Category Archives: Media

CNN White-Noise News Conceals ‘Massive, Fraudulent,’ Indictable, Obama Scheme

Barack Obama, Ethics, Healthcare, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

The thing that’s on every American’s mind—breaking news about the consequences of Obama’s devastating (developing) lies to their medical and financial well being—CNN has been concealing with the following white-noise news stories:

* A state senator’s stabbing
* George Zimmerman’s ongoing antics.
* JFK.
* The Jonestown massacre’s 30th anniversary.
* Ted Turner (“who,” you ask) turns 75, and CNN profiles him for hours on end.

National Review and Powerline have filled in the gap in reportage magnificently. In “Obama’s ‘5 Percent’ Con Job,” Andrew C. McCarthy expounds on the developing impeachable offenses of O:

… Unable to deny that millions of Americans have lost the coverage he vowed they could keep, Obama and other Democrats are now peddling what we might call the “5 percent” con job. The president asserts that these victims, whom he feels so terribly about, nevertheless constitute a tiny, insignificant minority in the greater scheme of things (“scheme” is used advisedly). They are limited, he maintains, to consumers in the individual health-insurance market, as opposed to the vastly greater number of Americans who get insurance through their employers. According to Obama, these individual-market consumers whose policies are being canceled make up only 5 percent of all health-insurance consumers.
Even this 5 percent figure is a deception. As Avik Roy points out, the individual market actually accounts for 8 percent of health-insurance consumers. Obama can’t help himself: He even minimizes his minimizations. So, if Obama were telling the truth in rationalizing that his broken promises affect only consumers in the individual-insurance market, we’d still be talking about up to 25 million Americans. While the president shrugs these victims off, 25 million exceeds the number of Americans who do not have health insurance because of poverty or preexisting conditions (as opposed to those who could, but choose not to, purchase insurance). Of course, far from cavalierly shrugging off that smaller number of people, Obama and Democrats used them to justify nationalizing a sixth of the U.S. economy. …

But that’s not the half of it. Obama’s claim that unwelcome cancellations are confined to the individual-insurance market is another brazen lie. In the weekend column, I link to the excellent work of Powerline’s John Hinderaker, who has demonstrated that, for over three years, the Obama administration’s internal estimates have shown that most Americans who are covered by “employer plans” will also lose their coverage under Obamacare. Mind you, 156 million Americans get health coverage through their jobs.
John cites the Federal Register, dated June 17, 2010, beginning at page 34,552 (Vol. 75, No. 116). It includes a chart that outlines the Obama administration’s projections. The chart indicates that somewhere between 39 and 69 percent of employer plans would lose their “grandfather” protection by 2013. In fact, for small-business employers, the high-end estimate is a staggering 80 percent (and even on the low end, it’s just a shade under half — 49 percent).
That is to say: During all these years, while Obama was repeatedly assuring Americans, “If you like your health-insurance plan, you can keep your health-insurance plan,” he actually expected as many as seven out of every ten Americans covered by employer plans to lose their coverage. For small business, he expected at least one out of every two Americans, or as many as four out of every five, to lose their coverage. …

… October 17, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services, represented by the Obama Justice Department, submitted a brief to the federal district court in Washington, opposing Priests for Life’s summary judgment motion. On page 27 of its brief, the Justice Department makes the following remarkable assertion:
The [ACA’s] grandfathering provision’s incremental transition does not undermine the government’s interests in a significant way. [Citing, among other sources, the Federal Register.] Even under the grandfathering provision, it is projected that more group health plans will transition to the requirements under the regulations as time goes on. Defendants have estimated that a majority of group health plans will have lost their grandfather status by the end of 2013.
HHS and the Justice Department cite the same section of the Federal Register referred to by John Hinderaker, as well as an annual survey on “Employer Health Benefits” compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2012.
So, while the president has been telling us that, under the vaunted grandfathering provision, all Americans who like their health-insurance plans will be able to keep them, “period,” his administration has been representing in federal court that most health plans would lose their “grandfather status” by the end of this year. Not just the “5 percent” of individual-market consumers, but close to all consumers — including well over 100 million American workers who get coverage through their jobs — have been expected by the president swiftly to “transition to the requirements under the [Obamacare] regulations.” That is, their health-insurance plans would be eliminated. They would be forced into Obamacare-compliant plans, with all the prohibitive price hikes and coercive mandates that “transition” portends. …

MSNBC at least broaches the topic of healthcare today, but not to break the aforementioned news.

Fix News Falters, But Flatters

Conservatism, Ethics, Etiquette, Ilana Mercer, Media

When “‘Obama, Love Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry’” was first published and circulated, Megyn Kelly led her show with the exact reference and column title, even cuing the music from “Love Story.” Did she or her producer have the decency to credit the column? You know the answer to that.

Our editor sent me this comment: “yep, par for the course—still kinda cool though.” He’s right.

