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Riot Games to Pay $100 Million in Gender Discrimination Case

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Riot Games, the video game maker behind popular titles like League of Legends and Valorant, said on Monday evening that it had agreed to pay $100 million to settle a gender discrimination suit with more than 2,000 current and former female employees.

The class-action lawsuit, which was filed in 2018, was originally on track for a $10 million settlement, but in early 2020 two California employment agencies took the unusual step of intervening to block the settlement, arguing that the women could be entitled to over $400 million. Separate of the lawsuit, the state had been investigating the company after claims of sexual harassment, discrimination, unequal pay and retaliation against women.

If the settlement is approved by the Los Angeles Superior Court, it will “send the message that all industries in California, including the gaming industry, must provide equal pay and workplaces free from discrimination and harassment,” Kevin Kish, the director of the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, said in a statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, more than 1,000 full-time employees and 1,300 contractors dating back to November 2014 would split $80 million, with an additional $20 million going to lawyers’ fees and other costs. Riot also agreed to fund a diversity and inclusion program and consented to a three-year, third-party analysis of gender equity in employee pay and job assignments, as well as to an audit of workplace investigations.

“We believe this is the right thing to do, for both the company and those whose experiences at Riot fell short of our standards and values,” the company said in a statement. Riot added that it had improved its company culture over the past three years and hoped that “demonstrates our desire to lead by example in our industry.”

Riot, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant Tencent, is one of the world’s most prominent gaming publishers. Its flagship League of Legends game made nearly $2 billion in revenue last year, according to an estimate from the research firm SuperData, which was the gaming research division at Nielsen.

But like many other gaming publishers — including Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard — Riot has also contended with frequent accusations of harassment and a work environment that women described as sexist and toxic.

This year, Riot’s chief executive, Nicolo Laurent, was sued over claims he sexually harassed his former executive assistant. That case is still pending. A committee formed by the company’s board of directors later said it had found no evidence of the claims against Mr. Laurent.

In an email to the company’s employees viewed by The New York Times, sent minutes before the settlement announcement, Mr. Laurent wrote that the timing “isn’t ideal” but that the “final details of the agreement came together quickly.” He said he hoped the settlement “symbolizes a moment where we move forward as a united company.”

The proposed settlement on Monday was hailed as a win for women at Riot.

“I hope this case serves as an example for other studios and an inspiration for women in the industry at large,” one plaintiff, Jes Negron, said in a statement issued through a lawyer. “Women in gaming do not have to suffer inequity and harassment in silence — change is possible.”

Better Living Through Stoicism, From Seneca to Modern Interpreters

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Stoicism is also a protocol of attentiveness, which makes it an attractive remedy for those who feel absented and estranged from themselves or the world. One of the recommended practices is the “daily review,” in which you take a moment each evening to reflect on the previous waking hours. The idea is not to flog yourself for mistakes but to acknowledge them with future improvements in mind. I find this to be a crafty psychological maneuver: Knowing, each morning, that I’ll have to reflect upon my day in detail that evening functions as a prophylactic against messing up too badly. (Sometimes.)

To the Stoics, lack of attentiveness amounted to psychological slavery. Both Epictetus, a former slave whose name means “owned,” and Seneca used the metaphor with an intent to startle. (Epictetus in particular enjoyed telling his wealthy aristocratic students that they were “slaves.”) The modern equivalent is probably the framework of addiction; today you’re less likely to complain about being “enslaved” by your phone than “addicted” to it. In both metaphors the absence of self-mastery and freedom derive from an external agent: for the enslaved person, his owner; for the addict, his substance.

When I first read Seneca in translation a few years ago, what I noted was less the content than the easygoing conversational style. “I am far from being a tolerable person, much less a perfect one,” he admitted to his friend Lucilius, to whom the “Letters From a Stoic” are addressed. I loved how he ended all of his dispatches with the word “Farewell” (vale in Latin), and it occurred to me at the time that “farewell” would make a nice email valediction, offering more warmth than a simple dash and communicating politeness without the formality of “best” or the mawkishness of “sincerely” or the overpromise of “yours.” I liked the way Seneca’s letters delivered their lessons succinctly, with no throat-clearing at the start or denouement at the finish. After a spiel about education in Letter 88, for example, he wraps up with:

“I cannot readily say whether I am more vexed at those who would have it that we know nothing, or with those who would not leave us even this privilege. Farewell.”

When I revisited the Stoics at the onset of the pandemic, it was with the more serious intention of seeking instruction at a time of fear. But it was Seneca, again, who vibrated my heartstrings. His “Letters” were written to Lucilius while the latter was undergoing what we’d now call a midlife crisis, and they brim with both affection and rigor. “There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us,” Seneca wrote. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

Some contemporary proponents of Stoicism, like Massimo Pigliucci, present it as a strategy for living a meaningful secular existence, as though Stoicism might be swapped in for religion like Lactaid for regular milk. (Got a God intolerance? Try Epictetus!) Many emphasize the philosophy’s practical orientation. In “Breakfast With Seneca,” David Fideler calls it a “supremely practical philosophy.” In “The Daily Stoic,” Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman propose Stoicism as “a set of practical tools meant for daily use.”

It would be a mistake to conflate “practical” with “easy.” As Pigliucci points out in “How to Be a Stoic,” “Philosophy is no miracle cure, and it should not be treated as one.” Pigliucci’s book does an excellent job writing about each stage of wrestling with a philosophical system, starting with what I’d call the “life hack” stage and progressing through the interrogation stage, the reconciling-of-internal-contradictions (especially between the earlier Greek Stoics and the later Roman Stoics) stage and, finally, into the actual adoption of Stoic exercises, of which he offers a large menu.

U.S. move to shorten COVID-19 isolation stirs confusion, doubt

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WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials’ decision to shorten the recommended COVID-19 isolation and quarantine period from 10 days to five is drawing criticism from some medical experts and could create confusion among many Americans.

The move has raised questions about how the guidance was crafted and why it was changed now, in the middle of another wintertime spike in cases, this one driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant.

