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This is beyond outrageous. This is nothing but shameful harassment of a great American hero.
Don't forget, these people hated Fauci for being the guy who led the fight against AIDS, which led to AIDS being a controllable disease that people can live relatively normal lives with. The MAGAs wanted them all to die. Fauci disappointed them.
When it's their time in the box, none of these people will receive any mercy.
This shit only ever goes one way.
Meanwhile, on the right, they've been ignoring subpoenas with impunity since George W Bush
what a bunch of whiny little shits. "You didn't say what we wanted you to say, so we're going to try and punish you nyah nyah!"
Fauci's something of a dead horse. And fuck the GOP, they're a pack of dog turds.
But this is what welding power against your political enemies actually looks like. Democrats are free to do this exact same thing to RFK Jr next year. And Pete Hegseth. And Kristi Noem. And Howard Lutnick. Will they? I'm not holding my breath.
Because the way they operate requires a target at all times. They cannot have a moment where someone isn't in the crosshairs. Not one. Always be on the attack and you'll never be on the defensive. So naturally, this requires that they are always looking for a new target. In case their current target becomes less favorable to target for any reason.
But this is what welding power against your political enemies actually looks like. Democrats are free to do this exact same thing to RFK Jr next year. And Pete Hegseth. And Kristi Noem. And Howard Lutnick
Not even in the same universe. Fauci just did his fucking job, the people you've listed have not only broken their oaths of office, most (if not all) have explicitly broken the law. On numerous occasions.
But this is what the right will do. This is what they're setting up for with the "against weaponization of government" bullshit. "See? They all do it!".
As soon as someone on the left attempts to hold these ghouls responsible for literal crimes, they will cry persecution. Most of them are Christians, so they're pros already and have a lifetime of practice.
Idiots who don't pay attention will be told "remember how Fauci refused to answer questions?! They all do this, it's not just Republicans!"
Mark my words.
And we'll once again be on the back foot, as always, having to try to explain that Hegseth literally ordered the murder of something like 200 South American fishermen, and that's not the same as a disease expert trying to handle a pandemic with a toddler as a boss.
And people will literally say, "that didn't actually happen, I would have seen it on TV" or "those were actually confirmed terrorists," or etc etc.
Because they "don't pay attention to politics" yet somehow always end up with the most up to date Fox News talking points.
Funny how that works.
Go ahead and save this comment so someone can make a meme about it when I'm inevitably correct in 3 weeks or months or years or. This fucking Cassandra-ass shit sucks.
It's always symbolic. It's why they kept complaining about Hilary long after she became irrelevant. Ultimately, they need someone to point at and complain so that their base can get in line behind them.
They have to keep their base angry because they've conditioned their brains to be addicted to anger dopamine. They're hooked and if they don't stay angry, they get harder to manipulate. Because of the addiction they want to be angry, that's why they're always angry at seemingly trivial shit.
Funny you mention this - I'm watching MeidasTouch and he's pointing out how Faux is getting their marks to get all butthurt about....fouls being called on some WNBA player? I mean....seriously, WTAF.
How many people does this kind of stuff even affect?
Imagine, sitting there all raged out over what happens on WNBA because of something something liberal trans Democrats did this to us.
One third of the country :(
I mean, 1/3 may be worked up about "men in women's sports" by lying liars and demagogues like Faux News, but the outcome of a WNBA player having a foul called on her for supposedly speaking out about "men in women's sports" is virtually nil and affects maybe entire dozens of people, LOL.
Meanwhile, these people are having their health care ripped away and their air/water/soil polluted and the prices of everything going through the roof and jobs being killed by AI. And they are worried about a fucking GAME.
The noise aimed at Hillary died down significantly once it was clear she'd given up on the presidency.
however MAGA cried for her head for years after
See that Youtube video I posted in here as to why they continue with their jihad against Fauci. Fauci was a predominant expert that made their Dear Leader look like the complete dumbass that he is, and they cannot have it.
And yes, I think the Democrats absolutely should drag every single member of Donvict's circle into hearings to answer for their words and their actions.
Fauci was a predominant expert that made their Dear Leader look like the complete dumbass that he is, and they cannot have it.
Eh. He was the guy in charge of an agency the GOP doesn't like and he championed a policy - vaccination - that the QAnon crowd despised. At the time, he was fully in alignment with Trump on policy. He wasn't making Trump look like a dumbass. If anything "Operation Warpspeed" made Trump look exceptionally competent. We really did trailblaze a new method of engineering vaccinations and roll them out in record time. And I can't help but think Trump's natural phobia towards illness played a role in getting HHS and CDC a sudden infusion of needed funding.
But then the MAGA crowd decided vaccination was some kind of evil government conspiracy, more or less independent of anything Trump was saying at the time. And anti-vax hysteria ripped through the GOP like its own kind of disease. Biden inherited COVID and continued a vaccination policy, which made vaccinations "Democrat" coded and double-plus evil as a result.
So Fauci was turned into a scapegoat within the GOP. Trump threw him under the bus to appease his base. And now the GOP is whipping him to appease their own rabid, deranged voter base, because its something they can do on the eve of mid-term elections to distract from the economy and Epstein and Iran and a dozen other unpopular socio-economic turns.
