Death Panel McCaughey

:{McCaughey

ginni?

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Liberty Central scrubs web site after Ginny Thomas calls healthcare reform "unconstitutional"

by nyceve

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday, October 21, 2010

[93 Comments

93 New](https://www.dailykosbeta.com/stories/2010/10/21/912324/-#comments)

There's a story in the Los Angeles Times today about Mrs. Clarence Thomas, slamming healthcare reform as unconstitutional on the web site of her infamous organization Liberty Central.

Well as Ginny goes, so goes Clarence.

If you go to the Liberty Central web site, you'll note that the article referenced in the Los Angeles Times piece is no longer there. It should be available when you click "Hot Issues". But itappears to have been removed. Correct me please, if I'm mistaken.

If you want to see the offending article you need to go to a cached version which is now attributed to none other than . . .Betsy McCaughey.

Here's a link to the cached version attributed to Betsy McCaughey: http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...

Before Liberty Central pulled the article down in its entirety, Here's the disclaimer that the authorship was improper.

Note: Due to a Liberty Central staff error, authorship of this issue brief was previously misattributed. As of October 21, it has been corrected. We regret the error.

But I guess they thought better to just pull the entire article off the web site, which is exactly what's happened.

But teh Google never forgets anything.

Here's what Legal Times has to say about the newly sanitized Liberty Central web site.

The latest controversy involving Virginia Thomas appears to have begun when the position paper was posted on the website of Liberty Central, a conservative group that she founded last year. Liberty Central did not issue the paper, the group said in a statement today, but instead was relaying it from another group, the Conservative Action Project.

The position paper reads in part, regarding the new healthcare law: "With the U.S. Constitution on our side and the hearts and minds of the American people with us, freedom will prevail."

[NOTE FROM NYCEVE: If you click this link, you'll see the article has been removed.]

The position paper, which isstill available on Liberty Central’s website, originally included Virginia Thomas’ name, according to a story today in the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper cites legal experts questioning her involvement, given that the constitutionality of parts of the healthcare law could be considered by the Supreme Court.

In response to the Los Angeles Times story, Liberty Central released a statement today saying that the position paper carried Virginia Thomas’ name by mistake.

Liberty Central is a very dangerous, extremist right wing organization and the fact that it's run by the spouse of Clarence Thomas is deeply disturbing. Though I suppose one could argue, that since Clarence Thomas hasn't had an original thought since the day he was placed on the SCOTUS, it's a given exactly how this pathetic creature will vote on anything.

What's up with Virgina and Clarence Thomas?

Imagine when the first challenge to PPACA hits the SCOTUS. Is Clarence Teabagger going to recuse himself?

===

https://www.theatlantic.com › politics › archive › 2009 › 07 › the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-betsy-mccaughey › 22354

The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Betsy McCaughey - The Atlantic

One of the wackier developments in the recent health care debate has been the sudden return of Betsy McCaughey. Fifteen years ago McCaughey wrote an error-laden piece for the New Republic, a piece ...

===

[### GINNI THOMAS: Six big problems with the immigration bill ...

The Daily Caller

https://dailycaller.com › 2013/06/09 › six-big-problems...](https://dailycaller.com/2013/06/09/six-big-problems-with-the-immigration-bill-from-someone-who-has-actually-read-it/)

Jun 9, 2013 — Former New York lieutenant governor and former Democrat Betsy McCaughey bets "you can't find five members of Congress who have read" the ...

[### Virginia Thomas' group backs off on calling healthcare law ...

Los Angeles Times

https://www.latimes.com › archives › la-xpm-2010-oct-...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-oct-22-la-na-virginia-thomas-20101022-story.html)

Oct 22, 2010 — A conservative group founded by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, removed references to the ...

[### Serial Health Care Misinformer Betsy McCaughey Dabbles ...

Media Matters for America

https://www.mediamatters.org › daily-caller › serial-healt...](https://www.mediamatters.org/daily-caller/serial-health-care-misinformer-betsy-mccaughey-dabbles-immigration-reform-conspiracies)

Jun 21, 2013 — Right-wing media have adopted Betsy McCaughey's unfounded conspiracy theory that immigration reform, like health care reform, ...

Right-wing media have adopted Betsy McCaughey's unfounded conspiracy theory that immigration reform, like health care reform, is a secret plot to create a permanent one-party system, reminiscent of Marxist Russian premier Vladimir Lenin. Like her health care fearmongering, McCaughey has no evidence to support her charges.

Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York, has a long history of pushing conspiracy theories about health care reform, including that the bill's outreach provisions are designed to create a “beholden” Democratic majority. In an interview with The Daily Caller's Ginni Thomas, McCaughey revived the same baseless attacks on the Senate immigration proposal, claiming that “you can count on” third party outreach groups to register immigrants as Democrats. Later in the interview, McCaughey claimed President Obama was using the bill to “elevat[e] community organizations to a fifth branch of government without any of the rules that limit what the other branches can do.” McCaughey went on to claim the tactics were similar to those used by Lenin.

McCaughey's baseless conspiracy theory was picked up by Andrea Tantaros, co-host of Fox News' The Five, who cited McCaughey to call the bill a “Christmas tree of carve-outs for lobbyists,” claiming, “she says that it funnels money to groups like La Raza, community organizing groups, takes the authority away from the DHS and lets them handle the amnesty process”:

IFrame Content

Of course, the text of the bill limits the scope of activities for which organizations can use federal funding.

According to section 2106, the section cited by McCaughey, these activities include informing the public about “eligibility and benefits of registered provision immigration status,” assistance to individuals “submitting applications for registered provisional immigration status,” assistance with changing immigration status, and aid in understanding and navigating the citizenship process. The bill requires these organizations to be “a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, including a community, faith-based or other immigrant-serving organization, whose staff has demonstrated qualifications, experience, and expertise in providing quality services to immigrants, refugees, persons granted asylum, or persons applying for such statuses.”

McCaughey has pushed a similar conspiracy with the health care reform law, claiming that outreach programs that the legislation pays for are a secret plan to create a “beholden Democratic voting majority.” This is only the latest health care conspiracy theory from McCaughey, who previously originated the lie that health care contained “death panels” that would euthanize seniors.

[### Supreme Court – Page 17

Boston Herald

https://www.bostonherald.com › tag › page](https://www.bostonherald.com/tag/supreme-court/page/17/)

McCaughey: The left goes all in on lies about Supreme Court. By Betsy McCaughey ... Ginni Thomas emails urged new 2020 electors in Wisconsin. By Associated Press.

OpinionOpinion Columnists

McCaughey: The left goes all in on lies about Supreme Court

FILE – The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 14, 2022. The Supreme Court opens its new term on Monday, Oct. 3. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Author

By Betsy McCaughey

PUBLISHED: October 10, 2022

As the Supreme Court opened a new term last week, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other left-leaning media blasted it in unison, repeating the same big lie: The highest court is “in crisis” and rapidly losing the public’s confidence. The cause is “no secret,” claims the Times. The Court has turned into “a judicial arm of the Republican Party.” That’s blatantly false.

In July 2020, all nine justices rejected President Donald Trump’s argument that as a sitting president, he was shielded from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s investigation. After the 2020 election, the justices declined unanimously all three petitions from Team Trump to re-examine vote counts in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. This summer, the justices nixed Trump’s request to block the Jan. 6 House select committee from examining White House records.

This Court isn’t taking orders from the Republican Party.

In hysterical tones, the Times also warns that the Court is straying too far from “the views of the average American voter.”

Don’t buy that argument either. The Court’s role has never been to represent popular opinion. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, two authors of the Constitution, explained in the Federalist Papers that the Court’s role would be to check majority rule and, if necessary strike down popularly enacted laws, in order to safeguard the rights of the individual and protect the Constitution.

The irony is that for 60 years, the left has had a love affair with the Warren court, which defied popular opinion at every turn.

Earl Warren became chief justice in 1953 and presided until 1969. During that period, the Court remade American constitutional law and reshaped American society, striking down school segregation, imposing the one-man, one-vote rule to draw voting districts, demanding that criminal suspects be read their “Miranda rights” and applying Bill of Rights guarantees to limit what state and local governments, not just the federal government, can do.

The left was OK with the Warren Court’s boldness because they liked the outcomes.

Now the left is warning the Roberts Court not to veer far from public opinion. The Warren Court was so far ahead of public opinion that “impeach Earl Warren” bumper stickers and cartoons started appearing, and people asked, “Has the Court gone too far?”

In 1963, when the Warren Court struck down voluntary prayer and Bible readings in public schools, 70% of Americans said the Court was wrong.