Monday’s action by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut in half the recommended isolation time for Americans who are infected with the coronavirus but have no symptoms. The CDC similarly shortened the amount of time people who have come into close contact with an infected person need to quarantine.

The new guidance was issued amid warnings from the business community that the spike in cases could soon cause widespread staffing shortages because of workers being forced to stay home. Already, thousands of airline flights have been canceled over the past few days in a mess blamed on omicron.

CDC officials said the guidance is in keeping with growing evidence that people with the virus are most infectious in the first few days.

But other medical experts questioned why the agency’s guidelines allow people to leave isolation without testing.

“It’s frankly, reckless to proceed like this,” said Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “Using a rapid test or some type of test to validate that the person isn’t infectious is vital.”

“There’s no evidence, no data to support this,” he added.

Just last week, the CDC loosened rules that previously called on health care workers to stay off the job for 10 days if they test positive. The new recommendations said workers could go back after seven days if they test negative and don’t have symptoms.

Early research suggests omicron may cause milder illnesses than earlier versions. But the sheer number of people becoming infected – and therefore having to isolate or quarantine – threatens to crush the ability of hospitals, airlines and other businesses to stay open, experts say.

“Not all of those cases are going to be severe. In fact, many are going to be asymptomatic,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday. “We want to make sure there is a mechanism by which we can safely continue to keep society functioning while following the science.”

Louis Mansky, director of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Minnesota, said there is a scientific basis to the CDC’s recommendations.

“When somebody gets infected, when are they most likely to transmit the virus to another person?” he said. “It’s usually in the earlier course of the illness, which is typically a day or two before they actually develop symptoms and then a couple of days to three days after that.”

Research, including a study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine in August, backs that up, though medical experts cautioned that nearly all of the data predates omicron.

The CDC has been under pressure from the public and the private sector, including Delta Air Lines, to explore ways to shorten the isolation time. Airline officials earlier this month sent a letter to the CDC proposing five days of isolation for fully vaccinated people who become infected, with a “testing protocol” to leave isolation.

Mansky said CDC probably didn’t include exit testing in its guidelines for logistical reasons: There is a run on COVID-19 rapid tests amid the spike in cases and the busy holiday travel season. In many places, at-home tests are difficult or impossible to find.

The CDC is “driven by the science, but they also have to be cognizant of the fact of, you know, what are they going to tell the public that they’ll do,” Mansky said. “That would undermine CDC if they had guidance that everybody was ignoring.”

Marshall Hatch, senior pastor of New Mount Pilgrim Church on Chicago’s West Side, said he is bracing for some confusion in his congregation. The church has been a strong advocate for testing, vaccinations and booster shots.

Hatch said the CDC’s latest guidance is confusing and “a little incongruous.”

“Either we’re in a surge that we need to take very seriously or are we winding down the pandemic and that’s why we’re shortening the isolation and quarantine times,” he said Tuesday. “They might want to give us a little more information to go with.”

Hatch said some members of the largely Black congregation, particularly senior citizens, are skeptical of information from government.

The CDC move follows global efforts to adjust isolation rules, with policies differing from country to country.

England last week trimmed its self-isolation period for vaccinated people who have tested positive for COVID-19 to seven days in many cases, provided two negative lateral flow tests are taken a day apart.

The French government said Monday that it will soon relax its isolation rules, although by exactly how much isn’t yet clear.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said the rule changes will be aimed at warding off “paralysis” of public and private services. By some estimates, France could be registering more than 250,000 new infections per day by January.

Italy, meanwhile, is considering doing away with a quarantine altogether for those who have had close contact with an infected person as long they have had a booster shot. Projections indicate as many as 2 million Italians could be put in quarantine over the next two weeks as the virus spreads.

The U.S. airline industry applauded the CDC move.

“The decision is the right one based upon science,” said the lobbying group Airlines for America.

But the head of a flight attendants union criticized the change, saying it could lead businesses to pressure sick employees to come back before they are well.

If that happens, “we will make clear it is an unsafe work environment, which will cause a much greater disruption than any ‘staffing shortages,’” warned Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA International.

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Associated Press writers Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky; Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy; and Tali Arbel and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed.

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Health, The New York Today

Judge refuses to dismiss alleged Proud Boys leaders’ charges

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A federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss an indictment charging four alleged leaders of the far-right Proud Boys with conspiring to attack the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly rejected defense attorneys’ arguments that the four men – Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Charles Donohoe – are charged with conduct that is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.

Kelly said the defendants had many non-violent ways to express their opinions about the 2020 presidential election.

“Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests,” Kelly wrote in his 43-page ruling. “Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever First Amendment protection it may have had.”

Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Donohoe were indicted in March on charges including conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding. All four of them remain jailed while they await a trial scheduled for May.

Defense lawyers also argued that the obstruction charge doesn’t apply to their clients’ cases because Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote was not an “official proceeding.” Kelly disagreed.

Earlier this month, another judge in the District of Columbia’s federal court upheld prosecutors’ use of the same obstruction charge in a separate case against two riot defendants.

The case against Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Donohoe is a focus of the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection. More than three dozen people charged in the Capitol siege have been identified by federal authorities as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates, including at least 16 defendants charged with conspiracy.

Last Wednesday, a New York man pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol with fellow Proud Boys members. Matthew Greene is the first Proud Boys member to publicly plead guilty to conspiring with other members to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. He agreed to cooperate with authorities.

Other extremist group members have been charged with conspiring to carry out coordinated attacks on the Capitol, including more than 20 people linked to the anti-government Oath Keepers.

Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president and member of the group’s national “Elders Council.” Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, is a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl, of Philadelphia, and Donohoe, of Kernersville, North Carolina, served as presidents of their local Proud Boys chapters, according to the indictment.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Proud Boys members met at the Washington Monument and marched to the Capitol before President Donald Trump finished addressing thousands of supporters near the White House.

