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By Stuart Warner

What if Dr. Anthony Fauci hadn’t taken the Fifth Amendment to every question in that televised circus they called a Senate hearing this week? What if instead of repeating the same legal sentence over and over, Fauci had answered the questions the way millions of Americans secretly wished someone would?

It might have gone something like this:

We pick it up after the curly-haired senator from Kentucky has blathered on for about 15 minutes in his opening remarks.

SEN. RAND PAUL: In 2004, you said the benefits of immunology research outweigh the risks. Do you still believe that?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Do you still think the benefits outweigh the risks of having neighbors?

PAUL: Are you afraid to tell the truth?

FAUCI: I’ll tell it to Mitch McConnell.

PAUL: (exasperated) I yield to Senator Hawley.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY: What day of the week is it?

FAUCI: The Fifth.

HAWLEY: What color is your tie.

FAUCI: On advice of counsel, I’d rather not discuss haberdashery..
HAWLEY: What color is the carpet?

FAUCI: You would know better than I would. You spent a lot of time running on it a few years ago.

HAWLEY: I must yield to Sen. Scott from Florida.

SEN. RICK SCOTT: “To your knowledge, sir, did Bill Gates partner with China on sensitive research?” 

FAUCI: Senator, I think we’d both be better off if we skipped the healthcare résumés.

SCOTT: Uh, yeah, I yield to the Honorable John Kennedy of Louisiana. This should at least be entertaining.

SEN: TED CRUZ (raising his hand): I ask to be recognized.

PAUL: Everyone recognizes you, Ted.

CRUZ: I just wanted to apologize for being late. My flight from Cancun was delayed.

PAUL: You’re excused, Ted. Now go find your own committee. We were about to hear from Senator “There’s No F in This” Kennedy.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: Dr. Fauci, do you owe the American people an apology?

FAUCI: Do you apologize to nuns for suggesting people seek their advice about sex?

KENNEDY: This isn’t a comedy show, sir. Were you ever wrong?

FAUCI: Constantly. That’s why they call it research instead of religion.

KENNEDY: I yield to Senator Morono, er, Moreno from Ohio.

MORENO: Dr. Fauci, do you need a new car? Oh, wait, that’s for later. Where was I … oh, yes, I thought your six-foot rule was total crap.

FAUCI: Senator, are you saying there are never circumstances when you’d rather somebody stayed six feet away?

MORENO: This isn’t about my family, doctor. This is about re-litigating 2020. Who the F— did you think you were?

FAUCI: I thought I worked for Donald Trump. 

(Looks around the room.)

You gentlemen seem to think Donald Trump worked for me.

PAUL: That’s enough. This hearing is adjourned.

FAUCI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Oh, and Senator Hawley, I just remembered. The carpet is yellow. It’s not alone. 

(ChatGPT-5 contributed to this column and produced the illustration.) 

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I confess. I celebrated America’s 250th birthday in Mexico. Not very patriotic of me, I suppose, but it was a lot cooler. Both the weather and the political temperature.

At least we tried to bribe a mariachi band into playing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A”. They didn’t know it. We had to settle for “Sweet Caroline,” which all of the Americans in the Mexican restaurant knew by heart.

I doubt, though, that you really care that a former Ohio journalist spent his holiday out of the country. (At least I flew coach.)

You may care a little more about where someone asking Ohioans to elect him governor reportedly spent his.

According to The Rooster, a Columbus newsletter that has taken to tracking Vivek Ramaswamy’s private jet the way bird-watchers chase rare warblers, the candidate’s Bombardier Global 5500 left John Glenn Columbus International Airport at 10:20 on the night of July Fourth and landed at Paris-Le Bourget the following morning.

Or at least the airplane did.

We don’t actually know who was aboard.

Maybe FBI Director Kash Patel borrowed it for a quick champagne run, anticipating a U.S. victory after President Trump reinstated our soccer star. Who knows

Whatever happened, I can’t complain too loudly since I was out of the country myself.

Some people, however, think the optics matter. Cincinnati Enquirer guest columnist Nick Anderson argued the reported trip reflected the kind of detachment that enormous wealth like Ramswamy’s can produce.

Personally, I can’t understand why anyone would leave the Olentangy River for the Seine, though I’m not entirely sure even the natives know how to pronounce either one.

What does Paris have that Ohio doesn’t?

The French like Grey Poupon. Ohioans prefer Bertman’s Ballpark Mustard.

Advantage: Ohio.