That fall, as the Warren Court began a new term, a Times headline approvingly announced “‘Warren Court’ Stands Its Ground” against “a barrage of criticism and disquiet.” The Times advised the justices to disregard warnings about jeopardizing the Court’s legitimacy.

That advice is still good today, as the Roberts Court begins its term. Do your job — uphold the Constitution and the rights it guarantees.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the

betsy-mccaughey-267bb9b

LI.

Experience

Founder and ChairmanFounder and Chairman

Committee to Reduce Infection DeathsCommittee to Reduce Infection Deaths2004 - Present · 20 yrs 9 mos2004 to Present · 20 yrs 9 mos

- The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID) is a non-profit educational campaign committed to correcting the deadly problem of hospital infections. RID works to provide safer, cleaner, hospital care, and was formed in reaction to the alarming rise in Health Care-Associated MRSA and other hospital-borne infections.The Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID) is a non-profit educational campaign committed to correcting the deadly problem of hospital infections. RID works to provide safer, cleaner, hospital care, and was formed in reaction to the alarming rise in Health Care-Associated MRSA and other hospital-borne infections.…see more
PresidentPresident

Defend Your HealthcareDefend Your Healthcare2009 - Jul 2012 · 3 yrs 7 mos2009 to Jul 2012 · 3 yrs 7 mos

- The Obama Health law is a bruising blow to American freedom and medical excellence. It will lower your standard of care, put the government in charge of your care, and take away something as precious as life itself: your liberty. Through speaking engagements, media, written publications, and public forums, Defend Your Healthcare is sounding the alarm to the dangers of the recently passed Obama Health Law. Congress should rip up the 2,700 page Obama health legislation and enact a 20-page law, written in plain honest English - a law that memebers of Congress can actually read before voting on it.The Obama Health law is a bruising blow to American freedom and medical excellence. It will lower your standard of care, put the government in charge of your care, and take away something as precious as life itself: your liberty. Through speaking engagements, media, written publications, and public forums, Defend Your Healthcare is sounding the alarm to the dangers of the recently passed Obama Health Law. Congress should rip up the 2,700 page Obama health legislation and enact a 20-page law, written in plain honest English - a law that memebers of Congress can actually read before voting on it.…see more
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501c3?

WWW.HOSPITALINFECTION.ORG

5 PARTRIDGE HOLLOW RD

Greenwich CT 06831-2662

203-485-0093

Betsy Mccaughey Phd, Chairman

$118,800

Michael Parry, Director

Harlan Batrus, Director

Henry Buhl, Director

Dr Jeffrey S Borer, Vice Chairman

fedsoc not atty very old pix

off bs

Betsy McCaughey is a patient advocate and former Lt. Governor of New York State. In 2004, she founded and is now Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (also known as RID), a nationwide educational campaign to stop hospital-acquired infections. RID has made hospital infections a major public issue. It has provided compelling evidence that preventing infection improves hospital profitability as well as saving lives, and RID has won legislation in 34 states and Washington, D.C. for public reporting of infection rates. RID has become synonymous with patient safety and clean hospital care.

Betsy McCaughey’s research on how to prevent infection deaths has been featured on Good Morning America, the CBS Morning Show, ABC’s 20/20,and many other national programs.

Betsy McCaughey is the author of more than one hundred scholarly and popular articles on health policy, infection, medical innovation, the economics of aging, and Medicare. Her writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New Republic, Policy Review, Forbes Magazine, New York Law Journal, Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World Report,and many other national publications. Her 1994 analysis of the dangers of the Clinton health plan in The New Republicwon a National Magazine Award for the best article in the nation on public policy. She has been profiled in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, The Washington Post,and other publications.

Prior to entering the health policy field, Betsy McCaughey earned a Ph.D. in constitutional history from Columbia University. She is the author of two books on that subject. She has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University, and she produced prize-winning studies while at two think tanks, the Manhattan Institute and later the Hudson Institute.

From 1995 to 1998, she served as Lt. Governor of New York State. She focused on health issues, and her bills became models for legislation in many states and in Congress.

===

hnn no date

Who is Betsy McCaughey?

by Thomas Padilla

Mr. Padilla is an HNN intern.

Betsy McCaughey continues to make a name for herself as a critic of national health care. Since the publication of her article “No Exit” on February 7 1994 in theNew Republic, which has been widely associated with the destruction of the Clinton Administration’s attempt at health care reform, she has drawn the ire of many on the Left while becoming a champion of those on the Right.

Fast forward to 2009 and McCaughey has come forward yet again to argue against potential revisions to health care outlined by the Stimulus Bill and health care Bill 3200. Many see McCaughey as the inspiration for the near omnipresent “Death Panel” allegations leveled at the Obama Administration. This radical interpretation has struck a chord of anxiety and even fear across America, serving to derail town hall meetings across the country to the frustration of health care reformers.

McCaughey is cited on a national level as a source of authority on the future of health care , but where and how did she gain authority? At the end of the unedited version of her appearance on The Daily Show Ms. McCaughey said, “I’ve been reading legislation for 30 years. I have a Ph.D in this field, constitutional history . . . I’m not an inexperienced student of this topic.”

McCaughey became the first person in her family to attend college after receiving a Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Lehman Fellowship to study at Vassar. Graduating with a degree in history McCaughey moved on to Columbia. Despite a few raised eyebrows at McCaughey’s unusual choices of fashion -- she reportedly attended Graduate Seminars in mink coats and high heels -- she went on to earn both a Masters Degree and Ph.D in Constitutional History from Columbia. Accolades were many, including a John Jay Fellowship, Richard B. Morris Prize, and the prestigious Bancroft Dissertation Award. The subject of her dissertation was on William Samuel Johnson, whom one historian called an “Inordinately dull founding father.”

From 1977-1994 she held a variety of Professional Positions including: Visiting Assistant Professor Vassar College, Lecturer Columbia University, Assistant Professor Columbia University, Post Doctoral Fellow- National Endowment for The Humanities, Senior Scholar- Center for The Study of The Presidency, and John M. Olin Fellow at The Manhattan Institute.

Up to this point McCaughey had charted a course of academic promise but relative obscurity. It was not until the publication of “No Exit” with its criticism of the Clinton Administration’s Health Security Act that Betsy McCaughey became a truly national voice.

The Clinton White House responded to “No Exit” with a 9-page analysis of McCaughey’s "factual inaccuracies and misleading statements.” She responded to the release, in turn, with the coyly titled piece, “She’s Baaack,” in the Wall Street Journal. The recognition given to her by the White House played a large part in raising her profile and giving her the chance to become a political star. “No Exit” went on to win the National Magazine Award for Public Interest, although liberal critics subsequently belittled the article, citing numerous flaws. Attempts to access the article on theNew Republic'swebsite are met with an editorial note that essentially apologizes for the publication of her piece.

As a result of her battle with the Clinton administration McCaughey caught the attention of New York's George Pataki. Pataki asked her to run as his Lieutenant Governor when he ran for Governor. They won. McCaughey served just one term. She clashed often with Pataki on health care and educational reforms. James Dao of the New York Timeswrote in 1996, “In what has become an open secret …the Governor and his aides have locked the Lieutenant Governor out of their circle.” She famously stood during Pataki’s State of the State Address while the rest of the dignitaries sat (as is custom). Additionally, McCaughey issued press releases and spoke on topics without prior approval. While McCaughey publicly denied turmoil within the office her actions betrayed ambitions that the Governor found disturbing. In 1998 he dropped her as his running mate.

McCaughey persevered nonetheless. In a surprise move she switched to the Democratic Party and ran for Governor as a Democrat, though she had voted Republican her whole life. Initially the majority of contributions to her campaign came from her billionaire husband, Wilbur Ross. However, toward the end of the campaign the two became estranged and he withdrew some $2.2 million worth of contributions. Media at the time focused on Betsy’s use of her own money to finance a campaign that ultimately ended in a loss.

After her defeat, McCaughey began focusing on public policy. In 2004 she became the Executive Director of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID), which she founded. The nonprofit was founded to reduce hospital deaths that occur as a result of infection. The organization claims that infection in hospitals are responsible for more annual deaths than AIDS, Cancer, and auto accidents combined. RID has passed legislation in 25 states, forcing hospitals to make infection rates publicly available in an attempt to hold them accountable for their preventive procedures. During her time as Executive Director McCaughey has had to resign from Board Positions at two different medical companies. On August 21 2009 she resigned from the Cantel Medical Group. Cantel Medical Group is “a leading provider of infection prevention and control products in the health care market.” McCaughey resigned in order to, “Avoid any appearance of conflict of interest during the national debate over health care reform.”

