hmmmm, looks like a whole line of trees fell on the power lines, if someday someone invents, say, a chain saw, those trees could be maintained prior to creating emergencies and costs.
Outage update as of 4 p.m. HST on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026: Our crews are gaining ground as they are restoring more customers, continuing damage assessments and repairing transmission lines to stabilize our systems on Hawaii Island, Oahu and in Maui County. We thank everyone for their patience and acknowledge the challenges of being without power for extended periods. Crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to repair damages to restore all customers. We are committed to providing updates as soon as damage assessments are completed. As of 2:30 p.m.: •
Hawaii Island: Approximately 39,730 customers are still without power. Most of the outages are in the Puna area, North and South Kona, North and South Kohala, Hamakua and South Hilo. Damage assessments are continuing, and helicopters are inspecting six transmission lines across the island. •
Maui County: About 7,450 are without power. In Upcountry Maui, transmission work is in progress and damage assessments are ongoing in areas of Kula, Alaluana, Olinda, Piiholo, and Haiku. In Upcountry, large, downed trees are being cleared and in areas where bucket trucks cannot be used due to the rugged and uneven terrain, crews need to climb the poles to complete repairs, which does take time. Crews are also working on remaining spot outages in West Maui, Central and South Maui, East Maui, Molokai and Lanai. •
Oahu: While damage assessments are still ongoing, crews restored about 14,800 customers, in the Moanalua, Nanakuli and Waikiki areas today. Approximately 56,800 customers remain without power as crews continue to make repairs in Windward, Leeward and Honolulu areas. Customers who have power from Salt Lake to East Honolulu are still asked to conserve power through 10 p.m. tonight. Customers should call 911 or our Trouble Lines to report dangerous situations, such as downed power lines or sparking electrical equipment. Please help us keep phone lines open for emergencies at this time.
stock here: Personal Story here, last fall, shortly before leaving for Hawaii, Google had announced that their Nest thermostats would no longer be supported, but beyond that they were also going to scuttle their operation. I had 3 and they were about $300 each bought 10 years ago.
They had a new version, which I knew for sure, would be more spying, manipulation, control, even damage. So I jumped ship, just like I am going to jump ship from Godaddy as a horrible company. I switched to Honeywell, which was costly and time consuming. Eff you all the way to hell Google.
See story below….there is an “opt out” but most people won’t discover that.
🚨 THEY’RE REMOTELY CONTROLLING YOUR THERMOSTAT NOW — DENVER WOMAN BLOCKED FROM LOWERING HER AC BELOW 79°
A Denver woman says she tried to lower her thermostat before putting her daughter to bed… and couldn't believe the message that popped up.
stock here: The FBI was well aware of this Chinese spy, called her Rusty Thumbs. A-Eye below, never being overly critical of Swalwell, although unless a cretin, was obviously guilty as hell.
I dug through the new reporting against the older record. The 2026 files materially change what the public knew about the Fang–Swalwell episode. But they do not establish every part of Anna Paulina Luna’s characterization.
The most revealing way to see it is chronologically:
Date
What appears to have happened
Why it matters
2011–12
Christine Fang becomes active at CSU East Bay/APAPA and begins cultivating Bay Area politicians. Her first known contact with Swalwell was during this period.
This fits the classic “spot promising politicians early” model described by U.S. counterintelligence officials.
May 2013
An undercover FBI employee meets Fang in Las Vegas as part of an effort to recruit her as a U.S. intelligence source. Internally, the FBI already suspected MSS connections and regarded both of her parents as MSS intelligence officers. She was given the operational name Rusty Thumbs.
This is considerably more serious than the impression created by the 2020 story that the FBI simply stumbled onto a suspicious political network later.
2013
An FBI memo records that Swalwell had joked that Fang might be connected to the “Chinese CIA” — the MSS; Fang reportedly joked back about it.
This is the strongest support I find for Luna’s assertion that Swalwell had some awareness of the possibility before the 2015 FBI warning. But a joke about someone being a spy is not the same thing as knowing she actually was one.
