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‘National Embarrassment’: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Fauci Attack ‘Crazy and Irresponsible’

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci during the Republican House’s hearing on the coronavirus pandemic Monday, refused to call him “Dr.,” and promoted lies and conspiracy theories forcing Democrats to denounce her remarks as “crazy and irresponsible,” and demand they be stricken from the record.

Dr. Fauci was the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, from 1984 until the end of 2022. In both the Trump and Biden administrations he became the public face of the battle against the pandemic.

But he also became the target of the right and the far-right during COVID, with Congresswoman Greene frequently leading the charge against what she labeled Monday as “your so-called science.”

READ MORE: ‘Texting About Trump?’: Experts Think Speaker Johnson May Be Talking to SCOTUS Justices

The Georgia Congresswoman “screamed and raged at Fauci at a hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic,” The Independent reported. “Republicans have sought to prove that Fauci tried to suppress information about the origins of Covid-19 and claim he funded research that triggered pandemic that killed millions of people.”

“We should be recommending you to be prosecuted,” Greene also said during the hearing. “We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison.”

Apologizing to Dr. Fauci, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-FL) blasted Congresswoman Greene, declaring her remarks “completely irresponsible” while saying, “this might be the most insane hearing I’ve actually attended.”

“Your ‘so-called science’ that the gentlewoman is referring to has saved millions of lives in this country and around the world. And I want to thank you for that.” He called Fauci “an American hero,” whose “team has done more to save lives than all 435 members of this body on both sides of the aisle.”

“You guys have worked not just during this pandemic, but over time to save millions of lives in this country and across the world. We lost 1.1 million American lives, 1.1 million American lives, 7 million lives around the world,” Garcia said. “We were having 9-11-like-events death events daily in this country losing 4000 to 5000 people every single day. I was mayor during the time of the pandemic. I remember how painful it was to close businesses to shut down schools.”

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“But how quickly we forget the pain and how scared we were as a country. We were washing our groceries as they were coming in. We were keeping seniors at a distance – the tragedy that was happening in our nursing homes, thousands of people were dying a day. And you and your team of the best and the brightest scientists in this country, and the world were doing everything that you could, and working night and day to save more and more of those lives.”

Congressman Garcia explained how he lost both his parents in the COVID pandemic, explaining, “I take this very personally, especially when other members of this body who are tasked to be responsible and actually help the American people attack medical professionals like you and across the world. Vaccines – a vaccine that you and your team helped foster – has saved millions of American lives. These attacks are ridiculous.”

He also pointed out the Rep. Greene had “introduced the ‘Fire Fauci Act’ and promoted on a podcast, saying that COVID was a bio weapon. That is how insane some of these comments are.”

Garcia also quoted Greene saying: “I don’t believe in evolution. These viruses were not making people sick until they created them. They weaponize these viruses to be able to attach to our cells and make us sick. It’s a bio weapon.”

He also quoted Greene from a social media post: “The Fauci-funded Wuhan lab created the virus,” and called her remarks, “crazy and irresponsible.”

“In this post,” Garcia continued, “the same member of this committee is accusing you of orchestrating a global conspiracy to create COVID on purpose just to make people get vaccines that you’ve done the sir. The same member routinely promotes complete misinformation about vaccines, and actually has encouraged the routine prevention of vaccinations that even eliminate diseases like the measles. Dr. Fauci, you brought together our nation and world’s best and brightest scientists take on COVID and create a vaccine that works. I want to ask you a question. I want to be crystal clear for the public. You brought together the world and America’s best scientists. Do you believe that the vaccine that you all helped create and ensure is safe and effective for the public?” he asked Fauci.

READ MORE: Trump Demands SCOTUS Intervene After ‘Dangerous’ Suggestion of Possible Violence if Jailed

“Yes, and its track record has proven that,” the doctor replied.

“And you also agree that it saved hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of lives in America and across the world?” Garcia continued.

“That is absolutely correct,” Fauci said. “And it’s very clear that it saved millions of lives here and throughout the world. The Europeans have done the same studies that we have. And the data are incontrovertible that they save lives.”

On social media after the hearing, Rep. Garcia wrote: “Totally insane that Marjorie Taylor Greene would not refer to Dr. Fauci as a doctor. He’s one of the most brilliant medical minds in the country. She’s a national embarrassment.”

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Stephen Miller Melts Down on Live TV: ‘I Will Be as Excited as I Want to Be!’

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White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller repeatedly had to be asked to “calm down” during a wide-ranging CNN interview on Tuesday that has set the internet on fire.

