WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2021
•News & Notes is on Labor Day weekend holiday recess, returning Tuesday, September 7.
•You can still comment on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, or other recent news items, for posting in the left or right column of The Hustings. Click the comment button, or email editors@thehustings.news.
UPDATE – The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to leave the Texas law banning abortions after six weeks in place. It rejected Wednesday night a request to block enforcement as legal challenges to its constitutionality are litigated in lower courts (per SCOTUSblog). Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in opposition to the ruling.
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>1,000 Assaults on Police January 6 — There were some 1,000-plus assaults on police during the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol according to a court filing, Politico reports, quoting Emily Miller, federal prosecutor leading the evidence collection for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., as writing, “Based on a review of the body-worn-camera footage conducted by our Office, the footage displays approximately 1,000 events that may be characterized as assaults on federal officers.”
Note: Remember when Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, R-GA, described the riot as a “normal tourist visit”? Or Donald Trump gushing about how there was “a lot of love” during the insurrection? For the party that used to be that of “law and order,” it seems as though there is more than a modicum of support for “crime and disorder.”
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SCOTUS Declines to Block Restrictive Texas Abortion Law – The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take action Tuesday night on Texas Senate Bill 8, a nearly complete ban on abortions, The New York Times reports. The bill allows health care providers in the state to be sued for providing abortion services and makes no exceptions for incest or rape. The law restricts abortions for mothers who are at least six weeks pregnant.
An emergency application by abortion providers who are trying to block SB 8 is pending, and SCOTUS is expected to rule on it presently.
Note: Loading of the federal courts with conservative judges, as well as Senate Republicans’ successful replacement of SCOTUS Justices Antony Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg over the last four years is about to lead to a (likely successful) challenge to 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision.
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Biden Refuses to Back Down on Need to End 20-Year War – President Biden’s address to the nation Tuesday afternoon following the United States’ one-day early withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan drove home many of the points he has made since evacuations began last month as the Taliban swiftly took over Afghanistan. His administration refused to count on an Afghan government crippled by corruption and unwilling to rely on a security force with 20 years of training and support by U.S. troops to fight back.
“After 20 years I refuse to send another soldier to fight a war that should have ended long ago,” Biden told the nation.
Note: The Taliban were quickly pushed out during the Bush administration, and now they are back in. Excepting suppression of terrorist attacks this qualifies as an unmitigated U.S. defeat, a result that must annoy neocons as much now as hawks were miffed at the Vietnam result 46 years ago.
After serious criticism of a poorly planned withdrawal and Saigon-like images of helicopters removing people from the roof of the U.S. embassy in the last couple of weeks, Biden is getting a bit of relief from the right and left this week as he attempts to shift much of the blame to previous administrations, especially Donald Trump’s. The president reported that 5,500 Americans have been evacuated from Afghanistan, with 100 to 200 remaining who he says will get out if they want. The fate of allies, including Afghan interpreters for American soldiers is, and always has been, the main point of attacks on the Biden administration. Several American veterans’ groups are working to keep “promises” to such allies, including those who are the subject of anecdotes of how they saved many of our troops’ lives.
Biden says 120,000 people have been airlifted from Afghanistan at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. There have been no reliable estimates of the number of allies and their families, but reports say the Taliban is “hunting” down anyone who has helped the U.S. effort since late 2001. Some of the blame for lack of such evacuations is directed to the State Department’s exceptionally bureaucratic Special Immigrant Visa program.
The other red meat for hard-liner Republicans, some of whom continue to call for Biden’s impeachment, is the issue of billions of dollars in U.S. military equipment, including airplanes and helicopters and ground vehicles falling into the hands of Taliban fighters, but Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, chief of U.S. Central Command confirmed Tuesday they were permanently disabled before the last soldier jumped on a C-130 military transport just before midnight local time Monday.
Ex-President Donald J. Trump told Fox Business’ Varney & Co. Tuesday that the Biden administration cannot execute “a simple withdrawal from a country that we should have ever gotten into in the first place.”
