idiotic – to think that we can tell the Taliban that if they don’t stop taking over territory and play nice, the international community will withhold recognition and support,” he said.  “The Taliban really doesn’t care, because they’ve got something far more valuable.”

Crocker said President Biden’s haste in leaving Afghanistan has made him question the president’s leadership.

“I’m left with some grave questions in my mind about his ability to lead our nation as commander-in-chief.  To have read this so wrong – or, even worse, to have understood what was likely to happen and not care.”

James Pindell / Boston Globe

“The point here is how Biden executed this exit strategy. The administration said it would take at least 18 months for the Taliban to take control of the country.  They were wrong. Biden reportedly has said for months that he didn’t want images of a helicopter rescuing American diplomats…yet that’s exactly what happened. The administration promised that the U.S. would obviously protect interpreters and others who helped the war effort since they will be Taliban targets.  They are in danger now….

“There is no spin that can suggest that Biden was right about any of this, or that the events of the past week aren’t, as Congressman Seth Moulton put it, ‘anything short of a disaster.’”

Editorial / The Economist

“If the propagandists of the Taliban had scripted the collapse of America’s 20-year mission to reshape Afghanistan, they could not have come up with more harrowing images.  As insurgents swept into Kabul, desperate Afghans, terrified about what the victorious zealots might do, chased departing American cargo planes down the runway, trying to clamber into the landing gear and inevitably falling to their deaths.  The American-backed government had surrendered without a fight – something that American officials were insisting would not happen only days before.  Afghans were left in such a horrifying bind that clinging to the wheels of a hurtling aircraft seemed their best option.

“America has spent $2 trillion in Afghanistan; more than 2,000 American lives have been lost, not to mention countless Afghan ones.  And yet, even if Afghans are more prosperous now than when America invaded, Afghanistan is back to square one.  The Taliban control more of the country than they did when they lost power, they are better armed, having seized the weapons America showered on the Afghan army, and they have now won the ultimate affirmation: defeating a superpower.

“The insurgents have made a show of magnanimity, pledging that they will not take revenge on those who worked for the toppled government and insisting that they will respect women’s rights, within their interpretation of Islamic law.  [Ed. emphasis mine.]  But that interpretation kept most girls out of school and most women confined to their homes when the group was last in power, in the 1990s.  Brutal punishments – floggings, stonings, amputations – were common.  The freedoms that urban Afghans took for granted over the past 20 years have just gone up in smoke.  It is an appalling outcome for Afghanistan’s 39m people, and deeply damaging for America.

“It is not surprising that America failed to turn Afghanistan into a democracy.  Nation-building is difficult, and few imagined that it could become Switzerland.  Nor was it unreasonable for Joe Biden, America’s president, to want to draw the conflict to a close… The original reason for the invasion – to dismantle al-Qaeda’s main base of operations – was largely achieved, though that achievement could now be reversed.

“The claim that America is showing itself to be a fickle ally by allowing the Afghan government to fall is also overblown, given the duration, scale and expense of the American deployment.  The defunct regime in Kabul was not an ally in the way that Germany or Japan is.  It was far weaker, more corrupt and completely dependent on America for its survival.

“But none of that absolved America of the responsibility to withdraw in an orderly fashion.  Mr. Biden failed to show even a modicum of care for the welfare of ordinary Afghans.  The irony is that America had a plan to do just that, which had been in the works for several years. It had hugely scaled down its garrison, from around 100,000 troops in 2011 to fewer than 10,000 by 2017, along with a similar number from other NATO countries.  They were not supposed to defeat the Taliban, but prevent the Afghan army’s collapse, largely through air power, and so force the Taliban to the negotiating table.

“Apologists for Mr. Biden argue that his predecessor, Donald Trump, had already scuppered this plan by trying to rush it to a conclusion before last year’s presidential election in America.  It is true that Mr. Trump was so desperate to strike a quick deal that he accepted preposterous terms, agreeing to end America’s deployment without even securing a ceasefire, let alone a clear plan to end the civil war.  He had already reduced the American presence to little more than 2,000 soldiers by the time Biden took office, and had promised to get out by May 1st.

“But Mr. Biden did not have to stick to this agreement.  In fact, he didn’t entirely, refusing to keep to the original timetable.  The Taliban were clearly not holding up their end of the bargain, pressing their advantage on the battlefield instead of negotiating in good faith with the Afghan government.  That could have been grounds to halt or reverse the American withdrawal. There was little political pressure within America to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.  Yet Mr. Biden was working to an arbitrary and flippant deadline of his own, seeking to end the way by the 20th anniversary of 9/11….

“Although the speed of the Afghan government’s implosion surprised most observers…America’s soldiers and politicians were among the most naively optimistic, insisting that a total collapse was a vanishingly remote prospect.  And when it became clear that the Afghan army was melting away, Mr. Biden pressed on intransigently, despite the likely consequences.

“As a result, America’s power to deter its enemies and reassure its friends has diminished.  Its intelligence was flawed, its planning rigid, its leaders capricious and its concern for allies minimal.  That is likely to embolden jihadists everywhere, who will take the Taliban’s victory as evidence that God is on their side.  It will also encourage adventurism on the part of hostile governments such as Russia’s or China’s, and worry America’s friends.  Mr. Biden has defended the withdrawal by arguing that Afghanistan was a distraction from more pressing problems, such as America’s rivalry with China.  But by leaving Afghanistan in such a chaotic fashion, Mr. Biden will have made those other problems harder to deal with.

“The shambolic withdrawal does not reduce the obligation of America and its allies to ordinary Afghans, but increases it.  They should use what leverage they still have to urge moderation on the Taliban, especially in their treatment of women.  The displaced will need humanitarian aid.  Western countries should also admit more Afghan refugees, the ranks of whom are likely to swell, and provide generous assistance to Afghanistan’s neighbors to look after those who remain in the region.  The haste of European leaders to declare that they cannot take in many persecuted Afghans even as violent zealots seize control is almost as lamentable as America’s botched exit.  It is too late to save Afghanistan, but there is still time to help its people.”

[Much more below]

Biden’s Agenda

--With Congress in recess this week there was little news on the infrastructure bill and legislative front.

Instead, it was all Afghanistan, 24/7, and for a guy who painted himself during the election campaign as empathetic, competent, and “America is back,” rather than Donald Trump’s “America First,” Joe Biden displayed none of this this week.

For Democrats and 2022, and 2024, it is deeply damaging, let alone for America as a whole.

--But back to the legislative front, top House Democrats did say they would move forward with voting on the budget blueprint for a $3.5 trillion healthcare, education and climate package next week, rebuffing demands from a group of centrist Democrats to first vote on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and urging their caucus to stay unified around President Biden’s agenda.

“I would hope that none of us, that none of us, would do or say anything that would jeopardize passing these bills.  These bills are critical for us maintaining our majority, and that must reign supreme,” Democratic Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told members on a Tuesday telephone call.

House Speakers Nancy Pelosi said in a letter on Tuesday night that she was exhorting House Democrats to pass the budget measure next week, writing that “any delay in passing the budget resolution could threaten our ability to pass this essential legislation.”  Should the House adopt the resolution, then they craft the details of the $3.5 trillion package.

