Healthcare

Fox News Is On Board The Tea Bagger Express – Again

Posted by on August 31, 2009 at 2:58 pm. 13 Comments :

In a reprise of last April’s Tea Party propaganda campaign, Fox News is once again heavily promoting the latest Astroturf movement by rightist opponents of the administration. This episode of tea baggery is focusing specifically on health care reform.

Recall last April, when Fox News not only aired millions of dollars worth of free publicity for the Tea Baggers, they also assigned their anchors to host the events. Neil Cavuto in Sacramento. Greta Van Susteren in DC. Sean Hannity in Atlanta. Glenn Beck in San Antonio.

The latest promotional effort is already underway. One of the first assignments is Griff Jenkins (Bill O’Reilly’s ambush specialist) who is actually tagging along with the Tea Party Express bus tour. His reports consist of unabashed cheerleading for what he falsely identifies as a grassroots movement (It’s more like grassROTS. After all, these people don’t care much for nature). The Express is winding its way across America. paid for by the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, an organization headed by far-right talk radio host Mark Williams.

But the “fair and balanced” network is demonstrating its bias by ignoring another bus tour that is generating as much or more popular appeal as the Tea Baggers. This project, sponsored by Organizing for America and Health Care Reform Now, is taking a similar path across the country, stopping along the way for rallies, and is scheduled to wrap up in Washington, D.C. on September 13, one day after the Tea Baggers. OFA has reported brisk attendence of their events so far:

“…hundreds of health insurance reformers [in Milwaukee] […] Earlier today, more than 3,000 reformers gathered in New York City with the same message of hope. One thousand came out in Portland. Another 1,800 are finishing up a reform event in Austin, Texas. And, nearly 800 rallied for health insurance reform in Fargo, North Dakota today.

“These crowds come on the heels of last night’s 1,500-plus reformers gathering in Denver, Thursday’s 1,000 plus rally in Albuquerque and another 1,100 on Wednesday night in Phoenix”

With turnout like that, these events are at least as newsworthy as those by the tea bag/insurance lobby. Yet Fox News has invoked a virtual blackout on any news of reform activists. Not only do they not have someone like Griff Jenkins riding along with the reform bus, they haven’t even reported that the effort exists (except for a couple of tangential and backhanded references). What might the media landscape look like if there were an alternative to the overtly partisan Fox News that published something like this:

I harbor no illusions that anything like that will happen. It isn’t an accident that Fox News is ignoring these events – it’s deliberate. They have a vested interest in keeping this information from their viewers. In addition, they surely don’t want to raise the profile of these events for fear that it might enhance turnout. So Fox has committed to suppressing coverage as part of their political agenda.

What would it take to get Fox News to assign a reporter to the Reform Now bus tour? Could any amount of phone calls or emails turn the trick? Could a sustained campaign of exposing and/or ridiculing Fox for their journalistic dishonesty result in a reporter (even a biased one) embedded with the reformists? Probably not. But here’s another question: What would it take for the rest of the media to cover the reform bus tour? Because they aren’t in the game either.

There are going to be two events on the weekend of September 12 and 13. One of them is getting premium promotional services from a major television network and its extended media platforms in print, radio, and online. The other is not. It’s impossible to predict the attendance for either of these rallies, but if progressives could draw more reform advocates in spite of the media imbalance, it would go a long way toward educating our representatives, and the press, as to where the people really stand on this issue.

Your assignment, if you chose to accept it, is to get to D.C., if you possibly can, on September 13. If that’s not possible, get to a local reform event. And by all means contact every media outlet, not just Fox, and ask them why they are not covering this truly grassroots movement.

The Organizing for America Action Center:
Where you can find local events and send letters to your local and national newspapers.

Contact these National TV news networks and ask them to cover the Health Reform Now bus tour.
Fox News / CBS News / NBC News / ABC News / CNN News

Glenn Beck: Arguing With An Idiot (Himself)

Posted by on August 25, 2009 at 6:59 pm. 5 Comments :

I know, the question of Glenn Beck’s sanity was settled long ago. But what is happening now is more than just a question of sanity. Beck seems to be losing what remains of his cognitive ability. On his radio program today, Beck staged a little play as a retort to a Jon Stewart segment that demonstrated Beck’s hypocrisy with regard to health care.

