House Report on Afghanistan Withdrawal Blames Biden Administration

Happy Tuesday! Since the first iteration of Fyre Fest was such a triumph, we’re glad to hear that organizer Billy McFarland—who did four years in federal prison for wire fraud and still owes millions of dollars to the original attendees and investors—is ready for Fyre Fest 2.0, currently slated for April 2025. 

This time, McFarland said, a production company is “handling everything from soup to nuts”—with something more impressive than a cheese sandwich somewhere in the middle, we hope.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign added an issues page to its website on Sunday night, outlining a policy agenda ahead of tonight’s presidential debate. Harris has already pitched many of the listed policy prescriptions on the campaign trail, including tax cuts for middle-class families, subsidies of up to $25,000 for first-time home buyers, and a federal ban on corporate “price gouging” for food and groceries. The policy guide also features several descriptive rebukes of Project 2025, the conservative policy blueprint organized by the Heritage Foundation intended for the next Republican White House administration, though publicly disavowed by former President Donald Trump.
• Syrian officials on Monday claimed that Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 people on Sunday night and wounded 40 others, and accused Israel of targeting civilian sites. The strikes allegedly occurred in an area thought to be home to a base for Iranian forces and Iran-backed militias, as well as sites for the manufacturing of chemical weapons. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not publicly commented on the alleged aerial attack and casualties, with a spokesperson telling CNN the IDF does not issue responses “on reports in the foreign media.” 
• Russian officials claimed that the country’s forces took control on Sunday of Novohrodivka—a Ukrainian town near the logistical hub of Pokrovsk. Although Ukrainian forces continue to control Pokrovsk, Russian forces have made consistent, if slow, progress in recent weeks toward the strategically important town. Nevelske and Vodiane—two small Ukrainian villages in the Donbas region—may have also fallen into Russian hands. Ukrainian officials have yet to confirm Russian control of the three Donbas sites.
• Federal prosecutors on Monday charged two people accused of running a transnational terrorism ring, Terrorgram Collective, on the social media app Telegram. According to authorities, the far-right and white supremacist network facilitated the planning and execution of hate crimes against people of color, public officials, and the LGBT community. The indictment alleges that Dallas Humber and Matthew Allison moderated the group and took credit for a shooting at a gay bar in Slovakia perpetrated by one of the group’s members. The two men were charged with 15 counts related to soliciting hate crimes, the murder of federal officials, and “conspiring to provide material support for terrorists.”
• The Biden administration on Monday finalized a rule first proposed last summer that would expand requirements mandating that mental health and substance abuse benefits provided in health insurance plans be no different from coverage of physical health benefits. Though such a requirement has been in place since the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) was passed in 2008, the proposed rules—which include implementing health plan evaluations and requiring compliance from non-federal government health plans—is an effort to increase enforcement of the MHPAEA and “close existing loopholes,” according to a White House statement. A trade group representing U.S. employers who sponsor large health plans said the new rule would increase the costs of health plans for employers and of care for enrollees. 
• A wildfire in San Bernardino, California, that started on Friday continued expanding on Monday, injuring three firefighters and prompting further evacuations in the region. State authorities reported more than 1,700 firefighters are working to douse the blaze, which is currently covering more than 21,000 acres and only three percent contained. Meanwhile, another wildfire in Washoe County, Nevada, near the city of Reno spread across 6,500 acres on Monday and also necessitated evacuations across the region.
• James Earl Jones, the legendary actor who voiced Star Wars villain Darth Vader in the original trilogy and subsequent spinoffs, died on Monday at the age of 93. The star of stage and screen was one of just a handful of entertainers to complete an “EGOT”—winning an Emmy award, a Grammy, a Tony, and an Oscar, though it was honorary. 

‘He’s Not Listening to Anybody’

In the early evening of August 26, 2021, a panicked crowd of roughly 2,000 Afghans surged against Abbey Gate, one of the main entrances to Kabul International Airport. They were driven mostly by blind desperation: The Taliban had taken Kabul 11 days earlier, and Abbey Gate had become the only sure way out of the country.

Personnel from the U.S. Army and Marines attempted to keep order as frantic Afghans begged to be processed by overwhelmed State Department personnel. Service members attempted to pull civilians identified by State Department inside the gate even as they engaged in “hand to hand fighting” to keep from being overwhelmed by the crowd, which “was crushing women and children up against the barricade, crushing them against it hard enough to hurt at a minimum and possibly kill people,” according to sworn statements by personnel present. 