The Pandemic

With a disturbing rise in breakthrough cases, including in the U.S. Senate, the Biden administration took steps Wednesday to crack down on rising Covid-19 cases overall, including a call for a third shot starting this fall for adults who were fully vaccinated with the two-shot regimen, following approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

The administration also said it would instruct nursing homes to vaccinate their staffs against Covid or risk losing Medicare and Medicaid funding.

The announcement means that booster shots will soon be available for the more than 155 million people in the U.S. who have been fully vaccinated with messenger-RNA vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE or from Moderna Inc.

The booster shot will be administered about eight months after the second dose for people ages 18 and older. The U.S. government said it is preparing to offer boosters starting the week of Sept. 20.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said the booster shots would help the country stay ahead of the virus, even though the current two-dose regimens are effective.  He cited emerging evidence indicating that the vaccines lose some of their power over time and that the Delta variant warrants the extra boost.

It’s been alarming to experts that Israel, the most vaccinated nation today, is in the midst of another vicious spike in cases.  Just further proof that immunity wanes, plus Delta is more contagious.

The World Health Organization, on the other hand, said booster shots to people already fully vaccinated is like handing out extra life jackets to some while leaving others to drown.

Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the WHO, said the “science is not certain” on any potential benefit of third doses, adding millions of people were being left without any protection against the disease while wealthy countries were preparing to hand out third doses.

Covid-19 death tolls, as of tonight….

World…4,426,503
USA…644,281
Brazil…573,658
India…433,998
Mexico…251,319
Peru…197,716
Russia…174,485
UK…131,487
Italy…128,683
Colombia…124,023
Indonesia…123,981
France…113,186
Argentina…110,070
Iran…100,810
Germany…92,465
Spain…83,136
South Africa…78,983
Poland…75,315
Turkey…54,095
Ukraine…53,394
Chile…36,566
Romania…34,388
Ecuador…31,985
Philippines…31,198
Czechia…30,384
Canada…26,789
Belgium…25,312
Bangladesh…25,023
Pakistan…24,783
Tunisia…22,394

U.S. daily death tolls…Sun. 256; Mon. 308; Tues. 873; Wed. 1,055; Thurs. 967; Fri. 1,059.

Covid Bytes

--A poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that anxiety in the United States over Covid-19 is at its highest level since winter, as the Delta variant rages.

The poll shows 41% are “extremely” or “very” worried about themselves or their family becoming infected with the virus.  That is up from 21% in June, and about the same as in January, during the country’s last major surge, when 43% were extremely or very worried.

--The Delta variant accounts for more than 98.8% of American cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.

--Hospitalizations of Covid-19 patients in their 30s have hit a new record, U.S. government data showed this week, another sign of the toll the Delta variant is taking among the unvaccinated.

--In keeping with the above on booster shots, a study funded by Pfizer-BioNTech showed the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine – while still high – declined by 13 percentage points over six months after the second dose, suggesting the need for booster shots in the future.

More than 46,000 people in the U.S., Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Germany were monitored for the study, the median age 51.

“Efficacy peaked at 96.2 percent during the interval from seven days to two months post-dose two, and declined gradually to 83.7 percent from four months post-dose two to the data cut-off – an average decline of 6 percent every two months,” the authors wrote in the paper.

--The Texas Supreme Court gave local school officials temporary permission to require students to wear masks, rejecting Governor Greg Abbott’s bid to suspend the mandates.

The all-Republican court denied the governor’s request in a one-sentence order posted to the court’s website.

The Texas state court system was swamped by a flurry of litigation between the governor and defiant county, city and school district officials over universal masking rules.  Local officials imposed the requirements to try to tamp down the resurgence of Covid-19, while the governor said wearing masks should be a matter of personal responsibility, not a government mandate.

Abbott announced on Tuesday that he tested positive for the virus despite having been vaccinated.  He said he was isolating in the governor’s mansion and receiving monoclonal antibody treatment.

--Speaking of testing positive despite being vaccinated, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Angus King (I-Maine) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) – announced separately Thursday they tested positive for Covid-19.  Wicker and King were feeling symptoms, Hickenlooper not so much.

King said, “While I am not feeling great, I’m definitely feeling much better than I would have without the vaccine.”

--The pandemic continues to disrupt plans to restart economic activity around the globe, including Sydney, Australia, where a lockdown was extended until at least the end of September.

--I saw in the Chicago Tribune an anecdotal tidbit on the impact of the Delta variant and rising case levels in terms of travel and one local leader told an Illinois legislative panel in recent days that Chicago had seen 10,000 room cancellations during a two-week stretch.  With companies delaying the return to the office, business travelers have fewer reasons to hit the road – and they accounted for a large chunk of those cancelations.

Wall Street and the Economy

Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines said in a letter to President Biden that he should keep Jerome Powell at the helm of the Federal Reserve for another four years to build confidence in an improving economy that still faces significant risks.

“Changing the top leadership at this sensitive time could foster uncertainty across the financial system and undermine our economic recovery,” Daines wrote.  His letter was the first formal call for Powell’s reappointment from a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which votes on Fed nominees before they are considered by the full Senate.  The White House did not respond.

Powell’s terms expires in February and there are many progressives urging Biden to select someone else as they are critical of Powell’s record on banking regulation.

I totally agree with Daines’ reasoning.

Next week, the Fed chairman addresses the annual central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which has sometimes been the scene of momentous policy announcements, though they are usually well-telegraphed ahead of time.

Powell has been especially cautious on appearing to be too bullish on the economic prospects given the ongoing pandemic and his caution, reflected in a still super-loose monetary policy, has been correct, as we see the growing impact of the Delta variant.

Meanwhile, the Fed released its minutes from the July 27-28 meeting that showed different groups worried about inflation and the need to combat it, with others saying it would take time, and require patience from the Fed, to put Americans back to work.  Investors are looking for signs about when the central bank will rein in its easy money policies, including tapering its bond-buying program, and there is a growing consensus tapering is coming soon, which it is assumed Powell will speak to in Jackson Hole.  If not, then the Sept. 21-22 policy meeting.

As for when the Fed would begin to raise interest rates, forget it.  At the very earliest, the second half of 2022, though most Fed officials still say 2023.

In terms of the economy in the here and now, July retail sales came in worse than expected, -1.1%, -0.4% ex-autos, while July industrial production rose 0.9%, above forecasts.

Jobless claims did come in at a pandemic low of 348,000 this week.

The American consumer is pulling back, and its reflected in slowing traffic at grocery stores, gas stations, gyms, restaurants and retail stores.  The more we hear about ‘breakthrough’ cases as well, the more we will tend to decrease our activity.

July housing starts came in well below analyst estimates, 1.534 million annualized, though permits were up a bit.

But the market was spooked not just by the ‘tapering’ talk, and the sick retail sales number, but also the disappointing data out of China concerning its economy, details below.  For now, China is slowing more than expected as extreme weather and a rise in the Delta variant in the country make their impact.  China is quick to lockdown any area or region where they see the potential for a Covid spike, though many experts in China say the government is way too strict in this regard.

That said, surging coronavirus cases across Southeast Asia as a whole is clearly impacting the semiconductor industry and manufacturing in general, which is going to impact the holiday shopping season.

Europe and Asia

A flash estimate for second-quarter GDP in the eurozone rose by 2.0% over the previous quarter.  In the first quarter of 2021, GDP had declined by 0.3%, according to Eurostat.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 13.6% in the EA19, as the comparison was with a lockdown Q2 in 2020.

