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Representative Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, on Friday appeared to speak in support of unproven treatments for COVID-19, including ivermectin, a drug that's often used as a dewormer for cows and horses.

"I don't know if y'all saw, but a month after president Trump left office the American Journal of Medicine came out with a great article that they had discovered a regimen of medication that, when taken together early in COVID, that you may have heard of it hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, Z-Pak, azithromycin, zinc," Gohmert said during a speech at the Texas Youth Summit Friday night.

Gohmert's comments were met with cheers from the audience.

The Food and Drug Administration has said ivermectin should not be used to treat or prevent COVID-19, and that it has received "multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses."

The FDA notes that ivermectin tablets "are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea." But it specifies that ivermectin is not a drug for treating viruses.

During his remarks on Friday, Gohmert also praised former President Donald Trump for "getting the government out of the way enough" so that COVID-19 vaccines could be developed quickly.

But he also raised some concerns about COVID vaccines.

"The trouble is, these vaccines, they were only approved for emergency use. Now you have Pfizer that's been approved, but there's so much long term they don't know," Gohmert said.

"And now that the pandemic is under more control," he added, "we need to get back to our freedom of saying ,'Look, here's my preexisting conditions, let's talk about which one I should take, if I should even take one.'"

In a story that aired on the Houston TV station KTRK on Wednesday, a Texas doctor said he had used ivermectin to treat thousands of COVID-19 patients.

The doctor, Joseph Varon, said that drug used in combination with other COVID therapies is effective.

"It's not just ivermectin," he said.

"That's where people get confused. Ivermectin helps you, but it helps you when you are giving it in addition to other components of treatment protocols that are out there."

Varon said that he hadn't seen "a single significant side-effect" from the drug.

On Friday, Senator Rand Paul claimed that "hatred for Trump" hindered research into ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19, saying researchers were "unwilling to objectively study it."

Earlier this month, the FDA tweeted about ivermectin, "You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it."

Gohmert's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Newsweek on Saturday morning.

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GOP Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert Draws Applause for Praising Ivermectin as COVID Treatment - Newsweek

Far-right political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos said he tested positive for COVID-19 in a social media post and shared an image of himself using ivermectin an anti-parasitic drug that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned Americans against using.

Yiannopoulos posted a photo of a positive coronavirus test strip with the caption "Rona," to his Telegram account, according to screenshots shared on Twitter Saturday by media watchdog group Right Wing Watch.

"Most of you got the normal 'it's just flu' rona last year and most of you didn't even know you had it. But I don't have any friends and I don't leave the house so I only got the deadly superspreader version from vaccinated people and let me tell you THIS IS NOT FUN," Yiannopoulos wrote.

The commentator then went on to describe his symptoms for the day, which included dizziness, headache, chills, foggy head, nausea, coughing, and difficulty breathing.

Yiannopoulos appeared to have tested positive for the virus days earlier and said that "yesterday was the worst day of my life."

He also shared an image of a thermometer showing he had a 93-degree fever and said he "slept on an off for like 48 hours."

In a separate post, Yiannopoulos shared a photo appearing to inject ivermectin into his arm using a veterinary syringe with the caption "now we wait."

Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that is approved by the FDA for use in humans to treat certain parasitic worm infectionsbut not for the treatment of any viral infection such as COVID-19. The drug was first introduced as a veterinary treatment in the 1970s to deworm livestock such as cows and horses.

The FDA said people should not use ivermectin to treat COVID-19 symptoms and said it has received "multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses."

Recently, the drug has been mentioned by some conservatives, including Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

Earlier this week, NBC News reported that Americans eager to get their hands on the drug have turned to the pro-Trump telemedicine website SpeakWithAnMD.com. The high demand has reportedly led to significant delays and users are greeted with the message: "Due to overwhelming demand, we are experiencing longer than usual wait times."

Dr. Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King's College London, told Newsweek last month that ivermectin has been associated with allergic reactions and can also worsen pre-existing liver or kidney disease. Furthermore, the FDA has warned that high doses of ivermectin meant for animals can be "highly toxic" in humans.

Yiannopoulos is a controversial figure and one of the original heads of the alt-right group the Proud Boys. He has previously been barred from posting content across social media sites including Facebook and Twitter.

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Milo Yiannopoulos Reports Having COVID, Shares Pic of Ivermectin: 'This Is Not Fun' - Newsweek

President Joe Biden said Thursday the U.S. will continue the evacuation and 'will not be deterred by terrorists.'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of people in Kabul Thursday, killing at least 12 U.S. troops and 60 Afghans.

U.S. officials said 11 Marines and one Navy medic were among those who died. More than 140 Afghans were wounded, an Afghan official confirmed.

President Joe Biden said Thursday evening the U.S. will continue the evacuation and "will not be deterred by terrorists." Biden said he has ordered commanders to "develop operational plans to strike ISIS-K assets, leadership and facilities."

