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September 2024

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Good morning and welcome to this week’s Flight Path. Equities flashed an uncertain “Go Fish” bar at the end of the week as the markets became even more unsettled. Treasury bond prices remained in a “Go” trend and saw that trend was strong for almost all of last week. U.S. commodity index remained in a “NoGo” painting strong purple bars the entire week and it was no picnic for the dollar either. The greenback saw the “NoGo” continue and the week ended with a couple of purple bars.

$SPY Falls Out of “Go” Trend

The GoNoGo chart below shows that after seeing trend weakness with aqua bars the week ended with an amber “Go Fish” bar. This most recent “Go” move was unable to set a new higher high before the GoNoGo Trend indicator painted a “Go Fish” bar of uncertainty. We look at the oscillator panel and see that after briefly testing the zero level from above GoNoGo Oscillator fell into negative territory on heavy volume. This inability to find support at zero was a concern for the “Go” trend.

The longer time frame chart shows that last week was a bad one. However, we still see that the trend is a “Go” painting blue bars. We can see that price hasn’t made a new higher high but the trend remains and GoNoGo Oscillator is in positive territory at a value of 2. We will watch to see as the oscillator gets closer to zero if it finds support at that level.

Treasury Yields Stay in “NoGo” Trend

Treasury bond yields painted strong purple “NoGo” bars this week and we saw a sharp fall that saw a challenge of recent lows. In the oscillator panel, we see that a Max GoNoGo Squeeze was broken to the downside, with GoNoGo Oscillator falling into negative territory. This tells us that momentum is surging in the direction of the underlying “NoGo” trend and so we see a NoGo Trend Continuation Icon (red circle) in the above panel.

The Dollar’s “NoGo” Remains

As strong purple bars return we see that the U.S. dollar has made a new lower low. GoNoGo Trend shows that trend strength returned at the end of the week and so the weight of the evidence tells us that the “NoGo” trend is in full force. If we look at the oscillator panel, we see that GoNoGo Oscillator has rallied to test the zero line from below. It has remained stuck at that level for several bars and so we see a GoNoGo Squeeze building. As we see heavy volume, it will be important to watch for the direction of the break of the GoNoGo Squeeze.

More Black Americans are planning to make their voices heard on Election Day now that Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced President Biden as the Democratic nominee, according to a Monday poll.

The Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 69% of Black Americans say they are ‘absolutely certain to vote’ on Election Day, compared to 62% in April. Meanwhile, a similar New York Times poll found Sunday that 56% of Black Americans said they were ‘almost certain’ to vote, with an additional 33% saying they were ‘very likely’ to vote.

The Post poll found that Harris’ candidacy has had the largest impact on young Black voters, particularly women. The share of Black Americans under 30 who plan to vote has risen 15 points from April, to 47%. Meanwhile, intent to vote among Black women under 40 rose by 18 points since April, to 57%.

Among Black registered voters, 82% say they favor Harris over Trump, according to the Post, while only 12% say they favor Trump. In the Times poll, 78% of Black Americans said they favored Trump, and Trump scored 14%.

The Post and Ipsos conducted the poll from Aug. 23 to Sept. 3, surveying 1,083 Black Americans. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.2%.

Harris holds solid or dominating majority support from Black voters when it comes to the issues as well. Only when it comes to Israel’s war with Hamas does she lose out on a majority, with 49% of Black Americans saying they trust her to handle the issue. A striking 28% said neither candidate could be trusted on the topic.

Trump’s best performance is on immigration, where 19% of Black Americans say he is best to handle the issue. Harris maintains a commanding 55% support on the issue, however.

The poll lands just one day before Harris and Trump are set to square off in their first presidential debate on Tuesday. The pair’s campaigns have already laid the groundwork for lines of attack.

Trump is expected to lean into Harris’ role in the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which saw 13 soldiers killed in a suicide bombing. Several relatives of those soldiers have endorsed Trump and criticized Harris in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign sought to counter that narrative this week with a letter from 10 retired generals and admirals saying President Biden and Harris had done their best with a poor situation left to them by Trump’s own administration.

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: Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., is writing to Attorney General Merrick Garland to question the legitimacy of special counsel Jack Smith’s continued probing of former President Donald Trump.

Gaetz, one of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, asked Garland for ‘any written authorization’ or other documentation regarding Smith’s continued efforts despite his case against the ex-president getting thrown out by a federal judge in July.

