Why You Can’t Believe CNN
Manu Raju, CNN’s Senior Political Reporter, is a fabulist spreading lies about Rep. Tom Price. Here’s Raju’s work:
Sounds scary, except it’s counterfactual, which is what most people call a “lie.” Ellen Carmichael, a former Price staffer, tweeted out some details, like this one:
Ms. Carmichael has a dozen or so tweets explaining that Price’s stock trades were made in a broker-directed account without his prior knowledge and that once he was aware of his financial stake, he disclosed the information in full compliance with the law. She’s also got some proof -unlike Raju- in the form of a “Dear Colleague” letter with a date on it.
The Trump transition team has finally gotten around to releasing a statement that describes the CNN segment as “junk reporting,” and calls out the pattern of “…Senate Democrats and their liberal media allies cannot abide the notion that Dr. Tom Price is uniquely qualified to lead HHS and will stop at nothing to smear his reputation.”
I noted this effort to smear Price when it started at the behest of the Kaiser Health News organization last week. Since then, this “big lie” has worked its way through many media outlets, always following a narrative model that goes “1. Price did something fishy! 2. Questions have been raised! 3. Although it wasn’t illegal and complied with ethics rules and was fully disclosed. 4. Sen. (insert generic liberal name) calls for investigation!”
We don’t need an investigation to figure out why so-called journalists are so eager to play Ganymede to whichever liberal thinks he’s Zeus on any given day -as a profession, the media lost most of their credibility long ago. But the industry is currently engaged in another round of collective navel-gazing as they try to figure out how to cover a new president who prevaricates so boldly and with such utter contempt for them and their profession. “How can Trump get away with that?” they ask.
He gets away with it because people hate the media more than they dislike Trump. They hate smug, arrogant, condescending lies more than they hate anything Trump has said or done.
And as long as an industry not only tolerates, but thrives on, the use of verifiably false smears to gin up opposition or outrage, Trump and peo-le like him will keep getting away with it.
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Mike Hassinger
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Stock purchased March 17.
HIP Act introduced March 23rd.
Zimmer Biomet PAC donates to campaign.
How is CNN’s time line wrong?
I oppose Tom Price because of his views on Healthcare, which is what the media should be talking about. But while their timeline is technically accurate it is misleading because he began work on the legislation long before he bought stock. Also, Tom Price is a very wealthy man, this amount of money is not significant for him. If CNN found a pattern that would be one thing but this seems silly to me.
So, I’m unclear on what it means that he worked on the legislation before buying the stock before introducing the legislation. That doesn’t seem to disprove the implied allegation that he attempted to profit from legislation he knew he would be introducing.
Also, him being “a wealthy man” seems irrelevant.
It shows that he was raising the issue long before he bought the stock, listen if CNN could show that he has a pattern of profiting from his legislation, or if there was evidence he gave a heads up to his broker then sure it’s newsworthy, but they are literally reporting a coincidence at this point. Also being wealthy is relevant when your talking about an amount of money that I’m sorry Price can spend without a second thought.
Listen, this is not why Price is a terrible pick for HHS, it’s because he doesn’t think Healthcare is a right! That’s what CNN should be reporting.
yeah, it is a coincidence at this point, but seems unlikely to be just random…
sure, it’s being politicized, but the info came up bc he’s being vetted for Cabinet, and there’s literally no more important time to raise concerns. no need for falling skies, but maybe the dems are negotiating provisions for smoother confirmation, leveraging the (little) power they have to get some say in healthcare implementation.
If CNN didn’t spend more time on this than his actual beliefs then I might agree with you
I understand your point, however many people don’t think health care is a right, most notably our Republican representatives. We have a Republican government so opposing him because he’s a Republican seems like a waste of energy. And I agree that there are other reasons to oppose him. Whether or not he bought the stock to profit from his own legislation, it’s the appearance of impropriety that matters. And the “he’s already rich, he doesn’t need to cheat” argument has been disproven time and time again. See Trump’s using non-profit money to buy himself a painting, and the numerous celebrities arrested for shoplifting.
Ethics ethic ethics… it’s a them with this administration-elect.
