The Name "Factcheck.org" Is An Orwellian Lie

Aaron J. Biterman of the Republican Liberty Caucus forwarded the message below from the Orwellian-named left-wing propaganda site, "Factcheck.org". My response is as follows:

>As usual, the Annenberg Foundation, on whose board, if my memory does not deceive me, Obama once sat, gets it all wrong. They call their propaganda site "Factcheck.org" which makes it sound like they're Consumer Reports rather than a left wing propaganda service linked to Obama. Factcheck.org has had trouble keeping the facts straight concerning Obama since the very beginning. Phil Orenstein on Democracy Project writes thus of Congressman Joe Wilson, who rightly called Obama a liar:

"His own frustration which pushed him beyond the brink is justified by the fact that as an immigration attorney he pushed for amendments to the healthcare bill that would prevent illegal immigrants from being covered which were shot down by Democrats in the House. The lack of any enforcement mechanism in the bill to prevent illegals from gaining free access to taxpayer subsidized healthcare, makes it an exercise in deception to claim the contrary that the bill doesn’t cover illegals. The Heller amendment to HR 3200 introduced in the Ways and Means committee which would have set up citizenship status verification systems, which are currently used in other public assistance programs, was killed by a party-line vote."

Factcheck's assumption that Obama did not know this or that the deceptive ruse of including an unenforceable provision is not a lie suggests that the name "Factcheck.org" is itself an Orwellian lie.


>>Sent: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 6:52 pm

Subject: New FactCheck Article: Obama's Health Care Speech
Obama’s Health Care Speech
We fact-check the president's address to Congress and the nation.
September 10, 2009

Summary

President Obama’s prime-time address to Congress and the nation on health care prompted a Republican congressman to shout “you lie!” Did he? Here’s what we’ve found:

Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally. Conservative critics complain that the bill lacks an enforcement mechanism, but that hardly makes the president a liar.

The president said no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” But the House bill would permit a “public option” to cover all abortions, and would also permit federal subsidies to be used to purchase private insurance that covers all abortions, a point that raises objections from anti-abortion groups. That’s true despite a technical ban on use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortion coverage.

The president repeated his promise that his plan won’t add “one dime” to the federal deficit. But legislation offered so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The president overstated the degree of concentration in the insurance industry. He said that in 34 states the “insurance market” is controlled by five or fewer companies, but that’s true only of insurance bought by small groups, not the entire “insurance market.”

Obama said his plan won't “require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.” It’s true that there’s no requirement, but experts say the legislation could induce employers to switch coverage for millions of workers.

Letter to Congressman Maurice Hinchey Requesting Impeachment of President Ocheeseball

Dear Congressman Hinchey:

President Barack Obama lied to Congress recently when he claimed that his health care proposal (a) excludes non-citizen immigrants, (b) would not involve rationing that would limit care to many elderly Americans and (c) will be a stable system that will not result in fascist control of the entire health system by an increasingly totalitarian American state.

I urge you to propose to impeach President Obama for lying to Congress. His irresponsible lying is a disgrace and an embarrassment to the American people.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

I sent this e-mail to GOP national Chair Michael Steele at Chairman@gop.com:

>I just received this e-mail from my Republican Liberty Caucus group in New York. Is it true that Florida Republicans have ousted party officials who oppose the Roosevelt-Rockefeller Progressivism that has come to dominate the Republican Party? The last election, in which John McCain lept like a Federalist to support President Bush's bailout concept, loved by every economist on Wall Street's payroll, was a key reason the Republicans lost the election. Now, there seems to be an interest in driving out every Republican who does not agree with reactionary Progressivism. Guess what will happen in 2012 if the Republicans don't wake up?

>>Friend of Liberty,

Last Friday, the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF)Grievance Committee notified Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida Chairman Will G. Pitts of Jacksonville and four other Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) members - including Northeast Florida RLC Chair John Stevens - that they have been REMOVED from positions within the RPOF or are prohibited from serving in any official RPOF capacity for varying lengths of time, from six months to more than six years.

