Anthony Fauci takes the Fifth

"Taking the Fifth" was a common phrase in the 1950s, when Mafia thugs were forced to testify before the US Senate's committee to investigate organized crime. Today we're hearing the same dodge from no less an eminence than Anthony Fauci, who in 2020 was "the man of science" who had me wearing a face mask in the ski lodge and my grandchildren going to class on Zoom -- for our own good, of course, and the good of the nation. I didn't mind, really, and it came with one advantage: I never got a cold during the Covid years.

On his way out the door, President Biden gave Fauci a blanket pardon like that given to his son Hunter, valid for any offense up to that time. But "upon the advice of [legal] counsel," Fauci apparently fears criminal liability if he lied to Congress, so he wants to refuse to answer questions posed to him by Senator Ted Cruz, using the protection afforded by the Fifth Amendment to the US Consitution. Frankly, I wouldn't want to be cross-examined by the senator, either, but on the other hand I've never been persuaded by the Wuhan "wet market" theory that Covid was spread naturally from bats to humans, a theory that Fauci and others promoted while heaping scorn on those who suspected that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Tell us the truth, Mr Fauci, or go to jail for contempt of Congress. Or lie, if you prefer, and take your chances on that.

Russia's war on Ukraine heats up

Messrs Putin and Zelensky are really pounding one another, with Russia getting the worst of it. Yesterday, Ukraine launched hundreds of explosive drones against Moscow, hitting targets ranging from an oil depot to the warehouse of an online retailer, Russia's paltry version of Amazon. Also hit: a Tupelov Tu-95 strategic bomber, the Soviet Union's equivalent to our B-52 Stratofortress; twelve ships in the Black Sea, including an oil tanker; and a railroad station and other targets in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Meanwhile, our mercurial president has promised to let Ukraine manufacture the Patriot interceptors it needs to stop Russia's ballistic missiles, which Ukraine is just about out of, and which Lockheed Martin can build only at a snail's pace. Lockeed hopes to reach 550 Patriots a year in a new plant "by 2027." That's just half the number we burned up in 39 days against Iran this spring.

Well, given Kyiv's incredible ability to innovate, maybe by next year we can import what we need from Ukraine!

Why not a Trumpcent?

Our modest president now wants the Treasury to issue a "gold-colored" one-dollar coin bearing the face of ... Donald Trump! This is the same man who recently abolished the US penny because each one was costing a bit more than three pennies to mint.

Surely there's a material somewhere cheap enough that it could be stamped with Mr Trump's visage, colored gold, and shipped out to grocery stores as the Trumpcent? It might even bring his popularity up to 40 percent again, from the goodwill generated from those who still pay cash and have their 99-cent purchases rounded up to an even dollar.

No Israelis need apply

My mother and father emigrated to the US in 1927, when it was rare to see the zenophobic line in help-wanted ads: "No Irish need apply." But a generation earlier, the warning was common in American newspapers. After all, an Irishman was apt to be a Catholic, and nobody wanted to work beside one of those!

So it is weird to read that the "Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill" passed the Irish parliament on Tuesday. (Ireland had earlier recognized a Palestinian state, though there is no such thing, which is a delightfully Irish thing for a parliament to do.) The law forbids the importation from Israel of goods originating outside the country's 1967 borders.

In the days of my youth, I regarded Ireland and Israel as soulmates, both victims of neighbors who wanted them gone because their religion was unacceptable. (Indeed, 200 of the notorious "Black and Tan" mercenaries, recruited in Britain to stamp out Irish rebels after the First World War, did similar duty in the Palestine Mandate after Ireland became more or less independent in 1921.) Today, Ireland is as "anti-Zionist" as our student-activists at MIT or Columbia -- or Yale, for that matter, where my own granddaughter graduated a few years ago with a keffiyeh on her shoulders.

No longer her kind of man

It was only a few weeks ago that Elizabeth Warren said of that Totenkopf-tattooed Maine scuzzball that he was "My kind of man." What a change a rape allegation makes! (Worse, this victim is herself a Democrat, so it's mandatory to believe her.) Graham Platner, the make-believe oyster farmer who went to exclusive and expensive prep schools, claims that he's neither a Nazi nor a commie, though until he was 30 he claimed first to be one of those things and then to be the other, while evincing little understanding of either. Apparently Maine Democrats have until Monday to take his name off the ballot and replace it with, hmm, Janet Mills? She's a handsome lady and the current and popular governor, who was running for Senate until Mr Platner emerged from nowhere, to be instantly celebrated by the New Yorker, the NY Times, and the other usual suspects. (Only then did he think to have the Totenkopf obscured.)

Mr Platner is running against Susan Collins, whose resume is as solid as his is empty. She recently cast her 10,000th vote, having never missed one since she was elected to the US Senate in 1996 and re-elected four times since, even as Maine went from mostly Red to mostly Blue. (Both Representatives are Democrats, and the junior Senator is an "independent" who caucuses with the donkeys.)

What were they doing 249 years ago?

From the Pennsylvania Evening Post, July 5, 1777: "Yesterday the 4th of July, being the anniversary of the Independence of the United States of America, was celebrated in this city with demonstrations of joy and festivity. About noon all the armed ships and gallies in the river were drawn up before the city, dressed in the gayest manner, with the colors of the United States and streamers displayed. At one o’clock, the yards being properly manned, they began the celebration of the day by a discharge of thirteen cannon from each of the ships, and one from each of the thirteen gallies, in honor of the thriteen United States. The evening was closed with the ringing of bells, and at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks )which began and concluded with thirteen rockets on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated.”

So it began on the first anniversary. Can we do any less today?

(A tip of the virtual hat to Michael McKendry)

What were they up to in Philadelphia, 250 years ago?

Semiquincentennial -- what an awful word! But I'm an old guy, and in the 1940s we had to study Latin before venturing into modern stuff ("Para Español, oprima dos"), so I can break it down: semi stands for half, quin for five, and centennial for a hundredth, so they add up to half of 500, for the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from George III and his tyranical British government

But do you know what? Only two members of the Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia 250 years ago actually signed that Declaration on the Fourth of July. One of them, of course, was John Hancock.

This is only one of the factoids I'm learning from a lecture series by (of all people) a British immigrant named Richard Bell, professor of history at the University of Maryland. Appopriately, he earned his BA at Cambridge and his PhD at Harvard, and though born an Englishmnan he's now a US citizen. He's a splendid lecturer, and for $25 or a 99-cent subscription you can sign up at The Great Courses online. It might bring tears to your eyes, as it did to mine.

Zelensky holds a winning hand

"You don't have any cards!" shouted Messrs Trump and Vance in their Oval Office roasting of the Ukrainian president last year. Today, Mr Zelensky's war seems to be going a lot better than ours against Iran. Ukraine's drones and ballistic missiles are hammering Moscow, closing Russian airports, burning Russian oilfields, and making Crimea unsafe for Russian soldiers and the tourists who used to flock there. Since February 2022, Russia has lost more troops trying to conquer its smaller neighbor than the US did in fighting Japan, Germany, and Italy in the Second World War. By Ukraine's count, 1.4 million of Putin's soldiers have been killed, wounded, or captured in Ukraine. (Not all were Russians, to be sure, and apparently some North Korean prisoners are asking to be repatriated ... to South Korea!)

Well played, President Zelensky!