Monday, May 16, 2022
Sunday, May 15, 2022
FDA Commissioner Claims ‘Misinformation’ Is Now America’s Leading Cause Of Death
Welcome to the Left's all-out war against the freedom of speech.
The Leftist establishment is waging all-out war against the freedom of speech under the guise of combating what it claims is “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton warned us against the supposedly rapidly spreading scourge of “disinformation,” and just days later, Biden’s Homeland Security Department unveiled its sinister Disinformation Governance Board, with an ill-defined and shifting scope of responsibilities. The Board, however, could be just the beginning. On Sirius XM’s Doctor Radio Reports Friday, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf said, “I have been telling Congress that misinformation is the leading cause of death.” Well then, by all means, we must outlaw it immediately!
Califf explained: “We’re in the negative spiral right now due to mostly chronic disease, drug overdose, and gun violence.” So where does “misinformation” come in? Well, you see, we’re not listening to our moral superiors when they tell us how to deal with these things:
Mental health being a very important part of the problem. If you think about the common chronic diseases we’re talking about good ol’ fashioned heart disease, diabetes, obesity. This is driven by day-to-day habits that people have. Driven largely by the information they’re ingesting and not driven by the information they should be getting about the measures that are affective. One that we have a lot of control over is we now have generic medicines for most of those that are pretty inexpensive and a lot of people aren’t taking them. We got to reach people with secondary prevention but also make sure we flood the airwaves and our personal interactions with positive, reliable, useful information.
On CNN Saturday, Califf doubled down, again warning against “misinformation” in such apocalyptic terms that he appeared to be signaling that Biden’s handlers are working on still more speech restrictions. Asked to explain why he thought “misinformation” was the leading cause of death in America today, Califf immediately retreated, admitting that he had no data to establish his claim and tacitly admitting that it was just a Leftist talking point:
Uh, I have to acknowledge there’s no way to quantify this. So I can’t say, you know, the numbers come out just like they would, uh, heart disease or cancer. But let’s look at it. You know, we’re in a country now which is seeing an erosion in our life expectancy, so that we’re now living on average five years shorter than the average of other high-income countries. Now, of course, this– these are all based on estimates, but this is quite disturbing. And as you correctly pointed out, let’s look at the causes of death. Uh, as you correctly said, heart disease, cancer, COVID, uh, much of this is common chronic disease that we know a lot about how to treat.
And of course, with COVID, the situation is we know that if you’re vaccinated and up-to-date with your vaccinations, um, you have a ninety percent reduction in the risk of death, and then, if you are unlucky enough to get infected, or unfortunate enough, another ninety percent reduction in death with the anti-virals which are now available. So almost no one in this country should be dying from COVID, if we were up-to-date on our vaccinations and got appropriate anti-viral treatment. What has concerned me for a long time before the pandemic is that we’re seeing this reduction in life expectancy from common diseases like heart disease. I’m a cardiologist by training. We know so much about what to do to prevent, uh, bad outcomes from heart disease, um, but somehow the messages, the, the reliable, truthful messages are not getting across, and it’s being washed out by a lot of misinformation which is leading people to make bad choices that are unfortunate for their health.
Who is spreading misinformation here? That noted right-wing outlet, the New York Times, reported on Feb. 28 about a new study that didn’t quite agree with Califf’s rosy picture of the vaccines’ efficacy. As the omicron variant surged, the Times stated, “the vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization declined to 73 percent from 85 percent in the older children. In the younger children, effectiveness dropped to 48 percent from 100 percent. But because few children were hospitalized, these estimates have wide margins of error. The numbers for protection from infection are more reliable. Vaccine effectiveness against infection in the older children decreased to 51 percent from 66 percent. But in the younger children, it dropped sharply to just 12 percent from 68 percent.”
But as far as Robert Califf is concerned, if we silence such inconvenient data and only allow the FDA’s line to flood the airwaves, many lives will be saved. We’ll be living in an authoritarian police state that silences...
Democrats spent 6 months of research developing 'ultra-MAGA' barb, but it may backfire as Trump and Republicans embrace the supposed insult
The phrase "Let's go Brandon" instantly became a rallying call for detractors of President Joe Biden. "Let's go Brandon" has been chanted at sporting events, heard in rap songs, and seen on license plates, restaurant signs, shirts, flags, luggage, face masks, and even golf balls.
Democrats may have undertaken an extensive quest to discover their own version of the "Let's go Brandon" slogan.
The Washington Post reported this week that Democrats have spent six months attempting to develop a catchphrase to try to hurt Republicans heading into the 2022 midterm elections. The final result from the six months of research is "ultra-MAGA."
The "ultra-MAGA" term was the strategy developed by the liberal group Center for American Progress Action Fund – which is headed by top Biden aide Anita Dunn.
