"Evidence that COVID came from a Chinese lab mounted toward a conclusive level last week: Multiple government sources' say the very first people infected by the bug were Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers, a new report reveals.

More, they were allegedly modifying a close relative of the virus with a key feature unique to it.

The report -- by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag, posted on the outlet Public -- names Ben Hu, Yu Ping and Yan Zhu as WIV scientists who developed COVID symptoms as early as November 2019, a month before the world even heard of the outbreak, and who now appear to be 'patients zero.'

A source said officials were '100%' certain these three were the ones who developed the symptoms."

Read the entire article here.

"According to news reports, Biden is prepared to authorize billions of dollars in payments to Iran in exchange for the release of U.S. prisoners, a halt to militia attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, a moratorium on ballistic missile sales to Russia, and a freeze on uranium enrichment at 60 percent (90 percent enriched uranium is considered weapons-grade). Biden will say this perverse arrangement is necessary to free innocents and prevent the outbreak of war. What he won't be able to do is call it a deal.

"Biden can't call the agreement a deal because he wants to avoid congressional review. The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 forbids the president from relieving nuclear-related sanctions on the Islamic Republic without congressional approval. The administration's end-run around the law is clever. It is also pathetic.

"This deal that dare not speak its name will have no force. It will rely entirely on the goodwill of the 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a grizzled trickster and ally of Vladimir Putin. The New York Times reports that Khamenei has authorized the deal because it leaves Iran's nuclear infrastructure in place. The second Biden begins to doubt the wisdom of paying further ransom money, Khamenei will start spinning his centrifuges once more. And if paramilitaries controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fire mortars on Americans -- well, he could say the bloodshed came from militants over whom he exercises no control."

Read the entire article here.

"Medicaid emergency spending for illegal immigrants more than doubled from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2021, according to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green.

During a congressional hearing Wednesday on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' job performance, Green said more people have entered the U.S. illegally under his roughly two-year tenure 'than in the 12 years of the Obama and Trump administrations combined.' ...

The Tennessee Republican said that Medicaid spending on emergency medical services for illegal immigrants went from roughly $3 billion in fiscal year 2020 to over $7 billion in fiscal year 2021."

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"President Joe Biden loves to brag about the masterful job he's doing managing the nation's economy, as he did on Tuesday when cheering the latest inflation news -- which saw food prices up almost 7% from last year -- and 'our historic economic progress.'

"The day before that, the Treasury Department released its monthly financial statement, which shows that the federal deficit for this fiscal year has already topped $1 trillion and that a big factor behind this is a sharp reduction in federal tax revenues from last year.

"Wait, you say. If the economy is 'strong' and 'historic' as Biden claims, why are revenues cratering and deficits exploding?"

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"Owning a home has long been seen as a pillar of the American dream. But a new report highlights just how far many Americans remain from achieving it.

"Middle-income households, or those with annual earnings of up to $75,000, can afford only 23% of the homes listed for sale in the U.S., according to recent data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In a more balanced market, almost half of listings should be affordable to buyers of average income, the group said.

"In fact, the housing market has a deficit of about 320,000 affordable homes, NAR found, which for moderate-income families ranges up to about $256,000. The median price for all homes is $388,000."

Read the entire article here.

"There he goes again, again! The 'he' is President Joe Biden. At 1 pm today, the Wall Street Journal posted a new Biden op-ed piece on the economy, and it's chock-full of Pinocchios and other related untruths, as per usual.

"The one I want to tackle, first and really foremost, is his assertion that, since he took office, our economy has somehow created more than 13 million jobs. This is a gigantic cherry-picked exaggeration. The vast bulk of those jobs were COVID replacement, not new jobs. That's point number one.

"Point number two: If you look at the broadest measure of employment, which is total civilian employment, the household survey, adjusted for population changes, that number through May is 160.7 million jobs. Now, pre-pandemic in January 2020, that number was 159.6 million. So, actually, the household employment gain is a grand total of 1.1 million from the pre-COVID baseline, which means, in effect, Mr. Biden hadn't created any new jobs at all."

Read the enitre article here.

"The exodus from high-tax states continues.

"A growing number of Americans are migrating from predominantly blue states with steep taxes like California and New York to red states with lower taxes like Florida and Texas, according to a Bank of America analyst note that is based on aggregated and anonymous internal customer data.

"'We constructed near real-time estimates of domestic migration flows and found that pandemic migration trends are not reversing,' the analysis said. Since the first quarter of 2023, the data 'suggests that cities that saw a large influx of people during the pandemic have still been growing faster than other cities in recent quarters.' ...

"'This population shift paints a clear picture,' said Janelle Fritts, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. 'People left high-tax, high-cost states for lower-tax, lower-cost alternatives.'"

Read the entire article here.

"By now, much of the country has heard or read about the City University of New York law school graduate who was allowed to unspool a spiteful tirade as the school's commencement speaker. She made a number of vile statements, but her call to 'fight against capitalism' stood out to us. She and her fellow travelers know what few casual observers are aware of, that is, an attack on capitalism is an attack on liberty.

"Condemning capitalism is nothing new in this country. We've heard the angry criticisms all of our lives, and they weren't novel when we were young. It's tragic, really, that so many in the West see the tension between 'capitalists' and their ideological opponents as merely a conflict between ideas about which economic system we should have.

"But it's more than that. It's a battle between freedom and subjugation."

Read the entire article here.

"While left-wing attacks on the Supreme Court continue, the justices demonstrated again last week that simple partisan categories cannot explain their work. In Tyler v. Hennepin County, the court unanimously agreed that the right to property continues even when the government seizes land to recover a tax debt.

"Even with a court sharply divided over questions of race, religion and government power, the justices came together to re-affirm the most basic of constitutional freedoms.

"Tyler was another case that pitted an individual property owner against a government Leviathan."

Read the entire article here.

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday dealt another setback to organized labor by making it easier for employers to sue over strikes that cause property destruction in a ruling siding with a concrete business in Washington state that sued the union representing its truck drivers after a work stoppage.

"The 8-1 decision overturned a lower court's ruling that said the lawsuit filed by Glacier Northwest Inc, which sells and delivers ready-mix concrete, against a local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was preempted by a U.S. law called the National Labor Relations Act. Glacier Northwest is a unit of Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement Corp.

"Glacier Northwest filed a lawsuit in Washington state court accusing the union of intentional property destruction during a 2017 strike.

"A group of drivers went on strike while their mixing trucks were filled with concrete. Although the drivers kept their mixing drums rotating to delay the concrete from hardening and damaging the vehicles, the company was forced to discard the unused product at a financial loss."

Read the entire article here.