ROGER SIMON: Do You Trust Your Doctor Anymore?

Do you trust your doctor anymore? Honestly?

I don’t mean Dr. Anthony Fauci. How can anybody trust him, with all the prevarications, constant shifts in policy and deceptions, not to mention hiding American taxpayer support for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Virology Lab and other aspects of the doctor’s dark past revealed in great detail in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book?

I’m talking about your own personal doctor, the man or woman who has been your friend and trusted counselor for years, maybe decades. How do you feel about that person? Has it changed?

What many are perceiving as a growing mistrust of physicians is one, among many, of the tragic fallouts of the pandemic.

How that happened is not that difficult to trace.

* * * * * * * *

I was not talking about all doctors, obviously. Many are brave, not just the well known signers of the Great Barrington Declaration and other eminent physicians interviewed here at The Epoch Times, quite a few local doctors as well, including some who practice something known as “functional medicine.”

But the great masses of doctors have melted under the pressure of the government, following the party line on the pandemic. If you mention hydroxychlorquine and ivermectin or some other therapeutic or even, in some cases, the apparent superiority of natural immunity, they either don’t hear you or respond condescendingly, then point to the necessity of the vaccine.

At that moment, they are thinking of themselves, of their families, their incomes, their medical licenses, their relationship to their hospital or clinic, medical systems entirely dependent on cooperation, financially and legally, with the ever-changing diktats of the CDC and FDA.

Related: The Suicide of Expertise.

SHE’S SUCH A TERRIBLE RETAIL POLITICIAN*: Vice President Kamala Harris Dodges Question If It Was Wrong To Consider Inflation Transitory (Video).

* Fortunately though, she’s taking lessons on how to improve her public perception — in accordance with the prophecy:

Earlier: How Biden’s Agenda Is Causing Inflation.

What Ford, Biden, Warren, and Yellen have in common is a failure to understand inflation’s most important underlying cause, which the Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman was explaining with unique clarity back in the 1970s. ‘To understand the cause of inflation, you must understand that it is anywhere and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,’ said Friedman. Supply-chain issues and rising demand are factors too, but the biggest contributors come from the government and the Federal Reserve.

We’ve seen absolutely massive increases in government spending over the past two years, which have been paid for by printing money and historic boosts in the money supply. When you print money it means that there are more dollars chasing basically the same amounts of goods and services, which causes prices to rise. In just the past three fiscal years, federal spending has swollen to nearly $7 trillion a year, up from about $4.4 trillion in fiscal year 2019. Spending was $6.6 trillion in 2020, and $6.8 trillion in 2021.

Not surprisingly though, Biden — even before his brain became tapioca — thought he knew economics better than Milton Friedman.

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Deadspin Deletes Racist Tweet Referring To ESPN’s Sage Steele As ‘The Black Candace Owens.’

Sports outlet Deadspin, which advertises its own brand on Twitter as “sports news without fear, favor, or compromise,” was forced to delete a tweet Thursday that referred to ESPN’s Sage Steele as “the black Candace Owens.”

“IDIOT OF THE YEAR #6: Sage Steele, the Black Candace Owens,” the original tweet read.

The Daily Caller’s David Hookstead was among those who called out Deadspin for the racist comment, sharing a screenshot of the now-deleted tweet with the comment: “What the hell is this garbage, @Deadspin? She doesn’t agree with your views so you launch a racist attack against MULTIPLE black women? There’s something seriously wrong with these people, and it’s downright pathetic.”

* * * * * * * *

According to the Deadspin article, Steele qualified as one of their top IDIOTS OF THE YEAR for 2021 because she happened to notice that the city of Chicago had a violent crime problem.

As of the time of this post, the URL of Deadspin’s Steele post still references the original headline:

Does Deadspin owner Ted Cruz know what’s going on at his publication these days?

FIGHT THE POWER: DO NOT COMPLY. Defiant Gothamites show COVID panic’s days may finally be numbered.

