Newsmax Repeats Falsehood About Doctor Survey Topic: Newsmax
A March 21 Newsmax "Insider Report" item repeats the falsehood that a study claiming that "Nearly one-third of physicians in the U.S. could leave the medical profession after Obama’s healthcare reform plan becomes law" was "published in The New England Journal of Medicine."
As we pointed out when CNSNews.com did this -- Newsmax cribbed from CNS' account -- the survey was not "published in The New England Journal of Medicine"; it appeared in "Recruiting Physicians Today," an employment newsletter produced by Massachusetts Medical Society, "the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine," as well as on the NEJM's "CareerCenter" website. The NEJM has also told Media Matters that the survey had "nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine's original research."
CNS Creates "Taxes" to Smear Obama With Topic: CNSNews.com
A March 25 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas asserts that "As many as a dozen taxes in the new health care law violate President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000." But Lucas has an extremely broad definition of constitutes a "tax" -- taking his cue from Republican talking points:
At least seven of these taxes directly affect health consumers regardless of income, such as the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate, the tanning tax, and limits and penalties on health savings accounts. In addition, Republicans argue that the tax impact of the law should include indirect taxes, such as the annual taxes on the health care sector that will be passed on to consumers.
Yes, he's listing the tanning salon tax under this. Never mind that you only pay that tax if use a tanning salon. Tanning outside under the actual sun, meanwhile, is still free.
Even Lucas had to (eventually) admit his attack was specious. Near the end of the article he writes:
But Americans for Tax Reform, a libertarian taxpayer-advocacy group, does not believe it is necessary to consider indirect taxes.
“Frankly, you can say any tax is going to affect consumers. We didn’t need to really stretch to include too many other things,” ATR tax policy analyst Ryan Ellis told CNSNews.com. “We have seven that were pretty clear violations of President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on these people. The one you always hear people bring up is the Cadillac excise tax. That’s not a tax on people, that's a tax on the insurance company. We’ve never asserted that that is a tax [on consumers] because frankly it isn’t. We don’t need to make that argument because there are seven that clearly are.”
Of course, you have to read virtually the whole article before Lucas gets around to undermining it.
Plus, it's not until the final two paragraphs that " the law provides tax credits for four million small businesses," which offsets some of those insurance mandates.
Newsmax Calls Obama's Recess Appointments -- But Not Bush's -- 'Sneaky' Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax continues its tradition of putting biased headlines on non-biased wire articles with a March 27 Associated Press article about President Obama's recess appointments, which carries the Newsmax headline: "Sneaky: Obama Makes 15 Appointments without Senate Approval."
The original AP headline states, "Obama makes 15 recess appointments, scolds GOP."
Newsmax continued the bias in its front-page promotion of the AP article:
By contrast, Newsmax did not use adjectives such as "sneaky" to describe the Bush administration's use of recess appointment. To the contrary, it was portrayed as necessary to go around obstructionist Democrats:
Paul Weyrich wrote in a August 2006 article of the recess appointment of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador, "The president gave him a recess appointment a year ago when the Democrats intended to filibuster."
Newsmax published a February 2006 CNSNews.com article stating that "Democrats and a few Republicans refused to confirm Bolton to the U.N. post, forcing President Bush to resort to a recess appointment.
A July 2006 column by David Limbaugh stated, "Bolton is serving under a recess appointment because Democrats twice filibustered a vote on his confirmation last year, preventing a full Senate vote."
An August 2005 article by Stewart Stogel defended Bolton 's recess appointment: "Contrary to complaints of senior Democrats, John Bolton will not only be welcomed by the U.N. and its members, he has a long track record of positive relations with the world body."
A November 2007 Newsmax article incorrectly stated that "Bolton served as UN ambassador under a temporary Congressional recess appointment that was to expire on January 1, 2007." Of course, the point of a recess appointment is to go around Congress
At no point did Newsmax call Bolton's appointment "sneaky." Thus, it has no basis to label Obama's recess appointments as such.
WND Baselessly Scaremongers About 'Emergency Health Army' Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 25 WorldNetDaily article by Chelsea Schiling does its best to scaremonger aboutwhat it calls "a beefing up of a U.S. Public Health Service reserve force and expectations that it respond on short notice to 'routine public health and emergency response missions,' even involuntarily." The bill adds millions of dollars for recruitment," she writes.
The article carries the headline "Obamacare prescription: 'Emergency health army,'" even though that quoted term appears nowhere in the article -- indeed, the only appearance of the word "army" is in the headline. Schilling also drops references to Obama's call for a "civilian national security force," not mentioning that Obama's intent for such an entity is a restructuring of the foreign service, or that WND has repeatedly lied about that intent.