Paris has Notre Dame. We have Big Butter Jesus. At least we had Him, until the 62-foot statue in Monroe, Ohio, was struck by lightning and destroyed in 2010. Notre Dame was almost destroyed, too, but has subsequently reopened. I guess God thought Big Butter was just too sacred to replace and rebuilt a steel structure, Hug Me Jesus, in its place.

You can cheer the dancers at the Folies Bergere in Paris, but is that really any comparison to following the follies at the Factory of Sadness in Cleveland, where the Browns turned the Can-Can into the Can’t-Can’t.

Paris has the Louvre, but Ohio has a legislature that treats ethics as an abstract art.

While the French have their haute couture, Ohio has the finest collection of Jim Jordan’s sweat-stained, short-sleeve shirts. You’ll have to wrestle those away from him, though.

And neither the French’s Chateaubriand nor that Cincinnati Skyline stuff vaguely resemble chili.

Truth be told, though, I’m glad I spent the Fourth in Cabo instead of Cleveland. I’d probably rather spend next year’s Fourth in Paris than Parma, too. Retirement comes with certain privileges.

Running for governor doesn’t.

When you’re asking 12 million Ohioans to hire you, every parade, every county fair, every VFW picnic, every church festival is more than another campaign stop. It’s your way of saying, These are my people. This is where I belong.

That’s why the issue isn’t whether Vivek Ramaswamy had the right to go to Paris – if he even did. (Photos show he attended at least one parade before his jet took off.) The issue is whether it was the right weekend to do it.

There are 364 perfectly good days each year to fall in love with Paris.

There is only one Fourth of July.

If you want to govern the Heart of It All, that’s when you ought to spend all weekend in the heart of it.

(Stuart Warner is a former editor at the Akron Beacon Journal, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the Arizona Republic. ChatGPT-5 contributed to the editing of this column.)

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By Stuart Warner

I was sitting at the end of the bar at our local hangout, not sure if I wanted another drink or a better explanation of the world.

My pal Wired Al InCognito dropped a folded packet between us.

“Don’t,” I said.

“You haven’t even looked at it.”

“I’ve looked at enough documents.”

He smiled. “That’s what you said about the last one.”

I opened it anyway.

Project 8626.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked.

“Friend of a friend of an enemy of a friend,” he smiled.

“Nope,” I said, starting to fold it back up. “We’re not getting worked up again like we did over Project 2025.”

“We didn’t do anything last time,” Al said. “We read it. Nobody else did.”

“So what’s this supposed to mean, anyway? The Republicans have a grand plan for the year 8626? I don’t think even Trump can live that long.”

Al shook his head. “Don’t you know what ‘86’ means, paisan? In mob movies, ‘86’ is slang for getting rid of someone – eliminating them.”

“I’ve seen The Godfather at least 10 times and Goodfellas five,” I said. “Don’t remember hearing  that number.”

“It’s not a number,” Al said. “It’s a command. Get rid of this mug. Eighty-six him.”

The bartender interrupted us. “Couldn’t help but overhear you guys. In restaurants, we use ‘86’ to mean we’re out of something – like fish, for example.”

“See,” Al said, grinning. “It means go sleep with the fishes.”

I couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “So the Republicans are going to get rid of the number 26.”

He glared at me. “The ’26 elections, dummy.”

That stopped me for a moment.

“Voting rights?” I said.

Al nodded. “You saw what the Supreme Court did this week.”

I started flipping through the document, stopping at a section titled “Getting Out the Vote.” It went on about how minorities and women shouldn’t have special voting rights. How race shouldn’t determine congressional district boundaries. How you should have to register under your name and sex assigned at birth. And maybe how we should even suspend primaries until their new rules are set.

“We used to talk about access for all,” I said.

“Back when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the point,” Al said.

“This feels different,” I said.

“How?”

“Less about getting people to vote,” I said. “More about making sure everything lines up once they do.”

Al raised his glass. “Now you’re getting it.”

I kept reading.

There was a section about authority. Another about providing security at the polls. Voter IDs to prevent rampant fraud.

“Funny thing,” I said.

“What?”

“There’s at least one justice up there who probably doesn’t get that robe if the Voting Rights Act doesn’t exist.”

“And he’s the loudest voice behind this,” Al said.

The tall, lanky guy two stools down gave a knowing laugh.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s not irony. That’s efficiency.”

I closed the packet halfway.

“This is the same playbook.”

Al shook his head. “No.”

“What?”

“It’s cleaner,” he said. “Less explaining. Besides, they’ve already done most of the stuff they said they’d do to us in the first one.”

