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	November 8, 2021 Heather Cox Richardson Nov 9   The big news of the day is the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to combat international terrorism and lawlessness through cybersecurity and international cooperation.  Today the Department of Justice, the State Department, and the Treasury Department together announced indictments against two foreign actors for cyberattacks on U.S. companies last August. They announced sanctions against the men, one of whom has been arrested in Poland; they seized $6.1 million in assets from the other. The State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information about other cybercriminals associated with the attack. Treasury noted that ransomware attacks cost the U.S. almost $600 million in the first six months of 2021, and disrupt business and public safety.   The U.S. has also sent Special Envoy Jeffrey Feltman to Ethiopia and neighboring Kenya to urge an end to the deadly civil war in Ethiopia, where rebel forces are close to toppling the government. A horrific humanitarian crisis is in the making there. The U.S. is interested in stopping the fighting not only because of that, but also because the Ethiopian government has lately tended to stabilize the fragile Somali government. Without that stabilization, Somalia could become a haven for terrorists, and terrorists could extort the global shipping industry.   Meanwhile, it appears that Biden’s big win on Friday, marshaling a bipartisan infrastructure bill through Congress, has made Republicans almost frantic to win back the national narrative. The National Republican Congressional Committee has released an early ad for the 2022 midterm elections titled “Chaos,” which features images of the protests from Trump’s term and falsely suggests they are scenes from Biden’s America.  As Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other Republican leaders today attacked the popular Sesame Street character Big Bird today for backing vaccinations—Big Bird has publicly supported vaccines since 1972—they revealed how fully they have become the party of Trump. Excerpts from a new book by ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl say that Trump was so mad that the party did not fight harder to keep him in office that on January 20, just after he boarded Air Force One to leave Washington, he took a phone call from Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, and told her that he was quitting the Republicans to start his own political party. McDaniel told him that if he did that, the Republicans “would lose forever.” Trump responded: “Exactly.” A witness said he wanted to punish the officials for their refusal to fight harder to overturn the election. Four days later, Trump relented after the RNC made it clear it would stop paying his legal bills and would stop letting him rent out the email list of his 40 million supporters, a list officials believed was worth about $100 million. Instead of leaving the party, he is rebuilding it in his own image.  In Florida, Trump loyalist Roger Stone is threatening to run against Governor Ron DeSantis in 2022 to siphon votes from his reelection bid unless DeSantis promises he won’t challenge Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024.   A long piece in the Washington Post by Michael Kranish today explored how, over the course of his career, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has singlemindedly pursued power, switching his stated principles to their opposites whenever it helped his climb to the top of the Senate. Eventually, in the hope of keeping power, he embraced Trump, even acquitting him for his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection.  The former president is endorsing primary candidates to oust Republicans he thinks were insufficiently loyal. In Georgia, he has backed Herschel Walker, whose ex-wife got a protective order against him after he allegedly threatened to shoot her. In Pennsylvania, Trump has endorsed Sean Parnell, whose wife testified that he choked her and abused their children physically and emotionally.  Although such picks could hurt the Republicans in a general election with the women they desperately need to attract (hence the focus on schools), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rick Scott (R-FL), did not feel comfortable today bucking Trump to comment on whether Parnell was the right candidate to back. Scott said he would focus on whoever won the primary.  The cost of the party’s link to Trumpism is not just potential 2022 voters. In the New York Times today, David Leonhardt outlined how deaths from the novel coronavirus did not reflect politics until after the Republicans made the vaccines political. A death gap between Democrats and Republicans emerged quickly as Republicans shunned the vaccine. Now, only about 10% of Democrats eligible for the vaccine have refused it, while almost 40% of Republicans have. In October, while about 7.8 people per 100,000 died in counties that voted strongly for Biden, 25 out of every 100,000 died in counties that went the other way. Leonhardt held out hope that both numbers would drop as more people develop immunities and as new antiviral drugs lower death rates everywhere.  And yet, Republicans continue to insist they are attacking the dangerous Democrats. Quite literally. Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has ties to white supremacists and who has been implicated in the January 6 attack, yesterday posted an anime video in which his face was photoshopped onto a character that killed another character bearing the face of New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Gosar character also swung swords at a Biden character and fought alongside Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO).  In response to the outcry about the video, Gosar’s digital director, Jessica Lycos, said: “Everyone needs to relax.”  The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is not relaxing. Today it issued six new subpoenas. The subpoenas went to people associated with the “war room” in the Willard Hotel in the days leading up to the events of January 6.  The subpoenas went to William Stepien, the manager of Trump’s 2020 campaign which, as an entity, asked states not to certify the results of the election; Trump advisor Jason Miller, who talked of a stolen election even before the election itself; Angela McCallum, an executive assistant to Trump’s 2020 campaign, who apparently left a voicemail for a Michigan state representative pressuring the representative to appoint an alternative slate of electors because of “election fraud”; and Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner, who paid for the hotel rooms in which the plotting occurred. Another subpoena went to Michael Flynn, who called for Trump to declare martial law and “rerun” the election, and who attended a December 18, 2020, meeting in the Oval Office “during which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers, and continuing to spread the false message that the November 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”  The sixth subpoena went to John Eastman, author of the Eastman memo saying that then–vice president Mike Pence could reject the certified electors from certain states, thus throwing the election to Trump. Eastman was apparently at the Willard Hotel for a key meeting on January 5, and he spoke at the rally on the Ellipse on January 6.  None of these people are covered by executive privilege, even if Trump tries to exercise it.  The 2022 midterm elections, scheduled for November 8, 2022, are exactly a year away. — Notes: https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-committee-subpoenas-additional-witnesses-tied-efforts-overturn-election https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/briefing/covid-death-toll-red-america.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/08/mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-insurrection-senate/ https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-told-rnc-chair-leaving-gop-create-party/story?id=80979889 https://www.npr.org/2021/11/08/1053548074/big-bird-covid-19-vaccine-conservative-backlash-ted-cruz https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nrsc-chair-scott-condemn-parnell-domestic-abuse https://www.npr.org/2021/11/07/1051940127/rebels-are-closing-in-on-ethiopias-capital-its-collapse-could-bring-regional-cha https://www.state.gov/visit-of-special-envoy-for-the-horn-of-africa-feltman-to-ethiopia-and-kenya/ https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/politics/fact-check-house-republican-ad-trump-images-2020/index.html https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ukrainian-arrested-and-charged-ransomware-attack-kaseya https://www.state.gov/reward-offers-for-information-to-bring-sodinokibi-revil-ransomware-variant-co-conspirators-to-justice/ https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0471 https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/580351-senate-gop-worries-trump-could-derail-bid-for-majority https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-stone-run-governor-desantis-pledges-not-to-run-president-2021-11 https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2021/01/10/reps-andy-biggs-paul-gosar-implicated-capitol-insurrection/6614177002/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-gosar-trump-ocasio-cortez/2021/11/08/ead37b36-40ca-11ec-9ea7-3eb2406a2e24_story.html Share

