Fauci invokes the 5th Amendment privilege at the Senate hearing today.

I'm listening to the hearing live:

Here's the Washington Post article: "Fauci invokes Fifth Amendment in hearing before Rand Paul and Senate GOP/At a hearing on covid-19, the former infectious-disease official said he would avoid answering contentious questions" (gift link):

He declined to answer questions from [Senator Rand] Paul, who began the hearing by asking Fauci about the pandemic response and whether there was a folder in front of him on the table.

In a separate statement shared with The Post, Fauci’s lawyer alleged that Paul was fixated on Fauci after their clashes at the height of the pandemic — referring to a 2021 incident when the two men traded accusations of lying — and that the senator’s sole purpose for the hearing was to punish Fauci and see him in prison....

What about the pardon?

"[His diary] paints a portrait of Dr. Fauci as obsessed with himself, reveling in his own importance and the celebrities he knows..."

"... from the actress Julia Roberts to the singers Joan Baez and Barbra Streisand.... The entries were also full of references to Hollywood stars, some of whom seemed star-struck over him.... Barbra Streisand called asking for vaccine advice. When Dr. Fauci told her he listened to her music on Alexa, the virtual assistant, she confessed she didn’t know what Alexa was. 'I accidentally butt called her later in the evening,' Dr. Fauci wrote, and when he played her music over Alexa, she 'absolutely loved it!' Joan Baez painted a portrait of him. Julia Roberts introduced him at an awards ceremony. 'She is so charming, natural, fun and amazingly beautiful,' Dr. Fauci wrote of Ms. Roberts. 'When my image came up on the screen,” he added, “she gasped and said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous.'"

From "Fauci, in Private Diary, Reflected on Covid’s Origins and His Own Fame/Private entries, released by a Republican senator, have reignited a furious debate over whether Covid-19 leaked from a lab" (NYT gift link).

The "Republican senator" is Rand Paul, who's engaging in some taunting:

What Anthony Fauci looked like every night when he wrote about how great he is in his diary. pic.twitter.com/KbPvbtyi7g

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 27, 2026

And here's that Joan Baez artwork. Baez enfolds Fauci in her political schemata:

Rand Paul on the Joe Rogan podcast.

Transcript here, at Podscribe.

Uninvited from the picnic and wondering why things can't be more highbrow.

JUST IN - SENATOR RAND PAUL: "I've just been told that I've been uninvited from the [White House] picnic...every Democrat will be invited, every Republican invited, but I will be the only one disallowed. I just find this incredibly petty."pic.twitter.com/rXTIDuXIeq

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 11, 2025

"I'm a big boy and we can go have a picnic in another park, you know we can go to the mall but it's just really kind of sad that this is where we are.... I mean literally every Democrat is invited, every Republican is invited, and to to say that my family's no longer welcome kind of sad. Actually, my grandson has a Make America Great hat. My son and daughter-in-law, they like Donald Trump. I like Donald Trump, but when they want to act this way, it's where they begin to lose a lot of America who just wonders: Why does everything have to descend to this level? Why can't anything be more highbrow and more of a intellectual discussion where we have a disagreement but it doesn't have to descend to this?

UPDATE: Of course, Rand Paul is invited, says Trump at Truth Social:

Of course Senator Rand Paul and his beautiful wife and family are invited to the BIG White House Party tonight. He’s the toughest vote in the history of the U.S. Senate, but why wouldn’t he be? Besides, it gives me more time to get his Vote on the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill, one of the greatest and most important pieces of legislation ever put before our Senators & Congressmen/women. It will help to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! I look forward to seeing Rand. The Party will be Great!

Taking down TikTok punched a hundred holes in my blog.

Where I had embedded video yesterday, it now looks like this:

Every post that had an embedded TikTok video now looks empty like that and is missing its point. Every post where I linked to anything on TikTok has been turned — forcibly, by our government — into something that would not be posted.

I watched a lot of TikTok yesterday, so I saw how many many TikTok creators were saying goodbye to the audience they had drawn in over the years, and now, this morning, I'm seeing mainstream media articles about how these last goodbyes sounded. The NYT has the headline "In TikTok’s Final Hours, a Mix of Silliness and Sadness." And that headline made me angry, because I didn't see "silliness." I saw sadness, but the other thing I saw was outright anger — anger at the American government for shutting down a medium of free individual speech that was an important part of life for tens of millions of Americans. Even if much of TikTok could be labeled "silly," even silly speech matters — seriously — when the government comes and takes it away.

