Chris Hedges's Blog, page 398

Wisconsin GOP Votes to Weaken Democrat Who Defeated Walker

MADISON, Wis.—Wisconsin Republicans pushed through protests, internal disagreement and Democratic opposition Wednesday to pass far-reaching legislation that would shift power to the GOP-controlled Legislature and weaken the Democrat who defeated Republican Gov. Scott Walker last month.

The vote, coming after an all-night debate, was the height of a lame-duck legislative session aimed at reducing the authority of the office Republicans will lose in January. Gov.-elect Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul warned that resulting lawsuits would bring more gridlock when the new administration takes over.

Walker has signaled his support for the bill. He has 10 days to sign the package from the time it’s delivered to his office.

Republicans were battered in the midterm election, losing all statewide races amid strong Democratic turnout. But they retained legislative majorities thanks to what Democrats say are gerrymandered districts that tilt the map.

“Wisconsin has never seen anything like this,” Evers said in a statement Wednesday. “Power-hungry politicians rushed through sweeping changes to our laws to expand their own power and override the will of the people of Wisconsin who asked for change on November 6th.”

The GOP move comes as Michigan Republicans discuss taking action before a Democratic governor takes over there. North Carolina lawmakers took similar steps two years ago.

The legislation passed in a session marked by stops and starts as GOP leaders tried to muster enough votes in the Senate. That chamber ultimately approved the package 17-16, with just one Republican voting against it, around sunrise. The Assembly approved it on a 56-27 vote about two hours later, with just one Republican defecting.

“This is a heck of a way to run a railroad,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling said as Senate debate resumed at 5 a.m. after a seven-hour impasse. “This is embarrassing we’re even here.”

Walker, who was booed and heckled by protesters Tuesday during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in the Capitol rotunda, is in his final five weeks as governor. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a question about how quickly he would act. Walker was in Washington on Wednesday for former President George H.W. Bush’s funeral.

In one concession, Wisconsin Republicans backed away from giving the Legislature the power to sidestep the attorney general and appoint their own attorney when state laws are challenged in court.

Faced with a Democratic governor for the first time in eight years, legislative Republicans came up with a package of lame-duck bills to protect their priorities and make it harder for Evers to enact his.

“You’re here because you don’t want to give up power,” Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz said as debate concluded in that chamber. “You’re sore losers. Does anybody think this is the right way to do business? If you vote for this, shame on you. You will go down in history as a disgrace.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos countered that the bills would ensure a balance of power between the Legislature and the executive branch.

“We have allowed far too much authority to flow to the executive,” Vos said. “To you this is all about politics. To me, it’s about the institution.”

Vos last month cited the desire to protect key Republican achievements from being undone by Evers. Among them: a massive $3 billion subsidy spearheaded by Walker to bring Foxconn, a key Apple Inc. supplier, to Wisconsin along with thousands of jobs. Evers has said he would like to renegotiate the deal.

The legislation passed Wednesday would shield the state jobs agency from his control and allow the board to choose its leader until September, likely at least delaying Evers’ ability to maneuver on the Foxconn subsidy.

The changes would also weaken the governor’s ability to put in place rules that enact laws. And it would limit early voting to no more than two weeks before an election, a restriction similar to what a federal judge ruled was unconstitutional.

The proposal would also weaken the attorney general’s office by requiring a legislative committee, rather than the attorney general, to sign off on withdrawing from federal lawsuits. That would stop Evers and Kaul from fulfilling promises to withdraw Wisconsin from a multi-state lawsuit seeking repeal of the Affordable Care Act. They made opposition to that lawsuit a central part of both of their campaigns.

Judges could block the proposals if they become law by issuing temporary injunctions, which could last the duration of the cases. Democrats would likely need a permanent injunction to stop the changes for good, but Republicans would almost certainly pursue appeals all the way to the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservative justices.

The Legislature passed another measure to enact Medicaid work requirement rules that Walker recently won a federal waiver to establish. That bill would also give the Legislature oversight over the governor seeking future waivers for health care, a change Democrats said would handcuff the new administration.

Protesters have come and gone in the Capitol the past two days as lawmakers rushed to pass the bills. The tumult was reminiscent of much larger demonstrations in the opening weeks of Walker’s time as governor in 2011, when he effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.

Also early Wednesday, the Senate rejected a bill that would have created a state guarantee that people with pre-existing conditions can have access to health insurance. Walker had made it a priority during the campaign, but it failed 16-17 after two Republicans joined Democrats in voting against it.

Democrats and other opponents argue that the measure provided inadequate coverage and would cause premiums to skyrocket, making coverage unaffordable. Instead, Democrats support bolstering coverage guarantees in the federal health care law.

Bush Celebrated With Praise and Humor at Cathedral Farewell

WASHINGTON—George H.W. Bush was celebrated with high praise and loving humor Wednesday as the nation bade farewell to the man who was America’s 41st president and the last to fight for the U.S. in wartime. Three former presidents looked on at Washington National Cathedral as a fourth — George W. Bush — eulogized his dad.

“To us,” the son said of the father, “his was the brightest of a thousand points of light.”

George W. Bush broke down briefly at the end of his eulogy while invoking the daughter his parents lost when she was 3 and his mother, Barbara, who died in April. He took comfort in knowing “Dad is hugging Robin and holding Mom’s hand again.”

For all the somber tributes to the late president’s public service and strength of character, laughter filled the cathedral time after time. The late president’s eulogists — son included — noted Bush’s tendency to tangle his words and show his goofy side.

He was “the last great-soldier statesman,” historian Jon Meacham said in his eulogy, “our shield” in dangerous times. But he also said that Bush, campaigning in a crowd in a department store, once shook hands with a mannequin. Rather than flushing in embarrassment, he simply cracked, “Never know. Gotta ask.”

After the service, the hearse and a long procession of cars headed for Joint Base Andrews and the flight to Texas — but first down to the National Mall to pass by the World War II Memorial.

The congregation at the cathedral, filled with foreign leaders and diplomats, Americans of high office and others touched by Bush’s life, rose for the arrival of the casket, accompanied by clergy of faiths from around the world. In their row together, President Donald Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton stood with their spouses and all placed their hands over their hearts.

