Have At It: Unvaccinated Americans are 11 times more likely to die of Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

  The CDC also says the unvaccinated are 4.5 times more likely to contract Covid-19 and 10 times more likely to end up in a hospital.

  “As we have shown, study after study, vaccination works,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC at a White House Covid briefing. 

  Even so, Republican state leaders are threatening to go to court to block President Biden’s federal vaccination requirement. Biden responded, “Have at it.” He went on, “Look, I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids. So cavalier with the health of their communities. We’re playing for real here. This isn’t a game.”

  Millions of federal employees would have to be vaccinated under Biden’s order.

  Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that, “I issued an Executive Order protecting Texans’ right to choose whether they get the COVID vaccine & added it to the special session agenda.” He said, “Texas is already working to halt this power grab.”

Second Opinion: Both the Washington Post and NY Times report that experts they consulted concluded there were no explosives in the car hit by a drone strike August 29th in Kabul, killing 10 people including three children.

  The Post says, “Taken together, their assessments suggest there is no evidence the car contained explosives; two experts said evidence pointed to an ignition of fuel tank vapors as the potential cause of the second blast.”

  The Pentagon says they eliminated a car bomb.

  A Reaper drone followed the car for hours, tracking what was deemed to be suspicious activity, including what was suspected to be the loading of explosives into the trunk.

  The Times says, “Times reporting has identified the driver as Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group. The evidence suggests that his travels that day actually involved transporting colleagues to and from work. And an analysis of video feeds showed that what the military may have seen was Mr. Ahmadi and a colleague loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring home to his family.”

Very Wrong: Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer made a rare public criticism of a court decision, telling NPR that the court’s decision not to block the new Texas abortion law was “very wrong.” What he said was that the Court’s unsigned opinion last week “was very, very, very wrong — I’ll add one more very.” 

  The law allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. If they win, they will get a $10,000 award to be paid by the defendant. 

Center Court: Two unseeded teenagers face off today in the women’s final of the US Open  tennis tournament. Leylah Fernandez of Canada, who turned 19 this week, faces the British Emma Raducanu, who’s just 18. The two have come from nowhere to electrify the crowds at the Open in the absence of the Williams sisters and other tennis powers. 

  Fernandez knocked out the defending champion and third seeded Naomi Osaka in three sets in the third round. Raducanu, who came to the tournament ranked 150^th, has won all nine of her matches in straight sets.

The Spin Rack: Harvard announced that it plans to stop investing in fossil fuels and that it will be pulling money out of previous such investments because, according to a message from the university’s president, “climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity.” — Britain’s Prince Andrew has been served with the lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre accusing him of sexual abuse.  Giuffre was a teenager when she was one of the women served up to older men by the late Geoffrey Epstein.  The prince is holing up at Balmoral, the Queen’s Scottish estate. — Texas has made it illegal for social media platforms to ban users “based on their political viewpoints.” Republican politicians have accused Facebook, Twitter, and others of censoring conservative views. Former President Trump is the most prominent politician to get kicked off for spewing fiction about the results of the 2020 election. 

September 11^th: We are not big on anniversary news stories, but today marks the 20^th anniversary of the September 11^th terrorist attacks and the end of the resulting  20-year war that the US lost.

  Twenty years ago today the Muslim extremist Taliban were in control of Afghanistan, harboring international terrorists, and they are back in charge today.

  A total of 2,996 people were killed when al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. As many as 2,500 US service members were killed in the war in Afghanistan that came after.

  Those numbers are dwarfed by the deaths of US contractors, Afghan civilians, police, aid workers, and journalists. The total: 118,751.

  On the other side, more than 51,000 Taliban and other fighters were killed.

  Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, “Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.” 

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