Year-over-year comparisons, GDP:

Germany 9.2%, France, 18.7%, Italy 17.3%, Spain 19.8%, Netherlands 9.7%.

Euro area annual inflation for July was 2.2%, up from 1.9% in June.  A year earlier, the rate was 0.4%.

Germany 3.1%, France 1.5%, Italy 1.0%, Spain 2.9%, Netherlands 1.4%.

Turning to Asia…as alluded to above, China’s economic data for July was worrisome.  Industrial production rose 6.4% year-over-year, retail sales 8.5% Y/Y, and fixed asset investment (big ticket items…roads, bridges, rails, airports…) was up 10.3% year to date; all well below expectations.

In Japan, we had a reading on second-quarter GDP and it rose 0.3% over the first quarter, 1.3% annualized, vs. a previous mark of -3.7% for Q1, better than expected.  Private consumption in Q2 was up 0.8% over Q1.  June industrial production rose 23.0% Y/Y.

While GDP was better, 1.3% annualized is hardly robust compared with the U.S. and Europe.  The coronavirus continues to have an outsized impact on the economy in Japan.

July exports rose 37% Y/Y, imports rising 28.5%; both below forecasts.

July core inflation came in at -0.2% Y/Y, the 12th straight month of declines.

Street Bytes

--The Dow Jones and S&P 500 hit new highs on Monday, then stumbled Tues. to Thurs. on Covid and Fed fears, but rallied back some today, as investors decided the Fed’s tapering program could still be a ways off (and I’d add, not a worry, in actuality). 

For the week, the Dow fell 1.1% to 35120, while the S&P lost 0.6% and Nasdaq 0.7%.

Earnings season has largely run its course, with 476 of the companies in the S&P 500 having posted results, 87.4% beating consensus.

--U.S. Treasury Yields

6-mo. 0.04%  2-yr. 0.22%  10-yr. 1.26%  30-yr. 1.87%

Despite the ‘taper’ talk, the Treasury market was basically unchanged on the week.

--Oil continued to crater, on the surge in Delta variant cases around the world and the potential impact on growth, such as in China, and thus demand for crude.  The price of West Texas Intermediate finished the week at $62.25, the lowest weekly close since April.

--Walmart raised its sales outlook for the year as Americans returned to shopping for back-to-school clothes and travel goods during the second quarter.

Still, concerns are mounting over how shoppers will behave in the months ahead as the Delta variant surges across the U.S. and mask mandates are reinstated.  On top of that, high prices are making shoppers more conscious about spending. And temporary government stimulus and other benefits, which helped prop up overall spending, are dissipating.

The blistering growth in online orders has also slowed drastically.

Walmart reported earnings of $4.27 billion, $1.78 per share, adjusted, better than expected.  Net profit last year was $6.47 billion.

Sales in the most recent quarter rose 2.2% to $139.87 billion, with U.S. comparable store sales rising 5.2%, down from the 6% increase in the first quarter.  Online sales growth slowed to 6%, compared with 97% last year.  There was a 37% increase in the first quarter and 69% increase in the fourth quarter.

Walmart said it expects same-store sales to be up by 5% to 6% for the year.

--Home Depot’s fiscal second-quarter results topped analysts’ views but comparable sales faltered as a rapidly reopening economy weighed on do-it-yourself sales.

The leading home improvement retailer reported earnings of $4.53 per share for the three months ended Aug. 1, up from $4.02 a year earlier, above expectations, while revenue rose about 8% to $41.12 billion, also beating the Street.

Comparable sales growth decelerated to 4.5% in the second quarter from over 23% a year ago, below expectations, while that in the U.S. weakened to 3.4% from 25% last year, and 30% last quarter.

“During the second quarter, we did observe some changing consumer patterns in the U.S. as the U.S. economy opened up,” CEO Craig Menear said on a call with analysts.  Customers are taking on larger projects fueling demand from professional builders and contractors, which outpaced growth at the do-it-yourself segment for the second quarter in a row, Menear said.

Menear said the company’s weekday sales performance has strengthened compared with activity on the weekend as people returned to travel and other recreational activities.

But it doesn’t help that the building permit figures have been falling recently, particularly for single-family homes.

--Target’s streak of strong results extended into its latest quarter but its skyrocketing online sales growth has come back to earth.

The Minneapolis retailer reported Wednesday that sales at its stores that have been open for at least a year rose 8.7% in the three-month period that ended July 31, which was on top of 10.9% growth in the same 2020 span. 

And like Walmart, Target saw a slowdown from last year’s blistering online sales growth as more shoppers came out of their pandemic-forced isolation.

Target’s online sales rose 10% in its fiscal second quarter, compared to a 195% surge in the year-ago period.  It was also a slowdown from the first three months of the year, when online sales soared 50% from a year ago.

The company said it expects high single-digit percentage growth in comparable sales, near the high end of its previous guidance.

Target’s results came on the heels of those from Walmart and Home Depot that indicated U.S. shoppers are going back to near normalcy.

But, as in the case of the other retailers, concerns are mounting over how shoppers will behave in the months ahead with the Delta variant surge.  Retailers are also grappling with higher prices on everything from food to automobiles.  Plus, Target is wrestling with supply-chain backups that are hitting companies worldwide. 

So far, however, Target hasn’t seen any pullback from customers because of the Delta variant, CEO Brian Cornell said during a media call.

“We continue to see a very optimistic guest,” said Cornell.  “We have a very resilient consumer. We are not seeing any adjustment in consumer behavior.”

He also said traditional back-to-school items like backpacks, lunch boxes and school uniforms are selling well.

Target said it earned $1.82 billion in the fiscal second quarter, with revenue up 9.4% to $24.83 billion.  The revenue line was short of expectations.

Target shares fell on the so-so report, plus the shares were already up big this year.

--Home Depot rival Lowe’s saw its shares rise after the company forecast full-year sales above estimates on Wednesday, as higher spending on big-ticket items offsets some of the slowdown in demand from the company’s core do-it-yourself customers.

Lowe’s said sales to so-called “pro customers,” who can constitute up to a quarter of its business, jumped 21% in the second quarter as they spent on new tools and building materials.  The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in the United States has opened the doors for professional contractors to complete maintenance, repair and upgrade jobs that were put on hold by customers due to the pandemic.

Lowe’s same-store sales fell 1.6% in the second quarter, as demand for items such as paint and gardening equipment that had surged while people were homebound slowed with the easing of lockdowns.  The fall, however, was less than analysts’ forecast.

Lowe’s said that while the business environment in the broader home improvement market remains uncertain, the company’s sales trends so far in August had been strong, despite Tuesday’s poor retail sales number.

Lowe’s said it expects fiscal year 2021 total sales of about $92 billion, compared with analysts’ estimates of $91.58bn.  The company’s net earnings rose 6.7% to $3.02 billion, above estimates, from $2.83 billion a year earlier.  Net sales fell to $27.57 billion from $27.30 billion, beating forecasts.

--Thursday, shares in Macy’s and Kohl’s surged after better-than-expected earnings results; Macy’s up 19%, Kohl’s 7%.

Macy’s swung to a second-quarter profit, thanks largely to the full reopening of its stores following last year’s pandemic-related shutdowns, issued an updated financial forecast that topped Wall Street estimates, and reinstated its quarterly dividend.

