The loony right has been obsessed with the belief that the Covid-19 virus did not jump from animals to humans but was because of a Chinese lab leak, and that scientists especially Anthony Fauci who spent 38 years at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and was a key figure in the fight to prevent the virus from harming more people than it did, was part of the cover-up.
Senator Rand Paul has been relentlessly pushing this notion and targeting Fauci and called him up before a special hearing. But Fauci refused to answer his questions and called him unhinged.
The hearing was centered around an assertion Paul has promoted for years: that the Covid pandemic began in 2020 as a “leak” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, even as virologists see a natural jump from animals to humans as more likely.
This belief underpinned Paul’s argument for bringing Fauci before the committee. If the pandemic was indeed started by a “lab leak”, Fauci “could be responsible for this entire pandemic” because the National Institutes of Health (NIH) provided the institute with a sub-grant, he later told reporters.
His only witness was Fauci, who served as a key adviser to Trump and Joe Biden during the pandemic, and has become a political punching bag on the right.
Fauci is a highly respected scientist which of course makes him suspect by the loony anti-science right.
Fauci, 85, served under seven US presidents and through numerous health crises, including the HIV crisis, Ebola outbreaks and the first coronavirus outbreak, called Sars-CoV-1. He became a household name overnight when the Covid-19 pandemic halted social life in 2020.
Quickly after opening statements, the hearing became a back-and-forth between Paul and Fauci. Paul grew visibly agitated as Fauci refused to answer, threatened the scientists with “repercussions”, and then tossed one of Fauci’s attorneys from the hearing room.
Watch Fauci’s opening statement.
Fantastic.
Why are the same people so desperate to believe Covid was human-made, and yet utterly refuse to believe that climate change is human-made?
If COVID was human-made then those people (or their paymasters) are not responsible (or so they think); if climate change is human-made then those people (or their paymasters) are responsible.
If evidence mattered the story would be very different. Since it doesn’t to these people the only things that actually do matter are memes, vibes, and whatever they think sounds cool.
This can be a fun way to approach a game or story but as an approach to real life? All I can say is they need to grow the hell up. It is never fun, interesting, or cool to cause harm to someone else just so you can add drama to your made-up story.
Besides, Fauci rigged the 2020 Georgia vote with a Venezuelan Jewish space laser! It was on Fox!
Rand Paul should see a psychiatrist about his unhealthy obsession with Fauci.
Imagine if the Earth is hit by a Carrington event geomagnetic storm, or the avian flu mutates into a form that can transmit through air?
.
*These* are the geniuses that are expected to save us.
Europe and Japan might be fine but America will be toast. Not that the survivors will learn anything. They will blame the Jews or Gypsies or something.
“Sub-grant”, and Fauci funding *any* research in Wuhan, is another hideous lie that they are inexcusably and vilely using to torment him.
It was a sub-*contract* that was funded, which is explictly a task or chore too boring, repetitive, time-consuming, or expensive, for a researcher to do themselves in their own lab. It is also explictly *not research*. The subcontractor does this task for a set amount of money each time they do it, and that’s listed in the grant’s budget. For example, if NIAID would fund it, you could get a subcontract to get your lab’s floors cleaned: that’s the sort of thing a subcontract is. I’ve had subcontracts myself, this is what they are, and they are not research.
You are not allowed to tell the subcontractor why you want this task done or anything about your research, and, depending on the rules of their institution, they are not allowed to tell you about any other work or research that they’re doing. No research was funded in Wuhan, only a subcontract, which is a fact that Paul must know because, in addition, it’s illegal for US agencies to fund research in other countries. I mean, there’s no way to even send a check.
And, Fauci was the head of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, with seven divisions under him. Notice what a broad field that name covers? Fauci isn’t an expert in every one of those fields, and so cannot possibly understand proposals for research in some or many of the fields.
The seven division directors all have a number of program directors under them, and *that* is who selects, and so funds, the research proposals: the program director, who is an expert in the grant proposal’s specific field. The funded grants get passed up to the division director, who probaby gives them a glance-over, but cannot possibly be an expert in every field of their division, and so doesn’t understand a lot of the proposals.
Then all the approved grants go up to Fauci, who signs them. Yes, that was Fauci’s role in “funding research in Wuhan” and so “causing the pandemic”. He signed--or rather, some machine signed for him--one grant out of hundreds (or more) that he undoubtedly didn’t have time to look through and that probably wasn’t in his field of expertise, so that he wouldn’t fully understand the proposed research.
This Fauci-funded-research-in-Wuhan lie has driven me wild ever since it started. But, any lie will do to “lock him up”, so on with the show trial.
Also, Paul threatened to charge and convict Fauci with “obstruction of Congress”, which must have left everyone in the room frantically trying to suppress their laughter.
Charge someone with “obstruction” for exercising his explicit constitutional right! Yeah, that’ll fly.
Paul might do it, and then drag Fauci to spend money on lawyers in every court, each of which who will toss the charge, right up to SCOTUS, who will refuse to even hear it.
Definitely Jorg @6 is right: Paul needs psychiatric treatment and obviously should be medicated. Heavily.