Just before Congress convened a joint session to certify the election results, a group of Proud Boys followed a crowd of people who breached barriers at a pedestrian entrance to the Capitol grounds, the indictment says. Several Proud Boys also entered the Capitol building itself after the mob smashed windows and forced open doors.

More than 700 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. At least 165 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses punishable by a maximum of six months’ imprisonment.

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

NFL cuts isolation time for players who test positive

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The NFL is reducing isolation time for players who test positive for COVID-19 and are asymptomatic, including unvaccinated players, to five days from 10.

The league and the NFL Players Association revised the protocols on Tuesday after the CDC changed its guidelines for those who are asymptomatic, recommending a five-day isolation period and masking over the second five days.

The changes could allow Colts quarterback Carson Wentz to return for Sunday’s key game against Las Vegas after Indianapolis placed him on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

It was not immediately clear whether Wentz tested positive for the virus or was deemed a close contact to someone else who had tested positive. However, if Wentz has no symptoms, he could be cleared to play.

In a memo sent to teams and obtained by The Associated Press, players and essential football personnel can return under the following conditions:

– Five days have passed since a positive COVID-19 test.

– At least 24 hours have passed since the individual last had a fever without the use of fever-reducing medications.

– Other symptoms, including a cough, have resolved or improved.

– The club’s head primary care sports medicine physician, after consultation with Infection Control for Sports and notification of the NFL chief medical officer, determines that the individual may return to the club facility and interact with other club employees/contractors.

– Any local regulations or requirements are satisfied.

Fully vaccinated individuals may continue to “test out” of isolation sooner than five days after the positive test, and should stop testing at Day 5 and return under the updated guidance, assuming all other perquisites have been satisfied.

Masks must be worn on the sideline and at all times except when playing and practicing for five days after return.

Masks must be worn by all players and staff indoors at team facilities. Players and staff are not permitted to eat together. A limit of 15 people applies for weight rooms. Also, even fully vaccinated staff and players are encouraged to avoid public areas including restaurants, bars and social gatherings.

The Tennessee Titans, who can clinch the AFC South with either a win or a Colts’ loss, added linebacker Jayon Brown and practice squad receiver Cody Hollister, who has played three of the past four games including one start. They later added defensive end Denico Autry, who has eight sacks this season, to bring the Titans’ total to 10, not counting an 11th player out for the season on injured reserve.

The timing couldn’t be worse for the Colts, who have rebounded from a 1-4 start to win eight of their past 10. They can clinch one of the seven AFC playoff spots with a win over the Raiders.

Indy’s move comes one day after five players, including right tackle Braden Smith, were added to a rapidly expanding COVID-19 list.

Wentz’s backup is rookie Sam Ehlinger, who has played in three games but has not thrown a pass this season. He was a sixth-round draft pick. Veteran Brett Hundley and James Morgan are on Indy’s practice squad. Hundley has gone 3-6 as a starter during his NFL career.

Indy won Saturday at Arizona despite missing six starters because of COVID-19 and losing two more in the first half. The absences forced the Colts to play with only one of their five regular offensive line starters, Smith.

It’s unclear how many, if any, of those players may return Sunday.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians has tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently isolating at home.

The team said Tuesday that assistant head coach/run game coordinator Harold Goodwin will serve as interim head coach in Arians’ absence. The reigning Super Bowl champions visit the New York Jets on Sunday.

Arians said in a statement released by the team: “I tested positive for COVID-19 this morning but have only experienced mild symptoms to this point. Harold Goodwin will take over my duties during my absence. I have complete confidence in him and the rest of our coaching staff to prepare the team for this week’s game against the Jets. I look forward to rejoining the team and being back in the facility as soon as I can test back in.”

Meanwhile, the Bucs also placed cornerbacks Jamel Dean and Sean Murphy-Bunting on the reserve/COVID-19 list. That increases the number of Tampa Bay players on the list to five.

Also:

– Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones could be without his top backup against the Jaguars after veteran Brian Hoyer was added to the reserve/COVID-19 list, along with linebackers Josh Uche and Brandon King.

Hoyer, who is on his fourth stint in New England, has previously served in backup roles to Tom Brady and Cam Newton. He has been Jones’ backup for each of the first 15 games this season.

If Hoyer is unavailable, 2019 fourth-round pick Jarrett Stidham could move into that role. The promotion would come a little more than a month after Stidham was added back onto the active roster after starting the season on injured reserve with a back injury. He has appeared in eight career games.

Hoyer, Uche and King make it five Patriots players who have been added to the COVID-19 list in two days. Linebackers Matt Judon and Ja’Whaun Bentley, two of the Patriots most productive defensive players, were added Monday. While New England has some depth at linebacker, Judon has been its best pass rusher and leads the team with 12 1/2 sacks.

Linebackers coach Jerod Mayo said Tuesday that the team is prepared to adjust as necessary on defense.

“We still have guys in our room that played a lot of ball, and I would also say, you either can replace people with another person or you can replace it through scheme,” Mayo said. “So we’re still going through that process right now. Who do we want to put out on the field, what the game plan is for this week, but at the end of the day, the guys that are out there, they’ll be ready to go. Hopefully we get those guys back, but just like I said earlier, we’ve just got to treat it as an injury.”

– The Green Bay Packers have placed tight end Marcedes Lewis and linebacker Oren Burks on the reserve/COVID-19 list. That comes one day after the Packers placed guard Ben Braden, linebacker Tipa Galeai, wide receiver/punt returner Amari Rodgers and linebacker Ty Summers on the reserve/COVID-19 list and put defensive lineman R.J. McIntosh on the practice squad reserve/COVID-19 list.

– The Jacksonville Jaguars placed three more players on the reserve/COVID-19 list: tight end Jacob Hollister, defensive tackle Jay Tufele and linebacker Damien Wilson. That brings the team’s total to 19 players on the list, including eight defensive linemen and four tight ends.

– The Cincinnati Bengals placed wide receiver Auden Tate on the reserve/COVID-19 list. Tate hasn’t played since Week 7 and is on injured reserve because of a calf injury.

