The “lab leak” hypothesis has never looked more credible. If the virus did escape from a lab in Wuhan, then the Chinese regime owes the world at least $35 trillion in compensation.

That’s according to Christian Whiton, a man who previously served both George W. Bush and Donald Trump. With the greatest of respect to Mr. Whiton, my father owes me “compensation” in the form of at least eight, if not nine, birthday presents, but he will never cough up (Dad, if you’re reading this, my apologies); the same, I argue, can be said for China.

Now, before I am accused of being facetious, remember this is the Chinese regime we are dealing with. For more than 18 months, the regime has lied repeatedly. At the time of writing this piece, more than 4.33 million people have lost their lives to the virus.

Instead of offering answers and agreeing to cooperate with further investigations, the Chinese regime has opted to double down on its lies. The virus, according to Beijing, likely originated in the United States, not Wuhan. This is the level of dishonesty and depravity we are dealing with here. If we can’t get one honest answer, how are we ever going to get $35 trillion worth of compensation?

In Whiton’s defense, he admits that the chances of receiving compensation are non-existent. As for the actual sum of $35 trillion, Whiton writes, although it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to put a “number on human suffering, let’s say that China should pay $5 million for every life it may have extinguished.” Now, let’s say 7 million people, in total, lose their lives “before the pandemic ends,” then the Chinese regime finds itself “on the hook for $35 trillion in damages.” With 7 million people dead, though, who, one wonders, would actually be compensated? “Their loved ones, obviously,” some will inevitably shout. But what if the deceased had no loved ones? Also, what about survivors with long-term COVID, or the people who lost homes, jobs, and business? Surely, they also deserve to be compensated. . .  .

Old COVID narrative = A “Delta Variant” transmissible regardless of vaccinated status, but presumably with the vaccine you won’t get as sick… or so they say.  However, not content with the vaccine results so far….

…Now we get the new COVID narrative – A “Lambda Variant” that is not only infectious and transmissible regardless of vaccinated status (just like Delta), but the Lambda Variant is also resistant to any antiviral immunity, meaning the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t work against it.

New York Post – As the US struggles to suppress the rapidly advancing coronavirus Delta variant, new evidence has emerged that the latest Lambda mutation — ravaging parts of South America — won’t be slowed by vaccines.

In a July 28 report appearing on bioRxiv, where the study awaits peer review prior to getting published, researchers in Japan are sounding the alarm on the C.37 variant, dubbed Lambda. And it’s proven just as virulent as Delta thanks to a similar mutation making them even more contagious.

The strain has been contained in 26 countries, including substantial outbreaks in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Ecuador.

“Notably, the vaccination rate in Chile is relatively high; the percentage of the people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine was [about] 60%,” the authors write.

“Nevertheless, a big COVID-19 surge has occurred in Chile in Spring 2021, suggesting that the Lambda variant is proficient in escaping from the antiviral immunity elicited by vaccination,” they warn.  […] “In addition to increasing viral infectivity, the Delta variant exhibits higher resistance to the vaccine-induced neutralization,” the authors said. “Similarly, here we showed that the Lambda variant equips not only increased infectivity but also resistance against antiviral immunity.” (read more)

Despite the Lambda variant coming from South and Central America, the Biden administration is keeping the U.S. Southern border open specifically to entice, well, Southern and Central American migrants… Huh, go figure.

If you are cynically thinking this sounds suspiciously like a new “mid-term 2022 lockdown and mail-in ballot variant“… well, you would not be alone.

These folks are nothing, if not predictable. . . .

A New Jersey inmate allegedly shot and killed an 18-year-old man two days after he was released from prison due to concerns over COVID-19, NJ.com reported.

Convicted burglar Jerry Crawford, 25, was released on parole on Nov. 4, 2020, the New Jersey Department of Corrections told NJ.com, as part of an effort to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus in the state’s prisons. The state let out over 2,000 inmates in November 2020 due to rising deaths and infections in its penitentiary system.

Crawford, along with Yusuf Waites, 23, was charged on July 23 for shooting and killing David Scarborough in Bridgeton, New Jersey on Nov. 6, 2020, two days after he was released from prison. Waites had been released from prison on Oct. 10, less than a month before the murder, according to NJ.com. . . .

Former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan says President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released potentially 40,000 coronavirus-positive illegal aliens into the United States.

Morgan, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said during a press call that “there’s an enormous amount of facts that this administration is willingly and knowingly releasing illegal aliens into border towns and cities with individuals actively carrying and transmitting the virus.”

Specifically, Morgan said the administration has released upwards of 170,000 border crossers and another roughly 100,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) into the U.S. since January 20.