But hard-right pundit-provocateur Ann Coulter tweeted this: “Thank you, President Biden, for keeping a promise Trump made, but then abandoned when he got to office.” Then, hitting Trump where he especially feels it, she later tweeted this: “Trump REPEATEDLY demanded that we bring our soldiers home, but only President Biden had the balls to do it.”
The Poll: According to a poll released by the Pew Research Center Tuesday:
•54% said the U.S. decision to withdraw was the right one; 42% said it was wrong.
•69% said the U.S. failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan; 27% said the U.S. succeeded.
•42% said the Biden administration did a “poor” job of executing the Afghanistan withdrawal; 29% said his actions were “only fair”: 21% “good”; 6% said Biden did an “excellent” job.
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New Afghani Leader – The Taliban is set to name Hibatullah Akhundzada as Afghanistan’s new leader, The New York Times reports.
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Ending Enhanced Unemployment Insurance Early Didn’t Help – Job growth was not enhanced in the half of U.S. states that cut off early an extra $300 per week in federal unemployment insurance funds that were part of President Biden’s COVID-19 relief package, according to The Wall Street Journal. Citing economists and its own analysis of the numbers, states that shut off the additional $300 per week in unemployment insurance from the federal program, meant to enhance states’ standard unemployment insurance, had “about the same job growth” as states that continued to offer the pandemic-related extra aid. The extra unemployment insurance ends next week.
Note: Many businesses that re-opened as COVID-19 vaccinations began last spring and early summer had complained of worker shortages, particularly restaurants, hotels and other service-related industries. While some Republican lawmakers blamed the extra $300 per week for keeping unemployed out of the job market, the Journal posits that family care responsibilities, school closures, imbalance of available jobs, fear of COVID-19 and employee retirements had much to do with the worker shortages.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Nic Woods and Gary S. Vasilash
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BULLETIN -- TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2021
War in Afghanistan is Over – The U.S. has officially left Afghanistan, site of its longest war, a day early. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command said the last airplane out left at 3:59 p.m. Eastern time, or 11:59 Kabul time on Monday, the Associated Press reports, 24 hours ahead of President Biden’s deadline. Fewer than 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, and it’s “likely closer to 100.” The State department will continue to work to get them out, he said. The U.S. has suffered more than 2,400 casualties since the war began in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001, the AP says. The Taliban are once again in charge of the country.
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News & Notes -- MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2021
•OUR SUMMER RECESS: The Hustings will post once again this week, after Tuesday’s Afghanistan withdrawal deadline, and then return after the extended Labor Day weekend, on Tuesday, September 6.
•Hurricane Ida has been downgraded to a tropical storm as it hovers over the Mississippi River, the AP reports. Ida made landfall over Louisiana Sunday 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people.
•Tuesday is President Biden’s deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The number of troops helping airlift remaining citizens as well as local allies has been reduced from 5,800 to about 4,000.
U.S. Military Has Capacity to Airlift 300 Remaining Americans – The United States has the capacity to evacuate approximately 300 Americans remaining in Afghanistan before the Tuesday deadline to leave, the Associated Press reports. The U.S. military intercepted five rocket fire attacks aimed at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport Monday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports.
“This is the most dangerous time in an already extraordinarily dangerous mission these last couple of days,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken (AP). The U.S. has conducted two drone strikes against ISIS-K militants since more than 200 Afghanis and 13 U.S. troops were killed in last Thursday’s suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate of Karzai Airport.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week Sunday, Blinken said he expects the Taliban will continue to allow people to leave Afghanistan after Tuesday’s deadline.
Note: There are still many U.S. allies who helped our two-decade war effort in Afghanistan desperate to get out, though several different numbers have been bandied about, most in the “hundreds of thousands.” It seems criticism of President Biden’s late planning for the August 31 withdrawal from Afghanistan has been tamped down a bit over the weekend, as analysts criticize misguided attempts at “nation building” by four presidents over nearly 20 years.
