Congress In Over Its Head

American decency apparently also died during the pandemic. - The Alabama Reporter

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is the son of former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is also a doctor, an obstetrician. Rand is an ophthalmologist and got his MD from Duke University. But he is certified by the National Board of Ophthalmology, a private group he helped incorporate and lead, which is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS).

He is also named for that wack job hypocrite, Ayn Rand, about whom the great writer Dorothy Parker once said...

“Atlas Shrugged is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Dr. Anthony Fauci's background...

• Undergraduate: Bachelor's degree in pre-medicine from the College of the Holy Cross in 1962.
• Medical School: M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1966, graduating first in his class.
• Residency: Internship and residency at New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center.

Professional Experience

• Government Service: Joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1968 as a clinical associate.
• Leadership: Served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 through 2022.
• Research Chief: Headed the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation from 1980 until 2022.
• Advisory Role: Advised seven U.S. presidents on major domestic and global health crises, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19.

And of course, Fauci received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.

So, Rand, the self-certified eye doctor, is skeptical, to say the least, of the man who has advised 7 Presidents on some of the most fearsome diseases of modern times. And thanks to Robert Kennedy Jr., head of Health and Human Services, former lawyer and heroin addict and currently Trump's favorite twit, he had Fauci's personal notes he kept during the pandemic.

Rand titled it "Dr. Fauci's Diary!" in Barbie-pink script with a small heart dotting the "i." Cute. And he used it as part of this farcical congressional hearing meant to finally nail a man this collection of 20-watt bulbs consider evil.

Oh, Fauci wrote about his new found celebrity and marveled at some of the famous folks he was meeting as a result of his prominence. A bit shallow? Sure it was. But, of course, he left out Fauci's dismal assessment of the President, Obama's dismal assessment of the President, and how the doltish political games being played around the pandemic were keeping people from doing the logical thing and getting the Covid shot.

And due to Rand's personal obsession, and the need to gin up something for the midterms, this circus was put together. Fauci refused to play the elephant in this particular center ring, though I think we missed a real opportunity to put these clowns back into their little car and put science before political theatre. But knowing they were looking for any misstep to try to nail a renowned scientist, his lawyers chose the 5th Amendment protection as the better part of valor.

Senator Josh Hawley, who was filmed running through the Capitol on January 6th faster than Miss Muffet from her tuffet, was particularly smarmy trying to demean a world-famous scientist and longtime public servant.

Hawley sits in the Senate seat once occupied by the reasonable and judicious John Danforth, who is also an Episcopal priest, by the way. Danforth told St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Tony Messenger that "Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”

And for those wondering why former President Biden gave Fauci a preemptive pardon, now you see why. He and those around him knew this absurd twaddle was coming. I just watched a clip online from Fox, where the supremely vacuous Maria Bartiromo asked Senator Ted Cruz (R-Cancun) why Fauci wasn't already in jail for lying to Congress. Lying about what, you might ask? One presumes about the origins of the COVID virus.

There are some reports from intelligence agencies that speculate the virus leaked from the virology lab in Wuhan, China. But the bulk of the virology community contends it came from an animal-human transfer. From NPR...

A team of scientists that includes prominent names such as Michael Worobey and Angela Rasmussen, say the analysis shows with unprecedented granularity that coronavirus-susceptible wildlife and the SARS-CoV-2 virus were mingling, along with human beings, in a very specific part of the wet market in Wuhan.

In two extensive, peer-reviewed studies published in the journal Science in 2022, researchers looked at the distribution of the earliest known cases and found that they formed a bull's-eye centered at the wet market. If the outbreak had started at the lab, researchers argue cases would've spread out from there.

Worobey, an evolutionary biologist who worked on the Science and Cell papers and was at the forefront of the pandemic-origins research, spoke to NPR in 2022 about the data.

"It's absurd how strong the geographical association is [to the market]," he told NPR.

