The Fatal Shore: The US is reeling after 13 service members died yesterday in an explosion at the Kabul airport. The dead are 12 Marines and a Navy Corpsman. Fifteen Americans were reported wounded. 

  A double bombing at the airport and the nearby Baron Hotel also killed at least 60 people waiting to be airlifted out of Afghanistan and wounded more than 140. Many of their bodies fell into the murky waters of a sewer ditch that has become a holding area for people hoping to escape the rule of the extremist Taliban.

  Both bombs are believed to have been suicide attacks. The first was reported to have been followed by gunfire .

  The US and other foreign governments had seemed certain there would be an attack and yet it was still carried out successfully. The terrorist organization ISIS-K, an offshoot of the original ISIS, has claimed responsibility. The US military says the threat of further attacks, including the possibility of vehicle bombs, still lingers.

  Speaking at the White House “To those who carried out this attack,” President Biden said, “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay. I will defend our interests and our people with every measure at my command.”

  Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said he condemns the attacks “in the strongest possible terms,” which will surely put an end to this sort of thing. 

 US authorities said they still have a working relationship with the Taliban after the bombings. The Taliban have been in charge of initial screenings of people arriving for refugee flights. The American military have been conducting in-person pat downs in an area where the first bomb may have detonated.  

  Biden was under fire from Republicans for yesterday’s events almost before the flags were at half-staff. New York’s Rep. Elise Stefanik said Biden “is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.” 

  Biden said he always believed it never should have been the intention for the US to install a peaceful Democratic government in a nation ruled by tribes that have always been at war with each other. And yet that is what America did for the last 20 years at the cost of thousands dead and wounded.

  The deaths of  American soldiers in the final days is unalterably sad. It recalls John Kerry’s famous testimony before Congress in which the Vietnam veteran, later to be a US Senator, asked “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

Eviction Notice: The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to end President Biden’s pandemic eviction moratorium. The unsigned ruling by the court’s six conservatives said the centers for Disease Control had exceeded its authority, relying on “a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination.” The opinion went on to say, “It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts.”

  The opinion said extension of the eviction moratorium would require action by Congress.

  Millions of Americans who’ve lost work during the pandemic are now at risk of being cast out of their homes. The federal government has allotted $46.5 for emergency rent relief, but only about $5.1 billion of it had been disbursed by the end of July.

Accountability: Seven Capitol Police officers sued former President Donald Trump yesterday, as well as nearly 20 far-right extremist groups and political organizations, accusing them of a plot to disrupt the peaceful transition of power during the January 6^th Capitol insurrection.

  The suit names members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers militia, and Trump associate Roger Stone, among others.  It’s the biggest civil action yet attempting to hold  Trump and his allies legally accountable for storming the Capitol.

  The lawsuit argues that Mr. Trump and his allies in the insurrection violated the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which outlaws violent conspiracies that interfere with the operations of Congress. 

  Some of the officers describe being beaten and hosed down with bear-repellent spray. The suit  accuses the defendants of committing “bias-motivated acts of terrorism” in violation of District of Columbia law. Five of the suing officers are black.

  The Capitol cops are  among the first to take action about the insurrection. The Justice Department is engaged in a huge criminal investigation and a select committee of Congress has opened an inquiry.

  Unrelated to the lawsuit, Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, the man who shot and killed the rioter Ashli Babbitt, said in an interview with NBC News that he had pleaded with her to back off. Allowing himself to be identified publicly for the first time, Byrd said, “She was posing a threat to the House of Representatives.” He said, “I know that day I saved countless lives.”

Written Off: The Education Department said it is erasing $1.1 billion in debt racked up by 115,000 former students who attended the for-profit ITT Technical Institute but left without degrees. The now-defunct ITT is accused of luring students with fraudulent prospects of post-graduate employment. 

Major Pain: Judicial Watch announced that it received 36 pages of Secret Service communication records that say the Bidens’ dog Major bit Secret Service personnel numerous times.

  JW reports that, “One email notes that ‘at the current rate an Agent or Officer has been bitten every day this week (3/1-3/8) causing damage to attire or bruising/punctures to the skin.’” 

  The report says agents were advised to protect their “hands/fingers” by placing their hands “in their pockets.” 

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