August 3, 2026

YOU VOTED FOR IT, NOW BEND OVER AND TAKE IT, GOOD AND HARD:  Liberal Podcaster Breaks With Mamdani After Finding Himself a Victim of His Socialist Policies.

Posted at 5:29 am by Sarah Hoyt

AS FROM THE RISE AND FALL OF ROME WE SHOULD TAKE LESSONS:  The Rise and Fall of Anthony Fauci.

The main lesson is that when such world-upending measures are being proposed each and every one of us should check the numbers and the facts. The reason I was the voice crying in the desert (with a few others, Roger among them, is that I looked at the numbers and the facts from the Diamond Princess and concluded “it’s a flu. Maybe a bad flu at most”. When I brought this up, people tried to make up reasons I was wrong which boiled down to “But the experts say”. Bah. Experts are corruptible and in this case corrupt. And probably engineering a psy-ops to cover a color revolution. But I read Heinlein in my formative years. I wish more people had.

“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!” ― Robert Heinlein

Posted at 4:30 am by Sarah Hoyt

August 2, 2026

JOHN LUCAS: Negotiating with the Iranian scorpions. I think Trump is stringing them along, the way they’ve traditionally strung U.S. negotiators along. He knows they’ll break any agreement.

Posted at 9:39 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

TOM ELLIOTT: The Fauci Files: A Megalomaniacal Egomaniac Milking Covid for Everything It’s Worth.

Page 13 of the diary covers two important events from January 31, 2020.

The first is that Fauci is handed the mic to serve as Covid’s point person. He writes:

“White House is now fully convinced that I be the science/health spokesperson for the USG. Bob Redfield just does not come across very weel. He takes forever to say something and it is usually wondering. This drives the WH and HHS comms people crazy and so they are putting me out on all the requests.”

The director of the CDC was not sidelined for being wrong, but for being slow on camera. The selection criterion was not who’s the most credible scientist, but who performs best on TV.

Redfield’s own account of that period, given under oath in 2023, is worth recalling. Asked why he had been excluded from the origins discussions, he pointed to ideological differences: “Because it was told to me that they wanted a single narrative, and that I obviously had a different point of view.”

The second thing happens after he gets back to his office. Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust calls, sounding “very concerned,” with Kristian Andersen of Scripps conferenced in and Eddie Holmes in the background from Sydney. Fauci writes down what they told him:

“The people on the phone felt that the mutations around the furine cleavage site of the spike protein could not have occurred naturally since it would require an evolutionary ‘jump’ that they found nowhere in bat isolates.”

Deliberate insertion, they said, followed by release — accidental release being the most likely.

The next day Fauci convened a larger call of twelve experts in epidemiology. His entry characterizing it (p. 14) is the probably the single most consequential paragraph in the whole diary. There was “not total agreement about the likelihood of deliberate insertion,” he writes. Ron Fouchier was certain it could have arisen naturally and said they shouldn’t waste time. Christian Drosten agreed with Fouchier. And then, in Fauci’s own words:

“the rest felt that deliberate insertion was possible.”

Ten of 12 thought it must be manmade. And he admits the person driving the zoonotic theory perspective, Ron Fouchier, was “expected of him since he was the original GOF [gain of function] person with Yoshi Kawaoka.”

* * * * * * * *

The most revealing aspect of these pages are how Fauci worked with compliant “journalists” to shape media narratives. On July 26, 2020, while watching Brett Giroir — the assistant secretary for health and a fellow member of the White House task force — be interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union, Fauci writes that Giroir was “talking bullshit about testing with Jake pressing him.” Then (p. 263): “I gave Jake some questions to ask him.”

So, a senior federal official is trying to undermine a rival federal official, using a CNN anchor as his conduit.

Related: RFK, Jr. DESTROYS CNN’s Dana Bash Over Media Handling of Covid, Fauci.

UPDATE: What the Fauci Diary Reveals About Washington. “April 17, 2021 Dana Bash sent me a text: ‘I just watched the whole Jordan thing. Again, you’re a better man than I…. As our friend Wolf Blitzer said to me yesterday – no one would have blamed you if you said simply ‘Mr. Jordan, go f— yourself’’ Presumably, this referred to Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio. Also, presumably, Fauci refrained from telling him this.”

Posted at 6:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THEY’RE PLAYING FOR KEEPS:

Posted at 6:23 pm by Stephen Green