McCaughey became a player in the national debate over health care after President Obama embraced reform. Her reappearance can be traced back to an op-ed she published on Bloomberg.com titled, “Ruin Your Health with the Obama Stimulus Plan.”

In the piece McCaughey asserted that “hidden provisions” in the Stimulus Bill would adversely affect the elderly in America. McCaughey argued that a newly formed Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (H.R.1.E.H) would change the current Medicare policy of approving treatments deemed “safe and effective” to a rubric that “approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit.” In other words, in her interpretation, a dollar value would now be assigned to human life. McCaughey in recent months extended this line of reasoning, equating the proposed policy change to a sort of euthanasia for the elderly through a “mandatory . . . counseling session . . . that would tell them how to end their life sooner.” (AKA: the infamous Death Panels.)

Today, the focus is still on the elderly, but has shifted toward health care Bill H.R. 3200and its provision for the creation of Advance Care Planning Consultation(p. 424 Sec.1233). McCaughey often refers to this portion of the health care Bill as End of Life Counseling. In the past month some Republicans have echoed her arguments, including Rep. and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. In a note posted on her Facebook page, Palin wrote caustically, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel.”

McCaughey’s ongoing assault has drawn the ire of many. Historian Joshua Brown recently characterized her as the “Doyenne of Deception.” James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthlywrote, “She has brought more misinformation, more often, more destructively into America's consideration of health-policy issues than any other individual.” Jon Stewart on The Daily Showsaid he believed her reading of the health care bill was hyperbolic and dangerous.

A Google search shows the powerful influence McCaughey has had over the health care debate.

Starting a search at the date of Sarah Palin’s “Death Panel” note and ending on September 7th for the term “Death Panels” yields 6,146 results. A search using identical parameters for “End of Life Counseling” yields 1,205 results. “Advance Care Planning Consultation” yields only 82 results. The public discourse seems to have shifted.

The *Los Angeles Times*reported that as of September 4 searches such as “Death Panels” have become so popular among Google’s search terms that, “As many as 97 organizations were buying ads linked to aspects of the debate. They included the seniors lobby AARP, the liberal group Health Care for America Now and conservative stalwarts such as the Club for Growth.” Depending on how much each advertiser bids determines whether or not a Google search for a term like “Death Panels” is accompanied by a sponsored (purchased) link. HNN’s own experiments searching for “Death Panels” reveal that barackobama.com and moveon.org appear to be winning the bidding battle with their sponsored links “Death Panel Myth” or “Death Panels?” dominating accompanied search results.

McCaughey has been so successful in shaping the public debate that President Obama has had to make repeated attempts to rebut her characterization of end-of-life counseling as death panels. In his speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 he called the whole notion of "death panels" a lie:

Some of people's concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren't so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.

One of the most striking patterns in McCaughey’s public life is the frequency with which her opinions are treated with scorn by the mainstream media. The article that launched her to fame, “No Exit,” cannot currently be searched without first encountering an apology from the Editor of the magazine that published it. The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, and other MSM sources have all accused her of misstating basic facts. Nonetheless, she has found a warm reception among conservatives like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin.

While the merit of McCaughey of her positions is open to debate, her widespread effect on the public discourse is undeniable.

===

Newsmax guest says white men “will be at the back of the line” under a Kamala Harris presidency

Betsy McCaughey: Kamala Harris “has a track record of being a racist against whites”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 09/11/24 mma

Video

CitationFrom the September 10, 2024, Newsmax broadcast

BETSY MCCAUGHEY (GUEST): The biggest lie tonight was her attempt to accuse Donald Trump of being a racist when she has a track record of being a racist against whites. And let me just give you a couple of examples. This down payment -- $25,000 down payment that she says she wants to help first time homebuyers -- if you actually look at the bill, it's called the Down Payment Toward Equity Act. It's already in Congress, right? She's been pushing it since 2019. It's not for white homebuyers. To get the full amount, it says right in the bill you must be African American, Asian American, Hispanic American. You cannot be --

MERCEDES SCHLAPP (HOST): Or Venezuelan gang members at this point, right.

MCCAUGHEY: Right. You have to be a minority. And since her first time in office, she has done that. Equity has been her major point. Equity is the opposite of equality. It's treating people differently, right? The American Rescue Act, Biden-Harris gave debt relief to Black farmers, section 104, not white farmers. Gave -- it gave relief to restaurant owners, but only minorities and women. So I would say to white men watching this show, don't be fooled by Kamala Harris. You will be at the back of the line.

===

hypocrisy and irony are dead? 9/20 way beyond 2 santa deficit BS:

mma 920

March, Sean Hannity said he wasn’t concerned about coronavirus because “we’re all dying” anyway. In April, Laura Ingraham said that while “every life is precious, we want to keep everybody safe and we — of course, that's a given. But we also have to understand the cost of American lives on the other side of this.” The attitude of Fox hosts towards the pandemic that has now killed more than 200,000 Americans with Donald Trump in the White House is strikingly different from their attitude towards several events that occurred during Barack Obama’s presidency.

We've talked about the obvious comparison to the Ebola scare of 2014 before (though it is still worth revisitingin light of the Supreme Court nomination fight).

The most prominent right--wing media lie of the Obama years was probably the one about "death panels." Fox News and right-wing media writ large stoked fear for years that the Affordable Care Act would implement “death panels.” Hannity said that it was “chilling” that Obama had “so little respect for life” and was trying to “encourage … inconvenient people to consider ‘alternatives to living.’” Ingraham scaremongered about the creation of “death camps” for the elderly should the bill become law.

Fox similarly fearmongered over other incidents during the Obama Administration, including the death of four Americans killed in Benghazi, and the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009.

Now as a major pandemic has killed more than 200,000 Americans, Fox has done everything it can to defend the Trump administration, and push aside public health concerns.

Simply put by Media Matters’ Parker Molloy, “When the president is a Democrat and he’s advocating for health care legislation that includes optional end-of-life counseling, it’s a four-alarm emergency. When the president is a Republican and thousands of people -- particularly the elderly -- are dying from a pandemic, it’s no big deal (and actually, he’s doing a great job).”

===

Betsy McCaughey - Wikipedia

9 24 lots of talk

Elizabeth Helen McCaughey (/məˈkɔɪ/; born October 20, 1948^[1] formerly known as Betsy McCaughey Ross), is an American politician who was the lieutenant governor of New York from 1995 to 1998, during the first term of Governor George Pataki. She unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for governor after Pataki dropped her from his 1998 ticket, and she ended up on the ballot under the Liberal Party line. In August 2016 the Donald Trump presidential campaign announced that she had joined the campaign as an economic adviser.^[2]

A historian by training, with a PhD from Columbia University, McCaughey has, over the years, provided conservative media commentary on US public policy affecting healthcare-related issues. Her 1993 attack on the Clinton healthcare plan was likely a major factor in the initially popular bill's defeat in Congress. Also, it brought her to the attention of Republican Pataki, who chose her as his nominee/running mate. In 2009, her criticisms of the Affordable Care Act, then a bill being debated in Congress again gained significant media attention in television and radio interviews, and it may have specifically inspired the "death panel" claim about the act.

She has been a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and Hudson Institute thinktanks and has written numerous articles and op-eds. She was a member of the boards of directors of medical equipment companies Genta (from 2001 to 2007) and Cantel Medical Corporation, but she resigned in 2009 to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest with her public advocacy against the Affordable Care Act.

From 1995 until their divorce in 2000, she was married to business magnate Wilbur Ross, who went on to serve as Secretary of Commerce during Donald Trump's presidency.

