Author Archives: sterlingcooper

DR. FAUCI RAKES IN MILLIONS AFTER “RETIRING”

Fauci’s First Year of ‘Retirement’ Was a Money Making Bonanza

Fauci received several six-figure deposits through 2023 totaling $1.15 million according to a 141-page financial disclosure obtained by Open The Books, a government watchdog group.

The documents do not describe the source of the deposits.

Fauci leveraged his celebrity status as the top trusted messenger on COVID-19 to pad his earnings in 2023, just as newly empowered Congressional investigators sharpened their focus on the ways Fauci betrayed the public’s trust at the pandemic’s height.

Fauci sold his memoir to a subsidiary of Penguin Random House for a reported $5 million in March 2023. That news coincided with a March 2023 congressional memo showing Fauci had privately “prompted” an influential paper dismissing the theory that COVID could have resulted from a lab accident. On July 1, 2023, Fauci began an appointment at Georgetown University as distinguished university professor in both the School of Medicine and School of Public Policy. Roughly two weeks later, two of the coauthors of that paper testified to Congress about the extent of their collaboration with Fauci.

The White House on Friday updated the official covid.gov page to highlight this paper, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” and Fauci’s behind-the-scenes role in downplaying the “lab leak theory.”

Fauci also accepted speaking gigs with several special interest groups in 2023. Some of these organizations and trade associations — including the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — have policy agendas that intersect with the federal government’s COVID-19 response or the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH division that Fauci led for nearly four decades.

Fauci’s esteem in the scientific community was lucrative in 2023, despite nagging questions from Congress about his endorsement of gain-of-function research like the coronavirus experiments funded by NIAID in Wuhan, China.

Fauci accepted medals with monetary prizes from the highest echelons of academia including Columbia University’s Calderone Prize, worth $50,000, and the National Academy of Medicine’s Lienhard Prize, worth $40,000.

Fauci’s final government salary totaled an unprecedented $480,654, the highest salary earned by any of the roughly 2.4 million employees who work for the federal government, including the president, according to Open The Books. Fauci continues to accept a six-figure pension.

Fauci’s net worth roughly doubled from $7.6 million the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2019 to $15 million in 2023. Fauci also received taxpayer-funded transportation and security detail via the U.S. Marshals Service as a private citizen in 2023.

“Dr. Fauci’s assets soared during the worst of the draconian Covid lockdowns while families and small businesses struggled through school closures and lost income. Now it’s clear the cash kept coming during his first year of ‘retirement,’” said Open The Books CEO John Hart. “He was rubbing elbows with groups like AHIP flanked by taxpayer-funded security — even as his wife remained the top bioethicist at NIH.”

Amid concerns Fauci misled Congress under oath about the research in Wuhan, former President Joe Biden granted Fauci a pardon on Jan. 20.

Fauci did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Delayed Retirement

Fauci announced in August 2022 that he would retire in December 2022. At the time, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky warned that “retirement can’t shield Dr. Fauci from congressional oversight.”

In November 2022, Congressional Republicans — who had been investigating connections between Fauci’s NIAID and the Wuhan Institute of Virology — won control of the House of Representatives and thus key committees.

Now, Open The Books has uncovered evidence through Fauci’s Application for Immediate Retirement that he delayed his retirement until Jan. 6, 2023 — three days after the new Congress started — but misinformed Congress about the change.

Fauci sent a request to NIH Acting Director Larry Tabak to delay his retirement in order to retain personal protection, emails suggest.

An email from Tabak to Fauci indicates a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Marshals Service was still tied up in the Office of General Counsel.

“OGC is working to clear the MOU from the USMS,” Tabak said in a Dec. 27, 2022, email to Fauci confirming his delayed retirement date.

In both a transcribed interview with congressional investigators in January 2024 and in public congressional testimony under oath in June 2024, Fauci described his retirement from federal service as having occurred in December 2022.

Fauci’s extraordinary MOU with the U.S. Marshals Service cost taxpayers roughly $15 million, Open The Books and journalist Jordan Schachtel reported in November 2024.

The U.S. Marshals Service captures fugitives and protects judges and court witnesses. It’s not clear that any other former federal employee has been protected under such an agreement, according to Open The Books.

President Donald Trump terminated the arrangement on Jan. 23, along with the security details of former national security adviser John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“They all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security too,” Trump said. “Fauci made a lot of money.”

Bioethics?

Some of the growth in the Fauci household’s net worth stems from the taxpayer-funded salary of Dr. Christine Grady, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health, who earned $263,005 in 2024.

An NIH official told the DCNF earlier this month that although Grady had a good reputation within the bioethics discipline, she had a conflict of interest that posed ethical questions of its own.

“One of the problems when the coverup was going on of the Wuhan lab leak, that whole fiasco, was that they were not listening to anyone giving ethics advice,” the official said. “If they had had someone at the table with knowledge of this, they would have said: ‘Hey do you want to play it this way, or be more transparent?’ Someone could have raised the question.”

“That’s something Christine Grady could have, or should have, done,” the official continued. “She wasn’t able to do it because she was Fauci’s wife.”

“Maybe they had discussions in private about what was going on,” the official said. “She was placed in a conflicted role because of that.”

Grady was among the employees at the Department of Health and Human Services affected by the department-wide restructuring and reduction in force prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this month. Grady was reportedly given a choice between relocating away from the couple’s tony Beltway neighborhood to an Indian Health Service post or leaving HHS.

STACEY ABRAMS, DEMOCRATIC TAXPAYER FUNDS ABUSER, LAUNCHED NON-PROFITS FROM HER HOME!

Here’s the Insanely Long List of Nonprofits and LLCs That Stacey Abrams Has Launched

As a Democratic election loser DEI politician, civil-rights activist, tax attorney and abuser of taxpayer funds for her “non-profits”, Stacey Abrams has founded or co-founded a dizzying array of nonprofits and LLCs, some of which co-mingle funds.

Records show many of her start-ups have no office or staff and are based out of Abrams’ home in Atlanta. A number of them have failed, dissolved or have fallen into debt and had tax liens attached, and some are under state or federal investigation. A list:

Fair Fight Inc.
Fair Fight Action
Fair Fight PAC
Fair Fight Georgia
Fair Count
New Georgia Project
New Georgia Action Fund
Southern Economic Advancement Project (SEAP)
American Pride Rises APR Network
Sage Works LLC
Sage Works Productions Inc.
NOWaccount Corp.
NOWaccount Network Corp.
NOW Corp. USA
Nourish Inc.
Insomnia Consulting
Insomnia Group
Third Sector Development Inc.
Voter Access Institute
Myrina Strategies
The Family Room Inc.
SELA Technologies Inc.
Abrams Legal Services LLC
Davis Hall LLC
Hall Davis LLC
Brockington Hall LLC

Where is the DOJ to investigate this DEI fraudster?

