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There's a parlor trick that libertarians who interact with Capitol Hill sometimes play among themselves, and it usually goes something like this:

Besides the usual suspectsusually understood to be Reps. Justin Amash (LMich.) and Thomas Massie (RKy.) and Sens. Rand Paul (RKy.) and Mike Lee (RUtah)are there any good ones left?

"Let me give you a name of somebody who's come to Congress and really surprised us," Massie told me two years ago. "Andy Biggs from Arizona. If you see two No's on a bill; it's 428 to 2, the two No's will be most often me and Justin Amash. If you see three, it's now Andy Biggs. He's doing it on a constitutional basis. He recognizes when the Republicans are voting for bigger government, and he doesn't fall for it."

Biggs, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, has a 100 percent rating from the limited-government outfit FreedomWorks. He's a reliable vote against federal spending increases, against warrantless surveillance, and in favor of bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. He recently became the first GOP member of Congress to support declaring a formal end to the Korean War.

So how is Biggs taking President-elect Joe Biden's victory? By calling Republicans who acknowledge it "Neville Chamberlain's" (sic) who keep "feeding the totalitarian monster, hoping to be eaten last." Such florid language was not an outlier. Here's the top of Biggs's post-election piece for Townhall:

The fierce beast of the Left, the omnivorous viper of the Democrats, has been let loose. Every tyrant needs quislings. Unfortunately, there are appeasers even among Republicans. The 'useful idiots' of the Left are being eaten already; the appeasers will be next.

Those who demand grace from Trump supporters as we watch the nation stolen from us, deny the peril from a ravenous beast that will consume our freedoms and chain the American people.

The passage of days, and the repeated disintegration of the president's conspiracy theories upon contact with the legal system, did nothing to dull Biggs's Trumpian fervor. "This election is a joke," he declared in a video with Rep. Paul Gosar (RAriz.). Watch:

"FACT CHECK: Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar still touting baseless election-fraud claims," went the Arizona Republic headline (and please do click on the links therein before pre-emptively waving that conclusion away).

In a Washington Times piece Monday, Biggs made the improbable assertion that, "The foundation for the future that Mr.Trumplaid appears to be so strong that the only way to defeat it is to lay waste to any vestige of Americanism and our institutions. And that includes resorting to cheating to try and disenfranchise more than 70 million voters."

Hyperbolic overselling of my-team Potency and their-team Evil is of course not uncommon in politics, even if it's a bit amusing coming from someone fond of using "Derangement Syndrome" as an insult. But Biggs's post-election performance can be read as a cautionary tale about the limits of what might be called "Libertarian Populism" within a Trumpified GOP.

Faced with a crude, big-government nationalist, some office-holding libertarian-leaners of a more temperate dispositionnamely, Amash and former Sen. Jeff Flakechose exit rather than continuing to lose arguments within and face voter hostility from without. Those who remainedMassie, Paul, Biggstend to derive visceral enjoyment from slinging the political bull and coloring outside the lines.

Paul and Massie are considerably more likely to ape Trump's language and selectively amplify his complaints about the Deep State, Fake News Media, and Swamp. And the House Freedom Caucusco-founded by Amash!has long since abandoned its original purpose as a check on executive power in favor of running Trump-protection, even to the distraction of holding the line on spending.

To the extent that there will be any libertarian values in a post-Trump GOP, they will be transmitted via Twitter-firehose from populists like Biggs: anti-war and anti-mask ("Seeing Fauci & Birx at the White House podium yet again brings back months of memories of their work to destroy American freedom and our society as we knew it," he tweeted this week), pro-border wall and pro-Section 230-rewrite.

The congressman's career arc in the age of Trump has drawn some negative reviews. "The descent of U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs into becoming just another partisan brawler has been painful, and disappointing, to watch," concluded Arizona Republic columnist Robert Robb. "Biggs has the talent, and had the opportunity, to be more than that." More from Robb:

As president of the Arizona Senate, Biggs was themost influential state legislator since Burton Barr, the House majority leader for two decades, from 1966 to 1986.