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

William G. Gale

The Vitals

Before and after passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), several prominent conservatives, including Republicans in the House and Senate, former Reagan economist Art Laffer, and members of the Trump administration, claimed that the act would either increase revenues or at least pay for itself. In principle, a tax cut could “pay for itself” if it spurred substantial economic growth—if tax revenues rose from the combination of higher wages and hours worked, greater investment returns, and larger corporate profits. The TCJA, however, is not that tax cut.

• The actual amount of tax revenue collected in FY2018 was significantly lower than the CBO’s projection made in January 2017—before the tax cut was signed into law.
• Given that the economy grew in 2018, and in the absence of another policy that could have caused a large revenue loss, the data imply that the 2017 tax cut substantially reduced revenues.
• The 2017 tax cut reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent—a 40 percent reduction. It also reduced income taxes for most Americans.

A Closer Look

Did the TCJA spur enough growth to maintain federal revenue levels?

While some TCJA supporters observe that nominal revenues were higher in fiscal year 2018 (which began Oct. 1, 2017) than in FY2017, that comparison does not address the question of the TCJA’s effects. Nominal revenues rise because of inflation and economic growth. Adjusted for inflation, total revenues fell from FY2017 to FY2018 (Figure 1). Adjusted for the size of the economy, they fell even more.

The right question: What would revenues have been without the TCJA?

The most appropriate test of the revenue impact of the TCJA is to compare actual revenues in FY2018 with predicted revenues in FY2018 assuming Congress had not passed the legislation. In fact, the actual amount of revenue collected in FY2018 was significantly lower than the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projection of FY2018 revenue made in January 2017—before the tax cuts were signed into law in December 2017. The shortfall was $275 billion, or 7.6% of revenues that were expected before the tax cuts took place. Given that the economy grew, and in the absence of another policy that could have caused a large revenue loss, the data imply that the TCJA substantially reduced revenues (Figure 1).

What does the composition of the revenue shortfalls tell us about the effect of the TCJA?

The TCJA’s changes mostly affected the corporate and individual income taxes (Figure 2). The act reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%—a 40% reduction. Actual corporate income tax revenue in FY2018 was $135 billion lower than CBO’s projection from 2017—almost exactly a 40% decline. The most recent CBO projections estimate further decreases in corporate tax revenue. The TCJA also reduced income taxes for most Americans, which led to a decline in revenues relative to prior projections. For individual income taxes, actual collections in FY2018 were $97 billion, or 5.4%, below pre-TCJA projections.

These effects are accentuated if one looks at taxes as a share of GDP (Table 1). In 2017, before the tax cuts were considered, the CBO estimated that total revenues would be 18.1% of GDP in FY2018. With the TCJA, revenues were only 16.4% of GDP. Similar patterns hold for individual income taxes and (in more extreme form) for corporate income taxes. Due to data limitations, the revenue numbers in Table 1 are on a fiscal year (October 2017–September 2018) basis. As a result, 2018 data include the three months prior to the act’s enactment. If the values were instead on a calendar year basis so that 2018 only included post-TCJA revenues, the revenue declines would be even larger.

Are the differences between projected and actual revenues really caused by the TCJA?

These shortfalls can’t be attributed to errors in the CBO’s pre-TCJA forecast. To illustrate this, it makes sense to look at projected and actual payroll tax revenues, because the TCJA did not directly affect payroll taxes. In fact, payroll taxes fell only slightly—1.7%—from pre-TCJA projected values (Figure 2). This provides baseline credibility that reinforces the declines in other revenues.

Were the TCJA’s revenue effects anticipated?

