Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

You remind me of "prince" Andrew; you think you're royalty, but in reality, you're a dirty paedophile in denial.

President Biden will formally announce that the United States will withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11 in a speech from the White House on Wednesday afternoon, seeking to end America’s involvement in a two-decade-long war that has killed more than 2,000 U.S. service members and cost trillions of dollars.

“It is time to end America’s longest war,” Biden will say, according to excerpts released by the White House. “It is time for American troops to come home.”

Biden will deliver his remarks from the Treaty Room, the same location where President George W. Bush announced that the war in Afghanistan had begun in 2001.

“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden plans to say. “I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.”

Biden’s announcement comes as the United States will miss the May 1 deadline that the Trump administration negotiated with the Taliban last year for exiting the country. The United States officially has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, but there are about 1,000 additional Special Forces personnel in the country.

A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters on Tuesday that the withdrawal “is not conditions-based.” Biden officials have concluded that when the United States has made its presence in Afghanistan dependent on improvements on the ground, they have failed to materialize.

But the decision to pull troops from the country comes at a perilous time, with military officials warning that a complete departure could lead to more terrorist activity.

In his speech, Biden will address those concerns in part by vowing to continue to support the Afghanistan government through diplomatic and humanitarian work.

“We will keep providing assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces,” the president is expected to say. “Along with our partners, we are training and equipping nearly 300,000 personnel. And they continue to fight valiantly on behalf of their country and defend the Afghan people, at great cost. We will support peace talks between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, facilitated by the United Nations.”

Biden’s decision received support from liberal Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who praised the president for moving to end the prolonged military conflict. But some Republicans quickly attacked Biden, saying the decision was reckless and dangerous.

Biden is expected to defend his position in Wednesday’s speech, affirming his conclusion that it is time to bring the troops home.

“We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago,” he will say. “That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021. Rather than return to war with the Taliban, we have to focus on the challenges that will determine our standing and reach today and into the years to come.”

you’re a Nazi

First, let me get this Donald Trump issue out of the way: If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician.

My Facebook timeline and Twitter feed have been blowing up lately. And whenever that happens, it’s almost always because someone’s making comparisons to Hitler or Nazis or the Holocaust somewhere. Sure enough, as Trump pontificates about immigrants or ethnic or religious minorities, with scarcely less subtlety than certain early 20th-century political aspirants in Europe did, people on the Internet feel compelled to ask me what I think about it.

Why? Simple: Because 25 years ago, when the Internet was still a pup, I came up with Godwin’s Law. In its original form, Godwin’s Law goes like this: “As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches 1.”

Invoking Hitler or Nazis (or World War II or the Holocaust) is common in public life these days, both in the United States and around the world, and it has been for quite a while. Back in 1990, I set out — half-seriously and half-whimsically — to do something about it.

Through most of the 1980s, I’d been a hobbyist using computer “bulletin-board systems” that connected small local communities by telephone lines. I couldn’t help but notice how often comparisons to Hitler or Nazis came up in heated exchanges, usually as a kind of rhetorical hammer to express rage or contempt for one’s opponent. Once I was back in school to study law, I leveraged my student status to get a free Internet-based computer account. With access to the global Internet came still more hyperbolic Hitler and Nazi comparisons.

Despite the Internet’s distractions, I did actually manage to study law. And I was drawn to a particular kind of legal problem: What happens when a nation, although acting consistently with its own laws, behaves so monstrously that other nations, and eventually history itself, are compelled to condemn it? I steeped myself in the history of the Nazi movement and in accounts of the Holocaust, including Primo Levi’s harrowing “Survival in Auschwitz.” I was increasingly troubled by the disconnect between what I was reading about the Third Reich and the way people used that era against debating opponents online.

Despite the Internet’s distractions, I did actually manage to study law. And I was drawn to a particular kind of legal problem: What happens when a nation, although acting consistently with its own laws, behaves so monstrously that other nations, and eventually history itself, are compelled to condemn it? I steeped myself in the history of the Nazi movement and in accounts of the Holocaust, including Primo Levi’s harrowing “Survival in Auschwitz.” I was increasingly troubled by the disconnect between what I was reading about the Third Reich and the way people used that era against debating opponents online.

After some early energetic seeding on my part, “Godwin’s Law” took off in the early days of large-scale public access to the Internet. Users would see a poorly reasoned, hyperbolic invocation of Nazis or the Holocaust and call the arguer to account, claiming the shallow argument had proved (or, sometimes, had “violated”) Godwin’s Law. Soon after, Godwin’s Law propagated into the mainstream media as well. Democrats and Republicans alike invoke it from time to time — so do other political parties in the United States and around the world. Sometimes it’s invoked by a Democratic blogger; sometimes it’s cited by a Republican. The law notably surfaced recently in Canadian politics, too.

So has Godwin’s Law actually reduced spurious Hitler or Nazi or Holocaust comparisons? Obviously not — just sample your own media sources, and you’ll find that Hitler comparisons are alive and well. (My personal favorite this year: the Mets fan who likened Yankees fans to former Nazi Party members.) But I do think the meme gives Internet users a clear opportunity to think critically about shallow references to the Nazis or the Holocaust. And it exposes glib Nazi comparisons or Holocaust references to the harsh light of interrogation.