“You’re saying this is the next version.”

“I’m saying they don’t need to write it all down anymore. The court is doing that for them.”

The guy two stools down raised his glass.

“You guys still think this is about stopping elections,” he said.

There was something about the way he said it – calm, precise – like he was used to being listened to.

“It’s not,” he said. “It’s about controlling everything around them.”

I turned to look at Al, as if to say, “Who is this guy.” Then I turned back.  The stranger was gone.  He glass was empty.

I stared at the packet, pushed it back across the bar toward Al.

“So what do we do?”

“Same as last time,” Al said.

“Which was?”

“Read it. Write it. Explain it.”

“And when nobody believes it because the president says he knows nothing about it?”

Al smiled.

“Then we’ll be right again later.”

We sat there watching the game, arguing about whether the digital umpire got that strike right.

“The people in Hungary showed us that voting still matters,” I said.

“Yeah? They realized what was at stake. Do we?”

“Maybe,” I said.

Al sat quietly for a moment. Then he looked back and me.  It was no joke this time when he said:

“If we don’t, democracy may be sleeping with the fishes.”

(Note: Project 8626 isn’t real.  Yet.  ChatGPT-5 assisted in writing this column.)

We need something to make us happy right now so I asked my digital pal Wired Al if we could collaborate on song that could get us tapping our toes. When oil starts moving and explanations start dancing, it’s usually time to listen to the music.

This week’s melody comes courtesy of calypso, a genre designed in places where power strutted in uninvited, taking what it wanted. That tradition runs straight through Harry Belafonte, whose cheerful songs were often about theft, betrayal and the kind of authority that laughs while picking your pocket.

Fast-forward to now, where foreign policy increasingly sounds like a real estate pitch delivered through a bullhorn. Venezuelan oil is rebranded as a strategic necessity. Greenland becomes a punch line that won’t die. Colombia and Mexico are name-checked the way middle managers talk about “synergy” – vaguely, loudly, and with complete confidence that someone else will clean it up. None of this is framed as conquest. It’s framed as leadership. Boss moves. Executive decisions made while the band plays on.

Which brings us to the song. Belafonte’s Matilda, which was a folk tale about a thief who ran off with the money. But theft, like everything else, has been promoted. Today it wears a suit, demands applause, and insists the chorus keep singing.

So sing along with Harry and Wired Al on the chorus of Boss Donald.

OPENING CHORUS

ALL (cheerful, loud):

Boss Donald … Boss Donald … Boss Donald
He take the oil and ran Venezuela.

Once again now!

Boss Donald …  Boss Donald … Boss Donald,
He take the oil and ran Venezuela

VERSE 1 — GOOD INTENTIONS

Five hundred slogans, friends, I lost:
“Energy freedom” – cheap words, high cost.

LEAD (grinning):
Boss Donald –

ALL:                                                         
He take the oil and ran Venezuela.

Everybody now ..

(Boss Donald!) Sing out the chorus!
(Boss Donald!) Sing a little louder!

ALL:
Boss Donald, he take the oil and ran Venezuela

VERSE 2 — EMPIRE SHOPPING

Well, the oil was to buy  “strength and pride,”
A house, a flag, a border wide.

Said, “Trust me, friends, I have a plan,”
Then waved a pen, said, “Watch out,  Iran.”

ALL:
Boss Donald, he take the oil and ran Venezuela

GREENLAND BREAK (classic calypso aside)

CROWD (shouting):
Can we have Greenland?

LEAD (matter-of-fact):
Not for sale.

ALL (right back to melody):
Boss Donald, he take the oil and ran Venezuela.

VERSE 3 — LEGAL MAGIC

Well, the oil was just inside our bed,
In “strategic reserves,” the lawyers said.

Buried deep in a footnote thread—
Stamped temporary, signed, unread.

LEAD:
Don’t you know—

ALL:
Boss Donald, he found the oil and…

EVERYBODY:
Ran Venezuela!

RHYTHM CHANT

(Boss Donald!) Oom-ba-locka-chimba!
(Boss Donald!) Bring me talking points!

Boss Donald, he take the oil and ran Venezuela

VERSE 4 — CONSEQUENCES, MINIMIZED

Well, me friends, never to ask again,
All me norms gone down the drain.

He may want Mexico, too.
Colombia: We’re watching you.

ALL:
Boss Donald, he take the oil and ran Venezuela

FINAL BUILD (soft → loud)

ALL (soft):
Boss Donald…
Boss Donald…
Boss Donald…

He take the oil and ran Venezuela.

