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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) is calling on President Biden to reverse course in Afghanistan in the wake of an attack Thursday morning near the Kabul airport.

Sasse called the explosions, which U.S. officials suspect were carried out by ISIS-K members, "the nightmare we feared" as the military has sought to evacuate U.S. personnel and Afghan allies in recent days. He argued that Biden's two options are to either "rip up the August 31 deadline" for evacuations or "leave people behind in your retreat." By casting aside the previous deadline, Sasse says the U.S. could expand its military presence around the airport or "retake" Bagram, where the U.S. previously held an air base.

Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan (N.H.) agreed with Sasse, saying "We must complete this mission, regardless of any arbitrary deadlines."

"Weakness will accelerate the bloodshed," wrote Sasse. "Lord, have mercy on Americans in harm's way."

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Republican Sen. Ben Sasse calls on Biden to 'reverse course' and extend military evacuations in Kabul - The Week Magazine

Nine months after several highly effective coronavirus vaccines started to become available in America, and three to fivemonths after they became available in pharmacies across the country, the pandemic is now as bad as it's ever been in many states. In Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, and South Carolina, daily hospitalizations and deaths are at or near the March 2020 peak, while in Florida the previous records have been far surpassed.

At the same time, conservative elites are doing their level best to spread the virus as much as possible, even as COVID-19 is killing conservatives by the thousands. It's willful, malign negligence on a mind-boggling scale.

I can barely keep up with the number of minor conservative figures who have died of COVID after refusing to take the vaccine. The radio host Phil Valentine is dead after having mocked the vaccine, and so is Newsmax host Dick Farell. The same is true of Texas Republican official Scott Apley. South Carolina party official Pressley Stutts continued to post anti-vaccine conspiracy theories from his COVID ICU bed until he died. And among the voting base, it's total carnage.

Yet Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still in a ferocious dispute with his state's school districts about mask mandates, as his state's pediatric ICU beds are swamped. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently issued an (almost certainly unconstitutional) order banning any institution receiving public funds from requiring vaccines. South Dakota recently held the Sturgis motorcycle rally again with the furious support of Gov.Kristi Noem despite the fact that the state is trailing in vaccination and last year the rally created a pandemic charnel house.Unsurprisingly, cases there are once again shooting through the roof.

The story that might have fully broken my brain for good is the recent plague of conservatives poisoning themselves with veterinary deworming paste. The idea is to get a drug called ivermectin, which has been promoted as yet another coronavirus miracle cure by various fringe quacks. Perhaps the most prominent is the former biology professor Bret Weinstein, who has been publishing anti-vaccine propaganda on a podcast and YouTube in the classic passive-aggressive "just asking questions" fashion.

As Jef Rouner explains at Houston Press, the formula is simple and lucrative: raise fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the vaccines with complicated but false arguments that are hard for a layman to untangle, launder extreme claims by interviewing total lunatics, all while recommending unproven miracle remedies the shadowy Big Pharma conspiracy is supposedly suppressing. Then when you get in trouble for spreading antivaccine lies during a global pandemic, scream that you're being "censored" to get more attention, and watch the subscription numbers jump. Sure enough, Weinstein got on Fox News and other conservative outlets after YouTube demonetized his channel and deleted some videos. He even got a friendly reception from ex-leftist Matt Taibbi, who wrote two articles about ivermectin treating Weinstein as a credible source and a victim of Big Tech censorship.

In terms of science, the story is virtually identical to what happened with hydroxychloroquine promising initial evidence that has crumbled on further scrutiny. One big study was retracted when it turned out much of the abstract was plagiarized and the data was faked. A meta-analysis examining 14 studies published late last month found highly equivocal results: "Overall, the reliable evidence available does not support the use [of] ivermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19 outside of well-designed randomized trials."

To answer Taibbi's duplicitous leading question, there are two reasons why it is a bad idea to trumpet the possibility of unproven miracle cures during a pandemic. First, even the promising initial studies did not show ivermectin to be anywhere close to as protective as the vaccines, which are among the most-studied treatments in the history of medicine. Second, spreading overheated rumors about miracle drugs before the evidence is in will lead credulous people to take it without knowledge of proper dosage or considering toxic interactions. Sure enough, deworming paste is flying off the shelves, some doctor in Arkansas is giving it to prisoners, and calls to poison control centers are skyrocketing across the South. Facebook groups are full of stories of poisoned people suffering severe diarrhea and expelling "rope worms," which turn out to be almost certainlyshreds of intestinal lining.