So has Godwin’s Law actually reduced spurious Hitler or Nazi or Holocaust comparisons? Obviously not — just sample your own media sources, and you’ll find that Hitler comparisons are alive and well. (My personal favorite this year: the Mets fan who likened Yankees fans to former Nazi Party members.) But I do think the meme gives Internet users a clear opportunity to think critically about shallow references to the Nazis or the Holocaust. And it exposes glib Nazi comparisons or Holocaust references to the harsh light of interrogation.

To be clear: I don’t personally believe all rational discourse has ended when Nazis or the Holocaust are invoked. But I’m pleased that people still use Godwin’s Law to force one another to argue more thoughtfully. The best way to prevent future holocausts, I believe, is not to forbear from Holocaust comparisons; instead, it’s to make sure that those comparisons are meaningful and substantive. This is something a pleasantly surprising percentage of commentators in this political season have managed to do (like this piece on Trump by New America and CNN analyst Peter Bergen). And I’m pleased in any season to see more people revisiting the history books.

It’s still true, of course, that the worst thing you can say about your opponents, in our culture, is that they’re like Hitler or the Nazis. But I’m hopeful that we can prod our glib online rhetorical culture into a more thoughtful, historically reflective space. In 2015, the Internet gives more and more individuals both the information and the skepticism to question what politicians and others say in their Hitler-centered hyperboles. Just as importantly, the Internet gives us the tools to share our criticisms — including the appropriately appalled reaction to Trump’s statements — with one another more widely.

The one thing we shouldn’t be skeptical of is our right — our obligation, even — as ordinary individuals to use the Internet and the other tools of the digital age to challenge our would-be leaders and check the facts.

And by all means be skeptical of Godwin’s Law, too. But you don’t need me to tell you that.

I thought we'd have to wait for a smarter demagogue to see this coup play out but with this groundwork being prepared it won't matter who's heading the ticket.

Because they're SOOOOOOO credible.

A data breach at a Christian crowdfunding website has revealed that serving police officers and public officials have donated money to fundraisers for accused vigilante murderers, far-right activists, and fellow officers accused of shooting black Americans.

In many of these cases, the donations were attached to their official email addresses, raising questions about the use of public resources in supporting such campaigns.

The breach, shared with journalists by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, revealed the details of some donors who had previously attempted to conceal their identities using GiveSendGo’s anonymity feature, but whose identifying details the website preserved.

The beneficiaries of donations from public officials include Kyle Rittenhouse, who stands accused of murdering two leftwing protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last August. Rittenhouse traveled with weapons from neighboring Illinois to, by his own account, offer armed protection to businesses during protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Rittenhouse, who became a cause celebre across conservative media throughout late 2020, and was even supported by then president Donald Trump, held a fundraiser on GiveSendGo billed as a contribution to his legal defense. According to data from the site, he raised $586,940 between 27 August 2020 and 7 January 2021.

Among the donors were several associated with email addresses traceable to police and other public officials.

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Today, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against sixteen entities and sixteen individuals working with the Russian government who tried to swing the 2020 presidential election or who were involved in the recent cyberattack on federal agencies and American businesses. The sanctions have teeth: they prohibit U.S. banks from investing in Russian bonds, making it hard for Russia to borrow money. The U.S. also expelled ten Russian diplomats. NATO officials expressed their support for the U.S. move, British officials called in the Russian ambassador to express their concern at Russia’s “pattern of malign activity,” and Poland expelled three Russian diplomats.

In announcing the sanctions, the Treasury Department called out Konstantin Kilimnik, the former partner of Trump’s 2016 campaign chair, Paul Manafort: the two worked together during Manafort’s days in Ukraine politics. The Treasury Department said Kilimnik “is a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant and known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf.” That much we knew from the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Remember, the Senate Intelligence Committee that produced that report was dominated by Republicans.)

We also knew from the Senate Intelligence Report that Manafort had provided Kilimnik with secret polling data from the Trump campaign in 2016—his business partner and campaign deputy Rick Gates testified to that—but the committee did not have evidence about what Kilimnik had done with that data.

Today’s Treasury document provides that information. It says: “During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy.”

It is hard to overestimate the significance of this statement. It says that Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort, provided secret polling data and information about campaign strategy to a Russian intelligence officer, who shared it with Russian intelligence. Russian intelligence, as we also know from both the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report, both hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, and targeted U.S. social media to swing the 2016 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton and to Donald Trump.

By itself, the statement that the Trump campaign worked with Russian intelligence is earthshaking. But aside from the information about the exchange of this particular kind of intelligence in 2016, this statement also indicates that the Trump campaign itself was not simply operating in happy if unintentional tandem with Russian intelligence-- which was as far as the Muller Report was willing to go-- but in fact had an open channel with Russian operatives. That’s a game-changer in terms of how we understand 2016 and, perhaps, the years that have followed it.

But there was more in the Treasury announcement than a revelation about Russian actions in 2016 and since. The Treasury also announced sanctions against Pakistani entities and individuals who are “instrumental in processing payment for fraudulent identities.” While the Treasury announcement singled out the work of Pakistani money launderers for Russia’s Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm, and while I am 1000% not a specialist in Pakistani finance, it is hard not to notice that the president announced yesterday that the U.S. will no longer fight the Taliban in Afghanistan with soldiers, and today he appears to be going after what looks like it might be a key way in which international support for the Taliban evades international law.

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