US Army Voices Frustration With White House, Praises Taliban in Declassified Doc on Afghan Pullout

1 hour ago (Updated: 1 hour ago)

© AP Photo / Rahmat Gul

Ilya Tsukanov

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The NATO-backed government of Afghanistan and its armed forces crumbled in August 2021, less than two weeks after the Taliban* captured its first provincial capital, despite public assurances by Biden administration officials that Kabul would continue to hold out thanks to superiority of arms, training, equipment and numbers.

New evidence of the Biden administration’s alleged poor management of the Afghanistan evacuation process appears to have been borne out in a declassified ‘after-action report’ penned by the Pentagon related to Operation Allies Refuge – the mission to pull out US personnel and Afghans during the final two weeks of August 2021.

The retrospective analysis, first published by WaPo, consists of a 12 page, partially redacted slide show summary by United States Central Command dated 24 September 2021, less than a month after the last US and coalition troops left Kabul following the city’s fall to the Taliban.

The report, part of a larger series of documents whose existence the White House clumsily attempted to deny Friday, showed a lack of preparedness, “confusion” caused by a State Department directive to rotate consular personnel in the middle of the withdrawal, and delays in evacuee processing amid bureaucratic flip-flopping regarding eligibility requirements.

“Consular staff did not have sufficient manning to supervise all processing at the gates [to the airport] which often led to Department of Defense (DoD) personnel at the gates making on the spot calls concerning paperwork. The Consular provided examples and training to the DoD gate guards for processing paperwork, though with the limited time and exposure, there was confusion as to what paperwork was acceptable,” one slide noted.

The report pointed to a “severe failure in patient administration/tracking” in the aftermath of the deadly 26 August terror attack on the airport, in which 170 Afghans and 13 US service members were killed, combined with failures to prioritise American citizens during extraction operations, and a delay in a decision to drawdown Embassy staff.

Kabul Bombing Survivors Belie US Claim Troops Did Not Fire Into Crowd

9 February, 18:06 GMT

One slide showed that the State Department ordered a 17 percent cut in staff on 21 July by 10 August. That day, officials “identified the deteriorating situation which predicted the full isolation of Kabul within the next 30 days, but concluded with a lack of consensus on conditions that would trigger a decision to execute” a full-scale withdrawal.

Chaos caused by the 15 August capture of Kabul by the Taliban was said to have resulted in thousands of Afghans flooding the airport, delaying US troops’ ability to secure its airfield for nearly two days. “Had there been a more holistic understanding of the [Indications and Warning] conditions being set for a decisions to initiate [withdrawal] by…9 August, the evacuation…could have been executed more efficiently and enabled [security forces] to manage security conditions at [the airport] to allow for a more orderly [evacuation] process,” the report noted.

Excerpt from a US Central Command After Action Report detailing impacts of White House policy on the evacuation from Afghanistan.

© Photo : US Central Command

The CENTCOM report noted that while Embassy and Afghan special immigrant visa evacuations were supposed to take place separately, a White House “directive to increase the flow of evacuees,” coupled with “several hundred special interest group request[s] for support outside the prioritization scheme rapidly increased the throughput of evacuees,” causing temporary safe havens to quickly reach and exceed capacity and resulting in further delays.

The report also offered praise for the Taliban and its security response following the 26 August ISIS-K** attack on the airport, indicating that the sharing of intelligence helped “build trust and opened critical lines of communications,” resulting in improved crowd control, external security, and helping to prevent additional ISIS-K attacks planned for August 29, 30 and/or 31.

The 12-page report is just one among a trove of documents uncovered by the press earlier this month casting new doubts on the administration’s Afghan policy in the final days of the NATO-backed government’s existence. On Thursday, President Biden rejected the conclusions of a separate Army investigation attacking his administration, reiterating his long-stated view that “there was no good time to get out, but if we had not gotten out, they [the military][ acknowledged we would have had to put a hell of a lot more troops back in.”

White House Resisted Pentagon's Attempts to Prepare 'Orderly' Afghan Evacuation, US Commanders Say

8 February, 19:53 GMT

The US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was sealed in February 2020 by Trump administration and Taliban negotiators in Doha, with President Biden announcing in April 2021 that troops would be pulled out by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. The deadline was later pulled back to the end of August. The imminent withdrawal sparked an exacerbation of the conflict between the Taliban and the NATO-backed Afghan government. By early August, the Taliban began capturing one city after another, culminating in the taking of Kabul on 15 August.

* The Taliban is an organization under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.

** The Afghanistan branch of Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

Afghan central bank rejects US order to seize its foreign reserves

Da Afghanistan Bank says US' blocking foreign exchange reserves, allocating them to 'irrelevant' purposes is injustice to Afghans

News Service February 13, 2022

File photo

Afghanistan's central bank on Saturday rejected US President Joe Biden's executive order to seize half of $7 billion in assets held in US financial institutions, saying the money belongs to the people of Afghanistan, not any government or group.

In a statement, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) stated that the decision to block their foreign exchange reserves and allocate them to “irrelevant” purposes is an injustice to the people of Afghanistan.

It will never accept the country’s reserves being paid under the name of compensation or humanitarian assistance to others, and urged reversal of the decision and the release of all the reserves, it said.

