Commentary Culture Investigations

The relationship between AI and publishers is parasitic.

A couple of peeved GOP senators rightly demand a written rescission of the fund, but President Trump and the DOJ resist.

Covid czar Dr. Anthony repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination Wednesday – even when asked the most innocuous questions by Senate Republicans during a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing.Fauci had to be legally compelled by subpoena to testify because he had previously refused to appear before the committee voluntarily to answer questions about his actions, public comments and guidance issued regarding the COVID-19 epidemic.”On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution,” Fauci replied more than a hundred times, even when Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) asked questions such as:”What day of the week is it?“What color tie are you wearing?”“What color is the carpet in front of you?”Sen Josh Hawley: “What day of the week is it?… What color tie are you wearing?… What color is the carpet?…”Fauci: Invokes the 5th for every questionWhat a complete joke…pic.twitter.com/bg9WNuXf3y— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 29, 2026In another viral exchange, Fauci pleaded The Fifth when the committee’s chairman, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked Fauci to acknowledge that there was a folder lying on a table a few inches away from him:Sen. Paul: “In the red folder on your table is a copy of Section 192 of Title II of the US Code.“Your counsel has been provided a copy, as well. That section makes it a crime for a witness appearing under subpoena to refuse to answer any questions pertinent to the question under inquiry.“Do you have that in front of you?”Dr. Fauci: “On the advice of counsel, I respectively decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”“Let the record record that the witness has refused to answer whether there’s a folder in front of him based on his Fifth Amendment right,” Chairman Paul responded.PAUL: In the red folder on your table is a copy of Section 192 of Title II of the US Code…… Do you have that in front of you?FACUI: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution. pic.twitter.com/8NgHaHR61Y— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 29, 2026

When conservatives hear the term “independent political journalism,” they might think of people who are politically independent between the parties, or unaffiliated with establishment media outlets. But to liberals, “independent journalism” seems to be defined as “reliably anti-Trump/anti-Republican.”The Poynter Institute’s latest event for its supporters is a “salon” in Kansas City in October where they will honor former NBC host Chuck Todd with the “2026 Poynter Make a Mark Leadership Award, recognizing his decades-long impact on political journalism and his role as one of the country’s leading independent voices covering politics, democracy and public affairs.”Since leaving NBC, you could argue Todd is now “independent,” but his entire history at NBC underlined he was reliably Democratic in orientation, including a dinner party honoring a top Hillary Clinton adviser in 2015 at his home with his wife Kristian Denny Todd, a Democratic direct-mail fundraising specialist. It was one of several conflicts of interest with the couple.Poynter announced that at this “salon,” Todd and Poynter official Neil Brown will discuss “the future of political journalism, rebuilding public trust in news, the rise of independent media and what it takes for journalism to remain relevant in an increasingly fragmented and polarized information environment.” Liberals are always upset that conservative media has “fragmented and polarized” their attempt to dominate the media space. Then Poynter points out that they’re also handing out their “Make a Mark” award to two other Democrat hacks in the media: “Sarah Longwell, CEO and Publisher of The Bulwark, and Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, will also receive the award during Poynter’s Sept. 9 Salon Series event in New York City.”The Atlantic and The Bulwark are Poynter’s favorite snark to “make a mark.” The Poynter Institute is the parent organization of the deeply biased website PolitiFact, which calls itself “independent.” Naturally, Chuck Todd has a glowing rating at PolitiFact, with seven “True” or “Mostly True” ratings, and one solitary “False.”