Schilling concludes by stating that "The blogosphere is buzzing with speculation about the amendment, complete with quotes purportedly taken from other websites, though Schilling does not disclose where these quotes come from -- heck, she may be making them up for all we know. This follows WND's policy of using anonymous quotes when this suits its political agenda.
But as the conservative Hot Air points out, the corps, even under health care reform, is hardly the menace Schilling suggests it is:
Even if this was a “private health-care army,” though, it would be a woefully underfunded one with a $12.5 million annual budget. The state of Minnesota alone will spend $1.8 billion on public safety in its biennial budget, with a good portion of that on law enforcement.
This bill has a multitude of problems, but a ‘private health-care army’ isn’t one of them.
What does it say about WND when even its fellow right-wingers are shooting down its scaremongering.
Media Matters' Simon Maloy catches NewsBusters' Brent Baker in a Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy moment: portraying reporting on threats made against most Democratic members of Congress as "legitimizing Democratic talking points."
After Maloy posted his item, Baker did the exact same thing again, portraying reporting of the threats as "advancing the Democratic narrative of violent ObamaCare critics."
Morris: Health Care Reform Vote-Switchers Are 'Traitors' Topic: Newsmax
Dick Morris writes in his March 26 Newsmax column:
Scott Murphy of New York, Suzanne Kosmas and Alan Boyd of Florida, Betsy Markey of Colorado, and Dennis Kucinich and John Boccieri of Ohio — a partial list of the traitors who switched their votes in the House from no to yes on Obamacare.
Another, Bart Gordon of Tennessee voted no when running for re-election and then switched to yes when he retired rather than face defeat, so he is beyond our reach.
We need to make a point of defeating these traitors in 2010! That is what democracy is for.
We know who they are. We know where their districts are located. And we will all come looking for them in November.
These deceitful men and women voted no when their votes didn’t count in November of 2009, seeking to fool us into believing that they had our interests at heart. But, when push came to shove and their votes counted, they switched and ran their true colors up the flagpole and voted yes.
Morris also offers a link to the Newsmax page for donations to the League of American Voters (which he coyly describes only as "a fund to bring the voters in their districts the full story"), but fails to disclose that he is the group's chief strategist.
WND Ignores Gingrich's Flip-Flop on Individual Mandate Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 25 unbylined WorldNetDaily article touts Newt Gingrich's claims that Republicans can put a stranglehold on "President Obama's nationalization of health care" simply by cutting off funding to it. The article goes on to claim, "Polls show a high level of opposition to Obama's plan among American people. One recent poll showed 49 percent believe it to be unconstitutional to require under penalty of law that consumers buy health insurance policies approved by the government." It also quoted Gingrich as saying, "Based on a 1992 Supreme Court decision which said that the federal government cannot punish you for failure to do something, I think that there's an outside chance the suit will hold up. And that … will stop the individual mandate at the federal level."
WND fails to mention that Gingrich was for an individual mandate before he was against it. As Media Matters details, Gingrich endorsed an individual mandate as recently as 2008, asserting in his 2008 book "Real Change" that "we should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage" or "post a bond."
Brennan Bashes Health Care Reform, Doesn't Disclose It's His Job Topic: Newsmax
Phil Brennan's March 23 Newsmax column is dedicated to attacking the "healthcare deform bill," asserting that President Obama "has shown himself prepared to use all of them to their fullest extent, and beyond, to achieve his sinister goals." He also claims that "many ... in the media are themselves conscious or unconscious committed Marxists hiding under the liberal label."
Brennan disclose that bashing health care reform is his job, as an employee of the League of American Voters. Indeed, Brennan has never disclosed his employment with an advocacy group to Newsmax readers.
CMI Pretends Wash. Post Didn't Discredit Its 'Research' Topic: Media Research Center
On March 12, the Media Research Center's Culture & Media Institute published a bit of so-called research claiming that the Washington Post "Quoted supporters 10 times more often than opponents" on the subject of gay marriage in the previous seven days as gay marriage became legal in Washington, D.C. Colleen Raezler went on to sniff: "Nobody can accuse The Washington Post of being objective when it came to covering the District of Columbia’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage. The Post has reported on the event with a celebratory zeal more appropriate to The Advocate or The Blade."
Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander responded to CMI in his March 21 column:
"As soon as this became law, it was basically The Washington Post standing up and saying 'Yay!' " Dan Gainor, the group's vice president, said in an interview. "It's news," he acknowledged, but the coverage was excessive and "one-sided." Conservatives see it as evidence that The Post is hopelessly liberal, he said.