Biden issued an executive order on Friday splitting Afghanistan's central bank's $7 billion in assets, allocating half for humanitarian relief to the poverty-stricken country ravaged by 42 years of war, while keeping the other half available for compensation to victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Qaeda, which the US holds responsible for the attacks, had taken shelter in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, when the Taliban was in power. An interim Taliban administration returned to power last August.

According to the Afghan bank, it is responsible for preserving and managing the country's foreign reserves in line with international law. The foreign reserves are utilized to implement monetary policy, facilitate international trade, and stabilize the financial sector, it added.

"The real owners of these reserves are the people of Afghanistan. These reserves were not and are not the property of governments, parties, or groups and are never used as per their demand or decisions," it said.

It emphasized that the foreign reserves are managed in line with international practices, and the condition of these reserves is regularly and carefully monitored.

The statement noted that a certain portion of these reserves is invested in the US as per the accepted rules to be secure and be available for the bank to achieve its determined objectives.

Stealing Afghanistan's assets is a new low for Washington

Bradley Blankenship
Opinion  13-Feb-2022

People hold a banner reading ''Let us eat'' before marching on the street during a protest as the country struggles with a deep economic crisis, Kabul, December 21, 2021. /CFP

Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

U.S. President Joe Biden on February 11 signed an executive order that will split $7 billion in frozen U.S.-based assets from Afghanistan's central bank. Half of that money will be distributed to humanitarian organizations in Afghanistan, a country where millions are facing starvation because of economic hardship, and the other half will be granted to families of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The Biden administration claims that this is a step in the direction of allowing these frozen funds to be used for the benefit of the Afghan people, while also keeping up the teetering act of not recognizing or legitimizing the Taliban government. At the same time, the funds for 9/11 victims will be made available for the ongoing litigation from victims.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Washington's top diplomat, tweeted about the executive order, "The United States stands with the people of Afghanistan."

What's already clear from this decision from Biden is that it is wildly unpopular and will hurt the White House's reputation at home and abroad.

For the 9/11 victims, many are critical of the steps being taken now because they believe the funds should be made available for more relatives. Of course, Afghans rightly feel their money has been stolen and, finally the rest of the world will surely lose trust in the U.S. over this situation.

To be sure, 9/11 victim relatives (and first responders) do have a point on this matter. Much as it does in every such instance, the U.S. socioeconomic system has failed to properly secure these people and provide compensation, social safety nets and other means to ensure they have a satisfactory life in the aftermath of those terrible attacks.

However, this does not entitle the White House to take money from Afghanistan to compensate for America's lack of adequate social safety nets. It is textbook theft. Already this executive order has spawned protests in Afghanistan (by the people the United States stands with, apparently) because of how brazen it is.

Former President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Afghanistan on the pretense that the United States wanted to seek justice against al-Qaeda, believed to be operating in Afghanistan with its leader Osama Bin Laden, for the 9/11 attacks. But this pretense does not necessarily match reality considering the fact that the country had no role in them. Osama Bin Laden was even found in Pakistan – not Afghanistan.

 

Firefighters make their way through the rubble after two airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York bringing down the landmark buildings, September 11, 2001. /CFP

Most Americans may not even know the facts since they were swindled into believing the Bush administration's line as the war drums were beating. But context matters because this is an international issue and not a domestic political match, which is clearly how the White House is seeing it with such a petty appeal to American chauvinism on the level of Donald Trump.

As stated before, millions of Afghans are facing starvation right now because their country's economy is in shambles through no fault of their own. The United States has been meddling in Afghanistan for decades and even helped create the very organization, the Taliban, that now rules the country and they refuse to recognize as legitimate. Washington decimated the country, killed and displaced countless Afghans and morphed the local economy into being totally dependent on the invasion and occupation effort before abruptly leaving.

That is to say that the economic hardships faced by Afghanistan right now, the ones leading those millions of people to the brink of starvation, are America's fault. At the same time, the United States itself is more culpable for the 9/11 attacks than Afghanistan since it was retaliation against U.S. foreign policy that sparked the chain of events that led to the attacks in the first place.

To ameliorate both of these situations, one way or another linked to the United States, the Biden administration has decided to flagrantly violate international law by stealing assets from the Afghan people. Ironically, the Biden administration somehow perceives its actions as benevolent on this issue.

The reality could not be more different. This is such a thoroughly immoral and disgraceful situation that any person could see it for what it is, e.g., stealing from starving people. It shows the true depravity and inhumanity of the U.S. government, perhaps at an all-time low.

Pakistan calls for complete unfreezing of Afghan assets Questions US move of giving funds to 9/11 victims

By News desk
-February 13, 2022


Pakistan has called for the complete unfreezing of Afghanistan’s assets after the Joe Biden-led administration in the United States decided to keep half of the $7 billion Afghan assets in the country.

Biden on Friday signed an executive order to deal with the threat of an economic collapse in Afghanistan, setting wheels in motion for a complex resolution of competing interests in the country’s assets.

The United States is seeking to free up half of the $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets on US soil to help the Afghan people while holding the rest to possibly satisfy terrorism-related lawsuits against the Taliban, the White House said.

In a statement on Saturday, Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar said Pakistan had seen the US decision to release $3.5 billion for humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan and $3.5 billion for compensation to families of 9/11 victims.