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France Proposes Kabul Airport Safe Zone – France and the United Kingdom will propose to the United Nations Security Council establishment of a “safe zone” at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in order to continue to allow people to leave Afghanistan, French President Emmanuel Macron told Le Journal du Dimanche, as reported by Politico.
“Our resolution proposal aims to define a safe zone in Kabul, under UN control, which would allow humanitarian operations to continue,” Macron said. In the interview, he said that the U.K. backs the proposal, though there has been no confirmation from London.
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Berenson Banned from Twitter — Alex Berenson, American thriller writer and former New York Times reporter, has been permanently banned from Twitter for violating COVID-19 misinformation rules. The Hill reports it received a statement from a Twitter spokesperson that reads: “The account was permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules.”
Note: Newsweek noted that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, took to Twitter to write: “I don’t know Berenson. But all the Leftie Brown Shirts cheering his being banned — you are the problem. You’re supporting authoritarian billionaires’ arbitrary censorship. & you are contributing to so many people’s distrust of Covid info — by silencing dissent, many are skeptical.” Not surprising, Cruz has gone over the top. The “Brown Shirts” he references goes to the Nazi Sturmabteilung, storm troopers. People Tweeting about a Twitter ban? And isn’t it somewhat ironic that Cruz has taken to the very billionaires’ site?
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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News & Notes -- FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2021
•Vice President Kamala Harris has cancelled a Friday campaign rally for California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recall election, due to Thursday’s suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan. In the latest polls, conservative radio host Larry Elder leads a slate of 46 candidates challenging the Democratic governor in the recall.
Biden Takes Responsibility, Vows Revenge for Suicide Bombing – Because at least 95 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops are dead after a suicide bombing Thursday at the Abbey Gate of Kabul, Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai International Airport (the Associated Press), President Biden made an address to the nation Thursday, which he ended with a moment of silence.
[Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said in a press conference Friday morning that a single suicide bomber triggered the blast Thursday, not two bombers as initially reported amidst the fog of the scene.]
While delivering his prepared remarks Biden vowed revenge against those responsible.
“We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place of our choosing. These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans, we will get our Afghan allies out and our mission will go on,” he said.
Biden said U.S. troops will complete the mission to evacuate Americans and allies by the deadline of next Tuesday, August 31, but that he would fulfill any request for additional resources made by military leaders. Biden’s promise of vengeance for yesterday’s tragedy indicates some sort of strategic U.S. presence in Afghanistan, though the president did not elaborate.
Note: Biden’s way forward is to complete the withdrawal as safely as possible by next Tuesday’s deadline, and maintain some sort of U.S. intelligence presence in the Graveyard of Empires potentially indefinitely – even with the withdrawal, President George W. Bush’s War on Terrorism appears to carry on in some form nearly 20 years after it began.
“We will never forgive,” Biden said to the terrorists yesterday. “We will never forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
What’s going on?: After the Taliban’s quick takeover of most of Afghanistan, ISIS-K surfaced as an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Islamic State, or ISIS. Analysts note that Texas-sized Afghanistan is made of individual warlords controlling each of these regions, but in the post-U.S. war era, it’s going to potentially get messier than ever. Experts and analysts appearing on CNN, NPR, MSNBC, et. al. do not agree on ISIS-K’s relationship with the Taliban now leading the country. The generally accepted analysis is that ISIS-K and the Taliban are enemies – some analysts now say they are now working together and blame equal responsibility for yesterday’s attacks, while The Washington Post to name just one outlet, says ISIS-K considers both the U.S. and the Taliban to be enemies.
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Afghan President Alleged to Have Absconded with U.S. Funds – The House of Representatives Oversight Committee’s ranking Republican, James Comer of Kentucky, and Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-WI, have called on Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to give the committee a briefing on U.S. taxpayer dollars allegedly spirited out of Afghanistan by president-in-exile Ashraf Ghani, Fox News reports.