– The Philadelphia Eagles placed wide receiver John Hightower on the practice squad reserve/COVID-19 list.

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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

The Peanut Butter Secret: A Lavish Tax Dodge for the Ultrawealthy

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This is the story of the incredible cloning tax break.

In 2004, David Baszucki, fresh off a stint as a radio host in Santa Cruz, Calif., started a tiny video-game company. It was eligible for a tax break that lets investors in small businesses avoid millions of dollars in capital gains taxes if the start-ups hit it big.

Today Mr. Baszucki’s company, Roblox, the maker of one of the world’s most popular video-gaming platforms, is valued at about $60 billion. Mr. Baszucki is worth an estimated $7 billion.

Yet he and his extended family are reaping big benefits from a tax break aimed at small businesses.

Mr. Baszucki and his relatives have been able to multiply the tax break at least 12 times. Among those poised to avoid millions of dollars in capital gains taxes are Mr. Baszucki’s wife, his four children, his mother-in-law and even his first cousin-in-law, according to securities filings and people with knowledge of the matter.

The tax break is known as the Qualified Small Business Stock, or Q.S.B.S., exemption. It allows early investors in companies in many industries to avoid taxes on at least $10 million in profits.

The goal, when it was established in the early 1990s, was to coax people to put money into small companies. But over the next three decades, it would be contorted into the latest tax dodge in Silicon Valley, where new billionaires seem to sprout each week.

Thanks to the ingenuity of the tax-avoidance industry, investors in hot tech companies are exponentially enlarging the tax break. The trick is to give shares in those companies to friends or relatives. Even though these recipients didn’t put their money into the companies, they nonetheless inherit the tax break, and a further $10 million or more in profits becomes tax-free.

The savings for the richest American families — who would otherwise face a 23.8 percent capital gains tax — can quickly swell into the tens of millions.

The maneuver, which is legal, is known as “stacking,” because the tax breaks are piled on top of one another.

“If you walk down University Avenue in Palo Alto, every person involved in tech stacks,” said Christopher Karachale, a tax lawyer at the law firm Hanson Bridgett in San Francisco. He said he had helped dozens of families multiply the tax benefit.

Early investors in some of Silicon Valley’s marquee start-ups — including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Zoom, Pinterest and DoorDash — have all replicated this tax exemption by giving shares to friends and family, according to people who worked or were briefed on the tax strategies.

So have partners at top venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz, who have figured out ways to claim tens of millions of dollars in tax exemptions for themselves and relatives year after year, according to industry officials and lawyers.

Representatives of those companies declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment. A Lyft spokesman said the company’s two co-founders didn’t take the tax benefit. A Roblox spokeswoman declined to comment.

The story of the tax break is in many ways the story of U.S. tax policy writ large. Congress enacts a loophole-laden law whose benefits skew toward the ultrarich. Lobbyists defeat efforts to rein it in. Then creative tax specialists at law, accounting and Wall Street firms transform it into something far more generous than what lawmakers had contemplated.

“Q.S.B.S. is an example of a provision that is on its face already outrageous,” said Daniel Hemel, a tax law professor at the University of Chicago. “But when you get smart tax lawyers in the room, the provision becomes, in practice, preposterous.”

Manoj Viswanathan, who is a director of the Center on Tax Law at the University of California, Hastings, estimates the tax break will cost the government at least $60 billion over the coming decade. But that doesn’t include taxes avoided by stacking, and so the true cost of the tax break is probably many times higher.

The Biden administration has proposed shrinking the benefit by more than half. But the plan wouldn’t restrict wealthy investors from multiplying the tax break.

The likely result, said Paul Lee, the chief tax strategist at Northern Trust Wealth Management, would be even more tax avoidance. “You’ll end up having more people doing more planning to multiply the exclusion,” he said.

The idea for this tax break came from the venture capital and biotech industries in the early 1990s. Venture capital firms were raking in huge profits from early investments in high-flying start-ups like Gilead Sciences and MedImmune.

That stuck them with hefty capital-gains tax bills. The Q.S.B.S. exemption would shield at least a chunk of their future profits from taxation.

With the economy in a recession, Democrats branded the tax break as a boon to small businesses and an engine of job creation. In Congress, an original backer was Senator Dale Bumpers, and he had the support of the National Venture Capital Association. “This is a modest tax incentive that holds great promise for hundreds of thousands of small firms with good ideas but not enough capital,” he said in early 1993.

Mr. Bumpers was friends with his fellow Arkansas Democrat, President Bill Clinton, whose new administration embraced the cause within weeks of taking power.

The exemption became law in August 1993. It allowed investors in eligible companies to avoid half the taxes on up to $10 million in capital gains (it would later be changed to eliminate all taxes on the $10 million) or 10 times what the investors paid for their shares.

There were a few restrictions. To be eligible for the tax break, investors had to hold the shares for at least five years. Industries like architecture and accounting were excluded. And, at least in theory, the companies couldn’t be big: They had to have “gross assets” of $50 million or less at the time of the investments.

That number wasn’t picked at random. At the time, a new professional hockey team, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, had just been created with a price tag of $50 million. The team was owned by the Walt Disney Company. Lawmakers feared that if Disney stood to benefit from the tax break, it risked a public backlash, according to a congressional aide who worked on the legislation.

The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t publicly disclose data on how frequently the tax break is used. But tax lawyers said it was slow to gain popularity. It would be decades before Silicon Valley figured out how to fully exploit it.

A few years after graduating from Stanford University in 1985, Mr. Baszucki started a software company, Knowledge Revolution. He sold it in 1998 for $20 million.

Around 2004, after a brief detour into radio, Mr. Baszucki teamed up with a former colleague, Erik Cassel, on a new venture. Mostly using Mr. Baszucki’s money, they spent two years writing the computer code that would become an early version of Roblox, which they publicly introduced in 2007.

Roblox was a hub for players to find and play video games featuring virtual pets and murder mysteries and much more. The platform allowed users to create games and receive a portion of whatever revenue the games generated.

