Today is Sunday, February 26, 2023. For those who are still wondering how COVID-19 escaped from China, a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has stipulated that the virus most likely came from a laboratory leak in China, not from natural sources as was originally claimed, according to a newly updated classified intelligence report. This new assessment from the DOE is covered in an online article for CNN by Jeremy Herb and Natasha Bertrand entitled “US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin.” There is no definitive proof even of how the pandemic actually originated, so this new report should be taken with a grain of salt, as the expression goes.

Two sources said that the DOE assessed in the intelligence report that it had “low confidence” the COVID-19 virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan. “Intelligence agencies can make assessments with either low, medium, or high confidence. A low confidence assessment generally means that the information obtained is not reliable enough to make a definitive analytic judgment or that there is enough information to draw a more robust conclusion. ”

The latest assessment further adds to the divide in the U.S. government over whether the COVID-19 pandemic began in China in 2019 as the result of a lab leak or whether it emerged naturally. The various intelligence agencies themselves have been split on the matter for years. In 2021, the intelligence community declassified a report that showed four agencies in the intelligence community had assessed with low confidence that the virus likely jumped from animals to humans naturally in the wild, while one assessed with moderate confidence that the pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident. Thus there is no agreement among these agencies as to the origin of the virus in China.

The Wall Street Journal was the first publication to report on the new assessment from the DOE. A senior U.S. intelligence official told the Journal that the update to the intelligence assessment was conducted in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature, and in consultation with experts outside government.

This latest report was provided to Congress as Republicans on Capitol Hill have been pushing for further investigation into the lab leak theory, while accusing the Biden administration of playing down its possibility.

Already one repugnican, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul (R-TX), has seized on the report’s “low confidence” rating as proof of the virus escaping from a lab in Wuhan.

Providing blowback against this push by McCaul and other repugnicans to definitely blame China for causing the pandemic, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” today that the intelligence community remains divided on the issue, while noting that President Biden has put resources into getting to the bottom of the origin question. He said this to CNN’s Dana Bash, “Right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question. Some elements of the intelligence community its have reached conclusions on one side, some on the other. A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information to be sure.”

As early as May 2020, it was posited that the coronavirus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. At that time, this line of inquiry was considered taboo. The United States did begin exploring the possibility that COVID-19 spread in a laboratory as early as April 2020, though the intelligence community has noted repeatedly that a lack of cooperation from Beijing has made it difficult to get to the bottom of the matter.

So it is by no means proven from today’s release of this new report from the DOE that the recent pandemic originated in a laboratory in Wuhan. That won’t stop repugnicans from issuing a hue and a cry over this somehow substantiating this theory.

What we certainly know to be true is how preposterous Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is. Her latest outrage of proposing a “national divorce” between blue and red states is just profoundly un-American in its scope. I affirm instead that this country should get a divorce from her and ignore her many lamebrain pronouncements. I truly believe that Greene just basks in her tomfoolery and only desires to just upset the apple cart for the massive publicity it garners her. This proposal of hers is really an un-Constitutional notion and shame on a member of Congress like this bimbo who proposes such an affront to American principles. As Bob Cesca from The Banter brilliantly points out in his article on this very matter called “Oh Secession Shmacession,” “secession is the most extreme rejection of all things American – the very suggestion of it should be defined as profoundly unpatriotic.” Thus he urges that Greene and anyone else who endorses such a proposal should be loudly and strongly flayed with condemnation from the rest of us. Many commentators and politicians are doing precisely that.

Stay safe and be well.