Comer and Grothman are looking into allegations that Ghani ran off with as much as $169 million in U.S. aid to Afghanistan. Ghani fled the country for the United Arab Emirates (and if he took anything with him it’s in a Swiss bank account) just as Taliban forces were taking control of its capital, Kabul, saying he left in order to avoid certain bloodshed.
Note: Yes – Ghani’s own bloodshed. This potential investigation only supports critics of the U.S.’s 20 years in Afghanistan who argue that we have supported nearly 20 years of corrupt local politicians. The Afghan people may have been willing to fight back against the Taliban, but government and military leadership were only interested in taking the money and running.
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SCOTUS Ends Biden’s Eviction Moratorium – The Supreme Court, ruling via its “shadow docket” Thursday night, blocked the Biden administration from enforcing the national eviction moratorium via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention SCOTUSblog reports. It was a 6-3 ruling. The majority’s eight-page ruling said, in part, according to The Washington Post, “our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends. . . It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.”
Earlier this week, SCOTUS refused to block a lower court order that required the Biden administration to reinstate ex-President Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy for blocking illegal crossings along the Southern border.
Note: Biden’s executive order giving the CDC authority to extend the moratorium came only after the initial eviction moratorium imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic expired at the end of July. This one was set to expire October 3, but when Biden initially gave in to progressive Congressional Democrats’ demand for an extension, he warned that it probably would not survive court challenges on behalf of landlords who opposed the extension.
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Capitol Police Officer Shot Ashli Babbitt as “Last Resort” – The Capitol police officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt during the January 6 pro-Trump insurrection told NBC News he shot her “only as a last resort.” In his first interview since the Capitol Hill riots, Lt. Michael Byrd said, “I saved countless lives.” He said 60-80 members of the House of Representatives were just inside the Capitol lobby where he and fellow officers tried to hold back the crowd.
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Seven Capitol Officers Sue Trump, Associates – Seven Capitol Police officers have filed suit against ex-President Trump, some of his associates and white supremacist groups in Federal District Court for the District of Columbia over the January 6 Capitol insurrection. The lawsuit alleges violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, The New York Times reports, and includes protections against violent conspiracies that interfere with Congress’ official duties.
Pro-Trump rioters in the insurrection were attempting to prevent Congress from officially counting Electoral Count votes for Joseph Biden’s win over Donald J. Trump.
Defendants in the suit by the seven officers, five of whom are Black, include Trump confidant Roger Stone, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
Note: This is the latest of three suits that have been filed charging Trump and his coterie of cronies associated with January 6. In addition to which, there are several other suits that will be working their way through the judicial system targeting Trump for curious financial activities. Odds are that if Trump decides to run again — assuming that his clothing doesn’t match the color of his hair by then — it will be so as to avoid prosecution. Quite a proud moment for America when a former president is even sued by police officers.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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News & Notes -- THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2021
•Two bomb blasts outside Kabul’s airport have been reported before noon Eastern U.S. time, according to the AP. The second blast was reported by Russia’s Foreign Ministry. There are 13 reported dead and 15 injuries, including among U.S. troops, from the two explosions.
•With Congress on recess, President Biden concentrates on foreign issues today, beginning with an update on the Afghanistan withdrawal prior to two bilateral meetings with Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, by noon Politico reports. This afternoon Biden will hold several Zoom calls with governors who have volunteered to help re-settle Afghani refugees.
•French President Emmanuel Macron headed to Ireland to meet with its president, Michael Higgins, today to convince the country’s leaders to sign on to a 15% minimum corporate tax rate as recommended by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Politico Europe reports. Ireland has been able to attract economic development via low corporate taxes for several decades.
•Ty Garbin, 26, the only of six men to plead guilty of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D, last year, was sentenced in federal court to six years in prison yesterday, NPR reports. (See Wednesday’s News & Notes.)