Meacham also praised Bush’s call to volunteerism — his “1,000 points of light” — placing it alongside Abraham Lincoln’s call to honor “the better angels of our nature” in the American rhetorical canon. Meacham called those lines “companion verses in America’s national hymn.”

Trump had mocked “1,000 points of light” last summer at a rally, saying “What the hell is that? Has anyone ever figured that one out? And it was put out by a Republican, wasn’t it?”

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney praised Bush as a strong world leader who helped oversee the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and set the stage for the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, achieved under his successor, Clinton.

With Trump, a NAFTA critic, seated in the front row, Mulroney hailed the “largest and richest free trade area in the history of the world.” The three countries have agreed on a revised trade agreement pushed by Trump.

Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming, regaled the congregation with stories from his years as Bush’s friend in Washington. More seriously, he recalled that when he went through a rough patch in the political game, Bush conspicuously stood by him against the advice of aides. “You would have wanted him on your side,” he said.

The national funeral service capped three days of remembrance in Washington before Bush’s remains return to Texas on Wednesday for burial Thursday. He died Friday at age 94.

Bush will lie in repose at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church before burial at his family plot on the presidential library grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station. His final resting place will be alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia in 1953.

On Wednesday morning, a military band played “Hail to the Chief” as Bush’s casket was carried down the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where he had lain in state. Family members looked on as servicemen fired off a cannon salute.

His hearse was then driven in a motorcade to the cathedral ceremony, slowing in front of the White House. Bush’s route was lined with people much of the way, bundled in winter hats and taking photos.

Waiting for his arrival inside, Trump shook hands with Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who greeted him by saying “Good morning.” Trump did not shake hands with Bill and Hillary Clinton, who looked straight ahead.

Bill Clinton and Mrs. Obama smiled and chatted as music played. Carter was seated silently next to Hillary Clinton in the cavernous cathedral. Obama cracked up laughing at someone’s quip. Vice President Mike Pence shook Carter’s hand.

Trump tweeted Wednesday that the day marked “a celebration for a great man who has led a long and distinguished life.” Trump and his wife took their seats after the others, briefly greeting the Obamas seated next to them.

On Tuesday, soldiers, citizens in wheelchairs and long lines of others on foot wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view Bush’s casket and honor a president whose legacy included World War military service and a landmark law affirming the rights of the disabled. Former Sen. Bob Dole, a compatriot in war, peace and political struggle, steadied himself out of his wheelchair and saluted his old friend and one-time rival.

Trump ordered the federal government closed Wednesday for a national day of mourning. Flags on public buildings are flying at half-staff for 30 days.

As at notable moments in his life, Bush brought together Republicans and Democrats in his death, and not only the VIPs.

Members of the public who never voted for the man waited in the same long lines as the rest, attesting that Bush possessed the dignity and grace that deserved to be remembered by their presence on a cold overcast day in the capital.

“I’m just here to pay my respects,” said Jane Hernandez, a retired physician in the heavily Democratic city and suburbs. “I wasn’t the biggest fan of his presidency, but all in all he was a good, sincere guy doing a really hard job as best he could.”

Bush’s service dog, Sully, was taken to the viewing, too — his main service these last months since Barbara Bush’s death in April being to rest his head on her husband’s lap. Service dogs are trained to do that.

Inside the Capitol, Sully, the 2-year-old Labrador retriever assigned to Bush, sat by the casket in the company of people who came to commemorate Bush’s signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 law that, among its many provisions, required businesses that prohibit pets to give access to service dogs.

“After Mrs. Bush’s death, general companionship was a big part of Sully’s job,” John Miller, president and CEO of America’s VetDogs, said in a phone interview. “One of the things that I think was important to the president was the rest command, where Sully would rest his head on the president’s lap.”

Trump’s relationship with the Bush family has been tense. The current president mocked the elder Bush for his “thousand points of light” call to volunteerism, challenged his son’s legacy as president and trounced “low-energy” Jeb Bush in the Republican presidential primaries en route to office. The late President Bush called Trump a “blowhard.”

Those insults have been set aside, but the list of funeral service speakers marked the first time since Lyndon Johnson’s death in 1973 that a sitting president was not tapped to eulogize a late president. (Clinton did so for Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush eulogized Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford.)

___

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

The GOP’s Power Grabs Expose an Increasingly Desperate Party

As the dust refuses to settle from the 2018 midterms, there are stubborn reminders that there really are two Americas when it comes to voting and elections.

This week, Republican-majority legislatures in Michigan and Wisconsin—both created by GOP-led extreme gerrymanders in 2011—are trying to rush through legislation to strip power from Democratic statewide winners of executive branch offices in November.

In Wisconsin, the GOP wants to limit the power of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general over how public benefit programs can be run, and on how regulations can be implemented—the fine print of governing. In Michigan, where voters elected a Democratic governor, attorney general and secretary of state, it’s even worse, as GOP legislators want to limit the attorney general’s power to litigate (and to create a new legislative power to do so) and to pre-empt campaign finance regulation.

“They lost and they’re throwing a fit,” was how Jon Erpenbach, a Wisconsin Democratic state senator, put it to the New York Times.

But that’s not quite correct. In many otherwise purple states, the GOP has been rejecting political norms—such as respecting popular vote outcomes—and grabbing power in any manner it can for years. The Wisconsin and Michigan moves echo what North Carolina Republicans have pursued since 2016 after that also GOP-gerrymandered state elected a Democratic governor, where its legislature targeted gubernatorial powers, state election boards and even its state judiciary.

The latest Republican bullying doesn’t make Democrats the political party of angels—as amply demonstrated in their post-2016 presidential reforms (where, instead of adding more national convention delegates to reflect a growing diversity, they sidelined loyalists for the first vote to nominate 2020’s candidate). But what’s going in some GOP-led states is especially troubling because it shows a brazen partisan disregard for election results.

The power grabs in Wisconsin and Michigan are making headlines this week, but they are not alone. Only last week did Georgia’s losing Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, file a federal suit that detailed an extraordinary barrier-filled playbook wielded by her competitor, former Secretary of State Brian Kemp, to thwart multitudes. (A runoff is being held Tuesday, December 4, to determine Kemp’s successor.)