Polling and focus group testing done by the Hart Research and the Global Strategy Group indicated that potential voters saw the term "MAGA" more negatively than other labels such as "Trump Republicans."
"In battleground areas, more than twice as many voters said they would be less likely to vote for someone called a 'MAGA Republican' than would be more likely," the Washington Post reported. "The research also found that the description tapped into the broad agreement among voters that the Republican Party had become more extreme and power-hungry in recent years."
Navin Nayak – the president and executive director of CAP Action Fund – told the Washington Post that "ultra-MAGA" is a "versatile epithet" because "all of that extremism gets captured in that brand."
"We are not trying to create a new word," Nayak added. "This is how they define themselves."
President Joe Biden first employed the phrase on May 4, while speaking to reporters about deficit reduction at the White House. Biden said "ultra-MAGA" and "MAGA" on 10 different occasions – mostly used in an attack on Sen. Rick Scott's (R-Fla.) "Rescue America" plan.
"This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history, in recent American history," Biden told reporters.
During a fundraising event in Chicago on Wednesday, President Biden uttered the focus group-approved lingo three more times.
"But we have to take on the — MAGA Republicans — 'Make America Great Again' Republicans. I think they’re the most extreme party," Biden said at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser. "And that’s what the Republican Party is now. Not everybody Republican believes that. But the fact of the matter is, they run the show — the MAGA Republicans."
Also on Wednesday, President Biden addressed the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 40th Annual Conference – where he recited the phrase five more times. Biden even called Trump "the great MAGA king."
"Under my predecessor, the great MAGA king, the deficit increased every single year he was president," Biden said of Trump. "The first year of my presidency — the first year, I reduced the deficit — literally reduced the deficit by $350 billion."
Ashley Parker – who wrote the Washington Post piece – noted, "Trump 'absolutely loved' co-opting Biden’s new nickname for him — 'the great MAGA king' — and has privately mocked Biden and Democrats’ 'ultra MAGA' taunt as coming from bad branders, who don’t understand the art of marketing."
Trump reacted to being called the "great MAGA king" by sharing a meme of him photoshopped on the cover of a "Lord of the Rings" movie on his Truth Social platform.
Trump also thanked Biden for the compliment, “The Great MAGA King is the name Joe Biden is now using to describe me. Thank you, Joe. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) also embraced the supposed barb, and declared, "I am ultra MAGA, and I'm proud of it."
Meanwhile, other Republicans are capitalizing on the Democrats trying to make the "MAGA" phrase great again.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is giving away 1,000 "ultra-MAGA" t-shirts away.
Trump's Save America Joint Fundraising Committee is offering...
Stagflation – Another Blast from the Past
The misery index is one such bit of history, dating back not that far, to the Jimmy Carter presidency of the late 1970s. Calculated by adding the unemployment and inflation rates together, the misery index “measures the degree of economic distress felt by everyday people.”
It is currently just over 12 percent, and that’s being generous given how the government calculates inflation. More on that later. The misery index reached 15 percent just after COVID hit and the country locked down, closing businesses left and right. During the Carter era it topped 20 percent.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was recently interviewed on Fox News and brought up the misery index along with another golden oldie, stagflation. This is a term first used in the 1960s in the United Kingdom, describing a period of a stagnating economy along with rampant inflation, hence the coined term.
Various definitions have been applied to stagflation. Investopedia describes, “Stagflation can be alternatively defined as a period of inflation combined with a decline in the gross domestic product (GDP).” Former Speaker Newt also used the term in his Fox News interview, tying them both together:
We lived through this with Jimmy Carter. It ended up being called stagflation and people ate it up. The unemployment rate and the inflation rate and turn it into the misery index by adding the two numbers together, we have a grave danger of being worse off in another year or a year-and-a-half than we were under Jimmy Carter.
Stagflation may be the anchor hanging on Democrat necks ahead of the November midterm elections. Real GDP contracted in the first quarter of this year by 1.4 percent, negative growth. The last such contraction was during the first half of 2020 when COVID shut down businesses, travel, restaurants, and life in general. Now America is post COVID and the economy should be booming. One more quarter of negative GDP puts us officially into a recession, something the Democrats will be delighted to showcase as they ask American voters to leave them in charge of the nation’s affairs.
Inflation, we were told by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, was “transitory.” Just a mere blip, a temporary and minor spike in prices, much like calling the BLM riots in the summer of 2020 “peaceful protests.”
Economic realists pounced on Powell’s naïve assessment. “The characterization of inflation as transitory is probably the worst inflation call in the history of the Federal Reserve, and it results in a high probability of a policy mistake,” according to Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian.
Inflation is calculated based on many assumptions of the costs of various goods and services, all plugged into complex formulas that would make any non-mathematician’s head spin. It is the change in cost of this basket of goods that determines the rate of inflation. Like any other formula, the maxim “garbage in garbage out” applies.
For example, energy is only 7 percent in relative importance in...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1019
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