In Congress, he became apublic thought leader for conservatives.His commentary was forceful and sometimes biting. But it had some intellectual depth and focused mostly on substantive policy issues. It was generally more ideological than partisan, serving as much to influence the Republican position as to skewer the Democrats.

But: "With the defeat of Trump in the presidential election, Biggs has gone around the bend."

Biggs, obviously, has a different interpretation: that Trumpism is just getting started, bay-bee. From his Washington Times column:

While the left-wing media apparatus is giddy because to them the election looks like a smackdown of Mr.Trump, they are missing the fact that the president has remodeled the Republican Party and built an infrastructure that can be quite enduring. In fact, it is ironic that the Trump Party is emerging as the most potent force in American politics. It overcame seemingly endless amounts of money for its opponents, a cacophony of hateful media coverage and censorship of its message, and ultimately, what appears to be systemic cheating.

I wish Biggs all the success in the world in persuading the GOP to be more anti-war, anti-surveillance, and anti-spending. And I hope those values are not discredited by their association with partisan conspiracy-mongering.

Continue reading here:
'This Election Is a Joke,' Insists Libertarian-Leaning Congressman Andy Biggs - Reason

Over the course of a decades-long career, Dr. Anthony Fauci has worked for numerous presidential administrations, both Republican and Democrat. But this last president, Donald Trump, has stood out from the pack on account of being a flaming moron. For all the work Fauci has done to educate the public on how to stop the spread of COVID-19, namely by wearing masks and social distancing, Trump is out there spewing lies and telling the public that masks are bad and that the virus affects virtually no one, even though, in reality, it has killed more than 200,000 people in this country alone. But Trump isnt the only idiot whos made Faucis job protecting Americans more difficult; there are also the presidents supporters, who think the coronavirus is a hoax, and numerous Republican lawmakers who think they know more about infectious diseases than the guy whose literal title is director of theNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

One of those GOP lawmakers is Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky who may be best known for telling 9/11 victims to suck it and being beaten up by his neighbor. On Wednesday, as Fauci testified before Congress, Paul smugly asked him, Do you have any second thoughts about your mitigation recommendations considering the evidence that despite all of the things weve done in the U.S., our death rate is essentially worse than Sweden, equivalent to the less developed world that is unable to do any of the things that youve been promoting? Do you have any second thoughts, are you willing to look at the data that countries that did very little actually have a lower death rate than the United States?

You know, Senator, Fauci responded, Id be happy at a different time to sit down and go over detail, youve said a lot of different things, youve compared us to Sweden and there are a lot of differencescompare Swedens death rate to other comparable Scandinavian countries. Its worse. So I dont think its appropriate to compare Sweden with usin the beginning weve done things based on the knowledge we had at the time and hopefully, and I am, and my colleagues are humble enough and modest enough to realize that as new data comes you make different recommendations. But I dont regret saying that the only way we could have stopped the explosion of infection was by essentiallyhaving the physical separation and the kinds of recommendations that weve made.

Unfortunately, Paul, who believes its authoritarian to enforce rules meant to prevent people from dying a horrible death, wasnt finished. Youve been a big fan of Cuomo and the shutdown in New York, youve lauded New York for their policy, he said to Fauci. New York had the highest death rate in the world, how could we possibly be jumping up and down and saying, Oh, Governor Cuomo did a great job, he had the worst death rate in the world?

At this point, Fauci had had it with Paul, who apparently thinks having been an ophthalmologist before joining the Senate qualifies him to expound on infectious diseases. All but yelling Listen here, you little pissant, Fauci got the most visibly angry he has over the course of the entire pandemic. No, youve misconstrued that, Senator, and youve done that repetitively in the past, he said. [New York] got hit very badly, theyve made some mistakes. Right now, if you look at whats going on right now, the things that are going in New York to get their test positivity to 1% or less is because they are looking at the guidelines that we have put together from the task force of the four or five things of masks, social distancing, outdoors more than indoors, avoiding crowds, and washing hands.

Or theyve developed enough community immunity that theyre no longer having the pandemic because they have enough immunity to actually stop that, Paul shot back. Which Fauci was having absolutely none of, effectively telling the senator that his medical degree isnt worth the paper it was printed on, and if there happens to be another toilet paper shortage, it wouldnt be a sacrifice to use it as a wipe.

