“Two Americas” may be the most exhausted phrase in American political discourse. We have had two Americas divided by race, class, geography, religion, education, television network, and presidential preference.

Now we have two Americas divided by Anthony Fauci.

Six years after the pandemic began, America still cannot agree on what happened, who failed, or what accountability would require.

In one, Fauci is a criminal who helped finance dangerous research, concealed what he knew about the origins of COVID-19, misled Congress, and used the authority of science to protect himself and the institutions he led from public scrutiny. That’s my America. I suspect it’s yours, too.

In the other, Fauci is a secular saint: a brave physician who guided the nation through catastrophe while enduring abuse from Donald Trump, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), vaccine skeptics, and assorted right-wing maniacs like us.

Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday did nothing to bridge the divide. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times rather than answer questions about the pandemic and its origins. Paul responded by announcing plans to seek a contempt resolution.

One America heard a confession. The other witnessed a show trial.

Nobody changed his mind. I doubt anyone could.

Six years after the pandemic began, America still cannot agree on what happened, who failed, or what accountability would require. Some people would rather forget about the whole thing and move on. A proper reckoning would demand some agreement about which questions may be asked, what evidence would count, and what findings might alter anyone’s judgment.

We don’t even have that much.

Was the pandemic a natural disaster, a laboratory accident, a bioweapon test, or the product of scientific ambition compounded by bureaucratic negligence and ineptitude? Were school closures ever justified? How much did masks help? Which restrictions saved lives? Which merely demonstrated official power? When did caution become coercion? When did uncertainty become dogma?

RELATED: Saint Anthony Fauci’s index of forbidden questions

Nyia Sissac/Washington Post/Getty Images

Even asking some of those questions still sounds incriminating to one America and deranged to the other.

I know something about the private cost of that division.

An old friend from college — my first real editor, in fact — essentially ended our friendship during the first year of the pandemic. The dispute was not over anything I had written. It was over work I had published at another publication.

One of our senior contributors was among the first writers I knew to challenge the official COVID narrative in a smart, sustained way. She questioned social distancing, masking, and the categorical dismissal of treatments such as ivermectin. My friend believed I was terribly irresponsible for continuing to publish her.

I have no regrets about doing so.

Publishing an argument is not the same as certifying every claim in it, much less demanding that readers accept it. Editors are supposed to permit serious challenges to official consensus, especially during an emergency when government claims carry extraordinary consequences.

I have spent most of my adult life in the commentary business. I make an argument. The reader judges it. If it persuades, fine. If it doesn’t, so it goes. I do not lose sleep because somebody disagrees with me. A great many people do.

That arrangement collapsed during COVID. Disagreement became evidence of moral defect. Publishing skepticism was treated not as an editorial judgment but as complicity in harm.

My friend also insisted that Trump was “100% responsible” for the disease spreading to the United States because he had failed to quarantine airline passengers arriving from China in early 2020.

His certainty struck me more than the accusation itself. One hundred percent left no room for the Chinese government, international travel, public health agencies, state officials, ordinary human behavior, or plain bad luck, let alone malice aforethought.

I tried to extend an olive branch. I suggested that we discuss it over a meal, as we had talked politics, books, ideas, and life many times during a friendship spanning more than 30 years.

He said that wouldn’t be possible because of the prevailing restrictions on social gatherings.

The policy dispute had cracked the friendship. The rule supplied the reason we could not repair the rift.

Several months later, I wrote in an email:

I have been thinking a lot about the stressors of this year and of the past few years and of the past several months especially. What I wanted to tell you is how much I value our friendship of more than 30 years. My hope is that when everything settles down, whenever that may be, you and I can sit down and have a proper conversation. I hope that history matters and I hope that goodwill prevails. And I hope you know how grateful I am to you.

He never replied.

We’ve exchanged perfunctory birthday wishes since then. That’s about all. I don’t dwell on it. But I thought of him this week now that Fauci is once again a hot topic.

I miss my friend as I miss my father, who died in 2017.

