In other news, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has now offered an exact date of October 18th for when the nation's borrowing limit will be reached and trigger a default.
In related news, Senator Ted Cruz says he's going to block the next effort to raise the debt ceiling after the GOP previously blocked the last effort.
Finally, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified to Congress that the collapse of Afghanistan's army was a total surprise.
As well as Austin, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Frank McKenzie of U.S. Central Command acknowledged being caught off-guard by the speed of the Taliban takeover following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
"The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise," Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"It would be dishonest to claim otherwise."
I know I'm just some dumb American sitting at her desk at home, but I can't imagine being surprised by this.
I don't think you have to be clairvoyant to see that Afghanistan's government and military would fold like paper. You certainly don't have to be the secretary of defense with access to all the intelligence in the entire world to have seen it coming. A quick collapse was literally the only possibility I ever considered and I don't know shit in comparison.
They have to be lying and they weren't actually surprised. Nothing else makes sense.