Media Matters Daily Summary 06-25-09

Wash. Post misleads on Medicare cost growth
The Washington Post suggested that the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid is driven primarily by the aging of the American population. But the CBO has found that the principal factor behind these rising costs is the "growth in per capita costs rather than from the aging of the population." Read More

Cameron whitewashes Barbour's record on Katrina
Carl Cameron stated that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour "emerge[d] from the Katrina disaster with a reputation for competence and effectiveness in crisis." However, Barbour reportedly sought and obtained waivers to redirect funds designated for low-income Katrina victims. Read More

MSNBC, Fox tease White House meeting on immigration by showing footage of border-crossers
In teasing a White House meeting on immigration, MSNBC and Fox News again aired footage of people apparently crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, despite the fact that such footage largely distorts the issue. Read More

Media skew health care debate by casting public plan option as left-most proposal
The media have portrayed the inclusion of a public option in a health care reform package as the most progressive position in the debate and described Sen. Kent Conrad's proposal for health coverage cooperatives as the "compromise" position. This framing ignores many progressives' advocacy of a single-payer system. Read More

Fox News omits Republican scandals in assessment of Sanford prospects
In two segments over the course of four hours on June 25, Fox News' James Rosen highlighted only scandals involving Democrats during reports that purported to examine earlier political sex scandals in an effort to assess South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's situation. Read More

Morris falsely claimed that "government is telling people, cut back on cesarean sections"
Dick Morris falsely claimed that "right now the government is telling people, cut back on cesarean sections, go through natural childbirth. It's a lower cost." In fact, the Obama administration is "telling people" no such thing Read More

Media conservatives target the 2010 census, encourage audience not to complete forms
Conservative media figures and outlets have encouraged their audiences not to complete the 2010 U.S. census, stated that they would not complete it -- which would constitute a violation of the law -- or stated that the questions included in the survey are "unconstitutional." Read More

Despite CBO Report, Republicans Continue To Claim Climate Legislation Could Cost $3100 Per Household

TPM

Earlier this week I reported that a Congressional Budget Office analysis had determined that--despite what Republicans have been alleging for weeks--the Waxman-Markey climate change bill will have only a modest financial impact on American households.

My inquiry about this discrepancy to House Minority Leader John Boehner's office went unanswered, but the next day, Boehner distributed a new set of talking points which omitted the once-omnipresent claim that the legislation would cost the average household over $3,000 annually.

Not everyone's following protocol, though.

In a press release issued today, Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) repeated the debunked statistic. "The Office of House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) today launched a new video news release entitled, 'Number One Priority.' The video highlights Speaker Pelosi's top priority, 'cap and trade' legislation that will impose a national energy tax of up to $3,100 on all Americans and slam small businesses with higher energy bills, causing the loss of millions of jobs."

Note that the language has changed here, too. Republicans used to claim that a cap and trade system would cost the average household about $3,100 per year. Now, Cantor's saying it will cost them up to that amount. The CBO report found that households in the highest income quintile will likely see a net cost increase of $245 per year as a result of the Waxman-Markey bill--which, to be fair is only 12 or 13 times less than Cantor's claiming. And I suppose it's theoretically possible that some rich constituent of Cantor's who uses an outrageous amount of energy will pay that much more. But it seems as if the GOP will resort to anything to keep this talking point alive.

ACORN wins voter lawsuit

The Missouri Department of Social Services has settled a lawsuit accusing it of violating a federal law requiring it to help its clients register to vote.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, filed the lawsuit in April 2008. A federal judge in Kansas City in July issued a preliminary injunction ordering the social services agency to comply with the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the “motor-voter” law.

The settlement was filed Thursday.

Under the agreement, the department must track the number of people visiting its county offices monthly and how many register to vote. It also must designate local and state voter registration coordinators.Plaintiffs in the case released this statement:

"Over 100,000 low-income Missouri citizens already have registered to vote at public assistance offices in the few short months since the Court ordered Missouri DSS to follow the law. Today's settlement confirms that DSS now will be a partner in ensuring the voting rights of all Missouri citizens, fulfilling a key goal of the NVRA," said Brenda Wright, director of the Democracy Program at Demos and counsel for plaintiffs.

"Other states across the country that have ignored the voting rights of low-income citizens for far too long should take note of Missouri's example and bring their practices into compliance with the law."

"This case demonstrates the potential difference that the NVRA can make in enfranchising our poorest citizens," stated Jon Greenbaum, legal director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and co-counsel for plaintiffs.

"If every state registered its public assistance clients at the rate Missouri has since last year's court order, several million citizens would be registered through public assistance agencies every year instead of the few hundred thousand that are now being registered. We hope that DSS will relate its experiences to its counterparts in the other states."

The court ruling that led to today's settlement cited "substantial evidence" of voting rights violations, including:

• State documents confirming that over one million Food Stamps applicants could not have been offered voter registration from 2003-2008 because DSS did not order enough of the forms it is required to give each client;

• Field surveys by plaintiffs of agency offices showing that offices were not offering voter registration;

• E-mails from a DSS employee acknowledging that half the counties in a 21-county survey were not routinely providing voter registration to DSS clients;

• E-mails from one county DSS office showing that voter registration applications completed by clients had been permitted to pile up for an entire year without being turned in to the local election authority for processing.

To view the settlement agreement, and for more information on the NVRA and voting rights, visit www.demos.org; www.projectvote.org; or www.lawyerscommittee.org.

Arkansas Inmate Nearly Dies After Left in Feces

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — An Arkansas prisoner nearly died after guards left him lying naked in his own feces for a weekend, and while investigating the incident corrections officials found that guards received lap dances while on the job, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

The prison system fired Lt. John Glasscock, who supervised guards on duty at the maximum-security Tucker Unit prison. One sergeant was fired, another was demoted and three others received written warnings, according to a report stamped "Sustained (Allegation is True)." The report said Glasscock gave false information to investigators and did substandard work "resulting in injury and/or property damage."

The disclosure of the inmate's near death comes after two convicted murderers escaped a different state prison by wearing guard uniforms and officers at the Tucker Unit fatally shot a man who officials said fled from a contraband checkpoint.

Combined, the incidents raise new questions about a troubled state prison system described by a federal judge 40 years ago as a "dark and evil world.".....

Bachmann Warns Of Link Between Census, Japanese Internment

TPM

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is taking her refusal to fully fill out her Census form, which is a crime punishable by a $5,000 fine, to a whole new level: Invoking the memory of the Japanese internment during World War II, and the evil role that the Census played in it!

During an interview this morning on Fox News, Bachmann mostly focused on the danger of her personal information falling into the hands of the dreaded menace ACORN. But at one point, she made a very interesting appeal to history:

"Take this into consideration. If we look at American history, between 1942 and 1947, the data that was collected by the Census Bureau was handed over to the FBI and other organizations at the request of President Roosevelt, and that's how the Japanese were rounded up and put into the internment camps," said Bachmann. "I'm not saying that that's what the Administration is planning to do, but I am saying that private personal information that was given to the Census Bureau in the 1940s was used against Americans to round them up, in a violation of their constitutional rights, and put the Japanese in internment camps."

At this point even Megyn Kelly, who had been gladly dishing out the anti-ACORN talk along with Bachmann, had to take a step back and raise the point that the Japanese internment was a long time ago and we haven't had such abuses since then.

For some context on how this fits into Bachmann's overall worldview, keep in mind that she's previously warned of the threat of "re-education camps" where young people would be indoctrinated into the government's official philosophy.

Sean Hannity's Past Relationship with Neo-Nazi, Anti-Semite and Now Arrested Hal Turner

By Mark Karlin

Ah yes, another hate talker is accused of plotting violence, this time against federal judges:

A blogger and Internet radio host from New Jersey was arrested Wednesday by the FBI on charges he threatened to kill three federal appellate judges in Chicago.

The federal charges, filed in Chicago, alleged white supremacist Hal Turner called for the judges' murders after they affirmed on June 2 a lower court decision to dismiss challenges to Chicago's ban on handguns.

Turner is no stranger to law enforcement. Just this month, he was charged in Connecticut with making threats against legislators.

He came to attention of authorities in Chicago after the killings of the husband and mother of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow in 2005.

Turner posted the work addresses of appeals court judges who had ruled against white supremacist Matthew Hale in a civil case presided over by Lefkow.

Sometime back, journalist Max Blumenthal (who was at one time a night editor for BuzzFlash) exposed the past relationship of Sean Hannity with Hal Turner. Blumenthal described Hannity as virtually a mentor to Turner, and Turner claimed that Hannity was pretty much his soul mate in outlook, but implied that Hannity had to tone it down because of his high media profile.

When we discuss hate talkers and how seriously they are responsible for the rise in political murder and violence in the United States -- by pouring the gasoline on the floor and encouraging others to light the match -- it is just one other story that gets lost in the increasingly short news cycles.

But it is the story of FOX and Limbaugh and Coulter -- and so many others who are paid salaries for convincing a segment of working class America that "liberals" are not "true Americans" and are their enemies. Ironically, of course, Hannity and his multi-million dollar salaried hate talk pals are creating domestic terrorists within our midst. All this so that the corporatists can continue getting their way in D.C. It's a complicated relationship in which the Rupert Murdochs of the world get paid by corporate America to try and divert the attention of economically-stressed out white Americans from how their pockets are being picked by the wealthy.

Hal Turner is just the dark underside, one of the implementers of the logical conclusion of hate talkers like Hannity: the enemy -- liberals and "Un-American judges," among others -- must be eliminated, as David Neiwert has pointed out in his book, "The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right."

But, as BuzzFlash has warned again and again, if we continue to dismiss the Hannitys of the world with condescension, we will see more Hal Turners and more politically motivated murders.

Progressives who advocate for democracy must hold the hate talkers like Hannity accountable -- and they must invest in a pro-democracy media infrastructure.

Otherwise, as Max Blumenthal wrote, we will continue to deal with the violent outcome of the Hal Turners of America: "Hannity's Soulmate of Hate."

'English-Only' Supporters Hold Conference, Can't Spell 'Conference'

On Saturday, Pat Buchanan hosted a conference to discuss how Republicans can regain a majority in America. During one discussion, panelists suggested supporting English-only initiatives as a prime way of attracting "working class white Democrats."

The discussion ridiculed Judge Sotomayor for the fact that she studied children’s classics to improve her grammar while attending college. The panelists also suggested that, without English as the official language, President Obama would force Americans to speak Spanish.

One salient feature of the event was the banner hanging over the English-only advocates. The word conference was spelled “Conferenece.” View it here:

Health Insurance Insider: 'They Dump the Sick'

Retired health insurance executive Wendell Potter told Congress today that insurance companies routinely rip off customers.

ABC NEWS

Frustrated Americans have long complained that their insurance companies valued the all-mighty buck over their health care. Today, a retired insurance executive confirmed their suspicions, arguing that the industry that once employed him regularly rips off its policyholders.
Retired health insurance executive Wendell Potter told Congress today that insurance companies routinely rip off customers.

"They confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said during a hearing on health insurance today before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Potter, who has more than 20 years of experience working in public relations for insurance companies Cigna and Humana, said companies routinely drop seriously ill policyholders so they can meet "Wall Street's relentless profit expectations."