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The possibility of U.S. lockdowns—never attempted on this scale in the history of pandemics—was already in the air in early March 2020. The theory of lockdown had been floating around for 15 years but now China was first to try it, and claim enormous success, however fraudulently. Incredibly, the United States was set to try it out too but getting Trump on board was going to take some doing. The federal government had the quarantine power since 1944. That much we knew. But just how expansive could its exercise be? Would they dare quarantine the well with the sick? How...

Defenders of federal officials, including President Biden, who declared one year ago that people who received the COVID-19 vaccines would not contract the disease argue "the science" changes over time. But the White House coronavirus response coordinator at the time the vaccines were developed and rolled out said in an interview Friday she wasn't surprised that people who were quadruple vaccinated, including Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, contracted the disease.

Infectious diseases expert and former presidential Covid adviser Dr Deborah Birx told The Mail on Sunday that coronavirus ‘came out of the box ready to infect’ when it emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2020. (Snip) She accused China of initially covering up how infectious Covid was. Birx said Covid’s infectiousness was consistent with a virus which had been experimented on in a lab. 'In laboratories you grow the virus in human cells, allowing it to adapt more. Each time it passes through human cells it becomes more adapted,’ she said.

Former Trump-era COVID-19 response coordinator Deborah Birx said in an interview Monday on “Good Morning America” that she demanded that the White House retract then-President Trump’s comment on potentially using disinfectant against COVID-19. Trump’s comment, made during a briefing on April 23, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, implied that injected disinfectant could help fight the coronavirus.

Dr. Deborah Birx announced Tuesday that she will retire just days after she was accused of bending her own rules with a Thanksgiving weekend gathering at a beach house. The White House coronavirus task force leader said she would stay in her role until President-elect Joe Biden takes office before stepping down. ... “I will have to say that this experience has been a bit overwhelming,” Birx said. “It’s been very difficult on my family.” Birx visited the beach home over the holiday weekend with members of more than one household in apparent violation of Centers for Disease Control restrictions,...

What’s up with Dr. Brix’s modeling? Check this out https://t.co/kgg2gXB7fv— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) April 6, 2020 The IMHE model for the Wuhan coronavirus that the White House is relying on is garbage. It is using NY/NJ data and applying it to the rest of the U.S. It predicted that over 121,000 Americans would be hospitalized yesterday over the coronavirus. The actual number? 31,142. pic.twitter.com/vZCGXB5HLN— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) April 2, 2020

<p>ABC reported on their website blog about 20 min ago that United Nations weapons inspectors discovered six to eight vials of a dangerous nerve gas, phosgene, as they were cleaning out offices at a U.N. building in New York this morning, federal authorities tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com. The federal authorities said the office, in a U.N. building near headquarters, was being evacuated and the White House had been notified at 10 a.m. New York police and fire officials said federal authorities had not notified them of any problem at the U.N. building, as of 11 a.m. A U.N. spokesperson said a statement would be issued shortly.</p>

BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese delegation that the communist nation didn't plan to conduct additional nuclear tests, a news report said Friday. Kim told Chinese envoy Tang Jiaxuan that "we have no plans for additional nuclear tests," Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unnamed diplomatic source in Beijing. Kim also expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to the delegation and said Pyongyang would return to nuclear talks if Washington backs off from its financial sanctions, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials say North Korea's military has informed China it intends to carry out a series of underground nuclear tests, NBC News reported on Tuesday. No further details were provided in the report. The United States said North Korea had moved equipment into place that may indicate it plans a second nuclear test, despite international condemnation of its first underground nuclear explosion on October 9. North Korea has denounced U.N. sanctions over its nuclear test as a declaration of war.

The U.S. government has determined that one scientific test, among many conducted since North Korea's announced nuclear test, was consistent with a nuclear explosion, a senior administration official said Friday night. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cautioned that the administration has not made a definitive conclusion about the nature of the explosion. "The betting is that this was an attempt at a nuclear test that failed," the official said. "We don't think they were trying to fake a nuclear test, but it may have been a nuclear fizzle _ an effort that failed." The official spoke on...

Surprise! North Korea Is Acting Up Againby James Lileks It's a strange, sick world where one dinky nuclear test can knock the Mark Foley scandal off the front page. Is it really big news? North Korea's nuclear capability has been tacitly assumed for a few years, and learning they actually set one off is a bit like hearing Paris Hilton appeared unsteady as she left a club. Still, an actual nuclear explosion does focus the mind, and makes you wonder what comes next. Let history be our guide: First we had the Clinton talks, in which North Korea promised to...