Go back a few weeks and there were GOP-led barriers in North Dakota in the form of a new state law that said voters must show IDs with street addresses to get a ballot, which thousands of Native Americans lacked. There were similar barriers in New Hampshire, where its GOP-led legislature acted to complicate voting for university students.

In Arizona, the GOP Secretary of State offered bland excuses when advocacy groups noted that the motor vehicle agency was not forwarding address changes from 380,000 Arizonans to county officials, which would stymie delivery of mail-in ballots. Missouri faced another version of this voter data snafu. In Kansas, a GOP Secretary of State lost the governor’s race, but not before his allies tried to limit Latino voting. And Florida’s U.S. Senate recount was marked by GOP accusations of vote fraud until their candidate won in a recount by less than 0.002 percent of 8-million-plus votes cast statewide.

These examples are reminders that the GOP is a party with a strong streak not only of reluctance to relinquishing power or heeding vote outcomes, but also of seeing it as politically virtuous to do whatever it takes to preserve its power. The biggest example of this reflex is its ongoing packing of the federal courts, which began in President Obama’s final years, when the GOP-led Senate refused to seat scores of appointees and a Supreme Court justice, but now is filling benches with Federalist Society-approved right-wingers.

One can only speculate where these dysfunctional dynamics are headed. It is perhaps too easy to take heart in some of 2018’s apparent voting rights victories—without wondering aloud what partisan ambushes may lie ahead.

The biggest victory for voting rights and criminal justice reform was Florida’s passage of Amendment 4, which ended the blanket disenfranchisement of 1.4 million ex-felons. The ACLU says that vote created the largest group of new voters in America since the 1971 passage of the 26th Amendment lowering the national voting age to 18.

On the partisan gerrymandering front, four states—Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Utah—passed ballot initiatives to create non-legislative commissions to draw up their congressional and statehouse districts after the 2020 U.S. census. In Michigan, voters also passed Election Day registration (as did Maryland).

“Suppression of voters continues to be an urgent national problem with severe implications for racial justice and the fairness of our elections. But these reforms are real victories that deserve to be celebrated,” wrote Bobby Hoffman, ACLU Advocacy and Policy Counsel, on the ACLU blog.

Hoffman’s encouraging words are true enough, to a point. However, the partisan battles are not going away over larger or smaller electorates, inclusive or exclusive rules, and whether government branches are representative or not.

On Monday night, North Carolina’s GOP-led legislature—the apparent role model for the current power grab in Michigan and Wisconsin—introduced legislation to consolidate its control over the state’s voting rules (including rules already thrown out in court).

Such apparent disregard for political and judicial norms—commonly called checks and balances—could be a sign of political desperation. Or it could be a harbinger of more troubling times to come. Or maybe it is a bit of both.

As the Washington Post found in a nationwide June 2017 poll, “half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump proposed it.” Let’s hope the next national presidential election doesn’t come to that; but for one political party, the GOP, nothing seems off the table—especially if voters are saying your time is up.

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Extreme Heat Will Hit Our Bodies and Pockets Hard

Vulnerability to extremes of heat has risen in every region of the world. In 2017, an additional 157 million people were exposed in heatwave events, compared with 2000. That means that the average person now experiences 1.4 additional days of heatwaves per year.

This enervating exposure to extended extremes of heat imposes a global cost. National economies – and household budgets – lost 153 billion hours of labour in 2017, because of sweltering days and torrid nights: this is an increase of 62 billion working hours – more than three billion working weeks – since the turn of the century.

The rise in extremes of heat means that more people than ever are potentially at risk of heatwave-related conditions: among them heat stress, cardiovascular illness and kidney disease.

That increasing extremes of heat, driven by ever greater levels of greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming and climate change, are a health hazard is now well established.

More fatalities

Researchers have repeatedly warned that any increase in global average temperatures will be measured in more frequent, more intense and more extended extremes of heat and in some cases extreme humidity that will in turn claim ever greater numbers of lives.

Scientists have established that, by 2100, around three-quarters of humanity will face episodes of heat extremes, which can kill in any one of 27 different ways.

So the latest detailed study, in the journal The Lancet, brings wider focus and greater authority: it draws from scientists and public health professionals in 27 institutions and tracks 421 indicators across five areas, including climate change vulnerability; adaptation and planning for health; mitigation actions and the benefits these may have; finance and economics; and public and political engagement.

Among the indicators selected were weather-related disasters, food security, clean fuel use, meat consumption, air pollution – and scientific publications on climate and health. And although the report echoes the general alarms voiced in earlier studies, it takes a closer look at the details of human vulnerability to extremes of heat.

“Trends in the impacts of climate change, exposures and vulnerabilities show unacceptably high risk for human health”

One finding is that people in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean may be more vulnerable than people living in Africa and southeast Asia, if only because more than four out of 10 people in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean are aged over 65, compared with 38% in Africa and 34% in southeast Asia.

Hotter weather means more infectious disease: in 2016 alone, what the researchers call the “global vectorial capacity” – in other words, the spread of potentially disease-transmitting mosquitoes – of the dengue fever virus was the highest on record.

In the Baltic region, the coastline area vulnerable to an epidemic of the cholera bacterium grew by 24%. In the highlands of sub-Saharan Africa, the area potentially at risk from malaria rose by more than 26%.

And as the thermometer went up, more than 30 countries reported downward trends in agricultural yields. Agriculture is the field most directly hit by heat extremes, with 80% of the labour losses, or 122 billion hours of work abandoned.

Huge losses

“Vulnerability to extreme heat has steadily increased around the world,” said Joacim Rocklöv, of Umea University in Sweden, one of the more than 70 scientists who put their names to the Lancet study.

“This has led to vast losses for national economies and household budgets. At a time when national health budgets and health services face a growing epidemic of lifestyle diseases, continued delay in unlocking the potential health benefits of climate change mitigation is shortsighted and damaging for human health.”

The report emphasises that heat extremes also intensify urban pollution: now 97% of cities in low and middle-income countries no longer meet World Health Organisation air quality guidelines.

“Heat stress is hitting hard – particularly amongst the urban elderly, and those with underlying health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes or chronic kidney disease,” said Hugh Montgomery, co-chairman of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, who also directs the Institute for Human Health and Performance at University College London.