In this video Stewart plays clips of Beck repeatedly asserting that health care in the U.S. is the best in the world. Then he plays a clip wherein Beck trashes American health care as a nightmare. It’s pretty routine Stewart brilliance, but Beck takes exception on his radio show.

At the outset, Beck has his second banana, Pat, question Beck as to how he could both praise and disparage America’s health care system. Beck responds by saying…

“So to a 45 year old man with a wife, four kids, who have dealt with the medical system hundreds of times in their lives, your main argument to debunk the quality of our entire healthcare system is to bring up my one bad experience?”

Clearly Beck’s rebuttal is that the health care system is nearly perfect. He asserts that he’s had a lifetime of exposure to a system that has only failed him or his family on a single occasion. Then Pat, surprisingly, nails Beck with the “nightmare” quote that confirms that Beck was talking about the whole system, not a single, exceptional incident. Beck’s response to this was…

“The idea of being drugged and cut open to avoid dying of, you know, something else, then waking only to deal with paperwork and recovery is a nightmare, but like our legal system, or our political system, it’s the worst system in the world… except for all of the others.”

So in the course of a minute or two, Beck has asserted that our health care system is nearly perfect and rarely has any problems, and that it is riddled with problems but they aren’t as bad as every other country’s problems. He even explicitly says that our system is “far from perfect.” Which one is it, Glenn? Do we have a system that in 45 years made a single mistake? Or one that is far from perfect?

After this cognitive disconnect, Beck has the gall to say that Stewart “doesn’t bother trying to make sense of his arguments.” Well, that’s something Beck should know about. But it gets even curiouser. The subject changes to Beck’s upcoming book, “Arguing with Idiots” (something else Beck should know about). Beck declares that it is “the best book we’ve ever done.” Mighty high praise from a guy who seconds later can’t remember the name of the book and has to ask his radio sidekick. Shortly thereafter, Beck forgets the name of the 2nd Amendment expert that he quoted in the book. And then he can’t recall when the book is being released.

But what’s really funny is that Beck claims that he wrote this book for the youth, high school and college students who he says are riddled with ADD. Plus, he has an even larger purpose for the book:

“We’re trying to have we’re trying to make this interactive so when you’ve read the book and then you’re standing there and you’re at a town hall meeting and they’re like, yeah, well, healthcare… you just dial some digits and the arguments will come right to you because you’ll read it if you don’t take it with you all the time, you’ll read it and you’ll be like, oh, my gosh, I’ve got to remember that. So we’re trying to give you a way where you can just dial digits and they will be e mailed to you instantly to give you some of the arguments.”

You see? It is his way of funneling talking points to his town hall proxies. He even admits that his goal is to give his disciples a litany of arguments that they can deny came from him:

“Everything is footnoted in this thing so you can go to the original source and find out exactly, that way your kid doesn’t have to say, ‘I learned that from Glenn Beck” and immediately be discredited.’

At least he is self-aware enough to recognize that any data attributed to him lacks credibility. But there is still cause for concern when this guy can’t remember pertinent things about his brand new book or form a coherent argument detailing his own health care experience. And he apparently believes that his audience has the same cognitive deficiencies, which resulted in his writing this book for them. It’s pretty sad when you think about it.

The Lies That Fox News Viewers Believe

Posted by on August 19, 2009 at 2:39 am. 10 Comments :

Six years ago the Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study that showed that Fox viewers are far more likely to believe things that are demonstrably false, than are viewers of other networks. It’s still true.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) featured on the Rachel Maddow Show (video below) included questions centered on the recent health care debate. What made this poll unique was that four of the questions sought to ascertain whether the respondents believed statements that were known to be untrue. Here are the results broken out by which news sources the respondents favored:

On Health Care Reform, Those Who Believe That It Will… MSNBC/CNN Viewers Fox News Viewers
Give Coverage To Illegal Immigrants: 41% 72%
Lead To A Government Takeover: 39% 79%
Pay For Abortions: 40% 69%
Stop Care To The Elderly: 30% 75%

Let me repeat: These are statements that are known to be untrue, yet Fox News viewers believe them in overwhelming numbers. It’s bad enough that approximately 40% of MSNBC/CNN viewers believe these myths, but clearly Fox is producing an audience of vastly misinformed, cultural illiterates.