‘On August 27, 2024, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against former President Donald Trump in federal district court in the District of Columbia. One day later, he was arguing before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, attempting to overturn a federal district judge’s finding that he was unlawfully appointed by you,’ Gaetz wrote in the brief letter.

‘It is unclear what authority Special Counsel Smith has to file either of these briefs or to provide services to the Department of Justice.’

Smith’s appointment as special counsel was deemed unlawful by Florida-based U.S. Judge Eileen Cannon, who said his lack of Senate confirmation for the role made him illegitimate. 

Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, had been overseeing Smith’s prosecution of the former president over his handling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Smith filed a response with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing Cannon was wrong in her assessment of the special counsel role, arguing ‘precedent and history’ were on his side, as well as a ‘long tradition of special-counsel appointments by Attorneys General and Congress’ endorsement of the practice.’

Amid that court battle, Smith also filed a superseding indictment in a separate probe he is conducting into the ex-president, investigating whether Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Smith had filed an amended indictment in that prosecution after the recent Supreme Court ruling that presidents are afforded wider immunity privileges.

However, Gaetz questioned whether Smith even had the legal footing to file either of those motions. 

His letter asked Garland whether he consulted the deputy attorney general and existing public integrity guidelines before Smith filed the superseding indictment.

If so, Gaetz asked him to ‘provide any records of the Deputy Attorney General’s Office or the Office of the Attorney General authorizing the Office of Special Counsel to file the Aug. 27, 2024, superseding indictment.’

Trump has so far denied any wrongdoing in any of the prosecutions against him.

His congressional allies like Gaetz have been key defenders – Gaetz has heaped skepticism on Trump’s legal trials, and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., has filed a flurry of ethics complaints against judges overseeing Trump cases in New York.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., another Trump ally, has spearheaded GOP pressure in the House to defund Smith’s office.

It is not fully clear yet how Trump’s criminal and civil proceedings will affect his bid for re-election, with less than two months until Election Day.

The Department of Justice did not immediately return a request for comment on Gaetz’s letter.

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Any strategy that trades stocks needs some sort of market timing mechanism to identify bull and bear markets. Typically, stock strategies are fully invested during bull markets because risk is acceptable. Strategies move to cash during bear markets because risk is above average. Preserving capital during bear markets is important to long-term outperformance (see SystemTrader).

Here is a simple idea for a market timing mechanism. First, use the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) to represent the US stock market. SPY is based on the S&P 500, which is the most widely used benchmark for US stocks. Second, apply a long-term trend indicator for broad market timing. The chart below shows SPY with the Trend Composite. This indicator aggregates signals in five trend-following indicators. It is currently at +5 and still signaling a long-term uptrend (bull market). Note that this indicator is part of the TIP Indicator Edge Plugin for StockCharts ACP.

The chart above starts in 2022. Notice that the Trend Composite was mostly negative (bearish) in 2022. Strategies trading stocks would have been mostly in cash during this bear market and this would have preserved capital. The Trend Composite turned positive in February 2023 and has been mostly positive the last 19 months. It spent three weeks in negative territory from late October to mid November 2023 (whipsaw). Strategies trading stocks would have been mostly long during this period and participated in the bull run.

Strategies should have well-defined rules governing decisions. Stocks moved sharply lower last week, but the Trend Composite has yet to turn negative and signal a bear market. Similarly, the Composite Breadth Model, which times the market for our Dual Momentum Rotation Strategies, has yet to turn bearish. Thus, our strategies remain invested in stocks showing strong upside momentum. They will move to cash when a bear signal triggers. Click here to learn more. 

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Vice President Harris finally added policies to her campaign website for the first time since President Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her in the presidential race 50 days ago. 

The website breaks Harris and her vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’ policy proposals into four sections: ‘Build an Opportunity Economy and Lower Costs for Families,’ ‘Safeguard Our Fundamental Freedoms,’ ‘Ensure Safety and Justice For All,’ and ‘Keep America Safe, Secure, and Prosperous.’ 

Before the new addition, Harris’ campaign website had pages to buy merchandise, donate and get to know the candidate’s background, but was devoid of any policy plans for weeks even after she formally accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago 17 days ago. 

