Doctor Rand Paul asked great questions of Tony Fauci who had zero answers...
Senator Doctor Rand Paul's questioning of Tony Fauci was an interesting listen. Here is an 8 minute C-SPAN clip of the question and "answer" session. Spoiler alert: there are lots of great questions from Rand Paul and zero answers from Tony Fauci. Zero, unless you count whining and butt-hurt complaints as an "answer."
Senator Paul begins by asking Fauci about the collusion between Dr. Francis Collins and Fauci to take down prominent scientists who disagreed with their preferred narrative. At the time, Collins was Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Fauci is Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH. Collins quit the NIH role in December 2021 after holding the position longer than any previous Director. One might ask if Collins saw the writing on the wall and considered the end of 2021 a good time to bail and why Fauci hasn't jumped ship himself by now.
Fauci and Collins were collaborating partners on a public smear and takedown campaign targeting prominent scientists who questioned the cathedral's claims on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, COVID-19, and the possibility of the virus having been created in a lab. The public shaming attacks orchestrated by cancel culture expert Fauci went far and wide. This included coverup efforts on the NIH funding $600,000 for work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to study coronaviruses.
We were supposed to believe that a highly infectious coronavirus naturally evolved from bats and infected humans. We were supposed to believe it was a coincidence that the natural source was located in the same city as a lab specializing in bat-derived coronaviruses, including modifying them to make them highly infectious in humans. We were not told that the research lab controlled by the Chinese government had U.S. Government funding and ties to Fauci and NIH.
Remember the Fauci denials of the lab leak possibility? Fauci knew in February 2020 about the Wuhan lab work and about signs the virus appeared man-made based on the genetics of the furin cleavage site. Yet he worked to keep any related information from the public and cancel epidemiologists who raised questions. There is no smoking gun on the virus source, but a year ago, not even the question was allowed to be asked. Now Senators are asking Fauci directly and in public.
There are many questions here that deserve an answer. However, Fauci isn't the type that answers hard questions. From the Senate testimony:
Rand Paul:
"Instead of engaging them on the merits, you and Dr. Collins sought to smear them as fringe and take them down. And not in journals, in lay press. This is not only antithetical to the scientific method, it is the epitome of cheap politics, and it's reprehensible, Dr. Fauci. Do you really think it is appropriate to use your $420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree with you?"
Tony Fauci:
Butt-hurt stare then removes his theater mask. Long pause. Fauci says (paraphrasing)
"blah blah blah … why me … poor me" and fidgets nervously with his mask. Then he says, "you are distorting everything about me … there you go again, you just do the same thing every hearing … as usual, you are incorrect about almost everything …".
Followed by more of the same. Paul asks questions that deserve an answer. Fauci hems and haws and whines.
Rand Paul:
"You were the lead architect for the response from the government…. Do you think it's a winning success, what you advocated for government?"
Tony Fauci:
"Everything I have said has been in support of the CDC guidelines."
Fauci tries to blame it on someone else in the end, in the only response of the session that even pretends to answer a question. Tony comes across like a dog who knows better but just got caught grabbing a burger from the picnic table.
Fauci never answered any of Rand Paul's questions. Not even a lame attempt. His "testimony" is just woe is me, complaining and repeating hand waving statements along the lines of "you're wrong about everything" in a dozen different ways. Zero answers.
Fauci controls billions of dollars a year as head of NIAID. Fauci's budget was $6.1B for 2021, and he is getting a healthy 8% raise to $6.6B for 2022. Congress evidently considers NIAID and Fauci's 2021 performance a success deserving a hefty raise. And based on the expansion of government power due to fear-mongering, 2021 was indeed a resounding success for the authoritarians.
Fauci has controlled and distributed over 3/4 of a trillion in tax dollars since taking the job in 1984. From 1995 through 2018, NIAID's budget totaled about $593B, most of which was dolled out in grants. A lot of favors from politicians and pharmaceutical giants can be bought with a trillion dollars to play with. As a "public servant," Fauci managed to collect $10M or so in disclosed finances and become the highest-paid Federal employee at $434,000 a year (2020). Your tax dollars at work. Who knows what he has in undisclosed assets, royalties from drug companies owed favors, and payoffs. And he is set up for a $350,000 a year taxpayer-funded pension. It's a good gig. Fauci was offered Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) several times and turned it down, staying where he has more power in a fiefdom he created.
The highest-paid federal employee in the United States won't answer any straightforward questions and whines like a spoiled brat in Senate testimony.
After failing to answer a single question, Fauci closes with a report on a guy who was arrested in Iowa at a speed stop and told the cop he was going to D.C. to kill Dr. Fauci. Allegedly the guy had a scary black rifle in the car. That's an argument? Does that answer a question?
Fauci has only a couple of minutes before the entire Senate on live T.V. to respond to excellent questions from a Senator. A Senator who happens to be an M.D. with a long career in medical practice. How about taking a shot at an answer, Tony? Instead, he talks about some guy arrested in Iowa with a gun, as if that is relevant to any of the questions.
Perhaps Fauci forgot that Rand Paul was actually shot at for political reasons on the baseball field in Alexandria. And Paul was physically attacked and seriously injured in his front yard, breaking five ribs. And at a D.C. event, Rand Paul and his wife were surrounded and threatened by an angry BLM mob for political reasons. Rand Paul's wife says she now sleeps with a pistol in her nightstand. Fauci uses his short time testifying to the Senate on C-SPAN to whine at length to Rand Paul about a guy in Iowa who had a rifle rather than answer one of Paul's questions?
I enjoy listening to Rand Paul call out Fauci. Paul doesn't bring it up often that I have seen, and I don't believe in argument from authority, so I wouldn't either, but keep in mind Rand Paul does know what he is talking about on medical issues.
Dr. Rand Paul has an M.D. from Duke Medical School in Ophthalmology. Dr. Paul worked ten years as an ophthalmologist, then started and built up his own practice, specializing in cataract and glaucoma surgeries, LASIK procedures, and corneal transplants. Dr. Paul is actually an experienced medical doctor.
Rand Paul is the one they should call "Doctor," not Tony Fauci.
Fauci is a politician, a bureaucrat, and has been for his entire career. He went to work for NIH immediately after completing his residency. Sure, he has an M.D. (Cornell); that's an accomplishment. But we usually use the term "Doctor" to refer to a medical professional with an advanced graduate degree or a professor, and Fauci is neither and never has been. I use "Dr." as a title of respect when writing. Tony doesn't deserve it.
Fauci is the epitome of the fallacy of argument from authority. This form of fallacy is the only "argument" he ever uses. Fauci claims he represents science, as if he is The Science, and to question him is to question science itself. Fauci has the attitude of the head of a religious cult—the opposite of actual science. He claims his statements are true because he is Fauci instead of providing a factual argument based on objective reality. Science is always questioning, and the source of a statement isn't proof of its validity or its falseness.
Fauci is a politician who made it through medical school before going into politics. That isn't enough to get the title of "Dr." for me. Rand Paul is a medical doctor with a long career in surgery practice, who then became a Senator. Dr. Paul is his title in his other job, and the title is valid for Paul.
They are calling the wrong guy "Doctor."
