Tag Archives: Anthony Fauci

medical news

White House going after Fauci

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It appears that the White House operatives have unsheathed the long knives and are sharpening them as they prepare to plunge them into Dr. Anthony Fauci’s back.

Think of this for just a moment.

The nation was struck by a global pandemic. The White House formed a response task force. It selected Dr. Fauci, one of the world’s premier infectious disease experts to be a leading source of research for the task force. Donald Trump chose Mike Pence to lead the task force. Trump and Pence then began a series of happy-talk riffs about the “fantastic” job they were doing to fight the pandemic. Fauci didn’t buy into it.

Fauci is concerned about the outbreak that is not subsiding. He has said so publicly and with considerable emphasis.

The White House is having none of it.

Admiral Brett Giroir, a physician and a member of the pandemic task force, appeared today on “Meet the Press” and said Fauci has been wrong in his assessment. He is the latest White House official to pile onto Fauci.

Excuse me for chiming in, but I am far more wiling to accept Dr. Fauci’s brutal honesty than listen to the politically driven propaganda being spouted by the White House.

Anthony Fauci is the expert in the room. The politicians who run the task force need to put the long knives away and let the good doctor continue to tell us the truth.

medical news

Dr. Fauci offers grim prognosis

“I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. We’re just not.”

That clearly is not the view expressed repeatedly by Donald John “Prevaricator in Chief” Trump. It is instead an opinion offered by the nation’s — if not the world’s — leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Fauci is seriously concerned about the terrible spike in infection, hospitalization and death caused by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

The doc is contradicting directly the man for whom he works, the president of the United States. I am going to stand with the doctor’s view on where we stand in this fight against the pandemic.

Trump, meanwhile, is fighting for his political life and the pandemic — namely the federal response to it — isn’t providing Trump much ammo to use in his re-election campaign. Indeed, Donald Trump’s arsenal is spent; he is out of ammunition.

How in the world does the nation fight its way back from the medical brink? There is increasing talk about states returning to their shelter in place policies, shutting down businesses they had reopened, ordering Americans to do certain things to prevent the spread of the virus.

In Texas, where officials sought to restart the economy, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a mandatory mask-wearing order, told businesses to scale back their service to 50 percent of capacity. Yes, he has drawn fire for his order, namely from Republicans — if you can fathom that — who continue to insist that we reopen the business community despite the threat to people’s health and their very lives.

As for Dr. Fauci, he well might be writing his exit from the White House pandemic response team, where he has played a once-significant role that has been diminished of late because of Fauci’s disagreement with Donald Trump. Indeed, Trump has been critical openly of the good doctor, saying he has committed many “mistakes.” I haven’t heard a single example of what Trump considers to be a Fauci mistake.

Still, I am going to listen to the doctor. I am going to ignore the blathering of the politicians … especially the nation’s top pol, the guy who couldn’t tell us the unvarnished truth if his political career depended on it.

Oh, wait … !

medical news

Time is ticking away for Dr. Fauci

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I want to offer a suggestion: Sit in as quiet a room as you can find and you might start hearing the tick-tock sound of a clock.

That well might be the sound of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s time as part of Donald Trump’s coronavirus response team winding down. You see, Fauci had the temerity to publicly and quit forthrightly contradict Donald Trump’s happy talk about the status of the global pandemic that has killed more than 130,000 Americans.

Trump says it’s under control. Dr. Fauci says we’re nowhere close to getting it under control.

Trump now says Fauci “made a lot of mistakes.” Fauci says he hasn’t briefed Trump in more than two months.

The end of Fauci’s time at the right hand of Donald Trump might be coming. If so, the nation will lose the up-close insight of its leading infectious disease expert, a man who’s worked side by side with medical geniuses in seven presidential administrations, dating back to Ronald Reagan’s time in the White House.

That’s all part of the bad news that well might be coming. There is some good news to report about all of this.

Anthony Fauci will remain a top-flight infectious disease expert, even if he’s no longer “advising” Donald Trump; I use the word “advising” with caution because Trump doesn’t appear to take the advice of the “best people” with whom he surrounded himself during this pandemic.

As for his status as a member of the White House coronavirus response team, a part of me actually hopes Trump cuts Dr. Fauci loose.

Moreover, I hope Dr. Fauci refuses to sign a “no disparagement” document if he is let go. Why? Because then he could tell the world that Donald Trump has been leading a clusterfu** response effort that has resulted in untold — and more than likely unnecessary — death and misery in this country.

State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick speaks to our worst instincts

Be advised, the next few words contains a term I dislike using without some form of disguise, but here goes: Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick really pisses me off!

Indeed, he’s been doing it ever since he got elected to the state’s second-highest public office.

Now he says that the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” when he criticizes the state response to the coronavirus pandemic.

