Right Wing Noise Machine – Page 4 – The Moral Healthcare Blog

Eagle Forum Contradicts Thomas Jefferson On Constitution’s “Christianized” Roots | Right Wing Watch

Eagle Forum Contradicts Thomas Jefferson On Constitution’s “Christianized” Roots | Right Wing Watch:

In fact, Jefferson skewers those in England who tried to implement biblical law, much like many on the Religious Right attempt to do today, arguing that the gospel was “intended by their benevolent author as obligatory only in foro concientiae” (obligations of conscience, not law), and that the Ten Commandments were never incorporated into common law:

In truth, the alliance between Church and State in England has ever made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even bolder than they are. For instead of being contented with these four surreptitious chapters of Exodus, they have taken the whole leap, and declared at once that the whole Bible and Testament in a lump, make a part of the common law; ante 873: the first judicial declaration of which was by this same Sir Matthew Hale. And thus they incorporate into the English code laws made for the Jews alone, and the precepts of the gospel, intended by their benevolent author as obligatory only in foro concientiae; and they arm the whole with the coercions of municipal law. In doing this, too, they have not even used the Connecticut caution of declaring, as is done in their blue laws, that the laws of God shall be the laws of their land, except where their own contradict them; but they swallow the yea and nay together. Finally, in answer to Fortescue Aland’s question why the ten commandments should not now be a part of the common law of England? we may say they are not because they never were made so by legislative authority, the document which has imposed that doubt on him being a manifest forgery.

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Obama’s War Against Americans is Relentless. His Primary Attack Force is the EPA. « Conservatives on Fire

Obama’s War Against Americans is Relentless. His Primary Attack Force is the EPA. « Conservatives on Fire:

I’m taking an epidemiology/population health this semester, and we were reviewing the topic of environmental and occupational health. I Googled for the war on the EPA, and found the article linked to here, concerning how liberals and other tree huggers were were trying to ruin the economy and take us into a Communist police state through use of the EPA. Of course, this is not new.

But I was stunned by the absolute ignorance of several of the paragraphs, this one in particular:

Dear readers I would appreciate it very much if you would let me know if in fact you do live longer or if you have fewer non-fatal heart attacks or if you experience fewer sick days after this new rule takes effect. I mean we really should keep these records so we can verify if the EPA’s projections were correct or not. So, again, please let me know how it turns out and I will be happy to compile the record and I’ll report back once I have a statistically significant amount of data.

I don’t have to explain to anyone with even the slightest amount of education in math or science how profoundly ignorant this is, and if it were just this one blogger, I’d laugh it off. But scroll through some of the comments if you have a strong stomach. Or Google for yourself and see more. Or look here to see Think Progress analysis of Fox News war on the EPA.

I refuse to believe that these people are as stupid as their statements make them sound. But it is deeply saddening to see how profoundly an ideology – Market Fundamentalism – can shut down critical thinking.

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FactCheck.org : Premium Nonsense On Medicare

FactCheck.org : Premium Nonsense On Medicare:

My sister-in-law sent me one of those BS right wing chain emails (they try to misinform while staying under the radar of actually informed people by sending it to their fellow in-the-Fox-bubble friends) about rising Medicare premiums because of the Affordable Care Act. Here is the original quote, in the hopes that people Googling for this nonsense will find the correct information, then the FactCheck response (the full response is at the link at the top):

The per person Medicare insurance premium will increase from the present monthly fee of $96.40, rising to: $104.20 in 2012; $120.20 in 2013; And $247.00 in 2014. These are provisions incorporated in the Obamacare legislation, purposely delayed so as not to ‘confuse’ the 2012 re-election campaigns. Send this to all seniors that you know, so they will know who’s throwing them under the bus.

REMEMBER THIS IN NOVEMBER 2012 & VOTE ACCORDINGLY

——————————————————————–
FACTCHECK.ORG

The Real Effect of the Health Care Law

That’s not to say that the health care law won’t have an effect on the premiums paid by some seniors. It will, but not in the way this bogus message claims. The change will affect only a small minority of upper-income Medicare beneficiaries.

Currently, about the top 5 percent of seniors pay an “income-related premium” that was enacted as part of the same 2003 law that created the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Upper-income seniors have been paying more than the standard premium since 2007. Currently those earning between $85,000 and $107,000 for individuals (between $170,000 and $214,000 for couples) pay a total of $161.50. The amounts grow larger for higher-income groups, reaching $369.10 per month for seniors making more than $214,000 (or $428,000 for couples).

The new law doesn’t increase those premiums, but does ensure that more high-earning seniors will pay them. It does this by freezing the income brackets at 2010 levels through 2019, rather than allowing them to rise with inflation as originally enacted. The Kaiser Family Foundation released a report in December projecting that in 2019 the top 14 percent of seniors would be paying the income-related premiums — an additional 3.5 million seniors.

The law also established a separate set of income-related premiums for Medicare Part D — the prescription-drug benefit — which previously had charged only a standard premium for all. Taken together, these changes are expected to bring in an additional $36 billion over 10 years, Kaiser’s study said.

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Old LTE on Jon Stewart

Given Jon Stewart’s recent dust up over on Fox News Sunday, I Googled and old LTE to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette I wrote before the 2004 election. I think it is still pretty spot on, if I do say so myself (and so did the crowd over at Democratic Underground, apparently)!

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Friday, September 10, 2004

Mr. Koppel, here’s why we watch ‘The Daily Show’

I hope this is it. I hope television journalism has hit rock bottom like an alcoholic who wakes up on a downtown sidewalk and understands he must find a 12-step program.

If you stayed up late enough last Wednesday night to see the very end of Ted Koppel’s “Nightline,” you would have been able to witness just how obtuse television news reporting has become. Ted Koppel tried to teach an elementary lesson in Journalism with a capital J to “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart, and was repeatedly verbally dope-slapped by the comedian to no apparent effect. Jon Stewart, as he frequently does, was stating the case that journalists were failing miserably at their job. So miserably, in fact, that many people feel they have to watch a basic cable fake news show to find “The Truth.”

Mr. Koppel then patronizingly tried to explain to Mr. Stewart the difference between facts and the truth. He suggested that if the president gave a speech calling Mr. Koppel a rapist and pedophile that this assertion would be a fact and newsworthy in that the president called a famous, well-respected journalist a rapist and pedophile, even if the accusation were untrue.

Not being a journalist, I was dumbstruck. Mr. Koppel believes that the correct headline for a journalist to report on this hypothetical event is “President accuses journalist of pedophilia” because it is factually correct. I think the rest of us non-journalists would agree that the headline should be “President falsely accuses journalist of pedophilia.” I have been trying to get my head around why journalism has gotten so bad in the past 20 years and Ted Koppel has finally shown me. When Gerald Ford mistakenly argued in a presidential debate with Jimmy Carter that Eastern Europe was not under the influence of the Soviet Union, yes, indeed, it was reported that he said this. But it was never reported without it being noted that he was completely wrong.

If President Bush makes a speech declaring that the moon is made of cheese, the headline is not “President declares moon made of cheese,” the headline is “President delusional!” or “White House assures nation that president misspoke.”

If you have been paying attention, you have seen this slide to the bottom coming for a long time. Newt Gingrich in the early ’90s put the pedal to the metal when he developed his dirty words to call your opponent that won’t be challenged. The press, pathetically, and the Democrats, even more pathetically, did nothing to call this slimy tactic by its proper name. This first inroad led us down the path to where we are now: the unchallenged assertion.

On MSNBC’s “Hardball” last week, Sen. Rick Santorum finished up his interview with Chris Matthews with some stunning assertions about John Kerry: “Well, I mean, I only have to allude to his testimony before Congress … And I think that kind of anti-American sentiment, that kind of America can’t do it, America isn’t good enough anymore, and sort of being critical, as he has been of the president, not supporting our troops, all that coming out in Pennsylvania is just not going to sell.”

Well, thank goodness for Chris Matthews and his hard-hitting journalism and integrity. His “hardball” response? “OK. It’s great talking to you tonight, Senator Rick Santorum, the junior senator from Pennsylvania.”

OK. So for Rick Santorum and the panoply of militarily challenged members of the Bush-Cheney administration, every returning Vietnam veteran, every student, every reporter, every housewife, every member of Congress, and every soldier on a swift boat or in a jungle who opposed the Vietnam War were anti-American? Everyone who believed that Nixon and Kissinger and McNamara were conducting an unnecessary war in a reprehensible manner are anti-American?

Am I incorrect in thinking that our nation’s general consensus is that those who opposed the war and literally fought to bring it to an end were courageous, patriotic Americans who fought an unpopular fight but in the end were proven right? “OK.”

And thank goodness Sen. Santorum and Sen. Zell Miller are supporting our troops, because apparently if John Kerry were in charge, we’d be fighting “with spitballs.” The idea of letting a leader of the majority party of the U.S. Senate say that one of its members from the loyal opposition does not support the troops is repugnant and should not go unchallenged. Why doesn’t Chris Matthews (or any journalist for that matter) ask Mr. Santorum: If John Kerry voted for the $87 billion the first time, why didn’t it pass? And how did Mr. Santorum and Mr. Miller and Dr. Frist and Mr. McCain vote that time?

And the next time someone says that Mr. Kerry or anyone voted “against body armor” or “against cancer research” or “to poison pregnant women” or any of those outlandishly stupid comments that pass for political discourse these days, shouldn’t some high-profile journalist ask them about their obviously ludicrous implication: So you think Mr. Smith is for cancer? So you think Mr. Jones really hates our troops?

I don’t care if George W. Bush doesn’t do nuance, the rest of us do! We can understand that voting for a bill that includes both $87 billion to fund the Iraq war and tax rollbacks to finance it is different than voting for a bill that doesn’t include the tax rollbacks. That second vote wasn’t a vote against our troops, it was casting an unpopular vote to make a point that this administration is rolling up massive deficits that will come back to haunt us and our children.

But let’s get back to Jon Stewart and Ted Koppel. Koppel has said recently that “a lot of television viewers — more, quite frankly, than I’m comfortable with — get their news from … ‘The Daily Show.’ ” As Stewart points out, that is because “The Daily Show” is willing to point out that what passes for political discourse by well-respected and supposedly well-trained broadcasters when they interact with the pull-string Chatty Cathy dolls spewing forth their disingenuous talking points is what it is, crap.

Mr. Stewart identifies himself as neither a Republican nor a Democrat and believes that the conservative/liberal paradigm no longer works. He is “anti-b.s.” Consequently, the current administration, whose ability to make the aforementioned substance smell like reasonable public policy is epic, is a favorite target. And fortunately, Mr. Stewart and his staff apparently have resources not found at virtually any other news organization in the country: collectively, they have half a brain and the writers apparently devote some of their time to research.

Mr. Stewart believes that it is the job of real journalists to adjudicate our national political debate. In a recent segment with “Daily Show” “correspondent” Rob Corddry, Stewart asked about the factual basis of the swift boat vets’ charges. “Facts?” said Corddry, “Our job is to parrot what one side says and then parrot back what the other side says!” Apparently this is what politicians can now reliably count on, but I hope the profession of journalism gets into a good 12-step program before the election.

CMHMD

The Most Outrageous U.S. Lies About Global Healthcare | Foreign Policy

The Most Outrageous U.S. Lies About Global Healthcare Foreign Policy

As the U.S. Congress this summer holds its first serious health-care reform debate since the Clinton era, the resulting public furor has featured increasingly overheated claims about everything from so-called “death panels” to the supposed prowess of America’s homegrown medicine. Many of the most wildly inaccurate statements have been directed abroad — sometimes at the United States’ closest allies, such as Britain and Canada, and often at the best health-care systems in the world.

The lies rebutted include:

1. Stephen Hawking and Ted Kennedy would be doomed outside the US.
2. Canadians come to the US for urgent care.
3. All European health care systems are single payer.
4. Canada and Britain restrict health care choices.
5. The US has The Best Healthcare In The World. (TM)

Please Cut the Crap!: Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on the Health Insurance Bill#more#more

Please Cut the Crap!: Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on the Health Insurance Bill#more#more:

The right’s lies about the current health insurance proposals before Congress have rarely been compiled in such concise form before.

What follows is an article from the Right Wing blog ChronWatch:

Page After Page of Reasons to Hate ObamaCare
By Alan Caruba

The problem is, there’s something missing, such as context. See, the writer is expecting the reader to take everything as gospel, and agree that it’s bad, without any sort of explanation. It’s a list of all of the things that are wrong with the current state of the health care reform bill before Congress. If you’d like to follow along, feel free to click here to go to the bill itself. In fact, I would encourage you to look at it for yourself; it’s an easy way to learn what’s actually in it, without having to read through all of the legalese.

We’re not called Please Cut the Crap for no reason. Below each item the right wing assures readers we’re supposed to hate, I’ve inserted context, and explained why you really shouldn’t hate it. Unless you should. All of my responses are italicized and printed in red, so that you can tell whose words are whose.

I’ll warn you, this is a long one, but it’s an important one, so get a glass of tea, print this out, and read it to everyone who spews one of these talking points, because this really does touch on pretty much all of the right’s talking points. And now you’ll be able to refute them. Isn’t that cool?”

Follow the link to read it all.

A friend sent me this email from a right wing relative, and it was just too full of crap to spend the time debunking, but fortunately the good people at “Please Cut the Crap” did it for me!

Do we do better in the US on prostate cancer?

Four Pinocchios for Recidivist Rudy – Fact Checker:

This is not about Rudy Giuliani, he’s irreleveant, but this is about the mythology that remains in the World of Fox about poor outcomes elsewhere. Somebody brought this one up recently (prostate Ca) so I put this here for future reference.

“Let’s begin by deconstructing the original Giuliani claim, featured in a campaign ad in New Hampshire. It rests on a crude statistical calculation by his medical adviser, David Gratzer, on the basis of a 2000 study by a pair of health experts from Johns Hopkins university. According to Gratzer, ’49 Britons per 100,000 were diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 28 per 100,000 died of it. This means that 57 percent of Britons diagnosed with prostate cancer died of it; and consequently, that just 43 percent survived.’

There are several problems with this line of reasoning, according to health experts.

In order to make statistically valid comparisons in epidemiology, it is necessary to track the same population. Because prostate cancer is a slow-developing tumor, it is probable that the Britons who died of prostate cancer in 2000 contracted the disease 15 years earlier. They represent an entirely different cohort of cancer sufferers than those who were diagnosed with the disease in 2000. The number of Britons diagnosed with the disease is itself a subset of the number of Britons with the disease.

‘You would get an F in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins if you did that calculation,’ said Johns Hopkins professor Gerard Anderson, whose 2000 study ‘Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data’ has been cited by Gratzer as a source for his statistics. ‘Numerators and denominators have to be the same population.’

Five-year prostate cancer survival rates are higher in the United States than in Britain but, according to Howard Parnes of the National Cancer Institute, this is largely a statistical illusion. Americans are screened for the disease earlier and more systematically than Britons. If you are detected with prostate cancer symptoms at age 58 in year one of a disease that takes fifteen years to kill you, your chances of surviving another five years (until the age of 63) are obviously much higher than if your cancer is detected in year eleven, at the age of 68. Both Anderson and Parnes say that it is impossible, on the basis of the available data, to conclude that Americans have a significantly better chance of surviving prostate cancer than Britons.

Whether or not early screening actually reduces mortality from prostate cancer is the subject of much controversy among researchers, both in the United States and Europe. According to Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, “at least 50 percent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer don’t need to be treated. The problem is that we can’t figure out which men need treatment, and which don’t.”

In an attempt to figure out if screening for prostate cancer does indeed save lives, the National Cancer Institute has been following 70,000 men since 1992, but has yet to a firm conclusion, Brawley said. Half of the men in the sample are being screened and the other half are not being screened. An August 2007 NCI report said it was still unclear whether “earlier detection and consequent earlier treatment” led to “any change in the natural history and outcome of the disease.” Screening can lead to “over-treatment” which can in turn result in undesirable side effects such as erectile dysfunction and incontinence.

“This is getting completely ridiculous,” e-mailed Giuliani spokesman Jason Miller. “You are still not getting it. The point the mayor has made is that privatized medicine is better than socialized medicine. If you can find one person who said they’d rather be treated for prostate cancer in the UK instead of the US, we’d like to meet them.”

UPDATE WEDNESDAY 4:30 P.M.: Reader Jim Crowder asked an interesting question this morning, in response to Dr. Brawley’s statement that at least 50 per cent of men diagnosed with prostate cancer “don’t need to be treated.” Crowder asked, “OK, If I am in the 1/2 group that would benefit by earlier treatment, wouldn’t I rather be in the US and receive it? In fact I have received treatment.”

I [Fact Checker] asked Dr Brawley to respond. Here is what he says:

We know that at least half of the screened and detected do not need treatment and any treatment they get can only give them side effects of treatment, including a 0.5% to 1% chance of death from treatment.We do not know that we benefit the other half who have a disease that is destined to disrupt their life by causing symptoms and in many death. Indeed some of our clinical treatment studies are designed to figure out whether we cure those who need to be cured.

Connecticut versus Washinginton State comparisons show that men in Washington State have a much higher risk of prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment and side effects of treatment, but have the same risk of death as men in Connecticut. In several papers, [including] one by me, this has been attributed to the higher rates of screening in Washington compared to Connecticut. Both have had the same decline in mortality rates.

What we’re up against…

Terry Jeffrey : Obama: “There Are Countries Where a Single-Payer System Works Pretty Well” – Townhall.com

I was going to post over at TownHall on this piece, but after reading the comments, the ignorance is just too staggering to event try to overcome.

This is a hard fight. Many Americans think the opinions expressed at this site (and are articles of faith among many conservatives) are based upon facts instead of the ideologic fantasies that they are based upon

*sigh*

Winston Churchill, Comm-Symp

NHS at 60: A vision in which we still believe – Telegraph:

“In 1942, he [Beveridge] proposed the creation of a national health service, as part of a system of compulsory social insurance to slay ‘the five giants of want, disease, squalor, ignorance and idleness’.

“Such was the enthusiasm for his ideas that there were queues to buy the report outside His Majesty’s Stationery Office.

“The plans were backed a year later by the prime minister, Winston Churchill, but when the Conservatives lost the general election in 1945, Churchill’s Labour successor, Clement Attlee, pledged to introduce the changes, with free medical treatment for all by the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948.

“While the plan was popular with the public, not everyone was keen.

“The British Medical Association famously opposed the creation of the NHS, with the health minister, Aneurin Bevan, later admitting that he had ‘stuffed their mouths with gold’ via a generous contract which allowed them to carry on doing private work, and provided lucrative bonuses.”

Also, from Churchill, March 2, 1944

“The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman simply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the same way as the fire brigade will give its full assistance to the humblest cottage as readily as to the most important mansion… Our policy is to create a national health service in order to ensure that everybody in the country, irrespective of means, age, sex, or occupation, shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available.”

And, in contrast, from the former British Medical Association Chairman, Alfred Cox, “I have examined the Bill and it looks to me uncommonly like the first step, and a big one, to national socialism as practised in Germany. The medical service there was early put under the dictatorship of a “medical fuhrer” The Bill will establish the minister for health in that capacity.”

Conservatives, always so prescient.