Early life, education, and family

[edit]

McCaughey and her twin brother, William, were born in Pittsburgh to Ramona Peterken, and her husband Albert, a factory janitor.^[3][4] The family moved around the Northeastern United States for six years before it settled down in Westport, Connecticut,^[1] where McCaughey's father did maintenance and later engineering work at a nail clipper factory.^[5][6] McCaughey recalled her parents' difficulty in affording medical treatment: "my brother was a serious asthmatic as a child. I remember my parents sitting at the kitchen table wondering if they could afford to take [him] to the hospital."^[1]

McCaughey attended public schools in Westport through the 10th grade, spending much of her free time at the library.^[5] After receiving a scholarship, she transferred to a private Massachusetts boarding school, the Mary A. Burnham School, for her last two years of high school, rarely visiting home, then or during her college years.^[5]

She received a scholarship to attend Vassar College, where she majored in history.^[5] She wrote her senior thesis on Karl Marx and Alexis de Tocqueville,^[5] won several fellowships, and received her BA, with distinction, in 1970.^[7] McCaughey went on to graduate school at Columbia University in New York City, earning her MA in 1972 and her PhD in constitutional history in 1976.^[7]

She won Columbia's Bancroft Dissertation Award in American History in 1976^[8] and her dissertation was published by the prestigious Columbia University Press in 1980, From Loyalist to Founding Father: The Political Odyssey of William Samuel Johnson.^[9]

She also contributed a chapter about Johnson to the 1979 book The American Revolution: Changing Perspectives by William M. Fowler and Wallace Coyle.^[10]

While completing her PhD, McCaughey trained in the corporate banking department at Chase Manhattan Bank, and she served as a loan officer in the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Division.^[11] She also took courses in accounting at Columbia's School of Business.^[11]

McCaughey's father died in 1970 at the age of 60. Her mother, an alcoholic, died the next year of liver disease at the age of 42.^[5][12] In 1972, she married Thomas K. McCaughey, a Yale College graduate she had met in college. He was then moving up as an investment banker.^[13] The McCaugheys separated in 1992 and divorced in 1994, with McCaughey and her ex-spouse sharing joint custody of their three daughters.^[14] In January 1993, she filed an affidavit in her divorce proceeding in which she said she had no annual earnings from employment during most of the 18 years of her marriage to Thomas, and she had never earned more than $20,000 per year except in 1990, when she "sold an idea to Fox television for a windfall once-in-a-lifetime sum of $75,000".^[13][15]

She married wealthy investment banker and prominent Democratic Party fundraiser Wilbur Ross Jr. in December 1995.^[16] He filed for divorce in November 1998.^[17]

Academic work, 1977–1988

[edit]

McCaughey taught history as a visiting assistant professor at Vassar College in 1977–1978 and was a lecturer in 1979–1980. She was an assistant professor between 1981 and 1983, teaching two classes per year, both at Columbia University Between 1983 and 1984, she had a National Endowment for the Humanities postdoctoral fellowship.^[13][15] From 1986 to 1988, she served as a guest curator at the New-York Historical Society and was responsible for the museum's exhibit commemorating the bicentennial of the US Constitution.^[18] She also authored a book, Government by Choice: Inventing the United States Constitution, which cataloged the exhibit.^[18]

Policy positions and scholarship, 1989–1993

[edit]

In the late 1980s, McCaughey briefly considered a career in TV news,^[5] but she opted instead for a position as a senior scholar at the Center for the Study of the Presidency, serving from 1989 to 1992. There, she wrote an article, book reviews, and a guest editorial for its journal, Presidential Studies Quarterly (PSQ),^[19] and an op-ed in USA Today advocating reform of the Electoral College method of electing the president.^[20] She testified at a July 22, 1992, hearing before the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution^[21] and helped produce a report suggesting constitutional amendments to fix perceived flaws in the Electoral College.^[21][22]

McCaughey also wrote op-ed columns that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today in which she opposed plans involving local and state redistricting to comply with the Voting Rights Act,^[23] and she criticized federal court-ordered desegregation of schools in Connecticut and New Jersey.^[24] She also supported the nomination of a federal judge, Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court by arguing that he would judge cases there on their merits and not tend to interpret cases in a manner consistent with his conservative beliefs;^[5][25] She also supported a tobacco company in litigation before the Supreme Court^[26] and praised the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey Supreme Court decision, restricting abortion rights.^[27]

In February 1993, the John M. Olin Foundation funded a fellowship at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, for McCaughey to write a book on race and the legal system to be titled Beyond Pluralism: Overcoming the Narcissism of Minor Differences. McCaughey wrote op-eds over the next six months in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today in which she supported the 1993 selection of a jury from predominately-white, Republican, rural counties for the urban (Memphis)-located retrial of African American and Democratic US Representative Harold Ford, Sr.,^[28] and praised the 1993 Shaw v. Reno Supreme Court decision, favoring five white voters who said their rights had been infringed upon by redistricting that had been done to comply with the Voting Rights Act.^[29]

Healthcare reform, 1993–1994

[edit]

On September 22, 1993, US President Bill Clinton delivered a nationally televised speech about his healthcare reform plan to a joint session of Congress. From September 28 to 30, 1993, First Lady Hillary Clinton, the architect of the universal health care plan, testified about its details before five US congressional committees. The cost of providing insurance for the estimated 37 million people then uninsured was to be covered in part by new taxes on tobacco.^[30]

On the last day of Hillary Clinton's testimony, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by McCaughey, who wrote that the 239-page draft legislation differed markedly from the White House's public statements and would have "devastating consequences".^[31][32] Citing words and phrases from the draft, she argued that the 77 percent of Americans then covered by insurance would see a downgrade in their policies, and most would not be able to keep their own physicians but be forced into price-controlled health maintenance organizations (HMOs), which would provide only the most basic care.^[32] According to McCaughey, the HMO plans would not pay for visits to specialists or for second opinions, and most physicians would be driven out of private practice.^[32]

In late November 1993, the bill for the Clinton health care plan of 1993 was introduced in the Congress and made publicly available. The Wall Street Journal then published an op-ed by McCaughey in which said she had pored over the entire bill and concluded that it had price controls that would cause rationing, and the bill was dangerous.^[33][34]

McCaughey expanded her op-eds into a five-page article titled "No Exit", which appeared as the cover story in The New Republic and was published a few days before President Clinton's 1994 State of the Union address.^[35] An internal memo by tobacco company Philip Morris, dated March 1994, indicated that representatives of Philip Morris had collaborated with McCaughey when she was writing "No Exit":^[36][37] "Worked off-the-record with Manhattan and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part exposé in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. The first part detailed specifics of the plan."^[37][38] (When the memo was discussed in a 2009 story in Rolling Stone, McCaughey declined to comment.)^[30][36]

McCaughey's "No Exit" article was quickly used by conservative officials and commentators seeking to discredit the Clinton plan.^[39] Senator Bob Dole, in the Republican Party response to the President's State of the Union, used some of McCaughey's arguments of fewer choices, lower quality, and more government control.^[40] Bill Kristol's Project for the Republican Future quickly launched television advertisements featuring quotes from McCaughey's two Wall Street Journal op-ed columns and her The New Republic article. Newsweek columnist George Will used McCaughey's writings as a basis for predicting that the Clinton health plan would kill patients and make it illegal for patients to pay doctors directly for care, with 15-year jail terms for patients who tried to do so.^[41][42]

The Clinton White House press office issued a response to McCaughey's "No Exit" article by arguing that it contained "numerous factual inaccuracies and misleading statements".^[43] McCaughey responded that her claims came "straight from the text of the bill".^[44] Supporters of the Clinton plan questioned McCaughey's claims, including her statements that "the law will prevent you from going outside the system to buy basic health coverage you think is better" and that "doctor[s] can be paid only by the plan, not by you" by pointing to the text of the legislation such as Section 1003: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as prohibiting ... An individual from purchasing any health care services."^[45][39]

According to The Washington Post, the "No Exit" article, the White House response, and the ensuing television and radio interviews with McCaughey made her a star: "Her toothy good looks, body-conscious suits, Vassar BA and Columbia PhD reduced right-wingers to mush."^[13]

The bill stalled and died in Congress in 1994, and the next year, Clinton was reduced to asking Congress for a series of small, incremental reforms to healthcare.^[46] The "No Exit" article won the National Magazine Award for excellence in the public interest. Andrew Sullivan, the editor of The New Republic, later stated that he believed there were flaws in McCaughey's article, but he ran it "as a provocation to debate".^[47] In 2006, a new editor recanted the story.^[48]

In 2009, The Daily Beast called her "The Woman Who Killed Health Care".^[49]

New York Lieutenant Governorship, 1995–1998

[edit]

Following the national attention McCaughey received in the 1990s healthcare legislation debate, Pataki, a first-term New York state senator who was running for governor, chose her as his running mate. Despite McCaughey's complete lack of experience as a political candidate or officeholder and the fact that Pataki did not personally know McCaughey, Pataki perceived that she was very popular among conservatives, who, at the time, were still suspicious of him and that her public image would make his longshot candidacy more appealing to independent and female voters.^[50] Regarding her status as a political rookie, McCaughey said, "Many New Yorkers see that as a plus."^[7]

McCaughey said that she accepted the nomination by believing she would be Pataki's "point person on health policy".^[51] After winning the election, Pataki told The New York Times, McCaughey would have "very real and significant responsibilities" as lieutenant governor.^[52] McCaughey was initially tasked by Pataki to work on education policy and on reducing New York's Medicaid budget.^[7] By January 1995, McCaughey had produced a set of recommendations that required cost cutting by hospitals and nursing homes so that the poor did not have to bear the entire burden of balancing the state's Medicaid budget by a reduction of their benefits.^[1] However, McCaughey's recommendations were largely ignored.^[53]

After Pataki refused to give McCaughey permission to conduct a study into child abuse, she did one anyway and publicly announced its results.^[7] McCaughey was publicly critical of the governor's proposed cuts to Medicaid and gave a pro-choice speech without his advance permission.^[7] In March 1996, The New York Times reported that McCaughey was locked out of the governor's inner circle because she had violated the "unwritten rules" of the conventional lieutenant governor's role.^[7] Rather than following protocol as lieutenant governor by taking a seat with everyone else during Pataki's State of the State address to the legislature in 1996, McCaughey stood for the entire 56 min speech's length, further attracting attention to herself at her governor's expense.^[54] In the spring of 1997, Governor Pataki announced that McCaughey would not be his running mate when he ran for re-election in 1998. He later selected New York State Supreme Court Justice Mary Donohue to replace her.