PRIVATE EQUITY BUYING MOBILE HOME PARKS…CAPTIVE AUDIENCE AND FOREVER INCOME!

Why Is Private Equity Targeting Manufactured Home Parks?

Real estate has always been a safe investment, 2009 economic crisis notwithstanding. But it has generally been the middle class, upper class, and commercial real estate that has appealed the most to private equity firms.

Today, things have changed. Affordable and low-end housing, especially the manufactured home park markets, have been increasingly targeted by institutional investors and private equity firms. They’re buying them like crazy at a time when the industry itself is expanding.

Absolutely insane. Wall Street private equity firms are now buying up American mobile home parks and skyrocketing rents up to 60% on people.

“These communities have become the target of a new kind of landlord, private equity. Private equity firms are increasingly getting involved. Some of the biggest investors in America have moved into this industry. People living at a local mobile home park outraged over the sharp increase in lot rents. Rents were raised by nearly 60%.”

Resident: “I worked for 45 years. There is no American dream anymore. All it is survival.”

“Homes of America has gone on a buying spree spending nearly $300 million to acquire 138 parks across 17 states. They’ve raised rents and aggressively evicted residents.” and that’s just ONE FIRM buying, there are many more.

Resident says “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Hope that I don’t wake up tomorrow. Death crossed my mind.” She can only afford one more month of rent

How much more will the American People continue to take?

It’s the captive-audience-nature that appeals the most. The investment may require a long time to turn a major profit, but time is on the side of the investors who want to continue making profits for years or even decades.

RAMPANT FRAUD IN UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIM PAYMENTS IN DEMOCRAT HELLHOLE STATES, AND IT CONTINUES!

DOGE Review Finds Three Dem States Account For Most Unemployment Fraud Since 2020

“California accounted for 68% of the unemployment benefits paid to parolees identified by CBP on the terrorist watchlist or with criminal records.”

The DC Department of Employment Services, which handles unemployment claims for DC residents, is seen in Washington, DC, July 16, 2020. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Three Democratic-led states accounted for the vast majority of unemployment fraud since 2020, according to an initial survey of such fraud by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

California, New York, and Massachusetts tallied nearly 80% of improper unemployment insurance benefits handed out since 2020. An initial review of claims by DOGE found $382 million in fraudulent payments.

The DOGE audit found that “24.5k people over 115 years old claimed $59M in benefits,” “28k people between 1 and 5 years old claimed $254M in benefits,” and “9.7k people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69M in benefits.”

“In one case, someone with a birthday in 2154 claimed $41k,” DOGE added in a post on X.

Of those flagged claims, California, New York, and Massachusetts accounted for over $300 million.

“California, New York, and Massachusetts accounted for most of these improper claims, totaling $305M in unemployment benefits,” said DOGE. “Additionally, California accounted for 68% of the unemployment benefits paid to parolees identified by CBP on the terrorist watchlist or with criminal records.”

California, New York, and Massachusetts accounted for most of these improper claims, totaling $305M in unemployment benefits.

Additionally, California accounted for 68% of the unemployment benefits paid to parolees identified by CBP on the terrorist watchlist or with criminal… https://t.co/6jYGfxW7Fr

— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) April 10, 2025

White House spokesman Harrison Fields said the revelation is an example of the kind of governance that pushed people to move from deep blue states such as California and New York to Republican-led states such as Texas and Florida.

“There’s a reason for the mass exodus from Democrat-run states that have mismanaged their economies and driven residents to the nearest Republican-led state,” Fields told Fox News. “High taxes, poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars and progressive policies continue to yield negative results, which is why Americans overwhelmingly support the work of DOGE.”

California, New York, and Massachusetts are under solid Democratic control. Democrats control the governor’s office, the state House, and the Senate in each state, while also having the offices of secretary of state and attorney general as well.

DOGE is spearheading the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. DOGE analysts have been working with government departments to identify potential wasteful spending and spending that does not align with President Donald Trump’s priorities.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced $5.1 billion in cuts to Pentagon spending on Thursday that were identified by DOGE.

“This one is, as they say, a big one,” said Hegseth in a video posted to social media. “We’re signing a memo right now directing the termination of $5.1 billion in DOD contracts – not million, that’s with a B – $5.1 billion in DOD contracts.”

FEDERAL WORKERS BEING FIRED WILL NOT MAKE THE SKY FALL!

The Sky Will Not Fall and America Won’t Grind to a Halt Because Some Federal Employees Are Losing Their Jobs Due to DOGE

Federal employees rally in support of their jobs outside of the Kluczynski Federal Building on March 19, 2025, in Chicago. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Fear is a strong motivator—especially when it’s given a political megaphone. And Democrat officials, public employee unions, and their minions in the media have no qualms about trying to terrify the public with ridiculous claims in an attempt to counter President Donald Trump’s swamp-cleansing initiatives through the work of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Just look at the recent hysteria from Capitol Hill. Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., likened the dismissal of federal employees to “a bank robber trying to fire the cops and turn off the alarm just before he strolls into the lobby.”

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, pontificated that “firing this many critical employees at once could make it impossible for our government to provide BASIC services.”

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

But the nuttiest scream of all came from yet another congresswoman, Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., who urged supporters of dismissed U.S. Agency for International Development workers to “Shut down the city! We are at war!”

She didn’t want to talk about the bizarre, absurd misuses to which those USAID workers had put the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers, like funding a “transgender comic book” in Peru. That is certainly something worth “going to war” about. Not!

As usual, mainstream media outlets are seeking to amplify the political Left’s hysteria. But a realistic look at the reduction in federal bureaucracy relative to the bloated size of the federal government shows just how ridiculous these claims are. They are engaging in the worst type of fearmongering hyperbole.

The numbers can’t be exaggerated.

The current proposals for reduction in federal agency personnel add up to just over 238,000 employees. But that number represents less than 8% of the more than 3 million current federal employees, according to the Pew Research Center. That 3 million figure, however, does not include the roughly 1.3 million active-duty military personnel. Pop that number in and out of the total of 4.3 million individuals receiving paychecks from the federal government—paid for by U.S. taxpayers—the Trump administration wants to reduce the size of the executive branch by only 5.5%.

That 4.3 million number of total employees makes the U.S. government the largest single employer in the entire country, larger than private companies like Walmart or Amazon. Moreover, that number is so large that it means the federal government bureaucracy is larger than the total population of half of the states, including places like Utah, Kansas, and Wyoming.