The department store chain, which also owns Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, posted adjusted profit of $1.29 per share, compared with an adjusted loss of $0.81 for the same period in 2020, well ahead of consensus.  Net sales for the quarter ended July 31 were $5.65 billion, up from $3.56 billion the year before and beating analysts’ views for $5 billion.

“Second-quarter results were strong across all three nameplates and surpassed our expectations,” said CEO Jeff Gennette in a statement Thursday.  “Our momentum in the first quarter accelerated in the second quarter as we successfully reengaged core customers and attracted new, younger customers with new brands and categories.”

Comparable store sales were up 61% versus the 2020 period, and also up 5.8% over the 2019 quarter, a more authentic comparison.  Digital sales declined 6% from last year due largely to the full reopening of physical stores, Macy’s said.

And the company raised full-year guidance, as well as reinstating the dividend and authorizing a substantial share buyback.

Kohl’s reported fiscal Q2 adjusted earnings of $2.48 per share, almost double the Street’s forecast, with net sales in the quarter ended July 31 increasing to $4.22 billion, up 31% from a year ago, and also well ahead of expectations.

As in the case of Macy’s, digital revenues fell 14% after last year’s store closures boosted online sales.

And the retailer raised its full-year 2021 guidance to $5.80 to $6.10, from the previous range of $3.80 to $4.20.

--Amazon is planning to open large physical shops in the United States that will operate like department stores, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal.  Some of the first stores are expected to open in Ohio and California, adding the shops will offer products from well-known consumer brands.

--Tesla shares had a rough go of it, after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into Tesla’s Autopilot, which steers, brakes and accelerates the vehicle on most roads with lanes.

Though the system can drive the vehicle on its own in many circumstances, drivers are supposed to keep their hands on the wheel in case they need to take over when Autopilot encounters a situation that’s too complex for it to handle on its own.

The National Transportation Safety Board and NHTSA have investigated Autopilot multiple times, including after a crash in 2016 that killed a man in Florida who authorities said had too much confidence in the system’s capabilities.

Safety watchdogs have criticized Tesla for exaggerating Autopilot’s functions, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk argued that the system is safer than human drivers.

In May, a deadly crash in Texas involving an Autopilot vehicle called attention to the fact that drivers can trick Autopilot into thinking someone’s behind the wheel even if no one is.

Tesla owners have posted photos/videos to YouTube showing themselves abusing the technology by riding in the back seat while the vehicle drives itself.

--After the market close today, General Motors said it is recalling more than 73,000 of its Bolt electric vehicles at a cost of $1 billion due to the risk of their batteries catching fire.

The recall is an expansion of a similar action the automaker took last month when it discovered a defect in the battery that powers the EV.  The latest move covers Bolt EVs and Bolt electric utility vehicles from the 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 model years, GM said in a statement.  The company is replacing the battery modules in those vehicles.

--Toyota Motor Corp. said it was cutting production in Japan by 40% in September because of a shortage of semiconductors, highlight how even the best-prepared automaker is getting hit.  The resurgence in Covid-19 cases with the Delta variant is stifling chip manufacturing in Southeast Asia, worsening the auto industry’s parts crisis.

Ford Motor and GM both said this week they are scheduling more downtime at several North American factories, in part because of the overseas restrictions.

--Spirit Airlines on Monday cut its revenue and margin forecast for the third quarter, as a resurgence in Covid cases drags booking tends and staff shortages force the airline to operate fewer flights.

The company forecast a hit of about $80 million to $100 million to revenue, after adverse weather and airport staffing shortages forced it to cancel 2,826 flights between July 30 and Aug. 9.

--TSA checkpoint travel numbers vs. 2019 levels….

8/19…77 percent of 2019 base
8/18…73
8/17…72
8/16…77
8/15…82
8/14…83
8/13…79
8/12…79

Aug. 1 remains the top single passenger day of the pandemic…2,238,462.  Not a good sign this hasn’t been surpassed.

--Cisco Systems late Wednesday reported adjusted earnings of $0.84 per share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, compared with $0.80 per share the year before.  Revenue rose to $13.1 billion from $12.2 billion, topping the Street on both the top and bottom lines.

The networking hardware and software giant raised its fiscal 2022 estimates for revenue growth of 5% to 7%.

--Deere & Company reported fiscal Q2 earnings of $5.32 per share, up from $2.57 a year ago.  Net revenue rose to $11.53 billion from $8.93 billion a year earlier.

The company also guided higher for the full year, but investors were looking for more, plus the stock had run way up, so the shares finished down 2% after the report.

--Foot Locker shares, on the other hand, rose 7% as the company reported Q2 earnings of $2.21 per share, up from $0.71 a year earlier. Sales were $2.28 billion for the quarter ended July 31, up from $2.08bn.

The Street liked the increase in comp sales of 6.9%, beating analysts’ estimates of just a 0.1% rise.

--Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky is stepping aside, handing over the rein’s of the world’s largest health-products company to longtime lieutenant Joaquin Duato, who led J&J’s pharmaceuticals business before becoming a Gorsky deputy.

Gorsky, 61, will become J&J’s executive chairman effective Jan. 4.  He has led the company to tremendous growth, making over J&J’s lineup to capitalize on technological advances, while dealing with the opioid issue and talcum-powder lawsuits.

Health issues in his family prompted the change, he said on Thursday.

--The names, Social Security numbers and information from driver’s licenses or other identification of more than 40 million people who applied for T-Mobile credit were exposed in a recent data breach, the company said Wednesday.

The same data for about 7.8 million current T-Mobile customers who pay monthly for phone service also appears to be compromised.  No phone numbers, account numbers, PINS, passwords or financial information from the nearly 50 million records and accounts were compromised, T-Mobile said.

T-Mobile recently acquired Sprint and the consolidation is to be finalized by year end, forcing many of us to get new phones.

--I’ve gone a few times to a local Aldi supermarket that has come to our area and you can definitely get some bargains at this discount chain that is growing rapidly in the U.S.

This week Aldi announced it was hiring more than 20,000 workers in the country as its network grows and as it prepares for holiday shopping.

Workers in the stores will earn $15 an hour, and $19 an hour for warehouse jobs.  The jobs come with healthcare and retirement plans and paid time off, Aldi said.

But as other large retailers have discovered, it’s been a challenge to fill positions like these.

--I saw a seafood tidbit that was interesting.  New York City has seen the opening of 17 new crab-themed restaurants, meaning there are now 58 restaurants in the city with the word “crab.”  26 are in Brooklyn.

The popularity of them is evidence of an increase in crab consumption that swept the U.S. along with other pandemic food trends from sourdough bread to takeout cocktails – we’re talking Gotham.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, crab consumption was especially strong in 2020, with retail sales of crab up 63% over 2019 to a total of $1.3 billion.

That outpaced total retail seafood sales in the country, which amounted to $16.6 billion. [Crain’s New York Business]

--Billionaire philanthropist B. Wayne Hughes Sr., who pioneered the self-storage industry with his company Public Storage and whose epic rise from sharecropper’s son to largest donor in University of Southern California history testified to the promise of post-war Los Angeles, died Wednesday at age 87.

Spendthrift Farm, the legendary Lexington, Ky., thoroughbred ranch Hughes bought a decade and a half ago, said in a statement on its website that he died at his residence there surrounded by family.

“To have known Wayne Hughes is to know he loved life, his country, USC and its football team, the horses, and his family,” the statement said.