He recently said old folks wouldn’t mind dying if it means the Texas economy could get restarted in the wake of the pandemic’s impact on economic matters.

Patrick sought to push that ghastly bathroom bill through the 2017 Texas Legislature, the bill that would require folks to use public restrooms in accordance with the gender noted on their birth certificate; the idea was to discriminate openly against transgender Americans.

He has punished a state senator, who happens to be a friend of mine, who made a snarky remark about a Patrick aide. Thus, he stripped Kel Seliger, an Amarillo Republican, of influence by removing him from the chairmanship of key Senate education and finance committees.

I cannot stand that this clown serves in such a place of power in Texas. As Ross Ramsey writes in the Texas Tribune: But a lieutenant governor is a constitutional amphibian, a rare creature of both the legislative and executive branches of government. He’s the governor when the governor is out of the state. And he’s one of two or three state leaders with ready access to the bully pulpit — the ability to get in front of the public on short notice and try to steer opinion.

It seems to me that every time he steps into that “bully pulpit,” he says things that (a) are patently offensive and (b) speak to Texans’ base and crass instincts.

This clown needs to go … somewhere far away.

medical news, State news

Lt. Gov. Patrick needs to shut … up

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I can state with a high degree of confidence that Dr. Anthony Fauci doesn’t need a chump like me to defend him against the idiotic rant of a partisan hack like Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

But I am going to defend him anyway.

Pay attention, Dan Patrick. I will say this slowly: You need to shut … your … know-nothing … fly trap yapper. 

Patrick went on Fox News this week to tell us that Dr. Fauci, the nation’s pre-eminent infectious disease expert, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

What drew Patrick’s moronic ire happens to be the dire assessment by Fauci over Texas’s big spike in COVID-19 infection and hospitalization. Fauci serves on the White House coronavirus pandemic response team and told U.S. senators that the nation could see 100,000 daily infections if we don’t corral this virus immediately.

Fauci singled out some problem states, Texas among them. Patrick objected. According to The Hill newspaper:

“Fauci said that he’s concerned about states like Texas that skipped over certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Patrick said on Fox News after Fauci testified before a Senate committee about the U.S. response to the coronavirus outbreak. “We haven’t skipped over anything.”

“The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him,” Patrick added. “He has been wrong every time, on every issue. I don’t need his advice anymore. We’ll listen to a lot of science, we’ll listen to a lot of doctors, and [Gov. Greg Abbott (R)], myself and other state leaders will make the decision. No thank you, Dr. Fauci.”

I think I’ll stand with Dr. Fauci’s advice, relying on a learned medical heavyweight instead of a political hatchet man.

Dan Patrick needs to stick with what he knows best, which involves blathering right-wing dogma.

medical news

Partisan divide involves wearing of masks

I never in a zillion years would have imagine mask-wearing becoming a political wedge issue, something to divide Americans along partisan lines.

Who knew?

The world is caught in the grip of a pandemic that has killed 125,000 Americans. More of us are going to die and many more than that are going to get sick. Medical experts advising Donald Trump keep telling us to wear surgical masks to protect ourselves and, more importantly, others around us.

Still, Republicans have lined up on the side that hates the masks. Democrats line up against them, saying that masks are necessary to help keep us safe.

No flash here, but I am siding with Democrats.

However, the issue for my wife and me isn’t that Democrats favor wearing masks. The issue rests squarely on the effectiveness of mask-wearing. I believe Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, two of the infectious disease gurus advising Donald Trump, who tell us masks are an essential part of the overall strategy to fight COVID-19.

The nimrods out there who side with Donald Trump aren’t having it. They say they don’t care about the risks to themselves. What about the risk to others? What the hell kind of message are they sending to the rest of the nation? That they don’t care about anyone else, either?

The upshot of this, I suppose, is that it speaks directly and distinctly to the hideous political divide that has infected so much of our life these days … even those matters that should remain way above and beyond partisan politics.

medical news

Listen up, Dr. Fauci: Trump is fighting you

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Dr. Anthony Fauci testified this week before a Senate committee on the fight to quell the coronavirus pandemic that has killed 85,000 Americans.

Then came a series of questions from one of Donald Trump’s toadies on the panel, rookie Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler from Georgia, who wanted to know if Fauci felt tension between himself and the president. Fauci said “no,” that he doesn’t believe he and Trump are at odds.

Then something else happened later in the day. Donald Trump contradicted something Fauci had said about the wisdom of letting children back into school classrooms this fall.

So … yes, Trump and Fauci are at odds. Got that? I want to stand with the nation’s premier infectious disease expert over the bloviations of a cheap huckster who masquerades as president of the United States.

Senators asked Fauci whether children should be allowed back into classrooms this fall. He balked at the suggestion, saying it would be premature to open classrooms to students if the virus isn’t contained.