Harris’s website now includes a promise to cut taxes for middle class families by ‘ensuring no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay more in taxes.’ The website promises that Harris and Walz ‘will ensure the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations pay their fair share, so we can take action to build up the middle class while reducing the deficit,’ including by ‘rolling back Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, enacting a billionaire minimum tax, quadrupling the tax on stock buybacks, and other reforms to ensure the very wealthy are playing by the same rules as the middle class.’ 

The website touts a plan to give more than 100 million working and middle-class families a tax cut by restoring the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. It says Harris and Walz will also expand the Child Tax Credit to provide a $6,000 credit to families with newborn children.

‘Under her plan, the tax rate on long-term capital gains for those earning a million dollars a year or more will be 28 percent, because when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad-based economic growth and creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger,’ the website says. 

The website also claims that Harris’ ‘lowering costs agenda is a stark contrast to Donald Trump’s plans to jack up prices, weaken the middle class, cut Social Security and Medicare, eliminate the Department of Education and preschool programs like Head Start, and end the Affordable Care Act.’ 

Much of the Harris website’s policy section focuses on attacking her opponent. Under each policy section, Harris includes a subsection on what she calls ‘Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda.’ 

Former President Trump and his campaign have repeatedly said they are not affiliated with Project 2025, which was created by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation as policy recommendations for the next Republican administration. Harris’ website also claims Trump would ban abortion and restrict in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, despite the Republican nominee stating the opposite. Trump has said he would not enact a federal abortion ban and recently said he would consider making sure the government or insurance companies cover the fertility treatment.

Regarding the economy, Harris claims that Trump’s ‘plans would increase costs for families by at least $3,900 a year by slapping a Trump sales tax on imported everyday goods that American families rely on, like gas, food, clothing, and medicine’ and would raise rents and add $1,200 a year to the typical American mortgage. 

‘Trump’s economic plans would also trigger a recession by mid-2025, cost America over 3 million jobs, threaten hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, increase the debt by over $5 trillion, send inflation skyrocketing, and hurt everyone but the richest Americans,’ according to Harris’ website. 

Under what is intended to be policy proposals to ‘ensure safety and justice for all,’ Harris’ website slams Trump as ‘a convicted criminal who only cares about himself,’ claiming the Republican nominee has ‘proven that time and time again – from caving to the gun lobby and doing nothing to address gun violence to killing the bipartisan border security deal that would secure our border and keep America safe, just to help himself politically.’ It also says Trump will implement the Project 2025 agenda if elected ‘to consolidate power, bring the Department of Justice and the FBI under his direct control so he can give himself unchecked legal power and go after his opponents, and rule as a dictator on ‘day one.’’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

Regarding foreign affairs, the website claims that Harris ‘has been a tireless and effective diplomat on the world stage’ and ‘will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to protect U.S. forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups.’ Despite Harris boycotting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, her website states Harris ‘will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and she will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.’ 

‘She and President Biden are working to end the war in Gaza, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination,’ the website says. ‘She and President Biden are working around the clock to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done.’

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The House Democrats on the Foreign Affairs Committee released their own memo on President Biden’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan after committee Republicans released a report criticizing the president for what went down at the time.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee, released a GOP-led report disputing Biden’s claims that his hands were tied to the agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021. It also said State Department officials had no plan for helping Americans and allies out while there were still troops in the region to protect them.

McCaul’s report also noted the failure to adequately respond to terror threats ahead of the ISIS-K bombing at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghan civilians, and that the Taliban likely had access after the withdrawal to $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons and up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government.

But New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the Democrat ranking member of the committee, released a dueling report in response to the GOP-led report, accusing Republicans of criticizing the Biden administration for the withdrawal for political purposes and failing to offer feasible alternatives.

Meeks also said Republicans did not involve Democrat members in their report and stressed that plans for withdrawing from Afghanistan began under the Trump administration.

He said in the memo’s summary that Republicans sought to avoid facts involving Trump, including ‘his committing the United States to a full, date-specific withdrawal in a deal he negotiated with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government or any reference to the rights of Afghan women and girls.’

The ranking member also knocked Trump’s ‘unilateral announcements to withdraw troops, often a surprise to many of his own senior officials, which undercut U.S. leverage because those announcements were divorced from Taliban compliance with the deal; and his forcing the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters back to the battlefield before a final Taliban offensive ultimately took Kabul.’

‘When former President Trump took office, there were approximately 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan,’ Meeks wrote. ‘Days before leaving office, the former President ordered a further reduction to 2,500. President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops to Afghanistan to face renewed combat with the Taliban.’