"I don't like being told what to do. I don't like being told what I can think or what I can say."

"The courts may think there's an exemption to the First Amendment. I don't. I'm joining TikTok today as a form of civil disobedience."

"The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress... Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk... think about it ..."

"... nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds)."

Tweets Rand Paul.

It's probably a terrible idea but it's funny to think about it.

"I support and vote for Trump over Harris"... says Rand Paul.

While he continues to withhold an official endorsement, Senator @RandPaul will “support and vote for Trump over Harris… the Democrat Party is the one of Santa Claus, disbursing gifts to children…

For someone who’s concerned about the debt, the Republican Party is the better… pic.twitter.com/K2vKmTWPIc

— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) September 24, 2024

Rand Paul: "I'm ready to make a decision on someone I cannot support. I'm announcing this morning that I'm Never Nikki."

As I look over the field, I don’t think I yet have a first choice, but I do know one thing: count me in as #NeverNikki! pic.twitter.com/0RjbBhnwdc

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 12, 2024

"I don't think any informed or knowledgable libertarian or conservative should support Nikki Haley. I've seen her attitude toward our interventions overseas. I've seen her involvement in the military-industrial complex: $8 million being paid to be part of a team. But I've also seen her indicate that she thinks you should be registered to use the internet.... I think she fails to understand our Republic was founded on people like Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, Madison, John Jay, and others who posted routinely, for fear of the government... anonymously. And I think her failure to really understand that or to think that you should register through the government somehow for the internet is something that should disqualify her in the minds of all libertarian-leaning conservatives. So I'm announcing today: I'm Never Nikki."

"The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment."

Said Rand Paul, quoted in "Sen. Rand Paul wants to repeal the Espionage Act amid the Mar-a-Lago investigation" (NPR).

The Espionage Act was passed in 1917, a few months after the U.S. entered World War I. The original law made it illegal for people to obtain or disclose information relating to national defense that could be used to harm the U.S. or benefit another country....

Roughly 1,000 people were jailed for criticizing World War I....

"In a wild rant posted to Twitter Sunday, the Kentucky senator — speaking direct-to-camera before a dark blue backdrop — railed against the 'petty tyrants and bureaucrats' implementing new mandates."

That's how Mediaite characterizes it. 

Judge for yourself:

We are at a moment of truth and a crossroads. Will we allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do further harm to our society, economy, and children?

Or will we stand together and say, absolutely not. Not this time. I choose freedom. pic.twitter.com/XrI2tjdAHW

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 8, 2021

I'd say he's making a standard activist point: If people resist in huge numbers, they can't be stopped. That's America's great civil disobedience tradition. Those who are in the position to announce new mandates know this and must take it into account. The potential for mass resistance is a built-in safeguard. One of 2 forces will stop them. Either they will self-regulate, or they will uncover the inherent limit to their power.

The BBC "Reality Check" team examines whether U.S. money funded "gain-of-function" research in China.

That is, who's right, Rand Paul or Anthony Fauci?

There's no decisive answer at the link, but room to argue that either or both are right. I can't do an excerpt, because I can't figure out what to leave out, so read the whole thing. Personally, I don't side with either man or care about designating one and not the other as a liar.

Scott Adams deploys his 4-point test for lying.

I don't know who is right, but one of these people checked four boxes for lying:

1. Word-thinking ("not gain of function")
2. Attack the critic personally
3. Change the topic
4. Anger when trapped https://t.co/AhR8vgoJjw

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) July 21, 2021

ADDED: If you click through to Weinstein's series of tweets, you'll read a very sensible interpretation that seems right to me:

"Until they show me evidence that people who have already had the infection are dying in large numbers, or being hospitalized or getting very sick, I just made my own personal decision that I’m not getting vaccinated..."

"... because I’ve already had the disease and I have natural immunity... In a free country you would think people would honor the idea that each individual would get to make the medical decision, that it wouldn’t be a big brother coming to tell me what I have to do. Are they also going to tell me I can’t have a cheeseburger for lunch? Are they going to tell me that I have to eat carrots only and cut my calories? All that would probably be good for me, but I don’t think big brother ought to tell me to do it."

From "Rand Paul: 'I'm not getting vaccinated'" (The Hill).

The most popular comment over there is: "Rand Paul's neighbor for Senate!" Celebrating violence... or at least laughing at it.

"Do you support the government’s intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia?"

That was Rand Paul's question to Rachel Levine, Biden’s nominee for assistant health secretary. He's quoted at "The Absurd Criticism of Rand Paul’s Rachel Levine Questioning" (National Review). 

