Fauci Takes Da Fifth 111 Times. Legal Expert Says Diaries Answer The Questions. Elderly Mom Makes Mamdani’s Class Enemies List. Who’s Afraid of DSA? Karl Rove Names Names. And More
A mob boss woulda been proud. Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment 111 times yesterday in his appearance before a Senate Committee.
Miranda Devinewrites that Fauci’s silence “spoke volumes” about his “Covid sins” and “solidified him as a reprehensible villain”:
In the history of Congress, only a couple of mob bosses have invoked the privilege more.
“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer, based upon my rights, under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,” the Machiavellian career bureaucrat said over and over in the nearly three-hour hearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
But Fauci’s silence rendered him a villain more powerfully than his usual sly deceptions.
Shameful, too, were the Democrats and their media handmaidens who continue to run cover for Fauci, singing his praises, and denying their flock the truth about a man who filled his pandemic diary with self-praise and celebrity worship while remaining callously aloof from the human suffering he had caused.
Devine praises RFK Jr. “whose doggedness unearthed Fauci’s diary.” George Washington University law professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley writes that, while Fauci took the Fifth, the diary “may have already answered for him”:
The question many will ask is why Fauci could not just “stick with the science” and resolve these contradictions. The fact is that he would have had difficulty dealing with his own “inconvenient truths.”
The new evidence shows that Fauci connected the Wuhan lab to the emerging crisis before most people had ever heard of the lab. It also shows him repeatedly referencing the lab’s gain-of-function work and discounting the “wet market” as the true origin of the virus, viewing it instead as an “amplifier.”
Some of the most embarrassing areas for Fauci concerned his entries acknowledging that he pushed to close schools despite public denials that he ever recommended such closures….
It is a “murky area” whether he can be held for contempt of Congress after yesterday’s performance. One of Fauci’s many lawyers was thrown out of the hearing because he “seemed to think he could rebut the senators by proxy.” For once, political theater—when Senator Josh Hawley tore into Fauci—was most satisfying and entirely justified. Here are the “five most shocking moments” from the hearing.
Jack Butler writes about Fauci in a Wall Street Journal “Free Expression” piece entitled “Anthony Fauci, Modern Narcissus“:
The diaries do more than flesh out the psychological profile of the man who became the face of elite overreaction to the pandemic. They also provide evidence of deliberate deception….
As Matthew Hennessey wrote last month, when the Journal’s “The Lockdown Dissidents” documentary premiered, elites continue to form, impose and enforce consensus heedless of dissent and counterevidence. “The authoritarianism of arrogance” remains important to challenge.
The same goes for narcissism. Dr. Fauci, a powerful bureaucrat who spent decades priming himself for his Covid moment, succumbed easily.
Fauci made the cover of the New York Post as “Doctor NO.” A Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “Dr. Fauci Takes the Fifth, Alas” emphasizes the legacy media’s role in helping Dr. Fauci avoid more timely scrutiny:
Journalists need sources, and friendships aren’t uncommon. But the conformist media idolatry of Dr. Fauci was a way of shutting off debate over Covid policy. It also became a way for the press to attack President Trump in an election year. Locking down debate over Covid was as damaging as the lockdowns.
Acting AG Todd Blanche is facing a delay in the vote on whether he will be able to ditch the “acting.” Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, neither of whom will be returning next term, have accused Blanche of refusing to put on paper his promise to kill aspects of the deal he cut to settle President Trump’s suit against the agency. The vote on Blanche, scheduled for yesterday, is postponed.
The U.S. retaliated against Iran’s missile attacks on our troops in Jordan with air strikes. The airstrikes came after President Trump vowed to hit Iran “very hard.” The Saudi Foreign Minister had a previously unscheduled White House meeting yesterday. The message, via Axios, appeared to be that the Saudis do not want to broaden the war but will defend themselves. Meanwhile, Egypt said it had come under attack from an unidentified drone. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a frank conversation with Vice President Vance, his leading critic within the Trump administration. Netanyahu and President Trump also met and discussed severe measures to end the war.
“Why Mamdani Is Asking My Mom to Pay His Pied-à-Terre Tax,” by Alex Berenson for The Free Press, illustrates what will be the real-world effects of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest plan to eat the rich:
My 81-year-old mother has lived in New York for 30 years, but the city presumes she owes a $55,048 fee for out-of-towners.
Mr. Berenson’s elderly mother’s name almost certainly appeared on what an editorial in the Wall Street Journal calls “Mamdani’s Class Enemies List,” the list he made public of the names and addresses of his new property-tax targets. The most fascinating aspect—one of Mamdani’s advisers:
Don’t be surprised if Mr. Mamdani soon calls for extending the pied-a-terre tax to primary homes of “wealthy” New Yorkers. During his campaign, he called for “de-commodifying” housing—a euphemism for ending private property ownership—and confiscatory taxes are one way to do it.
In related news, Mr. Mamdani’s legal adviser Ali Najmi, who also serves as a special counsel at the personal injury firm Liakas Law, said this week he plans to file a lawsuit against the city for the tragic death of a teenage tourist in a horse-carriage accident in Central Park. Mr. Najmi leads the Mayor’s committee that appoints judges to city courts. Conflict of interest?
“Who’s Afraid of the DSA?” asks Karl Rove’s politics column. Well, Senators Mark Kelly and Tim Kaine, who can’t find the courage to oppose their party’s radicals, for starters. Rove concludes:
In a narrowly polarized America, a DSA takeover would drag Democrats to defeat in battleground districts and states. If Democrats like Messrs. Kaine and Kelly can’t find the courage to stand up to the DSA, a debacle awaits their party.
We learned how deluded the media tends to be in the Covid debacle (see above). Looks like we need to relearn the message. The New Republic has a piece out headlined “The new red scare is here—and it’s dumber than ever.” News Flash: Lefty Media Still Dumb.
Evan Barker, a former DSA fundraiser, meanwhile, tells “The Inside Story of How Democrats Lost the Working Class.”
There are two recommended stories about “restorative justice” and its effect on kids. “‘Restorative Justice’ Brings Violent Schools” is President of Federalism in Action’s Tony Woodlief’s story in the Wall Street Journal. “Why would anyone think you could discipline bullies by inviting them to talk about their feelings?” asks Woodlief. He writes:
Concerns about restorative justice emerged soon after the Obama administration began pushing it. Public schools in Philadelphia that implemented it experienced “skyrocketing truancy, serious misbehavior, and declining achievement,” Manhattan Institute researchers observed in 2017. Other cities experienced similar results.
If any school district needed help diverting struggling children from a path that begins with school suspensions and ends in prison, it was the Little Rock School District in Arkansas. … Who could blame LRSD for forming a partnership with the Tendaji Community Development Corp., which claims its alternative discipline methods “promote cohesion among students and administrators while fostering a growth mindset and positive relationships”? LRSD engaged Tendaji in 2022, paying it almost $1.5 million between 2023 and 2025 alone to provide digital social-emotional learning tutorials, on-site peer mediation and “restorative circles,” among other services.
What followed was a catastrophe. Since the 2021-22 school year, districtwide assaults by students on other students have jumped 118%. Assaults by students on teachers and staff have climbed 151%.
“Students Need Consequences, Not ‘Restorative Justice’” in City Journal concurs with Woodlief. Anti-disciplinary policies ignore the vital factor of motivation, the authors contend.