None of these findings should be surprising. Almost every major analysis of the legislation correctly predicted that revenues would fall in 2018 relative to a scenario without the tax cuts, with sources ranging from government entities such as the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation, to non-governmental think tanks such as the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Tax Foundation, academic researchers in studies by Robert Barro and Jason Furman, and in analyses using the Penn-Wharton Budget Model.

Could the revenue shortfalls be a temporary result of sudden policy change?

For those who might argue to “wait and see” what has happened in 2019, the findings from the studies cited above offer little hope. On average, these models estimated that economic growth effects (the “dynamic effects”) will only offset about a quarter of the 10-year revenue loss associated with the TCJA. Excluding the Tax Foundation, which is an outlier in these estimates, drops the average offset to less than 20%.

So did the TCJA pay for itself?

The TCJA did not pay for itself, nor is it likely to do so in the future. There are many debates to have about the TCJA, but whether it raised or reduced revenues in 2018 should not be one of them.

I thank Grace Enda and Claire Haldeman for outstanding research assistance.

Misinformation is wasting your time | Mission Control Blog

NPR Illinois | 91.9 UIS | By Randy Eccles

Published November 4, 2021 at 1:02 PM CDT

Misinformation has cost us all a lot of time and is increasingly costing us more.

Two major issues, COVID-19 and climate change are being exacerbated by leaders and supporters who don’t have the facts to base their choices. In the case of climate change, this has led to continued failure to put in place transformative corrective measures. The current weather patterns, floods, and droughts aren’t cyclical. Trends show the changes are off the cyclical charts and in many cases more severe than scientists previously predicted. We’ve been transformative, but in the wrong direction. Human generated carbon levels were discussed over 15 years ago by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Positive actions have been taken, like raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, but frequently are weakened or diluted. Where one administration takes a hard-ish stand, the next reverses it. This can’t be done without political support of the voter. We have lost significant time when we could have been making progress. Some reports now have us running out of time. Others, say it’s already too late and we can only make defensive adjustments now.

How does this happen? Misinformation. At the most fundamental level, you and I are wasting valuable time because we are misinformed. Who has time to read every scientific report? To save time we depend on experts and journalists to impart the most important and urgent information to us. Misinformation isn’t old. Merriam-Webster sites the word’s first use in 1605. The handbills, postal messages, and word of mouth of the Hamiltonian era have evolved into social media’s immediate delivery to millions of readers. In the past, the news cycle provided some time for editing or digestion. Until cable news began its 24/7 broadcasting, you had a national evening newscast that had 23.5 hours to assess what changed since the last broadcast. Newspapers’ daily deadline would provide a day of deliberation before we received updates. Now; the infinite scroll, unfiltered sharing, and the device buzzing for our attention in our pockets and purses leaves little time for consideration.

Misinformation defeats us when we so casually share it. How do you make sure you have credible information? It takes some time, but is minimal compared to the lost opportunity costs burgeoning misinformation produces.

1. Limit social media – We’re discovering that social media companies in their pursuit of business success have been cavalier about the effects of their media. I recently took my first break since 2007 of a popular sharing app. I haven’t missed it. I do miss following a few people on it, but I reach out to them directly now. I have less anxiety as I’m exposed to fewer doomsday headlines that drive traffic. Instead of using social media as a newspaper replacement, I pick a couple credible news sites to review stories from. Their scrolls aren’t infinite and I have also recovered time.
2. Find reliable sources – Credible news sources make mistakes occasionally. When they do, they tell you and make corrections. Too much of the data we get these days are from unchecked sources. Who is the author? What else have they written? What is their background? Is this source striving to be a credible news provider or is it an opinion site using emotion to drive pageviews? I found two charts that helped me to understand whether an information source was biased, The Media Bias Chart from Ad Fontes Media and the All Sides Media Bias Chart. Neither are perfect but I find them a good tool to use in evaluating sources. In addition to the centrist, reliable sources, I like to include a couple of highly credible sources from the right and the left ends of the chart.
3. Own what you share – I imagine I’ll go back to a social media platform to share stories again. In the past, I’ve caught myself almost forwarding a story about a death that seemed current but was from 3 year earlier. When you do decide to share information, in addition to the source’s credibility, make sure you check its date and whether there have been any updates. Your likes and your shares are your personal brand.
4. Confirmation bias – one of the benefits of social media has been more posts on things I enjoy like kayaking or animation. In the realm of participating in our democracy, this ends up feeding us what we want to hear and in some cases what gets us angry enough to engage. It seems to be getting harder to find well thought-out ideas that don’t immediately get assigned to left or right. In fiction, the willful suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy a book where the character has super powers or where there is an alternate history. In our current climate of ideas, we need to suspend our positions and consider things that do not align with them. If the author is thoughtful and using facts, not misinformation, we may find a shorter route to solving some of the issues that face us.

Misinformation is definitely costing us money, but also an even more valuable resource – time. We are not coming together to solve issues in our society. When issues emerge or re-emerge as encapsulated by Black Lives Matter, they are taken seriously at the beginning, until partisan elements use misinformation and disinformation to freeze action.