Sing it softer now…

Boss Donald, Boss Donald, Boss Donald,
he take the oil and ran Venezuela

BIG FINISH

EVERYBODY (full voice):
Boss Donald ,… sing out the chorus!
Boss Donald, he take the oil and ran Venezuela!

CROWD (last shout):
Can we have Greenland?

LEAD
Still not for sale.

BAND CRASH. END.

Of course, you music historians know that calypso didn’t start as entertainment. It started as information, originating in Trinidad and Tobago in the 18th and 19th centuries among enslaved Africans. When colonial authorities banned drums and restricted speech, people did what humans always do under pressure: they found another channel. Rhythm replaced the drum. Melody replaced the shout. Lyrics carried news, warnings, insults and political commentary in plain sight, disguised as song.

And it’s appropriate today because Trinidad and Tobago are the southernmost Caribbean nations, just off the Venezuelan coast.

Perfectly placed to see empire coming before it arrived.

Boss Donald …  he take the oil and ran Venezuela.

(Chat GPT-5 produced the illustration and collaborated on the column.)

Melania’s gone missing, the plaster’s flying, and Rudy’s toupee never stood a chance.

By Al InCogito and Stuart Warner

WASHINGTON — The last time “Ballroom Blitz” blasted across America, Nixon was in the White House and polyester was a political statement. Now the song’s back  —  only this time, the ballroom’s real and the blitz is happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

They’re calling it “renovation,” but from where I’m standing it looks more like an East Wing Blitz. Bulldozers at dawn. Curtains flapping like surrender flags. One aide says the goal is “a return to traditional values.” Another says the gold leaf’s already on order.

Trump, beaming in a hard hat that matches his tie, shouts into the camera: “We’re gonna open this place up! Make room for the People’s Ballroom! Everyone’s invited — except, you know, the people.”

Somewhere a band starts tuning up. It’s not democracy’s funeral march; it’s Sweet’s glam-rock classic from 1973, revived for “Wayne’s World.” Only now the lyrics have changed.

East Wing Blitz

(to the tune of “Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet)

[Intro]
Are you ready, D.C.?
A-one, a-two, a-you-know-who!

[Verse 1 – The Demolition Man]
He’s wearin’ a hard hat, swingin’ his fists,
Yellin’, “I built it all, now I’m wreckin’ this!”
Reporters scatter as the marble cracks —
“Get the cameras rollin’, I’m takin’ it back!”

[Pre-Chorus]
And the crowd starts yellin’,
And the bricks start smellin’ of gilt and spray-tan mist —

[Chorus 1]
And the White House shakes! (shakes!)
And the Trump tape plays! (plays!)
And the MAGA hats catch the rays —
It’s the East Wing Blitz!
Yeah, the East Wing Blitz!

[Verse 2 – Melania Missing]
Well the dust starts flyin’ and the walls cave in,
There’s gold leaf glitterin’ in the wind,
Where’s the lady with the frozen grin?
She’s long gone-ya — Melania!

Packed her bags for Mar-a-Lago,
Left a note that said, “I told you so.”
Now the bulldozers roll in rows —
Say goodbye to the East Wing show!

[Pre-Chorus 2]
And the interns scatter,
And the chandeliers shatter,
And the Secret Service checks their lists —

[Chorus 2]
’Cause the walls all quake! (quake!)
And the spin can’t fake! (fake!)
And the headlines start to break —
It’s the East Wing Blitz!
Oh yeah, the East Wing Blitz!

[Bridge – Trump Solo Breakdown]
He says, “We’re renovatin’ bigly, folks, it’s art!”
(“Sir, that’s a historical part …”)
“Fake news! I own this place, okay?”
Then the ceiling falls on Rudy’s toupee.

[Final Chorus & Tag]
And the press corps shakes! (shakes!)
And the truth outrakes! (aches!)
While the band keeps playin’ his greatest mistakes —
It’s the East Wing Blitz!
The East Wing Blitz!

Yeah, the plaster flies, the columns split —
Has anybody seen Melania yet?
(Has anybody seen Melania yet?)
It’s the East Wing Blitz!
The East Wing Blitz!

When the amps fade, the rubble still smolders and the nation hums the chorus under its breath. Another day, another building down, another slogan up.  And somewhere behind the caution tape, a lone staffer whispers the only truth that fits the rhythm:

“Democracy isn’t dead — it’s just under renovation.”