“This president, for the first time in history, is committed to restoring accountability at every level of the federal government,” Miller declared. “You may assert there’s no waste in the Pentagon. You may assert there is no waste in Treasury. You may assert there’s no waste in HHS.”

CNN’s Brianna Keilar made clear no one is asserting there is no waste.

READ MORE: ‘Ridiculous’: Federal Judge Scorches Trump DOJ Lawyer Over Military ‘Pronoun Use’

“Then why are you not celebrating these cuts if you agree there is waste, if you agree there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption, why are you not celebrating the cuts, the reforms that are being instituted?” Miller, shouting, asked.

“Every day that no action is taken —” Miller, still yelling, continued.

“Stephen, let’s calm down,” Keilar insisted.

“The entire salaries of American workers that are taxed disappear forever —”

“Stephen, let’s calm down,” Keilar again asked. “We’re not having a debate.”

“Well you are clearly trying to debate me,” Miller claimed. “And I will be as excited as I want to be about the fact that we are saving Americans billions of dollars, that we are ending the theft and waste and grift and corruption, that we are stopping American taxpayer dollars from subsidizing a rogue federal bureaucracy that has been relentlessly weaponized against the American people.”

Many have questioned the Trump administration’s assertions.

That exchange led veteran journalist John Harwood to declare, “Stephen Miller is bat— crazy.”

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

In another exchange, Miller condescendingly told Keilar, “The way that Article II” of the Constitution “works is a president wins an election, and then he appoints staff.”

CNN’s Ana Navarro-Cárdenas, a co-host on ABC’s “The View,” responded to a clip of Miller. She wrote: “Insane? Hysterical? Deranged? Off his meds?”

Miller, whose “ideology” is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “Anti-Immigrant,” is the architect of President Donald Trump’s family separation policies during his first administration. Over one thousand children have yet to be reunited.

“From March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016, Miller,” the SPLC reported, “sent over 900 emails to Breitbart News editors.”

“Throughout the emails, Miller promotes literature, conspiracy theories, and policies supported by white nationalist and anti-immigrant hate groups,” according to the SPLC.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Sociopathic’: USAID Worker Sues Alleging State Dept. Medevac Refusal for Pregnant Wife

 

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‘Ridiculous’: Federal Judge Scorches Trump DOJ Lawyer Over Military ‘Pronoun Use’

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A federal judge sharply criticized an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice over Pentagon policy asserting that the U.S. Armed Forces could somehow be compromised simply by requiring service members to use a colleague’s preferred pronoun.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee, appeared skeptical of both the President’s and the Department of Justice’s stance on transgender service members during Tuesday’s hearing.

Reyes “asserted flatly that the idea that the greatest fighting force in the history of the world would be adversely effected by the need to use specific pronouns for a few thousand members of the military is, ‘Ridiculous,'” Fox News producer Jake Gibson reported.

READ MORE: ‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

According to Politico’s Kyle Cheney, this is how the exchange went:

“REYES: Can we agree that the greatest fighting force… is not going to be impacted in any way by less than 1 percent of the soldiers using a different pronoun than others might want to call them?

DOJ ATTORNEY: I can’t agree with that here.

REYES: Would you agree with me that if our military is negatively impacted in any kind of way that matters… We all have a lot bigger problems than pronoun use. We have a military that is incompetent. Any common sense rational human being knows that it doesn’t. It is pretext. It is frankly ridiculous. If you want to get me an officer of the U.S. military who is willing to get on the stand and say that because of pronoun usage the U.S. military is less prepared because of pronoun usage. I will be the first to give you a box of cigars.”

An estimated 15,000 service members are transgender.

In another striking exchange, Judge Reyes also called Trump’s executive order on transgender service members “unadulterated animus.”

Currently, the Pentagon has ordered service branches to stop accepting new transgender recruits into the military, and to pause any gender-affirming medical care for transgender troops.

READ MORE: ‘Sociopathic’: USAID Worker Sues Alleging State Dept. Medevac Refusal for Pregnant Wife

“One of the plaintiffs,” in the case, WUSA9‘s Jordan Fischer reports, “Koda Nature, a 23-year-old transgender man from Texas, said he had been working with a recruiter to join the U.S. Marine Corps when he was informed last month he would no longer be able to enlist. Nature said joining the military had been his dream since he was 5 years old – a dream to follow in the footsteps of 17 generations of his family.”

President Donald Trump has signed at least four executive orders restricting the civil rights of transgender people in the United States, including one that could be used to ban open service by transgender troops, under the guise of prioritizing military excellence, readiness, and “unit cohesion” — tropes that for decades were also used to try to prevent lesbian, gay, and bisexual troops from serving openly in America’s armed forces.

“Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” Trump’s January 27 executive order reads. Trump also alleged that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

That order specifically targeted the use of preferred pronouns, which he called, “invented and identification-based pronoun usage.”

“It is the policy of the United States Government to establish high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. This policy is inconsistent with the medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria. This policy is also inconsistent with shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex.”

READ MORE: ‘Unconstitutional Threat’: Trump Border Czar Under Fire Over AOC DOJ Request

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‘Bloodbath by Design’: Trump’s Russia Negotiators Criticized for ‘Almost No Experience’

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After a week of disastrous messaging by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, resulting in a 180-degree turn and leaving European leaders and some Americans wondering what U.S. foreign policy is, the Trump administration is once again under fire as critics charge the team he has assembled to start discussions with Russia over its illegal war against Ukraine does not match the “heavyweights” Russia is sending.

The U.S. is already in the hot seat as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — who has made clear his country will accept no peace deal if they are not part of the negotiations — appears to have been frozen out of the initial talks, which were held Tuesday in Saudi Arabia.

European officials attending the Munich Security Conference last week, “stressed the need for Ukraine to be part of peace talks to end the war. Vice President JD Vance met with Zelenskyy in Munich Friday, telling him the U.S. wants a ‘durable, lasting peace,’ while Zelensky asked for ‘security guarantees,'” CBS News reported.

“Zelenskyy told the conference of world leaders that Ukraine would not accept a deal made ‘behind our backs without our involvement,’ and called for the creation of ‘armed forces of Europe’ amid the possibility of a changing relationship between Europe and the U.S.”

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Early Tuesday afternoon the Associated Press, calling it “an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy,” reported: “Russia and US agree to work toward ending Ukraine war in a remarkable diplomatic shift.”

CNN reported that the “United States and Russia agreed on four principles following talks that lasted more than four hours in Saudi Arabia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday, including appointing a high-level team to help ‘negotiate and work through the end of the conflict in Ukraine’ in a way that’s ‘acceptable to all the parties engaged.’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not invited to the talks, said Ukraine will not ‘give in to Russia’s ultimatums’ and earlier said he would refuse to sign any agreement negotiated without Kyiv’s involvement.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who reportedly was part of Tuesday’s talks, described them as “useful.”

The talks are expected to continue after this initial meeting. Trump administration officials at the talks in Saudi Arabia included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Foreign policy expert and historian Sławomir Dębski, a former Russia foreign policy analyst, over the weekend described Russia’s team.

He named, “Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who has worked in diplomacy for over half a century,” “Sergey Naryshkin, Ushakov’s top spy, who served alongside Putin in the Soviet KGB,” and “Kirill Dmitriev, a financier educated at Stanford and Harvard, who has ties to the Kremlin chief’s family and, according to the publication, could play a key role as an unofficial ‘backchannel’ to Trump’s negotiators.”

“A rumour says that Vladymir Medinsky is to join the Russian team in Riyadh,” Dębski added. “He is a former Minister of Culture. Now he is Putin’s key adviser on ideological aspects of Russian aggression on Ukraine.”

Bloomberg News on Friday reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is assembling a heavyweight team with decades of experience in high-stakes negotiations to face off against US President Donald Trump’s representatives for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.”

“That Putin is opting to rely mostly on highly skilled and experienced negotiators to represent Russia in any talks is hardly a surprise,” Bloomberg added. “The personnel choices underscore just how determined the Russian leader is to secure a favorable outcome in any negotiations and potentially how little his demands in relation to Ukraine have changed in the three years since he ordered the full-scale invasion.”

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Yale University Professor Timothy Snyder, a historian and expert on the Soviet Union and the Holocaust, is the author of the popular bestseller, “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.”

Responding to Dębski’s post, Snyder warned: “The American team has almost no experience in high-level international negotiation, no regional expertise on Ukraine and Russia, and no relevant foreign language knowledge. Not true of the Russians, to put it mildly. Looks like a bloodbath by design.”

Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, blasted the Trump administration.

“It was a mistake for the Trump administration to negotiate with the Taliban without the Afghan government at the table. It is a mistake to negotiate with Putin without including Kyiv,” he wrote. “When the topic is the future of Ukraine, Kyiv has a right to be at the table, especially in light of the sacrifice and bravery of Ukrainians in defending their homes against Putin’s unprovoked invasion. Putin understands that the United States and Europe are more powerful together. That’s why he wants to divide us. We should not help him.”

READ MORE: Federal Judge ‘Skeptical’ of DOGE: Report

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