“WASHINGTON — Pentagon leaders publicly acknowledged on Tuesday that they advised President Biden not to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan ahead of a chaotic evacuation in which 13 U.S. service members died in a suicide bombing and 10 Afghan civilians were killed in an American drone strike.
During an expansive Senate hearing on the war in Afghanistan, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also defended his actions in the tumultuous last months of the Trump administration, insisting that calls to his Chinese counterpart and a meeting in which he told generals to alert him if the president tried to launch a nuclear weapon were part of his duties as the country’s top military officer.
General Milley was adamant that he did not go around his former boss. ‘My loyalty to this nation, its people, and the Constitution hasn’t changed and will never change as long as I have a breath to give,’ he said. ‘I firmly believe in civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle essential to this republic and I am committed to ensuring the military stays clear of domestic politics.’
Some six hours of public testimony from senior Pentagon leaders were at times acrimonious and at times verging on political theater. Republican senators who had in the past defended President Donald J. Trump’s desire to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan demanded resignations from military leaders who carried out a Democratic president’s orders to withdraw. Democrats, who are traditionally tougher on military leaders, on this occasion, provided solace in the form of softer questioning and traced flaws back to the Trump administration.
Under repeated questioning from Republican senators, the Pentagon leaders broke with parts of Mr. Biden’s defense of the pullout, acknowledging that they had recommended leaving 2,500 American troops on the ground, and had warned that the Afghan government and army could collapse as early as the fall if the United States withdrew its forces.
General Milley called the “noncombatant evacuation” in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, last month “a logistical success but a strategic failure,” echoing the words of Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, from earlier in the hearing.
Through it all, the burly and brash General Milley, the most senior military official in the country, sat before the Senate Armed Services Committee as both the protagonist and the antagonist for a narrative that changed with each senator. The other two military leaders invited to the hearing — Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military’s Central Command — seemed almost like supporting actors at times, as the bulk of the questioning went to General Milley, who has recently been at the center of political turmoil related to revelations in several books about the Trump presidency.
General Milley said that military leaders were able to give their advice to Mr. Biden in the lead-up to the president’s April decision to withdraw. Those views, the general said, had not changed since November, when he recommended that Mr. Trump keep American troops in Afghanistan.
But, the general added, ‘Decision makers are not required, in any manner, shape or form, to follow that advice.’
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, asked General Milley why he did not resign after Mr. Biden rejected his advice to keep troops in Afghanistan.
‘This country doesn’t want generals figuring out what orders we’re going to accept and do or not. That’s not our job,’ the general replied. He later added, ‘My dad didn’t get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima and those kids there at Abbey Gate, they don’t get a choice to resign,’ the latter a reference to the American troops who were stationed at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in August.
‘They can’t resign, so I’m not going to resign,’ he said. ‘There’s no way. If the orders are illegal, we’re in a different place. But if the orders are legal from the civilian authority, I intend to carry them out.’
General Milley’s testimony on Tuesday was another chapter in the story of the final chaotic days of the Trump administration, with government officials on edge as they worried about what actions Mr. Trump might take. On Wednesday, Mr. Austin and Generals Milley and McKenzie are set to testify before the House Armed Services Committee.
Several Republican senators took General Milley to task both for his actions as described in the book ‘Peril,’ by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post, and for talking about those actions to the authors.
General Milley said he was directed by Mark T. Esper, then the secretary of defense, to call his Chinese counterpart on Oct. 30 because there was ‘intelligence which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an attack on them by the United States.’ He added that other senior U.S. officials, including Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, were aware of the calls….
Senators pressed the three men on why the Pentagon failed to predict the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and Afghan military, why the United States did not start evacuating Americans and vulnerable Afghans sooner, and what the Pentagon was doing now to help evacuate the remaining Americans and Afghans who want to leave the country.
Mr. Austin, a retired four-star Army general who served in Afghanistan, conceded that the collapse of the Afghan Army in the final weeks of the war — in many cases without the Taliban firing a shot — surprised top commanders.
‘We need to consider some uncomfortable truths: that we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks, that we didn’t grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that the Taliban commanders struck with local leaders,’ Mr. Austin said, referring to Ashraf Ghani, the former president of Afghanistan who fled the country as the Taliban took control.
‘We failed to fully grasp that there was only so much for which — and for whom — many of the Afghan forces would fight,’ Mr. Austin said.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — Liberal Democrats dug in on Tuesday against voting for a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill this week, angrily rejecting a decision by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push the bill forward before the party could resolve bitter disagreements over a sprawling social policy and climate package.