Though she had always voted Republican in presidential elections and taken conservative Republican policy positions, McCaughey suddenly switched her party affiliation to Democrat and soon announced plans to run for governor against Pataki.^[5] McCaughey was the early frontrunner for her new party's nomination process,^[55] in part because of her statewide name and face recognition and in part because of the financial support of her wealthy then-husband.^[56] During her campaign for governor, she was criticized for firing a succession of campaign aides and political advisers and possibly changing her core political beliefs in order to appear more electable to New York voters.^[5] As her opinion poll numbers sank, her husband took away more than half of the funds he had pledged to her campaign.^[12]

McCaughey was defeated in the Democratic primary election by New York City Councilman Peter Vallone (who then lost the general election to Pataki, 54 percent to 33 percent). McCaughey had earlier received the nomination of the Liberal Party of New York for governor and stayed in the general election. McCaughey's campaign attracted little support, and she received only 1.65 percent of the general vote for governor.^[57] Following the election, she divorced and then sued her former husband alleging "$40 million fraud", claiming that he promised to fund her campaign unconditionally.^[12]

Life and career since leaving office

[edit]

[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Betsy_McCaughey_%285452907096%29.jpg)McCaughey in 2011[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Betsy_McCaughey_%288567369130%29.jpg)McCaughey in 2013[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lt._Governor_of_New_York_Betsy_McCaughey_at_-FITN_in_Nashua,_NH_%2817213956531%29.jpg)McCaughey in 2015

McCaughey has worked on patient advocacy and healthcare policy issues since leaving office in 1999. She was senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute beginning in 1999 and an adjunct senior fellow beginning in 2002.^[11] She was a member of the board of directors of Genta, a company focused on the delivery of innovative products for cancer treatment from 2001 to her resignation in October 2007.^[58] She was also a member of the board of directors of the Cantel Medical Corporation, a medical device manufacturer, from 2005 to her resignation in August 2009 to avoid the appearance a conflict of interest while she was engaged in advocacy on healthcare reform legislation.^[59]

In 2004, she founded the committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (RID) in reaction to a rise in antibiotic resistant staphylococcus aureus and other hospital-borne infections.^[60] The non-profit RID is "devoted solely to providing safer, cleaner, hospital care".^[61] She remains the chair and representative of the organization.^[61] She has appeared on Fox News, CNN, and many radio shows to discuss her research and how to prevent infection deaths.^[11] Her organization's efforts have led to legislation in more than 25 states requiring hospitals to report infections.^[11]

Healthcare reform, 2007–2009

[edit]

American Cancer Society

[edit]

In August 2007, the American Cancer Society dedicated $15 million to a public awareness campaign on inadequate access to healthcare for the 47 million Americans not covered by insurance.^[62][63] It claimed that there would be a greater decline in cancer deaths if more cases of cancer were diagnosed in the early stages.^[62] The society noted that studies had shown that patients without insurance were more than twice as likely to have their cancer diagnosed in the late stages of the disease.^[62] One of the cancer society's commercials stated, "We're making progress, but it's not enough if people don't have access to the care that could save their lives."^[62]

McCaughey criticized the campaign, saying that it should instead refocus on educating people about cancer prevention and detection.^[64] She argued that evidence had shown that the US had higher rates of cancer survival than countries with universal healthcare coverage because of shorter wait times for treatment, better availability of new drugs for therapy, and more frequent cancer screenings.^[64]

She expanded her argument into a "Brief Analysis" published the following month by the National Center for Policy Analysis in which she maintained that the US was number one in the world in cancer care.^[65] Sources for her analysis included a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non profit, non partisan research organization,^[66] and an article in the British medical journal Lancet Oncology, which analyzed 2000–2002 cancer survival figures from Europe.^[67] The American Cancer Society responded by citing a study of nearly 600,000 cancer cases that concluded that compared to people with private insurance, uninsured patients in the US were 1.6 times more likely to die within five years of their diagnosis.^[68]

2009 stimulus bill

[edit]

McCaughey published an op-ed on February 9, 2009, and claimed that the Obama administration's pending American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulus contained the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, hidden provisions that would harm the health of Americans as well as the healthcare sector of the economy.^[69] She argued that the bill would establish two powerful new bureaucracies: the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.^[69]

McCaughey said the National Coordinator would monitor patients' electronic medical records to ensure that doctors and hospitals treated patients in a way that "the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective" and that doctors and hospitals deviating from the government's "electronically delivered protocols" would be penalized.^[69][70] She said that the Federal Coordinating Council would be composed of appointed bureaucrats charged with a costcutting agenda that would slow the development of new medical products and drugs and ration healthcare for senior citizens.^[69][71] She opined that the bureaucrats would use a comparative effectiveness formula, which, in the United Kingdom, had resulted in a requirement that senior citizens go blind in one eye before the government would pay for a treatment to save the sight in the other eye.^[69]

Critics claimed McCaughey's claims were distorted, pointing out that the National Coordinator was not new but had been created five years earlier by George W. Bush^[72] and that the 2009 legislation was not about limiting doctors' ability to prescribe treatments but instead establishing a system of electronic records to give physicians complete and accurate information their patients.^[73]

FactCheck.org noted that comparative effectiveness research had been funded by the US government for years but agreed with McCaughey that there would be penalties for health providers that did not use the electronic records system.^[74] The effectiveness research council was a new initiative, as McCaughey had said. However, supporters of the stimulus bill provision said that research funded would provide additional evidence to guide treatment decisions and save lives and money by avoiding unnecessary, ineffective, or risky treatments.^[75]

McCaughey's viewpoint was soon echoed and extended by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and multiple Fox News Channel broadcasters.^[73][75] Republican US Representative Charles Boustany Jr. of Louisiana, a heart surgeon, added that he feared that comparative effectiveness research would be misused by federal bureaucrats to "ration care, to deny life-saving treatment to seniors and disabled people".^[75] Other conservatives agreed that the legislation could put the federal government in the middle of the doctor-patient relationship.^[75] The stimulus bill was passed with the healthcare-related provisions still included. McCaughey urged their repeal so that their potential impact could be studied further.^[71]

2009 healthcare reform bills

[edit]

McCaughey opposed the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 debated in Congress in 2009. She made allegations about certain provisions of the bills that provided for Medicare payments to physicians for end-of-life and living will counseling and about Ezekiel Emanuel, then an adviser to the Obama administration's budget director and chairman of the bioethics department at the National Institutes of Health.^[76] McCaughey's claims may have inspired Sarah Palin's more high-profile claims that the legislation would lead to so-called death panels.^{[77][78][79][80]} The provisions in the legislation that McCaughey advocated against were removed from the bill before it became law.^[citation ^needed]

In July 2009, McCaughey claimed that a section in the pending healthcare legislation, "Advance Care Planning Consultation", actually prescribed "euthanasia for the elderly" because it included provisions that

would make it mandatory—absolutely require—that every five years people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner [and inform them how to] decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go in to hospice care ... all to do what's in society's best interest or in your family's best interest and cut your life short.^[81][82][83]

McCaughey's choice of words and analysis were described by The Atlantic's James Fallows as inaccurate and sensationalistic.^[81] Politifact responded that the end-of-life counseling was voluntary, calling McCaughey's claim a "ridiculous falsehood" and giving it their lowest accuracy rating, "pants on fire".^[82][84] Factcheck.org called the claims "nonsense" and stated that what that section of the bill would actually do is "require Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling sessions helping seniors to plan for end-of-life medical care, including designating a health care proxy, choosing a hospice and making decisions about life-sustaining treatment."^[83]

