Health Care
Venezuela's descent under Bolivarian socialist President and de facto dictator Nicolas Maduro has achieved yet another grim milestone. This time it's the return of polio, on top of other previously eradicated diseases including diphtheria, tuberculosis, measles, and malaria. The return of polio has caught the attention of some in the international press in the past few days, but only one of over a dozen related English stories found in early Monday afternoon Eastern Time Google News searches identified the nation or its leader as socialist. Also as of Monday afternoon, there was no coverage at major U.S. news outlets.
On Wednesday's CBS Evening News, in a report on Louisiana's budget battle which the piece suggested could "kill people" with cuts to Medicaid, correspondent David Begnaud seemed to think it was only important to identify the party affiliation of the Republican state legislators involved, even though the governor whom he also spoke with, John Bel Edwards, is a Democrat.
CNN’s slogan may be “The Most Trusted Name in News,” but the cable TV channel is not so trusting when it comes to letting other people know the internal editorial standards the network uses when reporting the news. In fact, CNN is embroiled in a court struggle while trying to keep those guidelines a secret, according to an article posted on Monday by Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple. Wemple began by noting that other news services, including The New York Times, The Post and even Buzzfeed, post their standards online.
WASHINGTON — Milton Friedman was not only a brilliant economist — a Nobel laureate, in fact — he was also a gifted writer. In his 1962 book "Capitalism and Freedom," he presciently explained how health care costs were going to leap out of control over the next decades. Sure enough, they did. They multiplied from roughly $1 of every $20 being spent on health care in the 1950s to roughly $1 of every $5 being spent on health care today.
On Tuesday's New Day, CNN host Alisyn Camerota gave former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards a forum to brag about the pro-abortion group's success in pushing its agenda into ObamaCare, and to complain about those who wish to end taxpayer funding of the prominent abortion provider. She also gushed over her liberal guest's "legendary" mother, former Democratic Governor Ann Richards, and asked if she planned to run for political office.
UPDATE AND CORRECTION, MAY 2: The post has been revised and corrected to reflect an April 25 AP report which indicated that Alder Hey Hospital did not feed Alfie Evans for 36 hours.
The Associated Press's Saturday coverage of 23 month-old Alfie Evans' death at a UK hospital worked almost as mightily to cover up ugly actions and statements made by the UK courts, medical professionals, and even law enforcement as the parties just mentioned worked to ensure that the boy would die.
When British hospital officials tried to pull the plug on 23-month-old toddler Alfie Evans on Monday night in arrogant defiance of his parents' wishes, many Americans took to Twitter to count their blessings that they live in a country that would not allow such tyranny. "Stories like Alfie Evans make me realize how grateful I am to live in America where freedom still exists," one young social media user wrote.
On April 13, Minnesota Congressman and DNC Deputy Chair Keith Ellison told a "progressive" audience that "Women are dying because we are losing elections," specifically alleging that this is the case in Texas and Missouri. It was yet another false claim — even if numerically true, the results would have to be tied to specific actions by Republican lawmakers in those states, and they aren't — in what has been a series of false claims made by Ellison during the past several weeks. Democratic Party operatives posing as "fact-checkers" have been predictably AWOL.
On Wednesday's Full Frontal show on TBS, liberal comedian Samantha Bee tore into House Speaker Paul Ryan during the show's opening monologue, calling him "f---ing horrible," a "f---ing coward," and declaring that "he has always been a bad person" in response to the Wisconsin Republican announcing his retirement.
Former CNN host Piers Morgan tweeted on Tuesday that he had just watched the Chappaquiddick movie, which he described as “excellent” and “tough” on the late Ted Kennedy, but he also tried to diminish what the former U.S. Senator did during the events of July 18, 1969.
In Friday’s New York Times, reporter Nicholas Fandos used the firing by President Trump of Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin to spread irrational fear of privatization at the scandal and corruption-plagued federal organization for veterans assistance: “V.A. Shake-Up Gives Rise to New Fears of Privatized Care.”
How sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a despotic pediatric dentist. Parents who decide, for whatever reason, that they don't like their children's oral care provider should be forewarned. Empowered by government "mandatory reporter" laws, dental offices are now using their authority to threaten families with child abuse charges if they don't comply with the cavity police.