March 2014
The FBI decides Fang isn’t trustworthy enough to recruit. Six days later, it opens an investigation involving her access to Swalwell.
That’s a remarkable pivot: potential U.S. asset → counterintelligence/public-corruption target.
March 17, 2014 onward
The investigation, “Freshman Fifteen,” examines whether Fang was trading campaign money for access and congressional internships. The FBI reported evidence of conduit donations originating with Fang at least twice in 2013 and twice in 2014.
This is one of the biggest new disclosures. The 2020 Axios investigation said the operative it interviewed had found no evidence of illegal contributions; the internal FBI file apparently contained evidence Axios didn’t have.
January 2015
Swalwell takes a seat on the House Intelligence Committee and becomes the lead Democrat on the CIA oversight subcommittee.
Now the counterintelligence stakes become much higher.
March 2015
According to Swalwell’s later FBI account, this was the last time he had sexual relations with Fang. He described having sex with her on a “handful of occasions.”
This means the sexual relationship apparently continued into the period when he was sitting on Intelligence. That’s one of the most consequential details in the release.
April 30, 2015
FBI gives Swalwell a formal defensive counterintelligence briefing concerning Fang. Subsequent reporting and the FBI records say he cut contact after being warned.
This is the point at which there is no ambiguity that he officially knew the FBI considered her a threat.
May 2015 / March 2016
Swalwell gives FBI interviews. He acknowledges the sexual relationship and confirms Fang referred interns to his campaign/congressional operation; he says he treated her referrals as connected with APAPA.
These FBI admissions are much more explicit than anything the public heard after the story broke in 2020.
Mid-2015
Fang abruptly leaves the United States and returns to China. She has not returned and was subsequently barred from reentry.
Her departure appears to have crippled the active operation.
2017
FBI ultimately determines that it has not established federal corruption violations by Swalwell and removes him as a subject. Investigators nevertheless document evidence they believed showed Fang committed campaign-finance and other offenses, including acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Prosecutors deem a case against her “non-viable due to national security reasons.”
Extremely important distinction: substantial evidence against Fang does not equal a finding that Swalwell knowingly participated in her scheme.
2020
Axios exposes the operation publicly. At that time it reports that Swalwell cut Fang off after the FBI briefing, had not been accused of wrongdoing, and officials did not believe Fang obtained classified information.
The public got perhaps 50–60% of the story. The sexual relationship and FBI’s alleged conduit-donation findings were absent.
2023
Bipartisan House Ethics Committee closes its two-year Fang investigation with no further action, while specifically cautioning about foreign governments attempting to obtain influence through personal interactions.
That’s significant evidence in Swalwell’s favor, although “no further action” isn’t the same thing as a judicial finding that every allegation was false.
Aug. 17, 2026
White House releases the declassified files. The official White House description says the FBI developed evidence of possible compromise involving sex, interns and illicit donations.
We can finally compare the FBI’s contemporaneous records with the much thinner version known since 2020.
The piece that really catches my attention
It’s not simply that Swalwell slept with Fang.
It’s the sequence:
FBI suspects MSS ties → FBI tries to recruit Fang → FBI abandons recruitment → FBI opens “Freshman Fifteen” → FBI is investigating her fundraising/intern activities → Swalwell gets placed on the Intelligence Committee → his sexual relationship with Fang apparently continues until March 2015 → only then does the FBI formally warn him on April 30.
That raises an institutional question that I think is more interesting than the partisan shouting:
Why did the FBI wait until April 2015 to defensively brief Swalwell?
By then the Bureau had been interested in Fang for roughly two years, had already abandoned its attempt to recruit her, and had opened a significant investigation involving her relationship with Swalwell.
There may be a perfectly legitimate counterintelligence explanation: warning Swalwell earlier could have burned Fang, exposed the undercover operation, tipped off possible MSS contacts, or destroyed the opportunity to identify the rest of her network. That’s an inference, not something the released material I’ve found establishes. But it’s exactly the sort of tradeoff counterintelligence investigators face.
Now, Luna’s statement
This deserves separating into pieces.