Add in the conglomerate of 109,000 government contractors, according to a 2024 study by the Government Accounting Office, and the dismissal percentage plummets even more. The estimates of the number of individuals employed by those contractors range from almost 4 million to over 5 million. Including those federal contractors drops the percentage of taxpayer-paid staff being laid off even more drastically.

If less than 8% of the civilian workforce has been shaved off, without taking into account contractors, that means over 92% of federal bureaucrats are still staffing the multitude of federal agencies. That’s 2.8 million federal workers still taking care of the business of the federal government. If the critics are correct that this minuscule reduction will cripple America, that says a lot about the inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and incompetence of vast swaths of the government.

Only by ignoring these statistics can critics continue to proclaim that the reductions in force proposed by the Trump administration will lead to a disaster. In fact, fewer government workers means fewer federal bureaucrats trying to overregulate, overtax, and overburden Americans in their personal lives, their businesses, and their professions.

Nor is this the end of the road for laid-off federal employees. Apparently, the critics believe that having to join the rest of us in finding a job in the private sector is a terrible infliction of harm.

Yet over 30% of the federal workforce holds a bachelor’s degree, and over two-thirds of the now-former staff of USAID possess postgraduate degrees. These folks will be just fine in the private sector, although they might have to actually show up at their workplaces to work (horrors—what an inconvenience!).

It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath. And it is time for the American taxpayer to stop being burdened with paying the salaries of federal employees who are so numerous that they dwarf the populations of so many states.

While the pace at which Trump has implemented his plans may be surprising, that is only because Washington usually moves at a glacial pace, when it moves at all. But his actions to constrain and streamline the federal government have been needed for a long time—with no one until now willing to do anything to try to trim the bloated monstrosity that the federal government has become. Most importantly, his moves are improving—not wounding—the government.

Those listening to the shrill cries of the critics should step back and take in the full picture—a picture that shows that trying to get rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse that infests the nation’s capital will benefit the American people and the republic.

DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS DO NOT WANT ONLY CITIZENS TO VOTE, THEY LIKE FRAUD ALLOWING NON-CITIZENS, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?

Why 4 Democrats defied their party to protect American elections from illegal aliens

‘Requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is common sense.’

The House passed a Republican-led bill requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration on Thursday. Despite Democrats’ overwhelming disapproval of the key legislation, four Democratic lawmakers reached across the aisle.

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy’s SAVE Act was passed in a 220-208 vote almost entirely along party lines, similar to the bill’s narrow passage in the previous Congress.

Just as they did in 2024, Democrats voted to tank Roy’s bill, with just a handful defecting and joining Republicans: Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

While this handful of Democrats bucked their party on a key vote, they likely did so just for political survival.

“I voted for the SAVE Act for the simple reason that American elections are for Americans,” Golden said in a statement Thursday. “Requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is common sense.”

Golden, who has previously defected from his party on other key votes, additionally defended the SAVE Act and even debunked some misconceptions about the bill.

“Some claim that requiring proof of citizenship is too onerous a burden, or that it will ‘disenfranchise’ those whose names have changed for reasons like marriage,” Golden said. “The truth is the SAVE Act ensures name changes will not prevent anyone from registering to vote.”

“The bill allows for several different ways to prove citizenship,” Golden added. “But most importantly, it requires state leaders to establish protocols to allow citizens to register even if there are discrepancies in documents, such as name changes.”

In statements shared with Blaze News, both Cuellar and Case echoed Golden’s position, arguing that the standards put forward by the SAVE Act ensure that the law is enforced properly.

“Noncitizen voting is illegal, and we should all know that noncitizens are not voting,” Case said. “The SAVE Act provides consistent national standards for what documentation is necessary to prove citizenship and the right to vote.”

“It includes various acceptable forms of identification which most voter-eligible citizens should have and those who don’t should be able to obtain,” Case added. “Fears of voter suppression because of these standards are overstated and should not prevent reasonable citizen ID requirements, and voter suppression is in any event illegal.”

“Ultimately, this is about protecting the integrity of our elections while ensuring every eligible American has a fair chance to vote — whether you are a man or a woman, single, married, divorced, or widowed,” Cuellar said. “That’s how we keep trust in our democracy, and that’s something worth standing up for.”

Notably, every Democrat who voted for the SAVE Act, with the exception of Case, resides in a district that President Donald Trump won in 2024. Trump won Golden’s district with 53.8%, Cuellar’s district with 53.1%, and Perez’s district with exactly 50%.

These Democrats also narrowly won re-election in their respective purple districts last election cycle. Golden won with just 50.3% of the vote, Cuellar won with 52.8%, and Perez held on to her seat with 51.7%.

While this handful of Democrats bucked their party on a key vote, they likely did so just for political survival.

COVID 19 LEAKED FROM WUHAN LAB AND WAS COVERED UP BY BIDEN PENTAGON ADMINISTRATION AND FAUCI! LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES

Double whammy: Two new reports point to Biden Pentagon cover-up on COVID-19 origins search

More than half a decade after the pandemic began, key information on COVID-19’s origins continues to dribble out of the U.S. government — almost exclusively pointing to a Wuhan lab leak.

Two new bombshell reports this week pointed to a cover-up by the Biden-era Pentagon related to the search for COVID-19’s origins. New information is spilling out years after the fact and pointing to Wuhan and its coronavirus lab as the origin of the pandemic all along.

First, a newly-released Department of Defense (DoD) report, made public only in recent days by the Trump-led Pentagon, showed that the Defense Department never formally investigated the possibility that U.S. service members may have been infected with COVID-19 during the World Military Games in Wuhan in the fall of 2019.

In addition, a newly-released analysis by a unit of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), made public through the Freedom of Information Act only this week, showed that the DIA’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) believed early on in the pandemic that a Wuhan lab leak was plausible despite efforts by allies of Dr. Anthony Fauci to dismiss the possibility.

The new details on the Biden-era Pentagon’s failure to investigate clues pointing to the fall 2019 emergence of COVID-19 in Wuhan were first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, and the revelations about the DIA unit’s analysis pointing to a Wuhan lab leak were first reported by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public health research group.

The newly-published Defense Department report on the Wuhan Military Games was written in 2022 in response to congressional demands that the Pentagon investigate reports that U.S. military athletes got sick with COVID-19 after they participated in competitions in October 2019 in the city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak.

The public report — now released after more than two years — concluded that there was no significant uptick at military bases tied to the participating athletes, but also revealed that the Pentagon had not tested the service members for COVID-19 nor for antibodies, admitting that “DoD has not conducted or opened an investigation into connections between the outbreak of COVID-19 and the 2019 World Military Games.”

