Biased Media

The Media vs. Jon Stewart ~ Via Congressman Sean Duffy

Published by Papa Giorgio

What Democrats are doing is arguing for special treatment for corporations and for government employees (like the President and Congress). Republicans are asking for equal treatment under the law. Here is NewsBusters on the matter:

Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy slammed the press for not doing its job in pointing out the hypocrisy of ObamaCare being delayed for certain groups but not for all Americans: “…the media won’t even ask the question about, ‘Why are you [the Obama administration] treating families different than big businesses?’…That’s how pathetic, I think, news reporting has become, when we won’t ask tough questions to the administration.”

Continuing, Congressman Duffy presses the obvious point:

Duffy pointed out what a joke media coverage of ObamaCare had become:

You need Jon Stewart on Comedy Central to ask [Health and Human Services] Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius, ‘Hey, why won’t you treat these two equally?’ And she can’t answer it….’Why do you want your own health care and you won’t join us in ObamaCare?’ That question I haven’t seen anybody ask on MSNBC. Please ask it, because they don’t have a good answer for it.

Mitchell argued: “Well, we’ve asked questions to both sides. That’s not fair. We have asked the question…”

In reality, no such question was ever put to Sebelius in an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Monday. In addition, the question was left out of an NBC interview with the Health and Human Services Secretary on September 30.   

Perhaps realizing that fact, Mitchell was forced cite Sebelius on The Daily Show: “Well, I think the response would be – the response that Kathleen Sebelius gave to Jon Stewart was, ‘If we had gotten what we wanted, which was a single-payer plan, this wouldn’t be the problem.'” Duffy noted: “That’s right, you say, ‘I think this is what they would say,’ but you don’t know what they would say because you haven’t asked.”

…continue…

Take note that the White House KNOWS this won’t work and use this failure as an argument FOR single-payer. Here is the full interview by Jon Stewart.

Obamacare `Success` Story (e.g., Propaganda)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Reality and the re-Tweeting of Chad’s “success” story (see WaPo for instance) are two different things. The first being is that he is paying a lot more (Washington Examiner):

American media outlets were finally able to track down a mythical creature — a person who actually signed up for the Obamacare exchanges online.

But that person, Chad Henderson, admitted to the Washington Post that the premium for the plan he enrolled in was $175. Ouch! Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to lower premiums?

Henderson’s going to pay a $175 premium and he won’t even receive vision or dental insurance. He has contacts, so not having vision insurance is kind of a bum deal.

Henderson, as far as we know a healthy, 21-year-old college student at Chattanooga State Community College who lives in Flintstone, Ga., and works part-time at a day-care center, did not qualify for tax credits to purchase insurance, according to the Post.

Without Obamacare, Henderson could have received health insurance for as little as $44.72 on eHealthInsurance.com, according to Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute.

“I can’t yet say whether Chad’s $175 premium is the lowest-cost plan available to him through the Obamacare Exchange,” Cannon said. “[I’m in the process of researching that, and it’ll probably take a few hours.] But it’s probably close.”

Thanks to Obamacare’s community-rating price controls that take effect in 2014, Henderson’s cheapest plan option on eHealthInsurance jumped up to $190.23.

…read more…

See Twitchy!

The above shows something else in Chad’s “success” story. HotAir has this:

…Rothman was convinced they would properly vet The Only Man In America With ObamaCare Exchange Insurance … at least until he wasn’t:

Chances are you will soon be hearing the name Chad Henderson and his heroic story of enrolling successfully in a health care exchange. His is a saga of hope and redemption. If Chad can do it, maybe the millions of other healthy young people needed to sustain this program can too.

UPDATE: It turns out Henderson’s knowledge of OFA was not the result of his astuteness or political acumen. According to his LinkedIn profile, he is a current OFA volunteer. Maybe those many media outlets who spoke with him will make note of this seemingly relevant fact.

OFA? You mean Organizing for America, which spent the last year stuffing e-mail inboxes with an avalanche of missives about just how easy and wonderful ObamaCare would be?  That OFA?

It’s not just OFA, by the way, but also his past record of Democratic Party activism that the media should have noted.  Henderson either is now or recently has been the President of the Walker County Young Democrats, depending on how updated his LinkedIn summary is.  Shouldn’t that have been disclosed along with the miracle of his successful registration this week?

But hey, the mainstream media has lots of editors and fact-checkers.  I’m sure they’ll get around to it. (via Doug Powers at the Boss Emeritus’ place).

…read more…

Propaganda Busted!

UPDATE:

Busted! Media’s Obamacare Poster Boy Chad Henderson Never Purchased An Obamacare Health Insurance Plan

The media’s poster boy and Organizing For America’s volunteer, Chad Henderson, admits he never signed up for an Obamacare plan.  Enroll America praised Chad as someone who had successfully purchased insurance coverage on HealthCare.Gov. Washington Post spoke with Chad’s father who said he did not believe Chad signed up for healthcare coverage.

Seymour Hersh, a Leftist Reporter Who Railed Against Bush, Says Obama Lies Systematically and Media Covers for Him

Published by Papa Giorgio

Newsbusters has this great blurb on a left leaning

Even a radical leftist like Seymour Hersh thinks the media are obsequious toward President Obama. In an interview with the leftist U.K. paper The Guardian, Hersh said “It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy.”