Hughes was working in real estate in L.A. in the early 1970s when a business associate, Kenneth Volk Jr., happened across a self-storage facility inside Houston.  When Volk went inside posing as a customer, an employee informed him there was a waitlist for units.

Volk took the idea back to Hughes, who immediately grasped its potential.

The cinder-block storage units were cheap to build and delivered steady rental income without costly overhead.

“I saw a method of holding prime land with income,” Hughes told The Times in 1990.

He sunk $25,000 into the business, with the first Public Storage opening in El Cajon in 1972.  Within months, it turned a profit, and Hughes was searching for sites for other locations.

“After that it was just building the units up, one at a time.  For years and years.  That’s all,” Hughes told GQ in 2012.  “You don’t get money unless you have a lot of talent, which I don’t have, or you work hard, which is what I do.  We don’t have any golden touch here.”

Retired storage executive Robert Schoff told The Times in 2019: “I remember they had 100 facilities, and then all of a sudden they had 1,000.  It was like, ‘Wow!’”

By the time Hughes stepped down as chairman of Public Storage’s board in 2011, Forbes put his personal wealth at $3.2 billion.

[In my first job on Wall Street, one of my responsibilities was to hawk Public Storage limited partnerships.   We sold the sites as “land banks,” to be sold off for better purposes later, but they were more valuable staying as storage facilities.]

Hughes then got involved in his horse racing venture, and American Homes 4 Rent, a company he founded that is a dominant force in the emerging industry of single-family home rentals.

As of two years ago, Hughes had given $400 million to USC, though he gave almost all of it anonymously.

When he gave the university $5 million to name the floor of the Galen Center basketball court for his former classmate Jim Sterkel, he insisted on keeping his identity secret.  [Years later sources revealed to the Los Angeles Times that the donor was Hughes.]

Bradley Wayne Hughes was born Sept. 28, 1933, on a farm in Oklahoma’s Kiowa County.  His parents, who both had eighth-grade educations, moved to L.A. in the 1930s, part of the Dust Bowl migration depicted in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

The family settled in El Monte, Hughes graduated from high school, and after a stint at junior college, won a scholarship to USC that propelled his career.

Hughes had a deep relationship with USC football, attending practices and befriending the squad’s stars, often hiring them at his company or investing in their endeavors.

O.J. Simpson was a good friend, and during the trial, Hughes acted as a legal guardian for Nicole Brown Simpson’s and O.J.’s two young children.

--Lastly, Producer Mike Richards stepped down as host of “Jeopardy!” after a report about past misogynistic comments surfaced this week.

Richards was chosen last week as the successor to Alex Trebek, but his selection was seen as divisive from the beginning after the show embarked on a broad search that included actors, sports figures, journalists and celebrities.  In essence, the fix was in.

Then this week the website The Ringer revealed demeaning comments about women that Richards had made on a podcast.

Richards, who for now remains producer, said a search for a new host will begin again.

Foreign Affairs

Afghanistan, part II…more opinion:

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“Remember when candidate Joe Biden said America ‘needs a leader the world respects’? Apparently, President Biden forgot.  Of the many consequences of his misbegotten Afghanistan withdrawal, one of the more serious is the way it has damaged America’s relationships with its allies, especially in Europe.

“Afghanistan was an operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and America’s NATO allies have invested significant blood and treasure in the conflict.  That includes tens of thousands of troops over 20 years, more than 1,100 of whom were killed, and billions of dollars spent on the military operation and reconstruction effort.

“This was a fulfillment of their obligations after the Sept. 11 terror attack led to the first invocation of the mutual self-defense clause in NATO’s founding treaty.  European allies also have a stake in preventing a nation of nearly 40 million people from collapsing into a failed state that could trigger more mass migration to Europe, or become a new breeding ground for terrorism.

“Yet everything about Mr. Biden’s Afghan withdrawal has been a slap to those allies.  They didn’t want the U.S. to leave, but he did.  The botched execution has left them scrambling to airlift out thousands of their citizens and thousands more Afghan translators and others who assisted each nation’s war effort.

“And the snubs keep coming from Washington.  In his Monday speech, Mr. Biden made only a glancing reference to NATO and none to America’s European allies in his account of the conflict.  U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly had to wait a day and a half after requesting a call with the President to get Mr. Biden on the phone.

“No wonder European leaders are apoplectic….

“Press reports say German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her conservative party she believed Mr. Biden withdrew ‘for domestic political reasons.’  Her potential successor, head of the Christian Democratic Union Armin Laschet, called the Afghan withdrawal ‘the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and we’re standing before an epochal change.’

“French President Emmanuel Macron took considerable flak in 2019 for saying NATO is experiencing ‘brain death.’  He warned that with or without President Trump in office, the U.S. was becoming a less reliable ally and argued that Europe would need to ‘reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States.’  Mr. Biden has made him seem prescient, and the wonder is that Mr. Macron has been too polite this week to point it out.  French leaders are now planning for the refugee crisis Paris fears Mr. Biden has unleashed on Europe.

“European leaders have never demanded an open-ended U.S. commitment to Afghanistan.  But NATO allies were justified in expecting that if the U.S. were to withdraw, it would do so in consultation with its partners.  Mr. Biden’s failure here, and it’s a NATO-endangering one, is to offer stark proof that America’s supposedly grown-up liberal internationalists are as much in global retreat as some Trump Republicans.

“Other allies are noticing. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen warned this week that in light of the U.S. retreat, ‘Taiwan’s only option is to grow stronger and become more united, strengthening our determination to protect ourselves.’  It’s a telling remark because Mr. Biden says he has withdrawn from Afghanistan n part to devote more resources to East Asia.  Instead his chaotic, almost callous withdrawal is casting doubt on U.S. credibility.

“A President who understood foreign affairs as well as Mr. Biden claims he does would grasp the damage his disgraceful Afghanistan exit has inflicted on America’s alliances and reputation.  He will never be trusted the same way again.”

Condoleezza Rice / Washington Post

“It didn’t have to happen this way. The images of Afghans hanging from American transport planes at the Kabul airport are heartbreaking and harrowing. That this moment comes less than one month from the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is hard to believe and harder to accept.

“The past years in Afghanistan have been difficult for every president, our armed forces, our allies and our country.  The sacrifices of those who served – and those who died – will forever sear our national memory.

“Each of us who held positions of authority over those years made mistakes – not because we didn’t try or were heedless of the challenges. But the United States could not afford to ignore the rogue state that harbored those who attacked us on 9/11. The time will come to assess where we failed – and what we achieved.

“In the wake of Kabul’s fall, though, a corrosive and deeply unfair narrative is emerging: to blame the Afghans for how it all ended.  The Afghan security forces failed.  The Afghan government failed. The Afghan people failed.  ‘We gave them every chance to determine their own future,’ President Biden said in his address Monday – as if the Afghans had somehow chosen the Taliban.

“No – they didn’t choose the Taliban. They fought and died alongside us, helping us degrade al-Qaeda. Working with the Afghans and our allies, we gained time to build a counterterrorism presence around the world and a counterterrorism apparatus at home that has kept us safe.  In the end, the Afghans couldn’t hold the country without our airpower and our support. It is not surprising that Afghan security forces lost the will to fight, when the Taliban warned that the United States was deserting them and that those who resisted would see their families killed.

“No – they didn’t choose the Taliban.  They seized the chance to create a modern society where girls could attend school, women could enter professions and human rights would be respected.

