7 minutes ago
Drudge advances false claim that Rep. Owens "broke four promises in one hour" by voting for House health care bill
A Drudge-hyped article claimed that Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY), in his first day in office, broke four campaign promises at once by voting for the House health care bill. In fact, in accusing Owens of breaking campaign promises, the article misrepresented both Owens' campaign positions and provisions of the House's health care bill.
3 hours and 41 minutes ago
Fox News' Emanuel advances Lieberman's dubious claim about public option increasing debt
On Fox & Friends, correspondent Mike Emanuel advanced the falsehood that a public option will increase the national debt by adopting Sen. Joe Lieberman's claim that it "could rack up major debt, sending the country into a recession worse than the one we're currently in." In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that health care bills with a public option reduce or have no major impact on the deficit; moreover, every proposed bill with a public option thus far has required enrollees to cover its costs through premiums, rather than have the plans be paid for through federal revenues.
3 hours and 59 minutes ago
The Washington Times' history of anti-gay rhetoric
The Washington Times' anti-gay onslaught against Department of Education official Kevin Jennings -- which has featured anti-gay rhetoric, falsehoods, and distortions -- is only the most recent offense in the newspaper's long history of publishing anti-gay rhetoric and smears. Media Matters for America has compiled an extensive -- though by no means all-inclusive -- list of such rhetoric since the late 1980s, including the paper's warnings against the "gay agenda," attacks on the possibility of gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, minimizing of the AIDS epidemic, and attacks on gay relationships and gay rights.
November 08, 2009 4:34 pm ET
Breitbart fabricates smear that SEIU's Stern is "sending SEIU goons" to "beat up innocent Americans"
In November 8 comments posted on his Twitter account, Andrew Breitbart accused Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern of "sending SEIU goons" to "beat up innocent Americans." However, the article to which Breitbart linked offered no evidence to support the claim that Stern was involved in violence at a local SEIU office in Sacramento, and it reported comments from local SEIU leaders that disputed the purported victim's account of the incident.
November 08, 2009 4:07 pm ET
Contrary to polls, Luntz claimed IN, NE, AR voters "do not want" heath care reform
On ABC's This Week, Republican pollster Frank Luntz claimed that voters in Indiana, Nebraska, and Arkansas "do not want" health care reform because of "the cost to the deficit." In fact, recent polling indicates that voters in all three states support or are split on creating the public option -- a key element in health care reform -- and the recently passed House health care reform bill is projected to reduce, not add to, the deficit.
November 07, 2009 11:10 pm ET
Drudge, WND distort health care bill to fearmonger about cost of insurance, possibility of jail time
Matt Drudge and WorldNetDaily.com both falsely asserted that, in Drudge's words, the House health care reform bill states that people must "buy a $15,000 policy or go to jail." In fact, as stated by the Joint Committee on Taxation letter on which Drudge's and WND's claims are based, the bill does not impose criminal penalties on people merely for failing to purchase health insurance; rather, people who do not buy health insurance and also willfully refuse to pay the tax imposed on them for such actions can face civil or criminal penalties.
November 07, 2009 10:49 pm ET
On the eve of House vote, McCaughey spews falsehoods about health reform
In a November 7 Wall Street Journal op-ed, serial health care misinformer Betsy McCaughey purported to provide "details you need to know" about the current version of health care reform legislation slated for a vote that same day in the House of Representatives. As with her previous descriptions of reform legislation, many of her claims are falsehoods or distortions, such as McCaughey's claim that illegal immigrants are exempted from a fine imposed by the bill.
November 06, 2009 4:40 pm ET
Media continue to misrepresent abortion provisions in health reform bill
Media figures continue to falsely claim that a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the House health care reform bill would only have the effect of prohibiting government money from being used to pay for abortions, echoing a myth previously advanced about a proposed amendment to a prior version of that legislation. In fact, language in the current House bill already segregates federal money so it cannot be used directly to fund abortions, and the proposed amendment would effectively ban abortion coverage for some who have it now.
November 06, 2009 3:18 pm ET
Right-wing media respond to Fort Hood shooting by attacking American Muslims
Right-wing media figures have used the shooting at Fort Hood as an excuse to attack Islam and American Muslims in particular, with Debbie Schlussel, for example, urging readers to think of the alleged shooter "whenever you hear about how Muslims serve their country in the U.S. military." Additionally, commentators have blamed the shooting on "political correctness," with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggesting the implementation of "special debriefings" for Muslim American soldiers to prevent future attacks.
November 06, 2009 3:17 pm ET
Farah falsely claimed official "confirm[ed]" WND falsehood that alleged shooter "advised Obama transition"
WorldNetDaily CEO and editor-in-chief Joseph Farah claimed that WND's false report that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised" the "Obama transition" -- previously debunked by Media Matters for America -- had been subsequently "confirm[ed]" by an official with the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University, which had listed Hasan as a member of its Presidential Transition Task Force "Event Participants." But the updated article reported only that the official confirmed that the Hasan listed as a "participant" was the alleged shooter, not that he had advised the "Obama transition" -- a falsehood undermined by WND's own reporting that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition."