About a decade ago, after outside investors had begun kicking in millions of dollars, Mr. Baszucki and his wife, Jan Ellison, gave Roblox shares to their four children and other family members, according to people familiar with the matter.

The gifts appeared to be the product of estate planning. If Roblox ever became a Silicon Valley powerhouse, the Baszuckis could avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in future gift and estate taxes because they gave away shares when the company wasn’t worth much.

And because Roblox met the criteria for the small-business tax break, the gift recipients could also become eligible for millions of dollars in profits free of capital gains taxes.

In the past few years, a procession of blockbuster tech I.P.O.s has showered Silicon Valley in well over $1 trillion of new wealth, according to Jay R. Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida. The unprecedented explosion — and the corresponding tax bills — has made the Q.S.B.S. tax break more enticing.

Tax experts had discovered a big loophole. While the law said that the benefit was off-limits to people who bought shares from other investors, there was no similar restriction on people who received the shares as gifts.

If investors gave shares to family or friends, they, too, could be eligible for the tax break. And there were no limits on the number of gifts they could make.

Stacking was born — and it became a rite of passage for a select slice of Silicon Valley multimillionaires, according to lawyers, accountants and investors.

One tax adviser said he was helping a family, whose patriarch founded a publicly traded tech company, avoid any taxes on more than $150 million in profits by giving shares to more than seven of his children, among other maneuvers.

Mr. Karachale, the San Francisco tax lawyer, said he jokes to clients that they should have more children so they can avoid more taxes. “It’s so expensive to raise kids in the Bay Area, the only good justification to have another kid is to get another” Q.S.B.S. exemption, he said.

Investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and law firms like McDermott Will & Emery have advised wealthy founders and their families on the strategy, according to bankers, lawyers and others.

Stacking has become so common that it has spawned other nicknames. One is “peanut buttering” — a reference to the ease with which the tax benefit can be spread among the original investor’s relatives.

In 2015, Rachel Romer Carlson helped found an online education company, Guild Education, that was eligible for the tax break.

Guild was recently valued at nearly $4 billion, and Ms. Carlson owns about 15 percent of the company. She will face an enormous capital-gains tax bill if and when she sells her stake. To mitigate that, she said, a tax adviser urged her to distribute her shares into trusts to multiply the exemptions.

“You can then take this an infinite number of times,” she recalled the lawyer saying. The adviser, whom she wouldn’t identify, told her that some lawyers will recommend creating 10 or more trusts but that his more-conservative advice was to limit the number to five.

Ms. Carlson said she rejected the advice because she thought the strategy, while perfectly legal, sounded shady. “I believe paying taxes is an act of patriotism,” she said. (When she sold about $1 million worth of Guild shares last year, the exemption saved her roughly $200,000 in taxes.)

Venture capitalists that invest in start-ups — the same group that pushed for this tax break in the first place — potentially have the most to gain.

The founder of a successful start-up might get this tax-free opportunity once in a lifetime. At large venture capital firms, the opportunity can present itself several times a year.

Partners at venture capital firms often acquire shares in the companies in which their firms invest. For each Q.S.B.S.-eligible company that a partner has invested in, he can avoid capital gains taxes on at least $10 million of profits. If he gives shares to family members, those relatives get the tax break, too.

In a good year, partners at a large firm can collectively rack up more than $1 billion in tax-free profits, according to former partners at two major venture capital firms.

As the tax break’s popularity has grown, the strategies for exploiting it have grown more aggressive.

The benefit is limited to either $10 million in tax-free capital gains or 10 times the “basis” of the original investment. The tax basis is the cost of an investment — the money you spent or the assets you contributed in exchange for shares. One way to expand the value of the tax break is to find ways to inflate the basis.

The strategy is called “packing.”

Say you invested $1 million in a Q.S.B.S.-eligible business called Little Company. Your basis would be $1 million, which means you’d be eligible to avoid taxes on $10 million of future profits.

But let’s say you want to save more. Here’s how you can pump up the basis. Little Company developed software patents, and you put those patents into a new company that you also own. The patents grow to be worth $5 million. Then you merge the two companies. The basis for your investment in the original Little Company has now soared to $6 million. That means you are eligible to avoid taxes on 10 times that — $60 million — even though your out-of-pocket investment remains $1 million.

One tax lawyer said he recently used such a strategy to help a pair of clients completely avoid taxes on more than $100 million in capital gains.

Another increasingly common strategy has been to put shares into multiple trusts that benefit the same children.

In August 2018, the Trump administration’s Treasury Department proposed regulations to curb such tax avoidance. The rules included hypothetical examples of abusive transactions in which children were given multiple trusts.

But opposition mounted quickly. The next month, the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, a trade group of tax lawyers who advise the wealthy, wrote to the I.R.S. that the proposal was “overbroad” and “an impermissible interpretation of the statute.”

By the time the Treasury’s rules were completed in early 2019, the proposed crackdown on trusts had been watered down.

It was, the accounting giant EY declared in an online alert, a “welcome relief.”

Roblox says that more than 47 million people use its platform each day. It has branched out beyond gaming, becoming a venue for virtual concerts by the likes of Lil Nas X.

In early 2020, Andreessen Horowitz and others invested $150 million in the company, valuing it at about $4 billion. Shares of tech companies were racing higher, and Roblox planned to go public in late 2020 or early 2021.

The Baszuckis were about to become billionaires.

The family took steps to help insulate their fortune from future federal taxes.

Giving away the shares before the I.P.O. — which was likely to drive the stock’s value higher — would make it easier to avoid federal gift and estate taxes.

Mr. Baszucki and Ms. Ellison had already given away so many shares that future large gifts would be subject to the 40 percent gift tax. (A married couple can give about $23 million over their lifetime without incurring the tax.)

But Mr. Baszucki’s mother-in-law, Susan Elmore, had not. In the fall of 2020, she began giving away Roblox shares to about a dozen relatives, including Mr. Baszucki’s four children, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ms. Elmore’s nephew, Nolan Griswold, said he was among those to receive shares last fall.