“Over the past several months, Pakistan has been consistently emphasising the need for international community to quickly act to address the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan and to help revive the Afghan economy, as the two are inextricably linked,” the spokesperson said.

Iftikhar added that finding ways to unfreeze the Afghan foreign reserves urgently would help address the humanitarian and economic needs of the Afghan people.

He said Islamabad’s principled position on the frozen Afghan foreign bank reserves remains that these are owned by the Afghan nation and these should be released. “The utilisation of Afghan funds should be the sovereign decision of Afghanistan,” he said.

The spokesperson highlighted that the Afghan people are facing grave economic and
humanitarian challenges and the international community must continue to play its important and constructive role in alleviating their sufferings.

“Time is of the essence.” Meanwhile, demonstrators in Afghanistan’s capital on Saturday condemned US President Joe Biden’s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the US for families of America’s 9/11 victims, saying the money belongs to Afghans.

Protesters who gathered outside Kabul’s grand Eid Gah mosque asked America for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

AP adds: Afghanistan’s central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank or DAB, also opposed the move, calling it “an injustice to the people of Afghanistan” and demanding that the decision be withdrawn.

“DAB considers the latest decision of [the] USA on blocking FX (foreign exchange) reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes [an] injustice to the people of Afghanistan and will never accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan [are] paid [in] the name of compensation or humanitarian assistance to others, and wants the reversal of the decision and release of all FX reserves of Afghanistan,” it said in a press release.

The bank said the “real owners” of the said assets were the people of Afghanistan. “These reserves were not and [are] not the property of governments, parties and groups and [are] never used as per their demand and decisions,” it added.

With regards to the management of the assets, the bank highlighted: “Considering the specified objectives, the FX reserves of Afghanistan is managed based on the international practices.

Francis Boyle: Allocating Afghanistan freeze’s funds for humanitarian aid is a deception of public opinion

2022-02-13

Kabul (BNA) Francis Anthony Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois, says President Biden’s decision on the Central Bank of Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves means launching an economic war and keeping the people hungry.

According to BNA, France Boyle told, Russia’s Sputnik news agency, deducting freezing part of Afghanistan’s money for public aid is a deception of public opinion, not to address the plight of Afghanistan’s needy. According to him, this action of the US President will make the people of Afghanistan starve to death. According to this international law professor, the US President’s decision to allocate part of the assets of the Central Bank of Afghanistan to the families of the victims of 9/11, based on the 1948 Convention on the Prohibition of Illegal Genocide and the creation of a massacre of Afghans, is due to hunger.

He argues that no state has the legal right to seize Afghanistan’s people monetary.

It is worth mentioning, that after the fall of the previous government and regain of power by the Islamic Emirate, nearly ten billion dollars of foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank of Afghanistan were frozen in foreign banks, including seven billion dollars held in US banks. US President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order for the foundation to sign $3.7 billion in central bank money.

The US President’s decision has met with positive reactions. Human Rights Watch has said it must seize the assets of the Afghan people. The Central Bank of Afghanistan has also issued a statement calling Joe Biden’s decision regarding the country’s foreign exchange reserve “injustices”.

Bakhtar News Agency

Who should control Afghanistan’s

 foreign cash reserves?

24:50 From: Inside Story

The US moves to redistribute $7bn held in New York and keep it out of the Taliban’s hands.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last August created a financial dilemma for nations holding the country’s foreign cash reserves.

The deposed Afghan government had $7bn in the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

The Taliban laid claim to the cash, but Washington does not recognise the group as the legitimate leaders of Afghanistan.

US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order to split that money and keep it out of the Taliban’s hands.

Half will go to a trust fund for Afghan humanitarian aid, and the rest to compensating families of the 9/11 attacks.

Is this plan fair to the Afghan people?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

David Sedney – Senior associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Pauline Ballaman – Afghanistan country director, Norwegian Refugee Council.

Haroun Rahimi – Assistant professor of law, American University of Afghanistan.

9/11 attacks unrelated to Afghanistan: 

Kabul rally

Suhrab Sarwari

13 Feb 2022 - 16:32

KABUL (Pajhwok): Residents of capital Kabul staged a protest rally on Sunday, saying the 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with the Afghan people and their money should not be given as compensation to victims of the attacks and they would not remain silent if the decision was not reconsidered.

US President Joe Biden has moved to freeze about $7bn in assets held in US financial institutions by the Afghan central bank in the wake of the Taliban takeover, as he vowed to direct $3.5bn to humanitarian aid and preserve the rest for families of victims of the September 11 terror attacks.

In an executive order signed on Friday, Biden directed “all property and interests in property” of the Afghan central bank in the US to be blocked and transferred to an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, effectively cutting off the Taliban’s access to the US financial system.

The US decision on Afghanistan capital sparked widespread protests by Afghan citizens.

A number of Kabul citizens criticized the US president’s statement at a gathering in Kabul on Sunday organized by a group of “Afghan Shia scholars”.

The participants said the 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with the Afghan people and that the Afghans had no any role in the incident. The US president should not use the money of the Afghan people for compensating the victims of the attack, they said.

