The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the global coronavirus pandemic was most likely the result of a leak from a Chinese laboratory, thus putting to rest all claims that this theory amounted to a right-wing conspiracy.
They revealed this conclusion in a classified intelligence report given to the White House and congressional leaders, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Conservatives, including Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, have long pointed to circumstances that suggest a lab-leak, including:
- Warnings to colleagues from Dr. Li Wenliang, a Chinese whistleblower, who police later silenced
- China’s claims that it originated in a “wet market” located in the same city that houses the Wuhan Institute of Virology
- Beliefs from some experts that COVID-19 had the characteristics of a genetically-altered virus
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., responded to the news with a call for Congress to act.
"The American people deserve the full truth about #covid origins," the Missouri Republican tweeted.
"No more whitewash. I will again introduce legislation to make the US government’s intelligence reports on covid open to the people."
That, as they say, is a pretty good start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
After the government in Beijing realized that COVID-19 had escaped from the laboratory, it totally locked down all domestic travel to and from Wuhan, but still permitted international traffic in and out of the city.
In other words they did all they could to protect their own citizens while allowing the disease to spread throughout the rest of the world.
In legal terms this may be called malice aforethought: The premeditated and deliberate commission of a criminal act with knowledge of its harmfulness or reckless indifference to its harmfulness and without justification or excuse.
Former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro believed at the time that China’s early actions were responsible for its spread beyond its original area of infection.
"I think there needs to be a national discussion, has to be bipartisan . . . about compensatory damages by a country that inflicted this pandemic on the world," said Navarro, a frequent Newsmax TV contributor.
He wouldn’t suggest any specific damages, claiming "That’s above my pay grade."
So here’s a suggestion.
The Chinese Communist government should have to pay where it hurts — its treasury and its influence around the world, beginning right here in the United States.
As of 2020, Chinese nationals had acquired at least 338,000 acres of U.S. farmland, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some of that property is situated near military bases or otherwise sensitive areas, according to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
"Just last year we saw a Chinese entity purchase land near an Air Force Base in North Dakota," the Republican governor said.
"Though they claimed it was for corn processing, there is not enough corn nearby to justify the facility. So, it appears to be more nefarious."
The United States should consider confiscating every square inch of those 338,000 acres and reselling them — at fire sale prices — to a population that’s become something of a rarity in recent years: the family farmer.
But people like Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who’s also been acquiring large swaths of farmland, need not apply.
Globally, China has been investing heavily in the infrastructure of more than 150 countries in a program founded by President Xi Jinping called the Belt and Road Initiative.
Maybe the time has come for those countries to take over those projects and then kick the commies out — they don’t need China’s friendship and political influence.
This may seem extreme for what was probably an accidental release of the virus — there’s no evidence suggesting it was intentional.
But their sin wasn’t the release; it lay in the coverup, in not warning the rest of the world after they realized something had gone deadly wrong.
Whatever penalty the United States and the rest of the world inflicts, it has to be harsh and extreme enough to assure that the Chinese Communist Party will never do anything like this again.
They have to pay.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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