On the forefront of our country's most western state, against the backdrop of the USS Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri, floats 4 of our major Missile Defense assets; the USS Russell (DDG-59), USS Lake Erie (CG-70), USS Port Royal (CG-73), and SBX-1. These 4 ships, in conjunction with the GBI sites in Alaska and California can neutralize North Korea's ballistic missile intentions. In the last 12 months, the United States has successfully intercepted 13 ballistic missiles during realistic operational testing. In the last 90 days, the United States intercepted 4 ballistic missiles from long range to short range and...

Four days after North Korea tried to set off its first nuclear bomb, U.S. intelligence agencies think the blast detected by seismic sensors was a plutonium-fueled device that did not fully explode. "The working assumption is that what happened, more likely than not, was an attempted nuclear test that fell far short of being successful," said one U.S. official familiar with the latest intelligence assessment. There is still no confirmation that North Korea succeeded in creating a nuclear explosion, and so far no radioactive particles that would confirm a successful nuclear test have been detected. The Washington Times first reported...

The abbreviation for North Korea used by American military officers says it all: KFR, the Kim Family Regime. It is a regime whose demonization by the American media and policy makers has obscured some vital facts. North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, was not merely a dreary Stalinist tyrant. As defectors from his country will tell you, he was also a popular anti-Japanese guerrilla leader in the mold of Enver Hoxha, the Stalinist tyrant of Albania who led his countrymen in a successful insurgency against the Nazis. Nor is his son Kim Jong Il anything like the childish psychopath parodied...

Democrats have begun a desperate-yet-predictable effort to blame North Korea's nuclear aspirations on President George W. Bush's strident rhetoric. Despite their leftist cant, they seem remarkably uninterested in the "root causes" of Pyongyang's current nuclear brinksmanship: Bill Clinton's eight years of appeasement and the gullible cordiality of the South Korean government. Threats of a nuclear winter did not mix well with Clinton's sunny disposition. Clinton, who saw the domestic front thronged with "crises," refused to disturb his illusion of a post-Cold War world at complete peace under his watch. He had two private conversations with CIA Director James Woolsey in...

PANMUNJOM -- Spitting across the demarcation line that separates the two armies. Making throat-slashing hand gestures. Flashing their middle fingers. Trying to talk to the South Korean troops. North Korean troops in the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas have been more boldly trying to provoke guards on the other side since the North claimed to have detonated a nuclear bomb Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said. "They're walking a little taller," Army Major Jose DeVarona of Fayetteville, N.C., told reporters during a tour of the zone Wednesday. "They're more confident about making contact." Still, he said the overall situation...

The French Defence Minister has cast doubts over the success of North Korea’s claimed nuclear test, saying that it produced an explosion so small that if indeed it was nuclear, it had been a failure.Michele Alliot-Marie said that although experts had not yet determined the precise cause of the explosion, French, American and other scientists had detected that it was of "relatively limited size." "In any case, if this was a nuclear explosion, it would be a case of a failed explosion," she said. Mme Alliot-Marie’s comments were the strongest yet from a senior Western policy-makers to suggest that the...

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea stepped up its threats aimed at Washington, saying it could fire a nuclear nuclear-tipped missile unless the United States acts to resolve its standoff with Pyongyang, the Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday from Beijing. Even if Pyongyang is confirmed to have nuclear weapons, experts say it's unlikely the North has a bomb design small and light enough to be mounted atop a missile. Their long-range missile capability also remains in question, after a test rocket in July apparently fizzled out shortly after takeoff. "We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident...

UNITED NATIONS -- North Korea must face "some punitive actions" for testing a nuclear device, China's U.N. ambassador said Monday, suggesting that Beijing may be willing to impose some form of Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang.

Swedish equipment to test North Korea nuclear claim South Korean officials said on Tuesday they believe North Korea's claim of a nuclear test is genuine, but they plan to borrow hi-tech equipment from Sweden to test the atmosphere for radioactive particles. "The government believes North Korea actually conducted a nuclear test," Unification Minister Lee Jong-Seok told a special parliamentary hearing. Lee, who is in charge of North Korean affairs, said the government would not yet recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear power until it was known whether the test was successful. North Korea said Monday it had successfully tested a nuclear...