U.S. Troops Leave Biggest Airfield in Afghanistan After Nearly 20 Years
The withdrawal is the clearest indication that the last of the 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops have left Afghanistan, ending its ‘forever war’
HAARETZ – After nearly 20 years, the U.S. military left Bagram Airfield, the epicenter of its war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the Al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, two U.S. officials said Friday.
The airfield was handed over to the Afghan National Security and Defense Force in its entirety, they said on condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to release it to the media.
One of the officials also said the U.S. top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S Miller, “still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces.”
The withdrawal is the clearest indication that the last of the 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops have left Afghanistan or are nearing a departure, months ahead of President Joe Biden’s promise that they would be gone by September 11.
Israeli air raids target Gaza for third time since May ceasefire
No casualties reported in attack that Israel has said was in response to launching of ‘incendiary balloons’ from Gaza.
Al Jazeera – Israel said its fighter jets targeted a weapons manufacturing site in the Gaza Strip overnight on Friday in the latest unrest since a ceasefire ended May’s attacks.
Security sources with Hamas said the raids hit training sites and no casualties were reported.
The Israeli army spokesperson stated that the air raid came in response to the launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip towards the surrounding Israeli settlements.
“In response to the arson balloons fired towards Israeli territory today, [military] fighter jets struck … a weapons manufacturing site belonging to the Hamas terror organisation,” the statement said.
There was no immediate indication as to which Gaza-based group was responsible for the balloon launch, but Israel holds Hamas responsible for any action.
Boy Scouts of America Reaches $850m Settlement over Historic Sexual Abuse Claims
Breitbart – The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has reached a $850m settlement with some 60,000 people over claims of historic sexual abuse.
Lawyers say it will be the single largest sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history and in terms of reported numbers, it dwarves similar complaints made against the Catholic Church.
The BSA has apologised to victims and filed for bankruptcy last year, saying it would set up a compensation trust for victims of sexual abuse, as Breitbart News reported.
Attorneys for the BSA filed court papers late Thursday outlining a restructuring support agreement with attorneys representing abuse victims. The agreement also includes attorneys representing local Boy Scouts councils and lawyers appointed to represent victims who might file future claims, AP reports.
“After months of intensive negotiations, the debtors have reached resolution with every single official and major creditor constituency in these Chapter 11 cases,” BSA attorneys wrote.
The decision comes at a time when the movement is struggling for members and recognition across America.
Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO after 27 years
RT – The founder of online shopping giant Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is set to officially step down on July 5 as the company’s chief executive officer.
Bezos, named the world’s richest man by Forbes magazine earlier this year, with assets worth some $189 billion, is set to quit his post to free up time for his space-travel venture, Blue Origin.
Initially built as an online bookstore back in the 1990s, Amazon is now one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, with a market capitalization of $1.7 trillion.
Ohio Judge Makes COVID Vaccination Condition Of Probation
ZeroHedge – An Ohio judge has a new requirement for defendants seeking probation; mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.
Judge Richard Frye of Franklin County said last week that he’s included the jab as a condition of release in three cases, after the defendants attributed their unvaccinated status to procrastination – as opposed to any philosophical, medical or religious objections.
“It occurred to me that at least some of these folks need to be encouraged not to procrastinate,” Frye told the Columbus Dispatch, adding “I think it’s a reasonable condition when we’re telling people to get employed and be out in the community.”
He declined to “speculate” what would happen if a defendant raised a medical, religious or philosophical exemption to vaccination, but said this is a different situation entirely than people who have simply put the matter off.
An example: a man named Cameron Stringer entered a guilty plea for one charge of improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle, for which he was sentenced to two years of probation (“community control,” as it’s known in Ohio).
Stringer must submit to random drug screening; avoid further legal trouble; return a firearm in question to its rightful owner; and obtain a COVID-19 vaccine within 30 days and provide proof to the Probation Department, court documents show. -Columbus Dispatch
It’s unknown whether other judges have been imposing similar vaccination requirements; however, a spokesman for the state Supreme Court referred the Dispatch to a news report about a judge offering to shorten probation for those who obtain vaccines.
ACLU lobbyist Gary Daniels said the requirement ‘At a minimum, appears to be problematic.’
“It doesn’t have any real relationship to community control,” he said in a brief interview.
Judge Frye’s requirement comes as the rate of vaccinations has stalled out – with states and businesses offering cash incentives and entry into massive jackpots for those who get vaccinated.
Commerce Sec’y: ‘A Lot of’ Jobs Lost in Retail, Service Industries ‘Might Not Be Coming Back’ – ‘Hard to Tell’ if Jobless Benefits Hurting
Breitbart – During an interview aired on Thursday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that it’s difficult to tell if generous unemployment benefits are hurting labor market growth, but the main issue “is that a lot of the jobs that folks lost are the kinds of jobs” that “might not be coming back or might not be coming back in the same numbers.”
Raimondo said, “it’s so hard to tell in the data” whether unemployment benefits are slowing growth in the labor market.