The Post is not always sufficiently attuned to conservative perspectives. But with gay marriage coverage, the accusations of journalistic overkill are off base.
By any measure, the issuance of same-sex licenses was historic. And many among the District's large lesbian and gay population are directly affected. A study last October by the nonprofit Williams Institute at UCLA, whose Web site says it uses research to advance "sexual orientation law," estimated that roughly 3,500 same-sex couples live in the District. At about 14 per 1,000 households, the percentage is nearly three times the national average and ranks above all states.
Also, The Post's coverage should be viewed broadly to include the run-up to the D.C. Council's Dec. 15 final approval of same-sex marriage. That's when debate was most intense. During that period, The Post ran roughly 20 stories, many airing opponents' views.
In mid-November, the Style section featured a 2,200-word profile of Bishop Harry Jackson of Beltsville's Hope Christian Church, a national figure and local leader in the movement against same-sex marriage. Earlier, Style ran a lengthy profile of Brian Brown, executive director of the anti-gay-marriage National Organization for Marriage. The Brown and Jackson profiles drew protests from gay readers who felt their side wasn't given equal exposure.
CMI isn't about to concede that its attack on the Post was too narrow. A March 25 CMI article by Raezler made a passing mention of Alexander's column, then bashed the Post anew, claiming that "the Post itself keeps piling up evidence of its pro-gay agenda."
If Raezler is not going to admit the fact that it's attacking the Post based on a very narrow reading of its coverage -- and then continues to attack the Post in the same manner -- why mention Alexander's critique at all?
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Robert Ringer Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
I rarely compliment BHO, but I'm obliged to say that I respect him for his unwavering Marxist beliefs. His nonstop lying about those beliefs should not be held against him. It's just part of the Marx-Lenin-Alinsky "ends-justifies-the-means" philosophy of bringing about the loss of liberty that all of them sincerely believed was a moral objective.
I have no doubts BHO sincerely believes this morally deficient garbage. Even with his college papers sealed, the man's public statements (as well as his own books) make it clear that he has been consistent in his Marxist beliefs. You don't hang out with Marxist professors in college if you're a believer in freedom and free markets and love the American way of life.
So, yes, I'm sticking up for the Duplicitous Despot: He is consistent. When he told Joe the Plumber that he thought the wealth should be "spread around" more, he was merely echoing his on-record complaints that the Constitution doesn't provide for "redistributive change."
-- Robert Ringer, March 26 WorldNetDaily column
In fact, as we've detailed, Obama did not "complain" that "the Constitution doesn't provide for 'redistributive change'"; he expressed concern that the civil rights movement relied too much on the court system instead of "political and community organizing, and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change."
More Press-Release Journalism At WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily just can't stop portraying Julian Raven as a victim.
A March 24 WND article by Bob Unruh takes his new information solely from an Alliance Defense Fund press release on the arrest of Elmira, N.Y., street preacher Raven on the disorderly conduct charge he and ADF have been fighting since 2007, even though Raven could have simply paid the $100 fine and be done with it. Instead, he served a nine-day jail sentence.
Both Unruh and the ADF leave out the key fact that the jail sentence was the result of his refusal to pay the fine -- something local media reported.
As WNDhasbefore, Unruh uncritically endorses ADF's benign description of Raven, portraying him has having been arrested merely because he "prayed in a public park with six other people," downplaying the fact that Raven and his band of activists did so in front of a stage at a gay festival with the apparent goal of disrupting it.
Molotov Responds To Us (Sort Of) -- And Still Can't Stop Misleading Topic: WorldNetDaily
Molotov Mitchell's latest WorldNetDaily video is a response to a letter from "Erin, a proud liberal," who wrote him after she "read about you in Huffington Post and seen several of your disgusting videos." It seems that Erin read our HuffPo article on Mitchell (adapted from an earlier ConWebWatch article), for she repeats a couple claims we made in it rebutting previous Mitchell videos: "Obama's grandmother never said she was born in Kenya," and "the study you used to support your claim that straight people live longer than homosexuals is from the '80s before HIV treatment had been developed."
But ol' Molotov has chosen to respond to Erin, not us. Oh well.
On the former claim: "But Erin, according to Kenyan witnesses, that's exactly what she said. Here's the link, check it out." The link he displayed was to an August 2009 WND article by Jerome Corsi repeating the claims of Ron McRae, a Anabaptist minister who claims Sarah Obama said that during an interview with her. But Corsi doesn't tell the entire story. As we've detailed, McRae's claim has been discredited by a translator during the phone call between McRae and Sarah Obama, who pointed out that the grandmother misunderstood the question McRae was asking. Once it was clear to her that McRae was asking if Barack Obama was born in Kenya, she answered in the negative.
