CNSNews.com presents a theoretical as fact in an Aug. 10 article by Sabrina Gladstone, under the salacious headline "Obamacare Mandate: Sterilize 15-Year-Old Girls for Free--Without Parental Consent."
Of course, the claim that "Obamacare" does not mandate that 15-year-old girls be sterlized without parental consent -- which is what the headline claims -- is ludicrous on its face. What Gladstone's article actually claims -- that "Obamacare" allows 15-year-old girls be sterlized without parental consent -- relies on creating a theoretical and presenting it as fact:
Health care reform allows for "the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for women with reproductive capacity," which according to Gladstone covers "from the time of menarche to menopause."
Gladstone writes, "Menarche is the beginning of menstruation--again, on average, about the age of 12 for American women."
A few paragraphs later, Gladstone writes, "In Oregon, the age of informed consent is 15," which means that "The parents or guardians of a minor girl--between 15 and 18--can neither grant nor deny consent for a sterilization."
That's how Gladstone arrives at her claim -- to the extent that her assertion has any truth whatsoever, it applies only in Oregon. She offers no evidence that anybody, in Oregon or anywhere else, has ever advocated that teenage girls be sterilized.
Gladstone is being dishonest and deliberately provocative. But can we really expact anything different from a "news" organization that puts its hatred of President Obama before the facts?
CNS' Jeffrey Tries to Heather An Archbishop Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center's practice of Heathering -- berating and shunning conservatives who fail to march in total lockstep with the right-wing agenda -- gets a big expansion by CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey, who not only expands it to religion but targets one of the most prominent Catholic officials in America.
President Barack Obama, who is moving ahead with a regulation that forces observant American Catholics to act against their consciences and the teachings of their faith, will be one of the keynote speakers at an Oct. 18 white-tie fundraiser hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The fundraiser—the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner--will benefit the foundation, which Cardinal Dolan serves as board president. The foundation's website says it provides funding “for healthcare causes.”
Al Smith, a three-term governor of New York, became the first Catholic presidential candidate in U.S. history when the Democratic Party nominated him in 1928.
Mitt Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts determined that Catholic hospitals in that state would be required to distribute Plan B abortion pills to rape victims, will join Obama as a keynote speaker at the white-tie dinner.
It takes some chutzpah -- to mix religious metaphors -- to suggest that the archbishop of New York is failing at being a Catholic.
In addition to the Heathering, Jeffrey starts deviating from the facts -- for instance, he falsely claims above that Plan B is an "abortion pill." He also claims that Obama is "outspokenly and unambiguously pro-abortion," refusing to acknowledge the fact that favoring abortion rights does not equal "pro-abortion."
Jeffrey also misleads with this statement:
In Illinois in 2001, Obama was the only state senator to speak on the senate floor against legislation that would have simply said a born baby is a “person,” a “human being,” a “child,” and an “individual” and thus entitled under the 14th Amendment to equal protection of the law.
In fact, the bill is not as "simple" as Jeffrey claims. Jeffrey is referring to a "born alive" bill, which would have defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a "born alive infant" entitled to legal protection, even if doctors believe it could not survive. Critics said that the bill could have been used to challenge Roe v. Wade. Obama specifically said on the Illinois senate floor regarding the 2001 bill that it "would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute."
So not only is Jeffrey bashing a Catholic bishop for not being Catholic enough, he's being dishonest.
Jeffrey ramped up his dishonestly by waiting until the 27th paragraph of his article to let an archdiocese spokesman explain that "It is the tradition of the Smith dinner to invite the presidential candidates in the presidential election years in the spirit of nonpartisanship, good humor and good fellowship."
Jeffrey is not only an inflexible Catholic, he's a dishonest reporter. Will he confess his sin at confession time and seek forgiveness for his dishonesty?
It's a new month, which means CNSNews.com's Edwin Mora has a new update on his obsession with blaming President Obama for U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan:
For the total 1,954 deaths, 1,385 have occurred since President Barack Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009. That means at least 7 out of every 10 (about 71 percent) deaths in the Afghanistan war, which started in October 2001, have taken place in the three-plus years that Obama has been in the White House.
Statistically, Obama has presided over the top three deadliest years of the war: 2010 with 497 deaths, followed by 2011 with 399 deaths, and 2009 with 303 fatalities.
As is Mora's practice, completely absent from his article are the words "Bush" and "Iraq," though it would be an entirely fair comparison to compare troop deaths in Afghanistan with troop deaths under Bush in Iraq.
But then, Mora doesn't care about fairness, does he?
Craig Bannister writes in a July 26 CNSNews.com blog post: "Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill (S. 3412) to raise the estate (death) tax from 35% to 55%. But, why are the Democrats trying to create a harsher punishment for dying, anyway?"
In fact, the bill Bannister cites does not address the estate tax -- thus, the Senate could not possibly have voted to raise it. While the estate tax is currently set to increase automatically from 35 percent to 55 percent in 2013 if Congress does nothing, that's not what happened here. Not addressing the issue does not equal a vote to "raise the estate tax."
