Category Archives: culture

NLMSM Strikes Again

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Leading off an APNewsbreak piece Monday about how top Democrats want an extension to the sign-up period for Obamacare is this image:AP_3

The image is captioned [emphasis added]

In this Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015 photo, a laptop shows the HealthCare.com web site during an Affordable Care Act enrollment event at the Fort Worth Public Library in Fort Worth, Texas. For the second year in a row, millions of Americans have signed up for subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama’s law. But as the 2015 sign-up season draws to a close Sunday, the future of the Affordable Care Act remains in doubt. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (The Associated Press)

Umm, no. That’s actually HealthCare.gov, the actual government-built (with your money, recall) ObamaMart portal for signing up for Obamacare. As the white field in the upper right corner of the page in the image clearly shows. Below, by the way, is what was being displayed last Monday on HealthCare.gov:AP_1

In fairness to the AP, even though their piece was datelined 16 Feb (the day after the signup period had expired), it likely was written Sunday, 15 Feb.

The image below is what the home page of HealthCare.com was displaying on 16 Feb. I have no idea of the legitimacy of HealthCare.com; use it at your own risk.AP_2

This sort of reporting has been all too typical of the NLMSM’s commentary regarding Obamacare, and it’s at the heart of the public’s confusion about Obamacare. This is no typo, nor is it particularly nefarious; it’s just sloppy reporting and non-existent editing.

HealthCare.com has this, in part, on their About Us page:

HealthCare.com is owned and operated by HealthCare, Inc. Since 2006, HealthCare.com has been committed to improving online healthcare for U.S. consumers making purchasing decisions.

Corporate Dishonesty

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I received in today’s snailmail a document postmarked Sacramento, CA, Permit No 1827. In bold, black print, the envelope carrying this document had the following notice:

WARNING: $2000 FINE, 5 YEARS IMPRISONMENT, OR BOTH FOR ANY PERSON INTERFERING OR OBSTRUCTING DELIVERY OF THIS LETTER.

Who sent me this very important document? Who knows? The originator was so ashamed of himself and/or what he had to say to me that he declined to put his address, much less his name, on the envelope.

I opened it.

It turns out it’s from some crowd calling themselves 1st Nationwide Mortgage, and the document was signature-stamped by someone claiming to represent Chris Arco, Senior Vice President, First Nationwide Mortgage.

If this crowd is so dishonest it puts misleading threats of dire consequences on the outside of its envelope, and/or if it’s so cowardly it won’t put its name and return address on the outside, then on what basis can any of us take it seriously?

I put its trash into the recycling bin for pick up next week. Yeah, we recycle in Texas, just like they do in California. Only we recycle our trash to our own facilities, we don’t mail it out of state.

A Journalistic View of the Importance of Truth

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This is what too many journalists are saying about NBC’s Brian Williams’ lie about being on a helicopter in Iraq that was forced to land after being hit by an RPG. They’re making these statements, too, while eliding Williams’ subsequently discovered lies concerning his…reporting…in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and in Israel, before that, during Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah. First up is Howard Kurtz, author of the piece from which the rest of the quotes below are taken:

What’s been striking to me is how many people are willing to end what has been a pretty solid career because of this one admittedly horrible mistake.

That’s because the career should end. The man has destroyed his credibility with his lie—a deliberate act, not a “mistake.”

Alan Colmes, as cited by Kurtz:

[I]t was “sad” to see this mistake “destroy a man and destroy his career.

No. Whether all of this destroys Brian Williams is up to Williams alone, what he chooses to learn from this, what he chooses to do about it. Whether it destroys Williams’ journalist career, it certainly should. He lied. At least three times.

Dan Abrams:

I am troubled by the fervor, occasional glee, and potentially disproportionate fury…. This alliance of certain capital-J journalists, conservative bloggers, and some who simply despise any rich and famous journalist are a formidable force.

No journalistic distortion there. Nope.

Joe Scarborough:

…the decision is made to judge what Brian Williams’ future should be, that that decision will be based on the entirety of his career and not on one or two or three mistakes.

Mistakes. I’m detecting a theme here. When a journalist lies, that’s just a mistake. No big deal. Nothing to see here.

Scarborough again:

If he exaggerated, if he puffed his chest out a little bit—news people do that.

Lies are just puffery. And since all news people do it, it’s OK. That Left morality, again: an act’s legitimacy comes from whether or not somebody else did it, or does it, too. Morality is not at all inherent in the act.

How can anyone ever believe what a liar says? Kurtz and his fellows apparently have chosen not to answer that one.

News Media

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First, there was Dan Rather and his nakedly falsified National Guard document, which he used on his 60 Minutes show to attempt to smear President George Bush the Younger.

Then there’s the constant smear campaign against folks like Governor Sarah Palin and the Tea Party as racists.

There’s the blatantly biased coverage of the Ferguson shooting.

Now there’s Brian Williams.

Brian Williams, the nation’s top-rated news anchor, has admitted fabricating a tale of being forced down by enemy fire in a helicopter over Iraq a dozen years ago.

Williams apologized on the air Wednesday evening, saying: “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago.”

A lie is just a mistake, is it? Well, yeah, if…recognition…of it by the perp comes 2 years after the lie, it’s of personal interest to the liar to play down the lie, and it’s a journalist doing the down-play. He did, finally, tell the Stars and Stripes straight up that

I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area—and the fog of memory over 12 years—made me conflate the two, and I apologize.

He only made the statement, though, after he’d been caught out by the helicopter crewman who were there—the ones who actually had been shot down by Iraqi ground fire.

He also said:

I would not have chosen to make this mistake. I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.

Except he did choose exactly that. Besides, how does one “conflate” the helicopter one’s in with another helicopter an hour and some miles away?

Is there anyone on the Left News Media who’s an honest journalist?

Oh, yeah: there’s also the woman who used to sit in the Secretary of State’s chair, Hillary Clinton, who lied about taking sniper fire in Bosnia.

And President Barack Obama’s repeated lies about Obamacare (and nearly everything else about his administration’s policies).

Is there anyone on the Left who’s honest?

Jordan Understands the Threat

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Regarding the ISIS-held Jordanian pilot Lt Muath al-Kaseasbeh: in the aftermath of the Japanese journalists’ butcheries, Jordan’s King Abdullah II ibn al Hussein appears to be taking a hard line. Correctly so.

Elijah Magnier, chief international correspondent for Kuwait’s Al Rai newspaper, told MailOnline: “I have reliable contact in the Jordanian government who says a message has been passed to ISIS.

“It warns that if they kill the pilot they will implement the death sentences for Sajida and other ISIS prisoners as soon as possible.

“There are other prisoners in Jordan that ISIS would like to free.”

A thing that might color the King’s decision: Catherine Herridge of Fox News thinks the second Japanese journalist had already been butchered at the time of the “negotiations” for a swap. The pilot may already be dead, also.

I’m not sure al Hussein’s line would work in the United States; it would start us down a slippery slope to what for us would be a very dark place. But I’m not at all going to criticize the King of Jordan for taking such a step should he find it necessary.

 

h/t Belmont Club