Further, as we've also noted, McRae is a major Obama-hater, having spread discredited claims and cited "common knowledge" -- not any actual, verifiable facts -- to back up his claim that Obama was born in Kenya.
As to the latter charge, Mitchell first claimed "I just like everything from the '80s," then scrounged up another study: "A study in 2005 confirmed the 20-year life expectancy gap between homosexual men and straight men. Here's the link, check it out." The link goes to the abstract of a study by Paul Cameron, based on obituaries published in a gay newspaper, the Washington Blade. But as the Box Turtle Bulletin points out, that methodology is flawed:
The Blade doesn’t have a general community obituary section. The obituaries they cover are mostly limited to the more well-known members of the local community or prominent national figures. Many gay newspapers do not accept obituaries about just anyone unless they are likely to be known among its readers.
And even if they did, surviving family members arn’t likely to be aware of the gay press, and they may not think to place an obituary in the local gay paper.
Closeted gays and lesbians would not appear in the gay press simply because nobody would know about them.
Older gays and lesbians are more likely to be closeted than younger generations.
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Cameron as an "anti-gay propagandist" who "churns out hate literature masquerading as legitimate science. Cameron dresses up his "studies" with copious footnotes, graphs and charts, and then pays to publish them in certain journals."
Curiously absent from Mitchell's response is any mention of his endorsement of the anti-gay Uganda bill that permits the death penalty for mere homosexuality, which HuffPo highlighted -- and is the main reason Erin would have been aware of Mitchell's rantings in the first place.
Mitchell then delivers a mini-lecture: "Sweet, sweet Erin, I do not despise you, I pity you. You are a victim of public education, liberal mythology, indoctrination. I prescribe that you stop reading the Huffington Post and start reading 'Mere Christianity' by C.S. Lewis, for starters."
Of course Mitchell doesn't want people reading HuffPo -- that's how people learn he's relying on unreliable haters and charlatans to back up his claims. Name-checking C.S. Lewis doesn't change that fact.
So, America, have you deduced that the current occupant of the White House, his underlings and congressional leaders are manifestly evil -- or are you going to wait until they're gunning us down in the streets?
On March 22, WND reprinted remarks made by President Barack Obama on March 21, after the House passed the much-contested health-care reform bill.
Many of you (those over 35) recall hearing Soviet leaders deliver speeches just like Obama's. Do you remember chuckling sardonically, knowing their words were lies and that their people were essentially nothing but slave labor, toiling to maintain a cyclopean, hideously ineffective mega-bureaucracy and a pitiless, criminal privileged class?
[...]
How far across the line do our elected officials have to traverse before we come to the conclusion we've come to as regards history's infamous tyrannical oppressors - that they are of low character, possess malign intent, and that is why they crave this degree of power? Will we have to see Americans executed in stadiums by former ACORN workers before we believe? Will we allow ourselves to be shepherded into a position where we are truly powerless to stop those who will do because they can?
I don't know how many Americans are really so dim - as opposed to advocating this abomination - that they haven't a hint yet that abject tyranny is halfway through the door. But I, like others, believe that if enough people in their right minds become engaged, we still may be able to stem the tide until we can dispose of the Democratic majority in Congress and Barack Hussein Obama. We will have to be equally vigilant, however, that we replace them with nationalistic, conservative Americans, rather than smiling RINO whores; people who know who our enemies are and who won't play nice with those enemies.
While we are doing that, for the next hundred years -- at least -- we must vigorously and relentlessly beat the drum of progressivism being as great an evil as any historical atrocity.
New Article: Aaron Klein, Extremist Topic: WorldNetDaily
The WorldNetDaily reporter's increased profile doesn't change the fact that he sympathizes with far-right terrorists and his reporting techniques are shaky at best. Read more >>
The Mitchells Identify More People They Want To Kill Topic: WorldNetDaily
D.J. Dolce's "News! News!" continues on its unfunny way. In the latest WorldNetDaily video, Dolce says this about John Edwards' mistress Rielle Hunter: "You know, it's hussies like her that make me want to reinstate the death penalty for adultery."
It appears Dolce was reading that "joke" not from her script but from the statement of beliefs she must follow as a condition of her WND contract -- killing adulterers is exactly what her WND boss, Joseph Farah, believes too.
(Remember, her hubby, Molotov Mitchell, favors the "aboliition of homosexuality" and has endorsed the Ugandan method of doing it, so killing people who fall short of their standards of morality is not out of character for this dynamic duo at all.)
