Leader of ISIS in Afghanistan was killed in a US raid.

A wounded victim of the March 2017 assault on a military hospital in Afghanistan. AFP. 

Abdul Hasib, the leader of ISIS in Afghanistan, had been killed in a major joint US and Afghan commando raid. AFP. Hasib was the 2nd leader of the group in Afghanistan killed in 9 months. Hasib was responsible for ordering a raid on an Afghan hospital that killed 50 people. The raid launched to kill Hasib was successful and though there were civilians at the compound, none were killed in the raid. ISIS has had some success in Afghanistan and has taken territory in Nagharhar and Kunar provinces and at a peak had 3000 fighters in the country. That number has been reduced to 800 after a series of air raids and battles with the Afghan government and the Taliban. Two US commandos were killed in the raid that killed Hasib. 

My Comment:

It seems clear what Donald Trump's plan for Afghanistan is now. For a long time I have been critical of Trump, and everyone else for that matter, for not having a plan in Afghanistan. It seems now that we know what Trump's plan is and it is primarily to destroy ISIS. Instead of focusing on defeating the Taliban or saving the Afghan government, our main priority is taking out the ISIS presence in the country. 

So for Trump has been doing a fairly good job at accomplishing that goal. This mission against the leader of ISIS in Afghanistan was a good success, even if it did cost two American lives. Abdul Hasib may have been a bit player in the larger ISIS organization, but he was still in charge of ISIS in Afghanistan. Taking him out so soon after killing the last leader of ISIS in Afghanistan and after the brutal MOAB strike is a huge blow for ISIS. 

And he was an absolutely brutal terrorist. The attack on that Afghan military hospital was one of the worst terror attacks in recent history. There is something really disgusting about ordering an attack on a bunch of wounded and sick soldiers who can't defend themselves. I am very glad that one of the men responsible for that attack was brought to justice. 

I think Trump's recent attacks on ISIS in Afghanistan, including the recent raid and the MOAB bombing, have been effective and serve a larger purpose in the greater war against ISIS globally. There has always been a great fear that after ISIS is defeated and destroyed in Iraq and Syria, they will simply move to somewhere else. The original plan was to go to Libya, but thanks to US intervention and local fighters, that plan has been stopped and ISIS has been largely wiped out there.

Afghanistan was the second logical choice. ISIS controls a bit of territory in Afghanistan and the United States hasn't had much luck in stabilizing the country. It would make a very good place for ISIS to regroup and rearm after they are defeated in Iraq and Syria. The massive battles happening between Afghanistan and the Taliban create a huge opening for ISIS to exploit the chaos and create a 2nd home. 

Will Trump's moves against ISIS be enough though? I think it's fair to say that ISIS has suffered one hell of a bloody nose. With their leadership dying and their ground troops reduced and disorganized, they are on the backfoot for sure. They are also involved in a three way war against both the Taliban and the Afghan government, which is fairly difficult proposition under the best of times.  

The problem is that without a larger plan against the Taliban, it won't make much of a difference. The Afghan government is under siege and faces a major possibility of falling completely to the Taliban. They are taking unsustainable casualties and are rapidly losing territory. 

That means that even if every ISIS fighter in Afghanistan is killed, they will still have a massive opening caused by the fall of the Afghan government. ISIS thrives on instability and right now Afghanistan is one of the most unstable countries in the world. 

But I don't know what we can do about it. The Afghan government needs fighters and weapons and I don't see them getting much of either. They could probably win if we deployed 10,000 troops, but there is zero appetite for that in either the Trump administration or the American people. It just seems like a cause we can't win. 

The only option seems to be the one the Trump White House is taking. Instead of trying to stop the Taliban, we are focused like a laser on ISIS fighters in the country. If we do kill most of their leadership and fighters we can at least hope that they don't take over if and when the Afghan government falls... 

A few quick thoughts on the French Election...

French Candidates Marine Le Pen (left) and Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen via Wikipedia user Foto-AG. Marcon via Flickr

As you are probably aware of, the French presidential election is underway in France today. In many ways it is a mirror of the United States last presidential elections, only with the genders reversed. Far right, Front National candidate Marine Le Pen is up against center left En Marche! candidate Emmanuel Macron. If there are two better proxies out there for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton out there, respectively, I have yet to find them. 

I don't have a whole lot to say about the candidates themselves. Although I tend to like Le Pen better on policy, she is a bit further to the right then I am normally comfortable with. Unlike me, she is a strong opponent of gay marriage, while I am mostly ambivalent to the issue. I still like her way better than any leftist and that is Macron's role in this election. Indeed, if I had to choose between the two, there is no way I would ever vote for Macron.  

Who do I think will win? Though we have seen several populist upsets in recent elections, I don't see Le Pen pulling this one off. She's popular enough among the young French people, but the older generations hate her because of her father. Jean-Marie Le Pen had several political scandals when he was the leader of Front National, including accusations of antisemitism. Unlike most accusations levied against conservative politicians, there was quite a bit of fire to the smoke since he had actively denied the Holocaust and has claimed that other politicians were on the payroll of Jewish organizations. Marine Le Pen however is not an antisemite as far as I have been able to tell and I would hope that people would realize that the sins of the father shouldn't be passed down to the daughter. 

