Remember these numbers. $737 Billion and 2,400 Americans

The big numbers that are missing in this article is the number of limbs blown off, the number of suicides and the amount of money the American taxpayer is on the hook for to rehab the United States military men and women maimed in this conflict.

"The command said they no longer saw decision-making value in these data," reads a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). 

In remarks to reporters last week, John Sopko, the special inspector general, criticized what he called a trend toward less openness by the military authorities who are advising, training and assisting Afghan security forces. -AP

"I don’t think it makes sense," said Sopko. "The Afghan people know which districts are controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban obviously know which districts they control. Our military knows it. Everybody in Afghanistan knows it. The only people who don’t know what’s going on are the people who are paying for all of this, and that’s the American taxpayer."

The move comes amid a stalemate within the Trump administration, as the Pentagon has proposed sending nearly 4,000 more US troops into the conflict, which many in the White House oppose. Some in the White House have even propsed withdrawing completely(i.e. the non-interventionism platform Trump campaigned on) or handing over the American effort to private security contractors. 

And as AP notes, the decision to restrict battlefield information is but the most recent step in a trend of less transparency about the war in recent years - often at the insistence of the Afghan government, which has in previous instances stopped the US military from disclosing how many Afghans had been killed in battle, and the overall attrition within the Afghan army. 

The latest clampdown also aligns with President Donald Trump’s complaint that the U.S. gives away too much war information, although there is no evidence that this had any influence on the latest decision.

A government watchdog agency that monitors the U.S. war effort, now in its 18th year, said in a report to Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. military command in Kabul is no longer producing “district control data,” which shows the number of Afghan districts — and the percentage of their population — controlled by the government compared to the Taliban. -AP

In January, President Trump criticized the disclosure of battlefield information - telling reporters "Some IG goes over there, who are mostly appointed by President Obama — but we’ll have ours, too — and he goes over there, and they do a report on every single thing that’s happening, and they release it to the public," adding "What kind of stuff is this? We’re fighting wars, and they’re doing reports and releasing it to the public? Now, the public means the enemy. The enemy reads those reports; they study every line of it."

Trump then told acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan: "I don’t want it to happen anymore, Mr. Secretary."

When the US military last released battlefield data in January, it revealed that "Afghan government control was stagnant or slipping," according to the report, which adds that the share of the population under Afghan government control or influence - "a figure that was largely unchanged from May 2017 to July 2018 at about 65 percent" - had dropped in October 2018 to 63.5 percent. The Afghan government's control or influence of districts overall fell almost 2% to 53.8 percent. 

Less than two years ago, a top American commander in Afghanistan called population control “most telling.” Gen. John Nicholson told reporters in November 2017 that he wanted to see the figure, then about two-thirds, increase to at least 80 percent, with the Taliban holding only about 10 percent and the rest contested.

“And this, we believe, is the critical mass necessary to drive the enemy to irrelevance,” Nicholson said then.

Nicholson’s successor, Gen. Scott Miller, believes there already are enough such assessments available to the public, including one produced by intelligence agencies. -AP

"We are focused on setting the conditions for a political settlement to safeguard our national interests," said Col. David M. Butler, a spokesman for Gen. Miller in a Tuesday email exchange with AP. "The district stability assessment that was previously provided by DOD was redundant and did little to serve our mission of protecting our citizens and allies."

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has been making a hard push to encourage the Taliban and Afghan government to engage in peace talks after the Taliban launched a recent spring military offensive. The group has refused to speak directly with representatives from Kabul, which they view as a US puppet. 

The war in Afghanistan is largely forgotten in much of America, as is the enormous, continuing financial cost. This year the Pentagon budget includes $4.9 billion to provide the Afghan army and police with everything from equipment and supplies to salaries and food. That is one piece of a wider array of “reconstruction” assistance the U.S. government has provided since the war began in 2001, totaling $132 billion. -AP

The United States has spent $737 billion on the war and lost over 2,400 lives, according to the Pentagon. 

CNN. Pathetic excuse for driving ATT earnings. I miss anything?

CNN just had its worst month for ratings in four years as the network lost 26 per cent of viewers compared to a year ago.