The losses are not identical, obviously. Dad can’t return. My friend could. But both men belonged to the architecture of my life. My friend knew earlier versions of me that few living people remember. He helped form the writer and editor I became.

RELATED: Reactions pour in after Fauci pleads the 5th over 100 times

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COVID reportedly killed more than a million Americans (though I’m well aware that number is disputed). It also damaged and destroyed things nobody considered at the time: friendships, marriages, churches, businesses, childhoods, trust in physicians, trust in institutions, and what was left of the habit of regarding political opponents as fellow citizens capable of error rather than enemies guilty of unspeakable crimes.

No Senate committee could possibly tally those losses.

A couple of weeks ago, I had dinner with a prominent historian at the University of California. I lamented how difficult it will be for anyone to write a proper history of COVID.

“We won’t write it,” he told me. “Our kids will.”

Thirty years from now, the central figures won’t be around to defend themselves, polish their reputations, withhold documents, or dominate television. The pandemic may finally cease to function as a referendum on Trump, Biden, Fauci, vaccines, masks, and the moral worth of one’s neighbors.

The historians of 2056 may possess evidence we do not have and distance we cannot manufacture. They may uncover crimes. They may vindicate some officials now despised and condemn others now celebrated.

More likely, I suspect, they will describe institutions operating under fear and uncertainty, staffed by fallible people who confused authority with knowledge, consensus with truth, and self-protection with the public good.

A proper history will resist the comforting simplicity of saints and criminals. It will distinguish honest mistakes from deception, emergency measures from deliberate bureaucratic overreach, useful medicine from extravagant promises, and legitimate skepticism from opportunistic horse hockey.

It will also have to account for us.

Why did so many Americans become so certain? Why did we turn temporary policies into permanent judgments of character? Why did we allow disagreements over a virus to decide whom we would trust, whom we would shun, and which friendships we were willing to sacrifice?

Our children may answer those questions better than we can.

By then, maybe the two Americas will have become one country again — or at least two Americas capable of sitting down together for a meal. I’m not optimistic, but I’m hopeful.

​Anthony fauci, Congressional testimony, Two americas, Official covid narrative, Covid, Trump, Vaccines, Pandemic, Wuhan lab, Opinion & analysis 

I enjoy ironing. Before you summon men in white coats carrying large butterfly nets, let me explain.

My mother taught all of us to iron. My father was a military man who expected his children never to leave the house wrinkled or rumpled. He certainly never did.

Caregivers live among things we cannot control, repair, or explain. Ironing allows me to direct some of that tension toward something useful and within reach.

For years, ironing was simply practical. Dry-cleaning bills add up, and we now live more than 50 miles from the nearest cleaner.

Over time, however, the chore became something more.

For four decades, I have watched my wife endure extreme chronic pain, scores of operations, and more months in hospital rooms than I care to count. During those stays, I noticed something small but measurable: Gracie rested better when the bed had fresh linens.

Clean, tightly drawn sheets and a fresh pillowcase did not relieve her pain or repair her body. They settled her. They softened the edges of a brutal experience.

Hospitals necessarily focus on medications, procedures, vital signs, and lab results. Fresh linens can slide down the list.

After hospital stays dating to the Reagan administration, I learned where the clean linens were kept and helped myself. If a sheet touched the floor or a pillowcase looked tired, I replaced it and dropped the used linens into the nylon laundry bag found in every room.

The improvement was never dramatic. Fresh sheets did not erase Gracie’s pain. But her body relaxed, and her breathing settled.

In a room governed by suffering, even modest comfort deserved attention.

One day at home, I saw the sheets in a basket beside the ironing board and thought, “Why not?”

By the way, caregiving involves a great deal of laundry. Just saying.

I began ironing Gracie’s pillowcases and praying over them. Then I tackled the sheets, including the fitted ones, which should qualify as an advanced degree. I pressed her nightgowns and hung them where she could reach them from her wheelchair. I ironed her blouses so they would be smooth and ready to wear.