Risky outdoors

“In high temperatures, outdoor work, especially in agriculture, is hazardous. Areas from northern England and California to Australia are seeing savage fires with direct deaths, displacement and loss of housing as well as respiratory impacts from smoke inhalation.”

And Hilary Graham, of the University of York in the UK, another of the authors, warned that the way governments responded to climate change would shape the health of nations for centuries to come.

“Present-day changes in heat waves and labour capacity provide early warning of the compounded and overwhelming impact on public health that is expected if temperatures continue to rise,” she said.

“Trends in the impacts of climate change, exposures and vulnerabilities show unacceptably high risk for human health now and in the future.”

All That’s Left for the U.S. to Do in Afghanistan Is Lose

This piece originally appeared on antiwar.com.

I’ll admit it. I’m sick of writing about America’s longest war – the quagmire in Afghanistan. Still, in a time of near media blackout on this issue, someone has to keep banging the drum. Of late, it seems every single week that those of us who follow the war are inundated with more bad news. It all adds up to what this author has long been predicting in Afghanistan: the impending military defeat of the U.S.-trained Afghan Army and its American advisors. This is a fact that should rattle the public, shake up policymakers, and usher in a holistic review of the entirety of America’s interventions in the Greater Middle East. Only don’t count on it – Washington prefers, like a petulant child, to cover its proverbial eyes and ignore the fated failure of this hopeless war and several others like it.

This past month, four US service members were killed in Afghanistan, bringing the 2018 total to 13 American deaths. That may sound like a relatively modest casualty count, but given the contracted US troop totals in country and the transition to using those troopers only in an advisory capacity, this represents a serious spike in American deaths. Add to this the exponential rise in Afghan Security Force casualties over the last few years, and the recent rise in green-on-blue attacks – in which partnered Afghan “allies” turn their guns on their American advisors – and matters look even worse. Despite the ubiquitous assertions of senior US commander after commander that the mission has “turned a corner,” and that “victory” is near, there’s no meaningful evidence to that effect.

In fact, the Taliban now controls or contests nearly 45% of Afghanistan’s districts, up from just 28% in 2015, and the group is active in 70% of the country’s districts – this in spite of President Trump’s increase of US military pressure during his first two years in office. On the ground, from a granular view, matters appear even worse. Spectacular Taliban attacks are increasing, even in heavily guarded sectors within the capital of Kabul – convincing many locals that no place is safe from Taliban infiltration even after 17+ years of ongoing war. Last Wednesday an attack on a U.K. security contractor firm in the heart of Kabul killed 10 and wounded 19 others. A few days earlier, the Taliban ambushed and killed 20 police in the country’s west, and killed another 10 soldiers in the north.

Then there’s the rise in Afghan civilian casualties over the last few weeks – most caused by errant US airstrikes. While overall US ground troop levels hover around 15,000 – a significant drop from the 100,000 or so American soldiers there when I served there in 2011-12 – US planes have dropped a record number of bombs in 2018. What’s more, none of this boosted bombing has halted the Taliban momentum, and, according to the UN, has only achieved a spike in civilian casualties. In just one of these increasingly common missteps, last Wednesday at least 30 Afghan civilians – including many women and children – were killed in a US airstrike in Helmand province. Sure, another 16 Taliban fighters were also reportedly killed, but research and experience indicates that the deaths of the 30 civilians will likely create far more anti-U.S., anti-Kabul insurgents. That’s counterinsurgency math 101. Heck, even a war hawk like retired General Petraeus would admit – and has said – as much.

The last hope for an end to the fighting is the nascent peace process between the Taliban, Russia, the U.S., and – sometimes – the Afghan government, in Qatar. Still, while certainly an option preferable to perpetual American involvement in the war, even this is a longshot. The Taliban know they are winning and appear ready to reject talks with what they view as an illegitimate, Western-imposed government in Kabul. The two sides inhabit two different universes. The articulate, educated, and Westernized President Ashraf Ghani insists that continued commitment to democracy, women’s rights, and the legitimacy of the existing security forces be a prerequisite for any peace settlement. The Taliban scoff at such notions and consider all three items to be tainted by the West and inherently “un-Islamic.” And they know they hold the stronger cards. Don’t count on a negotiated peace any time soon. Expect something far messier and less reassuring in the near future: either an outright Taliban victory or the fracture of Afghanistan into at least two warring sub-states.

None of these inconvenient facts manage to pierce the corporate-imposed, mainstream media blackout of all things Afghanistan in America today. All the while, the US war effort rolls along with a strange inertia all its own. In fact, the rise in civilian casualties and never-ending nature of the war has brought the Afghan population to a disturbing set of nihilistic and conspiratorial assumptions. A shocking percentage of Afghans now blame the US for the unending war and claim that Washington purposely has extended the conflict to extract Afghanistan’s mineral resources and to check Russia, Iran, and China. While such conspiracy theories tend to wither under close scrutiny and the logic of Occam’s razor, their persistence and popularity among Afghans is rather troubling.

Despite this flood of bad news and worrying trends favoring the Taliban, Washington seems utterly lacking in any fresh thinking on Afghan War policy. In response to the tragic recent US troop deaths, President Trump – who has (controversially) yet to visit US soldiers in country – offered more “old” thinking on the war and its purpose. Defending America’s ongoing mission in light of the latest US casualties, Trump – who once admitted his (astute) instinct was to leave Afghanistan – offered only this: “We’re there because virtually every expert that I have and speak to say if we don’t go there, they’re going to be fighting over here.”

So there it is again – the outmoded, but still amazingly prevalent “safe haven” myth. It goes something like this: if the US doesn’t maintain a troop presence and prop up the Kabul government forever, then Al Qaeda, ISIS, and whoever else will use Afghanistan as a base to attack this American homeland. This ignores a few key facts. One, the Taliban has denied that it will ever again serve as a base for transnational terror attacks (probably because they don’t want a renewed Western invasion of their country down the road). Two, there exists today only a relatively paltry and isolated number of Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters in Afghanistan. And, finally, advances in US intelligence, special operations, and drone warfare have demonstrated an increased ability to check terror groups from “offshore” bases rather than with combat troop deployments. In this sense, matters have changed substantially since 2001.