I challenge that, Senator, Fauci said, telling an interrupting lawmaker, Please sir, I would like to be able to do this because this happens with Senator Rand all the time. You are not listening to what the director of the CDC said. Because in New York its about 22%, if you believe that 22% is herd immunity I believe youre alone in that.

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Originally posted here:
Anthony Fauci Basically Calls Rand Paul a Shameless Moron to ...

Ryan W. Miller,Jessica Flores|USA TODAY

Flu shot: When to get the vaccine during coronavirus pandemic

Public health experts say this year everyone should get a flu shot, if possible.

The U.S. keeps smashing its own records for COVID-19 cases as the fall surge of the coronavirus is running rampant across the country.

On Thursday, a record 153,496 new COVID-19 cases were tallied in the U.S., just days after it had crossed the 100,000 daily new case threshold.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director ofNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, signaled some hope Thursday: The pandemicwon't be around "a lot longer," he said, butpublic health officials might need to "maintain control chronically" over COVID-19.

Meanwhile states and cities are clamping down and enacting new restrictions to slow the spread. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown will announce new coronavirus measures Friday, while Chicago MayorLori Lightfoot announced Thursdaya stay-at-home advisoryset to go into effect Monday morning.

A day after Texas became the first state to record at least 1 million cases of COVID-19, California also reached the same marker.Eleven counties there were ordered this week to drop a notch on the state's tiered reopening schedule.

Some major developments:

What we're reading: As COVID-19 infections soar, we're tracking new restrictions across the U.S.

Today's numbers:The U.S. has reported more than 10.5million cases and 242,400deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The global totals: 52.8millioncases and 1.29million deaths.

Mapping coronavirus:Track the U.S. outbreak in your state.

This file will be updated throughout the day. For updates in your inbox, subscribe toThe Daily Briefing newsletter.

There's no evidence people are immune from COVID-19 after they're first infected, but U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, once again said they are and advocated against experts' advice Thursday night when discussing people who have already had the deadly disease.

"We should tell them to celebrate," Paul told Fox News. "We should tell them to throw away their masks, go to restaurants, live again because these people are now immune."

In fact, as several doctors have noted and repeated after the Kentucky Republican's remarks, there is no evidence to suggest that those once infected by COVID-19 are immune from getting reinfected.

Ben Tobin, Louisville Courier Journal

After battling a spring surge in COVID-19 cases that devastated their health care system, Italian doctors are once again facing strains on their resources as they treat a new influx of patients amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"We are very close to not keeping up. I cannot say when we will reach the limit, but that day is not far off, Dr. Luca Cabrini, who runs the intensive care ward at Vareses Circolo hospital, the largest in the province of 1 million people northwest of Milan, told the Associated Press.

Cabrini said that while ICU beds are filling up as they did in the spring, doctors are also facing strains in wards caring for less ill patients who may be younger but require care for longer stretches.

As of Wednesday, 52% of Italys hospital beds were occupied by COVID-19 patients, above the 40% warning threshold set by the Health Ministry.The Italian doctors federation called this week for a nationwide lockdown, too.

The United States on Thursday reported more than 150,000 coronavirus cases in a day for the first time, just nine days after it reported 100,000 cases for the first time, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

The United States reported the record 153,496 cases on Thursday. At that rate, the United States reported about 107 cases every minute.

It's not clear how well the case data reflects the size of the fall surge. In South Dakota and Iowa, most tests are coming back positive, data from The COVID Tracking Project suggests. That organization does not release numbers on percentages of tests that come back positive because of wildly different ways they can be calculated, and there is no one U.S. standard.

However, health officials generally have pushed for testing rates under 5%, and by some calculations, 40 states are worse than that mark.

Mike Stucka

The holiday season is upon us and so is another surge of the coronavirus pandemic. So what's a family to do?

While somestate and city officials have advised against large family gatherings, folks may still be trying to find a way to spend time with loved ones this fall and welcoming students back into the fold.

Dr. Adam Jarrett, who serves as the chief medical officer at Holy Name Medical Center in New Jersey, said that the safest way to try to gather would be to get tested and then truly self-quarantine for 10 days to two weeks.