She continued, “Still the biggest reason people aren’t going back to work is they’re afraid. They’re afraid of getting COVID. They’re not sure if the customers that they’ll be working with have been vaccinated. They can’t get child care. So, the unemployment benefits were always meant to be temporary. They were a vital lifeline for people. They were there when folks needed it. It’ll be gone, obviously, in the beginning of September. The real issue, I think, is that a lot of the jobs that folks lost are the kinds of jobs, let’s say, for example, in retail or services industries, that are — might not be coming back or might not be coming back in the same numbers. And so, what that means is, we have to lean into apprenticeships and job training and upscaling. Because the jobs that are being created in cybersecurity or in the digital economy or in the tech economy are there and are good-paying. We need to make sure that the folks who are unemployed have the skills that they need in order to get those jobs. And so, that is the continuous work that we, in the administration, are focused on.”
Supreme Court rejects appeal from florist who wouldn’t make arrangement for same-sex wedding
CNN – The US Supreme Court on Friday declined to take up an appeal from a Washington state florist who refused to make an arrangement for a same-sex couple out of religious concerns regarding same-sex marriage.
The Washington state Supreme Court in June had ruled against the florist, Barronelle Stutzman, who declined to make a floral arrangement in 2013 for long-time client Robert Ingersoll’s same-sex wedding.
The court said Stutzman’s refusal violated a state anti-discrimination law that bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. It said the law was “neutral” and served the states’ interest in eradicating discrimination in public accommodations.
In a statement Friday, Stuzman’s lawyer Kristen Waggoner called the outcome of the case “tragic” and said “the critical work of protecting the First Amendment freedoms of all Americans must continue.”
“No one should be forced to express a message or celebrate an event they disagree with,” she added.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union praised the Supreme Court on Friday for staying out of the dispute.
“Today the Supreme Court confirmed that LGBTQ people should receive equal service when they walk into a store,” said Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project.
Ingersoll said in a statement, “We hope this decision sends a message to other LGBTQ people that no one should have to experience the hurt that we did.”
The court’s move comes after it ruled unanimously this term in favor of a Catholic Foster Care agency that declined to work with same-sex couples as potential parents.
Pelosi names Republican Liz Cheney to Jan. 6 panel, says Rep. Bennie Thompson will chair
NBC – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday announced her appointed members of the newly created select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and said one Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, will be among them.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who serves as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, will chair the select committee. Thompson negotiated a bill that would have established a bipartisan commission to investigate the riot, but the measure was ultimately blocked by Senate Republicans.
Cheney, who was ousted as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference after she spoke out against Trump and her fellow Republicans over their false election fraud claims, said Jan. 6 can never happen again.
“Congress is obligated to conduct a full investigation of the most serious attack on our Capitol since 1814,” Cheney said in a statement Thursday. “That day saw the most sacred space in our Republic overrun by an angry and violent mob attempting to stop the counting of electoral votes and threatening the peaceful transfer of power.”
The other members of the House select committee, which will have the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, include Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Elaine Luria, D-Va.
After meeting with the group in the speaker’s office Thursday afternoon, Thompson stood with his fellow Democratic members and lone Republican and said the committee is “determined to assemble a comprehensive, authoritative report on events constituting the January 6th insurrection.”
The panel will begin the process with a hearing featuring testimony from Capitol Police officers about their experiences that day, he said.
Pelosi’s announcement comes nearly seven months after the attack, in which hundreds of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to interrupt the counting of electoral votes solidifying Joe Biden’s victory. The speaker aimed to establish a 9/11 commission-style panel, which Thompson had negotiated, but that proposal failed in the Senate as Republicans repeatedly argued that there are already ongoing investigations into Jan. 6.
The speaker introduced her appointments at her weekly news conference Thursday and said the panel’s goal is to assess former Trump’s role in inciting his supporters and “to seek and to find the truth” about why they tried to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
“We want to do so in the most patriotic, non-partisan way,” Pelosi said.
The speaker’s decision to choose Cheney is notable as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has threatened to strip members of their existing committee assignments if they accept an appointment from Pelosi to the select committee, according to three sources.
House passes $760B package, hoping to sway infrastructure debate
The Hill – The House on Thursday passed a roughly $760 billion proposal to fund transportation and water projects that’s meant to shape parts of the broader infrastructure package — a top priority of President Biden — currently under discussion in the Senate and White House.
Lawmakers passed the legislation largely along party lines in a 221-201 vote with just two Republicans voting for the package.
Democrats hailed it as a monumental shift toward more sustainable infrastructure projects, with Republicans warning of lost jobs and a skyrocketing federal debt.
The bill “not only builds the infrastructure of America, but helps to rebuild the middle class,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “It does so in a transformative way.”
The measure would reauthorize surface transportation programs that are set to expire on Sept. 30, as well as invest in liberal priorities like promoting electric vehicles, strengthening drinking water standards and making utilities more durable against the impact of climate change.
