Dr. Anthony Fauci was featured on the cover of the new Time Magazine issue listing the "Time 100" most influential people, as announced late Tuesday evening, and he spent Wednesday morning using the expertise that got him on that cover to deliver a devastating takedown of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Jimmy Kimmel wrote the Time 100 entry for Fauci, praising him because he "doesn’t sugarcoat his words and refuses to be pressured by politicians." 

Paul probably wishes now that Fauci were a little more inclined to sugarcoat things, after a brutal segment of a Senate committee hearing featuring several key members of the White House coronavirus task force. 

The senator asked Fauci several questions about the death rates in Sweden and New York, and suggested that herd immunity had been reached in New York and the economic shutdown measures were unnecessary, among other issues he brought up. 

Fauci systematically tore Paul's questions apart, saying he got his facts wrong on nearly every topic he mentioned. 

“You’ve misconstrued that, senator, and you’ve done that repetitively in the past,” Fauci said about the New York death rate. Fauci was even more emphatic in swatting down Paul's assertion about herd immunity in New York. 

“I challenge that, senator,” Fauci replied, adding that "this happens with Senator Rand all the time" and accusing him of "not listening." 

America's pandemic response has become unfortunately overpoliticized, and that's unlikely to improve with the Nov. 3rd elections looming, but it was still a breath of fresh air to watch Fauci push back on some of the misrepresentations being promoted about this virus on live television.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi defended 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse as both a “little boy” and “this kid” during an appearance on Fox’s Hannity, clearly trying to evoke sympathy for the suspect charged with two murders and injuring another during a violent night in Kenosha, Wisconsin last month.

Bondi, who launched her political career as a prosecutor in the Tampa area, also promoted a false narrative that Rittenhouse was simply "protecting his community."

“People have to understand out there, that was a war zone. You have got a 17-year-old out there trying to protect his state,” Bondi said, even though Rittenhouse was, in fact, not from Kenosha and did not even live in Wisconsin. He had been driven into that city from his home in northern Illinois.

“This kid was out there trying to help people. Were people killed? Absolutely,” Bondi conceded. “But again, we don’t know yet. You’ve got a little boy out there trying to protect his community. Should he have been out there with a gun? No. But should he have been charged with murder? We just don’t know yet."

Bondi was joined in her defense of Rittenhouse by other Fox News personalities, including Judge Jeanine Pirro, who called him an "all-American" and "innocent" who was "trying to just make sure his town is safe" -- again, Kenosha was not his town. 

Obviously, Rittenhouse is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but the fact remains that he decided to pick up a large gun and cross state lines to insert himself into an unstable and rapidly evolving situation. It wasn't his neighborhood, it wasn't even his state, and in no case did anyone need armed teenagers to come into Kenosha.

 Bondi and her Fox News colleagues' misrepresentation of the facts does the cause of justice no favors and only contributes to the divisive atmosphere rampant in modern American politics.