Ms. Elmore’s shares were eligible for the Q.S.B.S. exemption; now that exemption was replicated for the recipients of her gifts.

In March 2021, Roblox went public. Its market value hit $45 billion.

That day, Mr. Baszucki’s brother Gregory, whose large Roblox stake made him a billionaire, began selling shares. The resulting capital gains taxes could be defrayed in part by the exemption.

David Gelles and Kellen Browning contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Biden considers diverse slate of nominees for Fed Board

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President Biden is considering nominating two women, one of whom is Black, and a Black man for key roles on the Federal Reserve in a bid to increase the central bank’s diversity, according to a report Monday.

Mr. Biden reportedly is considering Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed governor and Obama-era Treasury Department official, for vice chair of supervision, the nation’s top banking system regulator.

Also being considered: Lisa Cook, a professor of economics at Michigan State University, and Phillip Jefferson, a professor and administrator at Davidson College in North Carolina. Ms. Cook and Mr. Jefferson are Black.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the potential nominees.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Times.

In the Fed’s 108-year history, it has had only three Black board members, all of them men. The last Black board member, Roger Ferguson, left in 2006. If Ms. Cook is confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board.

Mr. Biden last month pledged to nominate candidates who would improve diversity at the Fed.

“My additions will bring new perspectives and new voices,” Mr. Biden said. “I also pledge that my additions will bring new diversity to the Fed, which is much needed and long overdue in my view.”

His bid to reshape the Fed’s makeup will happen as the central bank fights rising inflation. The Fed is responsible for policies that keep prices stable and maximize employment, but inflation has soared to its highest levels since the 1980s and the supply chain crisis is forcing prices upward.

As the economic chaos and the COVID-19 pandemic surge, it will fall upon the Fed’s board to figure out how to combat inflation and keep the job market steady.

While the overall unemployment rate is roughly 4.6%, the figure is 7.9% for Black Americans and 5.9% for Hispanics. The rate for Whites is 4%.

Mr. Biden is hopeful that bringing in diverse perspectives will help alleviate racial inequality.

Ms. Raskin is the wife of Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat. She has pushed for economic policies that help combat climate change, making her a favorite of progressives in the Senate who bristled at Mr. Biden’s choice to offer Fed Chairman Jerome Powell a second term.

Progressives want the Fed to take bolder action to regulate banks and fight the climate crisis. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who opposed renominating Mr. Powell, is said to favor Ms. Raskin’s nomination.

Ms. Raskin has advocated using economic policy to fight against climate change, and wrote the foreword for a report by the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, a climate advocacy group.

“There is opportunity in pre-emptive, early and bold actions by federal economic policy makers looking to avoid catastrophe,” she wrote.

Mr. Jefferson has largely served as an academic since 1990, when he earned his doctoral degree from the University of Virginia. He was an economics professor at Swarthmore College from 1997 to 2019. He also spent a year as a staff economist at the Fed’s division of monetary affairs in the 1990s.

Ms. Cook was a senior economist for former President Barack Obama’s White House Council of Economic Advisers. She has a doctorate in economics from the University of California-Berkeley and bachelor’s degrees from Spelman College and the University of Oxford.

Hard-hit by COVID, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox slow to get shots

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BNEI BRAK, Israel — Yossi Levy has repeatedly booked and canceled his coronavirus vaccine appointment. The 45-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew recovered from the virus earlier this year, as have his eight children and wife. But a combination of lethargy and procrastination has prevented him from following through and getting inoculated.

“It isn’t something pressing. I’m not opposed to it. It’s just laziness,” he said.

Levy is among the hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews who have yet to receive their COVID-19 shots. The group has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country despite being hit hard by the pandemic.

Facing the new coronavirus variant omicron, officials are now scrambling to ramp up vaccination rates in a population that has so far been slow to roll up their sleeves.

“We are going on the offensive with the issue of vaccinations,” said Avraham Rubinstein, the mayor of Bnei Brak, the country’s largest ultra-Orthodox city.

It has been one year since COVID-19 vaccines became available, yet vaccine reluctance persists even as deaths mount and the highly contagious omicron variant spreads around the globe. An unconventional cadre of people has stepped up to promote vaccination with efforts that traditionally have been the realm of public health officials.

Israeli officials have appealed to the community’s prominent rabbis, who serve as arbiters on all matters, to promote vaccination. They are deploying mobile clinics. And they are beating back a wave of lies about the vaccine that has washed over parts of the community.

The vaccination rate is low in part because half of the ultra-Orthodox population is under 16 and only recently made eligible for vaccination. Also, many ultra-Orthodox were already infected or believe they were and don’t think they need the vaccine.

The outreach effort has had mixed success. Officials hope to raise the vaccination rate with a new mobile-clinic campaign at religious schools and a media blitz stepping up pressure on parents to vaccinate children.

Israel was one of the first countries to vaccinate its population late last year and the first to give booster shots. But the campaign has lagged in recent weeks and hundreds of thousands of people remain unvaccinated or without a booster as the specter of an omicron surge looms.

While vaccination rates for the second dose among the general population hover around 63% and the booster at 45%, in the ultra-Orthodox community the number is around half of that. The community’s immunity shoots up somewhat when the 300,000 or so of those who are known to have recovered are included, but Israel‘s Health Ministry recommends those who were infected to get at least one shot if six months have elapsed since the infection.

The low vaccination rate stands in stark contrast to the heavy price the community paid during the pandemic. The ultra-Orthodox were hit hard from the start, with the community’s 1.2 million people often leading the country’s morbidity rates and losing hundreds to the disease. The ultra-Orthodox make up 13% of Israel‘s 9.3 million population.

There are societal reasons for the quick community spread. The ultra-Orthodox tend to live in poor, crowded neighborhoods, with large families in small apartments, where sickness can quickly spread. Synagogues, the centerpiece of social life, bring men together to pray and socialize in small spaces.