It’s been a long two years of pandemic. The U.S. leads the world in COVID deaths. The past and current administrations did amazing work with the pharmaceutical industry to get vaccines to market quickly. Unfortunately, misinformation has led many to question becoming vaccinated. Dr. Ngozi Ezike said in the recent Community Health Roundtable that Illinois is near a 70% vaccination rate. The quicker the world reaches that rate the sooner pandemic measures will end and our economy can operate without restraint. Ezike went on to say many places, like countries in Africa, are below a 2% vaccination rate. COVID is likely to go on a lot longer as misinformation about the effectiveness of the vaccine and the need to get it to other countries confuses people’s resolve.

Although I’ve been vaccinated and received a booster, I am anxiously waiting for a children’s version of the vaccine to be approved so my 11-year-old can be a tweenager and be able to feel confident getting out in public.

Please use NPR Illinois or the credible media of your choice to inform your decisions and learn more how COVID and misinformation is impacting us at the next Community Health Roundtable, November 19, noon to 1 PM

Heather Cox Richardson	Oct 26

“Caravans” of migrants to our southern border are once again headline news on the Fox News Channel, but while these anti-immigrant stories divert attention from news that those on the right would like to bury, as usual, they also establish a larger pattern. 

Whipping up fears of immigration is standard for authoritarians trying to convince followers to support the loss of civil liberties in order to promote law and order. One of those who rose to power with just such an argument is Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, a figure those on the right are championing these days. Fox News Channel Personality Tucker Carlson broadcast from Hungary appreciatively earlier this year, presenting Orbán’s government, which has systematically dismantled democracy, as enviable. The American Conservative Union is planning to have its 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Hungary, as well.

This backstory gave disturbing context to today’s news from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO is a government agency within the legislative branch (most of the ones you’re used to hearing about are in the executive branch) that audits, investigates, and issues reports for Congress. Known as the congressional watchdog, the GAO tries to cut through spin to do honest, thorough, and nonpartisan evaluations of government issues.

Today, the GAO reported that actions of the Trump administration had undermined U.S. goals in the Northern Triangle countries that are currently driving immigration to the southern border. Since 2008, the U.S. has funded development projects in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to promote economic development, provide security, and combat corruption. This investment was designed, in part, to slow the movement of immigrants escaping the violence and economic dislocation of the region to the U.S. border.  

In March 2019, the Trump administration abruptly halted promised money, and that freeze continued until June 2020. Today’s GAO report documented how that suspension hurt 92 of the 114 projects underway under the control of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and 65 of the 168 projects operating under the State Department.

Migration to the border soared, right before the 2020 election. 

While Trump Republicans were trying to convince white American voters that immigrants threatened them, another story today suggests the real goals of the Trump machine.

The Guardian revealed that several members of the secretive Council on National Policy (CNP) claim that they were the ones behind the 2017 tax cuts on corporations and wealthy Americans. Wealthy right-wing Christian activists organized the CNP in 1981 to push the country toward religious and libertarian policies.  

Also today, the Washington Post Magazine ran a long story about CNP, calling it “the most unusual, least understood conservative organization in the nation’s capital.” CNP is registered as a charity, but it is essentially a central planning center for right-wing activists across the country. Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., explained how CNP members, who initially opposed Trump, swung behind him when he promised to combat abortion. 

Members of CNP are a who’s who of wealthy conservative or political figures, including Leonard Leo, a leading light of the Federalist Society, which advocates for a conservative judicial system; Steve Bannon, a key Trump adviser; David Bossie, who headed the group Citizens United and who was Trump’s deputy campaign manager; and Kellyanne Conway, a White House adviser. Their goal, they say, is to create a moral America. 

So, it appears, the fearmongering about immigrants helped to give power to a secret group of wealthy Americans who lobbied for huge tax cuts for the richest Americans.

The stories about CNP suggest its members have focused on keeping emotions high and Trump in power. The CNP was instrumental in opposing business closures and mask mandates to combat the coronavirus. A number of members, including Cleta Mitchell—the lawyer who was on the phone with Trump during his infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to switch the state into the Trump column although Biden had won it—and Ginni Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, backed “Stop the Steal” efforts.

Their efforts, we have increasing evidence, were promoted by Facebook, the giant social media company. Starting last Friday, 17 different news outlets have been publishing the “Facebook Papers” based on internal company documents provided to Congress and the press by whistleblower Frances Haugen. The stories allege that Facebook prioritized profits over truth and safety, deliberately amplifying right-wing voices and dividing the country. 

Facebook denies the allegations. 

Reports of migrant caravans might well be attempts to divert attention from the service of the Republicans to the wealthy, as well as from the story of January 6, which is becoming clearer as information continues to come out. Today, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol interviewed Steve Bannon associate Dustin Stockton. Stockton was one of the organizers of the Women for America First rally on January 6 that got taken over by the unpermitted Stop the Steal rally which led to the attack on the Capitol. 

According to a piece by Joshua Kaplan and Joaquin Sapien in ProPublica last June, Stockton was so concerned about the Stop the Steal people that he urged Amy Kremer, another leader of the Women for America First rally, to contact her associate Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in the days before January 6 to warn him things were getting out of hand. The committee has subpoenaed Kremer to testify on October 29. There are signs that Kremer or an associate might have been a source for yesterday’s Rolling Stone article, suggesting that someone from Women for America First is willing to cooperate with the committee.