But in terms of politics, the horse paste saga is a perfect window in the conservative mindset that is currently the biggest force fueling the pandemic. The core behavior here is muleheaded, selfish spitefulness, adhered to even at great personal risk. "Freedom" for movement conservatives is entirely one-directional: They get to spray virus fog whenever and wherever they want, and they also get to force you or your kids to not wear a mask.

Because that behavior is so monstrous, there is a large incentive to make up comforting lies about how the pandemic is exaggerated or fake, or the vaccines don't work much facilitated by the fact that consuming right-wing media for very long tends to turn your brain into horse paste. Some right-wing voices pushing this line actually believe it, as shown by the lamented dead above. But others are just cynical Abbott recently came down with COVID, but it turns out he had not only been vaccinated but also had already gotten a booster shot, and was getting daily tests, so had a very mild case.

Finally, because the financial engine of the conservative media complex is tricking gullible retired people into buying brain pills and reverse mortgages, conservatives are easy pickings for cynical and/or deluded grifters hawking snake oil remedies when they do contract COVID after coughing into each other's face at the Cheesecake Factory to own the libs.

Yet another wave of completely pointless death seems to be motivating a lot of people to finally get vaccinated but thus far the procrastinators, not the ideological, hard core antivaxxers. Even when Donald Trump tried to argue for the vaccine at a rally in Alabama recently, he was booed. It seems the pandemic will keep burning out of control until just about every conservative vaccine refusenik has gotten COVID. Another few months ought to do it.

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Death and horse paste - The Week Magazine

The Iowa State Fair is at full boil. Its a little light on the political tourists because its not the summer before a year ending in 0, 4, 8, 12, or 16. Which is not to say that it is entirely devoid of migrant politicians from other states, or the media they drag around in their wake. On occasion, these are politicians you should keep an eye on because they have national aspirations. On other occasions, these are politicians you should keep an eye on to make sure they dont get into the poultry barn and start biting the heads off all the chickens. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Well, thats one way to describe it that begins with an S.

And, dear lord, she brought a friend, someone on whom people are keeping an eye for a whole different bunch of reasons.

Iowa needs to beef up its border security.

Oops, might be too late.

And furthermore:

I dont think MTG is elevating her national profile as much more than a wandering geek show, but her recent travels illustrate certain immutable political realities. One, that the Republican Party is no longer capable of controlling her and the people who follow her, and two, that the Republican Party cannot exist as a national party without them. Shes out there ahead of them, beating them to the freshest corn dogs.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Out of the Republican Party's Control - Esquire

The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set newsroom policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or onbangordailynews.com.

Phil Harriman, a former town councilor and state senator from Yarmouth,is the founding partner of Lebel & Harriman, a financial services firm. Ethan Strimling, a former mayor and state senator from Portland,is the president of Swing Hard. Turn Left, which promotes progressive policy at the local, state and national levels.

Ethan: Do you remember back in 2012 when we posted a columnin the Bangor Daily News beginning a bipartisan call for Gov. Paul LePage to apologize for comparing the IRS to the Gestapo?

Phil: I do. I was thankful that within a week of that post he apologized in his weekly radio address. He quickly understood how out of bounds and insensitive his comment was.

Ethan: I believe it was the only time he apologized for one of his off-color remarks, but I thought his words were very helpful: Millions of innocent people were murdered and I apologize for my insensitivity to the word and the offense some took to my comparison of the IRS and the Gestapo.

Phil: I also appreciate that a couple of years later you called outan angry restaurant owner, who had been shut down for health violations, for comparing LePage to those same Nazi police. There is no place for minimizing the Holocaust to simply score political points by Republicans or against Republicans.

Ethan: Agree, and thats why it was so disappointing to recently see two Maine political leaders go off the deep end with similar language. First our political analyst colleague on News Center Maine and conservative talk show host, Ray Richardson, likened a proposed requirement that federal workers receive vaccines to Obama-Bidens brown shirtsand then eight days later Rep. Heidi Sampson claimed Gov. Janet Mills was Joseph Mengele, the Nazi Angel of Death.

Phil: Really disheartening. For our readers who dont know, the Brown Shirts carried out Kristallnacht. Over two days, Hitlers enforcement arm, who were called the Brown Shirts due to the color of their uniforms, marched through the streets of Nazi Germany destroying hundreds of synagogues, thousands of Jewish businesses and arresting up to 30,000 Jewish men who were then sent to concentration camps.

Ethan: And the Angel of Death, Joseph Mengele, was responsible for selecting who would get gassed at Auschwitz, he often administered the gas himself, and he performed experiments on live Jews in his sadistic drive to prove and replicate racial superiority.

