Stimulus Help Line Advised Recipients to Enter Bad Data

ABC's Jonathan Karl follows up his report on stimulus money going to non-existent Congressional Districts. He finds even more errors in the projects in actual Congressional Districts, and at least one stimulus recipient who was advised to inflate his job estimates by the Administration's Help Line.

ABC News does not allow us to embed their videos, but you can watch the report here.

Jack Tapper takes on Robert Gibbs

I know Jake Tapper as the mediocre cartoonish for the Daily Dartmouth when I was in college. He really couldn't draw that well. But Tapper is rapidly gaining a reputation as a journalist willing to ask tough questions of politicians from both parties. Tapper tries to get White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to share their evidence that Fox News is "not a news organization".

Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That’s our opinion.

The Obama Administration is addicted to campaigning. Unable to govern, they have turned back to campaign mode, and every campaign needs an opponent. They've chosen the one cable news organization that still has an audience. I'm not sure how attacking Fox News will persuade anyone to stop watching Fox News. Or how it will inspire the few remaining CNN viewers to be stronger supporters. It appears that the Obama Administation has picked a fight because they want to be in a fight. I just don't see how they win.

It's refreshing that Tapper is questioning the White House policy of singling out critics in the press. The idea of a neutral press corps has always been a fantasy limited to journalism schools and liberal newsrooms. We pick our politicians. Our politicians don't have the right to pick their press corps.

John Stossel on Health Care

ABC's John Stossel produces one of his last pieces for 20/20, looking at the potential costs of big government health care.

Stossel is leaving ABC for Fox News. Stossel's work is valuable, and especially refreshing on ABC News. It's a shame that the network is losing just about its only free-market voice. Along with Glenn Beck's recent move from CNN Headline News to Fox News, it's a shame there will be so few advocates for smaller government and personal responsibility left on every other channel.

Hattip: Susan Peterson

Spending more on health care doesn't cut health care costs

Sounds crazy, I know. But the Congressional Budget Office finds that the magic of preventative medicine will actually increase health care expeditures:

In yet more disappointing news for Democrats pushing for health care reform, Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, offered a skeptical view Friday of the cost savings that could result from preventive care -- an area that President Obama and congressional Democrats repeatedly had emphasized as a way health care reform would be less expensive in the long term. (more)

I never understood the argument that we have to limit health care costs. Anything that prevents death drives up health care costs. The costs aren't the bad thing. The fact that they aren't borne by decision makers is.

Paraphrasing Ben Franklin

They who can give up essential journalistic integrity liberty to obtain a little temporary ratings bump, deserve neither integrity nor ratings.

ABC's White House special struggled for viewers

Hattip: Instapundit

NH to protest ABC's ObamaCare Infomercial

Opponents of President Barack Obama's massive government health care plan are staging a protest in Manchester of ABC's special report from inside the White House tomorrow evening. ABC is anchoring its news and airing a one-hour Q&A from the White House, but will not allow opponents of the plan as part of the broadcast.

Organizers of this spring's Tea Parties are planning protests in several cities, including Cincinnati, Houston, and Dallas. New Hampshire citizens plan to gather outside WMUR starting at 9pm.

We invite every able bodied freedom loving American to rally outside of their local ABC affiliate TV station with signs, airhorns, and other noisemaking devices so that we get their attention this time. The slogan “Silent Majority No More” can no longer remain just a slogan, it’s time to show that we are NOT silent anymore.

Make it sound like midnight on New Years Eve in front of every ABC affiliate TV station across the country. Make them send their reporters out to cover it live. Continue the rally through their news hour so our fellow Americans can realize how many of us share the same view.

We know that this keeps you up a little later than usual however, a little sleep lost now is better than liberties lost later. Unusual times call for unusual measures.

Our ABC affiliate is WMUR-TV right here in Manchester, NH. Perhaps a little impromptu rally is in order?