The problem with having a national news organization that is polluting the population with lies about critical public issues is that it makes democracy impossible. And that, of course, may be the goal of Fox and its corporate overseers. Democracy is such a messy affair, what with all the people voting and stuff. If your objective is to manipulate government, you can’t get very far if voters are actually familiar with the issues and are capable of making sound judgments. So Fox News found it necessary to invent a platform of fake agendas to create fear and then purposefully indoctrinate their predominantly Republican and southern viewers to believe in them.

They have enjoyed a fair measure of success in the past couple of weeks as raucous town hall meetings and shrill political disputes have dominated news coverage. There have been episodes of chaos and hostility erupting in what used to be neighborly community gatherings. Television pundits are peddling insane conspiracies that link shadowy cabals to absurd plots with tentacles reaching into evil government agencies. And weirdos with weapons are showing up at presidential events to wander around menacing peaceful demonstrators and anxious Secret Service agents.

It is vitally important that sanity and honesty be restored to public discourse. As people become more aware of truthful representations of the issues, the tide could rapidly turn back to permit a rational debate to take place. The results of this poll could go a long way toward persuading people that they have been the victims of a deliberate con job. That can only occur if this poll is distributed broadly enough to be seen by a substantial portion of the electorate, including those who watch Fox News. Of course, Fox itself would never broadcast these results, so it’s up to us to be the distributors of the truth; to pass this information along; and to expose Fox as the perpetrators of hoaxes that they are.

Fox News viewers are being led around like Ritalin-sodden sheep. There is a case to made that they would be outraged at being so brazenly mislead – if they only knew. Data like this makes it difficult to pretend that Fox News respects its audience. This is the sort of evidence that could cause many FoxPods to revolt and free themselves. We need to help them see the light. Let’s just hope that it isn’t too late.

Update: The Pew Research Center confirms the delusional state of Republicans and Fox News viewers. Their survey reports that a plurality of 47% of Republicans believe in “death panels” compared to 20% of Democrats and 28% of Independents. Likewise, 45% of Fox News viewers believe this myth as opposed to 27% of MSNBC viewers and 26% of CNN’s.

The Idiots Of Fox News: Garrett, Sammon, And O’Reilly Edition

Posted by on August 18, 2009 at 2:25 pm. 1 Comments :

I know, the headline is redundant. What’s more, this list is far from comprehensive. It is just intended to spotlight a few recent examples. I couldn’t possibly keep up with them all.

For the last Week, Major Garrett has been making it abundantly clear that he is a moron. He doesn’t seem to understand how the Internet works and he thinks that emails received by some Fox News viewers is a more important issue than health care or Afghanistan or Iran or anything else on the nation’s agenda.

Now a Fox colleague has joined him and may have surpassed his idiocy. Bill Sammon, VP and Washington managing editor, appeared this morning and was interviewed by anchor Trace Gallagher (who delivers every report as if you are a kindergartner – which may be appropriate for Fox viewers). In his attempt to prolong the manufactured pseudo-scandal over emails, Sammon explained that the White House improperly collected email data (it did not) and that it should not be retained. He then went on to speculate that the administration might destroy the alleged data and that, if they did, they would be in violation of the Presidential Records Act. So Sammon was criticizing the White House for both keeping the data and not keeping the data (he later acknowledged this paradox, but the damage he intended was done). It’s the perfect Fox News perspective. No matter what the President does, it’s wrong.

Perennial Fox News idiot, Bill O’Reilly had this to say yesterday on the President’s health care proposal:

“‘Talking Points’ watched President Obama in Colorado on Saturday, and once again I had no idea what the president was talking about. He went on and on about all kinds of stuff that seemingly only he understands. It’s kind of like a poltergeist. He can see it; nobody else can.”

“So here’s the deal. If President Obama wants more fairness in the health care industry, he has to come up with five bullet points that even I can understand. Five things that clearly tell us what Obamacare would do.”

