What’s Important
Dr. Fauci’s Emails Reveal Lab Leak Plausible from the Start: Recently released emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci show that the scientific community expressed concerns the virus was not naturally occurring as early as February 2020. Top House Republicans are calling for Dr. Fauci to testify.
Scalise Leads House Republicans in Calling on Democrats to Investigate COVID-19 Origins: Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) and over 200 members of the Republican Conference recently called on Speaker Pelosi to direct her committee chairs to join House Republicans in investigating the origins of COVID-19.
House Democrats Refuse to Confront China and Investigate COVID-19 Origins: Despite mounting evidence showing COVID-19 originated from the Wuhan lab, House Democrats are continuing to refuse to investigate the origins of COVID-19.
Relief Radar
Republican Governors Leading on Getting Americans Back to Work: Republican Governors Leading on Getting Americans Back to Work: While Democrats are focused on paying Americans to stay at home rather than going back to work, 25 Republican-led states are cutting off enhanced unemployment benefits that discourage Americans from going back to work. The extra $300 a week on top of regular unemployment benefits is set to expire in September, but President Biden’s budget proposes to extend it, even as there are millions of jobs available and the pandemic is coming to an end.
Crisis Corner
House Democrats Refuse to Confront China and Investigate COVID-19 Origins: Mounting evidence shows COVID-19 originated from the Wuhan lab but Democrats are continuing to refuse to investigate the origins of COVID-19 and have not held a single hearing. Recently released emails from Dr. Anthony Fauci show that the scientific community expressed concerns the virus was not naturally occurring as early as February 2020. House Republicans have repeatedly called on the House Democrat majority to investigate COVID-19 origins. How COVID-19 originated is one of the most pressing questions and the American people deserve answers.
Biden Blunders
Biden Administration Shut Down COVID-19 Origins Investigation Only to Restart It: It was recently reported the Biden Administration shut down the U.S. Department of State’s investigation into the possibility of COVID-19 originating from the Wuhan lab earlier this year. However, President Biden has now directed his administration to investigate the origins of COVID-19. What’s changed?
Biden Budget Sends Taxpayer Dollars to WHO: Recently, President Biden unveiled his administration’s budget for Fiscal Year 2022 and it includes $124 million in funding for the World Health Organization (WHO). From the start of the pandemic, America has paid too-high a price for China’s lies and the WHO’s complicity. The WHO shielded China from accountability for lying to the world and trying to cover up the origins of the coronavirus. The WHO even allowed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to manipulate its COVID origins report. No organization should receive American taxpayer dollars that refuses to tell the truth and is unaccountable to the nations it serves.
This Week in SSOCC
Scalise & Comer Call for Dr. Fauci to Testify: In light of Dr. Fauci’s recently released emails, Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) renewed their request to Democrat leadership on both panels to investigate the origins of COVID-19 and called for Dr. Fauci to testify. This letter follows a previous request from Scalise and Comer for Democrats to investigate COVID-19 origins, but Democrats have refused.
Scalise Leads 200 Republicans in Calling on Democrats to Investigate COVID-19 Origins: Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Scalise and over 200 members of the Republican Conference recently called on Speaker Pelosi to direct her committee chairs to join House Republicans in investigating the origins of COVID-19. It has been nearly 18 months since COVID-19 emerged from Wuhan, China, and House Democrats have not held a single hearing on the origins of the COVID-19 despite House Republicans asking numerous times for congressional investigatory resources be devoted to examining the claims that the pandemic started in a Chinese lab, and the CCP covered it up.
What They’re Saying
Scalise, Comer say Fauci must testify about published emails, COVID-19 origin (Fox News)
“House Republican Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who serves as the top Republican on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and House Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer, R-Ky., penned a letter to top Democrats on the committees, Chairman James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., saying it is ‘imperative’ that Fauci appear before the committees. Scalise and Comer wrote that Fauci’s emails, which were released through a Freedom of Information Act filing this week, ‘debunk many Democrats’ claims from the past year,’ including that he and other scientists were ‘‘muzzled’ by the Trump administration. ‘More importantly, the emails contain new evidence regarding the origins of COVID-19, including the possibility it leaked from a U.S. taxpayer funded laboratory,’ they wrote.”
“House Republican Whip Steve Scalise and more than 200 House Republicans called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to direct committee chairs to investigate the origins of COVID-19 and devote congressional investigatory resources to examining claims that the novel coronavirus pandemic stemmed from a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that the Chinese Communist Party “covered it up.” Scalise, R-La., the top Republican on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, in a letter to Pelosi, D-Calif., exclusively obtained by Fox News, said House Democrats have not held “a single hearing” on the origins of COVID-19 despite House Republicans’ numerous requests for investigation.”
House Judiciary, Oversight Republicans launch investigation into NIH Wuhan lab grant (Fox News)
“Republicans on the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on Friday launched an investigation into a National Institutes of Health grant awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, which they say awarded taxpayer funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China to study the risk that bat coronaviruses could infect humans. House Oversight Committee Ranking Member James Comer, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote that there has been ‘mounting evidence the COVID-19 pandemic started in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Communist Party covered it up.’ In a letter, exclusively obtained by Fox News, written to Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Comer and Jordan raised concerns that EcoHealth Alliance knew of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to cover-up the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and failed to act or to inform the U.S. government.”
Bret Stephens: Media Groupthink and the Lab-Leak Theory (New York Times Opinion)
“If it turns out that the Covid pandemic was caused by a leak from a lab in Wuhan, China, it will rank among the greatest scientific scandals in history: dangerous research, possibly involving ethically dubious techniques that make viruses more dangerous, carried out in a poorly safeguarded facility, thuggishly covered up by a regime more interested in propaganda than human life, catastrophic for the entire world. But this possible scandal, which is as yet unproved, obscures an actual scandal, which remains to be digested. I mean the long refusal by too many media gatekeepers (social as well as mainstream) to take the lab-leak theory seriously. The reasons for this — rank partisanship and credulous reporting — and the methods by which it was enforced — censorship and vilification — are reminders that sometimes the most destructive enemies of science can be those who claim to speak in its name.”
Far-reaching economic effects of school closures (Axios)
“The long-term economic cost of school closures could reach into the trillions, according to a paper released this week. Beyond the direct health damage caused by COVID-19, no other area will have as far-reaching impact as pandemic-driven school closures. Researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania calculated that learning loss from school closures will reduce U.S. GDP by 3.6% and hourly wages by 3.5% by 2050. That’s a result of lowered labor productivity in the workers of tomorrow due both to disrupted education and the generally inferior substitution of remote learning, especially as it was practiced during the pandemic.”
Member Mention
House Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) calls for Dr. Fauci to testify before Congress.
