Tag Archives: Anthony Fauci

Fauci is no Mengele

Unbelievable.

That’s how I’ll start with this brief post about something I heard on — where else? — Fox News.

Lara Logan, a supposed journalist, compared Dr. Anthony Fauci to the notorious Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele, who during World War II conducted hideous experiments on Jews. Mengele’s aim was to perfect ghastly treatments and he used Jews as experimental patients. Many of those patients died from the experiments.

Logan somehow, in some fashion, conflated the mask and vaccine mandates enacted to fight to COVID-19 pandemic with what Mengele did during the Second World War.

What makes this idiocy even worse is that the Fox News anchors allowed her to continue that trash rant of hers without challenging what in the name of human decency she was alleging.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/12/02/fauci_im_astounded_fox_news_has_not_disciplined_lara_logan_for_comparing_me_to_mengele.html

You can see it on the link I just attached to this post.

Good Almighty God in heaven! What in the world is it going to take to shut down these hate mongers who do nothing but slander and defame the reputations of learned professionals who are trying to help this nation get through a medical crisis?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

‘Genius’ put in perspective

“Let’s be clear on what genius is. Genius is intelligence. Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence. It is not a sign of weakness. It is not a sign that you’re not strong in your convictions. It is a sign that you’re open minded. And that’s a good thing.”

– Mike Greenberg

The quote you see here is attributed to a sports journalist. I didn’t hear him say it, but I trust the source from where it came.

When I saw this comment on a social media page, the name “Anthony Fauci” came immediately to mind. Why that name?

Fauci is the nation’s premier authority on infectious disease. Donald Trump summoned him to help devise strategies to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. He then dismissed much of the advice that Fauci gave him. The 45th president lost re-election in November this past year.

President Joe Biden has kept Fauci on board the team of medical experts.

Fauci, you see, has changed his mind on a few things lately. Most notably, he has changed his mind about mask-wearing and whether masks are helpful in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Fauci critics — namely Republicans and assorted pandemic deniers — have been heard saying Fauci should be fired. That his change of mind only proves he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

In the words of the inimitable Col. Sherman T. Potter: buffalo bagels!

Fauci’s brilliance must not be measured against his ability to determine immediately how a nation should tackle a killer virus. I daresay Dr. Fauci hasn’t dealt with a pandemic of this nature and scope. He learns something new practically each day, forcing him to change his mind on how to respond the virus.

Is he a genius? You bet he is. I will accept that he is able to learn something new and valuable every time he changes his mind.

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Fight the ‘common enemy’

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the man who at this point in our pandemic battle does not need an introduction.

He said the following: “I wish … that people would realize that the common enemy is the virus. Not each other. We’re in this together. And the only way we’re going to conquer this virus is by working together.”

Well, there you have it. This bit of wisdom almost can stand without a single additional thought.

I’ll just offer this brief addition. The backbiting over mask-wearing, government mandates and the alleged “loss of freedom” only weakens our hand as we keep fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is imperative that we start “working together.”

Fauci is not our ‘enemy’

Staff photo by C.B. Schmelter

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

One American’s “enemy” is another American’s hero.

With that said, I want to share a brief item that showed up today on my social media news feed. It comes from U.S. Rep. Val Demings, a Florida Democrat who is running for a seat in the Senate occupied by Marco Rubio.

Demings said: Marjorie Taylor Greene called Dr. Fauci an “enemy to our nation” and members of the GOP like Marco Rubio have called for Dr. Fauci to be fired – so I’ve created a petition to stand up for Dr. Fauci and other scientists … 

Who is Marjorie Taylor Greene? She is the Georgia congresswoman who spouts stupid and insanely frightening rhetoric endorsed by the QAnon crowd about the pandemic, the vaccines developed to rid us of the virus and assorted other nonsense.

Greene, a Republican (of course!) is the true “enemy to our nation.” Dr. Anthony Fauci has become the go-to guy on the pandemic and how we need to ensure we do not become infected.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is entitled to spout her trash. I am entitled — indeed, obligated, in my view — to ignore it. Oh, and I also am entitled to speak out against such hideous idiocy.

Smart guys get ignored?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, how I enjoy these messages that pop up on my various social media platforms. This one showed up today and I just had to share a thought or two about what it tells us.