CNS Pushes Myth That Planned Parenthood's Federal Funding Is 'Fungible' Topic: CNSNews.com
A July 25 article by Fred Lucas repeats CNSNews.com's longtime practice of falsely suggesting that federal money to Planned Parenthood pays for abortions, then goes a bit further by repeating another myth it has peddled before:
In fiscal year 2010, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) got $487.4 million from the federal and state governments, up from $363.2 million the previous year, making taxpayer funding about one-third of the organization’s $1 billion in assets. According to its fact sheet, Planned Parenthood performed 329,445 abortions in 2010.
Though federal law prohibits tax dollars from directly funding abortions, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is conducting the investigation, said the money is fungible.
As we've noted the last time CNS invoked it, there's no evidence to support the claim. Plus, Stearns has declared that his intention is to defund Planned Parenthood no matter what, so he's hardly an unbiased source for anything regarding the group.
CNS Refuses to Blame Bush for Pilot Vetting Failures Topic: CNSNews.com
We've detailed how CNSNews.com's Edwin Mora has sought to erase any mention of U.S. troop casualties under President Bush in Iraq when he's pushing troop casualties in Afghanistan under President Obama. Well, Mora has found another way to protect Bush.
IN a July 19 CNS article, Mora highlights how Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before the House Judiciary Committee that the Obama administration "finally 'took steps' in 2010 to vet foreign students applying to U.S. flight schools."
Mora doesn't ask why it took the Obama administration to enforce that vetting. Indeed, the word "Bush" appears nowhere in his article, despite his noting that "the rule set by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to have DHS screen foreign nationals who want flight training was authorized in 2004" and that "a portion of the 25,599 who had applied for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) pilot licenses from January 2006 through September 2011 had not been vetted properly before taking flight training or receiving an FAA certificate."
It seems that, in Mora's mind, this apparent breach of national security is only the fault of the Obama administration, despite the fact that the Bush administration apparently spent a significant portion of its tenure not enforcing the rules it implemented.
A July 19 AP article was sent out with the headline "In Florida, Obama criticizes Romney over Medicare."
Run that headline through CNS' bias machine, and it pops out with the words "Scaring the Elderly" appended to the beginning.
The AP article itself, it should be mention, contains no accusation of Obama "scaring the elderly."
CNS' use of AP articles is only a cover to obscure the massive right-wing bias the rest of the website has. But if it keeps rewriting AP headlines like this, isn't that a breach of contract? Shouldn't the AP pull CNS' membership?
CNS Commenters Smear DNC Chairman As 'Slut,' 'Bitch' Topic: CNSNews.com
Terry Jeffrey has turned CNS into a honey trap for racists, homophobes, misogynists, and other just plain hateful readers who hang out in the website's comment forums.
That continues in a July 18 CNS article by Eric Scheiner in which he quotes Democratic National Committee chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz telling a women's gathering that it should focus on electing women to Congress who will work for "ensuring access to birth control."
Scheiner's article brought out misogynistic readers who not only engaged in the usual sexist jokes about her looks, they called Wasserman Schultz a "bitch," a "slut," a "whore,' "heifer" and a "wench" who should be "moving to NY and turning tricks near the Holland Tunnel," "needs a bucket of fast drying cement poured down her throat," not to mention should have been aborted. One reader served up a more explicit death threat: "Let's drag her behind a car."
Some of these comments date back three days, which says that either CNS doesn't monitor its comments or nobody flagged them as offensive. Both possibilities raise questions about CNS and its readership.
CNS Just Can't Stop Being Dishonest About Planned Parenthood Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com, it seems, is simply unable to stop falsely framing Planned Parenthood's federal funding.
In a July 19 CNS article, Elizabeth Harrington repeats CNS' boilerplate assertion that "Planned Parenthood received $487.4 million in tax dollars; and according to its fact sheet, Planned Parenthood performed 329,445 abortions in 2010."
As we've repeatedly detailed, the federal money Planned Parenthood receives cannot and does not pay for abortion services.
Why does CNS persist in this false framing? Surely they know it's dishonest. Or perhaps that's why they persist.
CNS' Jeffrey Cherry-Picks Numbers to Bash Stimulus Topic: CNSNews.com
Terry Jeffrey keeps his personal grudge against President Obama going via his anti-Obama propanganda mill -- masquerading as the "news" operation CNSNews.com -- in full effect with a July 16 article attacking White House press secretary Jay Carney for saying that the stimulus bill “widely recognized to have broken the back of the recession.”
Note Jeffrey's selective use of statistics to try to undermine Carney's claim:
In January 2009, the month before Obama signed his stimulus, the national unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It has not dropped below 8 percent in any month since then. In February 2009, it hit 8.3 percent. In June 2012, it was 8.2 percent.
In January 2009, there were 12,049,000 unemployed people in the country, meaning there were that many people age 16 and older who wanted a job, had actively sought one in the previous four weeks, but had not been able to find one. In June 2012, there were 12,749,000 unemployed people—or 700,000 more than there were the month before Obama signed the stimulus.