The DIA NCMI’s newly public analysis — dated June 25, 2020 — concluded that “the molecular biology capabilities of [the Wuhan lab] and genome assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a lab-engineered virus.” The NCMI analysis, which took nearly five years to be made public, said the available evidence even early on was consistent with COVID-19 emerging via lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). WIV was led by so-called “bat woman” Shi Zheng-li, with the U.S. medical defense scientists stating SARS-CoV-2 could have been “part of a bank of chimeric viruses in Zhen-Li Shi’s lab at WIV that escaped containment.”

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

“It has been clear for some time that all informed scientists — without exception — believed by early 2020 that COVID likely started with a lab incident in Wuhan, but that most chose to lie for five years,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, told Just the News. “Over the last two months, it has become clear that U.S., UK, and German intelligence agencies — without exception — also knew by early 2020 that COVID-19 likely started with a lab incident in Wuhan, and also chose to lie for five years.”

The Wuhan Military Games

The Defense Department report, put together by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and submitted to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees in December 2022, cost only $4,070 to compile — perhaps unsurprising given that the DoD admitted it had not conducted any formal investigation of links between the U.S. service members and the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan. The report, including the cover page, is three pages long.

House Foreign Affairs Republicans concluded in August 2021 that the military games in Wuhan were “one of the earliest super spreader events” during the pandemic, with their report contending COVID-19 escaped from a Wuhan lab in late August or early September 2019 — with China then covering it up for months.

Robert Redfield, Trump’s former director of the Centers for Disease Control, had said in March 2021 that COVID-19 “most likely” originated at the Wuhan lab and that it spread in the Chinese city in September or October 2019.

The 2022 DoD report added that “DoD has not engaged in any discussions with allied or partner militaries about illness associated with participation in the 2019 World Military Games” either.

The report did show that the U.S. military’s delegation to Wuhan consisted of 173 athletes and 90 coaches and staff — with a total of 219 being military personnel — and that “7 Service members who attended the games exhibited COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms during the timeframe of October 18, 2019 through January 21, 2020.” The report noted that “the COVID-19-like symptoms could have been caused by other respiratory infections” and stated that “all 7 Service members’ symptoms resolved within 6 days.”

Participating service members not tested

The DoD report said that “the military facilities supporting Service members from the 2019 World Military Games reported no outbreaks of COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms shortly upon returning” but that “Service members were not tested for COVID-19 or antibodies due to their participation in the 2019 World Military Games, as testing was not available at this early stage of the pandemic.” The DoD provided no clarity on whether the U.S. military members were ever tested.

“Data surveillance reports from military treatment facilities indicate no statistically significant difference in COVID-19-like symptoms cases at installations with participating athletes when compared to installations without them,” the report stated. “In addition, no significant increase in COVID-19-like signs and/or symptoms was documented for the dates of October 2019 through March 2020 as a result of U.S. Army separate surveillance testing.”

This newly-public report was quietly released on the Military One Source website — which is designed as a “Support for Military Personnel & Their Families” — years after Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022, which told the Defense Department, then led by Secretary Lloyd Austin, that the report “shall be submitted in unclassified form and made publicly available on an internet website in a searchable format.”

While it was submitted to a House and a Senate committee in late December 2022, the report wasn’t uploaded to be viewed by the public until sometime in late March of this year after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had taken the reins.

GOP: Wuhan Games were a “super-spreader”

The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee report was completed more than a year before the DoD finally made their report public. Then-Chairman Michael McCaul said at the time: “Satellite images show a significant uptick in the number of people at hospitals around the WIV with symptoms similar to COVID-19. At the same time, athletes at the Military World Games became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19. Some of them carried the virus back to their home countries — creating one of the earliest super-spreader events in the world, and explaining how countries who participated in the games had reported cases as early as November 2019.”

The Republican report said its lab leak evidence included “athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after.”

The GOP report zeroed in on the city of Wuhan, which was picked to host the 7th International Military Sports Council Military World Games in October 2019, during which “more than 9,000 military personnel from over 100 countries stayed in Wuhan in accommodations at an athletes village built specifically for the games.”

The Chinese state-run China Internet Information Center said in October 2019 there were athletes from 109 countries. China’s Organizing Committee of the 7th International Military Sports Council proclaimed that “the charm of sports will put Wuhan in global spotlight [sic].”

The Republican report noted that “four countries who sent delegations” to the Wuhan games “have now confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 cases within their borders in November and December 2019” — Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and France — with some of the athletes complaining of COVID-like symptoms in Wuhan.

The World Health Organization’s joint report with China in early 2021 said the Chinese Epidemiology Group, which provided information on the Wuhan games, allegedly found that “no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified.” But the report added that “the joint team recommends that consideration be given to further joint review of the data on respiratory illness from the on-site clinics at the Military Games in October 2019.”

The report’s meeting minutes from discussions between Wuhan lab scientists and the WHO-China team also revealed that lab leak concerns were dismissed as “rumors,” “myths,” and “conspiracy theories.”

Chinese disinformation points to U.S. military base

The Chinese government for years has continued to deflect from the Wuhan lab leak possibility by pushing a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated from a U.S. military base. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian and others pushed the baseless claims about the U.S. military, including Maryland’s Fort Detrick, starting in early 2020.

Zhao shared an article in March 2020 from Global Research, tweeting: “COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the U.S.” The Chinese official also tweeted that month: “When did patient zero begin in U.S.? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! U.S. owe us an explanation!” Global Research has been described by the U.S. State Department as “deeply enmeshed in Russia’s broader disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.”

Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in March 2020 that China’s claims were “completely absurd.” And the Pentagon’s “Coronavirus: Rumor Control” website said early in the pandemic that it was a “myth” that “U.S. service members visiting China were the source of the coronavirus outbreak.”

Then-Rep. Mike Gallagher also wrote Lloyd Austin a letter seeking answers in June 2021, saying, “Aware that the cluster of illnesses associated with the World Military Games casts doubt upon the Chinese Communist Party’s official timeline, Chinese government officials such as Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian have sought to deflect blame onto the U.S.”

The GOP report from August 2021 emphasized, “If the CCP realized an investigation would show an uptick in visits of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19 in September, October, and November of 2019, this would likely be the actions they would take to cover up the source of those illnesses.”

The Republican report added: “To further drive this narrative, CCP-controlled media outlets accused Maatje Benassi, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, as being ‘patient zero.’ Benassi competed at the Military World Games without becoming ill … Two weeks after Zhao tweeted that the U.S. army brought the virus to Wuhan, the Global Times amplified the narrative.” Global Times is not considered state-run media, but has been criticized for publishing “Pro-Chinese government propaganda”

After then-FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed in early 2023 that the FBI had long assessed that a lab leak was the most likely origin for COVID-19, the Chinese government returned to its efforts to shift blame to the U.S. military.