AttaullahSadiq, head of the National Consensus of Freedom and Independence, said at the meeting that the 9/11 attacks were irrelevant to the Afghan people as they were neither planned nor carried out by Afghans.

“The United States considers itself a superpower in the world, but now it wants to use the money of the Afghan people for its own expenses,” he said, calling the US president’s order as cruel.

“The occupation is over; now is the era of independence; the people of Afghanistan are no longer oppressed; there will be no more proxy wars in Afghanistan, and all people are now united,” he said.

The people of Afghanistan will not give their rights to anyone and the world is responsible to give the Afghans’ money and compensate them, he said.

“We tell the US president that the people of Afghanistan want friendship and mutual respect,” Sadiq said.

Assal Ahmad Shakiri, deputy head of the council, said, “Joe Biden has seized nearly $10 billion in money from the Afghan people and is determined to compensate the victims of 9/11 attacks, but the reality is that the attack was planned by the US itself.”

He criticized silence of Islamic countries on Afghanistan, and said, “The US has lost to Afghans, now it wants to take economic revenge on the people of Afghanistan.”

He asked for reconsideration of the US decision and said that Afghans would not remain silent until the decision was reversed.

A day earlier, Afghan Steelworks Union, in a protest meeting, criticized the decision of US president and called for the move to be reconsidered.

Yes, Domestic Violence Spikes During the Super Bowl

More studies in recent years support the "myth" that women and advocates have been sounding the alarm on for decades.

By Kylie Cheung

JEZEBEL
Yesterday 



Photo: Mario Tama (Getty Images)



Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams will take place this Sunday in Los Angeles. People will drink, emotions will spike, roughly half the fans will be upset after the game, and yes, domestic abuse incidents will most likely occur at a higher rate than usual in households across the country.

The most cited research on the issue is a 2011 study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which found that unexpected or “upset losses”—for example, defeats when a home team is predicted to win by four or more points—are correlated with a 10% increase in the rate of domestic violence. The study found that this rise in domestic violence took place during a narrow window of time around the end of the game, and that the window expanded following disappointing outcomes for more important games, like those against rival teams, playoff games, or, say, the Super Bowl.

The 2011 study’s findings were mirrored by a 2014 study in the UK that found a 26% increase in reports of domestic abuse when the national soccer team won or drew, and a 38% increase when the team lost, suggesting heightened emotion around a team loss can increase the likelihood of violent behaviors toward an intimate partner. A 2017 study in Canada found calls to a domestic violence hotline consistently rose by 15% when the local soccer team was playing.

Just last summer, another study in the UK that analyzed 523,546 domestic abuse incidents reported to the Greater Manchester Police between 2012 and 2019 concluded that intimate partner violence broadly increased after games, “driven exclusively from male perpetrators on female victims.” The 2021 study’s findings about what drives this increased violence contradict previous speculation that men become more violent solely due to heightened emotions during big games—instead, the study suggests increased violence is driven by alcohol consumption during games. This prompted one University of Oxford researcher to suggest delaying games to the evening to discourage prolonged day-drinking, or scheduling games on weekdays, to “help prevent a considerable amount of domestic abuse.”

Research into increased risk of gender-based violence during sports games should not be conflated with the police-propagated myth that the Super Bowl leads to increased sex trafficking. Sex workers have discredited these claims, which are reportedly being weaponized to arrest and criminalize more sex workers ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl. Two major anti-trafficking groups and even the FBI have disputed that there’s any evidence the threat of sex trafficking or human trafficking increases for this event, but the LA County sheriff has continued to push this narrative ahead of the upcoming game. Before Super Bowl LIV in Miami two years ago, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office made dozens of trafficking-related arrests, which the Miami New Times reported had primarily targeted sex workers.

Super Bowl Halftime Performers Will Now Be Paid…Minimum Wage

For whatever reason, academic research correlating domestic violence with major sports games — while better supported by evidence than the sex trafficking myth— is met with greater scrutiny. It’s not surprising these studies aren’t particularly well received in a society that tends to ignore domestic violence—which is both pervasive and vastly underreported—just as routinely as it covers and makes excuses for male-dominated institutions like the NFL, a sports league in which domestic abuse has been rampant. In the years before the recent wave of research on domestic violence and sports, the phenomenon was written off as a myth by several male journalists. In one notable example, a 1993 Washington Post article called “Debunking the ‘Day of Dread’ for Women” largely reduces early research on the issue to feminine hysteria, or that pesky “network of feminist activists orchestrating a national campaign to ask males to stop beating their wives and girlfriends after the Super Bowl.”

The Post’s 1993 article particularly pushed back against the claim being made by anti-violence advocates at the time that the Super Bowl is the single highest peak of domestic violence cases in the calendar year. To the article’s credit, this isn’t true, as there’s no single day we can definitively label as the day that the most cases of domestic violence will take place. But plenty of research has shown that triggers like the holiday season or natural disasters that keep people confined to their homes can increase the risk of domestic violence — and this research isn’t as contested or controversial as studies about sports and domestic violence, which may be perceived as an attack on a traditionally masculine interest.

More recently, a 2015 HuffPost article offers the important critique that advocates shouldn’t “make domestic violence about the date on the calendar rather than the reprehensible act itself.” But most takes disputing studies and claims about sports games and domestic violence ultimately rely on an almost condescending sort of nit-picking to ignore that while no one day can provably be a peak, that doesn’t mean a spectacular, hypermasculine event like the Super Bowl has no measurable impact on rates of domestic abuse, at all.