"These ISIS terrorists will not win," Biden said. "We will rescue the Americans in there, we will get our Afghan allies out and our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated."

Biden said his heart aches for the families of service members killed in the attack and said the U.S. will "hunt down" those responsible and make them pay.

"We will find them, and we will get them," Biden said.

Kentucky and Indiana lawmakers have been weighing in on evacuation efforts and the attack that killed American service members. Senator Mitch McConnell said in a statement he is sickened and enraged by the news of the attack.

"Terrible things happen when terrorists are allowed to operate freely," McConnell said. "I remain concerned that terrorists worldwide will be emboldened by our retreat, by this attack, and by the establishment of a radical Islamic terror state in Afghanistan. We need to redouble our global efforts to confront these barbarian enemies who want to kill Americans and attack our homeland."

McConnell is one of the few Republicans who advocated for staying in Afghanistan. His colleague Rand Paul did not agree, saying he believes it was time for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan.

Paul said Wednesday "the thing that's most upsetting" about the evacuation is that the U.S. could be leaving equipment that could fall into the wrong hands.

Paul released a statement Thursday afternoon saying he was "deeply saddened by the further loss of life as our military returns home from Afghanistan."

"Kelley and I pray for those lost and wounded, and for the safe and speedy rescue of all Americans still trapped," Paul said in a tweet.

Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana said the attack were "a result of [Biden's] incompetence and decision to trust the Taliban to protect our troops."

Rep. Andr Carson, one of only two Democrats representing districts in Indiana, said the "heartbreaking" attack "further prove that getting our troops out of harm's way in Afghanistan is the right thing to do."

John Yarmuth, Kentucky's only Democrat on Capitol Hill, said he does not expect the U.S. to be out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31 as previously planned due to Thursday's attack.

"This incident probably delays some of the removal activities because it creates more confusion at the entrance to the airport so I think it's unlikely," Yarmuth said. "I'm glad that President Biden, even when he said he was going to hold to the Aug. 31 date, asked for contingency plans and I suspect that we'll see those contingency plans implemented."

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McConnell, Yarmuth respond to Kabul attack, evacuation efforts - WHAS11.com

Al Cross| Opinion contributor

Permanent federal approval for one coronavirus vaccine Monday should have eliminated the arguments of some sadly misled, vaccine-hesitant Americans that Operation Warp Speed is just one big experiment.

But as Kentucky deals with another deadly surge of the coronavirus, it has started a heavily fraught experiment involving all three branches of its government, one that will likely affect the course of the pandemic and the lives of many Kentuckians.

For almost 18 months, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has been a pandemic czar, under a state of emergency he declared under a law the last completely Democratic legislature passed for a Democratic governor in 1998. This year, the firmly Republican legislature put a strict 30-day time limit on governors emergency orders, and last Saturday the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld it, pending arguments that the idea that 30 days is unconstitutionally short.

Beshear said he was surprised by the decision, since the high court had unanimously upheld his use of emergency powers. But the state constitution makes clear that the General Assembly is the main policy-making branch of government; it writes laws and can limit governors emergency powers.

Beshear should know that; he was attorney general before he was governor. His remark may reflect the warped sense of reality you can develop when you are a czar, issuing orders and mandates that affect personal behavior while winning approval in public-opinion polls.

More: 5 takeaways from the Kentucky Supreme Court ruling on Gov. Andy Beshear's power

Most Kentuckians seem to take the pandemic seriously, but not enough to keep the state from having the nations fifth highest infection rate when this column was written Wednesday morning. Thats largely because we rank 28th in vaccinations, with only 48% of us fully vaccinated the only figure that counts against the highly contagious delta variant.

Too many Kentuckians take cues from irresponsible politicians like U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie, who have repeatedly cast doubt on the need to get vaccinated and mask up; and from their allies in partisan media and echo chambers on social media, who make villains of public-health experts who deserve our respect.

Most Republicans who lead the General Assembly have been more responsible, focusing their criticism of Beshear on his unwillingness to work with them and, more recently, their preference for local and parental decision-making on the issue of masks in schools.

Beshear did himself no favors when he rebuffed Republicans offer of help early in the pandemic. He could have brought them at least partially into his tent, perhaps co-opting them but also learning from them, and about them. He has yet to develop a real working relationship with them, almost 21 months into his 48-month term. Now he must, and so must they.

Related: Will Gov. Andy Beshear call a special legislative session for COVID? Here's what to know

It may not be easy. Republican leaders are saddled with the consequences of their national partisan allies politicization of the pandemic, which has made much of their voter base resistant to vaccination and masking, the two main preventive measures we need.

That showed in Senate President Robert Stivers quick rejection of a mask mandate for all indoor public spaces, something Beshear would be reviving shortly if not for the Supreme Court. Stivers signaled Republicans preferred approach by announcing a pro-vaccination campaign in his home Clay County, which has the states highest infection rate. Shots will be given at schools, which will compete for prizes, and the vaccinated will get coupons for free pizza.