With a Bluetooth earpiece, I return listeners’ calls, conduct media interviews, take audio courses, and talk theology with pastors who tutor me — all while ironing.

Laundry does not steal time from my work. It helps me focus.

RELATED: The new kid in the waiting room

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None of this solves the larger problem. I cannot take away Gracie’s pain, reverse the damage to her body, or make her legs grow back.

But I can make the bed.

Caregivers live among things we cannot control, repair, or explain. Ironing allows me to direct some of that tension toward something useful and within reach.

When I cannot bring order to the crisis, I can bring order to the linen closet.

A pressed pillowcase will not cure chronic pain, but it may help someone rest while enduring it.

Scripture presses the matter further.

At the Transfiguration, Christ’s clothes became “shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them” (Mark 9:3). Paul writes that Christ will present the church to Himself as “a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27).

Evidently, God likes clean laundry.

But the spotless bride will not stand before Christ because she finally scrubbed away every stain and pressed out every wrinkle herself. She will stand there because Christ loved her and gave Himself for her.

He does what no launderer on earth can do. He cleanses His people and clothes them in a righteousness they did not produce.

For those of us facing stains we cannot remove and damage we cannot undo, that is no small promise.

Every piece of laundry I press reminds me of that greater work.

Heat and pressure smooth the fabric beneath my hands. Yet even the crispest sheet will wrinkle again. The pillowcase will be soiled. The hamper will fill. By next week, I will repeat the work.

Christ’s cleansing does not fail. His atoning work does not need repeating.

RELATED: How a psychic, New Age hippie led me to Catholicism

Roger Hutchings/In Pictures Ltd./Corbis/Getty Images

One day, there will be no nylon bags filled with dirty hospital linens carrying the evidence of another person’s suffering.

There will be no hospitals.

The redeemed will stand clothed in white, in the brilliant righteousness of Christ. Nothing will stain it. Nothing will wrinkle it.

Until then, suffering remains, and so does laundry.

Each time I unfold the ironing board, I am reminded that the small relief I can offer points beyond itself to the complete redemption Christ has promised.

One day, the ironing board will be put away forever.

Until then, with a nod to the apostle Paul, I press on.

And before you ask, I iron only for Gracie.

​Chronic pain, Clean laundry, Hospital stays, Ironing, Caregiving, Caregivers, Christ, Opinion & analysis 

Florida deputies had their hands full after getting a call about a suspicious person in a grocery store parking lot Tuesday evening.

The Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded after 6:30 p.m. to a Publix in Lutz after receiving reports about a male looking into vehicles throughout the parking lot.

‘I mean, who doesn’t keep a crowbar in their buttocks?’

When deputies attempted to investigate, 22-year-old Gonzalo Cabrera refused to identify himself, resisted deputies’ attempts to detain him, and struck a deputy while attempting to flee, officials said.

The sheriff’s office said the suspect was found armed with suspected burglary tools.

Even after being taken to the ground — and while in handcuffs — officials said Cabrera continued resisting and even reached for a crowbar concealed in his waistband.

Bodycam video shows deputies grabbing the crowbar, pulling it away from the suspect’s hands, and throwing it to the parking lot surface.

Cabrera was arrested and faces multiple charges, including battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting officer with violence, loitering or prowling, possession of burglary tools, trespass on property other than structure or conveyance, and disorderly conduct, officials said.

RELATED: Video: Crooks plow car through jewelry store entrance in broad daylight smash-and-grab. But the suspects got sloppy.

More than 500 comments have hit the sheriff’s office Facebook post about the incident; the following are a few gems:

“I mean, who doesn’t keep a crowbar in their buttocks?” one commenter quipped.”Guy had tools, looking into cars? Maybe he’s a mechanic??!!” another user offered.”I was at the Publix when he was walking around,” another commenter said. “It was very odd. He was walking in between cars, looking around, very sketchy. I have no clue how long he was there — but 2 employees were watching him. One of the employees walked me to my car — the guy was right by it until we walked over …””Dems will set up a GoFundMe for his release. LOL,” another user predicted.”Just another loser lowlife drain on society,” another commenter noted.