Of course, sports itself isn’t the driver of violence, although the innate brutality of a sport like football, nor the NFL’s long history of players being accused of domestic abuse and cheerleaders alleging sexual harassment and mistreatment, are worth examining. With or without high-stakes games like the Super Bowl, abusive men would find some other reason to abuse. The hypermasculine energy and intensity surrounding football games is often just the most readily available trigger—and it’s also a culturally acceptable trigger. Violent riots often led by drunk white men after sports games are frequently written off by law enforcement and national media as something akin to boys being boys, while riots and protests in the wake of police killings of Black people are violently policed and treated as existential threats to community safety.

Where women and LGBTQ people are ridiculed for whatever it is that sparks their fandom, and people of color and particularly Black communities are told there’s no acceptable way for them to protest state violence, white male sports fans are pretty much expected to become drunk, violent, and emotional over the outcome of a sports game. The double standard and intense pushback on the data speaks to broad cultural permission that society gives to white men and only white men to be aggressive—all over some other men throwing around a ball on their TV screens.

Super Bowl location shows why stadiums don’t need taxpayer money

by Tom Joyce

OPINION
| February 13, 2022 

Super Bowl 56 will take place in a state-of-the-art facility on Sunday.

More specifically, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. It's the most expensive stadium in NFL history, costing $5 billion to construct. It also serves as a great example of why taxpayer-funded stadiums for professional sports teams are unnecessary.

A privately funded venue owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, SoFi Stadium didn’t require $700 million in public funding, as was the case with the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Georgia, which hosted the Super Bowl in 2019. People want to own NFL teams in the Los Angeles area so that they can make a lot of money. They’re taking a risk, making an investment, and hoping it will increase their own wealth. It’s a far better system than passing the bill to working people.

So how did Kroenke Sports & Entertainment do it?

Well, one major cost-cutting measure is that two teams share the venue. That would be the Los Angeles Rams, which call the venue home. Additionally, the venue is leased to the Los Angeles Chargers for their home games.

Not every NFL market has a large enough population to support two teams, but sharing a venue in Los Angeles County is efficient: More than 10 million people live in the county, so there is enough room for both teams to exist. Having more tenants outside of football season could help cut costs even further.

SoFi is also paying $625 million for a 20-year naming rights deal. That’s a smart way to help offset the costs. Plus, both teams offer personal seat licenses, meaning that fans can pay a fee in exchange for the rights to buy season tickets. The Rams ownership group also took out about $900 million in loans from the NFL to help pay for the stadium. And remember, all of this spending isn’t hurting the Rams on the field. They’re playing in the Super Bowl this year.

But while the Los Angeles Rams exemplify how privately financed stadiums can work, the St. Louis Rams showed why taxpayer-funded stadiums are a sham.

The Rams left Los Angeles for St. Louis in 1995 on the condition that the city would pay for the Trans World Dome (now known as The Dome at America’s Center). The Rams leased the venue for two decades but left it in 2015. They also left Missouri residents $144 million worth of debt — the stadium didn't pay for itself.

The Rams gave St. Louis a bad deal. Thankfully, they’re not doing the same to Inglewood. If they can fund SoFi Stadium, other teams should have no problem paying for less expensive venues.

Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.

US exports every molecule of LNG possible amid high prices, Ukraine crisis

Tankers were docked or loading at all seven US liquefied natural gas export terminals for the first time Saturday (AFP)Updated: 13 Feb 2022,

Out of the roughly five dozen US LNG cargoes on the water, more than two-thirds are headed to Europe where low winter inventories and tensions between Russia and Ukraine have sent natural gas prices on the continent soaring to more six times the US benchmark Henry Hub

Tankers were docked or loading at all seven U.S. liquefied natural gas export terminals for the first time Saturday, marking a small piece of industry history and setting up record flows to the plants amid high prices and tensions in Europe.

The Greek-flagged tanker Yiannis is docked at Venture Global LNG’s Calcasieu Pass plant in Louisiana, which remains under construction but has been given permission by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to send out cargoes during the export terminal’s startup process. The Saturday afternoon arrival of LNGships Manhattan at Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island LNG plant in Georgia, marked loadings at the other six U.S. LNG export terminals.

Although the tankers are expected to be docked at the same time for less than a day, demand from their loadings helped set a record 13.3 billion cubic feet of natural gas flows to U.S. LNG export terminals on Saturday.

Once Calcasieu Pass LNG is in full service, the seven U.S. LNG export terminals will be able to draw as much as 13.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, solidifying America’s lead over Qatar and Australia as the world’s top supplier of the superchilled power plant fuel, figures from U.S. Energy Information Administration show.

Out of the roughly five dozen US LNG cargoes on the water, more than two-thirds are headed to Europe where low winter inventories and tensions between Russia and Ukraine have sent natural gas prices on the continent soaring to more six times the US benchmark Henry Hub.

French COVID Protest Convoy Defies Paris Stay-away Order


By Antony Paone and Leigh Thomas
02/12/22 

Police officers on motorcycles direct camper vans out of the Champs-Elysees avenue as French drivers and their "Convoi de la liberte" (The Freedom Convoy), a vehicular convoy protest, arrive in Paris to protest against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine and restrictions in France, February 12, 2022. 