The Rolling Stone article, which provided names of lawmakers allegedly involved in planning the January 6 rally, refocused attention on the fact that it was Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) who was speaking at length as the mob broke into the building. His speech delayed the evacuation of the House chamber for 15 minutes, so that the House members were still present when the mob, including Ashli Babbitt, tried to get at them. A police officer shot and killed Babbitt as she broke through the doors. 

Last night’s Rolling Stone story also identified Republican Lauren Boebert (CO) as a participant in planning meetings for the events of January 6. Today she said in a carefully worded statement: “I had no role in the planning or execution of any event that took place at the Capitol or anywhere in Washington, DC on January 6.”

Today, once again, President Joe Biden refused to claim executive privilege to prevent the January 6 committee from seeing documents Trump wants to hide. 

Meanwhile, the Democrats in Congress continue to try to move the country forward, hammering out their infrastructure measure. They hope to have it finished before President Biden leaves for meetings with European leaders later this week.

—

—

Notes:

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/14/cpac-set-to-stage-far-right-conference-in-hungary-as-prosecutors-zero-in/

Click to access R41731.pdf

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/15/fact-sheet-united-states-and-central-america-honoring-our-commitments

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/central-americas-turbulent-northern-triangle

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/09/17/761266169/trump-froze-aid-to-guatemala-now-programs-are-shutting-down

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-104366

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration/usbp-sw-border-apprehensions-fy2019

Jacob Jarvis  1 hr ago

---

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and pointed towards the cost of equipment left behind in the hands of the Taliban.

The Claim

In an interview with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity on October 7, Trump criticized President Joe Biden‘s handling of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At one point, Trump said: “We left $85 billion worth of equipment in the hands of the Taliban.”

Trump has made this claim previously, and in a statement on August 30 said: “Never in history has a withdrawal from war been handled so badly or incompetently as the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In addition to the obvious, ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost.”

The Facts

The figure touted by Trump is near those which came from a July 30 report from by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

This detailed that “as of June 30, 2021, the United States government had appropriated or otherwise made available approximately $144.98 billion in funds for reconstruction and related activities in Afghanistan since FY 2002.”

Breaking down these funds, it detailed “$88.61 billion for security (including $4.60 billion for counternarcotics initiatives).”

That figure, minus the counternarcotics initiatives funds, would be $84 billion for security.

It also detailed $82.9 billion appropriated for the Afghanistan Security Forces

Fund (ASFF) which provided funds to “train, equip, and provide related assistance to” the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). Around $75 billion had been disbursed.

While those figures are around the $85 billion mark, the money was not spent on equipment alone. The SIGAR report says that between 2005 and the third quarter of 2021, $18.56 billion from the ASFF was spent on “equipment and transportation.”

A Government Accountability Office report from 2017 said around 29 percent of the funds allocated to the ASFF, since it was set up in 2005, were spent on equipment and transportation between 2005 and 2016.

Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, previously told the Associated Press: “We did spend well over $80 billion in assistance to the Afghan security forces. But that’s not all equipment costs.”

Over time, some of the equipment bought might also have become obsolete, further reducing the value of what was left behind. Some unwanted gear has also been sold off as scrap.

While the amount may not be $85 billion, a U.S. defense official told the Associated Press in August that the Taliban’s “sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous.”

Newsweek has contacted SIGAR for comment on estimates of the amount of equipment left behind. The office of the former president has also been contacted for comment.

The Ruling

False.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK

While the U.S. did spend upwards of $80 billion on security and security forces in Afghanistan, this was not all on equipment.

The figure also covered costs such as training and other assistance. The number for equipment may indeed run into billions of dollars, but not $85 billion as Trump has suggested.

Fact Check: Donald Trump’s Claim U.S. Left $85 Billion of Equipment With Taliban

Jacob Jarvis  1 hr ago

---

 

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and pointed towards the cost of equipment left behind in the hands of the Taliban.

The Claim

In an interview with Fox News‘ Sean Hannity on October 7, Trump criticized President Joe Biden‘s handling of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At one point, Trump said: “We left $85 billion worth of equipment in the hands of the Taliban.”

Trump has made this claim previously, and in a statement on August 30 said: “Never in history has a withdrawal from war been handled so badly or incompetently as the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In addition to the obvious, ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost.”

The Facts

The figure touted by Trump is near those which came from a July 30 report from by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

This detailed that “as of June 30, 2021, the United States government had appropriated or otherwise made available approximately $144.98 billion in funds for reconstruction and related activities in Afghanistan since FY 2002.”

Breaking down these funds, it detailed “$88.61 billion for security (including $4.60 billion for counternarcotics initiatives).”

That figure, minus the counternarcotics initiatives funds, would be $84 billion for security.

It also detailed $82.9 billion appropriated for the Afghanistan Security Forces

Fund (ASFF) which provided funds to “train, equip, and provide related assistance to” the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). Around $75 billion had been disbursed.

While those figures are around the $85 billion mark, the money was not spent on equipment alone. The SIGAR report says that between 2005 and the third quarter of 2021, $18.56 billion from the ASFF was spent on “equipment and transportation.”

A Government Accountability Office report from 2017 said around 29 percent of the funds allocated to the ASFF, since it was set up in 2005, were spent on equipment and transportation between 2005 and 2016.

Dan Grazier, a defense policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, previously told the Associated Press: “We did spend well over $80 billion in assistance to the Afghan security forces. But that’s not all equipment costs.”