The particular way of life of the ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredim, has made driving up vaccination rates a unique challenge for health officials.

The cloistered community has long been separate from mainstream Israeli life, with children studying scripture but very little math and English. The community typically shuns the internet, doesn’t watch secular TV and tends to live separately from non-religious Israelis. It is suspicious of secular state authorities and many of the trappings of modernity.

“For Haredim, there is a double fear: fear of the state and fear of science. There is no basic trust in these entities,” said Gilad Malach, who heads the ultra-Orthodox program at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank. He said that skepticism has allowed unfounded claims about the vaccines to spread in the community.

Avi Blumenthal, an adviser to the Health Ministry on the ultra-Orthodox, said vaccine information is disseminated to the ultra-Orthodox public through its local media as well as in biweekly messages posted on community notice boards, known as “pashkevils.” He says these means reach the overwhelming majority of Haredim.

The ultra-Orthodox follow a strict interpretation of Judaism and rely on rabbis to guide them in many life decisions. While some rabbis have actively encouraged vaccination, others have taken a less aggressive approach and their followers have been less enthusiastic about getting inoculated.

Blumenthal, who himself is ultra-Orthodox, said the Health Ministry recently held a conference at the country’s largest hospital, inviting prominent rabbis to converse with doctors about the importance of the vaccine. The head of the government’s coronavirus advisory panel has repeatedly met with important religious figures, urging them to spread the word on vaccines.

“We go by the Jewish sages,” said Dvora Ber, 27, a Bnei Brak resident and mother of four who is vaccinated. “What they tell us, we do.”

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Dan Brown, ‘Da Vinci Code’ author, settles lawsuit alleging secret life

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BOSTON — “The Da Vinci Code” author Dan Brown and his ex-wife have agreed to settle a lawsuit in which she alleged he led a secret life during their marriage that included several affairs.

The couple agreed to voluntary dismiss the lawsuit and “any and all claims and counterclaims in this matter,” according to court papers filed Monday in a New Hampshire court.

Blythe Brown and Dan Brown have reached an amicable resolution of their disagreements, and will have no further comment,” Blythe Brown’s attorney Harvey Wolkoff said in a statement. “They request that their desire for privacy and closure be respected.”

No further details on the settlement were provided.

In her lawsuit filed last year, Blythe Brown called her ex-husband’s behavior “unlawful and egregious” and accused the bestselling author of secretly diverting funds to pay for gifts to an unnamed horse trainer.

Blythe Brown also claimed credit for inspiring much of his work and coming up with the premise for “The Da Vinci Code.” She also alleged that Brown hid scores of future projects worth “millions” from her, including a television series as well as a children’s book.

At the time of the lawsuit, Dan Brown said he was “stunned” by the allegations and called the complaint “written without regard for the truth.” He said he never misled his ex-wife on their finances during their divorce and that she ended up with half their holdings after they split up.

The couple divorced in 2019 after 21 years of marriage.

Brown, a New Hampshire native, has had a string of bestsellers but is best known for “The Da Vinci Code,” a puzzle-filled thriller that introduced readers to the notion that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married with children. The plot outraged church officials and scholars.

During a 2006 trial against the publisher of the “The Da Vinci Code,” the court heard how Blythe Brown was an essential contributor to the thriller. Two authors unsuccessfully sued, claiming that Brown “appropriated the architecture” of their book in a high-profile London court case.

Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC.

Afghanistan anti-Taliban resistance begs for U.S. support, gets nothing from Biden

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Pro-democracy fighters in Afghanistan‘s Panjshir Valley may be bloodied but are not bowed in opposing the Taliban, who have claimed victory over the entire country, a resistance leader told The Washington Times.

Ali Nazary, head of foreign relations for the National Resistance Front (NRF), said the pro-democracy fighters in Afghanistan‘s fabled valley need foreign nations to back their efforts to turn back the Taliban and the flood of terrorist groups that he says have poured into the country. 

“Whatever happens in Afghanistan will impact the international community,” Mr. Nazary said in an interview. “We believe the U.S. and any other country that believes international terrorism is a threat to its security and to its national interests has to assist us because we are the only forces fighting against international terrorism.”

The White House did not immediately provide comments for this story.

Since the U.S. withdrawal in mid-August, the Biden administration has ignored the scores of fighters backed by ISIS, al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups pouring into the country, he said. And the estimated 50,000 strong Taliban, which has a long history of partnering with terrorist organizations, has no hope of providing security and stability in a country on the cusp of an economic and humanitarian disaster. 

“These are facts that haven’t been accepted by the international community, especially the United States,” Mr. Nazary said. “The threat of international terrorism is growing every day that passes — and not only from ISIS but al Qaeda and the Taliban themselves.” 

Mr. Nazary says the NRF, armed with an estimated 10,000 former Afghan soldiers, special forces commandos and police, is quickly becoming the U.S.’ last remaining option to counter the Taliban and the scores of terrorist groups flooding Afghanistan. But he says time is running out.

“We are the only forces inside Afghanistan that are militarily challenging all of them,” Mr. Nazary said.

“We cannot do this all alone,” he said. “My main appeal to the administration, to the U.S. Congress, and to others outside of government has been that this is the only option that the U.S. has. But it is not an option that will always persist.”

Led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of the late U.S.-allied Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the NRF formed in mid-August amid the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan

The 32-year-old Mr. Massoud and his followers decamped to the mountainous region his father had defended amid a constant onslaught of Soviet offensives in the 1980s and later against the Taliban after they gained power in the 1990s. They pledged to stand up against the Taliban’s Islamic fundamentalism and fight for the same pro-democratic platform the Northern Alliance touted decades before. 

Mr. Massoud says his forces need more arms for a protracted conflict because Taliban forces have surrounded Panjshir and cut off supply lines to replenish troops and weapons.

Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans, met with representatives from the NRF in late August and pledged support for the anti-Taliban resistance. 

But neither the White House nor the State Department publicly backed the NRF, and in early September, Taliban fighters posted photos of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan‘s flag raised in over Panjshir — dashing hopes of stalling the fundamentalist government.