The day after Ms. Pelosi signaled she would follow through with a Thursday vote on the infrastructure plan, the backlash reflected deep mistrust in the Democratic ranks that is threatening to derail President Biden’s domestic policy agenda.
At the heart of the impasse was a lack of clarity from moderate and conservative Democrats about what they would accept in the broader social safety net package, which has hamstrung negotiations led by Mr. Biden and Democratic congressional leaders to unify the party around a plan that can pass both chambers. Without a compromise, progressives say they cannot support the smaller, Senate-passed infrastructure plan, which omits many of their top priorities.
‘Let me be clear: bringing the so-called bipartisan infrastructure plan to a vote without the #BuildBackBetter Act at the same time is a betrayal,’ Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, said on Twitter on Tuesday. ‘We will hold the line and vote it down.’
Ms. Pelosi initially said the House would not take up the infrastructure plan until after the broader bill had passed. But in recent days, she has effectively decoupled the two bills, saying the party needed more time to resolve its differences over the proposed $3.5 trillion social policy plan, which conservative-leaning Democrats have called too costly.
‘There was an intervention, as you know, in the past week or 10 days, of saying, ‘Well, we can’t go there,’ Ms. Pelosi said after a morning meeting with her caucus. ‘We’ll see what that is, and hopefully it will measure, it will reach the level that we need in order to pass both bills.’
‘We will pass both bills,’ she concluded.
Mr. Biden has been negotiating privately with some of the prime holdouts and met at the White House on Tuesday with two of them, Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia. In the evening, the president canceled a Wednesday trip to Chicago, which was intended to promote Covid-19 vaccinations, so he could remain focused on brokering an agreement on his economic agenda.
Democrats are pushing through the social safety net package using the fast-track reconciliation process to shield it from a filibuster. But with slim margins of control in both chambers and Republicans unified in opposition, Democratic leaders must keep all their senators united in favor, and they can afford to lose as few as three votes in the House.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — Pfizer and BioNTech announced on Tuesdaythat they had submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration that the companies said showed their coronavirus vaccine is safe and effective in children ages 5 to 11.
The companies said they would submit a formal request to regulators to allow a pediatric dose of their vaccine to be administered in the United States in the coming weeks. Similar requests will be filed with European regulators and in other countries.
The announcement, coming as U.S. schools have resumed amid a ferocious wave of the highly contagious Delta variant, brings many parents another step closer to the likelihood of a coronavirus vaccine for their children.” Read more at New York Times
“Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for kids might not be authorized until November. Many parents, public-health officials and vaccine experts anticipated shots as early as October, but the FDA might not make its decision until sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, according to a person familiar with the matter.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“LeBron James said he had gotten vaccinated after feeling skeptical.” Read more at New York Times
“Misinformation around ivermectin and Covid has made trouble for veterinarians and farmers who rely on the drug.” Read more at New York Times
“In a memoir, Donald Trump’s former press secretary describes him as abusive and writes that one aide would calm him with show tunes.” Read more at New York Times
“Kasim Reed, whose tenure as Atlanta’s mayor was filled with scandal, is running again.” Read more at New York Times
“Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen on Tuesday told Congress that the United States will run out of flexibility to avoid breaching the debt limit on Oct. 18, setting a new deadline for lawmakers.
Hours after her warning, a Senate effort to suspend the debt ceiling failed, showing how the issue remains politically fraught even as alarm grows from economic officials.” Read more at Washington Post
“US senators on the Homeland Security Committee have introduced new legislation to mandate reporting on cyberattacks and ransomware payments among critical infrastructure companies. The bill would require such companies to report to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within 72 hours if they are experiencing cyberattacks. It also includes a provision to start a program to warn organizations of vulnerabilities that ransomware actors exploit. The Biden administration just released new security guidance aimed at protecting sensitive US facilities from hacking. US officials also just deported a key player in the Russian cybercrime world who was convicted and sentenced in 2020 for his alleged role in a fraud scheme.” Read more at CNN
“ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A man who killed five people at a newspaper in Maryland was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five life sentences without the possibility of parole — with 345 additional years added on to ensure he is never released from prison.
Anne Arundel County Judge Michael Wachs ordered the sentence for Jarrod Ramos, whom a jury previously found criminally responsible for killing Wendi Winters, John McNamara, Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, and Rebecca Smith with a shotgun at the Capital Gazette’s office in June 2018.
The assault was one of the worst attacks on journalists in US history.
Before announcing the sentence, the judge heard survivors and family members of the slain describe the pain and loss they have experienced. He emphasized the courage of family members who spoke….
Prosecutors contended Ramos, 41, acted out of revenge against the newspaper after it published a story about his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of harassing a former high school classmate in 2011. Prosecutors said his long, meticulous planning for the attack — which included preparations for his arrest and long incarceration — proved he understood the criminality of his actions.
