For more than 20 years, no matter what was reported, what we read in the headlines, efforts to build and train large-scale conventional security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have mostly been an aimless, ham-fisted acronym soup of trial and error that never became the true main effort, and we are to blame for that.

I’m sure nobody saw this coming. What a colossal waste.

Wherever the United States government contemplated a wrong turn, Rumsfeld was there first with his hard smile—squinting, mocking the cautious, shoving his country deeper into a hole. His fatal judgment was equaled only by his absolute self-assurance. He lacked the courage to doubt himself. He lacked the wisdom to change his mind.

At the Atlantic, George Packer writes a tidy eulogy for a terrible person and argues that he was actually worse than Robert McNamara, which is saying something.

The Biden administration’s efforts to provide $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers is encountering stiff resistance from banks, which are complaining that the government initiative to pay off the loans of borrowers who have faced decades of financial discrimination will cut into their profits and hurt investors.

Yup, you read that right. these are the same banks that have made millions on the backs of Black and minority farmers with predatory loans for decades. Don’t tell me racism doesn’t exist, and don’t tell me the free market is fair to everyone.

I voted for this administration to do things just like this. I hope they write some big fat checks and let the banks suck on it.

My views on gun control are pretty well documented here, and I’ve linked to stories about how the NRA is clearly run by crooks who have wrapped themselves in the Second Amendment to enrich themselves and their friends. Turns out a judge in Texas has decided they’re crooks too, and won’t allow them to declare bankruptcy to avoid federal prosecution.