With Thanksgiving falling on Nov. 26, that means quarantine should begin now.

Thats the only way that we can be pretty close to 100% safe, Jarrett said.

Katie Sobko, The Bergen Record

Counties in which Power Five schools are located have seen an even larger spike in COVID-19 cases than the nationwide average, adata analysis conducted by Emory's Rollins School of Public Health for USA TODAY found.

Communities in the Big Ten and Big 12 are experiencing the most dramatic increases in their seven-day averages of daily new cases per 100,000 residents, the analysis found.

All told, 59 of the 64 counties that host Power Five schools saw an increase in their average number of daily cases from Nov. 3 to Tuesday. Collectively, the counties reported an increase of 45%.

The spike in cases has wrecked havoc on college football schedules throughout the country particularly this week. In the Southeastern Conference alone, four games involving ranked teams have been canceled in recent days due to COVID-19 concerns.

Tom Schad, and Jim Sergent

By medical standards,Nicole Worthley is considered extraordinarily rare. She was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 31 and again in September.

But she can't prove she had COVID-19 twice. That requires genetic testing of both infections, which has only happened a few dozen times in the world and never in South Dakota where she lives.

Many states keeptrack of claims of reinfection but they are still considered extremely unusual, according to health experts.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that it is investigating some possible reinfections but has not yet confirmed any. It only considers infections more than 90 days apart to be possible reinfections; otherwise, someone's illness is likely a lingering infection.

How long the body can fight COVID-19 offhas implications for the longevity and effectiveness of vaccines,the possibility of communities developing so-called herd immunitywhere the virus no longer spreads because so many people have already been infected, and how those infected once should feel and behave. Read more here.

Karen Weintraub

A Texas appeals court in El Paso has put a temporary stop toEl Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego's order shutting down nonessential businesses in El Paso County.

The Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso on Thursday granted requests totemporarily halt the order. The requests were made by the Texas Attorney General's Office and a group of 10 El Paso restaurant companies, who argue that Samaniego's order is illegal because it is counter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Oct. 7 order tied to reopening Texas businesses.

The court, in a 2-1 decision,ruled several sections of Samaniego's order cannot be enforced, including shutting down nonessential businesses,until the court makes its final judgment, which is expected Friday.

We exercise our discretion to preserve the status quo as it existed just prior to the issuance of the countys later, more restrictive Stay-at-Home Order until the court makes its final judgment, the court ruled.

Vic Kolenc and Eleanor Dearman, El Paso Times

More than 2,000 nurses represented by a union planto go on strike next week as a surge in coronavirus cases continuesto overwhelm hospitals nationwide.

InBucks County, more than760 nurses atSt. Mary Medical Center will go on strike starting Tuesday unless they reach a contract with the hospital's owner Trinity Health. In Philadelphia, some 500 nurses at St. Christophers Hospital for Children and about 1,000 atEinstein Medical Center have also authorized to strike, the New York Times reported.

Nurses are stretched so thin, and I know theyre not able to get where they need to be," Maria Plano,a nurse at St. Christophers and the unions vice president, told CBS Philly. "We need some kind of guidelines where nurses are in the discussion and helping to make the decisions."

In a statement last week, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals saidnurses are being "pushed to the brink by unsafe staffing that seriously undermines patient safety, the newspaper reported.

With coronavirus cases in the U.S. reaching an all-time highthis week, the Ivy Leagueannounced Thursday that it is shutting down its entire 2020-21 winter sports season.

"With the health andwell-being of student-athletes andthe greater campus community in mind, The Ivy League Presidents decide to forego athletics competition in fall and winter sports, postpone competition in spring sports through February 2021," the league wrotein a statement posted to Twitter.

In July, the Ivy League was the first conference to announce the cancellation of its fall sports seasonas a result of the pandemic. Meanwhile, other conferences have run into multiple roadblocks in an attempt to continue their fall seasons.

Steve Gardner

Costco, which was one of the first retailers to mandate shoppers wear masks amid thecoronavirus pandemic, is updating its face mask policy. Starting Monday, the wholesale club says itwill require all members, guests and employees to weara face mask or face shield with the exception of children under 2.