“He was being targeted and used.” There is substantial support for that. U.S. intelligence officials regarded Swalwell as one of Fang’s most important political targets, and the FBI believed Fang had connections that could be useful for Chinese influence operations.
“He knew what was going on.” That’s too categorical based on what I’ve found. The 2013 “Chinese CIA” joke is genuinely interesting because it indicates that the possibility of Fang being intelligence-connected had apparently come up years before his formal briefing. But it does not prove Swalwell knew she was working for Chinese intelligence.
“He lied.” This is the part where I want Luna to show her work. I have not found an FBI conclusion in the released material that Swalwell lied to investigators. In fact, the 2015 and 2016 interview summaries contain some remarkably candid admissions. And ultimately the FBI removed him as a subject after finding no federal corruption violation attributable to him.
There is certainly a public-disclosure problem: when the story broke in 2020, Swalwell would not publicly answer whether his relationship with Fang was sexual, while we now know he’d told the FBI five years earlier that it was. But refusing to answer a reporter’s question isn’t itself lying.
Another oddity: “Freshman Fifteen”
Unlike Rusty Thumbs, I think this codename is probably decipherable.
Swalwell was essentially a freshman congressman representing California’s 15th District when the investigation began. So Freshman Fifteen appears very likely to be an FBI pun on both his status and congressional district—plus the familiar “freshman fifteen” weight-gain phrase. I haven’t found a document explicitly explaining the name, so that’s an inference rather than established fact. The investigation itself was opened March 17, 2014 under that codename.
Rusty Thumbs, on the other hand, remains gloriously inexplicable.
And there’s one more eyebrow-raiser
The DOJ’s Public Integrity Section was involved in reviewing the Swalwell/Fang investigation. At that precise time, its chief was Jack Smith, who led the section from 2010 until early 2015. DOJ’s own biography confirms that tenure.
That doesn’t imply misconduct by Smith—Public Integrity is exactly the DOJ unit one would expect to oversee an investigation involving a sitting congressman and campaign-finance allegations. But historically it’s an interesting connection, particularly because this wasn’t some rogue San Francisco field-office fishing expedition; FBI headquarters and DOJ Public Integrity were involved in the case.
My current bottom line: the newly released documents substantially strengthen the case that Fang was conducting something resembling a long-term Chinese political influence/intelligence operation and that Swalwell was a major target who became far closer to her than the public was led to understand in 2020. They also reveal serious suspected campaign-finance activity surrounding Fang. But the same documents apparently contain the inconvenient-for-both-sides conclusion that investigators didn’t establish that Swalwell knowingly participated in the criminal scheme or committed a federal corruption offense.
The next thing I’d dig into is the money trail—those four alleged conduit contributions, the donors’ identities where unredacted, the $1,000 FBI-controlled donation, the Las Vegas/Wynn episode, and exactly what the “national security reasons” were that made prosecution of Fang nonviable. That’s where I suspect the most interesting unanswered questions are.
stock here: Man does he look beat up, and wearing a fake doctor type shirt.
Due to the severe impacts of Hurricane Lala, all state and county offices, Hawaiʻi State Department of Education schools, public charter schools, courts and Judiciary offices statewide will be closed Monday, August 17. pic.twitter.com/nsYEO9ZSYF
nukepro.nethttps://nukepro.net › 7087Rogan on Trump and Suppression – nukepro.netOct 31, 2024stock here: actually censorship does work, and it works quite well. Pretending otherwise, is either intentional deception, or an act of stupidity. I was shocked when I first learned that this lumpy dorky looking was getting paid $200M to do podcasts, the “Experience” wow, what a labelling.
nukepro.nethttps://nukepro.net › 10569Kirk and Candace on a New News Source – nukepro.netNov 2, 2025Now, two of the biggest voices in independent media, JoeRogan and Candace Owens, have brought new, explosive information to the forefront. These aren’t just theories; they are devastating critiques of the official narrative, backed by insider testimony and expert analysis. The story is getting more confusing, more explosive, and far darker.
nukepro.nethttps://nukepro.net › 8979I Shall Start Compiling A List of Controlled (Opposition) SitesJoeRogan, he sure clammed up about vaccine injury when they ALL jumped his case Backgrounder: JoeRogan faced significant backlash in early 2022 following an episode of The JoeRogan Experience featuring Dr. Robert Malone, a controversial figure known for spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
stock here: Joe Rogan got neutered when he started speaking truth about “vaccines”, he was shocked, like he wasn’t told ahead of time “these are the lies you must support” for your $200M a year. Which is about as absurd as Taylor Swift or any Kardashians being Billionaires. Are you now entertained?