Over time, some of the equipment bought might also have become obsolete, further reducing the value of what was left behind. Some unwanted gear has also been sold off as scrap.

While the amount may not be $85 billion, a U.S. defense official told the Associated Press in August that the Taliban’s “sudden accumulation of U.S.-supplied Afghan equipment is enormous.”

Newsweek has contacted SIGAR for comment on estimates of the amount of equipment left behind. The office of the former president has also been contacted for comment.

The Ruling

False.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK

While the U.S. did spend upwards of $80 billion on security and security forces in Afghanistan, this was not all on equipment.

The figure also covered costs such as training and other assistance. The number for equipment may indeed run into billions of dollars, but not $85 billion as Trump has suggested.

Noah Berlatsky  4 days ago

On Friday, congressional representatives got into a screaming match on the Capitol steps about, among other things, Christianity. High-volume theological disputes aren’t generally illuminating. But this one showed how Christianity remains a moral bedrock of political dispute in this country — and why that’s a bad thing.

The argument began following the passage of a House bill that would codify abortion rights into law. Right-wing conspiracy theorist and anti-abortion advocate Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., began to yell somewhat incoherently at gathered lawmakers and demonstrators. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., a supporter of abortion rights, yelled back at Greene that she was being uncivil.

“You should practice the basic thing you’re taught in church: respect your neighbor,” Dingell shouted. Greene blasted back, “Taught in church, are you kidding me? Try being a Christian and supporting life!” Dingell responded, “You try being a Christian… and try treating your colleagues decently!”

Dingell thinks being a Christian means being neighborly and civil. Greene thinks being a Christian means attacking anyone who supports abortion rights. But they both agree that being a Christian is morally good, and that Christianity is virtuous.

For a Jewish atheist like myself, that framework is wearisomely familiar. It’s also disheartening. Despite Dingell’s best intentions, the equation of Christianity and goodness buttresses Greene’s white Christian nationalism and the politics of hate and hierarchy that go along with it.

About two thirds of Americans describe themselves as Christian. So it makes sense that people in public life would frame Christianity as a good thing. Christians may disagree strongly about what the Christian virtues are, but they agree that Christian virtues are, well, virtues. That’s part of what being a Christian means.

Many of us, though, aren’t Christian, and don’t want to try to be Christian. Just to take one example: Jewish people’s experience of Christian morality has not been universally uplifting, to say the least.

Some will argue that antisemitism is not real Christianity. But you can’t just disavow a couple of thousands years of persecution and hate. And if Christianity equals virtue, where does that leave Jewish people — or Muslims, or atheists, or Buddhists, for that matter?

Of course there are good Christians, as there are good people of every faith, and of no faith. But one of the hallmarks of immoral forms of Christianity is a belief that Christianity can only be good — and that the good can only be Christian.

This is the logic of Marjorie Taylor Greene and the rabidly Trumpist politics she represents. Sociologist Philip Gorski argued in a 2019 article that evangelical white Christians loved Trump not despite his violent and scabrous language, but precisely because he told them they were better than everyone else. Evangelicals, Gorski said, responded to “Trump’s racialized, apocalyptic, and blood-drenched rhetoric.” That rhetoric harkened back to the Christian language deployed to justify slavery and Native American genocide.

Trump told white evangelical Christians that they had a right and a duty to impose their morality, through force, on others. Marjorie Taylor Greene is following through on a tradition of dispossession and cruelty when she insults abortion supporters or tries to seize control of people’s bodies in the name of a higher morality.

Deb Dingell’s Christianity would seem to be more inclusive — her definition of loving thy neighbor translates politically into policy (same-sex marriage, abortion rights, etc.) that Marjorie Taylor Greene abhors. But nonetheless, it also, inadvertently, reinforces one of the chief tenets of white Christian nationalism — the idea that Christianity has a monopoly on virtue.

Christianity is a powerful and important tradition in the U.S.; it shouldn’t just be left to the Greene’s and the Trump’s. But part of contesting their hold on Christianity is refusing to acquiesce to Christian supremacy. It means acknowledging non-Christians in discussions of America, and in discussions of goodness.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is, unfortunately, still a Christian when she spews ugly antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish space lasers. She’s still a Christian when she attacks her colleagues. She’s still a Christian when she tries to force people to give birth because of her own particular convictions about souls and cell clusters. But being a Christian doesn’t make you a good person, just as being a good person doesn’t make you a Christian. When we, including Dingell, accept that, maybe we’ll be closer to defeating the evil, violent and Christian movement of which Greene is a part.

Opinion by Richard Galant, CNN  16 mins ago

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On November 7, 1962, Richard Nixon met with reporters to concede that he had lost his bid for governor of California — and to grumble about the way the press covered his campaign. It was two years since he had lost his race for president against John F. Kennedy, and few thought Nixon would ever run for office again.

© Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA – SEPTEMBER 11: Former US President Donald Trump speaks after the fight between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort during Evander Holyfield vs. Vitor Belfort presented by Triller at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on September 11, 2021 in Hollywood, Florida. (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)

“Just think how much you’re going to be missing,” the defeated Republican said. “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because gentlemen, this is my last press conference, and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you.” It turned out to be far from the last press conference for Nixon, who won the presidency in 1968 and in 1972. But its petulant tone made political history.