Based on conservative estimates of reported coronavirus positivity rates among border crossers, Morgan said the Biden administration has potentially released tens of thousands of coronavirus-positive border crossers into the U.S:

At a 15 percent positive rate, being conservative, that’s more than 40,000 positive-covid cases that have been released into the United States and that is just the cases that we know about from those who have been tested. And we know that everybody being released, they’re not being tested. We know that. We’ve heard story after story.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas is directing the release of up to 80 percent of families who have illegally entered the United States … so Border Patrol apprehends a family and they’re releasing them as fast as they possibly can into local communities. [Emphasis added]

When a family is released into local communities, DHS is not testing them … so what’s DHS Secretary Mayorkas’ solution to all of this? ‘Eh, it’s up to the local communities to deal with it. It’s your issue and your problem to deal with now.’ [Emphasis added] . . .

Some European countries are now making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory, requiring vaccine passports to access basic services. Reporting by Joanne Robson . . .

Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Martin Kulldorf says that the Delta Variant of COVID-19 is not something to be worried about, saying that while cases are going up, deaths are continuing to go down because of vaccinations and natural immunity. He says that lockdowns are not the answer and in fact may cause more collateral damage.

[ Epoch TV ]

Correction, Aug. 12, 2021: An earlier version of this story overstated the number of children who have been hospitalized in Texas recently with COVID-19. The story said over 5,800 children had been hospitalized during a seven-day period in August, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number correctly referred to children hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began. In actuality, 783 children were admitted to Texas hospitals with COVID-19 between July 1 and Aug. 9 of this year. Texas children and children’s hospitals are under siege from two viruses: RSV and COVID-19

[ Texas Tribune Corrections ]

Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich has been applying “tremendous pressure” on the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) to withdraw its support for conscientious objection to receiving a coronavirus vaccine, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported Wednesday.

On condition of anonymity, one NCBC board member said Cupich has been “leaning hard” on board members, both bishops and laypersons, to throw their support behind a vaccine mandate.

In early July, the NCBC declared it “does not endorse mandated COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] immunization,” referencing a 2020 instruction from the Vatican’s doctrinal office (CDF) that “vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.”

“The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) does not endorse mandated COVID-19 immunization with any of the three vaccines that have received Emergency Use Authorization as of July 1, 2021,” the statement read.

“The most authoritative guidance from the Catholic Church issued on this topic comes from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and emphasizes that individuals must discern whether to be vaccinated or not in conscience and without coercion,” it added.

“The short answer is we don’t have a moral obligation” to get the vaccine, Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann told Catholic News Service (CNS) in an interview last February, but it is “permissible to use these vaccines.”

In order for a particular vaccine to be morally mandatory, a number of conditions must exist, including the irrefutable lethality of the disease, proven effectiveness of the vaccine as well as its guaranteed safety for recipients, and an absence of moral objections to the vaccine itself and its provenance.

None of these conditions have been definitively met in the case of the coronavirus and the various vaccines created to defend against it.

Audrey Strauss, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced on Wednesday in a statement, that Sheng-Wen Cheng, a CEO of a financial technology company has been sentenced to 6 years in prison for fraudulently obtaining $7 million in government loans intended to provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as for securities fraud.

Cheng, a/k/a “Justin Cheng” or “Justin Jung” applied in 2020 to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and other financial institutions under other people’s names for a total of over $7 million of government-guaranteed loans designed for small business owners impacted by lockdowns and restrictions due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party virus pandemic.

To mitigate the financial difficulties suffered by businesses, Congress passed a $2.2 trillion rescue package also known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), which provided loans for business owners to use for paying their workers and keeping them employed during lockdowns, among other benefits.

These loans had attractive features such as forgiveness of up to eight weeks of payroll based on employee retention and salary levels, no SBA fees, and their repayment could be deferred for a period of six months to a year. However, the amount of granted loans was determined by the number of workers employed by the business and their payroll cost.

In order to receive this type of loan, Cheng, 24 of New York City, who controlled several Fintech companies provided falsified information claiming that other individuals were the sole owners of his companies, the statement said. He also stated in loan applications that his companies employed together over 200 workers to whom he paid in total about $1.5 million in wages per month. To prove that, Cheng submitted falsified tax records that had not been filed with the IRS and payroll records with forged signatures.

All of Cheng’s companies employed a total of no more than 14 employees, the statement said. His false payroll records included names of celebrities, athletes, artists, and public figures, such as a co-anchor of a TV show, a former football player, or a deceased coach.

With the funds obtained through defrauding his lenders, Cheng purchased luxury goods or services for his personal use such as renting and furnishing a luxury condominium instead of directing them to cover payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent, or utilities of his companies as required by the CARES Act, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

In addition to misusing COVID-19 relief loans, Cheng committed investment fraud between 2017 and 2019, the statement said. . . .