I’ll put some links below on Rogan and my original articles as they came out. Now it the Zuckerberg.
MARK ZUCKERBERG ISN’T REAL — THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING AFTER JOE ROGAN CAUGHT HIM Joe Rogan had Mark Zuckerberg on and the internet immediately started questioning if the Meta CEO is even human.
They got into hunting. Zuckerberg first said his favorite method is bow and arrow because it’s more sporting and “requires more of you.”
Minutes later he admitted he mostly uses a rifle because the conversion rate is higher and it’s just more efficient. Then Rogan asked what kind of bow he has.
Zuckerberg completely blanked, couldn’t name the company, and called it embarrassing. The clipped exchange is making people say the same thing over and over: this doesn’t feel like a real person.
he answers feel rehearsed, the switch-up feels off, and the blank moment sealed it for a lot of viewers.
Did Joe Rogan just catch Mark Zuckerberg slipping… or is the internet reading way too much into an awkward conversation?
🚨 MARK ZUCKERBERG ISN’T REAL — THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING AFTER JOE ROGAN CAUGHT HIM
Joe Rogan had Mark Zuckerberg on and the internet immediately started questioning if the Meta CEO is even human.
After this attack Rogan definitely became more mainstream.
Joe Rogan, he sure clammed up about vaccine injury when they ALL jumped his case
Backgrounder: Joe Rogan faced significant backlash in early 2022 following an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featuring Dr. Robert Malone, a controversial figure known for spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. In the episode, Malone promoted the discredited “mass formation psychosis” theory and made comparisons between U.S. public health policies and Nazi Germany. This content led to widespread criticism, with over 270 medical professionals signing an open letter urging Spotify to address the spread of misinformation on its platform. Latest news & breaking headlines+4Vogue+4NPR+4
The controversy intensified when musician Neil Young demanded that Spotify remove his music unless the platform took action against Rogan’s podcast. Young stated, “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.” Spotify chose to retain Rogan’s content, leading to Young’s departure from the platform. He was joined by other artists, including Joni Mitchell, in protest. PBS: Public Broadcasting Service+4The Guardian+4Latest news & breaking headlines+4 Vogue+2The Guardian+2Latest news & breaking headlines+2 Latest news & breaking headlines Vogue+1Latest news & breaking headlines+1
Amid the uproar, discussions emerged about Rogan’s exclusive contract with Spotify, reportedly valued at $100 million. Despite the controversy, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the decision to keep Rogan on the platform, emphasizing the importance of free expression and cautioning against the slippery slope of censorship. Vogue PBS: Public Broadcasting Service
In response to the criticism, Spotify implemented measures to combat misinformation, including adding content advisories to COVID-19-related podcasts and directing listeners to a dedicated COVID-19 information hub.
STOCK HERE: like a stupid person, so stupid, that they don’t realize they are stupid, is one of the most dangerous people.
I have summarized the comments to the video. Those show the real story.
Yes. Reading the comment section as a whole, the dominant message is remarkably consistent. The video has 1,155 comments, and the politically substantive ones shown here overwhelmingly share a particular interpretation of the war.
What the commenters are saying
1. Europe is operating inside a strategic reality bubble. This is probably the strongest theme. Commenters repeatedly describe EU/UK leadership as delusional, unable or unwilling to acknowledge that the military situation has moved against Ukraine. Some of the most-liked comments say European leaders have already lost their wager on a “strategic defeat” of Russia but cannot admit it, while another says Europeans are simply ignoring the reality approaching them.
The memorable formulation is essentially:
They are negotiating with themselves rather than with the facts on the ground.