 Photo: Reuters / BENOIT TESSIER

A convoy protesting COVID-19 restrictions breached police defences and drove into central Paris on Saturday, snarling traffic around the Arc de Triomphe and on the Champs Elysees, as police fired tear gas at demonstrators.

Protesters in cars, campervans, tractors and other vehicles had converged on Paris from Lille, Perpignan, Nice and other cities late on Friday, despite warnings from Paris authorities that they would be barred from entering the capital.

Inspired by horn-blaring "Freedom Convoy" demonstrations in Canada, dozens of vehicles slipped through the police cordon, impeding traffic around the 19th century arch and the top of the boutique-lined Champs Elysees, a magnet for tourists.

Inside the city's limits, motorists in the "Freedom Convoy" waved tricolour flags and honked in defiance of the police ban.

On the Champs Elysees, clouds of tear gas swirled through the terraces of bars and restaurants.

Riot police also threw tear gas grenades to keep order at an authorised street protest where demonstrators, including some "Yellow Vests" railed against President Emmanuel Macron's coronavirus vaccine pass rules and the cost of living.

On the Champs Elysees, police used tear gas into the evening as sporadic scuffles continued and one person who collapsed on the sidewalk was brought to hospital for checks, police said.

France requires people to show proof of vaccination to enter public places such as cafes, restaurants and museums, with a negative test no longer being sufficient for unvaccinated people.

"We can't take the vaccine pass any more," said Nathalie Galdeano, who had come from southwest France by bus to participate in the protests.

Police said that they had arrested 54 people, handed out 337 fines by and stopped 500 vehicles trying to get into Paris in the morning. The Interior Ministry said about 32,000 people participated in protests nationwide, including 7,600 in Paris.

Less than two months from a presidential election, Macron's government is eager to keep protests from spiralling into large-scale demonstrations like the anti-government Yellow Vest revolt of 2018.

That movement began as a protest against fuel taxes and grew into a broader revolt that saw some of the worst street violence in decades and tested Macron's authority.

Grievances expressed by protesters in the "Freedom Convoy" extend beyond COVID restrictions, with anger simmering over a perceived fall in standards of living amid surging inflation.

Police had mobilised more than 7,000 officers, set up checkpoints and deployed armoured personnel carriers and water cannon trucks in preparation for the protests.

Separately police also said they had arrested five protesters in southern Paris in possession of sling shots, hammers, knives and gas masks.

Canadian truckers protesting a vaccine mandate for trans-border traffic have paralysed parts of the capital Ottawa since late January and blocked U.S.-Canada crossing points. Canadian police began clearing protesters blocking a key bridge linking Canada and the United States on Saturday.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE....

Mike Lindell Plans to Donate Pillows to Freedom Convoy Truckers

Anti-vaccine mandate protestors block the roadway at the Ambassador Bridge border crossing, in Windsor, Ontario on February 11, 2022. (Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty)

By Luca Cacciatore    |   Saturday, 12 February 2022

MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell announced on Friday that he would be donating thousands of pillows to "Freedom Convoy" Canadian truckers protesting COVID-19 mandates and restrictions in Ottawa.

"In Canada, they have backed off on some of the mandates," Lindell said. "The truckers are gaining. It is working … they’re doing it now on the U.S. side. MyPillow’s getting involved. We’re shipping up pillows to all of the truckers."

"I don’t know if they’ll let us into Canada, but we’re gonna try and get pillows to all of them," he continued. "Our voices are getting out there, and things are getting done to get this—to fight the evil. I mean, it’s just unreal."

During an interview on Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), Lindell detailed that the distribution of the pillows would occur on a secret day to avoid "obstructionists."

"We’re busy. All of our employees are busy making pillows right now for the truckers in Canada," he told the network. "We’re going to try to get them through. I’m not going to say what day or ... there will be obstructionists."

Lindell added that he has a factory operational in Canada, but distributor issues caused by the CEO getting "canceled" for controversial comments about the 2020 presidential election have hurt production.

"Canadian companies canceled me too. Costco, the Canadian Shopping Channel, so our production went way down a year ago. So ... I got a little problem with [Canadian Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau," the pillow CEO said.

The latest donation by Lindell is not the first time he assisted people in need with his product, The Epoch Times reported.

Most recently, Lindell sent more than 10,000 pillows to victims of the Kentucky tornado in December 2021. In 2017, his team shipped six trucks loaded with almost 60,000 pillows to Houston to support those affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Rand Paul is 10-4 on trucker convoy in

Canada over COVID mandates coming

 to US, to 'clog up cities'

Paul argues U.S. contributed to the Canadian trucker outrage by putting mask mandate on those crossing the border

By Just the News staff
Updated: February 11, 2022 -

Libertarian-mined Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul is getting behind the trucker convoy in Canada that opposes government-mandated COVID-19 vaccines and says he hope the movement comes to the U.S. to likewise “clog up cities."

"I’m all for it," Paul told The Daily Signal on Thursday. "Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights, to you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates."

Paul also argued the United States contributed to the trucker outrage north of the border that has now essentially gridlocked Windsor, Ontario.

