Amus de Wauchope

Can someone please fire Dr. Fauci already?  Or, at the very least, can start to treat him like the scoundrel raconteur he is?

Frankly, Dr. Fauci is conducting so many interviews that one must begin to wonder what taxpayers are actually paying him to do.  Did we hire a virologist or a media personality?  One supposes he could use his overwhelming media presence as an excuse for his increasingly outlandish statements.  After all, it must be difficult to coordinate research and the pandemic response when most of your day is spent in front of a television camera.

In one of his more recent interviews, Fauci stated, "People who are not getting vaccinated mistakenly think it’s only about them. But it isn’t. It’s about everybody else, also."  The implication being that, somehow, individuals acting upon their right to refuse medical treatment are unfairly impacting other members of society.

Fauci continued, "If we don’t crush the outbreak to the point of getting the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated, then what will happen is the virus will continue to smolder through the fall into the winter, giving it ample chance to get a variant which, quite frankly, we’re very lucky that the vaccines that we have now do very well against the variants — particularly against severe illness."

It is unfortunate, but there are still patriot-aligned people who believe the FDA recalled the original CDC COVID-19 test.  This is despite the absurdity of believing the FDA is continuing to allow the test to be used while, simultaneously, the agency is issuing a "Class 1" recall which forbids the test to be used.

The Patriot movement cannot lose the intellectual high ground.  Believing and spreading lies which are so easy to disprove damages our cause.  Frankly, this lie can be disproven with common sense alone.  Since it is impossible for something to be both true and false at the same time, any reasonable person should realize the FDA cannot simultaneously allow and forbid some action.

Being factually incorrect is understandable and can be excusable.  However, we must leave being factually inconsistent to the communists and blue checks because once we lose the trust of the populace, it can never be regained.

A number of conservative-oriented journalists and commentators have been falsely claiming the CDC's original COVID-19 test is unable to differentiate between SARS-CoV-2 (which was previously known as 2019-nCoV) and seasonal influenza virus particles.

This claim is incorrect.

This claim originates from the CDC voluntarily seeking the FDA to withdraw the emergency use authorization, which allows the test to be used in clinical settings.  As part of this process, the CDC issued an advisory instructing clinical labs to use an alternative test and suggesting labs should use a test capable of detecting and differentiating SARS-CoV-2 and the seasonal influenza virus.

This advisory should not be difficult to misconstrue, and the individuals spreading this piece of misinformation really ought to know better.

It is true, the CDC is withdrawing the request for an EUA for its 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel - which is the test's full name.  When the EUA is withdrawn, clinical labs will no longer be legally allowed to use the CDC's test.  With that in mind, it is important to recognize the CDC is requesting the EUA remain in effect for the remainder of the year, and a source within the FDA has confirmed the EUA will remain in effect until December 31.  The obvious reason for this delay is the CDC trying to give clinical labs time to migrate to a different test, and avoid any test interruptions.

Everyone accused of a crime in the United States is guaranteed the right to a fair trial.  This right is not revoked by the existence of video evidence, regardless of how extensive that video evidence appears to be.  While the State has a responsibility to ensure a defendant's fair trial, it is the judges who supervise the trial and make decisions to protect the rights of the accused.

One of those decisions is to sequester a jury over the course of a trial.  In the trial of Officer Chauvin, the Honorable Peter Cahill has denied motions to sequester the jury.  Judge Cahill erred in failing to sequester the jury and, through his actions, denied Officer Chauvin the right to a fair trial.

Juries in other high profile criminal trials have been sequestered. Juries were sequestered for the O.J. Simpson trial and the trial of the four LA police officers accused of beating Rodney King.  The rationale for sequestering the jury in a notable cases should be obvious.  There is a risk that media companies will seek to boost their ratings by interviewing jurors over the course of a trial.  There is a further risk that jurors will be exposed to the extensive media coverage given to the trial.

We need to stop pretending that we can ever mend the divisions which are ripping this country apart.  America cannot be healed and that's okay, but we need to admit this before our disagreements devolve into open warfare.

America has lasted so long because the State governments were charged with developing the laws and regulations within their borders.  This essentially made our government decentralized.  New York could develop its own laws in accordance with the desires of its citizens, and the neighboring citizens of Connecticut could develop a set of laws better suited to their own circumstance.  It is a system that elegantly allowed for regional differences to prosper without sacrificing the benefits gained by creating a single nation out of the many colonies.

In theory federalism could allow for extreme differences between the States.  If the residents of New York or California wanted to live in a socialist society, they could do so without forcing Texas to join their experiment.