"The reasons for this `Party Purge´ are that we have collectively and individually called for a complete audit of the Republican Party of Florida finances, advocated for candidates not favored by party leaders, and that we are members of the Republican Liberty Caucus," said activist and RLC member Doug Guetzloe of Orlando, one of the `purged´ members. Guetzloe has served as Chairman of "Axe the
Tax" and a member of the Orange County (Orlando)GOP Executive Committee since 1980!

This Florida situation is a sad example of a party `leadership´ that is out of control and totally obsessed with power. Jim Greer, the RPOF Chair, was recently elected the Rules Committee Chair of the Republican National Committee despite his disregard for decency and his actions against fellow Florida Republicans.

Greer is totally committed to helping centrist Governor Charlie Crist become the next Florida U.S. Senator - and, probably, U.S. President. In his steadfast commitment, he has `purged´ Republican Liberty Caucus members and others who vocally oppose Crist´s policies (such as support for Obama´s bailout) from the party. All of the purged members were supporting an alternative Republican candidate for Governor and Senate.

Despite this setback, the purge by Greer is evidence of how effective (and much-needed) our Republican Liberty Caucus of Florida is. The first rule of politics is that when you make political enemies as significant as the party chairman - you´re doing something right. Otherwise he would not
be wasting his time on the `lil `ole RLC.

But he is. The Florida RLC is tremendously effective - it´s able to mobilize grassroots activists across the state and lobby at the State Capitol - all while clinging to the principles we hold so dear.

Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock

I just saw Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock at the Tinker Street Cinema in Woodstock, NY. The concert, as the movie makes clear, was not in Woodstock but rather in White Lake, which is about 30 miles away. In real life Michael Lang, the then-young promoter of the Woodstock concert and often on horseback in the film, works out once in a while at the same gym I do, in the Emerson Inn and Spa. The film notes that its protagonist, Elliot Teichberg (aka Elliot Tiber), and Lang both grew up in Brooklyn not very far from my employer, Brooklyn College. I live about midway between Woodstock and where the concert actually was. During the summer of 1969 Jimi Hendrix lived about 4 miles away in Boiceville. He must have driven past my house, which was a small cabin then, when he drove to White Lake. I spent that summer as a janitor in a summer camp near Woodstock. I was only 15 years old and did not have the guts to ditch out and go to the concert. Even then I disliked crowds.

Taking Woodstock is a good movie. Ang Lee's direction, as usual, is crisp and sensitive. James Schamus's and Tiber's writing is excellent. All of the acting is very good. Demetri Martin as Elliot Teichberg is excellent as is Henry Goodman as Jake Teichberg. Imelda Staunton as Sonia Teichberg steals the show. She is great.

The film handles Teichberg's inner conflict about his homosexuality tastefully. But I thought that, like other recent movies about the Catskills such as Wendigo, it is unfair to the "locals". As the movie makes clear, there are at least two cultures in the Catskills. First, descendants of Dutch and Yankee settlers from the 18th and 19th centuries (for the most part the Catskills were settled almost as late as the American west because of a lengthy conflict and law suit about title to the Hardenburg patent, because the Livingstons' attempt to create a neo-feudal system by settling Scotch-Irish tenant farmers who were to sign three-generation leases failed, and because the Catskills are rocky, terrible farmland and have no natural resources except for their physical beauty, streams, wood and fish). Second, more recent immigrants from New York City and around the country.

An excellent book on Woodstock is the late Alf Evers' Woodstock: History of an American Town and his equally excellent Catskills: From Wilderness to Woodstock. The Catskills still has a remnant of true American individualism and there has always been an anti-establishment streak around here ever since the farmers used to dress as Indians and tar and feather the Livingstons' rent collectors. Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and Hervey White selected Woodstock for an artists' colony in 1902 because of the area's physical beauty. Within a few years there was a division between the musicians, who moved to Maverick Road and the artists who remained at the original artists' colony on Byrdcliffe that is still there, where some of the earliest artists' lofts still exist. Of course, Woodstock is not White Lake, and the various cultures in Woodstock, the old artist culture which is still around, the weekenders, and descendants of the original townspeople have gotten along reasonably well, despite occasional resentments, and on occasion have married. The film depicts the people of White Lake as quick to exhibit prejudice, and although bigotry exists everywhere, I do not think that is a fair depiction of the Catskills culture, which I have loved for most of my life.