“At present, more and more clues from the international science community are pointing the origins of virus to sources around the world. Many have raised questions and concerns about US bio-military bases at Fort Detrick and around the world,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in March 2023.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also responded to the CIA’s new assessment earlier this year that the U.S. spy agency had “low confidence” leaning toward a lab leak hypothesis by arguing that “the U.S. needs to stop politicizing and weaponizing origins-tracing at once, and stop scapegoating others” and attempting to point the finger at “relevant U.S. biological labs.”

Pentagon leadership: “No knowledge”

In April 2020, when Trump’s then-defense secretary, Mark Esper, was asked about COVID-19 and the Wuhan military games in April 2020, he replied, “I’m not aware of what you’re talking about.” The then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, also said, “Yeah, I’m not.”

It was also reported by The Prospect in June 2020 that, in response to questions about the Wuhan games, a Pentagon spokesperson “issued a terse email response to the question, saying there was no screening because the event” held in October 2019 “was prior to the reported outbreak.” The outlet said the Pentagon spokesperson “cited December 31, 2019, as the critical outbreak day and that no testing was deemed necessary for any possible exposure prior to February 1, 2020.”

Then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby also reportedly told The Washington Post in June 2021 that “the Defense Department has no knowledge of Covid-19 infections among U.S. troops participating in the 2019 World Military Games,” with the outlet adding that Kirby “said that there’s no evidence U.S. military personnel were infected before travel restrictions the U.S. government implemented in early 2020.”

But as the newly-released Defense Department report revealed, the Biden Pentagon never formally investigated this saga.

Scientists within DIA pointed to a Wuhan lab leak

The second bombshell related to a never before seen June 2020 analysis by scientists within the DIA’s National Center for Medical Intelligence. The dozens of pages of slides — titled “SARS-COV-2 Genome Analysis” and dated June 25, 2020 — were only released after FOIA litigation this week.

“The molecular biology capabilities of [Wuhan lab] & genome assessment are consistent with the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 was a lab-engineered virus that was part of a bank of chimeric viruses in Zhen-Li Shi’s lab at WIV that escaped containment,” the medical intelligence scientists assessed.

U.S. Right to Know, which filed the Freedom of Information requests, said that the authors of the military analysis are not listed, but that they obtained the slides in response to FOIA requests seeking assessments authored by scientists Robert Greg Cutlip, John Hardham, and Jean-Paul Chretien — all of whom had worked for the DIA’s NCMI.

Cutlip was employed by the DIA from 2010 to 2021 and also worked for the Institute for Defence Analyses. He is currently listed as the Director of Cybersecurity and Data Analytics Programs at Fairmont State University. Hardham’s LinkedIn page says that he is now a research director at the Center for Transboundary and Emerging Diseases at Zoetis.

Chretien’s LinkedIn page states that he was the chief of pandemic warning at the Defense Department from August 2017 to August 2020, was at DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from August 2020 to January 2025, and has been at Renaissance Philanthropy since then. He wrote on LinkedIn last year that he was “leading DIA’s Pandemic Warning Team when COVID came to light.”

In the material released, the scientists noted that there were “a large bank of Bat Coronaviruses” at the Wuhan lab. And the analysis also noted that the Wuhan lab conducted experiments at lower “biosafety level 2” conditions, and said this “would make an accidental release” of an infectious bat coronavirus such as COVID-19 “more likely.” The analysis pointed out that “Chinese labs have had a history of virus escapes from BSL-2 laboratories.”

The analysis also cited statements that “bat lady” Shi Zheng-Li had made in the past about the low biosafety conditions in which she conducted her risky experiments.

“Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”

The influential scientific Proximal Origin paper was published just over five years ago, scoffing at the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Emails show Dr. Anthony Fauci, the now-former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “prompted” the writing of that influential article.

Scientists who consulted with the U.S. government early in the pandemic in 2020 believed it was possible or even likely that COVID-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan, yet emails indicate Fauci and Collins worked to shut the hypothesis down.

The Proximal Origin article was written by five scientists: Kristian Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert Garry. Andersen, a Scripps Research professor, wrote to Nature magazine in February 2020 that he and other scientists had been “prompted” to do so by Fauci, Collins and Farrar.

The widely cited article published in Nature magazine in March 2020 was titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” and contended that SARS-CoV-2 likely emerged through “natural selection” and not through a lab leak, casting doubt on the possibility that COVID-19 originated at a Wuhan lab.

The scientists wrote that “our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus” and that “it is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus.” Multiple scientists who signed onto the letter had received millions of dollars in NIH funding.

Professor Richard Ebright told Just the News that the Proximal Origin paper was “a product of scientific misconduct, up to and including fraud.” Ebright assessed that the paper “played a crucial role in establishing the false narrative that science rules out a lab origin of COVID” and noted that “formal requests for retraction of the paper have been submitted.”

The military scientists shoot down Fauci-prompted “Proximal Origin”

NCMI experts Robert Greg Cutlip and Navy Cmdr. Jean-Paul Chretien also wrote a working paper — published May 26, 2020 — which poked holes in the claims made by the Fauci-allied scientists. It, too, was not made public until years later.

The bombshell paper was titled “Critical Analysis of Anderson et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” and was only released when GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup, the chairman of the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, made it public in 2023.

The military scientists argued: “We highlight the features of SARS-CoV-2, noted by Anderson et al, are consistent with longstanding and ongoing laboratory experiments; the evidence Anderson et al. present does not lessen the plausibility of laboratory origin.”

“We consider the evidence they [Andersen et al] present and find that it does not prove that the virus arose naturally,” the NCMI report stated. “In fact, the features of SARS-CoV-2 noted by Anderson et al. are consistent with another scenario: that SARS-CoV-2 was developed in a laboratory, by methods that leading coronavirus researchers commonly use to investigate how the viruses infect cells and cause disease, assess the potential for animal coronaviruses to jump to humans, and develop drugs and vaccines.”

DIA and ODNI leadership kept reports under wraps

Multiple reports have also emerged that the NCMI analysis pointing to a possible Wuhan lab leak was not allowed to be shared outside of the DIA medical unit and was not included in broader analyses by the U.S. intelligence community.

It was reported by The Australian in 2023 that the 2020 papers by the NCMI scientists “pointing to a lab leak were blocked from wide dissemination.” The outlet said that the DIA paper critiquing the paper authored by Fauci-allied scientists “wasn’t allowed to be released to the American public.”

The report added: “A source said DIA scientists, the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, CIA, FBI’s WMD unit, and the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases all agreed COVID-19 was not a natural virus. But in 2021, NCMI was blocked by DIA leadership from sharing info with the FBI.” A director at NCMI reportedly told the scientists in July 2021: “You may not speak with the FBI WMD anymore. They are off the reservation on this.”