Mr. Waltz, a former Army Green Beret on the House Armed Services Committee, said that, from a national security standpoint, it is “grossly irresponsible” for the administration not to engage with the Afghan resistance.

“They’re begging us now to be a partner,” Mr. Waltz said. “If you look at what they stand for, versus what the Taliban are actually doing, what more does the administration need to see?”

Mr. Waltz pledged in September to “take a page out of ‘Charlie Wilson’s War,’” referring to the book and movie about the flamboyant Texas Democratic congressman known for securing millions of dollars for the CIA to arm the Afghans fighting against Soviet occupiers in the 1980s.

Mr. Nazary said such support has yet to materialize, as the NRF’s pleas are met with silence from the Biden administration. “Seeing inaction from this administration is just mind-boggling,” he said.

In Panjshir, both sides claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties throughout weeks of clashes in September, though reports have not been independently verified.

Afghanistan’s former vice president, Amrullah Saleh, who joined the resistance in Panjshir, said the Taliban had blocked humanitarian access and cut phone service and electricity in the region. He also claimed that the Taliban had begun forcing “military-age men” to clear minefields in the area.

Still, Mr. Nazary said the Taliban will struggle to maintain control in the valley. 

“Panjshir has never been somewhere where the people have welcomed invaders,” he said. “Anyone who enters that valley throughout history has faced defeat.”

He said the NRF currently controls more than 60% of Panjshir, which is made up of an endless network of sub valleys that branch off of the main artery. The NRF allowed the Taliban to take control of the highly visible thoroughfare, he said, as the group adjusted its strategy to avoid protracted skirmishes with the well-armed Taliban.

Furthermore, Mr. Nazary said support for the NRF is beginning to expand beyond Panjshir as the Taliban fails to deliver stability. 

“The resistance is growing now because the population is now facing a humanitarian crisis,” he said. 

“They see the Taliban as a disruptive force, a force that is unable to bring stability and security, a force that is unable to deliver services to feed them,” he said. “So they have no other choice and the only reasonable option that they have is the NRF.” 

But, Mr. Nazary said, the NRF can only hold out so long without U.S. assistance. 

In the absence of constant, on-the-ground reporting, the state of play in Panjshir is difficult to verify. Western media outlets have noted few signs of Taliban opposition in the region in the weeks following the Taliban offensive, and some analysts in Washington maintain a more pessimistic view of the emergence of a formidable challenge to Taliban control. 

Nonetheless, Mr. Nazary said supporting the NRF’s resistance may be the U.S.’ only option to thwart the growing threat of international terrorism and keep the Taliban in check. 

In September, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley told the House Armed Services Committee that terrorist organizations could regain footing in Afghanistan in as soon as six months. 

Gen. Milley also conceded that the pullout damaged the ability to confront potential terrorist threats in the region.

“I think the ends are going to remain the same to protect the American people, but I think the ways and means are going to change,” he said. “I think it is going to become much more difficult now to conduct counterterrorism operations against a reconstituted al Qaeda or ISIS in Afghanistan. Not impossible … but it will be more difficult.”

The Biden administration has lauded its over-the-horizon counter-terrorism strategy, but with no military footprint and degraded intelligence capabilities in Afghanistan and the closest air base from which to fly unmanned intelligence aircraft hours away, many in Washington remain skeptical of the strategy.

The Taliban continues to vie for international recognition and claims that it has distanced itself from al Qaeda and has promised to comply with international standards for human rights. 

“It is a false premise from those who believe that they have bargaining chips with the Taliban, that will enable change in the Taliban behavior over the long term,” said Richard Goldberg a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “If anybody has watched the Taliban for the last couple of years, we should be very clear-eyed that any promise or statement from the Taliban is completely worthless.” 

Mr. Nazary said he fears international leaders have already begun to cave to the Taliban and says that as long as they remain in power, the threat of terrorism continues to grow. 

Last week, the Biden administration announced it was easing some restrictions on humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to help alleviate the worsening economic crisis. More aid organizations will now be able to assist in the Taliban-ruled country without violating sanctions against the Taliban and Haqqani network, a group of Afghan Islamic guerrilla insurgents.

Critics said the move sends the wrong message. 

“Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s shortsighted decision to offer broad sanctions carveouts could result in using American taxpayer funds to reward, legitimize and enable the same Taliban that took power by force and has shown no interest in abiding by international norms,” said Rep. Michael T. McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Nazary fears the Biden administration and leaders across the globe are on a slippery slope toward recognizing the fundamentalist government. 

“We believe there’s too much being given away to the Taliban, even if they’re not recognized,” Mr. Nazary said.

“The only thing the Taliban know is destruction. That’s what they were made for. They weren’t made for good governance. They weren’t made to become statesmen.”

While Mr. Goldberg did not specifically endorse the NRF, he said it could make sense for the U.S. to look for partners in Afghanistan as a potential check on the Taliban

“Members of Congress should ask for a series of briefings from the intelligence community to be looking very closely at any opposition that exists,” said Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

Mr. Nazary said the NRF’s calls for U.S. support went unheeded by the administration, despite the increasingly dire picture in Afghanistan.

As the NRF waits for its chance to retake Panjshir, it has ramped up efforts to influence powerbrokers outside of Afghanistan. Last month, NRF supporters staged demonstrations in 22 cities around the globe. 

“We were able to show that the diaspora communities throughout the globe support the National Resistance Front,” Mr. Nazary said. “We have the popular support whether inside Afghanistan or outside.”

Mr. Nazary said the NRF has mobilized Afghan communities around the globe.

“If the Taliban control the geography, we have the popular support with us,” he said. “We have legitimacy.” 

In October, the NRF registered in Washington as a lobbying group.

“If the United States completely ignores the situation inside of Afghanistan and believes that the Taliban will stabilize the situation, we’re going to see many threats in the West, especially in the United States, in the years to come,” Mr. Nazary said.