HEH: First Annual Bill Clinton Award for Feminist Achievement: Roberta Kaplan. “For too long, the business of humiliating and undermining female victims of sexual misconduct was dominated by men. When attorney Roberta Kaplan and former Michelle Obama aide Tina Tchen founded Time’s Up in 2018, many assumed its goal was to bolster the #MeToo movement, rather than destroy it. Few if any pundits believed the female-led group would eventually become the preeminent apologist for prominent Democrats accused of harassing and abusing women.”

HOW’S THAT WELCOME WAGON PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Millions of Americans Are Getting ‘Fresh Starts’ in Red States.

SPACE JUNK — BETTER PUT UP MY UMBRELLA: Heads Up: Incoming Russian Payload – Uncontrolled Reentry.

END OF AN ERROR: De Blasio leaves City Hall with broken promises, dashed dreams.

BUY GUNS. AND AMMO. As Biden Approval on Crime and Law Enforcement Continues to Plummet, Americans Continue to Buy More Guns.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Best Vodka, Gin, Rum and Other Spirits We Drank in 2021.

Even more useful: Something New Something Old: The Best Scotch Whisky Values of 2022.

My go-to in 2021 was the Jura 10-year-old. It has a great rustic quality to it, and at $40-$45 a bottle, it’s the best deal going in single malts.

LIVE AT 3:30PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ with Kruiser, VodkaPundit, Special Guest.

STAY WARM: Warm Gloves Touch Screen Winter Thermal Glove. #CommissionEarned

WHAT’S ACCURACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Nothing, if you’re Twitter. The giant censorship machine disguised as a “mere platform” suspended acclaimed journalist John Solomon’s account for sharing an article about the legal distinctions between Pfizer’s fully approved and emergency use authorization (EUA) COVID-19 vaccines. Even Pfizer did not dispute the accuracy of the article, headlined “Pfizer to continue distributing version of COVID-19 vaccine not fully approved by FDA.”

“There is nothing in the story that is not well reported or misleading,” Stanford School of Medicine professor Jay Bhattacharya, whose research focuses on the “health and well-being of vulnerable populations,” wrote in an email to Just the News. “Twitter’s censorship of COVID information has contributed greatly to the collapse in trust in public health.”

Twitter provided no meaningful information about their arbitrary and capricious decision, saying only that “because the tweet violates its policy on “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information” related to COVID.”

Our Silicon Valley superiors seem to think that “1984” and Farenheit 451″ were instruction manuals.

**Update: Twitter’s Head of News Partnerships sent a note late this afternoon simply saying that the blocking of Solomon’s account was “an error.” No apology. No promise to do better.**

BATTLESWARM: Obit Watch: Harry Reid.

“Leaving a trail of slime behind him-“

Start over.

“A repugnant, repulsive reptile-”

Try again.

“What can be said about him that hasn’t already been said about bubonic plague?”

Strike that.

Man, I’m really having trouble staying on the high road for this Harry Reid obit.

If you don’t have anything nice to say about Harry Reid… you’ll enjoy this.

AJ KAUFMAN: Eric Holder and Democrats Misunderstand Harry Reid. “Some sort of ‘toughness’ did not make Reid effective; having 60 senators did. And there are reasons that occurred. Of course, today’s radical, tone-deaf Democrats won’t understand this, so they lash out instead.”

HMM:

ON THE PLUS SIDE, HE WOULDN’T BE ANY WORSE THAN NEW YORK’S CURRENT GOVERNOR OR ITS PRIOR ONE: As NY County DAs Drop “Credible” Cases, Could Cuomo Return to Power?

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: How Biden’s Agenda Is Causing Inflation. New video from Reason TV:

Earlier: Understanding Inflation, the ‘Mugger.’

“The Labor Department reported Friday that consumer prices in November rose 6.8 percent in the last 12 months, the most since 1982.”

I was told that there would be no math, but “since 1982” means we are talking about 40 years.