It tells me that contemporary society has chosen to dumb itself down and believe the know-nothings who say what we want to hear and ignore the experts who tell us what we need to hear.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 4 million human beings worldwide, more than 600,000 of us in the United States. It’s dangerous, dammit! And we don’t need brainiacs to tell us that. The brainy corps of medical experts, physicians and infectious disease researchers are on board with what we need to know about the killer virus. It is that it could kill us if we don’t take proper precautions.

Oh, and we also need to get vaccinated to ward it off!

However, the public discourse is being drowned out by the dipsh**s who continue to insist that the experts are wrong. The know-nothings to whom I refer generally populate the right-wing airwaves and fill up space on right-wing publications.

Some of the more notable blowhards — Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson — can barely find their backsides with both hands. Yet their pontification is being taken as gospel by those who share their world view.

All the while, we hear from learned medical scholars — such as CDC director Rachelle Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci — that the virus and its attendant variants pose an imminent danger to us. The reaction among too many of us? Nothing, man!

The 45th president of the United States brought a lot of experts on board when the pandemic first took hold. They provided him with sound advice. He chose to ignore most of the advice given to him by the likes of Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, CDC director Robert Redfield and Surgeon General Jerome Adams. He called some of them “idiots.” He spoke the language of the fellow know-nothings.

They continue to outshout the actual experts at this moment. That is to their shame and their disgrace. It’s also to the disgrace of those who choose to heed the morons who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

You may count me among the know-nothings. Which is why I choose to listen to the advice of the experts.

Fauci gets his dander up

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

When someone who is in the public eye gets riled at a congressional hearing, then you have to suspect he or she has ample reason to step out of what we see as “normal behavior.”

So it was this week as Dr. Anthony Fauci took down another physician, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who accused Fauci of lying to Congress about the status of the nation’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the delta variant that is wreaking so much havoc.

Let me be clear on this point. Sen. Paul is a medical doctor, but his specialty is ophthalmologyThat is the study of disease involving one’s eyes. Dr. Fauci’s specialty involves infectious diseases of many stripes. Fauci is the expert on the COVID pandemic; Dr. Paul is not.

So … when Paul accused Fauci of lying to Congress, it fell on Fauci to fight back, to deliver a blistering retort, telling Paul that “you don’t know what you’re talking about,” and said that if “anyone is lying, it is you.”

Fauci took dead aim at the disinformation coming from the right wing of the political spectrum, where Sen. Paul sits.

Anthony Fauci took center stage when the 45th president appointed him to be part of the White House pandemic response team. He offered his advice and opinion on the state of play, only to be cast aside by the POTUS, who has called Fauci an “idiot.” He now serves as chief medical adviser to President Biden, who is letting the good doctor speak his mind without interference from the Oval Office.

Yes, Fauci has changed his tune a time or two about the virus. However, I continue to believe that he has learned about it as the world has learned more about the virus and its impact.

He has sought to de-politicize the argument about mask-wearing and other efforts to stem the infection, hospitalization and death rates caused by the virus. Yet when I hear cheap pols like Sen. Paul accuse him of lying while spewing the same fear-mongering nonsense that comes from the likes of the former Numbskull in Chief, it makes my blood boil.

I totally get why Dr. Fauci went off on Sen. Paul.

Ignore the know-nothings

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

While visiting with a family member this afternoon, chatting about this and that, I made a command decision about how I will treat the yammering that comes from the anti-vaxxers out there who say we should ignore pleas to inoculate ourselves against the COVID-19 pandemic.

I will ignore them.

When Fox News blowhard Tucker Carlson says we should forgo the vaccine, I will ignore him. When such nonsense spills from the pie holes of politicians wedded to the nonsense spouted by POTUS 45, I will ignore them, too.

FYI, my family member happens to be on my side in this argument.

Now, that said … if a learned physician with the skill and knowledge credentials of, say, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says we should refuse the vaccine, I’ll give it all due consideration. Then I’ll disregard what he or she says, too.

The blowhards are know-nothing gasbags. They make handsome livings by being able to articulate half-baked opinions in a witty, reasonably articulate manner. They have their followers. I am not one of them. Thus, I do not take their blathering seriously; hell, I usually choose to avoid listening to it in the first place.

I established long ago my own bias. We all have it. You do, too. I am going to accept the opinions of those I trust. Dr. Fauci — the nation’s premier infectious disease expert — says the vaccines are safe and effective. That, dear friends, is good enough for me.