Then, at 5:36 p.m., a massive blast ripped through the area. Standing within 20 feet of U.S. troops, Abdul Rahman al-Logari—a member of the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K)—detonated an explosive vest he was wearing, killing himself and at least 181 others. Casualties included dozens of Afghan civilians and 13 of the U.S. service members present at the gate.

In sworn testimony, Gen. Kenneth F. Mackenzie, leader of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan at the time of the attack, pointed the finger at the policy planners in Washington. “If there is culpability in this attack,” he said, “it lies in policy decisions that created the environment of August 2021 in Kabul.” 

But who, exactly, created that environment? Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC), led by Chairman Michael McCaul, pointed the finger at …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 2,269-word item on the House investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• What drives people out to U.S. Route 127 every August? Stuff. “‘The World’s Longest Yard Sale’ was founded in 1987, two years into Ronald Reagan’s second Presidential term, and currently runs for six hundred and ninety miles, from Addison, Michigan, to Gadsden, Alabama,” Paige Williams wrote in the New Yorker. For some, the value of yard sale discoveries can be greater than its practical utility. “When Donna Gaddis, a retired transportation director for a public-school system, sees a tableful of rusted tools, she wonders whose hands they have touched, and what they have built. ‘You think about how many times an object has produced an economy around itself,’ Gaddis told me. ‘I like being in the food chain. I nibble on something, something nibbles on me.’ Viewed in this light, the 127 is a compendium of the American experience, not merely a repository of pet cages and cowboy boots and boxes of really bad books,” Williams wrote. “Venders may endlessly truck a piece back and forth to the 127 rather than throw it away.”
• Consumers and voters are no strangers to the economic consequences of inflation—but what about the psychological ones? “​​Milton Friedman famously described inflation as being ‘always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,’” Eric Boehm wrote for Reason magazine. “That’s still true. … But it does not fully capture the effects of inflation. … Inflation, it turns out, is also a psychological phenomenon. It makes us angry. It makes us irrational. In any democratic system, that anger and irrationality can be quickly translated into poor policies—unless elected and unelected officials are prepared to withstand it, and to recognize that combating inflation often requires unpopular actions. Now is not the time to indulge the wisdom of the mob. In short, inflation breaks our brains. It makes us poorer, and poorer citizens too.”

Presented Without Comment

The Hill: Texas Democrat Smokes Blunt, Bong in Pro-Weed Campaign Ad 

Also Presented Without Comment

ABC News: New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu Saves Choking Man In Lobster Roll Eating Competition

Also Also Presented Without Comment

Billboard: Elton John Thought It Was ‘Hilarious’ When Donald Trump Called North Korea’s Kim Jong Un ‘Little Rocket Man’

In the Zeitgeist

James Earl Jones, one of the most iconic voices in film, passed away on Monday at the age of 93. Most famous for his terrifying baritone as Darth Vader in Star Wars, the versatile, award-winning actor lent his voice to the big screen, the silver screen, the Great White Way, an animated lion, a series of cable news commercials, and a Michigan football hype video. 

The American film industry has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But the voice of James Earl Jones has marked the time. 

Toeing the Company Line

• It’s Tuesday—and there’s a presidential debate—so members should keep an eye out for an email later today with information about how to tune in to a special edition of Dispatch Live (🔒)! We’ll see you … whenever the debate ends.
• In the newsletters: Kevin explored (🔒) what’s left of the GOP as traditional conservatism evaporates away, the Dispatch Politics team reported on the Republican Jewish Coalition’s efforts to cast the GOP as the “only pro-Israel party,” and Nick elucidated (🔒) the principles behind former Rep. Liz Cheney’s decision to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz’s Democratic challenger—and why he’s voting for Rep. Colin Allred, too. 
• On the podcasts: Sarah and David discussed the legal questions raised by the school shooting in Georgia last week, including parental responsibility and the limits of legal liability, on Advisory Opinions.
• On the site: Charlotte reports from Tel Aviv on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s precarious political position, Chris previews tonight’s debate, and Kevin weighs in on Trump’s recent talk of convening military tribunals.