One commenter literally describes the West as “standing in front of a mirror and just talking to themselves.”
2. Ukraine’s battlefield trajectory is viewed as fundamentally unfavorable, not temporarily unfavorable. The audience does not seem to view this as a war where one more weapons package, drone attack, sanction or tactical success changes the strategic equation. One analogy describes Russia as a boa slowly constricting a hedgehog: the hedgehog can still inflict wounds, but that doesn’t mean it is winning.
That is an important distinction. The commenters aren’t predominantly arguing “Russia had a good week.” They’re arguing “the underlying direction of the war has become very difficult to reverse.”
3. Negotiation without acknowledging that military reality is seen as theater. There is considerable contempt for European demands to participate in negotiations after years of minimizing direct engagement with Moscow. Some argue that proposed pauses or peace initiatives are merely attempts to obtain breathing room and that Russia now recognizes that pattern.
Another bluntly says EU/UK participation would sabotage talks, while another questions whether Washington can still credibly present itself as a neutral mediator.
So the audience’s model is basically:
battlefield facts → negotiating leverage
rather than
Western diplomatic declarations → negotiating leverage.
4. NATO expansion is widely regarded as part of the causal chain, not irrelevant ancient history. One of the highest-engagement comments says NATO’s determination to expand toward Russia’s border “destroyed Ukraine.” Another commenter goes much further historically, pointing to opposition to Ukrainian/Georgian NATO membership and assigning responsibility across several U.S. administrations and European/Ukrainian elites.
Whether every historical claim in those comments survives fact-checking is a separate question; the important thing for summarizing the audience is that they reject the “unprovoked event beginning in 2022 with no meaningful prehistory” framework.
5. European economic/energy policy is viewed as self-inflicted strategic damage. A recurring secondary theme is that Europe hurt itself by severing cheap Russian-energy relationships while simultaneously pursuing confrontation with Russia. Commenters connect this to industrial weakness, fuel prices and vulnerability going into winter. There are comments explicitly anticipating a difficult European winter and questioning European energy security.
Thus the audience sees the Ukraine policy not merely as unsuccessful foreign policy, but increasingly as a domestic economic burden.
6. There is genuine anxiety about escalation. This isn’t just cheerleading for Russia. Some commenters are plainly worried that Western governments might escalate rather than admit that their original strategic objective failed. One highly liked comment explicitly raises the danger of turning Europe into a nuclear battlefield rather than conceding defeat.
Others go in a much more aggressive direction and advocate Russian escalation themselves, including references to Oreshnik strikes. So there is a spectrum from “stop before this gets much worse” to “Russia should force the issue.”
The other huge theme: distrust of the information system
This might actually be the most interesting part.
A significant number of commenters don’t merely agree with The Duran. They describe discovering it as an escape from what they believe is a badly distorted Western information environment. One Japanese commenter says that without The Duran he believes he would have been misled by Western media; others describe the show as providing “sanity,” “accurate analysis,” or an alternative to BBC/Sky narratives.
And the comments aren’t geographically monolithic. People identify themselves as being in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Serbia, Canada and elsewhere. That doesn’t make the sample statistically representative, but it does show that this interpretive framework isn’t confined to Russians or Americans.
The methodological caveat
There is one important limitation: The Duran’s comment section is a self-selected population. People who already find its analysis persuasive are much more likely to watch, subscribe and comment. So 1,000 approving comments are not equivalent to a scientific poll of Europeans.
But they’re useful for something else.
They show that there is a substantial, internationally dispersed audience whose interpretation of events is internally coherent:
NATO overreached → Ukraine became the battlefield → sanctions/energy decoupling damaged Europe → Ukraine’s military position deteriorated → Western political leadership refuses to revise its assumptions → diplomacy consequently remains detached from actual negotiating leverage → continued denial increases escalation risk.
That is the “grok” running through the comments.
And what struck me most is that they’re not principally debating individual tactical events anymore. They’re debating the inability of institutions to update their model when observed reality diverges from the model.
