Month: August 2021
Other Voices | Tom Callaghan: Taliban Reshuffles Geopolitical Deck
Posted on August 16, 2021
TALIBAN. The Taliban are a movement that originated in the mid 1990s. They practice a strict fundamentalist version of Sharia Law. The Taliban have 150,000 fighters. They now control Afghanistan, a landlocked country that borders Iran, China, Pakistan and four countries ending in “stan” known as the Stans.
The Taliban now get, for a brief fleeting moment, a second chance to make a first impression. Last time around they cut off heads, brutalized women and blew up priceless monuments. They have a chance to reboot who they are. The Germans remade themselves after WW II. Anything is possible. The American Press will give them about a week to demonstrate that they are not stuck in the Stone Age, after which the conventional wisdom will hold that they’re stone cold irrational killers.
JOE BIDEN. Has bragged about his knowledge of Afghanistan claiming he has taken up to 30 trips there. This is a moment of truth time for Joe Biden. Biden must get all our personnel out of Afghanistan safely. The same for the interpreters who risked their lives to help our troops. Biden’s presidency is on the line. Get us out neat and clean. There is no margin for error. Let your work speak for itself. Don’t over talk it. Use Wendy Sherman, No. 2 at State, as a spokesperson in place of underwhelming Secretary of State, Tony Blinken.
IRAN. Iran shares a 590-mile border with Afghanistan. A couple of million Afghanistan citizens have escaped into Iran. It’s in Iran’s interest to help Biden get all Americans out of Afghanistan safely. Iran helped the US right after 9/11. Continue Reading……….
Bay-Waveland School Board Secretly Discussing $37 Million Dollar Bond Issue (Updated)
The discussions about issuing bonds by the school board in executive sessions has become an open secret. This is the type of thing that has no business being discussed behind closed doors, especially when the accompanying tax increase will total between 10 and 12 mills.
I can think of a few reasons to have such financial discussions in secret and none of them are good.
Issuing bonds may be exactly what Bay Waveland Schools needs for a variety of reasons. Those reasons need to be shared with the taxpaying public.
Update: Since this post was published Slabbed has communicated with School Board Attorney Ronnie Artigues and Superintendent of Education Dr. Reed, who disputed these items were discussed in secret but instead were brought up in public at the regular meeting of July 13, 2021 (Introduction of bond counsel) and at the Special called meeting held on July 28, 2021 (list of potential capital projects which total $37 million dollars).
Slabbed reviewed the meeting agendas posted to the School District’s website and could not find a specific mention of either items on the agendas. Upon further inquiry of Dr. Reed, bond counsel was included in the heading “Superintendent’s Report” in the agenda of the July 13, 2021 meeting.
Continue reading “Bay-Waveland School Board Secretly Discussing $37 Million Dollar Bond Issue (Updated)”
Bay Waveland School Board Holds Special Called Meeting
We still get tips that are worth fleshing out in greater detail and this is one of them. I’ll preface the post by saying it is based upon rumors floating around among more informed circles of citizens there in Bay-Waveland.
Special Called Agenda by Slabbed on Scribd
The agenda embedded above looks innocuous enough but there is something interesting too in the executive session. Typically you only see those in special called meetings when there is something big brewing such as a sex scandal involving students and faculty or all the other myriad of ways people create disasters. The special called meeting on the 2nd of August above comes less than a week after another special called meeting on July 28th that tackled contracts that needed to be approved in advance of school starting etc. The board packet is posted to the webpage for that meeting as well, an informational item that is missing from the meeting of August 2’s webpage at the time of publication of this post on August 4.
Continue reading “Bay Waveland School Board Holds Special Called Meeting”
Other Voices | Tom Callaghan: Iran and the American Compulsion to do Dumb Stuff
Posted on August 4, 2021
The Biden Team has an early opportunity to do something stupid in Iran.
It’ s an American tradition. Caused, in large part, by a school of thought that holds that there should never be any “daylight” between American policy in the Middle East and Israeli policy in the same region.
Huh? What’s up with that? What’s the point of being a “sovereign” country if we have to adjust our strategic aspirations anywhere to accommodate a country that we generously support, who has spied on us to our severe detriment and has never put a soldier, of their own, at risk with us to fight in any of the wars they’ve advocated. They prefer to hold our coat.
If Israel is our partner, they are a very Peculiar Partner.
Harp on this subject very much and you’ll find yourself the guy with vacant seats on both sides when attending one of those silly assed meetings about “Strategic Imperatives in a Changing World.” It’s considered bad form to bring these matters up. It embarrasses folks who want to think of themselves as warriors for what is right and true, but who know our policy vis-a-vis Israel is indefensible but don’t want to lose their job or welcome in polite company by making a big stink about it. At least they haven’t been willing to do so, so far.
But, let me make a prediction. (Disregarding Yogi Berra‘s advice that “one shouldn’t make predictions, especially about the future.”) My prediction is that Israel has one last misadventure to urge upon us before it hits the fan big time. Which is the working man’s way of saying “sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”
The Biden Team has already done one stupid thing to Iran. On June 22 of this year they seized an Iranian website that many folks curious about the world would consult. I mean you can’t watch Wolf Blitzer 24/7. The site, www.presstv.com came out of Teheran and I’m sure the Iranian Government dictated its content.
So what? What a juvenile counterproductive thing to do. It was an interesting source on how the Iranians looked at the world. I checked it out occasionally. Does our deeply unimpressive Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, have such a low opinion of American citizens that he doesn’t trust our ability to discern sense from nonsense without his very Israel-Centric guidance? Is Blinken, less in favor of the free flow of speech, than Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who never shut the site down?
C’mon Mr. Blinken. People are starting to talk. Continue Reading……