MS NOW Reports host Antonia Hylton brought on The Bulwark’s senior national correspondent Jonathan Cohn on Wednesday to help her make sense of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In a frustrating display of someone trying to have it both ways, Cohn admitted that there are legitimate questions that could be asked of Fauci but still managed to accuse Republicans of running “a show trial” aimed at putting Fauci “in jail.”Hylton led Cohn by asking, “Do you think any of them asked serious questions? Or would you say that the majority of this has been about scoring political points? I ask because Dr. Vin Gupta was on with my colleague Stephanie Ruhle just a little bit ago, and he said that, for example, Senator Lankford had some questions that he thought were actually interesting and fair. And so I wonder if you can basically help us cut through the noise here, separate sort of fact and—from fiction and from drama.” Really devastating lines of questioning from @SenJamesLankford….Lankford: “There are a lot of issues and a lot of questions that have come up, and hopefully, some day in the future, we’ll be able to get all this clarity and pull it together. More than a million Americans that… pic.twitter.com/Q4tOP2Xz1N— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026 For context, Lankford asked Fauci if he brought up concerns that lockdowns were leading to children not getting their measles vaccines, which would lead to more excess deaths, at task force meetings. He also asked whether he had access to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s classified report that supported the lab leak hypothesis. Lankford further inquired about the cons of working with countries, such as China, with authoritarian governments.Cohn began by agreeing that there are fair questions to be asked, “Yeah. So, I mean, look, there are a few questions that are legitimate. And, you know, looking back over the pandemic, I mean, I think a lot of us have said for a long time, it was a, you know, it was a once-in-a-century challenge. We did some things right. We did some things wrong. Human beings were making decisions. We should continue to look back and say, have a sober examination of what we got right, what we got wrong, so we could do better next time.” The Bulwark’s national correspondent, Jonathan Cohn, tells MS NOW that “This is a show trial. This is Rand Paul deeply invested in this narrative that there was a conspiracy, as Ron Johnson deeply invested in this narrative, that scientists are misleading the country. It’s Donald… pic.twitter.com/LaGIggpZxs— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 29, 2026 However, Cohn then turned, “The problem is that that is not what this show is. This is a show trial. This is Rand Paul deeply invested in this narrative that there was a conspiracy, as Ron Johnson deeply invested in this narrative that scientists are misleading the country. It’s Donald Trump deeply invested in taking out vengeance on Fauci, who he thinks helped ruin his first term.”Alluding to Fauci always pleading the fifth, Cohn continued, “That is why Fauci doesn’t want to answer questions, because he fears, legitimately, the real purpose of this is not to get to the not to have a careful, thoughtful retrospective on how we handled the last pandemic and do better next time. It is an effort to get him, you know, extract vengeance on him and put him in jail.”Even if one grants the argument that some questions are more legitimate than others, it would follow that Fauci should have answered the legitimate ones, especially considering he was given a preemptive pardon.Here is a transcript for the July 29 show:MS NOW Reports7/29/202611:08 AM ETANTONIA HYLTON: But do you think any of them asked serious questions? Or would you say that the majority of this has been about scoring political points? I ask because Dr. Vin Gupta was on with my colleague Stephanie Ruhle just a little bit ago, and he said that, for example, Senator Lankford had some questions that he thought were actually interesting and fair. And so I wonder if you can basically help us cut through the noise here, separate sort of fact and—from fiction and from drama.JONATHAN COHN: Yeah. So, I mean, look, there are a few questions that are legitimate. And, you know, looking back over the pandemic, I mean, I think a lot of us have said for a long time, it was a, you know, it was a once-in-a-century challenge. We did some things right. We did some things wrong. Human beings were making decisions. We should continue to look back and say, have a sober examination of what we got right, what we got wrong, so we could do better next time. The problem is that that is not what this show is. This is a show trial. This is Rand Paul deeply invested in this narrative that there was a conspiracy, as Ron Johnson deeply invested in this narrative that scientists are misleading the country. It’s Donald Trump deeply invested in taking out vengeance on Fauci, who he thinks helped ruin his first term. And that is what this is all about. And, you know, and that is why Fauci doesn’t want to answer questions, because he fears, legitimately, the real purpose of this is not to get to the not to have a careful, thoughtful retrospective on how we handled the last pandemic and do better next time. It is an effort to get him, you know, extract vengeance on him and put him in jail.