Prosecutors also emphasized how Ramos called 911 from the newsroom after the shooting, identified himself as the gunman and said he surrendered — evidence he clearly understood the criminality of his actions.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Simone Biles said she ‘should have quit way before Tokyo’ rather than trying to power through the Summer Olympics.
In an interview with New York magazine, Biles revealed that the reasons she dropped out of most of her events were far more emotionally complex than a case of the ‘twisties,’ the sudden loss of spatial awareness that is terrifying for a gymnast who is in the midst of a dangerous leap when it strikes. Even now, she says, her recovery remains ‘a work in progress.’
‘If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,’ Biles said. ‘I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.’
The mention of Nassar is a reference to the sexual abuse she and more than 160 other gymnasts experienced for years from the former USA Gymnasticsteam doctor, who was convicted in 2018. Along with McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols, who also were abused by Nassar, Biles recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s handling of claims against him. Allegations were first brought to the FBI in 2015, but a 2021 report by the Justice Department inspector general said the agency ‘failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and violated multiple FBI policies.’
Biles’s emotions were on display on Capitol Hill, just as they were in Tokyo, where she was also dealing with the unexpected death of her aunt during the competition and the intense pressure that comes with being labeled the greatest of all time. She withdrew during the team competition and from the all-around and four individual events but left Japan with two medals, a silver in the team competition and a bronze in the balance beam.” Read more at Washington Post
“The Federal Reserve is under mounting pressure as it grapples with a slowing economic recovery, the abrupt departures of two regional banking presidents related to their stock-trading behavior, and a new call from a top Senate Democrat to replace Jerome H. Powell as chair.
On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said she would oppose Powell getting a second term as chair, calling him a ‘dangerous man’ and raising the political stakes of the White House’s nomination decisions. On Monday, two of the Fed’s regional bank presidents — Eric Rosengren and Robert Kaplan — retired amid scrutiny over their stock trading during the covid crisis, actions that spurred an unusual Fed review of trading rules for officials.
In the background, the Fed is contending with a surge in coronavirus cases and its heavier than expected economic fallout, which has exacerbated worker shortages, supply chain problems and inflation. Fed policymakers last week downgraded their year-end expectations for the labor market and economic growth, while also raising their estimates for inflation. All the while, central bankers must decide whether the economy will continue making progress and put the Fed in position to start easing, or ‘tapering,’ its vast support for the markets.” Read more at Washington Post
131 federal judges broke the law by hearing cases where they had a financial interest.
Dozens of federal judges have violated U.S. law and judicial ethics by overseeing court cases involving companies in which they or their families owned stock. A WSJ investigation found that 131 judges have improperly failed to disqualify themselves from 685 court cases around the nation since 2010.
Alerted to the violations by the Journal, 56 of the judges have directed court clerks to notify parties in 329 lawsuits that they should have recused themselves. That means new judges might be assigned, potentially upending rulings. The hundreds of recusal violations breach a bedrock principle of American jurisprudence: No one should be a judge of his or her own cause. Congress first laid out that principle in 1792 to guarantee litigants an impartial judge and reassure the public that courts could be trusted.
Nothing bars judges from owning stocks, but federal law since 1974 has prohibited judges from hearing cases that involve a party in which they, their spouses or their minor children have a ‘legal or equitable interest, however small.’ That law and the Judicial Conference of the U.S., the federal courts’ policy-making body, require judges to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“60% — Roughly the share of restaurant workers who said they had suffered from emotional abuse and disrespect from customers over the past year, according to a recent report by a restaurant analytics firm. Faced with more customer tantrums, hotels, restaurants and other service businesses are setting new rules, bucking the adage that the customer is always right.
74 — The number of Covid-19 cases recorded at Harvard University among students, faculty and staff in the past week. Of those cases, 60 were among graduate students. Harvard Business School has moved most of its M.B.A. classes online following a spate of breakthrough infections.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Southern California Gas and its parent company, Sempra Energy, have agreed to pay up to $1.8 billion as part of a settlement agreement announced on Monday related to the nation’s biggest natural gas leak.
The settlement would resolve nearly all of the 35,000 claims filed by individuals and businesses after SoCal Gas’s Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility blew out in 2015. The leak at the facility, in the Santa Susana Mountains northeast of Los Angeles, forced thousands of people from their homes in and around the Porter Ranch community, sickening many from the stench of chemicals wafting through the air near the plant.