That’s a much deeper criticism than simply saying “Ukraine is losing.”
stock here: in Hawaii, everything over 3.5 is notable. This quake is not Magma related, in all likelihood, it is the vast weight of the islands, occasionally creaking downward.
Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:11 25 Years in the FBI – What I Learned About Human Behavior 04:16 The Most Valuable Thing I Give People 07:01 Apply This Knowledge & You’ll Never Be Manipulated Again 10:58 My FBI Career 11:47 Inside the FBI’s Secret Behavioral Program 14:47 How I Caught Real Spies 21:54 A Spy Exposed by a Bunch of Flowers 26:28 How Many Spies Are Hiding Among Us? 29:02 Why Body Language Could Save or Destroy You 34:29 First Impressions Happen in Milliseconds 37:19 The Science of Human Synchrony 44:01 Eyebrow Knitting & What It Reveals 45:54 What Eyelid Touching Really Means 49:31 What Your Lips Are Secretly Saying 51:00 The Supersternal Notch – Body Language’s Secret Weapon 55:39 FBI Strategies to Win Any Negotiation 1:02:35 Why You MUST Write Down Your Goal Before Negotiating 1:06:37 Subtle Moves That Give You Total Control 1:10:53 How to Walk Into a Room with Authority 1:14:54 Why Height and Posture Subconsciously Matter 1:20:11 What Clues in Someone’s Posture Should You Look For? 1:25:45 The Power of Observing What Others Miss 1:27:28 Can You Actually Train Confidence? 1:31:45 Don’t Let Your Voice Betray You 1:34:06 Why Cadence Is a Power Tool 1:36:17 How to Use Hand Gestures Like a Pro 1:37:58 The Eye Contact Rule That Builds Trust 1:39:25 How to Greet Someone to Win Them Instantly 1:42:45 Should You Be Taking Notes in Meetings? 1:45:53 Handshakes That Command Respect 1:48:18 Toxic Leadership Behaviors to Avoid 1:49:10 Self-Mastery Starts with This 1:51:28 Why Action Beats Knowledge 1:52:58 Psychological Comfort in Communication 1:57:35 How to Spot a Narcissist 2:03:43 Narcissism vs Self-Belief 2:05:38 How This Work Changed Me 2:10:58 My Proudest Day in the FBI 2:12:46 The One Thing That Connects Us All 2:14:29 What People Say They Like About Me
stock here: My first impression is that 3 days ago this was being over hyped. Iniki was a Cat 4, not sure this even made it to legit Hurricane status, Cat 1. Even the 17 YO checkout girl at the local grocery was well aware of this storm.
But I am glad, we don’t need more damage and problems.
In Maui, at 1PM, people are casually hanging at the beach……report from Jesse Wald, who covered the fire and response, often from Drone footage. Kick ass citizen reporter!!
Well Fauci has the Jesuit connection, being the “military” branch of the Catholic church, or maybe now more like the intelligence or MOSSAD type participation. Not saying it is all Jewish driven by any means, just that there are historical power structures that seem to pull the strings on many important events. Plus the conflict of interest that should be more than obvious on the Fauci’s, I wonder when they met and married and their positions in their jobs at the time, can you find that out?
Yes. The chronology is actually useful here because Grady was not a bioethicist when she and Fauci met; that part of her career came substantially later.
Year
Anthony Fauci
Christine Grady
What happened
1980
Became chief of NIAID’s Laboratory of Immunoregulation at NIH.
Working with Project HOPE in Brazil, eventually as a nurse educator/ambulatory-care manager.
—
1983
Senior NIH physician/researcher and Laboratory of Immunoregulation chief, heavily involved in the emerging AIDS problem.
Arrived at NIH as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
They met at NIH while treating a patient. Grady spoke Portuguese and helped Fauci communicate with a Brazilian patient.
1984
Appointed Director of NIAID.
Still Clinical Nurse Specialist at the NIH Clinical Center.
Their relationship was already underway.
1985
NIAID Director, one of NIH’s senior infectious-disease officials.
Still a Clinical Nurse Specialist, not yet an NIH bioethics official. Her CV gives that position as 1983–1989.
They married in Georgetown University’s Dahlgren Chapel.
