Daily Caller
$40 million weekly cash shipments from US are stabilizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
It is common knowledge that the Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete disaster, but lots of people do not know that the Biden administration has been sending cash to the Taliban every week since then.
When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, our troops were ordered to leave behind $7 billion worth of military equipment which ended up in the hands of the Taliban. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban also likely gained access to approximately $57.6 million in funds that the United States had provided to the former Afghan government. But that was just the beginning of the financial atrocities.
“According to an August 2023 World Bank report, the UN has purchased, transported, and transferred $2.9 billion in U.S. currency to Afghanistan since August 2021,” said a SIGAR report published in January. “This included $1.8 billion provided in 2022 and $1.1 billion provided in 2023, as of August 2023.”
“The U.S. is the largest international donor to Afghanistan, having provided about $2.6 billion in funding to the UN, other international organizations (PIOs), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Afghanistan since August 2021,” said the SIGAR report.
The U.N., which handles the transportation of these payments, claims it needs to send cash because the country does not have the infrastructure to wire funds.
I recently hosted a guest on my podcast who goes by the name of “Legend” to talk about these payments. He is an Afghan American and former U.S. Army noncommissioned officer who has deployed to Afghanistan multiple times, and who traveled to Kabul during the Afghanistan withdrawal to rescue individuals left behind.
Legend confirmed: “Yes, the money does end up feeding and supporting the Taliban.” He explained that the United Nations flies the cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan Central Bank which is managed by a terrorist who is on an active U.S. sanctions list. That bank then holds an “auction” where groups bid to take those dollars and convert it to the local currency. Every week the winner of that auction is someone associated with the Haqqani Network, a terror group with ties to Al-Qaeda.
These terrorists take the money and convert it to Afghani to distribute. Some of that money stays with the Haqqani Network, some goes to the terrorists running the bank, and the rest of the money is given to the local implementing parties or non-government organizations (NGOs).
However, the Taliban is the group handing out NGO licenses in Afghanistan. If a Taliban sympathizer asks for an NGO license, they get it. So, many of these groups send money directly to the Taliban or to support the families of suicide bombers.
Legend also said if the United States suspended these weekly payments, we would see signs of the Taliban and other Afghanistan-based terror groups crumbling within a year. The $40 million weekly cash shipments have stabilized the Afghani, making the Taliban’s newly printed currency the world’s best performer, beating the U.S. dollar in September 2023.
It is not like this administration doesn’t know who they’re dealing with. President Joe Biden was a senator and Vice President Kamala Harris was an attorney in the 1990s when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist. During that time, women were stripped of their rights and treated as prisoners, and the Taliban provided safe haven to al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, their spokesperson said: “Nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan. Of course, there is a huge difference between us now and 20 years ago.” It was a laughable statement, and no sane person should have believed it. Terrorists don’t change.
The Taliban’s return to oppression started slow. First, they banned women from driving more than 45 miles without a male relative. Then they stopped them from going to school. Then they banned women’s faces and voices from being displayed in public, and prohibited women from looking at men they are not related to. These women are now prisoners in their own country as much as they were in the 1990s. And we are funding their oppressors.
The fact that a single penny of American tax dollars has ended up in the hands of terrorists is a disgrace. I introduced a bill that would do three things to stop it:
First, my bill states the policy of the United States is to oppose support to the Taliban. It also calls for a report on any foreign countries that have given support to the Taliban and calls for the secretary of State to develop a strategy to discourage foreign countries from providing support. Second, it calls for a report on cash assistance programs in Afghanistan and the safeguards in place to prevent the Taliban from accessing it. Third, it requires a report on the Afghan Fund and the Afghanistan central bank and what controls are in place to make sure those funds are not diverted or misused.
The House passed my bill earlier this year, but unfortunately the Senate won’t vote on it. This should be a bipartisan issue, and we need to keep pushing for it.
Many people lost everything because of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Women lost their freedom, Afghan citizens lost their lives, and 13 U.S. servicemembers were killed. One of those servicemembers was my constituent, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. He had recently finished a deployment in Afghanistan when he heard we were evacuating and he volunteered to go back to help. He was 23 years old when he was killed.
We need to honor their sacrifice as best as we can. That starts by halting the payments we have been sending to the Taliban. No more American money for terrorists.
Rep. Tim Burchett has represented Tennessee’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives since January 2019. Prior to that he served for eight years as mayor of Knox County, 12 years in the state senate and four years in the state house.
Daily Caller
Union Bigwigs Decline To Endorse Anyone For President Despite Rank-And-File Members Overwhelmingly Backing Trump
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Wednesday declined to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election just hours after releasing internal polling data showing that the workers it represents strongly favor former President Donald Trump.