“April ranks as CNN’s lowest-rated month among total viewers in nearly four years, since October 2015,” reports Forbes.

The network’s flagship primetime show, Cuomo Primetime, drew a total of just 917,000 viewers in April, which is its worst performance ever.

The show ranked 26th on the list of primetime shows across all networks. Perhaps that has something to do with host Chris Cuomo’s repeated praise for Antifa.

In the key 25-54 demographic, CNN was also down by a whopping 41 per cent

CNN’s ratings have clearly been impacted by the collapse of the ‘Russian collusion’ narrative following the damp squib which was the release of the Mueller report.

The network repeatedly pushed the narrative that the report was going to damning, staking whatever credibility they had left on a hysterical pipe dream that never came to fruition.

On the day of the report’s release, a CNN panel featured eight people who completely agreed with each other.

Perhaps the network should consider re-introducing diversity of opinion in order to recapture some of the viewers who have abandoned it in droves.

Greatest HERO to freedom in the world...........

Read what Edward Snowden has to say on Julian Assange.

Trump needs to get his head on straight and free Assange.

Snowden on Assange, a great read!

NY Times. All you need to know.............

Click on this link and see what they are famous for.

NY Times doing what it does best!

Walter Williams preaching my story for Native America as well............

The root of the problem, particularly among black Americans, is the breakdown of the family unit where fathers are absent.  In 1938, 11% of blacks were born to unmarried women.  By 1965, that number had grown to 25%.  Now it’s about 75%.

Even during slavery, when marriage between blacks was illegal, a higher percentage of black children were raised by their biological mothers and fathers than today.  In 1940, 86% of black children were born inside marriage.  Today, only 35% of black children are born inside marriage.

Having no father in the home has a serious impact.  Children with no father in the home are five times more likely to be poor and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to be in prison.

Our generous welfare system, in effect, allows women to ‘marry the government’.  Plus, there is shortage of marriageable black men because they’ve dropped out of school, wound up in jail and haven’t much of a future.

Unfortunately, many blacks followed the advice of white liberal academics such as Johns Hopkins professor Andrew Cherlin who in the 1960s argued that “the most detrimental aspect of the absence of fathers from one-parent families is not the lack of a male presence but the lack of male income.”

Cherlin’s vision suggested that fathers were unimportant and, if black females “married the government”, black fathers would be redundant.

Most of today’s major problems encountered by black people have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination and a legacy of slavery.  People who make those excuses are doing a grave disservice to black people.

The major problems black people face are not amenable to political solutions and government anti-poverty programs.  If they were, then they’d be solved by the more than $20 trillion the nation has spent on poverty programs since 1965.  As comic strip character Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

WALTER E. WILLIAMS is a professor of economics at George Mason University. 

April Fools this isn't........

April 1, yes, it's Aprils Fools Day but this is no BS.

Jack Dorsey, the liberal that runs TWITTER is unpalatable.     

He is what is wrong with America. 

 

 

San Franfreakshow....................

Tonight I logged in.   I see i have a new account assigned to my firm.

I don't want this account assigned to my firm.  I don't know these people.   I don't want anything to do with them.  

They live in San Francisco.  I would never consider going to San Francisco after having lived in LaJolla CA for 10 years and visiting San Francisco often.

I don't have the stomach to visit San Franfreakshow and see all the homeless, the feces, the needles and smell  the stench of human filth everywhere.

 A once great city now reduced to socialism's finest hour. 

California.  It's what liberal Democratic policies have created. 

Indian Country for the WIN

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down an opinion on the case Washington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den, Inc. (16-1498).  In a plurality opinion written by Justice Breyer and joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagen, the Court upheld a ruling by the State of Washington that the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation's (Yakama Nation) wholesale fuel distributor, Cougar Den, Inc. does not have to pay a state fuel tax.

"Really, this case just tells an old and familiar story. The state of Washington includes millions of acres that the Yakamas ceded to the United States under significant pressure. In return, the government supplied a handful of modest promises. The state is now dissatisfied with the consequences of one of those promises. It is a new day, and now it wants more. But today and to its credit, the court holds the parties to the terms of their deal. It is the least we can do."

 

- Justice Neil Gorsuch, Concurring Opinion