‘All witnesses who testified on this issue agreed that the United States would have faced renewed combat with the Taliban had we not continued the withdrawal,’ he added. ‘Rather than send more Americans to fight a war in Afghanistan, President Biden decided to end it.’

Addressing the Abbey Gate bombing. Meeks said Republicans ‘knew for months that the attack was not preventable and that, even though a witness told our Committee he thought he had the ISIS-K bomber in his sights, he did not.’

Republicans, Meeks said, made partisan attempts to garner headlines rather than acknowledge the full facts and substance of their investigation during the height of the election cycle. He also said Republicans attempted to tie Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democrats’ presidential nominee, to the withdrawal even though she is referenced only three times in 3,288 pages of the committee’s interview transcripts.

‘American taxpayers have funded this Committee’s oversight, and the American people deserve the truth,’ Meeks said. ‘We owe it to them to highlight the facts elicited in this investigation without undue spin and with respect for the seriousness of the subject and the witnesses who have voluntarily testified to us about it.’

‘It strikes me now as it did during that hearing that many of those critical of the withdrawal effort simply have a fundamental objection to President Biden fulfilling his pledge to be the last Commander-in-Chief to preside over the war in Afghanistan,’ he added. ‘They are masking their displeasure with criticisms but have failed to offer feasible alternatives. We must continue to wrestle with these matters not to rewrite the past or assign partisan blame, but to identify lessons that can help us better fight and end wars in the future.’

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted what he called Iran’s ‘axis of evil’ in remarks Sunday after a terrorist attack at the West Bank-Jordan border crossing killed three Israelis. 

‘It’s a hard day. A despicable terrorist murdered three of our citizens in cold blood at the Allenby Bridge. On behalf of the government, I send my condolences to the families of the victims,’ Netanyahu said at the beginning of his cabinet meeting Sunday. ‘We are surrounded by a murderous ideology led by Iran’s axis of evil. In recent days, despicable terrorists have murdered six of our hostages in cold blood and three Israeli police officers. The killers do not distinguish between us, they want to murder us all, until the last one; right and left, secular and religious, Jews and non-Jews.’ 

The Israeli military said a gunman approached the Allenby Bridge Crossing from the Jordanian side in a truck and opened fire at Israeli security forces, who killed the assailant in a shootout. It said the three people killed were Israeli civilians. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said they were all men in their 50s.

Jordan, a Western-allied Arab country with a large Palestinian population, is investigating the shooting, its state-run Petra News Agency reported.

Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri celebrated the attack, connecting the shooting to Israel’s offensive in Gaza. 

‘We expect many more similar actions,’ he said, according to Reuters. 

It marked the first attack of its kind along the West Bank-Jordan border crossing since Hamas terrorists killed approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in their Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Another 250 were taken as hostages into Gaza, and Hamas are still holding approximately 100 of them. Around a third of the remaining hostages inside Gaza are believed to be dead.

‘What prevents the elimination of our people as in the past is the strength of the State of Israel and the strength of the Israel Defense Forces,’ Netanyahu continued Sunday. ‘The heroic spirit of the soldiers, the policemen, the men and women of our security forces, the supreme sacrifice of our fallen heroes and the resilience of our people – that’s all the difference. When we stand together – our enemies cannot, so their main goal is to divide us, to sow division within us.’

Over the weekend, Netanyahu noted, ‘the German newspaper Bild published an official Hamas document that reveals its plan of action: to sow division within us, to wage psychological warfare on the families of the hostages, to exert internal and external political pressure on the Israeli government, to tear us apart from the inside, and to continue the war until further notice, until the defeat of Israel.’

‘The vast majority of Israeli citizens do not fall into this trap of Hamas,’ the prime minister said. ‘They know that we are committed with all our might to achieve the goals of the war – to eliminate Hamas, to return all our hostages, to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel and to safely return our residents in the north and south to their homes.’

‘We will stand together, we will hold on to David’s link together, and with God’s help we will win,’ Netanyahu said. ‘And lastly, some ask – ‘Will you forever hold a sword?’ In the Middle East, without a sword there is no eternity.’

The Allenby crossing over the Jordan River, also known as the King Hussein Bridge, is mainly used by Palestinians and international tourists, as well as for cargo shipments. The crossing has seen very few security incidents over the years, but in 2014 Israeli security guards shot and killed a Jordanian judge who they said had attacked them, the Associated Press reported. 