© David Horsey/Tribune Content Agency

When Larry Elder conceded defeat this week in his bid to unseat California Governor Gavin Newsom, he sounded a different note than Nixon: “Let’s be gracious in defeat,” the talk show host said. Still, at least he and Nixon admitted they were beaten — something former President Donald Trump could never bring himself to do after the 2020 election.

© Nick Anderson/Tribune Content Agency

Elder’s post-election concession clashed with his earlier embrace of Trump’s “big lie” strategy — the notion of massive election fraud which the former president has been promoting ever since he lost to Joe Biden. “The conservative ecosystem that backed Elder’s run didn’t seem to be simply looking for him to win, even though the uniquely arcane mechanisms of California’s recall politics made it briefly seem as if that might be possible,” wrote Jeff Yang.

“The true goal of Elder’s Republican backers appeared to be for him to at least lose by a margin that would allow them to contest the results in order to claim that Democrats had once again engaged in magical manipulation of ballots, voting machines or the brains of voters themselves, thus making the election seem null and void and expanding already widespread doubt and paranoia about the nature of our democracy.”

That corrosive approach to politics seems certain to survive Elder’s crushing defeat. “Republicans are no longer running against Democrats. They’re running against democracy,” Yang concluded.

Trump’s refusal to concede set the stage for the events of January 6 — a fact that apparently wasn’t lost on former President George W. Bush, who last weekend drew a parallel between the Capitol rioters and the 9/11 attackers. “The 9/11 terrorists and the January 6 attackers do share the same ‘foul spirit,'” Dean Obeidallah wrote, quoting Bush.

But Obeidallah added that “one glaring difference is that the al Qaeda attackers were incited and directed by Osama bin Laden, while the January 6 attackers were incited by an American president, Donald Trump. It was Trump who for the two months after the election radicalized people with a tsunami of lies, claiming that the election was ‘stolen.'”

California’s election results, with Newsom decisively quashing the recall, may have national implications for the 2022 midterms, wrote Lincoln Mitchell. “The recall was a referendum on Newsom, but indirectly on Biden and the Democrats as well. The numbers show that it wasn’t close and that Californians, including the White women whose support is so crucial to the GOP’s future in the state, were not buying whatever the GOP and Elder were selling,” Mitchell noted.

“Who knows what would happen if the GOP were at all interested in trying out good candidates with views that appeal to a wider range of voters, instead of merely identifying the Trumpiest candidate on the menu and letting them run riot,” asked SE Cupp. “But so far, in most cases, the GOP is not interested. It is, in fact, systematically purging those very people from its party. When it comes to 2024, the GOP doesn’t appear to be considering running anyone other than Trump. I wonder how long — and how many failed elections — it will take Republicans to realize that they are shrinking the voter base this way.“

It may please the former president, Frida Ghitis observed, but it’s bad news for America: “The example set by Trump — disparaging, assaulting and undercutting a country’s democracy — has now become the template for political players with authoritarian leanings around the globe.”

Gen. Mark Milley’s calls

The continuing cascade of books on the Trump presidency brought forth new revelations this week — some gobsmacking, and others in the “shocking but not surprising” category. As Peter Bergen noted, “in the last few months of Donald Trump’s presidency, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley made two phone calls to reassure his Chinese counterpart that the US was stable and not considering a military strike against China, according to a new book by reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.” Republicans such as Sen. Marco Rubio were quick to accuse Milley of treason, but that charge is very wide of the mark, Bergen said.

“What Milley did was put his country above his commander-in-chief. Given the irrational rage that Trump was exhibiting after his election loss, Milley made the right call to reassure the Chinese about the stability of the US national security apparatus. But Milley’s actions could set a dangerous precedent and we should carefully consider how high-ranking military officers in future administrations might insert themselves into the chain of command under a different president.”

In the Washington Post, Josh Rogin wrote: “The legitimate criticism of Milley is not that he betrayed the country to China. Milley’s failing was that he believed, according to this and many other recent books, that it was his job to save the Republic from the president. Milley’s offense was not treason, it was hubris.“

Milley was just doing his job, wrote retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling. “Given that the former president had already made worrisome comments about summarily pulling US forces out of various areas around the world, and given media reports of Trump’s earlier threats to attack other nations, Milley found it necessary to communicate directly with his counterparts overseas, with whom he had a professional relationship.”

“He was right to do so, because he was reacting to the realities on the ground. Straight talk with our allies and partners, lowering the temperature when tensions are rising, is critical to avoiding misunderstandings and perhaps deadly unintentional consequences.”

Melania Trump and Stephanie Grisham’s book

Politico reported that in Stephanie Grisham’s forthcoming book, the former White House press secretary contends that Melania Trump ducked opportunities to condemn the January 6 violence and to invite Jill Biden for the traditional tea provided by outgoing first ladies. (Melania Trump issued a statement condemning the book as untruthful and a “betrayal.”)

“Every word of Grisham’s forthcoming tell-all might be true,” wrote Jill Filipovic. “It might accurately paint Donald, Melania and many of their family members and staffers as among the most deplorable and morally hideous people to ever occupy the White House.