During an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which aired on August 20, 2009, McCaughey repeated these assertions about the counselling sessions and referred to the Factcheck.org as "spot-check dot org", claiming they failed to adequately read the House health care bill.^[85] In a rebuttal, Factcheck.org stood by their analysis and provided further analysis, which led them to conclude that McCaughey had misinterpreted the bill.^[85]

In August 2009, WNYC's On the Media also addressed McCaughey's claims, concluding that the provision actually mandated that the federal government compensate "counseling sessions" on elder law, such as estate planning, "will writing and hospice care".^[81]

McCaughey described Emanuel in a New York Post opinion article as a "Deadly Doctor" who advocated healthcare rationing by age and disability.^[80][86] Factcheck.org said this was incorrect and that "Emanuel's meaning is being twisted ... he was talking about a philosophical trend, and ... writing about how to make the most ethical choices when forced to choose which patients get organ transplants or vaccines when supplies are limited."^[87] An article in Time magazine said that Emanuel "was only addressing extreme cases like organ donation, where there is an absolute scarcity of resources", and quoted Emanuel as saying: "My quotes were just being taken out of context."^[77] The New York Times noted that Emanuel had opposed the legalization of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide when such proposals were being debated in the late 1990s.^[76]

McCaughey resigned from the Board of Cantel Medical Corporation on August 20, 2009 "to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform", according to a press release by the company.^[59] Other reports claimed that she resigned after negative reactions to her performance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart one day earlier.^{[88][89][90][91][92]}

In an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Meeting on October 6, 2009,^[93] McCaughey advocated gradually extending the minimum age for Medicare coverage upward from 65 to 70 in order to keep the Medicare system solvent.

In an August 7, 2012, opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, McCaughey described as "phony" an assertion that repealing the Affordable Care Act would increase federal deficits.^[94]

In a September 15, 2013, opinion piece in the New York Post entitled "Obamacare will question your sex life", McCaughey wrote:

"Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?" Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it's the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you're seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law.^[95]

Politifact rated this assertion as "Pants on Fire",^[96] and FactCheck.org also called it false.^[97]

In an October 25, 2013, appearance on Fox News, McCaughey said that the Affordable Care Act would have the effect of "eviscerating Medicare".^[98]

On her Twitter feed^[99] and on television,^[100] McCaughey stated that members of Congress and other government employees were granted a "special subsidy" and a "premium illegally arranged by Obama" under the Affordable Care Act. Factcheck.org, Politifact, and fact checkers at CNN all found that assertion to be false.^{[101][102][103][104]}

Electoral history

...

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ggl 9 24

Betsy McCaughey - New York Post

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Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York. Latest Articles. Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves she boards ...

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Betsy McCaughey Ross is an American politician who was the lieutenant governor of New York from 1995 to 1998, during the first term of Governor George Pataki.

Early life, education, and family · ‎Life and career since leaving... · ‎Electoral history

Betsy McCaughey, PhD (@Betsy_McCaughey) · X

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Harris has a long track record of promising $25,000 in down-payment help, but her goal was never to help all first-time homebuyers.

Instead she insisted she aimed to close the home ownership gap between black and white families.

Posted on X · 1 day ago

So it’s not Harris’ campaign website but the Downpayment Toward Equity Act, the legislation backed by Harris-Biden and sponsored in the House by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and in the Senate by Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) that spells out who is actually eligible... The help…

Posted on X · 1 day ago

Kamala Harris’ $25K homebuyer grant plan is an ‘equity’ giveaway in disguise

#homeowners @nypost @NYPostOpinion

nypost.com/2024/09/09/o…

Posted on X · 1 day ago

Turns out Kamala's $25,000 home downpayment scheme is stacked against white home buyers. Read my research in the New York Post today: It's all about equity. Housing reparations.

Posted on X · 1 day ago

Please tune in today at 2:40 pm for "the Other View" on Newsmax's American Agenda. Right thinking females talk about the issues of the day. No holds barred!!

Posted on X · Aug 29, 2024

View on X

Avalanche of Democratic voter defections fueling ...

Republicans are heading into the presidential campaign with the wind at their backs, and it’s not because of Joe Biden’s mental incapacity or even Donald Trump’s courageous, fist-pumping response to a would-be assassin.

Voters are switching allegiance out of disgust with the Democratic Party’s pro-inflation, pro-criminal, open border, identity-obsessed policies.

For the first time in seven years, more voters today identify as Republicans or say they lean Republican than identify or lean Democratic.

The GOP now holds a 47% to 46% edge over Democrats, per the latest data from Pew Research, collected long before Biden’s disastrous June 28 debate and before Saturday’s assassination attempt.

The Republican brand is leading over the Democratic brand, and the left-wing media are apoplectic.

New York Times columnist Frank Bruniscorned GOP convention-goers as “a gathering of villagers with torches” — his version of Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables.”

...

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Jul 17, 2024 — Voters are switching allegiance out of disgust with the Democratic Party's pro-inflation, pro-criminal, open border, identity-obsessed ...

Nothing to Bragg about: NYC mayhem proves DA is no hero

New York Post

https://nypost.com › 2024/06/04 › opinion › nothing-to...

Jun 4, 2024 — On Saturday, a knife-wielding thief severely stabbed a security guard at a midtown Manhattan Duane Reade and threatened a shopper.

Since the year before Bragg took office, grand larceny crimes -- the theft of goods worth over $1,000 from an individual or a business -- are up 33%. Getty Images

On Saturday, a knife-wielding thief severely stabbed a security guard at a midtown Manhattan Duane Reade and threatened a shopper.

Roughly 12 hours later, a straphanger was shot in the hand as his train pulled into the 86th Street and Lexington Avenue platform.

That’s life in Manhattan, where transit crime, assault and shoplifting are raging.

“The city has changed so much,” lamented Ermal Gura, 35, of Staten Island, a passerby who barely escaped the drugstore thief. “We have to watch our backs in the stores and on the subway.”

That’s because Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg doesn’t have New Yorkers’ backs.

Thursday, minutes after securing a guilty verdict against former president Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, Bragg boasted, “I did my job.”

Bragg’s not doing his job. The mainstream media is gushing with adulation, but New Yorkers living in constant fear should find Bragg’s stardom nauseating.

He’s being hailed as a hero, but he’s a menace.

Bragg should prioritize jailing violent criminals and repeat offenders, including the shoplifting gangs that are forcing stores to close.

Since the year before Bragg took office, grand larceny crimes — the theft of goods worth over $1,000 from an individual or a business — are up 33%.

Here’s the zinger: Despite spending years and millions of dollars pursuing Trump, Bragg claims he lacks the resources to bring thieves to trial.

In December 2022, with the DA’s investigation of Trump in full swing, cops arrested Charles Lindsay, 22, and charged him with four heists in one week at high-end Madison Avenue boutiques, where he was alleged to have stolen nearly $25,000 in goods, including luxury handbags.

Four grand larceny charges. Lindsay was known to belong to a gang targeting the area and had a long rap sheet.

Betsy mcCaughey long rec ~ Rx; 1994 manh fellow phd columbia ~ BC rx; newt sez turing pt; New Rep did not run BC rebuttal, but got 2nd from bm 61; 20 yrs later J Fallows called art most destructive by a single person 61 2005 NR ed Foer apologize; bm helped by tobacco 62 w/ AEI, ATR, biz roundtable, cato, coc, cse, heartland, heritage NAM 63, but B manh inst had input on 3 part new Rep 63 No Exit”

Pataki gig fired b/c unstable disloyal ditz 64 ego she → dem to run ~ him

2009 good on tv thus Fox, lie picked up by Bachmann TP caucus leader; Wa? Post col Pants on Fire 67 then palin stand 9n front of panel with my baby w/ Down’s Syn cupp by fox baier; AP factcheck wrong; advising taken out of bill

Bm talent is lies that resonate emotionally for those who oppose on ideology 70; Frum: frenzy made dealmaking impossible 71

Aarp favor advising

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Incorporated-World-Post-Truth-Politics/dp/0307279596

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mitch-mcconnell-wants-to-get-rid-of-the-governing-process-and-right-wing-media-is-helping-him

no lnx

mitch McConnell wants to get rid of the governing process — and right-wing media is helping him

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / The Washington Monthly May 16, 2020

If Joe Biden wins the election in November, he will face the same thing every Democratic president has faced since Bill Clinton: a country broken by Republican policies (or the lack thereof). While it’s true that Biden isn’t likely to have to deal with two endless wars in the Middle East, we don’t yet know the lengths to which Trump will go to rescue his narcissistic ego from the prospect of being a “loser.” But we do know that he has decimated the entire federal bureaucracy and will leave the country in the worst economic shape since the Great Depression.