Phil: I read one story of how he tortured a 6-year-old twin named Renate(he was obsessed with experimenting on twins). He took blood from her neck, strapped her to a table, cut her with a knife and injected her with chemicals to make her throw up and have diarrhea.

Ethan: Those stories are sadly endless. And they make it so vivid why comparing anything happening today to what was done by the Nazis is very troubling.

Phil: Richardon and Sampsons comments were inappropriate, painful and ethnically insensitive. For those who lost loved ones to the racist hand of Hitlers charges, their comments simply trivialize the pain.

Ethan: And are historically inaccurate. One may believe that federal or state mandates that require a vaccine for employment are a bad idea (I do not), but to trivialize the Holocaust to make that point shows both ignorance of history and a deep insensitivity to other cultures and ethnicities.

Phil: Deciding whether to inject an FDA-approved vaccine into your body to keep your job, is a legitimate public debate. Holocaust comparisons just distract and are insulting. We called on the governor to apologize back in 2012 and within a week he did. Heres hoping these two do, too.

Ethan: Here, here. And let me add a note of thanks for you being the first Republican in Maine to condemn these remarks. You were one of the only to do it against LePage, and you are showing leadership here again. I know how hard it is to take on your own.

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Holocaust comparisons are insulting and inappropriate. A Republican finally calls them out. - Bangor Daily News

Sarah Huckabee Sanders may not be the White House press secretary anymore, but when an opportunity for some Donald Trump image management presents itself, shes still got it. As the spread of the COVID-19 delta variant and rising caseloads coincides with stagnant vaccination rates and heightened concerns about health misinformation, the Arkansas candidate for governor put her platform to good use in an op-ed Sunday that urged people to get inoculated with the Trump vaccine.

The gubernatorial candidate highlighted how caseloads and hospitalizations are rising exponentially in the state shes running in, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, and cited data about the benefits of getting vaccinated, noting that if getting vaccinated was safe enough for [President Trump and his family], I felt it was safe enough for me. Sanderss persuasion tactics also brought in right-wing talking points politicizing the public health issue, such as through bashing Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Biden administration, as well as scorning liberal media outlets that did not give President Trump and his team the credit they are due.

On the downside, Sanderss rhetoric isnt exactly factual, and it will likely add to mistrust of the current administration. But it will likely resonate with her Republican base, many of whom may be resistant to the idea of getting the COVID vaccine. The urgent need for those holdouts to change their mind has necessitated a certain type of strategic communication. What [holdouts] dont want is to be indoctrinatedtheyre willing to be vaccinated, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said on ABCs This Week Sunday, noting one of the places where our leaders have fallen down is theyre not explaining the facts to Republicans hesitant or completely unwilling to get the shot. These folks do not respond to being ordered to do those things, he said, noting its a libertarian type of response to perceived government overreach. You have to walk them through the logic of this, he said.

Some Republican officials are increasingly adopting that approach as parts of the party shift their messaging to promote the vaccine, including some lawmakers who have either actively or passively fueled vaccine reluctance, the Associated Press reports. After holding off on getting vaccinated for months, Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, shared photos of himself receiving his first dose earlier this month and called it safe and effective. The Louisiana congressmans decision comes as his state, where only 36% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, confronts a delta-fueled surge in hospitalizations and infections.

Even conservative leaders now are having a hard time figuring out how to rein in what had primarily been a propaganda campaign, and they are now realizing their constituencies are particularly vulnerable, Eric Ward, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told the AP. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida whose 2022 reelection campaign merch includes beer koozies that say Dont Fauci My Florida, recently noted that nearly all COVID-19 hospitalizations are among unvaccinated people and affirmed that these vaccines are saving lives. Theres been an overall shift in some corners of Fox Newsa network that has for months amplified misinformation and politicized the shots.

By now, though, it may be too little, too late. Once you are opposed, it is very hard to change that position. And thats whats happening right now, Republican pollster Frank Luntz told the AP. Some officials are now urging constituents to use common sense, as Alabama governor Kay Ivey did last week, though without indicating that shell impose new safety restrictions in her state. These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain, she said of unvaccinated people. I can encourage you to do something, but I cant make you take care of yourself. Republican Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire seemed similarly resigned to his states diminished vaccination rates, telling the AP that there are no new measures to encourage vaccination on the immediate horizon and its folks individual responsibility. If someone hasnt been vaccinated at this point, theyve made that conscious decision not to.

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The Republican Reckoning on COVID Vaccines Has Finally Arrived - Vanity Fair