The outlet also contended that Biden’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence — led by Avril Haines — whitewashed or ignored evidence from DIA scientists when putting together the summary of what the U.S. intel community allegedly believed about COVID-19 origins. “They said the information was too technical to include in the ODNI assessment,” an unnamed source told the outlet. “When the scientists saw the final document, they wondered were did all their edits go?”

It was then reported by The Wall Street Journal in December of last year that the NCMI analysis “was at odds with the assessment of their parent agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and wasn’t incorporated in the report presented to Biden.” The WSJ said that NCMI scientists — Hardham, Cutlip and Chretien — wrote the May 2020 lab leak paper but “weren’t allowed to circulate it outside of the medical intelligence center.” The outlet also reported that NCMI scientists “were instructed by a superior at the medical intelligence center not to continue sharing their work with the FBI.” The WSJ also reported that “the DIA Inspector General’s office opened an inquiry in the spring into whether the scientists’ assessment was mishandled or suppressed.”

Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who has since left his position as director of the DIA, spoke to the Senate in May 2022 about COVID-19’s origins, making no mention of the lab leak analyses within the DIA’s medical unit.

“Limited and fragmentary data has led the Intelligence Community (IC) to maintain multiple theories on the origin of COVID-19,” Berrier testified. “Four elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence that the virus likely emerged from a natural interaction between an animal infected with the virus and a human; one IC element assesses with moderate confidence a laboratory origin is more likely and three 38 other IC elements are unable to arrive at either conclusion without additional information. All agencies agree the virus was not developed as a biological weapon and most agree that it was not genetically engineered.” Berrier joined Booz Allen as the senior vice president in the company’s national security business in June 2024. He did not respond to a request for comment that Just the News made through his company.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., sent a December 2024 letter to the DIA’s watchdog, telling him that “I am interested in the findings of the OIG’s inquiry as to whether the NCMI’s findings were appropriately included in briefings to President Biden and senior policy makers.” The DIA inspector general did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

By most accounts, the Biden Administration largely failed or refused to shed further light on the origins of COVID-19. Then-President Biden signed into law the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023” and claimed that “my administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible.” Little key information was released during his presidency, and more and more reports are saying that important findings were suppressed.

Then-DNI Avril Haines released an assessment in August 2021 stating that at least one U.S. agency — revealed later to be the FBI — had “moderate confidence” that COVID-19 came from the lab, while four U.S. spy agencies and the National Intelligence Council believed with “low confidence” that COVID-19 most likely had a natural origin.

Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray later confirmed that the FBI has long believed COVID-19 originated at a Chinese government lab. ODNI released in October 2021 a declassified version of the FBI’s arguments in a section titled “The Case for the Laboratory-Associated Incident Hypothesis.”

It was also revealed in 2023 that the Energy Department — home to advanced research facilities such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories — also believed with “low confidence” that the coronavirus started at a Wuhan lab.

EcoHealth Alliance calls lab origin a “conspiracy theory”

Peter Daszak, the leader of the EcoHealth Alliance, steered large sums of U.S. taxpayer dollars from NIH funding to the Wuhan lab for bat virus research, a Government Accountability Office study showed. Science magazine noted that Daszak was a longtime collaborator with the Wuhan lab and its leader Shi Zhengli.

Daszak helped organize a February 2020 letter in The Lancet which praised China’s response and called the lab leak a conspiracy theory: “The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin … Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear.”

Despite this, Fauci tried to argue to the BBC in 2022 that Daszak’s letter did not dismiss the lab leak hypothesis.

EcoHealth Alliance had proposed the creation at the Wuhan lab of a virus with features — such as a furin cleavage site — strikingly similar to those found in SARS-CoV-2. It was revealed by The Intercept that EcoHealth had sought funding from the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for this project in 2018, but when the funding was rejected it appears the Wuhan lab moved forward anyway, just a year ahead of the first emergence of COVID-19.

Gabbard: “Bipartisan frustration”

A host of U.S. intelligence agencies still remain on the sidelines in the coronavirus origins debate.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said during her Senate confirmation in January that many senators had “expressed bipartisan frustration about recent intelligence failures and the lack of responsiveness to your requests for information” including related to “failures to identify the source of the COVID.” Gabbard announced on Tuesday the creation of the Director’s Initiatives Group which has been “reviewing documents for potential declassification — including information related to COVID-19 origins.”

“The DNI is dedicated to declassifying COVID-19 origins documents from across the IC,” a spokesperson for Gabbard told Just the News. “Her new Director’s Initiative’s Group will lead the charge. More coming soon.”

The CIA, now under Director John Ratcliffe, is walking a fine line. CBS News reported that the “CIA now says COVID most likely originated from a lab leak but has ‘low confidence’ in its assessment.” He revealed in January that “CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin” and at the same time, “that CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible.”

Ratcliffe had testified to Congress in 2023 that the CIA and other spy agencies had enough evidence to get off the fence and to join the FBI and Energy Department in concluding that SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated at the Wuhan lab, and hinted that the U.S. intelligence community was holding back because of the significant ramifications such public conclusions would have for the U.S.-China relationship. Ratcliffe argued at the time that “a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science, and by common sense.”

The German Federal Intelligence Service, known as the BND, reportedly also concluded that it was very likely that the pandemic emerged as an accidental lab release from the Wuhan lab, according to German news reports last month, but the BND was blocked from sharing their conclusions with the world.

“The current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth all promised before confirmation to declassify and release intelligence on the origin of COVID-19, as required by the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, but they have not yet done so. They need to move rapidly to do so,” Professor Ebright told Just the News. “And Avril Haines needs to be prosecuted — criminally prosecuted — for violating the law.”

GREAT ADS…THE PENALTY OF LEADERSHIP…

Marketing 101: Lessons from Cadillac and “The Penalty of Leadership”

“If the leader truly leads, he remains — the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.”

— Theodore J. McManus, Author of “The Penalty of Leadership”

In a competitive world where “emulation and envy are ever at work,” many companies find it hard to use advertising as a space to break free from the rigid rules of business. However, those that invest in creative and inclusive styles of marketing often find the most success. Why? Because when a consumer purchases an item, a service, or an experience, they are looking to buy much more than the physical product. They are looking to buy an identity.

“The Penalty of Leadership,” written by Theodore F. MacManus for Cadillac in 1915, is a shining example of this. The ad is almost an exact replica of a character statement from an omnipresent perspective. It allows its readers to develop an affinity for the morality of the manufacturer and not the quality of the product. “The real suggestion to convey is that the man manufacturing the product is an honest man, and that the product is an honest product, to be preferred above all others,” said MacManus when asked about the objective behind this marketing style.