From a broader perspective, President Trump’s – though this author, for one, believes it’s really his mainstream foreign policy advisors who are behind the president’s recent statements – “safe haven” explanation fails the test of logical consistency. If a significant ground troop presence is necessary to deter terror attacks from any locale with Al Qaeda or ISIS affiliates, wouldn’t that require new invasions and occupations of Libya, West Africa, Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan – nations with as many or more Islamist fighters? That theory has proven false for over a decade now, and is, anyway, frankly unsustainable without doubling or tripling the size of the already overstretched US military.

It is long past time for some clear-eyed, rational, and pragmatic thinking on the war in Afghanistan. All the trends and metrics – which the Pentagon lives and dies by – are pointing inexorably downward. Day to day events, and life on the ground in Afghanistan, worsens by the hour. Short of re-injecting another 100,000 US ground troops, again, nothing seems likely to stave off defeat in America’s longest war. The time has come, as it once did in Vietnam, to ask who, exactly, is willing to be the last to die for a nose-diving war effort. As someone who has ordered too many soldiers to their deaths in inconclusive, ill-advised wars, I can tell you this: I wouldn’t want to be the commander – or president – to spend even one more life in Afghanistan.

But I’m not running this war…

Stocks Plunge Nearly 800 Points Amid Confusion on U.S.-China Deal

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration raised doubts Tuesday about the substance of a U.S.-China trade cease-fire, contributing to a broad stock market plunge and intensifying fears of a global economic slowdown.

Investors had initially welcomed the truce that the administration said was reached over the weekend in Buenos Aires between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jingping — and sent stocks up Monday. But on Tuesday, after a series of confusing and conflicting words from Trump and some senior officials, stocks tumbled, with the Dow Jones shedding about 800 points, or 3.1%.

White House aides have struggled to explain the details of what the two countries actually agreed on. And China has not confirmed that it made most of the concessions that the Trump administration has claimed.

“The sense is that there’s less and less agreement between the two sides about what actually took place,” said Willie Delwiche, an investment strategist at Baird. “There was a rally in the expectation that something had happened. The problem is that something turned out to be nothing.”

Other concerns contributed to the stock sell-off, including falling long-term bond yields. Those lower rates suggested that investors expect the U.S. economy to slow, along with global growth, and possibly fall into recession in the coming year or two.

John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, also unnerved investors by telling reporters Tuesday that he supports further Fed rate hikes. His remarks renewed fears that the Fed may miscalculate and raise rates so high or so fast as to depress growth.

The disarray surrounding the China deal coincides with a global economy that faces other challenges: Britain is struggling to negotiate its exit from the European Union. Italy’s government is seeking to spend and borrow more, which could elevate interest rates and stifle growth.

And in the United States, home sales have fallen sharply in the past year as mortgage rates have jumped.

Trump and White House aides have promoted the apparent U.S.-China agreement in Buenos Aires as a historic breakthrough that would ease trade tensions and potentially reduce tariffs. They announced that China had agreed to buy many more American products and to negotiate over the administration’s assertions that Beijing steals American technology. But by Tuesday morning, Trump was renewing his tariff threats in a series of tweets.

“President Xi and I want this deal to happen, and it probably will,” Trump tweeted. “But if not remember, I am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so.”

Trump added that a 90-day timetable for negotiators to reach a deeper agreement had begun and that his aides would see “whether or not a REAL deal with China is actually possible.”

The president’s words had the effect of making the weekend agreement, already a vague and uncertain one, seem even less likely to produce a long-lasting trade accord.

“We expect the relationship between the world’s two largest economies to remain contentious,” Moody’s Investors Service said in a report. “Narrow agreements and modest concessions in their ongoing trade dispute will not bridge the wide gulf in their respective economic, political and strategic interests.”

Among the conflicting assertions that White House officials made was over whether China had actually agreed to drop its 40% tariffs on U.S. autos.

In addition, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday on the Fox Business Network that China agreed to buy $1.2 trillion of U.S. products. But Mnuchin added, “if that’s real” — thereby raising some doubt — it would close the U.S. trade deficit with China, and “we have to have a negotiated agreement and have this on paper.”

Many economists have expressed skepticism that very much could be achieved to bridge the vast disagreements between the two countries in just 90 days.

“The actual amount of concrete progress made at this meeting appears to have been quite limited,” Alec Phillips and other economists at Goldman Sachs wrote in a research note.

During the talks in Buenos Aires, Trump agreed to delay a scheduled escalation in U.S. tariffs on many Chinese goods, from 10% to 25%, that had been set to take effect Jan. 1. Instead, the two sides are to negotiate over U.S. complaints about China’s trade practices, notably that it has used predatory tactics to try to achieve supremacy in technology. These practices, according to the administration and outside analysts, include stealing intellectual property and forcing companies to turn over technology to gain access to China’s market.

In return for the postponement in the higher U.S. tariffs, the White House said China had agreed to step up its purchases of U.S. farm, energy and industrial goods. Most economists noted that the two countries remain far apart on the sharpest areas of disagreement, which include Beijing’s subsidies for strategic Chinese industries, in addition to forced technology transfers and intellectual property theft.

Kudlow acknowledged those challenges in remarks Tuesday morning.

“China’s discussed these things with the U.S. many times down through the years and the results have not been very good,” he said. “So this time around as I said, I’m hopeful, we’re covering more ground than ever… So we’ll see.”

Complicating the challenge, Trump’s complaints strike at the heart of the Communist Party’s state-led economic model and its plans to elevate China to political and cultural leadership by creating global champions in robotics and other fields.

“It’s impossible for China to cancel its industry policies or major industry and technology development plans,” said economist Cui Fan of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Trump had tweeted Sunday that China agreed to “reduce and remove” its 40% tariff on cars imported from the U.S.  Mnuchin said Monday that there was a “specific agreement” on the auto tariffs.

Yet Kudlow said later that there was no “specific agreement” regarding auto trade, though he added, “We expect those tariffs to go to zero.”

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AP News Writer Joe McDonald contributed to this report from Beijing.

