Think More: Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Fauci's diary and the North Carolina school delay, Chinese hacking platforms seized, Hawley's Flock investigation, and Plato's cave.
Lead · The Diary and the Damage
Fauci Told Roy Cooper to Wait. Two Days Later, North Carolina’s Schools Stayed Closed.
Andrew Kerr | Washington Free Beacon
Anthony Fauci’s private diary records a 45-minute call on June 29, 2020, in which Roy Cooper agonized over reopening North Carolina’s schools and Fauci recommended a two-week wait. Cooper announced the delay two days later without saying why. More than 70% of the state’s 1.5 million public school students began that year fully remote. He is now running for Senate.
The Diary and the Damage
One Diary Entry Shows Fauci Watching a Colleague’s Ouster and Thinking Only of Himself
A Federalist essay reads the April 22, 2020, diary entry on Rick Bright’s removal from BARDA as evidence that Fauci’s concern ran no further than Fauci. Bright’s whistleblower complaint named others and left Fauci out. Robert Kadlec and his staff were cleared, after an investigation that ran roughly five years.
Who Is Watching
Justice Seizes Two Chinese Platforms Used to Hack NASA, the Fed, and the Senate
Kevin Killough | Just the News
The Justice Department seized the domains behind QScan and QTRouter, platforms it says a Nanjing-based firm built to mask the origin of state-sponsored intrusions. Victims include NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Energy Department, the National Institutes of Health, and the Senate. Court filings say the operators sold hacking services to China’s Ministry of State Security.
Hawley Opens a Senate Investigation Into Flock’s 120,000 Surveillance Cameras
Josh Hawley, who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on crime and counterterrorism, is demanding documents from Flock Safety on how its license-plate camera data is collected, kept, and shared. Congress, he wrote, “never authorized the network your industry has built.” Flock says its cameras have aided roughly one million investigations. Hawley can seek a subpoena if the company balks.
Shadows on the Wall
Plato’s Cave Explains Why the Political Class Misreads the Country
Scott Rasmussen argues in Lyceum that the political ten percent live among shadows: news cycles, social media firestorms, and low-turnout results they mistake for the country. On the WNBA eligibility fight, 59% of daily politics talkers followed closely, against 4% of everyone else. Plato’s prisoners refused correction, and Rasmussen finds the same resistance today.
A Plurality Calls Democratic Socialists a Threat to the Founding Ideals
Napolitan News Service | napolitannews.org
A Napolitan News survey finds 44% of voters say Democratic Socialists threaten America’s founding ideals of freedom, equality, and self-governance, while 35% disagree and 21% are unsure. Only 47% claim to know what the term means. Government employees are the one measured employment group that rejects the threat framing, 56% to 26%.
Voters on the Democratic Socialists: Napolitan News Service, published August 26
44%
Say they threaten the founding ideals
35%
Say they do not
47%
Claim to know what the term means
Self-Government in Practice
Hillsdale Gives Away a K-12 History Curriculum Built on the Declaration
Kathleen O’Toole | The American Mind
Kathleen O’Toole, who runs K-12 education at Hillsdale, describes the college’s relaunched history and civics curriculum, free to any teacher and built around the Declaration. Students cover the American story four times across their school years, deepening each pass. It arrives after a national assessment found 22% of eighth graders proficient in civics.
Hinderaker Reads the Mail-In Ballot Ruling as Smaller Than Either Side Claims
The Supreme Court stayed a district court injunction against Trump’s election security order, holding that the plaintiff states lacked standing because the provisions impose nothing on them. John Hinderaker walks through what the order actually does: citizenship lists, prosecution priorities, and a proposed Postal Service rulemaking. Gavin Newsom vowed to sue again. Little of it can reach the midterms.