As for Marcon, he mainly stayed scandal free until the very last minute. Mere minutes before the standard media blackouts that France imposes during elections, a hacker posted e-mails from his campaign on 4chan's /pol/ board (remember when I said that /pol/ is the most influential political forum in the world?). Some of those e-mails have damning accusations of corruption, tax evasion and even drugs, though they haven't been confirmed for sure yet. For their part, Wikileaks thinks they are valid, but it's still early to tell. I think, personally, that they are probably legit. 

We have not yet discovered fakes in #MacronLeaks & we are very skeptical that the Macron campaign is faster than us https://t.co/jX7GPTW9uC

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 5, 2017

The timing of the hack seems very suspicious and I have to wonder why it didn't come out sooner? You would think that if this release was to help Le Pen win, it would have happened a few weeks ago. Right now the press is banned from talking about the leaks (which just strikes me as both stupid and a violation of civil rights) and there has been very little time for people to go through them. People who are on social media will read the leaks as they are analyzed, but not everyone follows social media.

It almost seems like someone expects Le Pen to lose and is only trying to tar Macron when he takes office. They know that Le Pen won't likely win and that these emails won't help her that much. But if the accusations of corruption are true than Macron will be a crippled president. Had the leaks came out earlier, Le Pen might have had a chance, but right now she probably won't win.

Why? Well, I know the polls have been very wrong lately, but there is a huge difference between the few percentage point leads that "stay" had in Brexit and Clinton had in the 2016 presidential election. Those polls were only off by a few points, but Le Pen is down by almost 20 points in most of the polls. That's not a margin that someone is likely to beat, even if there are "shy" Le Pen voters and even with the email scandal. My guess is that she loses and that Macron ends up as a crippled president mired in scandal even before he is sworn in.

I'm not going to speculate on who is responsible for the hacking attack. The media likes to blame Russia, and I admit that it could be them, but another possibility is that someone in the United States intel community dropped this, either for personal reasons or because they were directed to do so. Remember, we know that the CIA spied on every candidate in the 2012 French elections, there is no reason to assume that stopped. It's even possible that it wasn't even a state actor, but it could be a lone hacker or a leaker that published these e-mails.

Finally, I probably won't be able to cover this story much today, even on Twitter. I have to work some mandatory overtime tonight and will be busy, unfortunately. I will be reading up on the election whenever time predicts and may have a post up Monday morning if something shocking happens. Until then, I wish France the best of luck with this election.

I've been vindicated yet again when it comes to the claim that rape and domestic violence victims won't be denied coverage under the ACHA

Protesters in Washington DC. Washington Post/AP

On Thursday I wrote a post about the fake news flying around that rape and domestic abusers would lose coverage under the new ACHA healthcare law that is set to replace Obamacare. That post can be found here. I got a TON of push back on that post by a few people that claimed I didn't have enough evidence for my claim. Despite the fact that I read the law and posted a link to the MacArthur Amendment. And then provided even more evidence that yes, I was indeed right. 

Despite that, I wasn't believed and the fake news has continued to spread like wildfire. Thankfully, the Washington Post, who have their own political agenda that I rarely agree with, actually backed me up. Their fact checker series of articles put out a new edition and gave the claim four Pinocchio's, which is as strong as that scale goes, only to be used on actual fake news. That article backed up everything I said and actually covered some things that I wasn't aware of that makes the story even less plausible. 

Once gain, the Post article states what I stated as well. Nobody can be denied coverage for preexisting conditions, no matter what. Under some very specific circumstances a state can charge more for plans if and only if they have applied for a waiver, the waiver has been approved after undergoing evaluation that shows it would help and if they have set up a high risk pool. And the higher fees, which would be subsidized by the federal and state governments, would only be charged to new applicants and those who have been without health coverage for 63 days. Nobody with insurance now would be affected as long as they continued their insurance plan. 

All of that should have been obvious from the amendment itself and it should have also been what was reported. Instead, social media and even a few "credible" sources, like CNN and NPR (I won't link to them but you can find them easily enough) gave fake accounts saying that people could be dropped from their insurance due to preexisting coverage and that victims of rape and domestic abuse could end up in the high risk pools. I said in the last post that what determined what would be considered a preexisting condition would be up to the insurance companies since they would be in charge of defining the term, but I also said that I couldn't imagine that the loophole wouldn't be plugged before the law was passed. 

Guess what? It turns out that the loophole has already been fixed in the vast majority of states. 45 states have a blanket ban on using a woman's history of domestic abuse as a preexisting condition and I assume, or at least hope, that would also cover male victims. For rape only two states do not already have laws banning the use of rape as a preexisting condition. The two states that don't, Vermont and Idaho, might be a problem, but considering the combined population of those two states is about 2 million people, this isn't a problem that would affect that many people. 