"Some of this, we started," he said. “We put [COVID-19] mandates on truckers coming across the border from Canada so they put mandates on. And the truckers are annoyed. They're riding in a cab by themselves, most of them for eight, 10-hour long hauls, and they just want to do what they want to do. It's their own business."

While touting a U.S. version of the convoy, Paul also seems to take a dig at COVID health-safety policies in American cities that has made them nearly empty at times since the pandemic started roughly two years ago.

"It'd be great, but the thing is, it wouldn't shut the city down because the government workers haven't come to work in two years anyway," he said. "I don’t know if it'll affect D.C. It'd be a nice change. We’d actually have some traffic ... I hope the truckers do come to America. I hope they clog up cities."

Trump on Trucker Protests: U.S. 'Far

 More of a Tinderbox Than Canada'

BY JASON LEMON ON 2/12/22 

Former President Donald Trump suggested that the trucker protests that started in Canada could cause more significant disruptions in the U.S., saying the country is "more of a tinderbox" than its northern neighbor.

The trucker protests—or "Freedom Convoy"—began in Ottawa in late January. The movement rallied supporters against vaccine mandates for truckers implemented in Canada and led to the convoy blocking the Ambassador Bridge, a key border crossing between the U.S. and its ally to the north. Right-wing groups have jumped behind the movement, with many staunchly pro-Trump Republicans expressing support for the convoy.

During a Saturday morning interview with Fox News, Trump commented on the movement and suggested the U.S. could see an even worse situation. "Freedom Convoys" are now planning to launch related demonstrations in the U.S.

"I see they have Trump signs all over the place and I'm proud that they do," Trump told the hosts of Fox & Friends during a live phone interview. "But that's what happens, you can push people so far and our country is a tinderbox too, don't kid yourself. And there are plenty of [people from] our country up there right now."

Former President Donald Trump commented on the trucker protests taking place in Canada, saying the U.S. is "far more of a tinderbox" during a Saturday interview with Fox News. Above, protestors against COVID-19 vaccine mandates gather in solidarity with Canadian truckers near the Niagara Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York, on February 12.

DUSTIN FRANZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The former president continued, saying, "when you look at what's happening in Canada—our country, I think, is far more of a tinderbox than Canada."

The Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement agencies that trucker protests could cause problems this weekend as the nation tunes in to the Super Bowl. Specifically, DHS warned about the possibility that the movement could cause disruptions in Los Angeles, where the big game will be held on Sunday.

"The convoy will potentially begin in California as early as mid-February and arrive in Washington, DC, as late as mid-March, potentially impacting the Super Bowl LVI scheduled for 13 February and the State of the Union Address scheduled for 1 March," the DHS warned in a bulletin first reported by Yahoo News.

NBC News reported on Friday that there appeared to be foreign meddling involved with the "Freedom Convoy" protests. Facebook said that it had taken down accounts and posts linked to content farms in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania and several more countries, according to the report. Furthermore, large pro-Trump groups on social media have reportedly been changing their names to align with movement.

Facebook told NBC News that some of the online groups involved with promoting the trucker protest frequently linked users to websites that sold pro-Trump merchandise as well as anti-vaccine products. Meanwhile, right-wing figures in the U.S. appear to be attempting to replicate similar protests to the one in Canada. Pro-Trump lawmakers have voiced solidarity with the movement as well.

"I support Truckers. Because of the important role they have in our society delivering all our goods that we need to survive, but also because Truckers are God fearing peaceful Patriots who have the ability to end tyranny through peaceful protests," Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, tweeted on Saturday.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's press office for further comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Bill Maher and Guests Praise Trucker Convoy as Peaceful ‘Free Expression,’ Blast Trudeau for Sounding ‘Like Hitler’

GOT HIM CONFUSED WITH HIS DAD

By Caleb Howe
Feb 12th, 2022,

The topic of the “Freedom Convoy” was handled somewhat differently on HBO’s Real Time Friday night than it has been by some other media outlets, with host Bill Maher and guests defending the protest as an expression of Democratic freedoms and urging leaders to “listen” to the protesters’ concerns.

Maher’s guests for the segment were author and former Biotech CEO Vivek Ramaswamy, and author and former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, both of whom shared their support of peaceful protest, which phrase they emphasized includes the trucker convoy.

Maher began the segment by saying that, although at first he wasn’t too interested because it seemed like a “small group of people” and that it was only about specific vaccine mandates, it has since become more. He said the whole world is “looking at Canada,” and as the protest has grown it has become clear that “this is about something more than just the vaccine mandate.”

“It’s becoming a big thing. It’s happening all over the world now. They think it might happen here in Washington on Super Bowl Sunday,” said Maher. “Do you agree it’s about something more? And if so, what?”

Ramaswamy answered first, saying that it is about something more, calling it an “uprising” that reaches the whole of the democratic world.

“If you think this is about vaccine mandates or about white supremacy. You’re missing the point, he said. “And this isn’t a left or right issue. This is about an uprising of everyday citizens in democracies around the world.”

He said people are “rising against the biggest threat to actual democracy,” which he described as bureaucrats “crushing the will of everyday people.” He said the same class of people are also on corporate boards, head universities, and fill diplomatic posts.