I think his beliefs are very relevant when they are so different from what Trump has promised. Listen, of course congress should investigate this, but the Media’s job is to inform the public on all relevant info, this is a very small part in the picture they need to paint, especially when they have no evidence. Also, as far as the trump foundation is concerned, he was using it to pay fines and business fees totalling in the millions, not an insignificant amount of money.
Yeah but I don’t think Trump thinks healthcare is a right either, though he has said that he believes everyone should have insurance. And I’m not even saying that congress should investigate this one charge, I don’t actually think that they should (though they should consider it when voting). But we have a government ethics office who is supposed to vet all of these nominees, and I think they should. I think the rest of us need to push our representatives to avoid taking shortcuts in this area just because they have power.
The fact that he would run on that and not believe it is all the more reason to get his real point of view out there. That seems pretty basic to me.
Just because someone’s a “Wealthy Man” doesn’t mean they’re capable of plenty of petty graft. I mean, have you seen the House of Representatives?
This is bad reporting and it has to stop. This is the reverse of what it was like watching reporting of the Clintons. It was so obvious the conservatives were trying to find anything to pin on clinton that it was hard to take anything seriously. The emails were only effective after being pushed for two years, and she still had a nice popular vote victory. If the media does this with Trump no one will know when to actually take things seriously.
Thanks, for both comments.
Suspect this is another desperate attempt to discredit but Congress as a group has some issues to address. If I recall Congress takes the position that insider trading by a legislator can’t be investigated. (Yes, they played with addressing insider trading)
The gorilla in the house is the relationship with lobbyists and interests with businesses they oversee. Example, some Georgia legislators on banking committees are closely tied to banks and even busted (FDIC takeovers) banks. Then we have the back and forth with employment.
Price’s portfolio setup and management is much further from what needs serious priority attention.
” They hate smug, arrogant, condescending lies more than they hate anything Trump has said or done.”
My head just exploded.
They will be denied WH press credentials. I cannot wait.
Quick question: Why is the Justice IG not investigating the Lynch/Clinton runway meeting as part of its’ probe? Sorry. Wrong posting location.
He’s being Daschled by the press by a stream of promulgation. Isn’t having legal interactions with medical groups, questionable academia ties, lobbyist that aren’t ‘technically’ lobbyists, state rulings, etc… that might look circuitous and overhyped by certain members of the press a right of passage for a majority of the most recent HHS nominees (regardless of party)? For Mike’s sake, I hope Price doesn’t have a ‘limo’ moment by the end of the month… we will need to find Mike some more SAT level words for his posts.
“oppose him on the basis of the new CBO report that Obamacare repeal would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 18 million in year one” That would be the case if the plan wasn’t to also replace. You seem to consistently forget that the plan is to replace.
No one is forgetting the replace part, by the way if yall can keep people on Healthcare, make it better with lower payments, and lower my taxes without effecting the debt I will vote republican for the rest of my life.
Sure he will. My grandfather use to have this saying about wishing in one hand and crapping in the other. See which gets full first.
Oh man! Grandfather saying, knock out punch!
Sensational headlines… Like “Remember the Maine” and the whole battle cry of to ‘Hell with Spain’ from the politician who used yellow journalism to get what they wanted. The lack of fully vetting has always been a changing issue in the history of the free press. Some times it’s sketchy, other times it’s Watergate. As with Pulitzer vs. Hearst, the Republic will carry on and change itself again (not without a little damage and some egg on it’s face of course).
CNN is a prime example of how the left’s high-minded bullying and intolerance for others brought about November 8th. The left has been dividing everyone up into groups and tearing our nation apart for years. Now on Friday we will witness once again the most elegant part of our democratic republic, the peaceful transition of power, just as we did 8 years ago. Those going out of power need to learn dignity and grace, for love of our nation rather than self-love. Sometimes not getting your way is the best thing that can happen to all concerned.
Amen, like when the Republicans confirmed Merrick Garland
Why thank you Sally for the etiquette lesson. I was wondering how to behave when a sexual assaulter, misogynistic, racist con man is getting ready to place his hand on Lincoln’s Bible.
Dignity and grace? Get over yourself and start praying for all of us that we survive his tenure.
Remember your post calling out Paul Ryan for claiming Obama was responsible for the Janesville Assembly Plant in Ryan’s district, and that employed people he claimed to know, to be shut down, when the plant was largely idled in Dec 2008 with an announcement then or before that it would be shut down?
Neither do I.