Indeed, as documented in “Glenn Beck Awakens To The Color Of Hate Crime (But Fails To Credit Those Who Went Before),” this is not a first for big, conservative media—generally challenged in the originality department. Passing off the often-idiosyncratic ideas or references of others as their own is “par for the course” in these circles.

Personally, I experienced Sean Hannity as a cordial gentleman—disarmingly charming—who was generous on air in his praise for my work and controversial position. (Perhaps the only position I’ve taken that I’ve come to deeply regret, even though it is probably philosophically correct.)

Debbie Schlussel, however, has had a different experience, detailed in “Why is Sean Hannity Deliberately Ripping Me Off?”.

UPDATED: Obama, Love Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry (Fix News)

Barack Obama, Bush, Ethics, Healthcare, Media

“Obama: Love Means Never having To Say You’re Sorry” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

So where do we stand in the health care chain reaction, cooked-up in the Barack Obama command-and-control centers? Let’s see. Having destroyed the market for health insurance, the president turned to another parlor game, hailed by the daytrippers at CNN and the New York Times as a “health fix” and a “fix for canceled plans.”

Yes, the fix is in. Parsed, the president’s advice to the millions who’ve lost coverage is, essentially, “I’ll let you keep your already canceled policies through 2014. Feel free to take it up with your insurance company.”

In the preceding weeks, and against the backdrop of polls in which 50 percent of voters said, “President Obama knowingly lied when he repeatedly told Americans they could keep their plans under his signature health care law,” the paper of record took a “different” view. Obama, the apple of their eye, “wrongly assured Americans that they could retain their health care plans.”

An “incorrect promise” was another euphemism used by NYT story tellers.

Quite the opposite, opined Patrick J. Buchanan:

WHO’S THE BIGGEST LIAR OF THEM ALL? In the grand scheme of history, Obama’s rank lie “now enters presidential history alongside George H.W. Bush’s ‘Read my lips! No new taxes,’ Bill Clinton’s ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,’ and George W. Bush’s tales of yellow cake in Niger and hidden arsenals of WMDs.”

As wrecking balls go, Obama and “W” are tied in ignominy. Christopher Conover of Duke University estimates that “129 million, or 68 percent of Americans, may not be able to keep their current health care plans once Obamacare is fully implemented. [Conover’s] study also suggests that 18 to 50 million people will lose their plans altogether.”

The butcher’s bill of human suffering—Bush’s—has been tallied. Obama’s is still to come. …

The complete column is “Obama: Love Means Never having To Say You’re Sorry.” Read it on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATE (11/15): FIX NEW. Megyn Kelly of Fox News uses the exact reference and title of my Friday, WND column, even cues the music from “Love Story” referenced. Did she or her producer have the decency to credit the column? You know the answer to that.

Correction, Gov. Christie: It’s Obama The Liar Talking

Barack Obama, Education, Healthcare, Intelligence, Media, Morality, Propaganda, Republicans

“That’s Barack Obama the lawyer talking” was the crappy Chris Christie’s explanation to the attempts of the president to finesse the lies he told at least 24 times about his subjects’ ability to hang on to their health-care.

Correction Gov. Christie: It’s Obama the liar talking.

CNN knows who to go to in order to bolster the narrative that the nitwork has been promoting: The Anointed One merely misspoke when he roared repeatedly, from 2009 through to 2012:

“If you like your health care plan, you will keep it. Or, “If you got health insurance and you like your plan and like your doctor, you will keep your plan, you will keep your doctor.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper is obviously—and energetically—collecting affidavits for his nitwork’s favorite man. Who else to galvanize but a character like New Jersey Gov. Christie, who is an expert at lying about lying? Here’s what that mountain of opportunistic flesh told Tapper:

“Don’t be so cute,” Christie said. “And when you make a mistake, admit it. Listen, if he was mistaken in 2009, 2010 on his understanding of how the law would operate, then just admit it to people. Say, ‘You know what? I said it, I was wrong. I’m sorry and we’re going to try to fix this and make it better.’ I think people would give any leader in that circumstance a lot of credit for just, you know, owning up to it.”

Tapper referenced Obama’s revision last night of his “if you like your plan, you can keep it” pledge.

“Don’t lawyer it,” Christie continued. “People don’t like lawyers. I’m a lawyer. They don’t like ‘em. You know? Don’t lawyer it. When I saw that this morning—I saw that this morning for the first time, and I thought, he’s lawyering it. That’s Barack Obama the lawyer.”

I love the way everyone reverentially alludes to the president’s former profession, as though he was anything but a lawyer with no private-practice or scholarly achievements, and a subpar university teacher with bad ratings from students:

During his 12 years as a lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Law School, [Obama’s] student-approval ratings were low. In fact, he was one of the lowest ranked professors in his last 5 years at the university. As we already know … [Barack Obama] left no record of legal scholarly writings.