It's a precise question. If it can't be answered, why can't it be answered? If it's an outrageous question, that must be because the answer is plainly "no," so why couldn't Levine forthrightly say "no"? There are some questions where the right answer is to refuse to answer — for example questions that nose into an individual's private life — but was Rand Paul's question a question like that? Is anyone making a clear statement of why these were questions that should not have been dignified with answers?

45 Senators just voted that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional, so it seems that acquittal is inevitable.

Rand Paul’s motion was defeated 55 to 45, but a 2/3 vote is needed to convict, so it seems the outcome is preordained and the substantive merits of the case don’t matter. The 45 who believe it’s unconstitutional shouldn’t change their mind based on anything to be presented at trial.

ADDED: A TV commentator said that only 34 votes were expected on Paul’s motion. 45 is a much stronger showing. McConnell voted with Paul. Only 5 Republicans voted with the Democrats: Romney, Collins, Murkowski, Toomey, and Sasse. It will be difficult to generate any momentum for this dismal trial.

Rand Paul versus George Stephanopoulos. A great confrontation, and I do not agree with the title on this video, that Rand Paul "melts down."

 

Here's the transcript.  

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Paul, let me begin with a threshold question for you. This election was not stolen, do you accept that fact? 

SENATOR RAND PAUL, (R-KY): Well, what I would say is that the debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur, we never had any presentation in court where we actually looked at the evidence.

"If you read his speech and listen to it carefully, much of it is thinly-veiled innuendo calling us white supremacists, calling us racists, calling us every name in the book, calling us people who don't tell the truth."

Said Rand Paul on Fox News last night, quoted in "Power Up: Unity in Washington will be harder than Biden makes it sound" (WaPo)("Some Republicans such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) even trashed Biden's speech itself, which was widely-lauded for its appeals for Americans to set aside their political differences and work together for a better country"). 

If I had a little more time at the moment, I'd go through the speech line by line and look for every phrase that can be interpreted as saying that Rand Paul and whoever he thinks of as "us" are white supremacists, racists, liars, or whatever other names might be in that book. 

I'd do something like my post "The 7 most violence-inciting statements in Donald Trump's speech to the crowd on January 6th." Maybe later.

ADDED: Here's Rand Paul's Fox News segment with the "thinly-veiled innuendo" charge:

 

Paul cites a particular line in the speech: "And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured." According to Paul, the "gist" of what Biden was saying there is that his political opponents manufacture and manipulate the truth.

AND: Without yet going through the comments to see your suggestions, I have read the speech to look for what can be characterized as the "thinly-veiled innuendo" Paul was talking about. Here's what I found:

"Just got attacked by an angry mob of over 100, one block away from the White House. Thank you to @DCPoliceDept for literally saving our lives from a crazed mob."

Rand Paul tweeted 7 hours ago.

He's getting pushback. I'm seeing tweets like: "We all saw the tape! No one 'attacked' you. They were protesting, and yelled at you while you were cowering behind a police escort." And: "The video proved that @randpaul is a liar. This was a stunt to send to #FoxNews." Where's the video? I see this, but I don't know what portion of the incident it shows.

There's also this tweet: "See, if the police provided this sort of protection to every person of color instead of firing bullets in their back, people would not be protesting in the first place." It seems to me, the reason the police were on the scene in the Jacob Blake incident was that they came to protect a woman who had called them. The woman had made a call and the call was responded to. Does this tweeter want the police to provide protection or not? If a woman calls and asks for help in a domestic situation, should the police leave her to handle her own problem?! Whatever happened to concern about violence against women?

ADDED:

Maxine Waters: “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere.” pic.twitter.com/1efIW8VI3e

— Kelb Hull (@CalebJHull) August 28, 2020

"I’m supporting President Trump because he believes as I do, that a strong America cannot fight endless wars."

"We must not continue to leave our blood and treasure in Middle East quagmires.... President Trump is the first president in a generation to seek to end war rather than start one. He intends to end the war in Afghanistan. He is bringing our men and women home. Madison once wrote, 'No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continuous warfare.' I’m proud to finally see a president who agrees with that. Compare President Trump with the disastrous record of Joe Biden, who’s consistently called for more war. Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War, which President Trump has long called the worst geopolitical mistake of our generation. I fear Biden will choose war again. He supported the war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home. If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home, you need to support President Trump for another term."

Said Rand Paul on the second night of the GOP convention. Video. Transcript.