Among rank-and-file members of the major union, 59.6% surveyed said they believe the Teamsters should endorse Trump, compared to just 31% voicing support for Vice President Kamala Harris, a more than 25-point gap that remained more or less unchanged after the union ordered a subsequent survey after the Sept. 10 presidential debate. Despite the poll results, the union refused to make an endorsement as there was “no majority support” for Harris and a lack of “universal support” for Trump, it revealed on Wednesday.
A Teamsters spokesperson did not immediately clarify why the union had different standards for the two candidates.
“The Teamsters thank all candidates for meeting with members face-to-face during our unprecedented roundtables,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said. “Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business. We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The union cited Trump’s refusal to commit to vetoing right-to-work legislation as part of its reasoning for not issuing an endorsement.
The Teamsters, which have historically supported Democrats and often donate to left-of-center causes, made an effort to court Republicans this election cycle. The union made a donation to the Republican National Committee, met with Trump, and O’Brien was even invited to speak at the Republican National Convention. Some on the right have resisted the union’s attempt to ingratiate itself among conservatives, like the Center for Union Facts which put up billboards outside the Republican National Convention calling the Teamsters “two-faced” over its history of liberal spending.
While Republicans were generally open to the Teamsters, the Democratic National Convention snubbed O’Brien by not allowing him to speak at the event, according to The Associated Press.
Harris is considerably less popular among rank-and-file Teamsters than President Joe Biden, who only trailed Trump by about 8 points in a survey ordered by the union prior to his withdrawal from the race. Union leadership met with Harris for a roundtable discussion on Monday, The Hill reported.
“We represent everybody from airline pilots and zookeepers, and we don’t just represent registered Democrats,” O’Brien said to reporters.
The Teamsters’ endorsement could have had a significant impact if it went to either candidate given the concentration of its members in the swing states of Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, according to Reuters.
Daily Caller
Biden-Harris Admin’s Multi-Billion Dollar Electric School Bus Program Is A Huge Gift To China, House Report Finds
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Owen Klinsky
The Biden-Harris administration’s $5 billion Clean School Bus Program uses nearly 400% more taxpayer dollars per school bus and benefits the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a House report revealed Tuesday.
The 51-page report from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce found promoting electric school buses and other electric vehicles (EVs) enriches the CCP as the EV supply chain is roughly 90% dependent on China, raising both national security and human rights concerns. It also highlighted immense expenses for taxpayers, with the average electric school bus under the first iteration of the Clean School Bus Program — the first of three iterations — costing $381,191, nearly four times that of a typical full-sized diesel school bus.
“It is clear the $5 billion Clean School Bus Program is overall a failure and, in many cases, a waste of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a statement regarding the report’s findings. “The program, led by the radical Biden-Harris EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], props up a market that relies heavily upon a supply chain dominated by the Chinese Communist Party.”
Funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Clean School Bus Program provided the Biden-Harris EPA with funds over five years to “replace existing school buses with zero-emission and clean school buses.”
Kamala Harris led the Biden Administration's $5,000,000,000 EV school bus program.
After 3 years, just 60 buses are on the road.
That's over $83,300,000 per bus.
A vote for Kamala is a vote to waste more tax dollars on failed green programs.
— Daniel Turner (@DanielTurnerPTF) July 29, 2024
China currently accounts for approximately two-thirds of global EV battery cell production, while the U.S. manufactured just 7% as of 2022, raising national security concerns as the U.S. would likely have to depend on Chinese EV technology for its electric school buses, according to the report. Furthermore, the government-subsidized purchases of electric school buses under the Clean School Bus Program incentivize pre-existing human rights abuses in the EV supply, including the use of Uyghur forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region.
The report also identified limited range as an issue, with standard electric school buses from leading manufacturer BlueBird able to travel just 120 miles on a single charge, while some propane models can travel 400 miles before needing to refuel. The range problem can also be exacerbated by cold and warm weather conditions, with a study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory finding electric transit buses lose roughly a third of their range at 25 degrees Fahrenheit compared to ideal conditions.
Electric school buses also increase the risk of fraud due to a lack of documentation requirements for contractors, with the EPA relying solely on self-certified applications and estimates created by applicants, according to the report. A separate July report from a Maryland county’s Office of the Inspector General resulted in millions of dollars in “wasteful spending.”
“The EPA launched the Clean School Bus program without sufficient safeguards and considerations for practical hurdles applicants may face. For example, the EPA did not require documentation for some of the required application information and allowed contractors enthused at the opportunity to receive federal funding to apply on behalf of unknowing school districts, some of which eventually withdraw from the program,” the report states. “The EPA failed to account for the considerable electric infrastructure upgrades that electrifying a school bus fleet could require, potentially leading to delays for schools in utilizing their new buses.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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