And yes, I think the Democrats absolutely should drag every single member of Donvict’s circle into hearings to answer for their words and their actions.
I mean, I think so too. I just don't think they'll actually put these folks in prison over anything they uncover.
Just like after 2020, the Dem response to the GOP was to yell "Vote Blue No Matter Who" and then blame the stupid voters when Garland's DOJ failed to deliver any indictments.
He did not exactly align with Donvict. And he had the gall to be right, which makes it worse. The conservatives cannot stand this. If you watch the way Donvict conducts his cabinet meetings and his current cabinet just openly and shamelessly glaze him, Fauci did basically the opposite of that kind of thing.
Also, the reason we were ready for this with a vaccine and basically did the medical equivalent of a moonshot can be attributed to the Obama admin [1]. Donvict at least didn't fuck that up, too, even if he fucked up nearly everything else about the pandemic response. So, I guess he deserves kudos for back Operation Warp Speed even if later he backed away from vaccines like the coward that he is.
Obviously, mRNA research predated Obama, but that funding granted during his terms apparently played a role in moving things forward.
Fauci’s something of a dead horse. Not sure why they’re still beating on him.
Because of this one press briefing. Fauci was contradicting Trump's bullshit.
They want a controversy they can control the narrative of. None of the controversies surrounding them poll well.
what I don't understand is what rand paul is trying to get at. OK, let's say covid did come from a lab leak. Would that have changed, in any way, how the pandemic was handled? IANAD, but I suspect not. I think it's just rand's inferiority complex about just being an optho while he's talking to arguably one of the greatest infectious disease specialists on the planet.
OK, let’s say covid did come from a lab leak. Would that have changed, in any way, how the pandemic was handled?
The presumption is that China caused COVID, not domestic health policy. And that by falling to acknowledge Wuhan as the proximate cause of COVID, we are ignoring the clear and present danger of Chinese immigrants, Chinese trade, and interstate travel to the Chinese mainland.
So racism.
With a side helping of "please give us another long, drawn-out war so we can milk the last drops of cash from the government via the MIC".
Reminds me of Benghazi
So he doesn't have a 5th amendment right? Well I guess they've never really been fans of rights. Hell, half of Trump's cabinet didn't even show up for their subpoenas.
Well I guess they’ve never really been fans of rights.
Yep. The conservatives loooove to talk about liberty, and freedom and the Constitution. They never mean any of it.
Easy Rider had their number, and that was nearly 60 years ago...
"They are gonna talk to you and talk to about individual freedom..."
LOL on the news they stated it like this "5th Amendment Privilege"!
Our freedom is over.
If they put Fauci in jail, I imagine a lot of science people will flee the US
Many already have, but probably for other reasons (also related to conservative dumbasses).
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/19/trump-science-funding-cuts
America is now basically letting the people who failed out and/or peaked in high school (and who said stupid things about having "street smarts" and how "book smarts" never did anyone no good anyhow) metaphorically give wedgies and swirlies to experts, to the educated, and to people with more intelligence. All so they "do their own research" now, I guess.
10,000 PhDs have left the US in just one year.
Before 2025, even Republicans understood science was THE economic driver of the US economy. From now on, you'll be buying all the tech from China.
A lot already have.
Isn't pleading the fifth testifying? I feel like the article does a disservice to treat pleading the fifth as not meeting his obligation to testify, but maybe my understanding is incorrect.
It's the perfect demonstration that Republicans were just using the hearing to fish for a reason to punish him because they had nothing.
The fact that he was right is the very reason they are so very butthurt. So him telling the truth was only going to enrage magameatheads all the more, since virtually of them peaking in high school.
I think their claim is that his pardon somehow invalidates him being able to claim the Fifth.
I don't know enough about law to have any idea on the merits of that, but it sounds crazy to me.
Even if they was the case though, how can you prove the pardon covers what he's claiming the fifth on regarding his testimony?
Once upon a time (let's say prior to 2016), it was generally accepted precedent that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt.
So I believe the idea is that you've already forfeited your fifth amendment right by admitting guilt.
I could be wrong.
It also doesn't matter anymore because after one of Trump's early pardons (honestly forget which, there are so many awful ones. Maybe Mike Flynn?), they were kind of just like "yeah no it doesn't equal an admission of guilt, that was never really precedent". Which apparently was true. It turns out our entire country ran on gentlemen's agreements for nearly 200 years but that's a separate discussion.
You got me as to the legality of their claims.
The conservatives are bound and determined to try every bit of clown shoes performative bullshit if they think it will help them and hurt others, though.
Certainly they don't care about the truth or any of that. They had to wear masks and see schools and businesses closed down, even if it saved lives. Worst of all, the liberals and experts like Fauci were proven right about Covid, and Donvict was proven wrong, and that is unforgivable to them. So they'll lie and deflect and try every possible method to "get" people like Fauci.
All while they turn a blind eye to the obvious and blatant fraud and self-enrichment that Donvict and his crime family are doing right now.
Is that ILLEGAL?
There are no laws, we made the whole thing up. The people with the power to enforce can make up whatever laws they want and nothing is forcing them to apply the rules consistently.