House Democrats Could Refuse to Seat North Carolina Republican

On election night, the race appeared settled. Republican Mark Harris eked out a 905-vote victory over Democrat Dan McCready to be the next representative of North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. Then, the North Carolina Board of Elections declined to certify the results, citing irregularities with absentee ballots. Specifically, there was an unusually high rate of such ballots that were unreturned in two counties that, according to an analysis from The Charlotte News and Observer, were “disproportionately associated with minority voters.”

State election officials are now investigating whether a political operative Harris had hired illegally collected ballots so they would not be returned.

Even if Harris is certified by North Carolina, Democrats could decline to seat him when they become the majority in the House in January, according to current Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

“If there is what appears to be a very substantial question on the integrity of the election, clearly we would oppose Mr. Harris being seated until that is resolved,” Hoyer told reporters. He plans to discuss the issue with Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who will be chair of the Committee on House Administration. That committee can independently investigate the election, make decisions on its validity and even call a new election.

The panel, then called the Committee on House Oversight, completed an independent investigation into a similarly close 1996 race between then-Rep. Bob Dornan, R-Calif., and his challenger, Democrat Loretta Sanchez. Dornan claimed the election was stolen because of illegal voting, though Sanchez eventually won.

The investigation is centered on Leslie McCrae Dowless, a longtime North Carolina political operative, who, as The New York Times reports, is known for get-out-the-vote campaigns based on absentee ballots. He was previously convicted of felony perjury and insurance fraud.

Election officials are not only concerned about the unreturned ballots, but also about the possibility there was fraud involving absentee ballot signatures; North Carolina requires two witnesses for each ballot. Local news station WSOC found evidence of “a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots, in which even the person picking them up had no idea whether those ballots were even delivered to the elections board. Consistently, Channel 9 found the same people signing as witnesses for the people voting, which is very rare.”

The Times points out that “it is not clear whether the ballots in question would change the result of the election,” though it is mathematically possible the race could swing toward McCready: “While the 679 absentee votes Mr. Harris received in Bladen and Robeson Counties are not enough on their own, there may have been as many as 3,400 absentee ballots requested but not returned in those counties.” In addition, the Board of Elections itself was supposed to be dissolved, the Times explains, as a “result of a court ruling that the board’s composition improperly limited Governor [Roy] Cooper’s power. Republican leaders asked the court for an extension while the Ninth District investigation plays out, and the judges granted one until Dec. 12.”

Despite this ruling, the next evidentiary hearing for the House race is scheduled for Dec. 21. The new Democratic-controlled house will be sworn in Jan. 3.

What It Means That Hillary Clinton Might Run for President in 2020

Twenty-five years ago — when I wrote a book titled “False Hope: The Politics of Illusion in the Clinton Era” — I didn’t expect that the Democratic Party would still be mired in Clintonism two and a half decades later. But such approaches to politics  the party and the country.

The last two Democratic presidencies largely involved talking progressive while serving Wall Street and the military-industrial complex. The obvious differences in personalities and behavior of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama diverted attention from their underlying political similarities. In office, both men rarely fought for progressive principles — and routinely undermined them.

Clinton, for example, brought the country NAFTA, welfare “reform” that was an assault on low-income women and families, telecommunications “reform” that turned far more airwaves over to media conglomerates, repeal of Glass-Steagall regulation of banks that led to the 2007-8 financial meltdown, and huge increases in mass incarceration.

Obama, for instance, bailed out big banks while letting underwater homeowners sink, oversaw the launching of more missiles and bombs than his predecessor George W. Bush, ramped up a war on whistleblowers, turned mass surveillance and the shredding of the Fourth Amendment into bipartisan precedent, and boosted corporate privatization of public education.

It wasn’t only a congressional majority that Democrats quickly lost and never regained under President Obama. By the time he left the White House (immediately flying on a billionaire’s jet to his private island and then within months starting to collect giant speaking fees from Wall Street), nearly 1,000 seats in state legislatures had been lost to Democrats during the Obama years.

Thanks to grassroots activism and revulsion toward President Trump, Democrats not only won back the House last month but also recaptured one-third of the state legislative seats that had been lost while Obama led the party and the nation.

During the last two years, progressive momentum has exerted major pressure against the kind of corporatist policies that Bill Clinton set into cement atop the Democratic Party. But today, the party’s congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are still in a mode loosely replicating Clinton’s sleight-of-tongue formulas that have proved so useful — and extremely profitable — for corporate America, while economic inequality has skyrocketed.

As 2018 nears its end, the top of the Democratic Party is looking to continue Clintonism without the Clintons.

Or maybe Clintonism with the Clintons.

A real possibility is now emerging that Hillary Clinton will run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. On Sunday, the New York Times printed a Maureen Dowd column that reported: “Some in Clintonworld say Hillary fully intends to be the nominee. … And Bill has given monologues to old friends about how Hillary knows how she’d have to run in 2020, that she couldn’t have a big staff and would just speak her mind and not focus-group everything. (That already sounds focus-grouped.)”

Dowd provided a helpful recap: “After the White House, the money-grubbing raged on, with the Clintons making over 700 speeches in a 15-year period, blithely unconcerned with any appearance of avarice or of shady special interests and foreign countries buying influence. They stockpiled a whopping $240 million. Even leading up to her 2016 presidential run, Hillary was packing in the speeches, talking to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, the American Camp Association, eBay, and there was that infamous trifecta of speeches for Goldman Sachs worth $675,000.”

A cogent sum-up in the column came from former Washington Monthly editor Charles Peters: “What scares me the most is Hillary’s smug certainty of her own virtue as she has become greedy and how typical that is of so many chic liberals who seem unaware of their own greed. They don’t really face the complicity of what’s happened to the world, how selfish we’ve become and the horrible damage of screwing the workers and causing this resentment that the Republicans found a way of tapping into.”

That’s where we are now — not only with the grim prospect that Hillary Clinton might run for president again, but more fundamentally with corporate allegiances still dominating the Democratic Party leadership.

The only way to overcome such corporatism is for social movements to fight more resolutely and effectively for progressive change, including in the Democratic Party. If you don’t think that’s a path to real breakthroughs, consider Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, winners of Democratic primaries this year who’ll be sworn in as members of Congress next month. (Compare those successes to two decades of Green Party candidates running for Congress and never coming close.)