“No – they didn’t choose the Taliban. They built a fledgling democracy with elected leaders who often failed but didn’t brutalize their people as so many regimes in the region do.  It was a government that never managed to tame corruption and the drug trade.  In this, Afghanistan had plenty of company across the globe.

“Twenty years was not enough to complete a journey from the 7th-century rule of the Taliban and a 30-year civil war to a stable government.  Twenty years may also not have been enough to consolidate our gains against terrorism and assure our own safety.  We – and they – needed more time….

“Afghanistan is not South Korea. But we might have achieved a reasonable outcome with a far smaller commitment.  More time for the Afghans didn’t have to entail combat troops, just a core American presence for training, air support and intelligence….

“More time might have preserved our sophisticated Bagram air base in the middle of a dangerous region that includes Pakistan and borders the most dangerous country in the Middle East – Iran.

“More time would have served our strategic interests….

“Now we have to live with the consequences of our haste….

“Meantime, the administration cannot simply state that our credibility is intact – it is not. Credibility is not divisible, and China, Russia and Iran have taken our measure. The pictures of the past few days will emblazon an image of America in retreat.  Now is the time to reinforce our commitment to Ukraine, Iraq and particularly Taiwan.

“And as we relive the fall of Saigon, there is one page that is worth repeating.  We rescued thousands of South Vietnamese who had helped us and were endangered. We did not get them all, and many suffered at the hands of the North.  But the ones we did relocate, their children and grandchildren, contribute daily to strengthening the fabric of America. They are businesspeople, educators, government officials – and soldiers in the American armed forces who enlisted after 9/11.

“If we do nothing else, we must urgently provide refuge for the Afghans who believed in us.  We must demonstrate that we still believe in them.”

Editorial / Washington Post

“Mr. Biden might have renegotiated the withdrawal deal his predecessor, Donald Trump, cut with the Taliban.  Certainly the Taliban’s repeated violations of that pact gave Mr. Biden a legitimate reason for doing so.  A regional diplomatic push for a more sustainable political deal was outlined in February by the congressionally authorized Afghanistan Study Group.

“But even if you reject all of these arguments – as Mr. Biden did, claiming any presence would have led to more combat for U.S. troops – the pullout need not have degenerated into catastrophic spectacle.  He could have planned to leave maintenance contractors, who kept the Afghan military’s medevac helicopters and other crucial aircraft in flying shape, knowing that air support was critical to that army’s ability and willingness to fight.   He could have foreseen the need to maintain some presence until Americans and allies had left the country.

“In short, the president could have listened to the many seasoned hands – inside and outside his own administration – who advised him that there were alternatives to precipitous, unconditional withdrawal.  Mr. Biden instead set an arbitrary deadline – Aug. 31 – for a full U.S. pullout.  Yes, the Afghan military’s demoralization and failure to fight came as a rude disappointment, as the president emphasized, but it’s fair to ask why, if he was sure the cause was lost, their quick surrender came as such a surprise to him.  The blame-shifting is especially unseemly given that some 66,000 Afghan fighters have given their lives in this war during the past 20 years, alongside 2,448 U.S. service members….

“The point of leaving Kabul is to save resources that may now be devoted to geopolitical struggles with Russia and China, Mr. Biden argued. Supposedly these rivals would have been delighted to see U.S. forces tied down indefinitely in Afghanistan.  Maybe so; but then it is hard to imagine that they are not delighted today, as U.S allies in Europe and Asia are dismayed, at the incompetent handling of the withdrawal.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) / Wall Street Journal

“Almost everyone agrees that what’s happening in Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster.  There is no way to whitewash it, and few are trying.  The scenes from Kabul speak for themselves, casting shame and embarrassment on the world’s greatest superpower.  There is plenty of blame being passed around, including to the ‘neocons,’ the generals and the Afghans themselves.  But what got us here was the widespread belief that American foreign policy should be dictated by a simple slogan: ‘No more endless wars.’ The current spokesman for that belief is President Biden.

“The argument for bringing the troops home is an emotional one, arising from exhaustion with overseas conflict.  Most people don’t understand the situation in Afghanistan, and that causes distrust and anger.  Few deny we needed to take action after 9/11, but few understood what our strategy would be after we got there.  Leaders failed to explain that simply leaving would allow the Taliban to re-emerge and again provide safe haven for terrorists.  Americans felt stuck and became exhausted over the years with the vast sums of money spent and lives lost, seemingly in a futile attempt to build democracy.

“With this growing impatience, the case for cutting our losses grew stronger.  But it fails to acknowledge trade-offs – and this simple question: If we evacuate Afghanistan, what will happen?  The ‘no more endless wars’ crowd always refused to answer.  They prefer to live in a dream world rather than face the reality that our enemies are ideologically opposed to Western civilization and will gladly stage another 9/11 if they have the opportunity and means.  They are at war with us whether or not we are at war with them.  Leaving Afghanistan would inevitably create a terrorist safe haven.

“That simple reality was never properly explained to the public.  When Quinnipiac asked in a May survey, ‘Should we leave Afghanistan?’  62% of respondents said yes.  But what if the question was framed more completely: ‘Should we leave Afghanistan even if it means an increased threat of terrorism to the homeland?’

“The ‘no more endless wars’ position has another blind spot: Its advocates are unable to distinguish between wasteful nation building and a small residual force that conducts occasional counterterror operations.  As a result, when many Americans hear that there is a single soldier on the ground in Afghanistan, they interpret it to mean ‘nation building’ and ‘world police.’

“That’s wrong.  There are a lot of foreign policy options between nation building and giving up.  We found the proper balance in recent years – maintaining a small force that propped up the Afghan government while also giving us the capability to strike at Taliban and other terrorist networks as needed….

“The U.S. presence in Afghanistan was meeting the original strategic goal of denying a safe haven for terrorists and preventing another 9/11.  The 18 months before withdrawal saw no U.S. combat deaths.  Does that really sound like ‘endless war’ in any traditional sense?  More important, does it sound better or worse than the current outcome?....

“America didn’t lose a war, or even end one.  We gave up on a strategic national-security interest.  We gave up on our Afghan allies, expecting them to stave off a ruthless insurgency without our crucial support, which came at minimal cost to us.  This administration’s actions are heartless, its justifications nonsensical.  The consequences are dire for innocent Afghans and for America’s prestige. Twenty years after 9/11, I pray they don’t become equally dire for Americans at home.” 

Editorial / Wall Street Journal

“The priority of U.S. forces in Afghanistan should be to rescue and extract trapped Americans.  But the U.S. also has a duty to thousands of Afghans who are in mortal danger.  The Biden Administration is rightly attempting to evacuate SIV applicants, often to third countries where they will wait for a visa decision.

“The SIV program has deep bipartisan support, but it’s not unanimous.  Last month the U.S. House passed, 407-16, a bill to allocate an additional 8,000 visas for translators. The no votes came exclusively from Republicans….

[Ed. such as Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ), Lauren Boebert (CO), Mo Brooks (AL), Paul Gosar (AZ), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Chip Roy (TX).]

“Former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller told Politico that ‘most of the translators that we’ve worked with and most of the government operators we’ve worked with, who wanted to leave and who meet the conditions for the program, already have left.’  President Biden has repeated a similar falsehood.  The SIV program has a backlog of some 20,000 applicants, and thousands of others could be eligible.

