November 20, 2009 8:04 pm ET
Limbaugh distorts apparently stolen emails to falsely claim global warming is "made up"
Rush Limbaugh -- who had previously condemned the "thugs" who hacked then-Gov. Sarah Palin's email account -- joined right-wing bloggers in touting a series of emails that were apparently stolen from the UK's Climate Research Unit [CRU]. Limbaugh proceeded to distort at least one of the emails in order to falsely suggest that it is evidence that global warming is "made up" and that leading climate scientists have been engaged in "substantial fraud."
November 20, 2009 6:18 pm ET
In LA video, O'Keefe and Giles expose their own dishonesty
In making public a video he withheld for more than two months, right-wing activist James O'Keefe finally acknowledged that a Los Angeles ACORN employee "would not assist us obtain a house for our illegal activities" -- an admission that directly contradicts claims by his colleague Hannah Giles that no ACORN employees refused to help them. Moreover, O'Keefe's claim in the video that the Los Angeles employee was the "only" ACORN employee who refused to help is contradicted by the fact that ACORN employees in two other cities contacted the police following their encounters with O'Keefe and Giles.
November 20, 2009 3:45 pm ET
Right-wing media put Obama on the couch for inch-deep analysis
Right-wing media figures, including Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and The Washington Times' Wesley Pruden, have in recent days attacked President Obama while discussing his mental state. While claiming, "I'm not asking you to psychoanalyze the president," Beck asked psychiatrist and Fox News contributor Keith Ablow, "Are we crazy for saying something is not right?"; Savage offered a psychological diagnosis of Obama, claiming that the president has "deep psychological problems" and "deep-seated inferiority feelings."
November 20, 2009 3:19 pm ET
Morning Joe repeatedly airs Lieberman's false claim on public option
On November 20, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough uncritically repeated Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) claim that "if you look at the campaign last year, the presidential, you can't find a mention of public option. It was added after the election as a part of what we normally consider health insurance reform." In fact, both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed a public health insurance plan during the Democratic primary, and Obama continued to campaign on a health care reform plan that included a public option through the November 2008 election.
November 20, 2009 2:44 pm ET
Rove memory loss: Op-ed accuses Obama of "unusual" use of Friday news dumps
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Bush official Karl Rove criticized the "degree" to which the Obama administration has released "news on contentious issues late on Friday," adding that "such tactics ... can look disingenuous if they undercut public debate on substantive policy changes"; later on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade cited Rove's column and asserted that the administration's use of this tactic means it did not have to "confront the questioners." In fact, the Bush administration made numerous substantial and often controversial announcements on Fridays, including news about the Abu Ghraib scandal and a report related to the Pentagon's military analyst program.
November 20, 2009 2:29 pm ET
Quick Fact: Palin links nonbinding mammogram guidelines to "death panels"
On Laura Ingraham's radio show, Sarah Palin linked a task force's recent recommendations on breast cancer screenings to the widely debunked smear -- propagated by Palin -- that health care reform will include "death panels." Palin fearmongered about death panels despite the fact that the recommendations are not legally binding on health care providers or insurers.
November 20, 2009 2:22 pm ET
Quick Fact: Gateway Pundit claims Senate will vote on health care reform bill after "10 Hours" of debate
Trumpeting a Drudge Report headline, Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft claimed that Senate Democrats "will only deliberate 10 hourson [sic] SATURDAY before they vote to nationalize one-sixth of the US economy." In fact, the Senate vote scheduled for Saturday is a vote on a cloture motion -- which would allow the full Senate to begin debate on the health care reform bill -- not a vote on whether to pass the bill, as Hoft suggested.
November 20, 2009 1:43 pm ET
Fox News' fearmongering: Nonbinding cancer screening recommendations are rationing
Fox News' Dr. Marc Siegel fearmongered that recent recommendations that younger women get fewer cervical cancer screenings represented a precursor of government rationing under health care reform. In fact, the guidelines, issued by a nongovernment medical organization, are the result of a medical review process reportedly initiated prior to the current health care debate and are not legally binding on insurers or health care providers.
November 20, 2009 1:36 pm ET
Fox News' Siegel falsely claims insurers would be required to deny preventive care under health care reform
In a November 19 New York Post column, Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel cited task force recommendations against regular mammograms for some women to fearmonger that "under ObamaCare, guidelines will quickly become mandates" and that "[a]ll the major 'reform' bills create lots of new panels and other bureaucrats empowered to suggest things that doctors shouldn't do." But under Senate and House health care reform bills, insurers are required only to implement task force recommendations in favor of specific preventive care and are not required to adopt those that recommend against preventive screening.