First of all, isn’t it cute that O’Reilly refers to himself as “Talking Points,” some kind of disembodied concept that watched the President? But more to the point, he admitted that he is an idiot who has “no idea what the president was talking about.” I suppose we should respect his honesty for confessing to his inferior comprehension skills. But he goes on to complain that Obama’s plan isn’t simple enough for him and that it should have five bullet points to make it understandable to someone of his deficient mental capacity. Unfortunately, the White House ignored O’Reilly’s advice and published eight bullet points:

  • Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
  • Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
  • Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
  • Invest in prevention and wellness
  • Improve patient safety and quality of care
  • Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
  • Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
  • End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Those three extra bullet points may be too much for Mr. “Talking Points” to grasp. It was also too difficult for him to even find this list of the President’s objectives (it took me about ten seconds. I searched Google for “White House” and “healthcare” and clicked on the first link). So O’Reilly is essentially asking for an explanation that he can understand, which is already available, but he still can’t understand it. Another perfect Fox News perspective.

The Antilogical Reasoning Of Glenn Beck

Posted by on August 12, 2009 at 3:03 pm. 5 Comments :

Glenn Beck has already solidified his position as the Evangelist of the Coming Obama-Pocalypse. Now he is pioneering a revolutionary new model for polemics that introduces a level of absurdity heretofore unimagined in the world of rational thought. It is a breakthrough that rattles the foundations of conventional discourse. In recognition of this achievement, Beck will forever be remembered as the Stephen Hawking of what I shall dub “Antilogical Reasoning” – or reasoning that contradicts its own premise. Perhaps the best example of antilogics is Beck’s recent comments as to whether President Obama is a racist:

“This President has, I think, exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is […] I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. He has a…This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

Beck also employs antilogical concepts when he beseeches his audience not to engage in violence against their opponents, then describes those opponents as an imminent threat to everything you hold dear – your family, your country, your faith, your freedom. And just yesterday Beck antilogically asserted that eugenics was not coming to America, except for the fact that the forces that led to eugenics in Nazi Germany are all taking shape here with the obvious and inevitable conclusion that eugenics is coming to America. Textbook antilogica.

In making his case against eugenics, courageously confronting this nation’s powerful pro-eugenics lobby, Beck proffered a distinctly personal argument that moved him to tears, again. This time it was the thought of his cerebral palsy-stricken daughter who would not have been permitted to live under the vile Nazi regime. [Note: The first time Beck cried on his Fox News program was on the debut episode. Like now, he was thinking of his daughter whom he was reminded of while interviewing his first guest, Sarah Palin, who also has a special needs child] Beck then extended his argument to accuse Obama’s health care policy adviser, Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, of holding positions sympathetic to eugenics.

The allegations Beck made against Emmanuel were typical of his fact-free, hate-filled diatribes. Beck selectively cites passages from Emmanuel’s writings and deposits them about as far from any honest context as he can get. For instance, he alleges that Emmanuel supports rationing of scarce heath care resources based on age or the patient’s projected productivity or some other unspecified cost/benefit analysis. The truth is, Emmanuel’s writings referred specifically to critical situations that required the most difficult decision making. He was writing about cases where there might be a single kidney available, but three terminal patients in need of a transplant. Circumstances like that require a decision because the kidney cannot be allowed to go to waste. But it has nothing to do with government bureaucrats (or death panels) allocating care and pinching pennies as Beck implied. It’s a decision that requires an informed and sensitive bio-ethicist – exactly what Dr. Emmanuel is.

But Beck using his daughter with cerebral palsy as a prop to attack Emmanuel has an additional irony attached to it. You see, Emmanuel’s own sister has cerebral palsy. So it turns out that Beck is attacking a doctor who is uniquely aware of the hardships faced by those with special needs and their families. And if that’s not enough, Emmanuel is also Jewish, in fact an Israeli-American. This is the man that Beck is slandering with associations to Nazis.

Unfortunately, this sort of backlashing attack is not a unique occurrence amongst conservative fear mongers. An article in Investor’s Business Daily sought to denigrate the British National Health Service by asserting that someone with serious health problems would be discriminated against when being assessed for benefits. Remember Stephen Hawking?

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”

However, the IBD missed a little factoid that may be relevant. Prof. Hawking happens to be British and has been cared for by their medical system for 45 years. In the wake of the IDB article, Hawking said…

“I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”

Realizing their mistake, IDB edited their article placing a note at the top that says…

“Editor’s Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.”