“Political operatives like Mr. Miller speak about these Afghans as if they were freeloaders.  Yet their greatest advocates are veterans… Even die-hard Trump supporter Rep. Matt Gaetz said he supported the SIV bill because ‘there are people over there who have kept my constituents alive.’….

“These are thousands of people who proved they work well with Americans.  They aren’t Muslim extremists; they are fleeing Muslim extremists.  The thousands of Afghans who already made it to the U.S. through the SIV program haven’t always had an easy time, but they haven’t caused havoc.

“GOP hostility to these Afghans is also a political mistake.  How large is the constituency for betraying allies?  Voters know the difference between lawlessness on the southern U.S. border and Afghans who earned the right to emigrate in a lawful program.

“Conservatives claim to believe in American exceptionalism, and they once took pride in welcoming exiles from authoritarian lands.  They still court the votes of Cuban, Venezuelan, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants – all as American as anyone.  Afghans who fought with us deserve no less.”

[Can’t help but add, I just despise Stephen Miller.]

Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal

“The reputational blow for the president and his administration will be severe, and so will the foreign-policy implications.  On Wednesday Mr. Biden was condemned in the British Parliament by members from both sides of the aisle.  Imagine that – our old ancestral friends, who fought with us side by side….

“Mr. Biden, focus. Don’t be diffident and fatalistic, don’t be equivocal, don’t be forced by events.  Don’t make the media and the military drag you to this decision. Take authority. This story is not going away.

“Accept the chastening decision to send in more troops and air power if needed. Show that you recognize the emergency.  Pivot away from process.  Don’t ‘speed up Special Immigrant Visas’; that ships has sunk, suspend the rules.  Get Afghans trying to flee to a third country, and sort it out there.  Mistakes will be made; uncover them there.

“Find and save the Americans who can’t get out.  The road to Kabul airport should be smashed open and kept open by whatever means – whatever it takes.  If Bagram Air Base needs to be reopened under U.S. control, reopen it. Throw in everything you’ve got. The administration which is talking to the Taliban, should make it clear that this is what we are doing, that nothing will stop it, the rescue is going to happen.  If it means blowing way past the Aug. 31 fixed departure day, blow past it.

“Mr. Biden would fear this will make him look weak. It would make him look strong, and loyal. He will fear it will make him look stupid, always a concern of his.  It would make him look like he knows what’s important….

“Here’s some romance of history. Dunkirk was a disaster: the British army trapped in France in 1940, the Nazis encircling and bearing down.  Cunning Winston Churchill, with the complicity of the Western press, spun it into a triumph.  A volunteer civilian fleet turned the Channel white-capped with its sails and saved our boys.  It was splendid.  Here’s to you, doughty John Bull.

“Go save your people and our friends, and spin it however you want.  If it works, no one will care.”

Iran: Tehran has accelerated its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade, the UN atomic watchdog said in a report on Tuesday, a move raising tensions with the West as both sides seek to resume talks on reviving Tehran’s nuclear deal.  Iran increased the purity to which it is refining uranium to 60% from 20% in April in response to an explosion and power cut at its Natanz site that damaged output at the main underground enrichment plant there.  Iran has blamed the attack on Israel.

Weapons-grade is around 90% purity.  In May, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran was using one cascade, or cluster, of advanced centrifuges to enrich to up to 60% at its above-ground pilot enrichment plant at Natanz.  The IAEA informed member states on Tuesday that Iran was now using a second cascade for that purpose, too.

The move is the latest of many by Iran breaching the restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal, which capped the purity to which Tehran can refine uranium at 3.67%.

The United States and its European allies have warned such moves threaten talks on reviving the deal.  Following release of the report, Iran reiterated that its nuclear program is peaceful and said it had informed the IAEA about its enrichment activities.  It added that its moves away from the 2015 deal would be reversed if the United States returned to the accord and lifted sanctions, Iranian state media reported.

What will Israel do now?

China:  Cross-strait tensions escalated on Tuesday with 11 People’s Liberation Army warplanes entering Taiwan’s air defense zone minutes before the island’s military was about to start a flight-level drill in the same area.

The six fighters, two bombers and three surveillance aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ), and the Taiwanese air force responded by scrambling jets to shadow the PLA warplanes, issuing radio warnings and deploying air defense missile systems to monitor their activity, the island’s defense ministry said.

China has been staging an extensive air and sea military exercise near the island in response to “provocations” by Taiwan independence forces, which it has described as the biggest security risk across the Taiwan Strait.

Shi Yi, a colonel and spokesman for the Chinese military’s Eastern Theatre Command, said in a statement: “Recently, the United States and Taiwan have repeatedly provoked and sent seriously wrong signals, severely infringed upon China’s sovereignty and severely undermined the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, which has become the biggest source of security risks across the Taiwan Strait. This exercise is a necessary action based on the current security situation across the Taiwan Strait and the need to safeguard national sovereignty.

“It is a solemn response to external interference and provocations by ‘Taiwan independence’ forces.”

Taiwan and the U.S. last week agreed to hold regular talks on cooperation between their coastguards, which could include joint drills near the self-ruled island.

Meanwhile, a Biden administration official said on Thursday that U.S. policy on Taiwan had not changed after the president appeared to suggest the United States would defend the island if it were attacked, a deviation from a long-held U.S. position of “strategic ambiguity.”

In an interview aired by ABC News on Thursday, Biden was asked about the effects of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and responses in Chinese media telling Taiwan this showed Washington could not be relied on to come to its defense. Biden replied that Taiwan, South Korea and NATO were fundamentally different situations to Afghanistan and appeared to lump Taiwan together with countries to which Washington has explicit defense commitments.

“They are…entities we’ve made agreements with based on not a civil war they’re having on that island or in South Korea, but on an agreement where they have a unity government that, in fact, is trying to keep bad guys from doing bad things to them,” he said.  “We have made – kept every commitment.  We made a sacred commitment to Article 5 that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond.  Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with – Taiwan.  It’s not even comparable to talk about that.”

Random Musings

--Presidential approval ratings….

Gallup: Still no update. Next week.

Rasmussen: 46% approve of President Biden’s job performance, 53% disapprove (Aug. 20).

--President Biden’s approval rating, once consistently in the mid-50s, is plummeting…below 50% in FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls, and 49.4% in the RealClearPolitics average.  Biden does remain above water in both, with average disapprovals of 44% and 46.8%, respectively.

--According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released Thursday, 43% consider Vice President Kamala Harris is “qualified” or “very qualified” to be commander in chief.  55% say she is either “not qualified” or “not at all qualified” to be president.  The split back in April was 49-51.  The poll was taken Aug. 12-15.

--How can I tell you Joe Biden is already one of the worst American presidents in U.S. history after such a short period of time?  Let me have him tell you in his own words.

“It’s not a joke…it’s not hyperbole…I’m not kidding…”

I’ll have more to say on this topic next time, but I’ve covered the last four presidencies, day by day, week by week.  They are now four of the six worst in U.S. history.

--CNN host Chris Cuomo, on return from vacation, broke his silence on his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, saying he urged the governor to step down.

Cuomo took off the previous week as scrutiny intensified over how he advised his brother when the governor first faced the sexual harassment allegations that forced him out of office.

He addressed the matter along with the growing criticism over how he dealt with the governor on his program as he went from early hero of the Covid-19 pandemic to another disgraced politician caught in a sexual harassment scandal.