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​Crowbar, Florida, Shopping center, Parking lot, Arrest, Bodycam video, Crime 

The idea that Donald Trump is the Antichrist warned about in the Bible continues to circulate in some fringe Christian circles. Last month, William Upham — a former Marine and Florida Republican write-in congressional candidate — was arrested and charged for threatening the president after he posted videos calling Trump the Antichrist and saying he “must be killed.”

While Upham is the only one to take his Antichrist claim to criminal levels, he’s certainly not the only professing Christian to accuse Trump of being the Antichrist.

On a recent episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick Burgess tested this theory by holding it up to Scripture.

“Let me go ahead and just tell you right now: Donald Trump does not meet the criteria, OK?” Rick says bluntly.

The first indicator that Trump doesn’t match the description of Revelation’s beast, he says, is that his communication skills do not hold up to the Antichrist standard.

“I don’t think [Trump] is all that great a communicator, and Antichrist will be the most polished politician the world has ever seen. He will be an incredible orator. You will be drawn to the way he speaks, the way he looks. … That right there, it’s already over,” says Rick.

But the list of reasons goes far deeper than just rhetorical gifts.

Rick explains that there are three primary theories for the Antichrist’s origin: Gentile/European from a revived Roman Empire, Jewish, or Middle Eastern.

“I don’t think that our friend and President Donald Trump is going to meet that very well,” he says.

Further, according 2 Thessalonians 2:4, the Antichrist “will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

In 1 John 2:22, an antichrist is anyone who “denies the Father and the Son.”

“I’m not the judge of Donald Trump, and under no circumstance am I given authority by God to judge anyone’s eternity, OK?” Rick caveats. “However … the way that I’ve seen Trump approach his faith … I don’t believe he is of the church, but I have seen that he’s proven he’s not an enemy of the church. Antichrist would be an enemy of the church.”

“Antichrist would be someone who tries to get in theology. See, Trump just doesn’t know good theology. He isn’t trying to change anyone’s mind on what Jesus claimed. He’s just not doing what Antichrist would be doing,” he adds.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Rick Burgess?

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​Rick burgess, Donald trump, Antichrist, Christianity, Spiritual warfare, Blazetv show 

Birthdays should mark milestones, offer hope for another year, and remind us to cherish the people we love.

But on the first anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to restrict access to Elevidys, a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, there will be no cake or candles in our home.

The only birthdays Duchenne families want to celebrate are the ones our children are still here to have. The FDA should help us light those candles.

My 14-year-old son, Ryu, is still fighting to reach another birthday.

A year ago, I was exploring Elevidys as a treatment that might help him live a longer, fuller life. Then, almost overnight, that hope disappeared. The FDA first halted use of the therapy entirely before restoring access only for boys who could still walk. Ryu, who already uses a wheelchair, was left behind.

By age 14, more than 82% of Duchenne patients use a wheelchair. After age 15, the share exceeds 90%.

I have spent my life living with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare, progressive genetic disease that causes muscles to waste away and almost always leads to premature death. It has shaped every chapter of my family’s story. I watched my brothers, Angelo and Antonio, die from Duchenne in their early 20s.

I began considering Elevidys because I trusted the science and the physician who brought it to my attention. I believed my son deserved the same opportunity other eligible patients were receiving.

Instead, the past year has been heartbreaking.

Ryu’s disease has progressed. His breathing is weaker, and he relies on his BiPAP machine more than he did a year ago. Duchenne families measure time differently. Every lost ability is marked by a clock that never turns back.

RELATED: The FDA seems to care more about celebrities than sick Americans

MarioGuti/iStock/Getty Images

The FDA said it restricted Elevidys after reports of three patient deaths. Those boys died from liver complications, not complications caused by wheelchair use. Families like mine struggle to understand why patients with advanced disease lost access to a treatment because of risks that were not unique to them.