That correction needs a correction. The problem with the original article was not that they implied that Hawking didn’t live in the UK. It was that they falsely claimed that Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance” due to his living in the UK. What’s more, IBD claims to have corrected the article’s mistake, but in fact they merely deleted the whole paragraph referencing Hawking (here is the Google-cached original). According to IBD, pretending that something you wrote never existed constitutes a correction.

So Obama isn’t a racist, he just hates white people. And you shouldn’t resort to violence, but you must fight back against the demons that are surrounding you. And eugenics isn’t coming to America, except that it is. And Glenn Beck isn’t a crazy, lying, paranoid, megalomaniac, he just plays one on TV.

On a side note, congratulations to Prof. Stephen Hawking who today received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony with the President and 15 other recipients.

Fox News Pulls The Plug On The President

Posted by on August 11, 2009 at 4:55 pm. 10 Comments :

Today’s town hall meeting in New Hampshire with President Obama was highly promoted by all the major television news organizations, including Fox News. However, when the event took place, Fox News decided to bail out of the live broadcast just as the floor was opened to questions from the audience. Both CNN and MSNBC broadcast the Q&A in its entirety.

Fox News likes to promote itself as “fair and balanced.” Anyone with a functioning cerebrum knows that that isn’t true, but the brazen nature of this programming bias deserves special recognition. Fox has unambiguously proven that they are the network of melodrama. A civil discourse on public matters, no matter how important, will always lose out to a wild police car chase (which was actually on Fox prior to the Obama town hall).

The moment that Fox chose to abandon the event was just after the audience started asking questions. What became immediately obvious was that Fox had no interest in continuing coverage because they concluded that the event was not confrontational enough. The first couple of questions were not the sort that would incite the frothing anger that has become a staple of Fox News’ coverage of the health care debate. Even David Bauder of the Associated Press recognized the barely hidden motivation of Fox:

“Fox News Channel cut away from President Barack Obama’s town hall meeting on health care reform Tuesday as he faced a far more polite crowd than has attended many meetings hosted by members of Congress recently. CNN and MSNBC carried the session in full […] The loud public debates have been a tonic for cable news networks during normally quiet August.”

If the AP gets it, you know it’s reached new levels of clarity. As the town hall progressed, the questions became more probing. They included inquiries into some of the most controversial matters that have characterized this issue: death panels, taxes, rationing, etc. But Fox News’ audience saw none of this despite the notice that anchor Trace Gallagher gave after they broke coverage:

“Any contentious questions, anybody yelling, we will bring it to you here.”

Well, that’s comforting. The striking thing about that statement, other than the fact that he did not adhere to it, is that it is an admission that Fox News is only interested in contentiousness and yelling. It is rather startling that Gallagher would make a promise to his viewers that amounts to a declaration that Fox will only present the President when he can be made to look embattled or unpopular. Fox never did return to the event.

Gallagher did, however, keep his promise to provide contentious programming. Much of the time that the Obama town hall was in progress, Fox News replayed arguments captured at town halls for senators Cardin and McCaskill. These shoutfests were aired with a little box in the corner showing Obama’s event minus the sound. So Fox made a deliberate decision to avoid the President’s newsmaking appearance and replace it with yesterday’s more pugnacious, albeit stale, news. The rest of the time was spent with Fox pundits predictably bashing the President even though they weren’t even listening to what he was saying.

It appears that the only way for Obama to get any airtime on Fox News would be to cater to Fox’s appetite for sensationalism and lead the police on a wild car chase. Or maybe to be caught having dinner with the OctoMom. Or better yet, lead the police on a wild car chase with the OctoMom, Michael Jackson’s doctor, and a piece of the Shroud of Turin.

This is, of course, all Obama’s fault. He should know by now that the one thing you never do if you want to be on Fox News is to be reasonable, intelligent, and honest. He should be ashamed of himself.

The Fox Nation Of Fanatics Fails Again: Health Care Edition

Posted by on August 7, 2009 at 10:26 am. 9 Comments :

As if it weren’t bad enough that Fox Nation populates its web site with right-wing hysteria and links to uber-conservative purveyors of propaganda, they have now demonstrated that their editors are (at least) as stupid as their readers are gullible.