Whether or not Hillary Clinton runs for president again, Clintonism is a political blight with huge staying power. It can be overcome only if and when people at the grassroots effectively insist on moving the Democratic Party in a genuinely progressive direction.

 

The Media’s Manafort Coverage Is a Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice

In what has been described as potentially the biggest story of the year, the Guardian’s Luke Harding (11/27/18) reported last week that Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, held a series of secret talks with WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange. These meetings were said to have occurred inside the Ecuadorian embassy between 2013 and 2016. The report also mentions that unspecified “Russians” were also among Assange’s visitors. The scoop, according to the newspaper, could “shed new light” on the role of WikiLeaks’ release of Democratic Party emails in the 2016 presidential election.

The story was picked up across the US, including by  USA Today (11/27/18), the Washington Post (11/27/18), Bloomberg (11/27/18), Yahoo! News (27/11/18), The Hill (11/27/18) and Rolling Stone (11/27/18). One CNN analyst (11/27/18) analyst excitedly commented that the news was “hugely significant” and “could be one of the two missing links to show real interference and knowledge of Russian involvement” in the election.

However, there were serious problems with the report. Firstly, the entire story was based upon anonymous intelligence sources, sources that could not tell the newspaper exactly when the meetings took place.

Furthermore, the Ecuadorian embassy is one of the most surveilled buildings in the most surveilled city in the world, and was under 24-hour police guard and monitoring, costing the UK government over £11 million between 2012 and 2015. The embassy also had very tight internal security, with all visitors thoroughly vetted, required to sign in and leave all their electronic devices with security. Is it really possible any figure, let alone Donald Trump’s campaign manager, could walk in for a series of secret meetings without leaving record with Ecuador, or being seen by the media or police?

For their part, both Manafort and WikiLeaks have strenuously denied the accusation, with the latter announcing, “This is going to be one of the most infamous news disasters since Stern published the Hitler Diaries.” It also declared it was planning to sue the Guardian, setting up a Go Fund Me appeal to help with legal costs.

The Guardian immediately started to walk back its claims, editing the article a number of times, changing its headline from “Manafort Held Secret Talks With Assange in Ecuadorian Embassy” to “Manafort Held Secret Talks With Assange in Ecuadorian Embassy, Sources Say.” It inserted qualifiers, denials and words like “hoax” into the text, quietly changing much of the tense of the report to the conditional. Thus, the passage “It is unclear why Manafort wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last meeting is likely to come under scrutiny” was changed to (emphasis added) “It is unclear why Manafort would have wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last apparent meeting is likely to come under scrutiny.” Thus a piece that started as a factual news report was transformed into an allegation—after it went viral and was picked up across international media.

The story that threatened to become the political news event of the winter was quickly dropped by the media, with search interest for terms such as “Manafort” and “Assange” dropping by around 90 percent in one day.

‘The Most Logical Explanation’

As the story crumbled, Politico (11/28/18) put forward a bizarre explanation for the event, written by an anonymous ex-CIA officer, who argued that Russian intelligence had likely planted the story as a means to discredit Harding and the Guardian, noting that, if it is all false, “the most logical explanation is that it is an attempt to make Harding look bad.” Thus, Trump, WikiLeaks and Russia’s vast “disinformation network” would be able to deride the press as purveyors of “fake news.” It appears not to have occurred to the CIA alum that the story could have been planted to discredit WikiLeaks, Russia or Manafort (and by extension, Trump).

The anonymous spy ended by stating he “finds it hard to believe Harding would not go to great lengths to confirm his story.” Russia certainly would have an interest in discrediting the Guardian and Harding, who has a long history of criticizing Putinism and was refused re-entry to the country in 2011. But the newspaper appears not to have done even basic diligence over what must have been multiple new, unknown sources by checking with the embassy or with the police, if this was indeed the case. It also ignores that one source appears to have been Ecuadorian intelligence itself, not Russian.

State officials have a long history of using a pliant media to manipulate public discourse around international struggles by introducing false information. A central part of the drive to the invasion of Iraq was the false claim that Saddam Hussein was just 45 minutes from attacking the US and UK with WMDs. Officials urged that we could not wait for the mushroom cloud and had to act now. In 2016 US officials planted a false story in the Washington Post (12/31/16) that Russia had hacked into the US electric grid. That these claims were demonstrably incorrect did not delegitimize or scupper the interests of the state, or dampen the dominant narrative. There is rarely, if ever, any price to pay for official sources lying to journalists. This was why “the most logical explanation” was certainly not that Iraqi or Russian intelligence had fed the media fake information as to discredit Western reporting. The Manafort story went viral, while the retraction of some of its claims received, in comparison, scant attention.

Harding also has an ongoing and bitter feud with Assange. (He wrote a highly critical biography of the WikiLeaks editor that was subsequently turned into the movie, The Fifth Estate, which Assange described as a “massive propaganda attack” on him.)

He also has a history of publishing deeply inflammatory claims without being able to back them up. His book, Collusion, on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election was a New York Times No. 1 bestseller, and yet he could not give any evidence of collusion when asked in a now-infamous interview with Aaron Maté of The Real News, unable to defend even the title of his book, let alone his thesis. After being pressed harder by Maté, he simply disconnected the interview prematurely.

Therefore, Occam’s razor suggests the most logical explanation is likely that the Guardian published anonymous official sources without checking their claims’ validity.

‘Sources Say’

It is standard journalistic practice to name and check sources. Without a name to match to a quote, its credibility (and therefore that of the story) immediately drops, as there are no repercussions for that individual if they are untruthful. Sources (or journalists themselves) could simply make up anything they wanted with no consequences. Therefore, using anonymous sources is strongly discouraged, except in rare circumstances, generally when sources would face retaliation for revealing information of vital public interest. The Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics insists journalists “identify sources whenever feasible” and that journalists must “always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity.”