The Post has a great quote about how many different things would need to occur for this to even be a concern, and I am just going to quote it verbatim: 

"At least 45 states prohibit insurance discrimination like this. Then, it takes several leaps of imagination to assume that survivors of rape and sexual assault will face higher premiums as a result of conditions relating to their abuse. A person would need to be in the individual or small-group market (most Americans under 65 are on employer-provided plans), in a state that sought waivers, and in one of two to five states that did not prohibit insurance-company discrimination against survivors of sexual abuse."

And:

"In other words, this claim relies on so many factors — including unknown decisions by a handful of states and insurance companies — that this talking point becomes almost meaningless."

So in other words, I was right, the news was wrong and there are people out there that probably owe me an apology. I am not expecting to get one anytime soon though. And I also expect that the fake news about this story will continue to spread like wildfire, my efforts, and the efforts of real journalists at the Washington Post (and you have no idea how much it pains me to say that) will probably be all for naught. All I can do is try, and if more people would do what I and the Washington Post did, we would all be better off. 

Another cool 360 video involving Russian MIG 29's.

A screencap from the video.

RT has a cool 360 video showing a group of MIG 29's in close formation. The jets are training for the May 9th Victory Day Parade. The fighters come from Russia's "Swifts" and "Russian Knights" demonstration teams. I figured I could post it here for everyone to enjoy. I personally really like these 360 videos, even when it isn't aviation related, but the technique really shines when they use it in planes. 

Ok sure, it's Russian propaganda, but that doesn't change the fact that it is cool!  Video below:

Will rape victims lose health coverage under the ACHA? Nope.

As you probably know Congress passed the ACHA, the GOP led effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Almost immediately, hysterical headlines popped up in my news feed saying that people could lose their healthcare coverage if they get raped or worse. I won't link to those articles because they are, without a doubt, fake news.

First of all, nobody is going to lose coverage for preexisting conditions. The whole idea is stupid because the preexisting condition term was used before Obamacare ONLY for new applicants. Plus the new ACHA law has a provision that all plans under Obamacare, even employer offered ones, are grandfathered in. In short, there is no reason you should lose your coverage for any reason other than you not making your payments or if you lose your job.

So what if you are a new applicant looking for coverage? Will you not get it if you have been raped? Of course not. The MacArthur amendment specifically states that the ban on preexisting conditions is still in effect. Nobody can be denied coverage if they have a preexisting coverage, it is super illegal and it will not happen.

What will happen though? Well there is a provision that says that if a state government applies for it they can get a waiver for community rating rules if they can prove that it will get more people enrolled or lower costs.  Once that is proven they can allow higher premiums for preexisting conditions, but only if they establish a state "high risk" pool or join a federal one. Those pools will be subsidized with $100 billion to help lower the costs.

So here is what could potentially happen if you get raped:

-if and only if you don't have coverage already and try to buy new insurance.
-if an only if your state has applied for a waiver on community rating rules
-if and only if the feds have approved that waiver
-if and only if the state has proven that the waiver will lower costs or get more people enrolled into health care

Then you might have to pay more in coverage, which will be subsidized by the federal and state governments. That's it. That's a huge if, and nowhere does that say that people who get raped will be denied coverage. And there is also the huge assumption that the insurance companies would want to deal with the negative press and public outcry of considering rape a "preexisting condition". Would they do that? Well they did in the past in a few cases and it was one of the reasons that Obamacare was passed. People hate it and I am guessing that it won't happen again in the future. It also makes very little sense medically, so I am guessing it won't be considered anymore.

Nowhere in the ACHA that I have seen says that rape should be considered a preexisting condition. The fact that outlets are reporting that as if it is true and not just something that hasn't been specifically banned is libelous and very misleading. Indeed, even before Obamacare, it was only a few insurance companies that considered it to be so.

And, most importantly, all of these articles fail to point out that this is only the first version of the bill. It still has to go through the Senate and from what I understand their bill is going to be radically different and may not even include the MacArthur amendment. Then the bill has to be signed by President Trump. I doubt these things are likely to happen without addressing the potential problem with rape being counted as a preexisting condition, especially now.

 I agree though that the potential for rape victims to be pushed into the preexisting condition high risk pool is terrible and should be addressed. It's clearly something that should never happen, even if the conditions for it are extremely unlikely. The Senate should, at the very least, make it damn sure that rape or domestic abuse isn't used as a category for preexisting conditions. Feel free to get pissed about that and contact your Senators if you want it changed.

 I personally think that the ACHA isn't going to pass through the Senate and that this whole discussion is moot. Still, it's important to confront fake news when you see it. There is plenty to discuss, good and bad, about the ACHA. But people being denied coverage, or even worse, losing it for being raped? Totally fake news. We do need to do something about the potential for higher rates for rape, but that's a hugely different issue and one that isn't likely either way.