"Members and guests must wear a face mask that covers their mouth and nose at all times," Costco said on itsCOVID-19 updates page. "Individuals who are unable to wear a face mask due to a medical condition must wear a face shield. ... Entry to Costco will be granted only to those wearing a face mask or face shield."

Costco's original policy went into effect in early Mayand didn't require shoppers with medical conditions to wear masks.

Kelly Tyko

SeaDream Yacht Club's SeaDream I, oneof the first cruise ships to ply through Caribbean waters since the pandemic began, ended its trip early after at least five passengers tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Thursday.

The SeaDream I is carrying 66 crew and more than 50 passengers, with the majority of passengers hailing from the U.S. according to Sue Bryant, who is aboard the ship and is a cruise editor for The Times and The Sunday Times in Britain.

She told The Associated Press that one passenger became sick on Wednesday and forced the ship to turn back to Barbados, where it had departed from on Saturday. However, the ship had yet to dock in Barbados as local authorities tested those on board. The captain announced that at least five passengers have tested positive, Bryant said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Continued here:
Coronavirus updates: US breaks record again with 153K new cases; states, cities are renewing restrictions; Pennsylvania nurses set to strike - Fall...

By Barbara Starr and Zachary Cohen, CNN

(CNN) -- US military commanders are anticipating that a formal order will be given by President Donald Trump as soon as this week to begin a further withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq before Trump leaves office on January 20, according to two US officials familiar.

The Pentagon has issued a notice to commanders known as a "warning order" to begin planning to drawdown the number of troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 troops and 2,500 in Iraq by Jan 15, the officials said. Currently there are approximately 4,500 US troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 troops in Iraq.

The Pentagon and White House did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

While Monday's news indicates that the Pentagon appears ready to remove thousands more US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, it also suggests that Trump may fall short of fulfilling one of his core promises to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan before he leaves office.

On October 7 Trump tweeted: "We should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas!"

Then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper sent a classified memo earlier this month to the White House asserting that it was the unanimous recommendation of the chain of command that the US not draw down its troop presence in Afghanistan any further until conditions were met, sources familiar with the memo tell CNN.

The assessment from the chain of command -- Esper, US Central Command leader Marine Gen. Kenneth "Frank" McKenzie and commander of NATO's mission in Afghanistan Gen. Austin Miller -- stated that the necessary conditions had not been met. Others agreed, sources tell CNN, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

The memo is believed to have been one of the main reasons why Trump fired Esper last week.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not criticize Trump directly Monday while discussing the drawdown plans but warned of the potential ramifications of a rapid withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, saying it would "hurt our allies."

"We're playing a limited -- limited -- but important role in defending American national security and American interests against terrorists who would like nothing more than for the most powerful force for good in the world to simply pick up our ball and go home," he said in a speech from the Senate floor.

"There's no American who does not wish the war in Afghanistan against terrorists and their enablers had already been conclusively won," he said. "But that does not change the actual choice before us now. A rapid withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan now would hurt our allies and delight -- delight -- the people who wish us harm."

The decision to pull additional troops out of Iraq comes as the Trump administration has moved to reduce the US military's footprint there in recent months.

The US commander in the Middle East announced a drawdown of US troops in Iraq from 5,200 to 3,000 in September.

In March, US forces began pulling back from bases across Iraq, turning them over to Iraqi security partners. At the time, Pentagon officials insisted that the base hand-offs were part of a long-planned consolidation that reflected the success of the anti-ISIS fight -- not concerns over the ongoing rocket attacks by Iran-linked proxy militias.

US military officials have long stressed that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan should be conditions based, including the Taliban breaking its ties to al Qaeda and making progress in peace talks with the Afghan government, two conditions that have yet to be met.

But despite the lack of progress, the Trump administration has already substantially reduced US troops in the country by more than 50%, recently bringing the number of US military personnel there down to about 4,500, the lowest levels since the earliest days of the post 9/11 campaign.

Trump made bringing American troops home a theme of his reelection campaign but the future of US forces in Afghanistan has remained uncertain amid the mixed messages coming from the administration.