As for those who refuse to get vaccinated, or refuse to inoculate their children against the killer virus and its variant(s), they are putting themselves in dire peril. Worse, they are endangering their children.

All of them — every single one of them — should be ashamed.

End the vaccine politics

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

My request is simple and straightforward.

Let us end the politicization of the COVID-19 vaccines … shall we?

I am sickened to the core at the yammering of right-wing talking heads/blowhards/gasbags who continue to insist that the government is trying to force us to do something we don’t want to do, such as take the vaccine that protects us against a virus that continues to kill Americans.

For starters, no one is “forcing” anyone to do anything of the sort. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to tell us until they run out of breath that all the available vaccines are safe, they are effective and they will protect us from infection, sickness and death.

And yet we hear from right-wing politicians and their pals in the right-wing media continue to insist that President Biden should “fire Anthony Fauci” because the good doctor — and senior administration pandemic medical and health adviser — is trying to frighten us into taking the vaccine.

Good grief, man!

I interpret Dr. Fauci’s message differently. He seeks to speak to us using common sense. If you have a vaccine that works, and is safe, it makes sense to take it to ward off the effect of a virus that has killed 4 million human beings worldwide and more than 600,000 Americans. Why is that such a frightening concept?

Don’t answer that. I know why. Because it serves as political grist for those who adhere to the misplaced skepticism and deception about the virus expressed by President Biden’s immediate predecessor, the former Moron in Chief.

Joe Biden says the virus “is on the run.” I believe him. However, we are not out of danger. Indeed, the danger is heightened by those who continue to wage a political war in the middle of a fight for our lives against a virus.

Fauci fires back

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Republican congressional caucus believes it smells Dr. Anthony Fauci’s blood in the water.

The GOP believes it has discovered a potentially mortal self-inflicted wound on the nation’s top infectious disease expert. It wants Fauci fired from his post as President Biden’s chief medical officer.

Why? Because of emails that have revealed that Fauci has changed his mind on the impact of the COVID virus and the effect of mask-wearing, which Fauci once dismissed as ineffective.

He has changed his mind about how to combat the killer virus. As if that’s a firing offense! You must be joking. Sadly, many among the GOP congressional caucus aren’t offering laugh lines. They want Fauci fired.

Again, I ask: For what?

Fauci is firing back at his critics. He says he is “following the science” as it relates to the pandemic that swept into this country at the end of 2019. It has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and sickened millions more. Did the good doctor know all there was no to know about the virus when Donald Trump brought him on board to help craft a White House response to the pandemic? No, he didn’t.

Nor did anyone else.

Fauci took up his own defense while visiting on NBC News with Chuck Todd. As Newsweek reported: “It wasn’t only me,” Fauci told Todd of the advice not to wear a mask. “I’m picked out as the villain. It was the surgeon general of the United States and the entire CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) was saying the same thing.”

Fauci Calls Push for Firing ‘Preposterous,’ Says He’s Being Attacked for ‘Following the Science’ (msn.com)

However, Fauci has been singled out by the likes of the QAnon queen, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as a candidate for imprisonment. Ridiculous! Then again, Rep. Greene’s idiocy is known throughout the country.

When one “follows the science,” as Fauci has done, the journey might take one down a dead-end alley or two. So it well might have happened with the good doctor. This email kerfuffle is being hyped by demagogues.

Fauci not allowed to learn?

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Congressional Republicans and a smattering of congressional Democrats are climbing all over Dr. Anthony Fauci over some emails he transmitted during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci reportedly dismissed the preventative value of masks. He said masks don’t do the job. Many of Fauci’s critics among the GOP caucus have said, “See? We told you so! Fauci is a liar!” — or words to that effect.

Hold on here!

Donald Trump brought Fauci on board as he sought to craft a White House response team to combat the spread of the virus. Fauci happens to be the nation’s — if not the world’s — premier infectious disease expert.

Isn’t he allowed to learn about the pandemic along with the rest of us? I don’t quite grasp the significance of the emails. He has changed his mind about masks. He is all-in on mask-wearing.

That hasn’t stemmed the criticism coming from many in Congress who contend that Dr. Fauci is talking out both sides of his mouth.

Actually, I am willing to give the good doc the benefit of the doubt and presume he knows a whole lot more about this disease today than he did when it broke loose.