All feels incredibly illiberal. I hope for the best that the oaths of office specific to these institutions hold.
The challenge is that people are more loyal to their political parties than their political branches, and the Constitution is built to check and balance branches, not parties.
If they want to go through with a coup like this, let them do it in the courtrooms.
They're simply relying on a blitzkrieg of (often illegal) firing/purges, assuming that no-one will challenge them, or that any challenge will take so long that they're ineffective.
Isn't the very reason that the puppets "need replacing" (according to the president) tell you that they are of the wrong (previous president's) political flavor?
Honest question, I'm not from US, but on the surface it just looks like more of the same thing that has always been happening? Except with way more media attention?
So this is in fact very different from how things normally work.
To note, the president was only an active participant insofar as he asked people to remain calm and peaceful.
To me, at least.
Then why did Fauci lie to Congress and got the Biden's pre-emptive pardon?
NB: I really disliked the preemptively pardoning. Like really really disliked it and wish it were not legal.
I also really hate it, but it's becoming more obvious with time that they to some degree were necessary in this case. Ideally they wouldn't be needed or possible, but Trump and his administration seem to have multiple axes to grind with anyone in the government not directly subserviant to him.
I think the hard part of enforcing the law is enforcing it equally, even towards those we love the most.
We're way past lofty ideals like equal application of the law. It's going to take a reconsideration of our social contract in order to live in a society where we once again protect the innocent and punish the guilty.
I agree with restorative justice, but the people using a law as a weapon do not so I hope they see the same mercy they show their victims.
"Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the NIH, told Congress in May that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.""
which we know is a blatant lie - see NIH EcoHealth Alliance Wuhan grants (which even had the "Human Subjects Included" checkbox checked. As a bonus read on how they made there the coronavirus which was successfully infecting and killing mice engineered to have human cells).
See also https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-dr-fauci... and https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-dr-fauci...
You seem to think that any manipulation of a virus is "gain-of-function." The technical term that regulators use of "gain of function of concern." There's a specific definition of that term that was drawn up in the 2010s, and that's what NIH applies.
And btw https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/
" “gain of function research of concern,” includes the generation of viruses with properties that do not exist in nature."
So, even NIH defintion does cover Wuhan. So, Fauci lied. Blatantly. Even by NIH defintion.
And this
https://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/documents/gain-of-function.pd...
"Gain-of-function studies, or research that improves the ability of a pathogen to cause disease,"
The last link is exactly that 2014 document based on which the gain of function research was moved from US to in particular Wuhan. And Fauci was instrumental in that move.
Edit: to the commenters below who cares so much about the definition that Fauci uses - please do tell what is that magical definition which doesn't match even the NIH documents (see the links above).
> It was his professional duty to add to his answer that the gain of function they funded in Wuhan that the Congress was asking him about isn't fitting whatever narrow technical definition NIH uses.
No, it isn't. You would think a Senator in charge of regulating the NIH would ask one of his aides to explain to him before the session what "gain of function" means.
> yes, that old "i didn't have s-x with that woman".
Since you are alluding to Clinton impeachment, I would say people who voted for Trump or defend him lost any benefit of doubt they ever cared about respectability, morality or ethics of that situation. Or lying for that matter.
Why did Fauci raise the possibility of a lab leak on Feb 1, 2020, if he was trying to cover that possibility up?
Time and time again we see conspiratorial claims with nothing to back them up.
it is actually in the report of the subcommittee:
"Members questioned Dr. Fauci about his facilitation and promotion of a singular COVID-19 narrative, his clearly misleading statements before Congress and the public, ..."
and Biden pre-empively pardoned Fauci. So, what else do you need?
>Why did Fauci raise the possibility of a lab leak on Feb 1, 2020
He didn't. He was told in that meeting that it may be a lab leak, and he suppressed it then and after.
>Time and time again we see conspiratorial claims with nothing to back them up.
Interesting, the people arguing against me, like you for example, haven't provided any links/documents so far, where is i provided references and links to the government docs, reports, grants backing up my statements.
But ye it usually happens to some extent: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-trump-burrowin...