Thursday’s vote came as Biden is fighting to keep GOP senators on board with a bipartisan infrastructure framework while assuring progressives that a larger, Democratic-only package — expected to include elements of his economic agenda like subsidized higher education and paid family leave — is still on the way.
As the Senate and White House grapple over the particulars of their fragile agreement — a plan that has not yet been drafted into legislation — House Democrats are battling to ensure that some of their priorities find their way into whatever final product emerges from the talks.
“This bill is designed to be a part of the president’s jobs bill. It is not a substitute for the jobs bill,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) emphasized this week.
Democrats are hoping to use the legislation passed on Thursday to make it easier to include some of their priorities in the bipartisan package that’s still being negotiated.
FDA Moves Toward Monopoly Medicine
Alliance for Natural Health – A regulation that threatens supplement access is gaining traction. Action Alert!
A well-organized, coordinated campaign from the FDA and Big Pharma is threatening access to the supplements you depend on. Using the false premise that supplements are unsafe, the FDA is working to gain more power over the regulation of supplements in order to further solidify Big Pharma’s monopoly over medicine. These efforts must be opposed.
The House Appropriations Committee report for the FDA’s 2022 funding contains concerning language regarding the development of “mandatory product listing and registration” for dietary supplements. The Committee report states that members are concerned with the “lack of robust regulation of dietary supplements, some of which cause an estimated 23,000 emergency room visits per year.” The Committee encourages the FDA to “issue regulations requiring mandatory product listing and registration to create transparency in the supply chain.”
This language isn’t enough to give the FDA the power to create a mandatory list; Congress would need to pass legislation giving the FDA this power. What is concerning, though, is that this issue is on Congress’s radar, so we may see such proposals in the not-too-distant future. We also know that the authority to create a mandatory list of supplements is something that the FDA has asked for a number of times.
Simultaneously, news articles appeared this week describing how some bad actors in the industry use illegal ingredients in predominantly weight loss, sexual enhancement, and body building supplements, seeking to justify a push for more regulation. This can’t be a coincidence.
The stated purpose for mandatory listing is to improve the FDA’s ability to root out these kinds of bad actors who sell dangerous products, since the agency claims it has little information about the thousands of products on the market. It is a laudable goal, but the FDA already has the authority to go after companies that break the law and use illegal ingredients, including those referenced in the news articles this week. The agency can, and has, enforced this law, as it should.
Using safety as a justification to give the FDA more power over supplements is a smokescreen because we know that supplements are overwhelmingly safe. The report language refers to 23,000 hospitalizations from supplements. To put this in perspective, acetaminophen alone causes 50,000 emergency room visits and 25,000 hospitalizations every year. So, even if we accept the government’s figure, all dietary supplements cause as many hospitalizations as a single drug. Properly prescribed drugs are estimated to cause 1.9 million hospitalizations a year.
Do supplements really cause 23,000 hospitalizations per year? This number comes from a 2015 Department of Health and Human Services-funded study, and we issued a critique when it was released. More details are provided in that coverage, but we’ll briefly note here that over 20% of the cases analyzed were the result of unsupervised children swallowing pills and 40% of cases among those 65 and older were caused by choking.
The idea that supplements are unsafe and more regulation is needed doesn’t pass the laugh test. So why would the FDA want more power to go after supplements which are overwhelmingly safe, during a pandemic in which the evidence shows supplements can help support health?
We believe this is about extending Big Pharma’s monopoly power over medicine. A mandatory list could be used by the FDA to target and eliminate supplements that have not yet complied with the agency’s over-reaching “new supplement” policy. Recall that the FDA’s “new supplement” guidance seeks to impose drug-like pre-approval requirements on all “new supplements” that came to the market after 1994. The “new supplement” policy has not been completed yet, having languished in draft form since 2011. But the FDA just indicated that its goal is to complete this policy by the end of June 2022.
A mandatory list of all supplements and a completed “new supplement guidance” would be potent tools for the FDA to efficiently remove thousands of supplements from the market. With a comprehensive list of products, the agency could very easily create a supplement “hit list” and remove supplements that it believes have not complied with the guidance, which is already expected to eliminate as many as 41,700 products from the market. A mandatory list makes the FDA’s job that much easier.
A mandatory list is also a concern because of its likely use to create a list of supplements, potentially including high-dose supplements, that might lead to “adverse events,” similar to a legislative effort by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) we defeated a number of years ago. A mandatory list could be used to target supplements and to remove “dangerous” high-dose supplements that don’t gel with the government’s pitifully low recommended dosages.
We must oppose these efforts. The FDA, in conjunction with Big Pharma, is working methodically to eliminate all healthcare options outside of drugs. We see similar dynamics playing out with NAC. NAC is a critical supplement that has been available for decades, but all the sudden the FDA has issued warning letters stating it isn’t a legal supplement, saving this essential compound for the drug industry. We must fight for our right to choose the healthcare options that best fit our needs.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and tell them to oppose any effort to establish a mandatory list for supplements. Please send your message immediately.
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