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Millions of Americans became alarmed when they saw a viral video that compared a U.S. Army recruiting advertisement to those made for the Russian and Chinese militaries.

The Russian ad featured tough-looking men doing situps, jumping out of airplanes, and cocking rifles on a snow-covered battlefield. The Chinese ad showed infantrymen firing rounds as they ran next to advancing tanks.

The U.S. Army video was a cartoon about a woman with two moms who marched for equality and joined the Army so she could “shatter some stereotypes.”

One stereotype that has certainly been shattered is that the U.S. has the best military force in the world.

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An unprecedented operation involving 15 international security agencies has exposed an Iranian terror infrastructure that was planning a series of assassinations against Israeli and Western targets around the world.
It started in June, when Colombia’s Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (DNI) issued an imminent security alert after determining two Israeli businessmen were the targets of an assassination attempt planned and financed by a high-ranking Iranian Quds Force officer. That officer, Rahmat Asadi, is regarded by Western intelligence organizations as a dangerous terrorist.

Reminder: Islam is an oppressive totalitarian ideology with which no co-existence is possible.

ZMan’s weeklyl podcast. Highly recommended.

A central question of this age is can you have a peaceful and prosperous society without a well-defined people? If the answer is no, which surely seems to be the case, then the obvious question is can a people exist without a ruler committed to the preservation of the people? In this age, the rulers are committed to abdicating their responsibilities to the people on the grounds that there is no such thing as a people, at least there is no such thing as our people.

Since self-preservation is the primary duty of all life, the first duty of a human group with a common identity is the preservation of the group. Logically, a ruler that violates his duty to that prime directive, putting the very existence of the people into question, is a lethal threat to the people. Just as it is the duty of a life forms to do what they must to preserve their existence, it follows that it is the duty of a people to use any means necessary to preserve itself. It is self-evident.

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Something unexpected is happening at U.S. military bases hosting Afghan evacuees: Many hundreds of them are simply leaving before receiving U.S. resettlement services, two sources familiar with the data told Reuters.

The number of “independent departures,” which top 700 and could be higher, has not been previously reported. But the phenomenon is raising alarms among immigration advocates concerned about the risks to Afghans who give up on what is now an open-ended, complex, and completely voluntary resettlement process.

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

Joe Biden has nominated Saule Omarova to be Comptroller of the Currency. It is an important position. According to the Comptroller’s web site:

The OCC charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks and federal savings associations as well as federal branches and agencies of foreign banks. The OCC is an independent bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

So who is Ms. Omarova, whom Joe Biden wants to “charter, regulate and supervise all national banks”? She is not a banker, but a professor at Cornell Law School. Sadly, these days being a law school professor is rarely a positive recommendation. (Sorry, Glenn and Bill.) The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote about the Omarova nomination today:

She graduated from Moscow State University in 1989 on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship.

You can’t make this stuff up. And she still yearns for the USSR, which you can get away with as a law professor–although, to be fair, she also has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, which might be a worse black mark.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

Scott has noted that Sen. Joe Manchin has “named his price point” on the spendapalooza bill: $1.5 trillion. Scott is right that this is still very bad, but it requires the progressives to shrink their wish list by more than half—by a full $2 trillion. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the House Democratic caucus meetings and sub-meetings right now, because if there is no honor among thieves, imagine how painful it is to the progressive raiders of the treasury when they have to start trading off their once-in-a-generation wish lists.

Will the Progs agree to cut back universal Pre-K, or full Medicare vision and dental coverage? How about the $3 billion for “tree equity” (maybe my favorite part of the bill)? For that matter, how about the main features of the “Green New Deal”?

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The U.S. military announced senior al-Qaida leader Salim Abu-Ahmad was killed in a Sept. 20 drone strike, adding there “are no indications of civilian casualties.”