From October 2015 to February 2016, the gas company worked to contain the leak, which released nearly 100,000 tons of methane and other substances into the air. Sempra had to temporarily close the facility, at one of the largest natural gas fields in the country. At the time, the leak raised concern among regulators about gas shortages that ultimately never happened.” Read more at New York Times
“LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson put British army troops ‘on standby’ to work as truck drivers to haul fuel to gas stations where supplies have been emptied by panic buying and labor shortfalls due in part to Brexit and the pandemic.
Supply chain disruptions and attendant shortages of goods are hitting countries around the globe, including the United States. But Britain appears on the forefront of the chaos — where recovery from the pandemic is colliding with steep labor shortages, driven by the end of free movement of workers from the Eastern Europe who were handling the low-wage jobs Britons take a pass on, in nursing homes, slaughter houses, and on the highways.” Read more at Boston Globe
“BENI, Congo — Twenty-one workers for the World Health Organization in Congo have been accused of sexually abusing people during an Ebola outbreak, a WHO-commissioned panel said Tuesday in a report that identified 83 alleged perpetrators connected to the 2018-2020 mission.
The panel released its findings months after an Associated Press investigation found senior WHO management was informed of multiple abuse claims in 2019 but failed to stop the harassment and even promoted one of the managers involved.” Read more at Boston Globe
“Next leader | Fumio Kishida is set to become Japan’s premier, after the ex-foreign minister overcame popular reformer Taro Kono in a contest to head the ruling party. Kishida, a self-effacing former banker from Hiroshima who acknowledges that some see him as boring, will face an immediate test in a general election he must hold by November and then in an upper house vote next year.” Read more at Bloomberg
“BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Death’s come knocking a last time for the splendid ivory-billed woodpecker and 22 more birds, fish and other species: The U.S. government is declaring them extinct.
It’s a rare move for wildlife officials to give up hope on a plant or animal, but government scientists say they’ve exhausted efforts to find these 23. And they warn climate change, on top of other pressures, could make such disappearances more common as a warming planet adds to the dangers facing imperiled plants and wildlife.
The ivory-billed woodpecker was perhaps the best known species the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday will announce is extinct. It went out stubbornly and with fanfare, making unconfirmed appearances in recent decades that ignited a frenzy of ultimately fruitless searches in the swamps of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida.
Others such as the flat pigtoe, a freshwater mussel in the southeastern U.S., were identified in the wild only a few times and never seen again, meaning by the time they got a name they were fading from existence.
‘When I see one of those really rare ones, it’s always in the back of my mind that I might be the last one to see this animal again,’ said Anthony ‘Andy’ Ford, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Tennessee who specializes in freshwater mussels.
The factors behind the disappearances vary — too much development, water pollution, logging, competition from invasive species, birds killed for feathers and animals captured by private collectors. In each case, humans were the ultimate cause.
Another thing they share: All 23 were thought to have at least a slim chance of survival when added to the endangered species list beginning in the 1960s. Only 11 species previously have been removed due to extinction in the almost half-century since the Endangered Species Act was signed into law. Wednesday’s announcement kicks off a three-month comment period before the species status changes become final.
Around the globe, some 902 species have been documented as extinct. The actual number is thought to be much higher because some are never formally identified, and many scientists warn the earth is in an “extinction crisis” with flora and fauna now disappearing at 1,000 times the historical rate.
It’s possible one or more of the 23 species included in Wednesday’s announcement could reappear, several scientists said.
A leading figure in the hunt for the ivory-billed woodpecker said it was premature to call off the effort, after millions of dollars spent on searches and habitat preservation efforts.” Read more at AP News
“MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Boxing legend Manny Pacquiao is officially hanging up his gloves.
The eight-division world champion and Philippines senator on Wednesday announced his retirement from the ring,
‘I would like to thank the whole world, especially the Filipino people, for supporting Manny Pacquiao. Goodbye boxing,’ the 42-year old said in a 14-minute video posted on his Facebook page. ‘It is difficult for me to accept that my time as a boxer is over. Today I am announcing my retirement.’
Pacquiao finished his 26-year, 72-fight career with 62 wins, eight losses and two draws. Of those 62 wins, 39 were by knockout and 23 by decision. He won 12 world titles and is the only fighter in history to win titles in eight different weight classes.
His retirement from boxing followed a disheartening defeat to Yordenis Ugas in Paradise, Nevada on Aug. 21. The younger Cuban boxer beat Pacquiao by unanimous decision, retaining his WBA welterweight title. It was Pacquiao’s first fight in more than two years.” Read more at AP News
“Lives Lived: The philosopher Charles W. Mills argued that racism played a central role in shaping the liberal political tradition. But he sought ways to salvage aspects of liberalism. He died at 70.” Read more at New York Times
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