“This,” the unnamed editorialist wrote, “should be all the warning Democratic doubters need to shelve President Biden’s Build Back Better Act that could fuel more inflation.”

They like to keep things understated at the Journal. 

Still, mention of “fuel” reminds me of the Biden administration’s war on energy.

About the first thing Biden did on coming to office was kill the Keystone pipeline.

That cost tens of thousands of jobs and overnight assured that America would go from being energy independent to begging OPEC to pump more oil.

It also assured that Americans would being paying a lot more to run their cars and heat (or cool) their houses.

And let’s not forget Suale Omarova, the Russian-born Communist-sympathizing academic whom Joe Biden nominated to be head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Among much else, Omarova was looking forward to bankrupting major swaths of the oil, coal, and gas industries in order to “tackle climate change.”

Reality crept in, just a little bit, to Omarova’s confirmation hearings, so she had to withdraw her nomination.

But the fact that Biden could even think of nominating someone like her—someone, that is to say, who is both ostentatiously anti-prosperity and anti-American—tells us all we need to know about his priorities.

No, when it comes to inflation, most people agree with Ronald Reagan, not Jen Psaki.

“Inflation,” Reagan said, “is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hitman.”

Exactly right.

Related: Joe Biden, Milton Friedman, and the Tyranny of Tiny Minds.

AS PREDICTED, OMICRON IS ALMOST LIKE A NATURALLY OCCURRING VACCINE: Study shows people infected with Omicron may be less susceptible to Delta variant. Only with much longer-lasting immunity, most likely.

KURT SCHLICHTER: The Establishment Wants to Crush You Uppity Peasants.

Some guy named Jared Schmeck recently mocked the senile old pervert who is masquerading as our president by getting His Crustiness to affirm “Let’s go, Brandon!” This humiliation of the regime figurehead, piled upon the myriad other humiliations he has brought upon himself – failing to pass infrastructure, Afghanistan, putting the “can” in “Vatican” – is intolerable to the establishment. This uppitiness must be stopped.

And it’s even less tolerable because “Let’s Go, Brandon” is a manifestation of the class warfare that increasingly characterizes American society. It’s the cry of the working class, bold and joyous, utterly uncontrollable. It has energy and cheer, while the pathetic moaning of the ruling caste’s spokescreatures is rote, boring, and bereft of any power. The regime-approved memes our elite’s minions repeat on cable and in social media are the chant of serfs.

So, the garbage regime and it’s ridiculous legacy media minions must try to stifle this rebellion. They especially hate that this in no Astroturf meme passed around on some media server list after being decreed from on high. LGB is infinitely more dangerous. It’s an organic response that is not pushed or guided, but that evolved totally outside the approved channels. They hate it because it is not theirs, and because they cannot direct it or tame it. So they try to squelch it. But it will come back even stronger. And worse, we’ll be laughing at them as we repeat it.

In his 2014 history of the American left, The Revolt Against the Masses, Fred Siegel wrote, “The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. ‘Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class.’”

The Anointed understand that it’s for their own good, of course.

LINCOLN BROWN: CNN’s Latest Pedo Scandal Is a Symptom of Left-Wing Derangement.

TOP SELLER: Amazon Essentials Men’s Lightweight Water-Resistant Packable Puffer Jacket. #CommissionEarned

A BLOW AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY: Study: Black men given radiation for prostate cancer do better than White men.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: To Counter NASA’s $100 Billion Artemis Program, China Advances Its Low-Cost Lunar Base Mission By Eight Years.

China has the advantage that its program is actually designed to go to the Moon, while NASA’s is mostly designed to consume federal funding in select jurisdictions.

JOANNE JACOBS: PJs in class, fights, anger and apathy. “Many students wear pajamas, the dress code of bedrooms turned to classrooms and a reflection of disrupted sleep schedules. Students move through the hallways sluggishly, looking at their phones or straight ahead, as if still staring at computer screens.”