Today I observed a graphic at Fox Nation linking to a column in the Washington “Moonie” Times written by Amanda Carpenter, an O’Reilly Factor frequent fluffer. The article itself was chock full of nuttiness that I’ll get to momentarily. First I need to point out that Fox Nation is so desperate to disparage its enemies that they will project whatever demon suits them into their coverage whether it’s there or not. Here is the graphic showing the groups they say are allegedly mobilizing against town hall protesters:

The National Endowment for the Arts??? Are they really mobilizing against town hall protesters? Were those artists who were crashing community centers and public halls where Tea Baggers were fighting to keep the insurance companies between you and your doctor?

The problem with this picture is that Carpenter’s article says nothing about the National Endowment for the Arts whose logo is prominently displayed in the upper-right corner. There is a passage that mentions the NEA, but she is referring to the National Education Association. Rather than ascertain the facts, Fox Nation saw an acronym that could just as well have belonged to a favorite foe of theirs, so they giddily inserted the wrong logo into their graphic. And they consider themselves to be a “news” organization. I suppose it’s easier to demonize artists than teachers. The only thing Fox Nation cares about is assembling the usual targets of their wrath – community organizers (ACORN), unions (SEIU), minorities (NCLR), and, of course, those subversive artists – for a public whipping.

As an artist myself, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Endowment get more actively involved in countering the thugs who are brazenly trying to shut down democratic discourse. I have long believed that the role artists have traditionally played in social movements has been diminished in this age of corporate controlled marketing and the cultural aversion to artists who speak their minds (i.e. shut up and sing). But for Fox Nation to falsely charge that the NEA is mobilizing against protesters (an absurd charge in any context) is slanderous. And it is especially egregious when the slander is the result of an idiotic editor who can’t figure out which organiztion he’s supposed to be hating.

The article itself is rich with ridiculous reportage. It’s premise is that there is something terribly wrong with the way that Democrats plan to respond to the right-wing mobs that are disrupting town hall meetings between congressional representatives and their constituents.

It has been well documented that the right is coordinating their protests through political and industry front groups like Conservatives for Patients Rights, Americans for Prosperity, and FreedomWorks. These organized creators of chaos have distributed instructions on how to cause a commotion. Participating in a productive and civil discussion is the farthest thing from their minds.

What makes this article exceptionally ludicrous is that Carpenter’s examples of what she characterizes as untoward behavior from leftie activists pales in comparison to what the Tea Bagging bullies have put forth. Let’s take a look:

Left-Wing Mob Right-Wing Mob
Ask the Member’s staff what would be most helpful and talk through a strategy for making sure the right messages don’t get drowned out by chaotic protesters. Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up.
Address the [Member of Congress] directly with a positive message: Remember, these Members need cover and they are getting beaten up by right wing zealots in these meetings. Be Disruptive Early And Often: You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.
Don’t get into a shouting match with them. Instead, prep people on our side to keep raising the questions that we want answered. Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda.

So while the left wants to be helpful, positive, and avoid shouting matches, the right wants to lie, disrupt and rattle the targets of their tantrums. Which side really sounds like a mob to you?

The fact that Carpenter and the Washington Times thought that it served their purpose to illustrate these differences just defies comprehension. And to complete the circle of the Murdoch-driven disinformation campaign, Carpenter appeared on Fox News this morning to make the same scandalous assertion that health care advocates are conspiring to be “helpful.” OMG!

Fishy Right-Wingers Accuse Obama Of Recruiting Nazi Snitches

Posted by on August 5, 2009 at 1:12 pm. 3 Comments :

With the Congress in recess, Republicans and their rightist allies have taken to the streets to attack President Obama’s agenda, particularly with regard to healthcare. It has already been well documented that much of the protest has been orchestrated by lobbyists and partisan political groups. Their efforts have also been aided by the rightist media including Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, talk radio, etc. The Fox Nation is so heavily involved that it featured eight separate stories on its web site yesterday on the phony town hall disturbances (and four more today).