What did the Carnival Barker in Chief say about Fauci’s response? He was “surprised.” He said Fauci seeks to play to all audiences. He said Fauci’s answer to the Senate panel was “not acceptable.”

Where I come from, that looks and sounds like a dispute between two principals involved ostensibly in a fight against a common enemy.

Where does Fauci go from here? Does he quit? Does he walk away from the president’s pandemic response task force? No. He shouldn’t.

Fauci is nearly 80 years of age. He has worked for every president of both political parties dating back to 1984, when he was hired by President Reagan to take the lead on HIV/AIDS research. His credentials are beyond reproach. Fauci is an expert on infectious disease and the pandemic response team needs his reasoned, rational, scientific approach.

Indeed, this man’s wisdom stands in the starkest contrast possible to the bloviating bullsh** that flies incessantly out of Donald Trump’s pie hole.

I am one American who wants Fauci to remain on the job looking out for us. What’s more, I am as certain as I am sitting here that he knows beyond a doubt that he is working for a moron.

It’s just too damn bad he cannot say it out loud.

medical news

Why put the muzzle on these medical experts?

This must be the “chaos” that Barack H. Obama referred to in that leaked phone call to the Obama Alumni Association.

The former president of the United States has categorized Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as “chaotic.” Yep. He said it. I believe it.

So now we have this: Drs. Antony Fauci and Deborah Birx, two of the nation’s leading infectious disease experts, reportedly are being shoved aside while Trump seeks to concentrate on cheerleading the nation back to economic vitality.

It matters not a damn bit to Trump that Fauci and Birx have actual expertise to offer the nation as it seeks answers to the pandemic that has killed 80,000 Americans and is threatening to kill many thousands more of us.

As Politico reports: The broader turn away from the health issues at the core of such a all-encompassing national emergency is just the latest chapter in a communications strategy that’s long confounded and frustrated public health experts.

Trump is more interested in his own political future than in the health of his fellow Americans. That is the major takeaway I am getting from all of this back and forth.

We are dealing first and foremost with a health crisis. Americans are being felled by the thousands each day. Many of those sickened are dying, for crying out loud! Yes, we also have an economic crisis with which to deal. However, Donald Trump must not shun the experts who are supposed to offer clear-headed, objective analysis of the health risks to a nation that needs it far more than it needs cheerleading and exhortations to get back to work.

And it’s the chaos that serves as the common thread that runs through Donald Trump’s mish-mash approach to solving a problem that needs maximum focus … which needs to fix itself on the health of Americans.

medical news

This conspiracy is laughable, but not funny

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You know how I feel about conspiracies. If not, I will tell you simply that I despise them. More to the point, I despise the rumor-mongering that accompanies the so-called “theories.”

There is now a conspiracy bubbling up out there among The Trump Toadies who defend Donald Trump whenever they find a cause celebre to run into the ditch.

Some of ’em have latched on to some sort of goofy conspiracy involving Dr. Anthony Fauci, the world-renowned infectious disease expert who’s been a voice of reason and studied analysis among the members of the White House coronavirus pandemic task force.

He has at times contradicted Trump’s assertions about the future of the pandemic and whether there is sufficient testing, or when we might have a vaccine available for general use.

Now some of Trump’s cult followers suggest Fauci needs to be fired. They cite bogus reports of other doctors contradicting Fauci’s expert analysis. They accuse Fauci, and this is rich, of being in the hip pocket of “Big Pharma,” those pharmaceutical companies working feverishly to develop a vaccine to prevent the killer virus from taking more lives.

These nimrods, dipsh***, know-nothings need to get a grip. They also need to keep their yappers shut.

Dr. Fauci has served every president going back to Ronald Reagan. He is a brilliant physician and researcher. He needs to be heard. Fauci does not need to be vilified by idiots.

medical news, national news

‘Counterproductive’ to hear from expert on COVID-19? How so?

I believe I know how the White House defines as “counterproductive” any testimony before a congressional committee by a leading infectious disease expert on the fight to curb infection brought by the coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci won’t talk to the House Appropriations Committee next week. The White House has blocked him, calling his testimony “counterproductive.” The meaning there is that Fauci might testify with language that doesn’t heap flattery all over Donald J. Trump, therefore, it is counterproductive … in the White House view of things.

Oh, but Fauci will talk the next week to the Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans. Yes, the House is in the hands of Democrats.

Counterproductive? Yep. That’s it. Right there.

The White House insists it isn’t muzzling Fauci. They aren’t seeking to silence the physician/scientist/researcher who’s been known since the outbreak of the viral infection to contradict statements delivered by the Stable Genius in Chief.

You can’t have that. You can’t have an actual expert telling us the truth to countermand the fiction and the lies being put forth by the liar masquerading as the president of the United States.