In light of that, our friend Ed Kilgore writes that Biden will need to avoid the mistakes of the Obama presidency.

But there’s a major problem with Biden winning the presidency and partying like it’s 2009: Obama’s record in dealing with that crisis was mixed at best, even though he had political assets that Biden will not enjoy (e.g., big majorities in both congressional chambers) and faced conditions that were bad but nothing like today’s…Does Joe Biden have the rhetorical chops to overwhelm Republican opposition in a way that Obama could not?

That last question is what caught my eye. The “rhetorical chops” Kilgore refers to are often captured by the term “bully pulpit.” The assumption is that if a president can use superior rhetoric to convince enough voters to support his agenda, Republican opposition will give way. The comparison is often made to FDR.

The New Republic’s Osita Nwanevu cites Biden’s expressed determination to reshape America like FDR did and sensibly notes that he “would have to unite an extraordinary proportion of the American public — not only in support of his agenda but in support of him, personally, as a political leader, just as Roosevelt did.”

But there are a couple of political dynamics that have changed since those days. First of all, Mitch McConnell has demonstrated that he doesn’t care what the majority of American voters think. He has not only promised to return to his mode of total obstruction if a Democrat is elected president, but Republicans have also developed a strategy to maintain their power—even as they slide into a minority.

The perfect example of how Republicans dismiss what voters want came in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting when it became clear that over 90 percent of the public supported common-sense gun safety measures—including a majority of Republicans. But McConnell and his cohorts simply obstructed that legislation as well. They have no reason to care what voters think because they are never held accountable.

The other dynamic that has changed since Roosevelt was president is that Republicans are more than happy to lie with abandon, knowing that right-wing media—led by Fox News—will buttress those lies. That nullifies the use of the bully pulpit to unite Americans behind a president’s agenda.

We saw how that worked when, during negotiations over Obamacare, a provision that would have allowed Medicare to bill for end-of-life planning was turned into “death panels.” Given that their base has been convinced that they can only believe what right-wing media tells them and everything else is “fake news,” they buy into the lies.

That is not only the challenge Obama faced, it is also the one that will confront Democrats if Biden is elected. It is true that, as Kilgore suggests, it could be mitigated with the abolition of the filibuster in the Senate if Democrats win a majority in that body. At this point, the biggest obstacle to that happening isn’t that Biden opposes it. A majority of Senate Democrats do as well.

It is also possible that the effectiveness of total obstruction could be minimized if McConnell loses his bid for re-election in Kentucky. On the one hand, his successor is likely to maintain a strategy that has worked so well for their party in the past. But McConnell has been extremely successful at keeping his troops in line—primarily through the use of his coffers of campaign cash. It is possible that the next Republican leader could experience some defectors.

All of this is why it is so important for Democrats and mainstream media to focus on challenging the way that Mitch McConnell and right-wing media have been so successful in subverting the entire governing process. The first step in correcting the problem is to accurately name it.

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covid sacrifice zone

aN 320 next day sr found abandoned/dead in spain, afte italy said cdnot cope

no lnx

Former FBI agent stunned by GOP’s willingness to die for 401ks: I dealt with suicidal cults — this is a ‘new level of craziness’

Written by Sky Palma / Raw Story March 24, 2020

During an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News this Monday, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said that he’s willing to bet there’s plenty of senior citizens in America who would be willing to risk contracting COVID-19 if it meant getting the economy back on track.

Patrick said that he, as a senior citizen himself, would be “willing to take a chance” on his survival “in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves” for his children and grandchildren, adding that people he’s talked to say the same thing.

The interview went viral and plenty of critics weighed in with reactions, including former FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan, who suggested Patrick’s sentiment isn’t unlike the “suicidal death cults” he’s dealt with in the past.

“I dealt with suicidal cults before,” he tweeted. “I encountered people who are willing to die for their faith, ideology, race, etc. But, I never encountered anyone who is willing to die for someone else’s 401k. This is a whole new level of craziness.”

Ali H. Soufan

@Ali_H_Soufan

I dealt with suicidal cults before. I encountered people who are willing to die for their faith, ideology, race, etc. But, I never encountered anyone who is willing to die for someone else’s 401k. This is a whole new level of craziness. https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1242245135129346050 …

Andrew Lawrence

@ndrew_lawrence

Tx Lt Gov Dan Patrick says grandparents would be willing to die to save the economy for their grandchildren

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note escalator via radio

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live in troubling times, what many have dubbed a “post-truth” era, where there’s little, if any, political penalty for conservatives to tell outright lies about everything from health care to climate change, an environment that has led directly to the situation we face now, where the Republican primary is a race between two stunningly belligerent and shameless liars.

Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters have come together to chronicle how things got this bad in a new book, Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics. I interviewed Rabin-Havt about the industry that’s grown up to create and spread the lies that are the basis of much of modern right-wing propaganda.

http://www.amazon.com/Lies-Incorporated-World-Post-Truth-Politics/dp/0307279596

Your book is titled Lies, Incorporated, which you say is more than a snazzy title, but a reference to “this industry made of lobbyists, PR companies, media lackeys, unethical experts and unscrupulous think tanks.” And it’s all for the purpose of spreading and ingraining lies into the public consciousness, usually from the right. Why do you think this deserves a designation as its own industry?

When I started digging in, I found it to be something different than your day-to-day run-of-the-mill D.C. lobbying and corruption. I found it to be something wholly more unethical and wholly strategically separate. Even though it’s part and parcel of the tactics used in those efforts, it becomes something different when you think about the fact that these are individuals who set out to intentionally manipulate public policy by manipulating the truth.

This whole system started with the tobacco industry and its efforts to shut down discussion about how smoking causes cancer. Can you talk about that history?

Sure, and full credit to Naomi Oreskes and her team and her work at Harvard and her book, which I think really opened a lot of eyes around this.

John Hill met with kind of the tobacco barons in the 1950s and they had a problem—their issue was that there were a series of articles coming out where the linkages between their product and cancer were becoming more and more clear. In fact, the research that linked tobacco to cancer dates back decades before that. By the time they met it was kind of becoming widely accepted.

So Hill sets up a PR infrastructure to combat the very idea that tobacco was causing health problems. They basically decided that the best way for them to maintain their profits as an industry was to join together and deny facts and knowingly lie.

What’s interesting is John Hill, this legendary PR guy, before he had this meeting with the tobacco barons, he himself had quit smoking because of health concerns!

And yet still was willing to push this.

If you look at the quote-unquote tobacco scientists, and then if you look at a lot of the people I cite in the book, it’s very easy to say—you hear this all the time with climate scientists—"these are people who sold out for money." It’s really easy to say that. That’s not true in most of these cases. There is financial gain, let’s not toss that to the side, but these people do it for ideology.

For example, in the case of climate, if you look at the ideology of some of the distinguished researchers that were coming out who were climate deniers, a lot of it is anticommunism. Why? Because they believe that big government and government intervention in such a large scale problem invariably takes a road towards more government control, hence, communism.

It seems to me that while the climate denialist movement started with this well-funded industry attempt to find some dirt on climate scientists, the attacks really got traction because all of these right-wing ideologues started dog-piling these scientists. What happened there?

You have a hack of East Anglia University, which was a pretty unknown university to people outside this world, where a bunch of emails from climate scientists all around the world discussing their research get exposed. They’re people on an email list together, and when people are on an email list together in the confines of friends, they talk in a fairly casual manner because you assume good faith. If you take things out of context when people are speaking in a casual manner, especially scientists, you end up with ideological weapons that can be used.

Ken Cuccinelli, who was then attorney general of Virginia and trying to run for governor, tried to get climate scientist Michael Mann's records from UVA, where he had been a professor. You have investigations launched, all of which find, of course, that there’s nothing wrong.

At the same time, people who are ideologically interested in trying to shoot down global warming constantly use “Climategate” as an excuse. Back in my old Media Matters days, when we got an inbox with a bunch of internal Fox emails, one of the ones I mention in this book was an email where the Washington managing editor ordered reporters to kind of cite climategate when talking about climate change. So you see this repeatedly carried out through the media to convince people that, “Oh, this proves that climate change is just some giant liberal scam,” which is what a lot of people believe somehow.