“It’s never easy being in this business and coming from a political family especially now,” Cuomo told viewers.  “This situation is unlike anything I could have imagined.  And yet I know what matters at work and at home.  Everyone knows you support your family.  I know and appreciate that you get that.  But you should also know I never covered by brother’s troubles because I obviously have a conflict.”

Cuomo said he would not discuss his brother again on his program.

--Maureen Dowd / New York Times…ripping Barack Obama…

“Jay Gatsby gave big, lavish, new-money parties at his sprawling mansion on the water because he wanted to seem cool.  He wanted Daisy to notice him.

“Barack Obama gave a big, lavish, new-money party at his sprawling mansion on the water because he wanted to seem cool.  Being cool is important for him.

“One difference is that Gatsby opened his house to the uninvited.  Obama closed his house to many of the invited after getting flak for hosting ‘a celebrity mosh pit,’ as Stephen Colbert called it, while officials were telling people to mask back up.

“It’s hard to stop thinking about the over-the-top fete the former president held at his Martha’s Vineyard manse for his 60th birthday.  It is such a perfect taxonomy of the Obama arc.

“As president, he didn’t try hard enough on things we needed.  He was a diffident debutante with a distaste for politics.  Post-presidency, he is trying too hard on things we don’t need. The culture is already swimming in Netflix deals, celebrity worship, ostentatious displays of wealth, not to mention podcasts.  Did the world really need ‘Renegades,’ his duet with Bruce Springsteen?

“We already knew Obama gravitated to stars but it was disillusioning to see it on such a grand scale last weekend.,,,

“Obama was a cool cat as a candidate in 2008, but after he won, he grew increasingly lofty.  Now he’s so far above the ground, he doesn’t know what’s cool.  You can’t be cool if you diss the people who took risks for you when you were a junior senator – only a few years out from paying off your student loans – taking on the fearsome Clinton machine.

“Many of those who helped Obama achieve the moonshot, becoming the first African American president and then becoming uber rich, were disinvited….

“The disinvitados, as one referred to them, were in four camps: Some didn’t care; some pretended they didn’t care; some were annoyed; and some were deeply hurt, especially loyal former staffers who felt they had contributed more to the Obama legacy than the likes of George Clooney, John Legend and Don Cheadle….

“Colbert, who was disinvited, joked that he was axed because the president had to limit the guest list to ‘only his closest Beyonces.’

“Only one person was thrilled to be disinvited and you can guess who it was.  When he got a call from the former president’s assistant, Larry David (who has a home on the island) figured he was going to be asked to perform.  He went into a tailspin, trying to think of what routine he could come up with in three days.

“ ‘I was pretty glum when I finally called back his assistant,’ David said in an email.  ‘When he told me I was eighty-sixed from the party, I was so relieved I screamed, ‘Thank you! Thank you!’  He must have thought I was insane.  Then I hung up the phone, poured myself a drink and finished my crossword puzzle.’

“Whether the party was 500 or 300 or 30, Obama should have made sure to have the people there who made the moment possible, the ones who worked so hard to get him elected and cement his legacy.

“David Axelrod, Pygmalion to Obama’s Galatea, was a disinvitado, which he handled with his usual grace. Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama chief of staff who helped him navigate the first two successful years of his presidency, was also disinvited and quipped in the Times…that getting voted off the island was character-building.

“Obama would not have been president if Nancy Pelosi had not subtly put her high-heeled shoe on the scale for him against Hillary Clinton and her chances to be the first woman president.  And he would not have gotten health care passes without Pelosi. She wasn’t there….

“One disinvitado joked that he’s going to throw a surprise 61st birthday party for Obama.  ‘As long as they had anything to do with passing health care, rescuing the auto industry and saving the economy from a Great Depression,’ he said, ‘they’re invited.”

--Southern California’s water agency on Tuesday issued a supply alert, calling on the region to conserve vital resources and prepare for continued drought – a move that brings the state’s largest population center closer to the tough water restrictions imposed on communities elsewhere.

The move came one day after U.S. officials declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, a key source for the region.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California supplies water to some 19 million people across six counties and is one of the largest water distributors in the nation.  The decision by its board Tuesday marks the first time in seven years that the agency has issued an official supply alert – the third of four escalating phases in its water supply framework.

--So it was the day before the federal government, through its declaration on the Colorado River, triggered cutbacks in several states that hit farmers particularly hard during a drought that has punished the Southwest with little letup since the turn of the century.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation made the declaration Monday after forecasting that Nevada’s Lake Mead, the river’s biggest reservoir, would remain below 1,075 feet above sea level – the mark previously set to trigger mandatory cutbacks – through at least early next year.  As of Monday, Lake Mead measured 1,068 feet, the lowest since the reservoir was created by construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930.  The bureau estimates the level will dip further to 1,066 by Jan. 1 next year.

The cuts, set to take effect in 2022, aside from forcing Southern California to act, will primarily affect Arizona, which stands to lose 18% of its annual allocation – enough water to meet the annual household needs of a city the size of Phoenix.

--The Asheville, N.C., area had to deal with deadly flooding this week, that killed at least two, 17 missing, last I saw, as more rain fell in a two-day period than had in 50 years, as a result of the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred.  We had a tornado about 15 miles from where I live from the same storm.

--It rained for several hours at the summit of Greenland’s ice sheet on Saturday, marking the first time in recorded history the area has experienced rain and at a time when temperatures there rose above freezing in an extremely rare occurrence.

The rainfall occurred at the highest point on the country’s ice sheet, according to the National Snow and Ice Date Center.  The weather was observed at Greenland’s Summit Station, which is 10,551 feet above sea level.  Weather recording for the area began in 1950.  [USA TODAY]

--Finally, Jake Tapper / CNN…addressing Gold Star Families who lost loved ones in Afghanistan, and those who sacrificed over there, “whether losing a friend or a loved one or a limb or the ability to sleep soundly at night”…Tapper wearing a bracelet bearing the names of eight who were killed at Combat Outpost Keating on October 2nd, 2009:

“There’s no soldier who volunteers to defend this country and its principles to step into harm’s way, on behalf of all of us and on behalf of his or her fellow service members.  No service member does so thinking that the United States public, the United States’ politicians, the United States’ generals always make the right decision, always know what they’re doing.  Our service members know the risks of our system and of dangerous terrain.  And it’s that continued willingness to continue walking down that road knowing this, knowing that they’re walking towards trouble, that’s what makes them all the more heroic.

“The act of volunteering to go to a dangerous place, the mere presence as a service member in Afghanistan, that selflessness, that, to me, is why your loved ones are no longer here because of their love of country and their fundamental strength of character and because of their love of the rest of us.  And that is how I think of these eight men whose names are on my wrist.”

---

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.

Thank you to our first responders and healthcare workers.

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Gold $1782
Oil $62.25

Returns for the week 8/16-8/20

Dow Jones  -1.1%  [35120]
S&P 500  -0.6%  [4441]
S&P MidCap  -2.0%
Russell 2000  -2.5%
Nasdaq  -0.7%  [14714]

Returns for the period 1/1/21-8/20/21

Dow Jones  +14.8%
S&P 500  +18.3%
S&P MidCap  +16.0%
Russell 2000  +9.8%
Nasdaq  +14.2%

Bulls 56.4
Bears 15.9…no update this week

Hang in there.

Brian Trumbore

 

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