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. 

Authorities in Israel and Jordan said the crossing was closed until further notice, and Israel later announced the closure of both of its land crossings with Jordan, near Beit Shean in the north and Eilat in the south.

Fox News’ Yael Rotem-Kuriel and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released a scathing report that took a fine-toothed comb to the military’s botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and highlighted areas of serious mismanagement. 

The Republican-led report opens by harkening back to President Joe Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a ‘pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,’ according to the report.

The report also disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them. 

Here’s a roundup of the findings of the 600-page report, comprised of tens of thousands of pages of documents and interviews with high-level officials that spanned much of the last two years: 

Biden was not bound by deadlines in Trump’s Doha agreement with Taliban

The report found that Biden and Vice President Harris were advised by top leaders that the Taliban were already in violation of the conditions of the Doha agreement and, therefore, the U.S. was not obligated to leave. 

The committee also found NATO allies had expressed their vehement opposition to the U.S. decision to withdraw. The British Chief of the Defense staff warned that ‘withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban.’

Biden kept on Zalmay Khalilzad, a Trump appointee who negotiated the agreement, as special representative to Afghanistan – a signal that the new administration endorsed the deal. 

At the Taliban’s demand, Khalilzad had shut out the Afghan government from the talks – a major blow to President Ashraf Ghani’s government. 

When Trump left office, some 2,500 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan. Biden himself was determined to draw that number to zero no matter what, according to Col. Seth Krummrich, chief of staff for Special Operations Command, who told the committee, ‘The president decided we’re going to leave, and he’s not listening to anybody.’

Then-State Dept. spokesperson Ned Price admitted in testimony the Doha agreement was ‘immaterial’ to Biden’s decision to withdraw. 

The withdrawal: State Department built up personnel, failed to hatch escape plan as it became clear Kabul would fall

The report also details numerous warning signs the State Department received to draw down its embassy footprint as it became clear Afghanistan would quickly fall to the Taliban. It refused to do so. At the time of the withdrawal, it was one of the largest embassies in the world. 

In the end, Americans and U.S. allies were left stranded as the military was ordered to withdraw before the embassy had shuttered.

In one meeting, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon rejected military officials’ warnings, saying ‘we at the State Department have a much higher risk tolerance than you guys.’

Gen. Austin Miler, the longest-serving commander in Afghanistan, confirmed McKeon’s comments and explained that the State Department did not have a higher risk tolerance but instead exhibited ‘a lack of understanding of the risk’ in Afghanistan.

Asked why McKeon would make such statements, the officer explained, ‘The State Department and the president were saying it. Consequently, [Wilson] and others start saying it, thinking that they will make it work.’ 

The report lays blame on former Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson, who instead of shrinking, grew the embassy’s presence as the security situation deteriorated.

Revealing little sense of urgency, Wilson was on a two-week vacation on the last week of July and the first week of August 2021. 

An NEO, a noncombatant evacuation operation to get personnel out, was not ordered until Aug. 15 as the Taliban marched into Kabul. 

There weren’t enough troops present to begin the NEO until Aug. 19, and the first public message from the embassy in Kabul urging Americans to evacuate wasn’t sent until Aug. 7. 

And while there weren’t enough military planes to handle the evacuations, it took the Transportation Department until Aug. 20 to allow foreign planes to assist. 

Wilson fled the embassy ahead of his entire embassy staff, the report found. He reportedly had COVID-19 at the time but got a foreign service officer to take his test for him so that he could flee the country. 

Acting Under Secretary Carol Perez told the committee the embassy’s evacuation plan was ‘still in the works’ when the Taliban took over, despite months of warning.

Those left behind: Americans and allies turned away while unvetted Afghans got on flights

Wilson testified that he was ‘comfortable’ with holding off on the NEO until Aug. 15, while Gen. Frank McKenzie described it as the ‘fatal flaw that created what happened in August.’

As the Taliban surrounded Kabul on Aug. 14, notes obtained by the committee from a National Security Counsel (NSC) meeting reveal the U.S. government still had not determined who would be eligible for evacuation nor had they identified third countries to serve as transit points for an evacuation.

Fewer cases for special immigrant visas (SIVs) to evacuate Afghan U.S. military allies like interpreters were processed in June, July and August – the lead-up to the takeover – than the four months prior. 