Hersh claims the Obama administration “lies systematically,” yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him:

▼ “It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn’t happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.”

The big difference is that Hersh was a “mainstream” media star during the Bush years when he was warning of a dangerous rogue president. Good luck finding him now when he’s singing the same song about Obama. Hersh now claims he has a big scoop coming on the takedown of Osama bin Laden:

▼ Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would” – or the death of Osama bin Laden. “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,” he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011….

Ted Cruz vs. Wendy Davis and `Media Bias 101`

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Dylan Byers of Politico:

Sen. Ted Cruz has been speaking on the Senate floor for almost 19 hours, as of this post. The talk is not technically a filibuster — he can’t actually block the Senate from going about its business — but symbolically, it’s more or less the same thing. The point is to show one’s opposition to something through a demonstration of physical will.

Which is why you can forgive conservatives for being upset with the mainstream media’s coverage of the Cruz affair. When a Democrat like Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis filibusters against abortion restrictions, she is elevated to hero status, her tennis shoes become totems. When Cruz grandstands against Obamacare, he is a laughingstock in the eyes of many journalists on Twitter, an “embarrassment” in the eyes of The New York Times editorial board.

“Gee I wonder why NYT and WaPo and everyone else gave ecstatic coverage to Wendy Davis but not to Ted Cruz. I just can’t make sense of it!” John Podhoretz, the conservative columnist, tweeted on Wednesday morning.

Yes, the difference between filibustering and grandstanding plays a part. Equally important is the fact that Cruz’s theatrics are frustrating members of his own party. But, part of the disparity in coverage is due to the fact that the mainstream media, generally speaking, don’t admire Cruz the way they admired Davis — or rather, they admire him only insofar as he makes for tragicomic theater, whereas they admired her on the merits.

Cruz is portrayed in the media as “aimless and self-destructive” (NYT ed board), elitist (GQ) and likely guided more by presidential aspirations than principles (CNN). Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, had no qualms about coming right out and calling Cruz, his former Princeton colleague, an “arrogant jerk” — and worse.

These portrayals may be accurate or inaccuarate — Cruz certainly has an elitist strain and he certainly has political ambitions. But that’s not the point: The point is that the coverage of Cruz has been critical, and in some cases unforgiving, from the outset. At least initially, Davis wasn’t viewed through a critical lens at all. Her willingness to stand for 11 hours was evidence of the American dream in action. Period.

After Davis’s filibuster in June, she got a glowing Vogue profile and was interviewed by nearly every major network and show that deemed her the new superstar from the Lone Star. 

In an interview shortly after her filibuster in June, CBS News’s Charlie Rose highlighted Davis’s history.

“You’ve met tough things before in your life as single mother, one who went form community college, to TCU to Harvard Law School and back to practice law, so this seems to be another challenge for you,” Rose said.

Davis was the “Sunday Spotlight” for ABC’s This Week after the filibuster and was interviewed by Jeff Zeleny in the dinner theater where Davis once waitressed….

Sea-Ice Update, No Media Coverage (Except Fox)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Breitbart:

You would think that the recent news about how Global Warming might not be real would be reason to celebrate in every corner of the media; Whoo-hoo we are not doomed! Oddly enough, though, except for some obligatory reporting about Arctic sea ice recovering to levels not seen in 35 years, and the news that the planet actually is not warming, the media almost seem to be covering this good news up.

Arctic ice and global temperatures were once big national news, at least when the trends moved the other way. Thus far, though, the media don’t seem too interested in the latest science on these very same topics–not even in this important study that shows humans are not to blame.

Howd`ya Like This Guy as Your Professor?

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Gateway Pundit:

David Guth, a professor at the University of Kansas’ journalism department, Tweeted out a sick message to the world after Monday’s Navy Yard shooting.  He hopes that the children of NRA members are killed by the next crazed mass murderer.  And he calls it “God’s justice” on “misguided miscreants”.  Equally appalling is that the University stands behind its sick professor who wishes death on children.

An afterthought ~ Using the professors logic, couldn’t someone similarly posit that if the NRA “caused” these deaths, then God is working mysteriously? In other words, the profs later position backfires on him. It [his position] becomes incoherent, or, self-refuting… taking any moral high-ground he thought he was safe camping out on.

More Viewers Turned to Fox News for NAVY Yard Shooting News Than CNN, HLN, and MSNBC

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Breitbart:

After years of shrill bias and embarrassing bungles, CNN long ago lost its crown as the Most Trusted Name in News, especially during major national events. Monday, during and after the horrific mass-shooting at the Navy Yard, America once again proved that true. Fox News trounced its competition in both total viewers and 25-54 demo viewers:

Total Viewers during primetime:

FNC: 1.541 | MSNBC: 673 | CNN: 852 | HLN: 297

Demo viewers during primetime:

FNC: 324 | MSNBC: 190 | CNN: 288 | HLN: 133

During the total day, the results were virtually identical:

Total viewers:

Total day: FNC: 1.601 | MSNBC: 541 | CNN: 922 | HLN: 321

Demo viewers:

FNC: 334 | MSNBC: 150 | CNN: 303 | HLN: 129

It is also worth mentioning that while CNN, CBS, and NBC have taken varying amounts of criticism for factual errors during their respective coverage, Fox News has received none.