A. Charges have been filed some two months after a viral video from a woman who filmed herself confronting Los Angeles “Wi Spa” staff about seeing a man naked in front of women and girls in the women’s section of the facility.
The perv was universally defended as being within his rights, by the spa and everyone else, because he was perceived to be a transgender individual. As it turns out, the man, whose name is Merager, has been a registered sex offender since 2006 and has a history of previous indecent exposure charges. Who could have imagined?
B. Santa Barbara County, with a mere one week’s notice, decided that all its employees must either get vaccinated or be tested on a weekly basis for COVID-19.
Some county employees, fearful of retaliation, contacted me to forward some common-sense exemptions as follows:
1) Employees who had COVID want the requirement to get tested or vaxed waived because they have natural immunity.
2) The employees want a sunset date for this “emergency” policy.
3) Employees want the option to forego testing and vaccination and work from home instead.
4) Employees who work alone or outside believe a mask should be sufficient for incidental contact with fellow employees and the public.
5) Employees want county supervisors to accept full life-time responsibility for any vaccine injuries and illnesses occurring as a result of the mandate.
6) Finally, employees want to know why only the unvaccinated are subject to weekly testing when, in fact, vaccinated people are just as susceptible to contracting and transmitting the delta variant.
These requests were ignored because the real goal here is purely coercive.
C. James Jay Carafano, a highly regarded military analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a 25-year Army veteran and West Point graduate who has several advanced degrees, writes that anyone who had graduated from boot camp could have planned a better exit strategy from Afghanistan than did the Biden administration.
Here are the specific failures:
1. Ignore your allies. Churchill once said the only thing worse than fighting with allies was fighting without them.
Biden decided on a “no plan” plan. The U.S. would just bug out and then, worst case, Afghanistan would collapse afterward. That necessitated no coordination with the Afghans, surrounding countries or NATO allies.
This resulted in chaos.
2. Give up the high ground. Today we are not whistling Dixie because the Union Army refused to yield the high ground at the battle of Gettysburg.
In Kabul, the high ground was the U.S. airbase at Bagram.
The base was abandoned so there would be more troops to cover the embassy and the airport without putting more boots on the ground in Kabul. That was as risky as fighting the Battle of Britain without airplanes.
3. Put the enemy in charge. Military operations are supposed to take options away from your enemy. The U.S. became totally dependent on the good graces of the Taliban for the evacuation at the Kabul airport. This would have been like asking the Nazis to plan the D-Day invasion.
4. Declaring mission accomplished.
Who can forget President George W. Bush giving a thumbs-up under that iconic banner and then struggling through a bloody insurgency in Iraq? It was foolish for President Joe Biden to be touting a “greater success than the Berlin airlift.” This was like waving a red flag in front of the bull, making the airport an even more tempting target for terrorists and deepening the humiliation of the U.S. retreat.
5. Ending an endless war by starting another. Wars are not ended by turning your back on the enemy. One would think President Biden would have learned that when he right-seated for President Barack Obama in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
These stories have something in common. Americans, common sense and decency are being violated.
Andy Caldwell is the COLAB executive director and host of “The Andy Caldwell Show,” airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KZSB AM 1290, the News-Press radio station.