When the last U.S. military flight departed Kabul, around 1,000 Americans were left on the ground, as were more than 90% of SIV-eligible Afghans.

The report found that local embassy employees had been de-prioritized for evacuation, with many turned away from the embassy and airport in tears. On the day of the Taliban takeover, the U.S.’ only guidance for those who might be eligible for evacuation was to ‘not travel to the airport until you have been informed by email that departure options exist.’

And since the NSC did not send over guidelines for who was eligible for evacuation and who to prioritize because they were ‘at risk,’ the State Department processed thousands of evacuees with no documentation. 

The U.S. government had ‘no idea if people being evacuated were threats,’ one State Department employee told the committee.

After the final troops left Afghanistan, volunteer groups helped at least 314 American citizens and 266 lawful permanent residents evacuate the country.

Scenes at Abbey Gate: Terror threat warnings unheeded before bombing

And as the Taliban whipped groups of desperate Afghans at the airport, burned young women and executed civilians, U.S. troops were forbidden from intervening. 

Consul General Jim DeHart described the scene as ‘apocalyptic.’ 

U.S. intelligence, meanwhile, was tracking multiple threat streams, including ‘a potential VBIED or suicide vest IED as part of a complex attack,’ by Aug. 23.  By Aug. 26, the threat was specifically narrowed down to Abbey Gate. It was so serious that diplomatic security pulled back state employees from the gate.

Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan ultimately decided to keep the gate open in the face of the threats due to requests made by the Brits.

And on Aug. 26, two bombs planted by terror group ISIS-K exploded at the airport, killing 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghans. CENTCOM records revealed the same ISIS-K terror cell that conducted the Abbey Gate attack ‘established a base of operations located six kilometers to the west’ of the airport in a neighborhood previously used by them as a staging area for an attack on the airport in December 2020. But the U.S. did not strike this cell before the bombing. 

Two weeks later, an airstrike intending to kill those behind the ISIS-K instead killed 10 civilians. The administration initially touted the strike as a success of over-the-horizon capabilities before acknowledging a family of civilians had been killed. 

The U.S. has not struck ISIS-K in Afghanistan since – in stark contrast to the 313 operations carried out by CENTCOM against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2022.

The long-term consequences 

In addition to the $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons, the Taliban likely gained access to up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government. 

The Taliban’s interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, proclaimed in February 2024 that relations with the rest of the world, especially the U.S., are ‘irrelevant’ to its policymaking.

A NATO report written by the Defence Education Enhancement Programme found the Taliban was using U.S. military biometric devices and databases to hunt down U.S. Afghan allies.

And in the first six months of Taliban power, ‘nearly 500 former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces were killed or forcibly disappeared,’ according to the report. 

Some 118 girls have been sold as child brides since the takeover and 116 families are waiting for a buyer. Women are now banned from speaking or showing their faces in public. 

In June 2024, the Department of Homeland Security identified more than 400 persons of interest from Central Asia who had illegally crossed the U.S. southern border with the help of an ISIS-related smuggling network. The U.S. has since arrested more than 150 of these individuals. On June 11, 2024, the FBI arrested eight people with ties to ISIS-K who had crossed through the southern border.

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Nikki Haley broke with former President Trump’s stance regarding IVF treatment, but still said she was ‘on standby’ to campaign for the Republican nominee. 

Haley, who was the last Republican presidential candidate to drop from the GOP race before Trump became the nominee, said during an appearance on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday that she had spoken with Trump in June and that ‘he’s aware that I’m ready if he ever needs me’ to campaign for him. 

With this election, Haley said, ‘there’s a lot at stake’ with two administrations asking to be re-elected. Her main concerns, she says, are her children, with the cost of living and housing so high, the cost of goods up 20%, immigration and safety ‘with foreign entities coming in and the threats we could face,’ and energy.

‘And so there’s just a lot going on,’ Haley told CBS host Margaret Brennan. ‘To me, the stark contrast between a Trump and Harris administration are what led me to say, yes, I need to, you know, I’m going to be voting with Trump, and I’m going to speak at the convention. And so that’s what I did.’ 

Haley noted that Trump’s team has not asked her to campaign, and that she has not been advising him for debate prep.

‘He can, you know, whatever he decides to do with his campaign, he can do that. But when I called him back in June, I told him I was supportive. I think the teams have talked to each other a little bit, but there hasn’t been an ask as of yet. But you know, should he ask, I’m happy to be helpful.’