“The Penalty of Leadership” was a radical departure from previous Cadillac advertisements, but what it lacked in glamor and extravagance it made up for its ingenious style. (Source: Entrepreneur)

Cadillac was widely recognized as a luxury automobile company but in the early 1900s faced rivalries with Ford and Packard Motors. Ford presented their cars as reliable and affordable at the cost of only $400, while Packard Motors produced high end vehicles like Cadillac for about $2,000. Starting in 1905, the highest-end Cadillac models featured an incredibly dependable four-cylinder engine. However, a few years later Packard Motors came out with a six-cylinder engine on their new luxury models. Cadillac immediately felt pressured to respond, and they came out with a high speed V-8 engine that was later described as “skittery at first, prone to short circuits and fires.” Many began to think the company was at the start of its downfall until “The Penalty of Leadership” was written.

In startling contrast to the colorful ads of its era, “The Penalty of Leadership” was printed subtly in black and white ink. Cars, cylinders, nor the automotive industry are mentioned. Only a small logo placed in the top right corner of the decorative border and another embedded in the center below binding the ad to Cadillac. This revolutionary approach defined the brand’s dominance and set the standard for a level of originality directly tied to genius within the company’s work. Its closing sentences —“That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live– lives”— leave readers inspired individually and collectively as buyers of this upstanding brand. These statements also uniquely foreshadow Cadillac’s success over the next century and the close of Packard Motors in 1958.

However, they also serve as a motivational outline of how to harness the entrepreneurial spirit into a fortune of success. Both Cadillac and the agency MacManus, John & Adams reportedly received requests for a copy of “The Penalty of Leadership” almost every week for 30+ years after it was written. Elvis Presley kept a copy of it framed in his home at Graceland and says it heavily influenced his work. To this day, it is recognized as one of the most influential and timeless ads.

PENALTY OF LEADERSHIP

STEALTH BOMBERS READY TO DESTROY THE IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT, ALL THE TALK IS OVER IF THE NUCLEAR POTENTIAL IS NOT ENDED

Pentagon Prepares for IRAN DETERRENT STRIKE

Unprecedented number of B-2 bombers amassed for Iran strike

In the largest single deployment of stealth bombers in U.S. history, the Pentagon has sent six B-2 “Spirit” aircraft to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

The long-range bombers, which are uniquely suited to evade Iranian air defenses and can carry America’s most potent bunker busting weapons, flew in from Missouri last week in a little noticed operation.

The B-2s carry not just bombs, but a message for Iran: “do you see our sword?,” as one retired general told Newsmax this week.

President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy in threatening Iran, saying that if Tehran doesn’t close the door on a nuclear capability they will experience “bombing the likes of which they haven’t seen.”

“Hell” will “rain down” on the country, Trump has also said. Just today, amidst the stock market meltdown Trump again reiterated his threat, saying that “doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious” — which to the president is undertaking a massive strike.

Blatant as the threat is, the U.S. government has not otherwise publicly acknowledged the bomber buildup. Though B-2 bombers were used to carry out strikes on underground Houthi facilities in Yemen (both under the Biden and Trump administration), the forward deployment of the bombers to the island of Diego Garcia was only reported when commercial satellite images of the airbase there revealed the six on the runway.

Satellite image of six B-2s in Diego Garcia | Planet Labs Inc.

“To my knowledge, this is the largest B-2 deployment to a forward location,” Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists told me. Kristensen is the world’s leading tracker of nuclear comings and goings.

“All the bombers, they’re not in hangers, they’re underneath satellites where they can be photographed and seen; and the idea is, do you see our sword?” retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt, who served as Deputy U.S. Military Representative to NATO, said in an interview with Newsmax last week. Holt also said that the B-2 deployment “gives the president a military option that he can actually use these weapons against Iran if needed.”

This is a highly visible threat to Tehran, but at least one party isn’t supposed to notice: the American people.

The Pentagon refuses to acknowledge that the deployment is even happening. Trump’s new Pentagon Press Secretary Sean Parnell has only vaguely alluded to “other air assets” being deployed it has announced that two aircraft carriers will stay in the region, the result of a delay in sending one home after its current deployment.

According to Google Trends, searches for terms like “B-2” and “war with Iran” have only modestly increased, indicating that public curiosity has been suppressed despite Donald Trump’s many threats to attack his enemies.

Google searches for “B-2” (blue) and “War with Iran” (red) | Google Trends

Why B-2s?

The B-2 was first designed during the Cold War to penetrate deep into Russian territory for a nuclear attack. The aircraft’s stealth features (making it all but “invisible” to conventional radar) allow it to evade even the most sophisticated air defenses. Subsequent to its deployment, the bomber was modified so that it could take on unique conventional roles as well, especially in attacking underground facilities.

Though the U.S. has a variety of long-range fighters in the region — F-16s, F/A-18s, F-15Es, and F-35s — deployed on aircraft carriers and based in countries like Jordan and the UAE, the B-2s also allow the Trump administration to carry out unilateral strikes. That is, without the permission or involvement of any other Middle East countries. (Diego Garcia continues to be militarily controlled by the U.K.)

Affording a unilateral option, the bombers also fulfill one of the priorities of the Pentagon and the administration in undertaking any use of force: making sure that the risk to U.S. personnel is minimal. Though they are much more expensive to operate and even deploy, the risk of one of the B-2s getting shot down is lower than that of fighters.

As I’ve already written, the Pentagon has been developing a new Iran war plan in recent months. That even includes options for the use of nuclear weapons against Iran, which I’ve also written about.

Assuming the B-2 bombers are directly connected to a full-fledged war decision would be a mistake. They are tools much better suited to a single demonstration strike. Note that from Diego Garcia, a round trip flight to Tehran exceeds 6,000 miles (more than 10 hours of flying), thus limiting how many of the bombers could be used in a sustained operation.

Assessing the likelihood of war with Iran requires understanding three distinct parts:

Intelligence assessments;
Public muscle flexing (of which the B-2 bombers are part); and
War planning.

Each of these three elements exists in separate stovepipes and each proceeds along their own timelines and separate approaches to the problem. It is when the three are in sync that the moment of maximum danger emerges. We’re not yet there, but let’s take a look at each of the three.

Intelligence

Intelligence assessments fall into two categories, the big picture and the day-to-day. I recently wrote about the intelligence community’s latest long view of Iran; that is, its assessment of Iran’s overall condition and Tehran’s worldview. That intelligence assessment does not scream war, but again, that’s the intelligence community’s view, not that of the White House.