Unfortunately, the use of anonymous officials in reporting is increasing, and is a worrying trend in modern journalism, as the veteran reporter Robert Fisk once explained:

I’m just looking at a copy of the Toronto Globe and Mail. It’s a story about Al Qaeda in Algeria. And what is the sourcing? “US intelligence officials said,” “a senior US intelligence official said,” “US officials said,” ‘the intelligence official said,” “Algerian officials say,” “national security sources considered,” “European security sources said”…. We might as well name our newspapers “Officials Say.” This is the cancer at the bottom of modern journalism, that we do not challenge power anymore. Why are Americans tolerating these garbage stories with no real sourcing except for very dodgy characters indeed, who won’t give their names?

In this way, anonymous state officials can influence and drive media narratives without even needed to have their name associated with a claim. However, we appear to be entering a new era where unnamed state officials not only influence, but actually write the news themselves, as demonstrated by the Politico article.

Furthermore, as FAIR (8/22/18, 9/25/18) has already cataloged, media giants such as Facebook are already working with governmental organizations like the Atlantic Council to control what we see online, under the guise of battling Russian-sponsored fake news. The Atlantic Council is a NATO offshoot whose board of directors includes neo-conservative hawks like Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and James Baker; CIA directors like Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Michael Hayden; as well as retired generals like Wesley Clark and David Petraeus.

Leave alone that much of the most sensational reporting and claims about Russian influence comes from the Atlantic Council’s reports in the first place, thus creating a perfect feedback loop justifying more active measures. Therefore, much of the coverage of Russian state propaganda is itself state propaganda!

The Utility of Misreporting

Why was a highly questionable report from a foreign media outlet based upon anonymous sources picked up far and wide, sometimes without even a basic follow-up, such as asking for comment from the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange or Manafort (again, standard journalistic practice)?

As I argued previously (FAIR.org, 7/27/18), there is great utility for the establishment in promoting the idea of foreign interference in American domestic issues. For one, it helps develop a conspiratorial mindset among the public, encouraging them to be less critical of the state when the United States is “under attack.” Liberals’ trust in the FBI has markedly increased since Trump’s election and the focus on Russia.

Kremlin-sponsored “fake news” also serves as a pretext for mainstream media monopolies to re-tighten their grip over the means of communication. Media giants such as Google, Facebook, Bing and YouTube have changed their algorithms, supposedly to fight fake news. However, the consequence has been to strangle alternative media that challenged the mainstream narrative. Since Google changed its algorithm, WikiLeaks’ search traffic dropped 30 percent, AlterNet by 63 percent, Democracy Now! 36 percent and Common Dreams by 37 percent.

Finally, for the political establishment, the Russian fake news story gives them a convenient excuse as to why Trump was able to win the Republican nomination and defeat Hillary Clinton and to why new movements, from the alt-right to Black Lives Matter and the Bernie Sanders phenomenon on the left, have occurred. They are not responses to the decay of the political and economic system, but examples of foreign interference.

Adam Johnson’s “North Korea Law of Journalism” states that journalistic standards “are inversely proportional to a country’s enemy status,” meaning that the more antagonistic the US is to a country, the more lackadaisical journalists can be with the truth while reporting on said state. FAIR has consistently cataloged misreporting of enemy states, such as Iran (9/9/15; 7/25/17) North Korea (5/9/17; 3/22/17) Venezuela ( 5/16/17; 3/2/07), Cuba or Syria (10/21/15), where their supposed threat to the world or their human rights violations are ramped up, while downplaying crimes of friendly states (2/1/09).

The same can equally be said of enemy political figures like Assange, Sanders or Jill Stein. When it serves a political function, stories about official enemies too good to be true are also too good not to publish.

House GOP Campaign Committee Hacked During 2018 Midterms

WASHINGTON—The National Republican Congressional Committee [the campaign organization for House Republicans] said Tuesday that it was hit with a “cyber intrusion” during the 2018 midterm campaigns and has reported the breach to the FBI.

The committee provided few details about the incident, but said the intrusion was conducted by an “unknown entity.”

“The cybersecurity of the committee’s data is paramount, and upon learning of the intrusion, the NRCC immediately launched an internal investigation and notified the FBI, which is now investigating the matter,” spokesman Ian Prior said in a statement. “To protect the integrity of that investigation, the NRCC will offer no further comment on the incident.”

The FBI had no comment. Politico first reported the cyberbreach.

The severity and circumstances of the hacking weren’t made clear. Politically motivated cyberespionage is commonplace across the world, but Americans have become particularly alert to the possibility of digital interference following the 2016 election. That hack is still fresh in the minds of many political operatives.

In March 2018, NRCC Chairman Steve Stivers said the committee hired multiple cybersecurity staffers to work with its candidates and promised to do more.

“We’re starting to advise campaigns, but we’re not ready to roll the whole thing out. We’re working on it,” Stivers said at the time. “We’re working on the technology-based stuff to try and make sure that we know what’s out there — which is hard, too — and then we try to defend against it the best we can.”

In August, Microsoft alerted the public to attempts by government-backed Russian hackers to target U.S. conservatives’ email by creating fake websites that appeared to belong a pair of think tanks, the Hudson Institute and International Republican Institute. It also confirmed an attempt similarly attributed to Russian hackers to infiltrate the Senate computer network of Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who lost a re-election bid in November.

Google later confirmed in September that the personal Gmail accounts of multiple senators and staffers had recently been targeted by foreign hackers, though it did not specify the cyberspies’ nationality nor the party affiliations of the targets.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russian state-aligned hackers organized the leak of more than 150,000 emails stolen from more than a dozen Democrats. The FBI later said that the Russians had targeted more than 300 people affiliated with the Hillary Clinton campaign and other Democratic institutions over the course of the presidential contest.

During the 2016 presidential election, WikiLeaks’ released hacked material damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential effort, and U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia was the source of that hacked material. Special counsel Robert Mueller is now investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, possible Russian ties to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and whether anyone had had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.

Democratic lawmakers saw their cellphone numbers splashed online and voting databases for all 50 states had some type of intrusion attempt, although only a few were compromised. That included Illinois, where records on 90,000 voters had been downloaded. There was no evidence any votes were altered.

Election systems are constantly under fire from efforts to steal sensitive data, disrupt services and undermine voter confidence.

Federal officials said after the midterms this year there had been no obvious voting system compromises — which appeared to remain the case, despite the hacking effort. There had been a major push since the midterms to shore up defenses against potential cyber intrusions, but most states remained highly vulnerable.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.