National security adviser Robert O'Brien has advocated for a more accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan irrespective of conditions on the ground, something made more feasible by the installation of White House loyalists in senior defense posts.

Milley had pushed back on an earlier announcement from O'Brien suggesting an aggressive timeline for troop withdrawals that appeared to be irrespective of conditions.

"Robert O'Brien, or anyone else, can speculate as they see fit, I am not going to engage in speculation, I'm going to engage in the rigorous analysis of the situation based on the conditions and the plans that I'm aware of in my conversations with the President," Milley told NPR on October 11.

Sweeping changes at the Pentagon last week have put Trump loyalists in place and knowledgeable sources told CNN's Jake Tapper last week that the White House-directed purge at the Defense Department may have been motivated by the fact that former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and his team were pushing back on a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan that would be carried out before the required conditions on the ground were met.

Those changes included installing an ardent opponent of the US military's presence in Afghanistan, who once called for the use of lethal force against illegal immigrants and has made a litany of racist comments, as a senior adviser at the Pentagon.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Wednesday that retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor "will be serving as a Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense. Mr. MacGregor's decades of military experience will be used to assist in the continued implementation of the President's national security priorities."

Macgregor has been a vocal opponent of the US military's mission in Afghanistan and has called for a total withdrawal of US troops and the American Embassy despite the continued presence of terrorist groups there.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky who is a strong advocate of withdrawing US troops welcomed the appointment.

"I am very pleased @realDonaldTrump asked my friend Col. Doug Macgregor to help quickly end the war in Afghanistan. This and other picks for Pentagon are about getting the right people who will finally help him stop our endless wars," Paul tweeted.

Trump also fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper last week in a tweet, replacing him with Christopher Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

In one of his first moves as acting Defense Secretary, Miller sent a seemingly contradictory message to the force on Friday, saying the US must continue its battle against al Qaeda and the terrorist forces behind 9/11 while also saying it was time to bring troops home.

"This war isn't over," Miller wrote in his message. "We are on the verge of defeating al Qaida and it's associates, but we must avoid our past strategic error of failing to see the fight through to the finish."

"Indeed, this fight has been long, our sacrifices have been enormous, and many are weary of war -- I'm one of them -- but this is the critical phase in which we transition our efforts from a leadership to supporting role," he wrote in reference to the current US role of supporting counterterrorism campaigns such as the one in Afghanistan.

"All wars must end. Ending wars requires compromise and partnership. We met the challenge; we gave it our all. Now, it's time to come home," Miller added.

O'Brien and US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad are expected to discuss the troop drawdown plans during a meeting Monday, two State Department officials told CNN.

Khalilizad recently returned to Washington from a trip to Turkey where he met with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlt avuolu and other Turkish officials. They discussed mutual concerns about the levels of violence in Afghanistan, according to a readout from the State Department.

State Department officials knew it was possible Trump could order an additional troop drawdown in Afghanistan but did not know that the Pentagon had sent this warning order, two State Department officials said.

Some State Department officials believed that because Trump did not order further troop withdraws before the election it was unlikely that there would be more during the rest of his administration.

But last month Khalilizad said the conditions will dictate further withdrawals.

"If conditions are right, we are committed to withdrawing. But if the conditions are not right, we don't have to withdraw," Khalilizad said in an NPR interview at the time.

This story has been updated with additional reporting Monday.

The-CNN-Wire & 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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US military anticipates Trump will issue order to plan for further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq - WDJT

In the wake of a Facebook ban and dimming electoral hopes for President Trump, the Stop the Steal movement is finding a home on smaller platforms and in-person rallies. A movement supporting Trumps false claims of election fraud and hoping to halt the ongoing vote-certification process, Stop the Steal groups are currently promoting pro-Trump rallies in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia, and organizing through platforms like Parler and Discord.

President Trump has the votes, wrote Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter newly elected to Congress, on Parler. But the Democrats, Big Tech, and the Fake News Media are trying to STEAL this election. You and I cannot let that happen! This is the biggest VOTER FRAUD operation in American history...STOP THE STEAL. Greene has 16,000 followers on the app.