“These are the unelected class of leaders that ultimately, I think, are using their bureaucratic power to supplant the will of everyday not only Americans, but Canadians and Western Europeans, too,” he said.


“That’s why we’re seeing a fusion of both the left and the right here, saying that actually, we want our voices heard. We want to be able to speak without fear of putting food on the dinner table,” he continued. “And you know what? The beautiful thing about a democracy is that so far, thank God, this has been a peaceful set of protests. I hope it stays that way. That’s part of the messiness of democracy. That’s part of what makes it beautiful.”

“You were ready for that one,” said Maher with a chuckle after the speech.

Williamson then answered, agreeing that “democracy is messy” and that this is the price of a free society.

“As long as we’re going to honor free expression, protest is important,” she said, “But also protest is inherently disruptive.”

“So the line we have to find for ourselves is where does disruption become harm?” she said, pointing out that the groups who suffer consequences of such disruptions have a voice, too. “These people have spoken, they have expressed themselves. They have a lot of passion behind their message, obviously. And what the Canadian government and any government has to then balance is, at what point does this now move over into more than your grievances, But the grievances of people such as workers in Detroit and elsewhere who are finding economic harm because of these protests?”

She then pointed out that the Canadian protest has been peaceful and that they managed to protest at Canada’s capital without storming into it, suggesting Americans might take a lesson.

At that point, Maher brought up the elitism aspect of the situation and the pandemic as a whole.

“Why truckers?” he wondered, and answered that, “You know, like during the pandemic, you know, I talked about this many times, you know, we would see these added, we’re all in it together. And I think: no, we’re not. No, we’re not.”

“There are some people who stay home and some people who bring them the food,” he said. “If you’re just ordering Amazon and you don’t ever have to go out and your job, you can do remotely. But who’s bringing the Amazon things? The trucker.”

“There is this idea, and it’s not wrong that some people are staying home in their Lululemons and other people are, and can afford to like, wait out and get a free vacation and money from the government, and other people can’t,” he said. “And they’re pissed off, the people who can’t.”

Ramaswamy agreed but added that there is also a difference in who gets listened to, arguing that leaders and corporations around the world jumped at the chance to listen to Black Lives Matter protesters. “I think those same institutional leaders would now do well to take a page from that playbook and listen to these truckers. I mean, listen to what they have to say.”

Maher then took a hard shot at Canada’s Justin Trudeau, reading aloud some of what Trudeau has said about unvaccinated Canadians.

“Now you do sound like Hitler,” Maher said in response to the quotes.

When Marianne Williamson expressed surprise that Trudeau had uttered such harsh remarks, Maher jokingly replied, “you didn’t see the blackface?”

HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

'Just watch me': When Pierre Trudeau confronted the October Crisis

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Reporter asked how far will the prime minister would go to keep people safe

CBC Archives · Posted: Jun 21, 2018 2:56 PM ET | Last Updated: October 2, 2020

Pierre Trudeau: "Just watch me"

51 years ago

Duration1:54

Canada looks more like a police state than a democracy eight days after the kidnapping of British Trade Commissioner James Cross. 1:54

Canada looked more like a police state than a democracy on Oct. 13, 1970.

Eight days earlier, a Quebec separatist group, the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec), had kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte. 

By calling in army tanks and men in full gear, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's aim was to boost national security. But the military's presence made some Canadians feel a whole lot less secure.

"What is it with all these men and guns around here?" CBC reporter Tim Ralfe had asked Trudeau, amid a crowd of journalists waiting for him outside Parliament, in raw CBC footage showing Trudeau's discussion with reporters that day. 

'Go on and bleed'

Canadian soldiers guard a street corner in Montreal after Prime Minister Trudeau called out troops during the October Crisis of 1970. (The Associated Press)

"Haven't you noticed?" Trudeau responded. "What's your worry?"

The exchange lasted several minutes more, with Trudeau defending his refusal to allow government ministers to be used as "tools of this blackmail" by the FLQ.

He said measures like soldiers on the streets would prevent further kidnappings, but Ralfe pushed back about "the kind of society that you live in." 

"There's a lots of bleeding hearts around that don't like to see people with helmets and guns," said Trudeau. "All I can say is, go on and bleed. It's more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier's helmet."

'How far would you go?'

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau jokingly knocks on the roof of his bullet-proof car as he talks with reporters on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ont., Oct. 13, 1970. Trudeau had recently switched to the National Defence department Cadillac in the wake of kidnapping activity by the FLQ in Montreal and reported threat on Mr. Trudeau's life. (Chuck Mitchell/Canadian Press)

Ralfe then asked Trudeau how far he would go to protect Canadians' safety during the crisis.

With a shrug, Trudeau replied: "Just watch me." 

Three days later Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, giving police the right to arrest and detain people on suspicion alone. The act was created in 1914 for cases of war or national emergency.

Trudeau also outlawed the FLQ and told police to arrest those with "extreme-left" literature, posters, stickers or pamphlets.

A newsboy in Ottawa holds up a newspaper with a headline reporting the invoking of the War Measures Act on Oct. 16, 1970. It was the first time Canada had invoked the act in peacetime, put into effect following the kidnapping of British diplomat James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte by the FLQ. (Peter Bregg/The Canadian Press)