1989–93
NIAID Director
Research associate at what became the National Institute of Nursing Research; completed her Ph.D. in philosophy at Georgetown in 1993.
Her formal bioethics career is developing now.
1996
NIAID Director
Joined the newly created NIH Clinical Center Department of Bioethics as Senior Staff Bioethicist.
This is 11 years after their marriage.
1998
NIAID Director
Became head of the Section on Human Subjects Research.
Now the husband/wife NIH institutional-overlap question becomes much more interesting.
2012
NIAID Director
Became Chief of the NIH Clinical Center Department of Bioethics.
They now occupied two very senior NIH positions simultaneously.
So the sequence is important: Fauci was already a powerful NIH laboratory chief when he met Grady in 1983, became NIAID director the following year, and married her in 1985. Grady did not rise into NIH bioethics leadership until years afterward.
There’s also an interesting first-person acknowledgment of their professional interaction. In 2025 Grady said their careers “ran in parallel,” that they could discuss their work at home, and that they gave each other advice about professional issues. Fauci similarly said that she challenged his thinking and advised him. That’s perfectly ordinary within a marriage, but when both spouses subsequently occupy senior positions inside the same federal biomedical institution, it’s relevant when evaluating institutional independence.
The conflict-of-interest question is more nuanced than the internet version
I think there’s a legitimate distinction worth making.
The claim that “Fauci’s wife approved Fauci’s vaccines/research” isn’t supported. NIH specifically stated that Grady did not have authority to approve research protocols and had no role in FDA Emergency Use Authorizations; vaccine EUAs were FDA decisions, not hers.
But that’s different from asking whether there was an appearance of institutional conflict. By 2012 you had:
Anthony Fauci → Director, NIAID → infectious-disease research, clinical trials, enormous research portfolio
and
Christine Grady → Chief, NIH Clinical Center Department of Bioethics → research ethics, human-subject issues, bioethics consultation and policy
under the same NIH umbrella. Grady’s CV additionally shows participation in numerous NIH ethics and human-subject committees over the years.
That doesn’t prove misconduct. But whether she ever advised on, reviewed, participated in, or formally recused herself from matters involving NIAID or Fauci’s own programs is a perfectly legitimate records-and-governance question. That’s much more concrete than simply noting that they were married.
And on the Jesuit connection
Fauci unquestionably has a substantial Jesuit educational background: Regis High School and the College of the Holy Cross, and he has repeatedly said that Jesuit education strongly influenced his worldview and public-service philosophy.
I’d make one historical correction, though. The Jesuits aren’t literally the Catholic Church’s military or intelligence service. Ignatius Loyola was a soldier before his conversion, and the Society of Jesus historically used some military-flavored organizational language, but it was formally established in 1540 as a religious order. Even the Jesuits themselves acknowledge that the original Compañía de Jesús probably carried some military connotation from Ignatius’s background.
The intelligence-service analogy can be useful descriptively—international organization, disciplined hierarchy, education, access to elites, missions across borders—but treating that analogy as evidence of clandestine intelligence activity would be a different proposition requiring evidence.
One direction here looks genuinely worth digging into: Grady’s NIH ethics committee memberships versus Fauci/NIAID programs, year by year, especially HIV/AIDS and then COVID, and whether NIH records show recusals. That would let us distinguish an apparent conflict from an actual documented one.
stock here: reviewed some of my old blog images…..only 2 of 9 are still standing. This picture is perfect. Incredible Arse-s standing proudly on a $50,000 stone structure built on a beautiful beach with fake grass.
stock here: yesterday afternoon it looked like the storm was “falling apart”, but now at 4AM it looks like it is organizing. Here are some live cams, it’s dark at night right now. Evil little hat Governor Josh Green at the far bottom. Note the eyes.
Tropical Storm Lala is strengthening as it approaches Hawaiʻi and could near hurricane strength as it reaches Hawaiʻi Island on Saturday. A hurricane watch is in effect for for Hawaiʻi Island and a tropical storm warning is in effect for the state. pic.twitter.com/HPEJywZWjY