The Stop the Steal Facebook group, which launched on Wednesday, was filled with similar election misinformation about Democrats rigging the vote. It was organized by Republican operatives and had ties to the tea party, according to Mother Jones. The group grew to over 300,000 members in less than 48 hours only to be banned by Facebook once moderators caught on. Over that short period, the group became a central hub for election misinformation, leaving users to look for new places to organize in the wake of the ban.

Facebook and TikTok have also moved to block hashtags that were used to spread election conspiracy theories on Thursday, like #StoptheSteal. Twitter told The Verge that it was proactively monitoring them. Big Techs efforts to curb voting misinformation have led users to organize on different platforms. On YouTube, One American News Network (OANN) posted videos declaring that Trump won the election, which YouTube limited somewhat but did not block outright.

Organizers have found the most success on Parler, a social network designed for conservatives put off by moderation practices of the major platforms. On Thursday, there were 8,697 posts on Parler with the #StopTheSteal hashtag. Many of these posts also mentioned without evidence the silencing of conservatives on Facebook and Twitter. Videos of Stop the Steal protests got upwards of 2,000 votes (Parlers version of likes). The hashtag #VoterFraud had 18,426 posts, much of it focused on unfounded rumors regarding Democrats tampering with the vote.

The lax moderation standards have proved attractive for conservatives like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) as well as former congressional candidate and right-wing conspiracist Laura Loomer who was previously banned on Twitter. The app, which launched in 2018, has added 4 million users this year, growing by 1 million in the past six weeks alone.

Parler differentiates itself from Facebook and Twitter in its refusal to moderate content the big tech platforms have banned, including hate speech and misinformation. The apps community guidelines prohibit unlawful acts but little else. A spokesperson for the app told The Verge that he believes users spreading misinformation will only damage their own reputation and does not believe in content moderation rules even for extreme content like Holocaust denial. I trust the system, he told The Verge, and dont worry about the outliers.

On Parler, the person with the handle @StopTheSteal shared unfounded rumors about voter fraud and urged followers to show up at Stop the Steal rallies across the United States. He also set up a Discord where users ranted about censorship on the big tech platforms, which does not actually exist, and promoted stop the count protests in Los Angeles and Norwalk, California.

At a rally at the capitol building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump supporters carried signs reading Stop the Steal and waved American flags. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) joined the event, telling supporters, We want the ballots and the votes that are counted to be legal, to be valid. The comments insinuate this isnt the case although theres no evidence to support that viewpoint.

Some affiliated groups have been stoked by seasoned political operatives, although most have few firm ties to the Republican Party. Right Wing Watch reported this week that some Stop the Steal events trace back to a Roger Stone associate named Ali Alexander, who launched a similar but less successful campaign in 2018. Alexander said in a Periscope stream on Wednesday that he was organizing thousands and thousands and thousands of people to attend rallies in contested districts across the country.

Progressive groups seeking to encourage the continued counting of votes have also started to organize over social media. Count Every Vote rallies have been held in states like New York and Pennsylvania over the last few days. Larger coalitions, like Protect the Results, have not activated their over 150 groups into mobilization but said on Thursday that it remains vigilant.

As millions of votes are counted and with Joe Bidens lead in several key states growing, the Protect the Results coalition is announcing that it will not be activating the entire national mobilization network [Thursday], but remains ready to activate if necessary, the organization said in a statement on Thursday. While the coalition will not be activating its national network, some local organizers may still hold Count Every Vote events in their community.

The app has become particularly active during the week of the 2020 election, when Facebook and Twitter went to greater lengths to stamp out misinformation about the vote. SoCal Trump Train Events & Rallies, a Facebook group with 12,100 members, urged people to join them on Parler on Thursday in anticipation of getting shut down.

In a statement emailed to The Verge, a spokesperson for Discord said: We are aware of the server referenced. At this stage, it has not broken any of our community guidelines. More broadly, Discord is proactively monitoring our entire service for election mis- and dis-information that may lead to real-world harm. We take swift action when we become aware of these issues including banning users, servers, and when appropriate, contacting the proper authorities.

Update November 6th, 8:57PM ET: Article updated with statement from Discord.

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Stop the Steal spreads across the internet after infecting Facebook - The Verge