Safety must remain paramount. We are not asking regulators to approve every experimental therapy or ignore serious adverse events. Elevidys had already passed through years of research and clinical trials and had been administered to Duchenne patients before access was narrowed.

We are asking for something more modest and more humane: When a disease is progressive and fatal, families should be allowed to work with their doctors to decide whether the potential benefit justifies the risk for their own children.

The anniversary of the Elevidys restriction also marks the moment I turned 40 years of helplessness into action. I learned what an op-ed was and wrote my first one. I entered the intimidating world of social media.

On my first trip to Washington, D.C., I learned how to call an Uber and met with senators, staff members, other rare-disease mothers, and patients. I did not go because I wanted to become an activist. I went because I am a mother. I had to speak for my son and honor the memory of my brothers, who never lived to see the possibilities available to patients today.

My brother Angelo volunteered for experimental research in the 1990s, when almost no treatment options existed. He wanted future children with Duchenne to benefit from his courage. Years later, one of those children would be his nephew — my son.

RELATED: Medicare red tape turned insurers into villains

stevegraham/iStock/Getty Images

The FDA is entering a period of new leadership. The next commissioner should put patients first, recognize that rare diseases demand urgency, and trust families and physicians to make informed decisions together. Returning to the old approach would cost families the one thing no regulator can restore: time.

Hope has a birthday too. We celebrate it whenever a scientist makes a breakthrough, a doctor refuses to give up, a parent fights for one more chance, or the FDA chooses urgency over bureaucracy.

I pray this dark anniversary is the last time FDA policy leaves Duchenne families behind — and the beginning of a new era in which boys like Ryu have the chance to live as fully and as long as possible.

The only birthdays Duchenne families want to celebrate are the ones our children are still here to have. The FDA should help us light those candles.

​Bureaucracy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Fda, Opinion & analysis, Red tape, Science, Therapy, Regulation, Treatment, Children, Healthcare 

Hollywood’s budget addiction is catching up with even its biggest franchises.

Two major projects have hit financial speed bumps, proving that even recognizable brands aren’t automatic green lights anymore.

‘This is the match that we needed to, quite frankly, burn it all down and finally build a country for mothers.’

First, there’s the last “Fast & Furious” film. The previous installment earned a tepid $146 million stateside in 2023, but more than $500 million from international sales. The film’s massive budget still made getting into the black a chore.

Now, the studio is dragging its feet on the last “Fast” feature, hoping to somehow whittle down the big bucks needed to make it happen. Let’s hope the studio doesn’t send our heroes into space again.

Meanwhile, after a lot of jawboning, “Heat 2” appears ready to go before the cameras. Director Michael Mann wanted a massive shooting budget for his sequel to the beloved 1995 crime caper, and multiple studios flirted with the film but ultimately said no.

Now, the deep pockets at Amazon will help make this movie happen, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role originally performed by Val Kilmer and Christian Bale standing in for Al Pacino.

Pass the hat, folks. If you want to see these bloated IP extensions, someone’s got to pick up the tab.

‘Man’-handled

It’s a wonder it lasted this long.

Disney+’s “Wonder Man” series, based on the obscure MCU character of the same name, supposedly earned a second-season renewal earlier this year. Not so fast. The Mouse House just slammed the door shut on new episodes.

The series race-swapped the main character, played on screen by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, but the show didn’t build on that sweet, sweet MCU synergy.

The character could reportedly pop up in future Marvel films, proof that Disney still believes more superheroes — not fewer — are the answer to audience fatigue.

RELATED: SUPER FLOP: Sneering ‘Supergirl’ flees multiplex for home streaming

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Harvey’s ‘heartbreak’

Gossip monger Harvey Levin built a career asking uncomfortable questions. Apparently, Anthony Fauci is the exception.

The TMZ boss called it “one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen in government” after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times before a Senate committee investigating the government’s COVID response.

Levin acknowledged he has “problems with the way CDC handled COVID,” saying the agency “did damage to children and adults.” Even so, he insisted Fauci had been “an amazing public servant” and dismissed the hearing as a Republican “witch hunt.”