November 06, 2009 1:05 pm ET
Fox News advances false claim that "House Call" protest was "spontaneous"
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
November 06, 2009 12:24 pm ET
Fox Nation, conservative media launch political attack on Obama's shooting remarks
Following the shootings at the Fort Hood Army Post, the Fox Nation and right-wing blogs launched political attacks on President Obama's remarks at a the Tribal Nations conference at the Interior Department, in which he addressed the tragedy after making introductory remarks.
November 06, 2009 12:05 pm ET
Right-wing media falsely claim Pelosi broke pledge to post health care bill online 72 hours in advance
Right-wing media are claiming Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke a pledge to post the "final" House health care bill online 72 hours before it comes to a vote, echoing a Weekly Standard blog post that claimed amendments allowed by the House Rules Committee the day prior to the vote will change the bill. However, Pelosi's office posted both the text of the bill and the "manager's amendment" -- which The Sunlight Foundation called an "extra final version of legislation" -- 72 hours in advance; those actions meet guidelines set by a House transparency measure that Pelosi told the Weekly Standard she "absolutely" supported.
November 06, 2009 11:03 am ET
WND falsely claimed alleged Fort Hood shooter "advised Obama transition"
WorldNetDaily falsely claimed that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised Obama transition" in the headline of an article by Jerome Corsi highlighting his listing as a "participant" in a report for the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University's Presidential Transition Task Force. However, Corsi himself acknowledges that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition" -- indeed, the Task Force was initiated in April 2008. Moreover, while Hasan was listed as one of approximately 300 "Task Force Event Participants" in the report's appendix, HSPI has reportedly said he was not a "member" of the Task Force, and was listed because he RSVP'd for several of the group's open events.
November 05, 2009 8:10 pm ET
Citing no evidence, Hannity estimates that 20,000 attended Fox-promoted GOP health care protest
Citing no evidence, Sean Hannity twice stated that 20,000 people gathered to protest health care reform at a GOP rally on Capitol Hill -- a claim he later walked back drastically -- while MSNBC reported that Capitol police estimated the crowd at only 4,000; prior to the rally, Hannity said crowds at the event -- which he and other Fox News figures heavily promoted -- would be "massive." Conservative media previously inflated crowd estimates for the 9-12 March on Washington.
November 05, 2009 7:27 pm ET
Fox News owns the extremist images featured at Capitol Hill rally it promoted
In aggressively promoting Rep. Michele Bachmann's November 5 anti-health care reform rally on Capitol Hill, Fox News has chosen to associate itself with the offensive and extremist rhetoric emanating from that event. This rhetoric includes the disturbing signs -- such as one of a pile of Holocaust victims' bodies captioned "National Socialist Health Care, Dachau, Germany - 1945" -- displayed at the event.
November 05, 2009 6:27 pm ET
Beck, Breitbart witch hunt targets White House official Buffy Wicks
Fox News' Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, and other right-wing media figures have targeted White House official Buffy Wicks in their ongoing witch hunt against President Obama's administration officials. Beck and BigGovernment.com have repeatedly attacked Wicks, and he and BigGovernment.com's Mike Flynn have made the baseless charge that Wicks was engaged in preventing prosecutions of those involved in the alleged beating of a tea party protester.
November 05, 2009 6:22 pm ET
Fox News figures endorse ABC's V as an attack on "Obama-mania"
Fox News' Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck have all endorsed the new ABC television show V, citing the show's depiction of aliens seeking to conquer Earth who offer to provide universal health care as a critique of "Obama-mania" and "Obamacare." This is not the first time Fox News personalities have promoted a television show to buttress their right-wing world view; many of them cited Fox's 24 to defend the use of torture by U.S. authorities, among other conservative positions.
November 05, 2009 5:54 pm ET
Fox News' La Jeunesse attacks Obama for not spending billions more on Yucca Mountain
During a report about President Obama's decision to stop funding a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Fox News' William La Jeunesse referred to Obama's decision as "$13 billion of your money down the drain" and said that the facility is, "from an engineering standpoint," "complete" but "just waiting for a license" -- suggesting that Obama's decision cost taxpayers billions of dollars for no reason. However, even if Yucca Mountain were to receive a license -- which could be several years -- experts say it may not be safe, would not be able to receive radioactive fuel for a "long time," and the costs to build, operate, and receive the fuel have reportedly ballooned to more than $96 billion.
November 05, 2009 3:41 pm ET
IBD misrepresented Gore on hurricane frequency
An Investor's Business Daily editorial falsely claimed that Al Gore "still claims" hurricanes "are increasing in frequency and intensity" as a result of global warming and that "[w]hat has happened in the past three years is that such claims have been thoroughly debunked as the earth has cooled, possibly for decades hence." In fact, Gore has said that there is no consensus that warming is causing more frequent hurricanes, and the author of the study IBD claims has "debunked" predictions about the effect of warming on tropical cyclone (TC) intensity has stated that his findings "do not contradict the recent climate change/TC linkage literature."