After observing this all-out campaign by insurance industry-backed rightist mobs to disrupt public discourse in town halls and other public events, the Obama administration responded by having White House Communications Director Linda Douglass set the record straight. The video in which she appears is posted on the White House web site along with an invitation for citizens to help debunk the rapidly spreading disinformation:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Naturally, the right wing lie machine immediately seized on this as an outrageous invasion of privacy and an abuse of executive power. They are casting it as a Big Brother style operation to pit neighbor against neighbor. One Tea Partier said that Obama wants to “turn everyone into a Nazi snitch.” The only problem is that nowhere in the appeal is there anything remotely suggesting that people turn in other people. Furthermore, there is no threat associated with the disclosure of the rumors that the White House is seeking to be apprised of. The only thing they are interested in is the substance of the attacks on their proposals so that they can rebut them.

But that hasn’t stopped the allegations of intimidation from erupting out of the depths of the Tea Bagging brigades. Shock and outrage is being expressed from every direction. The National Review, the Washington Times, Hot Air, and of course, Fox News. Fox News has also aired a segment on this in which they revealed that Rush Limbaugh has joining this parade of paranoia. What’s more, both CQPolitics and the Washington Independent have uncovered plots to commit virtual disruptions by spamming the White House’s email inbox.

Even Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn is getting into the act with a letter to the President in which he alleges that this is a Nixonesque enemies list:

“By requesting that citizens send ‘fishy’ emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.”

To reiterate, the White House is NOT asking for anyone’s name, email address, IP address, or any other data connected to one’s identity. They are asking only to be informed of arguments against their health care proposals so that they can respond with the facts. Cornyn is reaching new heights of hypocrisy by feigning concern for chilling the exercise of free speech rights when he supports the Tea Baggers who are preventing such speech in local town hall meetings. He further embarrasses himself by saying that he would have also condemned the Bush White House should they have engaged in a similar invasion of privacy. Except that he did no such thing when he voted for warrantless wiretapping.

As it turns out, it is a good thing that the White House now has a facility for reporting the fishy assertions of fatuous fringe dwellers who have trouble with facts. Perhaps we should start by reporting the idiotic claim that the President is recruiting Nazi snitches.

Neil Cavuto’s Cable Clinic And Medical Tourism Scam

Posted by on July 28, 2009 at 3:26 am. 7 Comments :

Neil Cavuto, Fox News VP and host of “Your World”, has a consistent record of misrepresenting the facts of pretty much any issue he addresses. Whether it’s the economy, national security, climate change, etc., you can rely on his determination to construct the most absurd and untrue arguments to advance his partisan agenda.
 
 
 
Healthcare has long been on that list of subjects as evidenced by the ridiculous graphic above from his program in July 2007.

Recently he has spent much of his program presenting a parade a of patients disappointed by the healthcare they have received in Canada. These unfortunate folks have had to endure some sort of healthcare calamity that they and Cavuto characterized as the inevitable consequence of national healthcare. The result of this substandard care, according to Cavuto, is the creation of a swarm of medical tourists fleeing Canada for superior treatment here in the U.S.

Amongst the guests that Cavuto welcomed as witnesses were a couple of Canadians who came to warn America of the horrors of free, accessible healthcare. However, in both cases the patients’ stories revealed that the U.S. system was actually worse than the one they were allegedly fleeing.

Shona Holmes told Cavuto that she had to mortgage her house to get treatment in the U.S. Lucky for her, she had a house to mortgage. Americans facing similar ordeals have lost their homes and gone into severe debt from which they may never recover. And those without homes have no options whatsoever, unlike Holmes and her fellow Canadians.

Lin Gilbert suffered from debilitating back pain that she says was untreated in an untimely manner in her native Vancouver. She was also unemployed and on welfare. Eventually she got the surgery she needed and is pain free today. It cost her nothing. She has no debt related to her medical treatment. An American with the same problem would still be suffering or would have racked up an unmanageable debt that would haunt them and their family for the rest of their life.

I can’t speak to what delayed the treatments in Canada for these women, but surveys show that they are the exceptions. Most Canadians are satisfied with their healthcare program, with an overwhelming 82% saying that they prefer their system to a private system like that of their neighbors to the south. Furthermore, a Gallup poll showed that Canadians are far more satisfied with their system than we Americans are with ours.

In what may be the most outrageous tale of medical panic, Cavuto invited an American, Linda Dorr, to his program to describe her condition and the choices she made. She was diagnosed as having the beginning stages of breast cancer. She was covered by insurance and there were many treatment options available to her, but she elected to have a double mastectomy because – if you can believe this – she was afraid that if Obama’s healthcare plan went into effect, and she needed further treatment years down the road, that it would not be approved by the government health bureaucrats that she assumed would be rationing her care in the future.