•A three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the 2017 death sentence of Dylan Roof, the first to be convicted of a federal hate crime, for the 2015 slaying of nine members of the Black congregation of Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., Politico reports.
Running Out of Time in Kabul – U.S. allies have halted evacuation operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, The Wall Street Journal reports. About 1,500 Americans remain to be evacuated, although “at least 250,000” Afghani allies who worked with Americans haven’t been evacuated, according to a report in The New York Times.
That’s “far too many for American forces to rescue by deadline next Tuesday,” the Times reports. The current pace is about 20,000 per day, with nearly 96,000 Americans rescued since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan August 14.
Americans and allies trying to withdraw in earnest by next Tuesday’s deadline, along with the Taliban, face a third threat: Isis-K, or Islamic State of Khorasan, established 2015 in Eastern Afghanistan. It is a sworn enemy of the Taliban, according to The Times of London. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has warned remaining Americans to avoid approaching the airport until they receive specific instructions from a U.S. representative to do so (Politico). “U.S. citizens who are at the Abbey Gate, East Gate, or North Gate now should leave immediately.”
Note: While Democrats and Republicans alike continue to criticize the Biden administration over the likelihood that tens of thousands of Afghan allies and their families will be left to the Taliban (with some Republican members of Congress even calling for the president’s impeachment), some commentators at such outlets as Fox News argue that the U.S. should close its borders to Afghani evacuees and not re-settle them here.
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Brits to Afghans Trying to Flee: Run for the Border — British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace held a Zoom call with members of Parliament yesterday during which he said about remaining Afghan citizens who had helped British efforts in the country: “If they think they can make it to a third country, that may be better and safer. I recommend trying to get to the border,” according to Politico, citing reporting from The i. It also cites The Times’ (London) reporting Wallace saying “not everyone is going to get out.” There are reportedly some 1,500 eligible Afghans the Brits had yet to evacuate.
Note: This is clearly heart-rending regarding those people who are being advised to get to Iran or Pakistan. While Wallace’s remarks came from leaks, not public pronouncements, at least there is some semblance of speaking the truth of the situation on the ground – a situation which for the British is undoubtedly not any different from the situation facing Afghans who had helped out the U.S. efforts.
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1/6 Committee Requests Trump Administration Records – The January 6 select committee in the House of Representatives has requested a treasure trove of Trump administration records related to the day the former president’s supporters attacked the Capitol, from the National Archives and Records Administration and seven other agencies, according to Roll Call. Committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-MS, has given the Archives and Records agency until September 9 to turn over the documents, which include Trump’s January 6 schedule, White House visitor records, and information about White House efforts to impede the Electoral College vote. Some of those records had previously been requested by other House committees, Roll Call says.
The other agencies involved in the request are departments of Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
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Federal Judge Sanctions Pro-Trump Attorneys – Federal Judge Linda Parker has sanctioned pro-Trump attorneys who launched an effort last year to overturn Michigan’s Electoral College vote for Joseph Biden in last November’s election. Parker ruled that attorneys Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood failed to perform due diligence in investigating claims of voter fraud in Detroit before filing their lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s results, WDET-FM reported on NPR, and attempted to “undermine faith in the election process,” Parker said in her ruling.
Powell and Wood have been ordered to pay court fees and take continuing education law courses.
Note: Powell is soliciting funds from supporters to pay for court costs, WDET says, further perpetuating ex-President Trump’s “Big Lie” among supporters who might otherwise admit from Parker’s ruling that the election was fair and ballots were accurately counted.
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German Company Reaches Deal to Acquire Politico – Germany’s Axel Stringer has reached a deal to acquire Politico, according to a report by The Hill. Axel Stringer is a 50-50 partner with Politico, of Arlington, Virginia, in ownership of the Politico Europe joint venture and thus will acquire the remaining share in the deal. Terms of the deal have not been announced, although The Hill says several sources have put it upwards of $1 billion.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods