Welcome to Monday, August 16th, populus...

The Taliban on Sunday seized control of the Afghani capital Kabul and claimed victory.

Chaos and panic gripped the Kabul airport, where thousands of residents and foreign nationals tried to escape Afghanistan.

The Biden White House is under assault for the "operational failure" Afghanistan drawdown.

“The time to debate whether we stay in Afghanistan has passed, but there is still time to debate how we manage our retreat,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a Marine who served four tours in Iraq, said in a lengthy statement Sunday.

“For months, I have been calling on the Administration to evacuate our allies immediately. The fact that, at this hour, we have not even secured the civilian half of the Kabul airport is testament to our moral and operational failure."

President Joe Biden initially set September 11th as the withdrawal date, pushing back a May date set by former President Donald Trump, but then moved up the withdrawal date to August 31st. 

How do you feel about the situation in Afghanistan?

Apprehensions at Border Reach 21-Year High

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended 212,672 unauthorized immigrants at the Southern border in July, the most apprehensions in a single month since March 2000, when there were 220,063 apprehensions. 

According to CBP’s latest figures for the Southern border, the agency has conducted life-saving search and rescue efforts 10,275 times in the nine months of FY2021―more than the past two full fiscal years combined. In July, CBP conducted 1,083 life-saving search and rescue efforts.

Are you concerned about the rising numbers of illegal border crossings?

What is Budget Reconciliation?

Budget reconciliation is a fast-track process Congress can use to enact policies related to spending, tax revenues, the deficit, and/or the debt limit based on the fiscal goals included in a congressional budget resolution.

The budget reconciliation process has been used a number of times to enact significant legislation, including the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) during the Obama administration in 2010 and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act during the Trump administration in 2017.

Do you support or oppose the budget reconciliation process?

All the Memes Fit to Post

And, In The End...

What would we do without the metaphor?

August 16th commemorates the first vertical loop roller coaster, invented in 1898 by Edwin Prescott.

—Josh Herman

Talk to us via email at editorial [at] causes.com. And don’t forget to keep in touch @Causes.