WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2021
•President Biden committed to the August 31 deadline Tuesday of pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, despite concerns that there is not enough time to evacuate all remaining Americans, let alone allies with special immigrant visas. Taliban leadership is holding Biden to the deadline, however, as critics from both parties say they worry Americans and allies are being held from passing Taliban checkpoints to reach Hamid Karzai International airport in Kabul.
•The U.S. military has evacuated more than 82,000 Americans, Afghans, and others as of Wednesday morning, NPR reports.
•Reps. Peter Meijer, R-MI, and Seth Moulton, D-MA, both military veterans, have announced in a joint statement they traveled to the Kabul airport Tuesday, the AP reports, to advocate for an extension of the August 31 deadline. Both the State and Defense departments have warned against such travel “during this time of danger.”
•Prosecutors have signaled to U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker he should consider Ty Garbin’s cooperation against five other defendants in the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer when Garbin is sentenced today, the AP reports. The prosecutors have recommended a nine-year sentence for Garbin, 25, who is the only of six charged with the kidnapping plot uncovered by the FBI late last year to plead guilty in the case and has offered ‘extraordinary evidence.’ The prosecutors allege the men plotted the kidnapping after Whitmer “shut down” Michigan in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Democrats Reach Compromise on Budget Reconciliation, Infrastructure – “Compromise” typically means no one is happy, and that appears to be the case again with the House of Representatives’ party-line vote yesterday to move President Biden’s $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation forward, along with the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, negotiated with the “Unbreakable Nine”, plus Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, who joined the moderate Democrats who had been resistant to the coupling of budget resolution with infrastructure rather than simply sending the latter straight to Biden’s Oval Office desk (per The Hill). Here’s where everything is after the straight party line 220-212 vote yesterday:
•The House takes the final vote on the White House’s bipartisan “hard infrastructure” bill no later than September 27.
•Legislators begin writing the $3.5 trillion “social infrastructure” budget reconciliation bill, which must first be written before the House and the Senate (which earlier this month approved the reconciliation bill 50-49) can pass a final bill on to Biden’s desk.
•Approved the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and offer the Justice Department additional tools to resist tighter voting restrictions being passed by Republican-led legislatures across the country, including recently in Texas and Georgia. Unlike budget reconciliation, the voting rights bill requires either 10 Republican votes in addition to all 50 Democratic votes in the Senate, or a Democratic vote to set aside the legislative filibuster. Neither will happen so long as Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, and Krysten Sinema, D-AZ, remain opposed.
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Veep Asks Vietnam to Help Rebuke Chinese ‘Bullying’ on South China Sea – Vice President Kamala Harris called on Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc Wednesday to join the U.S. in challenging China’s “bullying” over control of the South China Sea, Politico reports. China has been challenging Japan on that part of the region for years.
“We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims.”
Note: Taiwan leadership has counted on the United States to protect it from the Republic of China’s claims on its otherwise free neighboring country. The Biden administration’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan has Taiwan worried about the loss of the U.S.’s international clout, and at the same time Beijing has clamped down on Hong Kong. The upshot is that Beijing now must begin its own negotiations with the Taliban, as Afghanistan is a key leg of China’s Silk Road global infrastructure plans.
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Hawaii Governor to Tourists: Stay Home — State hospitals in Hawaii are at capacity due to an increase in COVID-19 cases, so Gov. David Ige, D, is asking that tourists not visit the islands until at least the end of October, The Washington Post reports. Tourism is the major driver of the state’s economy.
To deal with the hospital demand — the Queen’s Health System, the largest healthcare structure in the state, declared an “internal state of emergency” on August 20 -- out-of-state healthcare workers are being flown in to help out.
Note: Not surprisingly, the Post reports there are protests against an order requiring state and county workers to show proof of vaccination or have weekly tests. Reportedly Lt. Gov. Josh Green, D, who also happens to be an E.R. doctor, and his family have been subjected to protestors outside their home. As WaPo describes it: “Some have yelled into bullhorns and shined strobe lights into the building, while others have posted fliers around the neighborhood of his face with the words ‘Jew’ and ‘fraud.’” Yes, even in a place many think of as Paradise.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods