Fauci surfaces from media hiatus, says mask mandates could be reimposed

Just when Dr. Anthony Fauci was slipping into irrelevance, the spotlight-hungry charlatan reemerged to remind everyone that neither he nor the masks are going away without protest.

The good doctor said this week that COVID mandates may need to be reinstated to prevent any surge in cases yet to happen; an especially curious prediction given the first day of spring is around the corner. In his typical style, Fauci uses a lot of unnecessary words to muss up something simple:

“We have to be careful, and if we do see a surge as a result of that, that we’re flexible enough to reinstitute the kinds of interventions that could be necessary to stop an additional surge.”

He also likes to use hedged language, referring to mandates as “interventions” and in the past has called them “requirements” to lessen the pejorative connotation of “mandates,” though they all describe the same thing.

Politics and sports commentator Clay Travis posted a clip of Fauci and remarked, “Dr. Fauci has escaped from the underground bunker the Biden administration has been hiding him in to say that bringing back mask mandates may be necessary.” Some were quick to remind him of his past admiration for Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx (aka “Scarf Queen” as the late Limbaugh would say) while others pointed out that everyone has changed their mind on matters of COVID and none more often than Fauci himself.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who has become the nemesis of the NIH director, has put forth legislation to reel in bureaucrats such as Dr. Fauci.

As BPR reported, in a Monday column for Fox News, the Kentucky Republican wrote, “The toll of COVID doesn’t stop there. We lost more than individuals. We lost our freedoms. Our liberties. Our vibrant small town Main Streets. Our children’s growth and learning. For two years our lives were held captive by petty tyrants and power-hungry bureaucrats.”

“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed ‘dictator in chief.’ No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans,” he added.

Fauci has also expressed fear that Republicans will rake him over the coals if and when they regain control of Congress in November.

“It’s Benghazi hearings all over again,” Fauci told theWashington Post on Tuesday. “They’ll try to beat me up in public, and there’ll be nothing there. But it will distract me from doing my job, the way it’s doing right now.”

And he ought to be grilled by Congress, especially to further uncover the substance of allegations made against him for outsourcing gain-of-function research in the People’s Republic of China, the widely-believed origin of the novel coronavirus.

“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years,” Paul said, “but one lesson, in particular, is that no one person should be deemed ‘dictator-in-chief’…To ensure that ineffective, unscientific lockdowns and mandates are never foisted on the American people ever again, I’ve introduced this amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and divide his power into three separate new institutes.”

Dr. Fauci currently draws an annual salary of $434, 312, making him the highest paid government official in the U.S. When he retires, he will receive a pension of $350,000 per year, which is only part of his federal retirement package, the largest in American history.