ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Bill Gates, billionaire philanthropist, and Anthony Fauci, the White House’s go-to for shaping the public’s response to coronavirus, have been given some mighty powers in recent weeks — specifically, the powers of influence that have led to the shuttering of businesses; shutting up of citizens in their homes; shutting down of schools around the nation; stalling of the national economy; and of late, shaping of messaging that’s led to thousands of Americans wearing stupid face masks everywhere they go.

Who elected these guys so they could sink so many of America’s freedoms?

That’s right: nobody.

But because Gates is a philanthropist who’s giving millions and maybe billions to help develop a coronavirus vaccine, and because Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID, and thereby, by default, by medical professional and government service default, afforded philanthropist-like status — the media give free passes to them both.

Gates is always “Mr. Gates, yes sir, Mr. Gates.” America the grateful?

Vox sums it perfectly: “Offering sober, apolitical analysis, Gates has been on a ceaseless media tour, preaching a stay-the-course message when it comes to social distancing and full steam ahead when it comes to coronavirus treatment and vaccine development.” It’s lapdog treatment for him.

Fauci, not to be outdone, gets coverage like this, from USA Today, “Anthony Fauci is a coronavirus hero in a time of great public need.”

The problem with handing national influence to Gates and Fauci is two-fold.

First, coronavirus predictions are all over the map. Even the Johns Hopkins coronavirus map seen as the go-to for real-time data on coronavirus cases and deaths states on its own website: “The website relies upon publicly available data from multiple sources that do not agree.” That’s code for inaccurate. And the inaccuracies come from A) faulty computer modeling and B) the fact some doctors and hospitals count coronavirus deaths simply as those patients who test positive for coronavirus at death, pre-existing unrelated conditions be danged.

And the second part of the problem?

Gates and Fauci have made some curious remarks both in their pasts and based on these faulty coronavirus predictions — and they’re not being pressed to explain, clarify, or justify.

“Bill Gates Calls For National Tracking System For Coronavirus During Reddit AMA,” wrote Forbes in mid-March.

His Reddit comment was widely published — and then widely rebuffed by his defenders. But the fact is, Gates himself wrote in March, on his own GatesNotes blog, that the “question of which businesses should keep going is tricky” in this ever-changing coronavirus social distancing environment — but not to worry, “[e]ventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.”

What’s a digital certificate?

Obviously, some kind of recording and tracking mechanism that relies on technology to alert — in context of discussing coronavirus — “who has recovered,” versus who has “been tested,” versus who has been administered a vaccine, “when we have [one],” as Gates wrote.

His words, his viewpoint.

But it’s not as if Gates hasn’t previously expressed interest in implementing a government tracking system of citizens on a wide-scale basis.

In January 2019, once again on his own GatesNotes blog, Gates wrote: “An ID can help improve the lives of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.” He was writing specifically about a biometric based identification and tracking system. And he was writing it from the perspective of fawning.

Gates, on his blog, continued: “How do you prove you really are who you say you are? … For the last decade, Nandan Nilikani … one of India’s leading technology entrepreneurs … joined the government of India to lead the launch of India’s national biometric ID system, which uses fingerprints and other biological traits to verify the identities of the country’s more than 1.3 billion residents. This ID system … is the world’s largest biometric identification system and has become a valuable platform for delivering social welfare programs and other government services.”

Gates wrapped his post with this: “Thanks to the work Nandan is doing the world is moving closer to the day when everyone will have access to an official ID. The sooner we can achieve this goal, the sooner the world’s poorest residents will not only be able to prove who they are, but also realize their aspirations for better lives.”

That’s Gates. Now comes Fauci.

Now comes Fauci who serves as a member of the Leadership Council for the Global Vaccine Action Plan developed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, UNICEP and Fauci’s own NIAID — the plan that calls for a “Decade of Vaccines” to spread far and wide, all around the globe.

Now comes Fauci with this, as reported by Politico: “Coronavirus immunity cards for Americans are ‘being discussed.’”

What’s that?

Immunity cards — already implemented in Germany; currently being discussed in the United Kingdom and Italy — are identification documents to prove vaccination. They’re quite popular, it seems, in communist China.

“In parts of China,” Politico reported, “citizens are required to display colored codes on their smartphones indicating their contagion risk. The controversial surveillance measure facilitated … the end of the lockdown of Wuhan.”

Show me your papers or stay quarantined! Is that the direction America’s headed?

“I mean, it’s one of those things that we talk about when we want to make sure that we know who the vulnerable people are and not,” Fauci said, Politico reported.

The vulnerable people? Fauci means those at risk from coronavirus.

But the real vulnerable people here are free Americans.

The real vulnerable are all the freedom-loving Americans watching with dismay as their free America is destroyed by the likes of unelected wonks — unelected, unaccountable to the people, and apparently, unconcerned at all with the God-given rights of constitutionally protected individuals.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.

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