“But don’t forget: Grisham isn’t a light illuminating the Trump administration’s darkness. She is one of them, who pushed Trump’s vile messages and left America cracked and perhaps forever wrecked. …We can be glad the truth about Melania is being told. But we do not have to rehabilitate the reputation of someone who, like the Trumps, has never apologized, never tried to make amends and never been held fully accountable.”

To boost or not to boost?

The Delta variant may finally have peaked in the US, wrote Dr. Kent Sepkowitz. So is it time to declare victory over Covid-19?

“Of course not,” he argued. “The Covid-19 pandemic isn’t going to miraculously disappear…”

“As with the previous claims of victory based on a few weeks of improvement, celebrating any end of the pandemic surely is a mistake. We have new variants to worry about, immunity possibly waning in the elderly, the cruel recalcitrance of those refusing vaccination, the uneven global distribution of the vaccine and roughly 50 million children in the US who aren’t even eligible for vaccine yet.”

Scientists are debating the case for vaccine booster shots. In the Lancet, leading experts, including two scientists who are stepping down from the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, said the “current evidence does not … appear to show a need for boosting in the general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains high.” Other scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, disagreed. On Friday, scientists advising the FDA recommended boosters of the Pfizer vaccine only for those 65 and older or people at high risk of developing a severe case of Covid-19.

Writing for CNN Opinion, William Haseltine, observed that, “for those in the US who received mRNA vaccines, a third dose is the minimum we should pursue for Covid-19 protection, and people should prepare themselves for the possibility that they will need additional doses or annual shots in the months and years to come. For those who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, there is not enough data so far to say with certainty whether a booster is advisable.”

It’s not that the vaccines don’t work well, Haseltine noted, but because “coronaviruses, like influenza viruses, are masters at evading the immune system … SARS-CoV-2 can turn off our body’s ability to mount an innate immune response which means, for protection, vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies must be significant and powerful.“

The school district that serves more than 600,000 students in Los Angeles is requiring vaccinations for in-person classes, as Dr. Smita Malhotra noted. As the district’s medical director, she wrote, “This bold decision by our school board is sound and backed by science. It is one that I hope will spark a trend across the country and the world that emboldens social responsibility. Our school board and superintendent understand that vaccinations will bring back in-person learning in the safest way possible, and more importantly, that it’s the right thing to do for communities and children, especially for those children, like my own, who are too young to receive a vaccine.”

For more:

Nicole Hemmer: The tricky agenda behind vaccine resistance

Peggy Drexler: The real issue with Nicki Minaj

‘Tax the rich’

Covid-19 canceled the Met Gala last year, but it roared back this week as fancifully-dressed celebrities once again dazzled social media at the benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “made her Met Gala debut in a long white off-shoulder mermaid gown, with ‘Tax The Rich’ scribed across the back in massive, flag-red letters,” wrote Holly Thomas. “It was explicit, as close as you could come to having a placard at the gala without literally bringing one.” It was also controversial. “Donald Trump Jr. led the charge, and Newsmax’s Benny Johnson and actor and comedian Michael Rapaport joined in to complain about the apparent hypocrisy of a politician who’s targeting the rich showing up to a $35,000-per-ticket event almost exclusively populated by the extremely wealthy and/or famous. They appeared unaware of the fact that, as Ocasio-Cortez pointed out on Instagram, New York City’s elected officials are regularly invited to the Met Gala for free,” Thomas noted.

“The general social media backlash also sidestepped the peculiarity in calling a politician who consistently calls for higher taxes on the rich, and is part of the progressive movement pushing a wealth equity agenda as the Democrats’ budget bill moves through Congress, a ‘hypocrite.’ By showing up at the Met showcasing that phrase, she did exactly what she always does when she’s in the spotlight and as a member of the House, hardly new to doing so surrounded by the uber-privileged.”

President Joe Biden is fully in accord with the “tax the rich” idea, but when his allies in the House unveiled their tax proposal this week, it signaled a partial retreat from the President’s agenda.

“Biden’s $400,000 cutoff (which rules out tax hikes on more than 95 percent of Americans) had limited funding options,” wrote Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post. “But Democrats have been reluctant to levy some of the tax hikes that Biden did ask for.“

“Yes, Democrats plan to raise top rates on personal and corporate income taxes. That’s not nothing. But it’s not nearly sufficient to pay for the generous welfare state Democrats want to build. Paying for that would ultimately require levying higher taxes on the middle class, too, as other countries with more expansive safety nets do.”

Biden’s trouble

Biden’s declining approval ratings are alarming people on the left and cheering the right.

“For most people Joe Biden was not elected last November to get us out of Afghanistan,” wrote Arick Wierson and Bradley Honan. “His election was not a blank check to oversee a dramatic expansion of the federal government. … Biden’s mandate was to ensure that Trump would never, ever, occupy the White House again — and ideally leave the political stage for good.” But, they added, “through a series of self-inflicted wounds, miscalculations and gaffes, the Biden administration is ‘priming the pump’ for a Trump presidency, part deux.”

Scott Jennings observed that “when you are the president, you have two primary ways to move people to your point of view: inspiration or coercion. It was said that Biden would employ the former, but he has resorted to the latter via a series of executive mandates and scolding speeches as he seeks higher vaccination rates. Gone is the soaring rhetoric of Biden’s campaign, replaced with the kind of bile and disdain many Americans hated about ‘the former guy,’ as Biden would say.”