That’s an odd conclusion. If the CDC’s pandemic response caused real harm — as Levin now concedes — why shouldn’t one of its most influential public faces be asked tough questions under oath?

Mother of all leftists

Is Reshma Saujani a filmmaker or arsonist?

Saujani, an executive producer of the new documentary “No Country for Mothers,” used a PBS interview to promote more than just the film.

The documentary explores the challenges facing modern motherhood, offering familiar progressive prescriptions — more government intervention, expanded social programs, and a renewed push for the Equal Rights Amendment.

But Saujani saved her most provocative remarks for the end, describing the film as the spark for something far bigger than policy reform.

And they are staying until midnight, talking, crying, holding each other, hugging each other, talking about the laws are going to change, the policies are going to pass, the neighbor that they’re going to help. Like, this is the — this is the match that we needed to, quite frankly, burn it all down and finally build a country for mothers.

She also claimed, without offering a lick of evidence, that unseen forces are “suppressing women’s content.” One suspects those mysterious gatekeepers have an orange complexion.

More telling, though, is the revolutionary flourish. A documentary about helping mothers somehow ends with a call to “burn it all down.” That’s an odd way to pitch a movement built on caring for families.

Sleazy does it

Your newest OnlyFans creator got her start when Jimmy Carter was president.

Donna Mills, 85, is embracing the most 2026 career pivot imaginable. The “Knots Landing” star announced she’ll be joining the adult-centered platform, saying it “offers the opportunity for a more personal and direct connection.”

Good luck with that. A sizable share of the actress’ longtime audience may need a grandchild just to download the app.

​Leonardo dicaprio, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Movies, Tv, Harvey levin, Tmz, Fast and the furious, Hollywood, Anthony fauci, Disney, Toto recall 

What began as two teenage girls holding a sign at a WNBA game has exploded into a much larger controversy over Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham, and the future of the league itself.

After Seattle Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton confronted and berated the young fans for thanking Cunningham “for speaking up for girls,” the incident quickly became a national story. But BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock argues the real target isn’t the teenagers — and it isn’t even Cunningham, who has spoken up against allowing men in women’s sports.

“Two teenage girls sit courtside holding a sign at the Fever-Storm game. ‘Thank you, Sophie, for speaking up for the girls.’ That’s the provocation. That’s the whole crime. And Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton walks up to those children and unloads,” Whitlock explains.

“‘I hope Jesus can forgive you for what sin you’ve done. God can save you,’” he mimics. “Points at her own head. Calls them ‘effing insane,’” he says.

Whitlock is disturbed, pointing out that “a grown millionaire owner used the name of Jesus as a weapon against those two girls.”

And Cunningham spoke out again following the incident, writing in a post on X: “I truly believe there is a safe space and love for EVERYBODY. Biological girls, biological boys, trans women, and trans men. Everyone is welcome at my table! You can disagree and still be kind. Bravo to those girls for standing up for what they believe. You’ll be hearing from me soon. Yay for gifts.”

“Truly embarrassing of the co-owner. Unfortunately shows the type of leader she is,” she added.

And while Cunningham is taking heat for not denouncing the young girls and their beliefs, so is Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark.

“This was never about a sign. It’s about who that sign represents. Caitlin Clark, Sophie Cunningham, and the millions of normal, heterosexual sports fans they dragged into these arenas. This league resents the audience that legitimized it,” Whitlock explains, before playing a clip of Elle Duncan of Netflix demanding Clark denounce her fans.

Duncan called on Clark to say, “Stop that s**t. I don’t want it. I’m tired of it.”

“She’s demanding that Caitlin Clark denounce her fans for what other adults did,” Whitlock says.

“She’s an idiot,” he adds.

Want more from Jason Whitlock?

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​Caitlin clark, Celeste keaton, Jason whitlock, Sophie cunningham, Wnba, Womens sports, Seattle storm, Indiana fever, Blazetv show