The incentive approach seems likelier to work on the local level, with local influentials delivering the messages, than the vaccine lotteries being used by Beshear and some other governors. More incentives are needed.

House Speaker David Osborne of Prospect has a district with one of the states lowest infection rates, but his job is more difficult because all his members are up for reelection next year, and some are outspoken firebrands who are indirectly damaging public health, like Paul and Massie.

Joe Gerth: Senate Republicans wait 18 months to tell us their COVID-19 plan ... and it's pizza

Osborne already had a big member-management problem. Republicans face the challenge of drawing new House districts to conform to the 2020 census, which will surely pit some of them against each other because rural areas have lost population. Republicans would rather put off redistricting until after the 2022 elections, but courts are unlikely to allow that.

Osborne told me in an email, Our caucus is going to continue to be deliberate and intentional in how we approach this pandemic. ... It is our intent to work closely with the administration, hear their recommendations, and work with them as well as other stakeholders to set the policies.

Before long, Osborne, Stivers and other legislative leaders will hear recommendations that will be politically unpopular. We can only hope that their judgments wont be determined by politics, and if that requires risking their own leadership positions by going against the political grain, they will show courage for the greater good.

Al Cross, a former Courier Journal political writer, is professor and director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. He writes this column for theKentucky Center for Public Service Journalism. Reach him on Twitter@ruralj.

Read more:
Kentucky GOP lawmakers get the power they wanted. Now they must use it wisely, show courage - Courier Journal

From the right: Biden Needs To Show Strength

President Bidens withdrawal from Afghanistan has been compared to our 1975 Vietnam withdrawal, but its more like Beirut, 1983, when terrorists killed 241 US service members and President Ronald Reagan cut and run, emboldening Osama bin Laden, contends Marc Thiessen at The Washington Post. The 9/11 mastermind predicted wed retreat from Afghanistan, too, and now Bidens fulfilling bin Ladens prophecy. Instead, he should show strength, tell the Taliban theyre responsible for Thursdays attack and thus were not leaving on Aug. 31 but only when every American and our allies are out. He should also say were establishing our own secure perimeter around the airport and reclaiming the Bagram air base. When the United States runs after a terrorist attack, the result is not safety and security, it is even more terrorism.

Woke watch: Theyve Got Rocks in Their Heads

The University of Wisconsins decision to remove a campus boulder because of what some writer said one day during the Coolidge administration (using the N-word to describe the rock) infuriates The New York Times John McWhorter. The students who demanded the move are fashioning their take on the rock as a kind of sophistication or higher awareness. But what they are really demanding is that we all dumb ourselves down. They essentially demanded that an irrational, prescientific kind of fear that a person can be meaningfully injured by the dead be accepted as insight, implying that the rocks denotation of racism is akin to a Confederate statues denotation of the same. This is Kabuki as civil rights its fake, its self-involved, and it helps no one.

Conservative: Liberalism Failed in Afghanistan

Twenty years after 9/11, the War on Terror has come full circle, writes Daniel McCarthy at Spectator World. Everyone expected the Taliban to surge back to power as soon as American forces left Afghanistan. Instead, the surge began while Americas embassy in Kabul was still open. Simply put: Terrorism won, nation-building lost. The Washington foreign-policy community believed the absence of liberalism and democracy was the root cause of terrorism, and its cure was therefore the promotion of liberal democracy through regime-change and nation-building. Yet liberalism cannot bind people together in conditions of profound insecurity, as religion and tribalism do. Nor does liberalism provide such compelling reasons to kill or die. A man will die for heaven or kill for his brother. No man will die for liberalism.

Natl-security beat: Sack Austin and Milley

After Kabul fell, neither Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin nor Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley appeared publicly for three days to explain what happened or why we appeared so ill-prepared to extract our citizens, sighs Ray McCoy at American Greatness. When they did appear, Austin claimed he didnt have the capability to collect large numbers of people. And this was supposed to be the team that returned competence to Washington, the experts that Joe Biden said he would trust. The president now has a chance to do some good by sacking Milley and Austin, as well as the mediocrities running his national security policy. If everyone from Tony Blair to Rand Paul is trashing this performance, we might as well start from scratch.

Libertarian: SCOTUS Soundly Slaps Eviction Ban

By 6-3, the Supreme Court ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lack the authority to promulgate and extend the eviction moratorium, Elizabeth Nolan Brown cheers at Reason. The ruling notes that the downstream connection between eviction and the interstate spread of disease is markedly different from the direct targeting of disease that characterizes the measures identified in the Public Health Service Act. This, she notes, is also an important affirmation that private property rights still exist in this country and a good stand for the separation of powers since Congress can still pass a law extending the eviction moratorium but its unconstitutional for the executive branch to unilaterally make this decision.

Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

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Biden needs to show strength and other commentary - New York Post