The percentage of the American population actually holding jobs and the percentage of the population participating in the labor force (those either holding a job or actively looking for one) have both declined since January 2009. In that month, 60.6 percent of Americans 16 or older were working. In June 2012, 58.6 percent of Americans 16 or older were working. In January 2009, 65.7 percent of Americans 16 or older either held a job or were looking for one—and thus were participating in the labor force. By June 2012, that had dropped to 63.8 percent.
In January 2009, 142,187,000 Americans had jobs. In June 2012, 142,415,000 Americans had jobs—an increase of just 228,000 in the number of employed Americans.
But January 2009 was not the bottom of the recession -- October 2009 was. According to the same BLS statistics Jeffrey is using, the number of people who had jobs hit a low of 138,401,000 in October 2009. The number of unemployed peaked that same month with 15,421,000 without jobs, as did the unemployment rate, at 10.0 percent.
Jeffrey is making a dishonest comparision. Who's surprised?
CNS Still Shilling for Oil Industry Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com keeps up its longtime shilling for the oil industry with a July 16 article by Kendra Alleyne warning of "a new blend of gasoline comprising 15 percent ethanol, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency last month and now available in Kansas." Alleyne cited the Kansas Petroleum Council as sounding the warning.
Alleyne didn't mention that the Kansas Petroleum Council is an affiliate of the American Petroleum Institute, which has long attacked the gasoline-ethanol blend known as E15. Alleyne also failed to mention that, as Autoblog noted, E15 is available exactly one gas station in Kansas, so it's hardly a widespread threat.
In an unusual move for a CNS reporter, Alleyne does at least acknowledge the other side of the story -- that the Department of Energy issued a statement that its research on E15 "did not uncover unusual wear that would be expected to impact performance."
'Obama Imposes Sex Quota'? Really, Terry Jeffrey? Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey hates President Obama so much, he has found a way to turn innocent question-and-answer question into a sleazy personal attack.
Witnes s the headline on Jeffrey's July 16 article, "Obama Imposes Sex Quota on Townhall Questions":
All Obama did was state that he would take questions at his townhall "girl-boy, girl-boy." That, in Jeffrey's fevered brain, got twisted into a "sex quota."
Jeffrey really ought to seek professional help for his raging case of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
CNS' Jeffrey Fluffs Jerry Boykin, Ignores His Hate Topic: CNSNews.com
In an unusually fawning July 13 CNSNews.com article, editor in chief Terry Jeffrey slobbers all over William G. "Jerry" Boykin, who has just joined the right-wing Family Research Council. Sounding much more like a PR flack than a "news" reporter, Jeffrey dutifully recounts Boykin's military credentials and touts Boykin in his FRC role "hopes to do his part in helping Americans who believe in this nation’s traditional values win an intensifying 'culture war' for its future."
As befits a PR flack, Jeffrey dutifully ignores any sort of hint of controversy around Boykin, even though he has a lengthy history of making inflammatory and insensitive statements, mostly of the anti-Muslim variety, though he has also likened President Obama to Castro and Stalin.
Just consider this more evidence that CNS cares only about pushing a partisan agenda, not "news."
CNS Has Freakout Over Idea of Rice As VP Topic: CNSNews.com
The possibility that Mitt Romney might select Condoleezza Rice as his vice presidential candidate -- floated by a speculative, anonymous Drudge Report item -- has sent CNSNews.com into a tizzy becuase Rice is not rabidly anti-abortion and doesn't hate gays.
A July 13 article by editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey carried the alarmist headline "Romney Considering Pro-Choice Architect of Bush Foreign Policy for VP." Jeffrey seemed particularly upset that Rice considers herself "mildly pro-choice." Jeffrey wrote up Rice's position on abortion before he got around to discussing her foreign policy experience.
This was followed by another article the same day by Patrick Burke, who was alarmed that Rice said that "there needs to be some way for people to express their desire to live together through civil union."
CNS ultimately followed up with an article by Melanie Hunter reporting that Rice had denied interest in the VP slot.
CNS also gave the same passive-aggressive Heathering treatment to Romney himself for being insufficiently anti-gay. A July 13 article by Pete Winn highlighted Romney's statement to the NAACP that "I hope to represent all Americans, of every race, creed and sexual orientation."
CNS' Jeffrey: Sterilization Is 'Mutiliation,' Like Cutting An Optic Nerve Topic: CNSNews.com
So, what does sterilization do to a woman? And why does Obama want all women "with reproductive capacity" to be offered one for free?
Specifically, sterilization mutilates part of a woman's body so it can no longer carry out its natural and healthy function.
By analogy, if a doctor severed a woman's optic nerve her eyes would no longer see. Here, a doctor severs a woman's fallopian tubes so her womb can no longer conceive a child.
Obama manifestly believes offering this particular mutilation free of charge to all women — but not men — is good. But why?