Worobey said that the likelihood of a coincidence — wherein the virus did come from a lab, even though the first cluster of COVID-19 cases occurred at the market — was "1 in 10,000."

"The evidence is amongst the best we have for any emerging virus," he said.

Many have charged that the National Institutes of Health, which Fauci headed, helped fund virus research in the Wuhan Lab, and indeed they did, but only in the thousands of dollars. And it was through another organization, a non-profit called the EcoHealth Alliance. And more importantly, it was not for so-called "Gain of Function" research that makes viruses more lethal and therefore helps prepare authorities for dealing with them. That is prohibited research with US government dollars.

Now, I'm going to bet a very nice dinner that most of the congressional nimrods who throw that phrase around have no idea what it means. But it sounds good if you are trying to pin blame for a pandemic on a doctor and not the President who botched the response. Well except for developing a vaccine, for which he deserves credit. But it gets taken away when afterward he joined with the anti-vax crowd spreading dopey rumors about the vaccine being as deadly as the disease.

Spoiler alert: it isn't. Some people had bad reactions, but an infinitesimal percentage and that has also happened with famous life-saving vaccines like the Salk and Sabin for polio.

And just as a reminder, the last person living in an iron lung due to polio died in June. Martha Lillard of Oklahoma was 78, and contracted polio in 1953, just 3 years before the Salk vaccine was introduced. Think about Martha when you hear the insipid blatherings of RFK.

And then there was the quack remedy crowd. Senator Ron Johnson, who gives Tommy Tuberville a run for his money in the congressional dunderhead derby, accused Fauci of ignoring alternatives like hydroxychloroquine, a medicine used to treat malaria and lupus. Large-scale, randomized clinical trials conducted by major health bodies globally have definitively shown that the drug does not provide clinical benefits for COVID-19 patients, and its use carries substantial health risks.

Then there is the Ivermectin crowd. This medicine is used to treat problems resulting from parasites. While it might help with the screwworm outbreak here in Texas cattle or if you have bedbugs, it is not a treatment for COVID, which is once again class, a virus.

Large randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies—such as the PRINCIPLE trial analyzed by the University of Oxford—found that Ivermectin lacks meaningful clinical benefits and fails to reduce hospitalizations or alter outcomes in largely vaccinated populations.

But, nevertheless, based on intense and exhaustive scientific studies of YouTube videos, Texas passed House Bill 25 allowing pharmacists to dispense Ivermectin without a doctor's prescription. The law took effect on December 4, 2025, making Texas one of the few states to permit over-the-counter access.

Why? Because the booboisie demanded it. Never underestimate the spinelessness of Texas politicians.

The other big sticking point for these cretins is the changing warnings given during the pandemic. Masks, no masks, social distancing, cancellation of crowd events, home schooling. Yes, it was annoying, but not the end of the world. It was an unfolding crisis, and science was learning more as we went along.

That's how the science thing works. As you learn more, advice may change. One reason leeches have fallen almost completely out of fashion.

It is fashionable among the red hat crowd to dismiss the seriousness of the virus. Apparently they forgot the overcrowded hospitals and tents set up in parking lots for the overflow. They forgot the refrigerated semis for the dead when morgues became equally overcrowded. I guarantee you doctors and nurses haven't forgotten.

I was a TV News Director in the big fat middle of it, and I remember conducting news meetings by Zoom from my home and the station and all its news cars being fumigated regularly. Reporters had to work from home as well and take their gear home with them. And of course, we all got the shot and wore masks.

It was a monstrous pain in the arse, of course. But we only had one case that I remember, all the while reporting on the local hospitals dealing with the overflow.

So, as much as I would have loved the good doctor telling Rand and his merry band of witless boneheads where the exit is, do not pass go and do not wait for Godot, I understand why he didn't. He knows what the game is now.

With midterms coming up, the economy tanking, an endless war draining our military, and the specter of Epstein and reflecting pools hovering over everything, they need a distraction.

And he wasn't about to become one.