While voicing her overall support for Trump, Haley said she disagreed with his recent pledge to mandate that either the government or insurance companies pay for in vitro fertilization, or IVF treatment, for women. 

‘It’s not a policy I support any more than it’s a policy of Kamala Harris to remove private health insurance, or Medicare for All,’ Haley said. 

Brennan interjected saying that Trump is head of the Republican Party, but Haley shot back that ‘you also have to talk about the head of the Democrat Party.’

‘When you talk about Medicare for All, when you talk about removing private health insurance, you might as well be Canada. You might as well look at socialist health care,’ Haley said. ‘We never want to get to that point, because you’re not going to get IVF or anything else, cancer drugs or anything else when it comes to that.’ 

Haley said both of her children are results of fertility treatment. 

‘We want that option to be available to everyone. But the way you do it is, you don’t mandate coverage. Instead, you go and you make sure that coverage is accessible, and you make sure that you’re doing everything you can to make it affordable. That comes with regulations,’ Haley added. ‘Kamala has put down – her and Biden put down a lot of regulations on a lot of things. Trump has relieved those regulations so that we need to have more of an important policy conversation than sound bites. And I do think this election has become about sound bites, and I think we have to get to the substance of it.’

Brennan cited CBS polling as indicating that support among female voters has grown to a double-digit lead for Vice President Harris over Trump since Biden stepped out of the race, clearing her to become the Democratic presidential nominee. She asked Haley whether Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, is contributing to the divide after remarks resurfaced last week of him highlighting how the head of the most powerful teachers’ union in the country does not have a child of her own. 

Vance’s criticism was directed at Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, during a forum held by the Center for Christian Virtue in October 2021 when he was running for Senate. In the resurfaced clip, Vance stated that ‘if she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone.’

‘He continues to say things that certainly are highlighted as being offensive to women,’ Brennan offered to Haley on Sunday. ‘That is going to hurt, won’t it, with female voters?’ 

‘It’s not helpful. It’s not helpful,’ Haley responded. ‘Look, you can either look at style, or you can look at substance. I choose as a voter to look at substance,’ she added. 

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More voters report that Vice President Kamala Harris is ‘too liberal or progressive’ on key policy issues than they considered former President Donald Trump as ‘too conservative,’ according to a New York Times poll. 

The New York Times/Sienna College poll published Sunday found Trump with a narrow lead over Harris, at 48% to Harris’ 47%, signaling her political boost from the DNC after replacing President Biden on the ticket might be dwindling as the election comes down to its final stages.

Among the data compiled in the poll, it found that nearly the majority of voters reported Trump is ‘not too far’ to the left or right on key issues, while only around one-third of voters said he’s ‘too conservative,’ the New York Times poll found. 

On the other hand, nearly half of voters surveyed, at 44%, reported that Harris is ‘too liberal and progressive,’ and 42% found that she’s ‘not too far either way.’

The New York Times reported that Trump’s lead over Harris as a more centrist candidate is one of his ‘overlooked advantages.’ 

‘Yes, he’s outside of the political mainstream in many respects — he denied the result of the 2020 election. And yes, he does have conservative views on many issues, like immigration. But he’s also taken many positions that would have been likelier to be held by a Democrat than a Republican a decade ago, like opposition to cutting entitlements, support for a cooperative relationship with Russia or opposition to free trade. It’s a reputation he’s careful to protect, from saying he doesn’t support Project 2025 to his cagey position on additional measures to restrict abortion,’ the Times reported. 

The poll also found that 11% of voters believe Trump is ‘not conservative enough,’ compared to 9% of voters who reported Harris is ‘not liberal or progressive enough.’

The poll follows one released in late July, when Biden dropped out of the race amid mounting concern over his mental acuity, which also found Trump in a 48-47 lead. 

The poll Sunday also found that 28% of voters feel like they need to know more about Harris to throw their support behind her, compared to 9% who said the same about Trump.

Harris held her first sit-down interview with the media late last month, joining CNN’s Dana Bash for a joint interview with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, but has otherwise mostly avoided the media. As of Sunday, Harris has gone 49 days as the presumptive, and now, official Democratic nominee for president without holding an official press conference.

The poll released Sunday was conducted between Sept. 3 to 6 and based on telephone surveys with 1,695 registered voters across the country. 

Fox News Digital’s Michael Lee and Brian Flood contributed to this report. 

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