Day-to-day (or crisis) intelligence — an assessment that Iranian forces are on the move, that Iran is readying an attack, that a terrorist strike is imminent — doesn’t necessarily have to jive with the long-term prognosis as seen by the eggheads in Washington. Crisis intelligence is more of an operational matter.

Though mostly operational in nature, crisis intelligence is also the kind of “intelligence” that leaders at the top have to monitor. Think of it as cable news or some viral social media frenzy. It sucks all of the oxygen out of the brain and there is a tendency to lose touch with the big picture. A contributing factor of crisis intelligence in Trump’s mind is also what’s on Fox or Newsmax — which is to say that’s what this president sees.

Flexing

Which brings us to public muscle flexing of the B-2 deployments. I say flexing because what follows isn’t “war,” not full scale war as people think of war. It is more the preamble of the government or the military taking action to “defend” itself, or an occasion by which the Pentagon expresses anger or frustration, or wants to send a signal, even by bombing.

This is the realm where Donald Trump’s stream of consciousness or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s need to stick one of his tattoos in someone’s face plays an outsize role. What the boss says in this world is crucially important, even if it is ridiculous, because the war machine has to know at what speed to operate and what thing it should produce. And it needs to know right now, tonight, which is why the B-2s are there in the region in such large numbers.

When Trump spews, even his tone influences the military “posture,” as those who are out “in the field” seek to gauge what the White House is planning so that they can anticipate what’s coming. (It is hardly ever organized or clear under any administration.) Thus Trump’s bombast and his body language influences U.S. moves, which influence how the Iranians see the dangers, which can provoke Tehran to flex its own muscles, which then triggers the crisis intelligence alerts, which makes Trump and company speak more loudly which pushes the U.S. military to make moves to get ready, which the Iranians see, which we see and which starts a never-ending cycle.

You get the idea.

War Planning

Behind all of this is war “planning.”

A common misconception is that the Pentagon has contingency plans for everything, a belief that overlooks how time consuming and irregularly they are produced. War planning is the realm of what’s possible, not just what the president says.

Moving B-2s to Diego Garcia or increasing the number of aircraft carriers in the region, or bringing in more squadrons of aircraft — all of these are muscle flexing actions. Sustained military action with national objectives (e.g. defeat the Iranian military, achieve regime change, eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities), are a whole other dimension. This is the world of placing and sustaining troops, not just airplanes, and making sure that they have sufficient supplies, everything from ammunition to meals to medical care.

In the world of war planning, when Trump says “I want X,” the order goes down the chain of command through a mind-boggling number of levels, broadening in scope the further the order goes down the chain until someone (and many someones) say ‘We can’t do it.’ That someone could be anyone, but for simplicity’s sake, think of the ultimate someone as “the Pentagon.” The Pentagon says this and the Pentagon says that.

If the Pentagon wants to do X, they can move mountains to get it done. And that takes time, and lots of resources.

If the Pentagon doesn’t really want to do X, because it thinks the risks are too high or because it thinks the order ill-considered, it has an arsenal of passive aggressive ways of gumming up the works to make sure it doesn’t happen except as it wants. ‘What do you actually mean, Mr. President, sir, that you want to end Tehran?’ the Pentagon asks. ‘Nukes?’ ‘Covert action?’ ‘World War III?’ ‘That looks a lot like Ukraine, or worse, sir. Are you sure?’

You can think of this as calmer heads prevailing, but it is also a game that the Pentagon plays, either to shift responsibility for the outcome to the politicians or as to guide the president’s order so that it ends up looking like it’s asking for what the Pentagon wants, what the Pentagon thinks is possible and will allow it — that is, the Pentagon, not America — to declare victory.

Over the past 24 years, the Pentagon has perfected this game of executing the play it wants to run, not what the coach wants. That’s why the U.S. has become very good at bombing targets and conducting aerial assassinations, and in keeping the ball in play.

The military has grown highly proficient at executing a strike (or defending against one). To those sitting at their desks in Washington, the risk factors of sending off the B-2s to rain down hell seem minor: no American (and even relatively few Iranian civilians) are going to die, world markets aren’t going to be roiled by an oil crisis, and the public isn’t going to much notice. Trump can thus push the button and activate those who are pulling the triggers with relative ease. That’s why these days we see so many instances of one-off bomb strikes. Donald Trump doesn’t seem capable of changing any of this.

But he can yell louder and be more offensive and threaten more. When it comes to Iran, he is revving himself up. It’s not war that the B-2s are threatening. It’s worse than that. This is preparation for reckless action that, from the Pentagon’s perspective, carries little risk. That’s dangerous and is also why the public must to involve itself. But it can’t do that when the Pentagon refuses to publicly acknowledge what it’s doing.

That’s why I do these stories.

I’ve written over a dozen articles over the past year about war with Iran, trying to make the point that it is already here; that the endless tit-for-tat strikes we’ve seen is “war.” We might get to the point where all three elements of the war-making process sync together and ground troops get involved, but in the interim, we are just one or two steps below maximum danger.

TAXPAYER FUNDED “INSTITUTE OF PEACE” WASTES $55 MILLION IN TAXPAYER DOLLARS ON SALARIES AND BENEFITS AND PRODUCES NO PEACE

DOGE Executes Mass Firings at U.S. Institute of Peace: ‘Failed to Deliver Peace’

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Mass firings took place at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) on Friday, several sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

The employees were terminated effective immediately as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) whole-of-government effort to slash wasteful spending. USIP employees told The Washington Post that between 200 and 300 people had been fired, which is nearly all of the institute’s headquarters staff.

The reported firings come after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February aimed at dismantling the USIP, which is a congressionally funded organization. The Trump administration has been working to freeze the organization’s funding and replace its board.

USIP was created by Congress in 1984 under former President Ronald Reagan and was formally established as “an independent, nonprofit corporation,” according to CBS News. The USIP has a $55 million budget and a purported mission to promote conflict resolution and prevent conflict across the globe.

“Taxpayers don’t want to spend $50 million per year on a publicly-funded ‘research institute’ that has failed to deliver peace,” White House press deputy secretary Anna Kelly told the outlet on Saturday.

“President Trump ended the era of forever wars and established peace in his first term, and he is carrying out his mandate to eliminate bloat and save taxpayer dollars,” Kelly continued.

Fired employees were notified of their termination by email for a USIP email address, according to the report.

“Dear [Employee], this letter is to inform you of a change in your employment status with United State Institute of Peace (sic),” a copy of an email obtained by the outlet reads. “Effective March 28, 2025, your employment with us will conclude.”

The firings come after a federal judge earlier this month declined to grant a temporary restraining order to block DOGE from accessing USIP. The USIP had asked the judge to keep DOGE from “completing the unlawful dismantling of the institute.”

The firings took place the same day the Trump administration worked to formally close the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).