The death panels issue is a crystalline example of how industry needs come together with right-wing ideology to push this ridiculous idea into the public and it somehow takes off. How did that happen?

You have Betsy McCaughey, who is a known liar. Ezra Klein had written back in 2009 that the thing about Betsy McCaughey is, “She’s an exciting liar.” So her lies work.

In the 1990s, she’d written an article called “No Exit” in The New Republic, which became an infamous piece that the right, people like Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole and Bill Kristol, heralded as the piece that brought down the Clinton health care bill. It was full of lies about the Clinton health care bill, but in a pre-internet age it took a long time to debunk it, almost a decade. The New Republic only apologized for it years later.

McCaughey was a person who was knowingly a liar about health care, and when the Obama health care bill comes up, she takes the opportunity to re-enter the spotlight. During an interview with Fred Thompson, who was then a radio host after running for president and being on “Law & Order” and being a senator, she implies that the Obama bill has a section in it that tries to make seniors end their lives early.

Then Michele Bachmann picks this up and repeats it on the floor of the House of Representatives. Sarah Palin sees Michele Bachmann’s speech and writes about it on Facebook and coins the term “death panel.” So there’s a kind of right-wing chain that leads to Sarah Palin’s death panel post, which sparked the entire conversation.

With the book coming out, I decided to do a survey. I had a few questions about lies that I wanted answered. I wanted to see if the death panel lie still existed: Do people still think there are death panels? We’re seven years out, and right now, at this moment, 60 percent of Americans, of registered voters polled, either think that there is a death panel or are not sure.

We’ve now had Obamacare for a number of years and there’s clearly nobody killing grandma. One would think it might be in the news if there was a death panel killing grandma. Here’s what’s even more amazing: 51 percent of Democrats either think Obamacare establishes death panels or aren’t sure. And of course, 74 percent of Republicans believe that. That’s how sticky that lie was....

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BETSY MCCAUGHEY, PH.D., is a constitutional scholar with a Ph.D. from Columbia University, a patient advocate and health policy expert, and a former Lt. Governor of New York state. In 1993 she read the 1,362-page Clinton health bill, warned the nation what it said, and made history. Today she is doing it again. With a Ph.D. in Constitutional History, she can actually tell us what the Obama health law says.

In 2009 medical excellence and freedom came under assault again, and McCaughey put her skills to work. She was the first to uncover the health provisions slipped into the February, 2009 stimulus bill. Members of Congress were stunned to learn the stimulus bill could limit care for seniors and dictate your doctor’s decisions.

Since then McCaughey has dissected each major health bill and reported the contents to the nation, dispelling false claims such as “you can keep your health plan if you like it,” or “there will be no cuts to hurt seniors.” She backs up her findings with page references to the bills, her critics respond only with generalities. She is one of the most frequent expert contributors on Fox News, CNBC and is heard daily on the nation’s biggest radio talk stations.

In 2004, McCaughey founded and is now Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths (also known as RID), a nationwide educational campaign to stop hospital-acquired infections. In five years, RID has made hospital infections a major public issue. It has provided compelling evidence that preventing infection improves hospital profitability as well as saving lives, and RID has won legislation in over 27 states for public reporting of infection rates. RID has become synonymous with patient safety and clean hospital care.

Betsy McCaughey’s research on how to prevent infection deaths has been featured on Good Morning America, the CBS Morning Show, ABC’s 20/20, and many other national programs.

Betsy McCaughey is the author of over three hundred scholarly and popular articles, and three books, including a history of the U.S. Constitution.

Betsy McCaughey has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University, and she produced prize-winning studies while at two think tanks, the Manhattan Institute and later the Hudson Institute.

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The New York Post published a column by notorious Obamacare misinformer Betsy McCaughey that was riddled with errors about climate change.

McCaughey's September 7 column, headlined "Wake up, Obama, climate change has been happening forever," claimed that the world has experienced "cyclical swings in climate for thousands of years" and that "[n]o matter what humans do, temperature trends go up, and then down."

But this factually baseless claim contradicts the findings of the hundreds of scientists that comprise the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded that fossil fuel emissions are the primary driver for recent global warming. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson hasexplained: "We are dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate the Earth hasn't seen since the great climate catastrophes of the past -- the ones that led to mass extinctions."

McCaughey also denied the overwhelming consensus that humans are driving climate change, claiming that "scientists disagree" about what is driving global warming. She asserted that President Obama sounds "more like an Old Testament doomsayer than a president" for calling for action on climate change.

McCaughey is perhaps best known for repeatedly lying about Obamacare, most notably inventing the false claim about "death panels," which was PolitiFact's Lie of the Year in 2009.

From her NY Post column:

Wake up, Obama, climate change has been happening forever

President Obama hiked to Exit Glacier in Alaska last week, with photographers in tow, to send the world a message: The glacier is melting.

Obama blames it on the increasing use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, which he wants to restrict not only in the United States but worldwide. The photo op was designed to build support for an international climate agreement he's pushing hard to sell, so far with little success.

Trouble is, the president needs to get his facts straight. Exit Glacier has been shrinking for 200 years -- since 1815 -- long before widespread industrialization and automobiles. As the president ended his trip, he sounded the alarm again: "This state's climate is changing before our eyes."

News flash, Mr. President: Alaska has been buffeted by cyclical swings in climate for thousands of years. That's true for the rest of the world, too. There was a 300-year-long Medieval heat wave, followed by a Little Ice Age that began around 1300, and then the 300-year warming period we're in now.

The Anchorage Daily Times ran a front-page story in 1922 recording the "unheard-of temperatures" in the Arctic and glaciers disappearing. "The Arctic Ocean is warming up and icebergs are growing scarcer."

Oblivious to the history of constant climate change, Obama pointed to Exit Glacier and said: "We want to make sure our grandkids can see this."

He may get his wish, but it won't be because of anything he's doing. The current warming trend appears to be over, speculates Roger Cohen, a fellow of the American Physical Society. The Alaska Climate Research Center reports almost no evidence of warming trends in Alaska since 1977.

Many scientists are predicting the onset of two or three centuries of cooler weather-- which would mean bigger glaciers. That's despite the world's growing use of fossil fuels. No matter what humans do, temperature trends go up, and then down; glaciers expand and then recede; sea levels rise and then fall, explains Will Happer, professor emeritus of physics at Princeton.

That doesn't mean pollution controls are futile. We all want to breathe clean air. But don't blame climate change on humans. There are bigger forces at work here.

Scientists disagree about what these forces are, and are researching better ways of accurately measuring temperature trends via satellite. Amid all this controversy and uncertainty about global climate change, Obama blindly insists that his theory of global warming "is beyond dispute" and attacks his critics as "deniers."

Sounding more like an Old Testament doomsayer than a president, Obama warned in his Alaska speech that unless carbon fuels are restricted, "we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair: Submerged countries. Abandoned cities. Fields no longer growing." Sounds scary, but he's on thin ice backing up those predictions.

Despite Obama's professed concern for the people of Alaska affected by climate change, his visit was more about theatrics than helping locals. Alaska's Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski lambasted Obama's job-killing new restrictions on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. Obama says the region's "very fragile," but Murkowski is more worried that the economy is fragile. "It's clear this administration does not care about us and sees us as nothing but a territory," she said.

It's a demonstration of Obama's appalling lack of priorities. The president told his Alaska audience that "few things will disrupt our lives as profoundly as climate change." Really, Mr. President? How about the epidemic of cop shootings in the United States, or the drowned toddlers washing up on Mediterranean shores as families flee the Middle East, or ISIS beheading thousands of Christians?

Obama says that with climate change, more than any other issue, "there is such a thing as being too late." Tell that to a cop's widow or the father who watched his family drown.

Previously:

Conservative Media Turn To Serial Misinformer Betsy McCaughey To Stoke Fears About Ebola

What Does The Guy Who Wrote*The Myth Of Heterosexual AIDS* Think About Climate Science? *NY Post*Investigates

Death Panel McCaughey

Liberty Central scrubs web site after Ginny Thomas calls healthcare reform "unconstitutional"

The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Betsy McCaughey - The Atlantic

Who is Betsy McCaughey?

Newsmax guest says white men “will be at the back of the line” under a Kamala Harris presidency

Early life, education, and family

Academic work, 1977–1988

Policy positions and scholarship, 1989–1993

Healthcare reform, 1993–1994

New York Lieutenant Governorship, 1995–1998

Life and career since leaving office

Healthcare reform, 2007–2009

American Cancer Society

2009 stimulus bill

2009 healthcare reform bills

Electoral history

see also