November 20, 2009 12:21 pm ET
Ignoring key CBO findings, Fox News' Cameron misleads on cost of Senate health bill
In a report on the Senate health care reform bill for Fox News' Special Report, chief political correspondent Carl Cameron cited the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to claim that the Senate health care bill would increase federal health care spending over 10 years and that, in the decade after 2014, "the cost nearly triples to well over 2 trillion." But Cameron ignored CBO's conclusions that the bill would reduce federal deficits in both of the next two decades and that in the second decade, the bill would not increase net federal health care spending.
November 20, 2009 12:32 am ET
Quick Fact: Beck advanced dubious claim that "[n]owhere in the Constitution can you find" authority for health reform legislation
During his Fox News show, Glenn Beck claimed that "[n]owhere in the Constitution can you find any of this" while he pointed to two stacks of paper representing the Senate and House health care bills. Contrary to Beck's suggestion that Congress does not have the authority to enact health care reform legislation and the implication that health reform is unconstitutional, numerous legal experts have disputed these claims, including University of California, Irvine law professor and Constitutional expert Erwin Chemerinsky, who explained that "there is no doubt that bills passed by House and Senate committees are constitutional."
November 19, 2009 8:33 pm ET
Quick Fact: Beck falsely claims that under the Senate health care bill, "You don't get a single benefit until 2014"
During his November 19 Fox News program, Glenn Beck falsely claimed that under the Senate health care bill, "All of the benefits of this bill don't kick in until when? You don't get a single benefit until 2014." He later added: "[G]uess what, you're not going to get jack for five whole years" after the bill is passed.
November 19, 2009 7:42 pm ET
Conservative media frequently accuse progressives of "raping" Americans
Conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage frequently employ rape metaphors when discussing progressives or progressive policies. For example, Beck said that New Yorkers are "being raped by [their] government," while Limbaugh, during a discussion of health care, told his listeners: "Get ready to get gang-raped again.
November 19, 2009 5:54 pm ET
Fox News' year in apologies: fake videos, false info, cutting and pasting from GOP
On November 19, co-host Jane Skinner apologized for Happening Now "mistakenly" airing a fake video of Sarah Palin's book tour "crowds." This was not the first time Fox News has apologized for airing fake videos and false information.
November 19, 2009 5:41 pm ET
Quick Fact: Limbaugh falsely claims undocumented immigrants "are covered" under House health care bill
On his November 19 radio show, Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants "are covered" under the recently passed House health care bill. In fact, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) stipulates that those "not lawfully present" may not receive subsidies to purchase insurance.
November 19, 2009 4:56 pm ET
Quick Fact: Dr. Limbaugh promotes false notion that abortion is linked to breast cancer
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh told a caller that "there are studies that say abortions increase the chances of breast cancer." In fact, the American Cancer Society says that "research studies have not found a cause-and-effect relationship between abortion and breast cancer," and the National Cancer Institute states that it found that "having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman's subsequent risk of developing breast cancer."
November 19, 2009 4:25 pm ET
WSJ falsely claimed task force recommended cutting off mammograms for grandma
In a November 19 editorial, The Wall Street Journal falsely claimed that recent task force recommendations for breast cancer screenings advises doctors to "cut off all screening in woman over 75" in order to fearmonger that the recommendations are a form of government rationing of care to the elderly -- that "grandma is probably going to die anyway, so why waste the money?" In fact, the task force made no recommendation related to women older than 75, stating that "the current evidence is insufficient to assess the additional benefits and harms of screening mammography in women 75 years or older."
November 19, 2009 2:34 pm ET
Quick Fact: Media repeat conservative claim that nonbinding health guidelines foreshadow rationing
In recent days, several media outlets have repeated the conservative claim that a task force recommending that fewer women younger than 50 receive regular mammograms is a precursor to government rationing under health care reform. In fact, the recommendations are not legally binding on health care providers or insurers.
November 19, 2009 2:22 pm ET
Fox & Friends repeatedly equates Senate bill's deficit reduction with "taxes"
During its November 19 broadcast, Fox & Friends described the amount by which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the Senate's health care bill would reduce the federal deficit as a tax, and co-host Gretchen Carlson later suggested that the projected $127 billion net reduction in the 10-year deficit would come entirely from tax revenues. In fact, the CBO estimate shows that the bill also reduces the deficit through significant changes in spending.
November 19, 2009 2:09 pm ET
Fox & Friends misleadingly inflates cost of Senate bill by adding doctor pay fix
Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson misleadingly inflated the cost of the Senate health care reform bill by adding the cost of a separate measure repealing scheduled cuts in Medicare payments to doctors. However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculates the cost of the doctor pay fix from a baseline that assumes, under a do-nothing scenario, Congress would allow scheduled cuts to take place when, as Fox News' Caroline Shively noted during the program, they have not in the past; so with or without the passage of a comprehensive health care reform bill or a permanent repeal of the cuts, the doctor pay costs are likely to be incurred.
