Search Results for: BID

As the Biden administration faces criticism for not doing enough to assist those fleeing Afghanistan, an analysis released on August 16 showed that the roughly $19 billion the Pentagon budgeted for the U.S. occupation of the country in 2020 alone could cover initial resettlement costs for 1.2 million refugees. Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project estimated that the $18.6 billion the Pentagon allocated for its 2020 operations in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is in the process of retaking power after two decades of deadly U.S. occupation, could pay up-front refugee relocation costs of $15,148 for the more than...

By Thomas Alan Schwartz, Professor of History, Vanderbilt University; and Catesby Holmes, The Conversation US “While they are very different, many are looking at the 1975 fall of Saigon to try to understand what is happening in Afghanistan. Walter Cronkite perhaps said it best, ‘We’ve reached the end of a tunnel and there is no light.’” – Ken Burns As headlines proclaim the “end” of “America’s longest war,” President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of the remaining U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan is being covered by some in the news media as though it means the end of the conflict, or even...

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it is past time to reckon with “war on terror” approaches that have cast too many Americans as national security threats. Two decades of permissive rules for intelligence collection, coupled with weak protections for speech and against discrimination, have subverted legitimate counterterrorism aims. We must revisit those rules to ban invidious profiling under the guise of national security. Several changes in law and policy after 9/11 have facilitated profiling on the basis of constitutionally protected characteristics. The attorney general’s guidelines for FBI investigations, for instance, were dramatically loosened in...

Billionaire business owners deployed lobbyists to make sure Trump’s 2017 tax bill was tailored to their benefit. Confidential IRS records show the windfall that followed was due in large part to assistance from Senator Ron Johnson. In November 2017, with the administration of President Donald Trump rushing to get a massive tax overhaul through Congress, Senator Ron Johnson stunned his colleagues by announcing he would vote “no.” Making the rounds on cable TV, the Wisconsin Republican became the first GOP senator to declare his opposition, spooking Senate leaders who were pushing to quickly pass the tax bill with their...