Terror in Afghanistan

At least 72 people, including a dozen Americans, were killed in suicide bombings at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan this morning, as two blasts ripped through crowds trying to enter the American-controlled facility for evacuation. According to U.S. officials, as many as 11 U.S. Marines, as well as a U.S. Navy medic, were killed in the attack, with additional personnel wounded. A senior Afghan health official put the death toll among local civilians at 60, with many more fighting for their lives.

• — While no group claimed immediate responsibility, Western governments warned earlier today of an imminent attack by Islamic State's regional affiliate. A sworn enemy of Islamic State, the Taliban killed one of the group's top leaders in Afghanistan hours after taking over the Kabul prison where he was held.
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• — The carnage is a direct challenge to the Taliban's boasts of having re-established peace in the country. Islamic State has "an interest in exposing the Taliban as incompetent," says Tore Hamming of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization. "This is a battle for authority. Both groups say that their emirs are the leaders of the global Muslim community. They cannot coexist."
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• — Thursday's bombings were the first major security incidents since the Taliban took power in Kabul and began dismantling the blast barriers and other security installations that had been erected to thwart insurgent attacks during the two decades of American military presence. —The Wall Street Journal

Ex-president gets served

A group of seven Capitol Police officers filed a lawsuit today accusing Donald Trump and nearly 20 members of far-right extremist groups of a plot to disrupt the peaceful transition of power during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The suit, which implicates members of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers militia, and Trump associates like Roger Stone, is the most expansive civil effort to date seeking to hold Trump and his allies legally accountable for the insurrection. It contends that Trump and his co-defendants violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which includes protections against violent conspiracies that interfere with Congress' constitutional duties. The lawsuit also accuses the defendants of committing "bias-motivated acts of terrorism" in violation of District of Columbia law. Stay tuned. —The New York Times

MORE: Extremist content is flourishing on TikTok —Politico

Sargent: A glimpse at the Jan 6 panel's plans

"On Wednesday, the House select committee examining the Jan. 6 insurrection issued a massive demand for documents from multiple government agencies. It shows that the committee is casting a very wide investigative net—and a big target is the months of efforts to steal the election that came well in advance of President Donald Trump's incitement of mob violence. That's critical, because it suggests the committee sees the effort to overturn the election via legal manipulation and illicit plotting as central to explaining the outbreak of violence itself." —Greg Sargent in The Washington Post

Greg Sargent is a columnist at The Washington Post and the author of "An Uncivil War: Taking Back Our Democracy in an Age of Trumpian Disinformation and Thunderdome Politics."

MORE: Some judges question whether Capitol rioters are being treated too leniently —The Washington Post

'A historic and profound abuse of the judicial process'

Nine attorneys aligned with Donald Trump, including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging Michigan's 2020 presidential election results, will have to pay financial penalties and face other punitive actions for their legal effort, a federal judge ruled yesterday. "It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election," U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her decision. "It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here." Well said, Judge Parker. —NPR

MORE: Judge orders Cyber Ninjas to preserve Maricopa vote audit records in lawsuit by The Arizona Republic —USA Today

Li: Don't gerrymander our diversity away

"The Census numbers make clear that our country's future is multiracial and deeply coalitional. Without gerrymandering, political parties would be forced by necessity to figure out ways to build diverse, multiracial coalitions or face being condemned to being regional or sectional curiosities. But gerrymandering gives states a way to kick the can down the road. For the sake of all of us, Congress must take the power to cheat voters off the table." —Michael Li in The Boston Globe

Michael Li is a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, where he works on redistricting, voting rights, and elections.

MORE: PA ends 'prison gerrymandering' with closely divided vote —WHYY

Focus on the pandemic

As children across the country head back to school amid a surge of COVID-19 cases, their parents, school administrators, and politicians are battling out whether there should be universal masking mandates to protect the health of students, teachers, and staff. Now, disability rights advocates have jumped into the fray, launching a slew of federal civil rights lawsuits that could serve as a blueprint for the Biden Administration as it weighs legal options to fight state bans on mandating masks.

• — Republican bans on school mask mandates were already facing a torrent of lawsuits in state courts. The Texas Supreme Court last week temporarily blocked Gov. Greg Abbott's mask policy. And a judge in Arkansas similarly has paused a state law prohibiting mask requirements that was signed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has since said he regrets doing so.
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• — The new legal challenges take a different tack. Filed separately in recent weeks against Texas, Florida, and South Carolina, the lawsuits argue that those states' bans on universal masking in schools run afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws meant to protect children with disabilities.

1. — "The states that have done this are essentially throwing their students with disabilities under the proverbial school bus," said Susan Mizner, who directs the disability rights program at the American Civil Liberties Union. "Prohibiting schools from requiring universal masking is essentially excluding students with disabilities from school. It is outright discrimination." —Politico

Nowlin: How we can stop the infodemic

"Failure to speak to our friends, family members, and neighbors about the dangerous falsehoods they've shared or succumbed to is an essential part of reversing the dangerous course the United States is on, says Aaron Delwiche, a communications professor at San Antonio's Trinity University. 'If we give up on that attempt to persuade, to talk, to dialogue, we're giving up on democracy.'" —Sanford Nowlin in San Antonio Current

Sanford Nowlin is the editor-in-chief at San Antonio Current.

MORE: Where does all that online disinformation come from? Experts say you get what you search for —WFSU

Remember when Barack Obama wanted to nominate Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and Mitch McConnell blocked the nomination from even being considered, claiming no Supreme Court appointment should be made in the final year of a president's term? (Forget the hypocrisy of pushing, no rushing, through the confirmation of a candidate for Ruth Bader Ginsberg's seat mere weeks before the 2020 election).

Applying this standard, did Donald Trump have any business negotiating an exit treaty with the Taliban in the final year of his first term? Shouldn't he have left any decision until 2021, either for himself if re-elected, or the next president?

How come no Republicans have commented on this double standard?

Stupid me. For Republicans, if it makes Democrats look bad, there is no double standard. —Jim V., New York

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.