Think about that. The double mastectomy was not medically indicated. There was no reason to presume that less intrusive measures would not have been effective. There was no reason to believe that she would ever need such drastic surgery. What’s more, there was no evidence that, should her condition have deteriorated, she wouldn’t have been approved for whatever additional treatment she would have required under the Obama plan. In fact, considering the way the Congressional process is proceeding, there is a possibility that Obama’s plan will never be implemented at all. So based on the fear that a legislative program that has not even been voted on might eventually pass, and that the this phantom plan might impose some sort of harsh rationing that would deny treatment to certified breast cancer patients, and that she might have a more severe recurrence of her cancer – on the basis of all of those assumptions she elected to have a double mastectomy that was not presently necessary and might never be. And her doctor performed it!

As far as I’m concerned, her decision making skills were impaired, perhaps understandably, due to her diagnosis. It would be an understatement to say that her election was an overreaction to a set of circumstances that had not, and might never, take place. Her doctor, on the other hand, should have his license revoked for performing an operation that was not medically indicated simply because of his patient’s irrational and unfounded fears.

The broader objective of Neil Cavuto’s cavalcade of discontented Canadians, and one delusional American, is to steer public opinion away from meaningful healthcare reform. It is a deliberate campaign to foment fear and distrust of reforms that he casts as foreign and risky. He has embarked on a mission to scrape up every disgruntled Canadian he can find and imply that there is a swarm of them trampling across the border in bandages and wheel chairs, moaning and praying as they beg to be admitted to our hospitals of mercy.

There’s just one thing ….. Not only is there no such exodus from Canada, the medical refugees are actually heading out of the U.S. in much larger numbers than those coming in.

Despite Cavuto’s dishonest attempt to portray America as a haven for the world’s sick who are flocking here for the best healthcare in the world, the truth is quite the opposite. A Deloitte study last year revealed that about 400,000 people worldwide sought care in the U.S., while more than twice that many Americans went abroad. And the number of American medical adventurers is predicted to grow to six million by next near. A poll of Americans by Gallup showed that as many as 40% would consider leaving the U.S. for treatment if the quality was the same and the costs significantly cheaper. Those criteria have already been met to the satisfaction of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Yet disinformation agents like Cavuto still manufacture witnesses to argue against reality. And it isn’t just Cavuto…

SEAN HANNITY: People from Canada flock to the U.S. Why would you want to ruin the best health care system in the world with the greatest advancement of pharmaceuticals and technology?
GLENN BECK: America has the best health care system in the world. Is it perfect? No. But it’s still the best. Yet we’re about to throw it all away in favor of… government-run health care.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: We’ve got the greatest health care system in the world. Nobody leaves this country for health coverage. Everybody in the rest of the world comes here.

The facts are obviously contrary to the ravings of these lunatics. And in their ignorance, they continue to assert that the as-yet unwritten proposal constitutes a “government-run” plan despite the fact that no version of the known drafts could accurately be described that way. Even the comparison to Canada is misleading because no one has proposed a Canadian-style plan either.

So the next time you hear xenophobic cheerleaders espousing the fiction that the United States has the best healthcare in the world, remember the facts outlined above. Remember that the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world. Remember that those falsely bragging about America’s healthcare preeminence are generally well off, well insured, and well indebted to the institutions, corporate and political, that profit from the status quo.

Fox Nation Declares Victory: Health Care Edition

Posted by on July 23, 2009 at 3:38 pm. 1 Comments :

For the third time Fox Nation is declaring victory. For the third time they have done nothing for which they can claim any credit. And, as usual, there is no evidence that the victory they claim actually occurred.

Fox Nation has decided to make a habit of these “Mission Accomplished” moments. That stance in and of itself is evidence of Fox’s bias. They have ceased to even pretend to be a neutral news enterprise. They are now openly admitting that they have a stake in the outcomes of political affairs. And when they think their side has won, they won’t hesitate to declare victory and commence a celebration.

Fox Nation Victory 1: Climate Change
Fox Nation Victory 2: CNN Reporter