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Hi everyone, back from my trip (no internet). What did I miss?
@freemo I haven’t been keeping up with politics as closely as usual this summer but I heard #AnthonyFauci is set to get the boot soon after a bunch of FOIA-released emails showed that he lied about the #coronavirus, especially in the early stages of its outbreak
@realcaseyrollins I never had much respect for fauci just because he seemed to care more about a narrative than the facts. Not so much that I thought he was a liar but just that he would cherry pick his facts and choose his language to meet his agenda, and I'm not a fan or that. So he told people what they wanted to hear and I'm never a fan.
With that said I am a bit surprised he went to the point of all out lies, intentionally.
What sort of lies was he caught telling I wonder...
@freemo @realcaseyrollins It's very unlikely he will be fired, it's mostly posturing by the Rs as far as I can tell. The lies mentioned are about him dismissing masks as ineffective early on, which he did publicly and already has been criticized for - but I guess an "email leak" confirming what everybody already knew is reason enough to stir some shit.
Yea in the few minutes i spent looking it up since you mentioned it I saw something similar though you got some important details backwards (assuming my source was accurate).
Basically early on he told people not to wear masks. In email it showed he actually thought wearing masks were effective despite telling people not to wear them (in the email he said they are effective for infected people to wear them but did nothing for healthy people).
Basically people were mad at them because he was telling them not to wear masks when really he knew that was bad advice. Apparently Fauci responded to that allegationa nd justified it by saying he was trying to prevent people overbuying masks and leaving none for the medical professionals.
Side note, if we accept that masks are effective but only when infected people wear it and there is little need for uninfected people wearing it then this would in fact been a reasonable argument that everyone should wear a mask, since we often dont know who is or is not infected until they have already been infectious for some time.
@freemo The lie about ineffectiveness of masks which he admitted to and justified later seems to be the lie these reports are referring to. Whether the justification is reasonable is a separate topic, but there was definitely a direct, admitted lie involved.
The posturing seems to be mostly about "See, this person we told you is untrustworthy was caught telling a lie!" hoping people will just read the headline (a strategy that works depressingly often :/) with a subtext of "See, Fauci was lying about masks then, maybe he still is now!" for the anti-maskers.
@realcaseyrollins
I thinkt he lie is stupid, and shameful. I think its a good reason why Fuci isnt someone we should have much respect for... but its also something I knew he was doing and never needed an email to verify.
More importantly compared to the mountain of lies we get out of most politicians or mouthpieces for politicians its barely worth quibbling over. If that lie is enough for us to throw a fit and call for his resignation or him being fired then I think its time we impeach the whole of congress because every single one of thme have done 1000x worse, and while I dont think his excuse is justification for lying at the very least he had good intentions, which i cant say about the majority of lies you hear coming out of DC anyway.
Long story short, while fauci's behavior has lost my respect for him that I never had in the first place, this is such a "mountain out of a molehill" thing that it strikes me as just noise.
I would tend to agree with Timorl's initial statement. It comes across as just childish posturing on the Rs even when I kinda agree with them.
@realcaseyrollins @freemo @timorl Faucian fascism: using poor people tax money to create pandemic to further enrich Pharma with direct-to-patients ads for "monoclonal antibodies"
In a just world, Fauci, Daszak, Andersen, Shi would be tried & executed.
"The benefits of the research in preventing future epidemics have so far been nil, the risks vast." --Nicholas Wade
@timorl
Hmm, seems like an odd thing for Rs to posture. They tend to have the larger portion of the "masks are ineffective group" and being the angry mob that goes after Fauci for saying masks are ineffective and claiming he lied in making that statement doesnt really sound like the R's MO in that regard.
Also im not sure how that is even framed as lie or there is an e-mail leak confirming it. Can you link me to the email where he was caught expressing the statement despite knowing it is a lie? Afterall early on in the COVID epidemic even the WHO was making public statements about the ineffectiveness of masks so wouldnt strike me as something straightforward enough to even call a lie in either direction.
@realcaseyrollins