Time: 9:00 PM (broadcast starts at 10:00)

Place: WMUR-TV Broadcast Center

100 South Commercial Street

Manchester, NH 03101

Free speech, free press, and human rights

Right Blogistan is extremely upset that ABC has basically turned itself into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Obama Message Machine.

Dan Riehl imagines a world in which ABC would treat a Republican President the same way:

Hey, I know. Let's give the Bush White House a few hours on ABC to make a complete presentation from policy advisers and military personnel to go through the run up, execution and corrections regarding the Iraq War. And explain why bringing modernity to the Middle-east actually is a part of the war against terrorism. The media always likes to get behind a war effort, anyway. Oops, sorry, too late for that. Bet they wish they had thought of it then.

Not likely. Disney already owns Fantasyland.

At NRO, Dana Perino has praise for ABC News, but not for this decision:

Perhaps ABC will help provide more clarity and “select” people who will ask tough questions; however, no matter how tough the questions are, President Obama will have home-field advantage. And it’s hard not to look like you’re in the tank when you’re anchoring from the Blue Room.

I understand what all the fuss is about. We're used to the mainstream media pretending to be objective. They never have been, of course. Nor should they be. The First Amendment was written long before the Columbia School of Journalism came around to promote the Myth of the Monastic Reporter. Under this fantasy, reporters and editors exist above the political fray, dispensing dispassionate truth from their lofty and ethical perch. While the romantic view makes reporters seem so much better than common folk, or at least the politicians they cover, it isn't true. Reporters are just as fair and as biased, just as hard-working and as lazy, just as ethical and as sleazy, as the rest of us. We can't expect them to ignore who they are and what they believe as they report the news.

Nor should we. The First Amendment isn't premised on an artificially objective press corps providing fair and balanced coverage. It relies on a cacophony of voices fighting for time and attention with the strength of their ideas. Sure, ABC News lacks any credibility when it comes to covering the Obama Health Care Takeover, but they didn't lose it yesterday. They lost it last summer, and Hillary Clinton supporters might say sooner than that.

Which is fine, as long as ABC isn't given monopoly protection along with its Mainstream Media cohorts. The Obama Administration has shown a remarkable ability to close itself off from criticism, and only allow access to Washington Press Corps Softball Team. And if his ideas are so weak that they can't withstand criticism, they should be rejected.

But ABC News confirming what we already knew about their agenda doesn't weaken the press in America. We could be living under an oppressive regime that stifles all criticism, and uses the power of the state to prosecute people who express unpopular ideas. We could live in Canada:

Who will mourn for the beleaguered Canadian censors? Jennifer Lynch, the Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is oddly insecure in the face of criticism. In Canada's popular Globe & Mail newspaper, Lynch defends her Commission's mandate to punish Internet speech that could "expose an individual or a group of individuals to hatred or contempt" and responds to critics.

From Lynch's article, we learn that "Section 13 prohibits the repeated electronic transmission of messages that are likely to expose an individual or a group of individuals to hatred or contempt." Please allow me to express my contempt for Jennifer Lynch and her repeated attacks on free expression in the land of my ancestors. I hope to escape prosecution the next time I visit Montreal or Toronto.

We've mentioned Canada's quest to stamp out free speech before. But at least we'll never see anything like that in New Hampshire.

The House has already approved a bill to weaken due process protections if you're ever brought before the Commission on Human Rights. Under current law, either party could remove a dispute from this quasi-judicial body to Superior Court. If this legislation passes, defendants wouldn't get their day in court until after the Human Rights Commission is through with them. This would change the Commission from providing voluntary mediation and arbitration into a one-sided prosecutorial weapon, under which anyone accused of discrimination would have to clear his or her name twice.

Fortunately, the New Hampshire Commission on Human Rights has limited itself to cases of illegal discrimination in employment and housing, and has not become a Star Chamber for politically motivated prosecutions. If it did, this is a much more significant threat to free expression than ABC News turning the keys to the Newsroom over to the Obama White House.

For a great example of free speech in action, just look at the Letterman-Palin Kerfuffle.