The “reality checkers” at PolitiFact barely contact the speaking heads on cable tv anymore. They used to have a severe tilt in opposition to the Fox Information hosts in prime time. So it’s unsurprising that on July 9, they printed their first assault on conservative CNN analyst Scott Jennings, who provided a number of robust phrases about Medicaid beneficiaries.
“There are like virtually 5 million able-bodied folks on Medicaid who merely select to not work,” Jennings stated July 1 on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip. “They spend six hours a day socializing and watching tv. And if you cannot get off grandma’s sofa and work, I do not need to pay on your welfare.”
Abby Phillip leapt on that instantly, questioning the place Jennings discovered these numbers. Earlier than we get into the “information” at hand, let’s examine PolitiFact’s goal choice. There isn’t any web page on PolitiFact for Phillip. There may be one different “reality verify” on Phillip’s present, a “True” score for liberal New York Instances columnist Charles Blow.
There isn’t any web page on PolitiFact for former MSNBC weekend host Tiffany Cross, who smeared ICE on Phillip’s present on July 8: “We’re normalizing a authorities company disappearing folks. We’re speaking about it prefer it’s no massive deal that they’re kidnapping folks and transporting them to focus camps, each home and international.” She stated “focus camps” 4 occasions.
New York Submit author Kelly Jane Torrance tried to interrupt her and inform her these phrases had been inaccurate and insensitive to Jews, however Cross simply stored rolling – and Phillip stated nothing, not like when Scott Jennings makes a conservative level.
As ordinary, the PolitiFact scribe on the Jennings case, Loreben Turquero, rounded up a conga line of liberal consultants – two from the Harvard T. H. Chan Faculty for Public Well being, in addition to the Brookings Establishment, the Kaiser Household Basis, and the City Institute. None of them are assigned a label. However Jennings cited the “conservative” American Enterprise Institute.
That is certainly one of some ways PolitiFact reads precisely like each different liberal media outlet that pretends that liberals are essentially the most nonpartisan, impartial consultants you will discover.
Turquero identified that the Harvard people nitpicked Scott’s “virtually 5 million” quantity, claiming the Congressional Finances Workplace didn’t say all of those folks “selected to not work,” however that they might lose Medicaid protection on account of work necessities. This can be a distinction with out a lot of a distinction, however liberal “reality checkers” pounce anyway.
What Jennings stated that basically offended the ears at PolitiFact was that Medicaid recipients are sitting round watching TV for six hours a day. Did he imply that as a press release of reality or was he making a rhetorical level? As a result of folks make lots of rhetorical factors on CNN that don’t get “reality checked.”
PolitiFact’s consultants had been aggressively utilized to dismiss the notion that there are literally many “able-bodied” Medicaid recipients. As Turquero concluded: “Research of nonworking Medicaid recipients have discovered the bulk are ladies and have a highschool training or much less. The common age is 41, and greater than half have a piece historical past previously 5 years.” This doesn’t disprove “able-bodied,” but they appear to be saying that girls over 40 can’t be anticipated to satisfy work necessities?
This text illustrates that these liberal shops are sometimes not “reality checkers” as a lot as they’re “spin spoilers.” They seem offended by the tone of conservative commentary, and so they need to discredit it even when the factors are rhetorical.
The “reality checkers” have spoken: conservatives in all probability shouldn’t impose work necessities, or counsel individuals who don’t meet them are lazy.