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It takes a lot of extreme pretzel twisting to write in detail about Anthony Fauci’s diary yet somehow skip the famous journalist who figures very prominently in that same diary who worked with Fauci to both cover up for him while also working to attack his opponents. And that journalist is Jack Tapper who, amazingly, appears not once is CNN’s story on Fauci’s diary published by CNN on Tuesday, “Diary entries, a subpoena and an anticipated clash: Dr. Anthony Fauci and Rand Paul’s long-running battle returns to the Hill.”CNN reporters Sarah Owermohle and Adam Cancryn had the unenviable task of completely whitewashing Jake Tapper out of a diary in which he appears dozens of times.Ahead of the hearing, the committee released more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s personal diary from 2019 to 2022. Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday night on Fox News that he had recently handed the files over to Paul and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson after finding them on government servers following an eight-month search.Neither HHS nor Paul’s committee alerted Fauci ahead of time that they had obtained his diary and that they planned to publish it in full, according to a person familiar with the matter.Imagine the surprise on Fauci’s as well as Tapper’s face when they found out about the diary. You definitely won’t find out anything about Tapper’s reaction to the diary in the CNN story since he (as well as his colleague Dana Bash also mentioned in the diary and NOT mentioned in the CNN story) has been sent into the Phantom Zone so far as his connection with Fauci is concerned. Could this be the current rule at CNN? That any mention of Tapper being in Fauci’s diary is now taboo?Back to the whitewash:The diary entries also narrate Fauci’s growing concerns about Covid-19, frustrations with the government response and conflicting relationships with both Trump and Biden administration officials.The diaries also narrate Fauci colluding with a certain television news host to protect him and viscously slam all who dare criticize the beloved Fauci. Who, oh who, could that person be?On April 2, 2020, he fretted that now HHS secretary RFK Jr. was preparing to publish a book about him that “will almost certainly be slanderous.”Good news! Jake Tapper did not appear in RFK Jr’s book The Real Anthony Fauci. However, he did make dozens of appearances in Fauci’s diary. You won’t find out about that at CNN as yet. Could the explanation for that absurdly noticeable oversight be job security? Reporters Owermohle and Cancryn will probably be subjected to well-deserved mockery for skipping all mention of Jake Tapper who appears prominently in the diary they wrote about, but at least they get to keep their jobs. CNN engages in collective defense of their cast of anti-Trump heroes.

Those inside the Iranian regime who still fear their people have ample reason to fear a prolonged naval siege of their country.

All the protectionist measures he ascribes to Canada are mirrored by U.S. policies.

If the ‘sociology of education’ professor can be cleared of allegations of plagiarism, then who will ever be convicted of it?

Since Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) released on Saturday nearly 2,000 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diaries that delivered one bombshell after another about how he handled the coronavirus pandemic, ABC and NBC had yet to say a word on the leading morning or evening shows. However, that changed Wednesday morning with stories explaining away his behavior ahead of what became an explosive Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.ABC’s Good Morning America only mustered a partial segment tallying 89 seconds, starting with co-host Robin Roberts announcing Fauci was “set to testify on Capitol Hill” for “a grilling by longtime critic Senator Rand Paul over his role in handling the COVID pandemic.”

WATCH: ABC News finally covered the Fauci diaries on one of their leading newscasts, previewing the hearing on Wednesday’s ‘Good Morning America’ and lamenting Fauci would “face a grilling by longtime critic Senator Rand Paul over his role in handling the COVID pandemic” and… pic.twitter.com/NwKhugcUFa— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026

D.C.-based correspondent Jay O’Brien also said it’d “be a fiery hearing” with Paul going after “Fauci, 85-years-old, once the nation’s top infectious disease expert who retired in 2022.”He added Paul has “accused Fauci of everything from misleading the COVID — mishandling the COVID response, to misleading the public about COVID’s origins, to even lying to Congress, all of which Fauci strenuously denies” with his attorney calling Paul’s behavior a “years-long public crusade.”Incredibly, O’Brien seemed to cast doubt on the veracity of the diaries: “Ahead of this hearing, Paul releasing more than one thousand pages worth of what he says are diary excerpts that Fauci wrote in the early days of the pandemic.”O’Brien did read the infamous January 2020 entry voicing support for the pandemic having originated from the Wuhan lab, but argued this matched Fauci’s public comments:[Fauci] says it’s “not the source, but the amplifier” of the virus, something the senator accuses Fauci of never saying publicly although the doctor later said that in a public interview or something similar….Fauci, remember, has a preemptive pardon from former President Biden over concerns, Biden said, of possible political prosecution[.]Fact-check: Pants on fire.Grabien’s Tom Elliott noted Fauci went around to tamp down on others voicing these concerns, including with the CIA:

In this passage, Fauci recounts a “very strange” meeting with the CIA, where they presented intel pointing toward a lab leak. Fauci, clearly annoyed, calls the CIA woman presenting the findings as “pathetic in her naivety an obvious lack of appreciation of any of the science of… pic.twitter.com/My7ngQsymB— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 26, 2026

Further, Fauci was heavily involved in a now-infamous article in Nature Medicine by supposedly leading scientists to declare the virus came from a wet market with the lab-leak theory unlikely:

3 – THE PROXIMAL ORIGIN COVER-UP: Jan 31, 2020. Lead virologist Kristian Andersen privately writes that the SARS-CoV-2 genome appeared “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory” — i.e., looks engineered.His initial hypothesis, in his own words: “SARS-CoV-2 was… pic.twitter.com/URrhuSwHk0— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 7, 2026

Fauci’s media allies also denounced those invoking the possibility of a lab leak:

SUPERCUT!Media mock Trump, @TomCottonAR for “debunked” Covid lab leak theory pic.twitter.com/nb0621y2e7— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 26, 2021

SUPERCUT!Media: It’s Trump’s fault we failed to investigate China lab-leak theory pic.twitter.com/NTQwU1JU8g— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 7, 2021

Even in 2024, Fauci said the science “weighs more heavily” toward a wet market origin: 

Fauci on Covid: Lab leak is possible but evidence “weighs more heavily” in favor of animal transmission pic.twitter.com/nEsIKYW1ga— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 4, 2024

And during the hearing, Paul showed a montage of Fauci arguing on CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NewsNation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in favor of the wet market origin.Over on NBC’s Today, senior Washington correspondent and fill-in co-host Hallie Jackson cracked open the network’s blackout by declaring: “Fauci, who helped lead the U.S. response to COVID, is appearing in front of a Senate committee, a hearing that is expected to be contentious after the public release of entries from Dr. Fauci’s personal journal.”As part of a segment tallying two minutes and 50 seconds, White House correspondent Monica Alba began by saying Fauci — who “became household name during the pandemic” — now has “his private reflection…gaining attention after a Republican Senator posted them online as part of an ongoing probe into the origins of the virus, all setting the stage for what is expected to be a fiery hearing today on Capitol Hill.”

NEW: NBC finally acknowledged the Fauci diaries with a full story on Wednesday’s ‘Today,’ insisting Fauci has been “open” “in the past…to the lab-leak theory” pic.twitter.com/NKDj6mLDJF— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026

Like with ABC (see above) and CBS did (see here), Alba refused to go below the surface in Fauci’s narcissism and his close ties to the media. She also peddled the false claim about Fauci never having dismissed the lab-leak theory (click “expand”):ALBA: New revelations this morning from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal journal, published by Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is clashed with the former infectious disease expert for years.FAUCI [on 07/20/21]: [I]f anyone is lying here, senator, it is you.ALBA: Most notably, over whether COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China, or came from a market in Wuhan featuring exotic animals.SENATOR RAND PAUL (R-KY): We put the evidence into the public sphere. So, I would just suggest that he tell the truth, and if he tells the truth, he has no liability.ALBA: In January of 2020, weeks before the world shut down, Fauci wrote, “Now we know the market was not the source., it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to human.” In the past, Fauci has said he was open to the lab-leak theory.FAUCI [on NBC’s Meet the Press, 11/27/22]: I have a completely open mind about that, despite people saying that I don’t. ALBA: Still, Senator Paul posting he’ll be asking Fauci “under subpoena” about what he calls “the COVID cover-up.”On the flip side, she did go further than ABC’s O’Brien on Fauci celebrating his levels of fame and anti-Trump punditry (click “expand”):Fauci, in the more than 1,100 release pages, also reflecting on his newfound fame, including conversations with celebrities like Barbara Streisand, who asked about vaccines and Julia Roberts, who called him her personal hero. Fauci writing, “It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous, and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable.”Throughout the entries, Fauci makes his feelings about President Trump known, calling him a “true embarrassment” and saying he was “spewing nonsense” in the weeks before the 2020 election shortly after the President had been hospitalized for COVID, and when Mr. Trump said he was “considering firing” Fauci.To see the relevant transcripts from July 29, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).