Two Pinocchios For The White House Vaccine Statistics

Yesterday Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post awarded two Pinocchios to the White House for their comments on how the sequester would affect children’s vaccines.

The article quotes Congressional testimony from March 5:

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.): “Let me get it straight. Under the president’s cut of $58 million to the [Section] 317 program, you think you could get around that to avoid cutting vaccines to children, but under a sequester, that the president blames on Republicans, you don’t know if you can do that?”

CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden: “We’re going to do everything we can to limit any damage that occurs because of the across-the-board cut, but it reduces our flexibility significantly.”

Harris: “Is it your testimony that under the president’s proposed cut of $58 million in his budget to the 317 program you could have avoided cuts to vaccines to children in Maryland?”

Frieden: “We believe that we could have maintained vaccination levels, yes.”

Well, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story. Please follow the link above to read the details of the fuzzy math and issues involved in children’s vaccines and the sequester.

The article concludes:

Still, even before the sequester, the administration had sought to reduce costs by ending shots for children who have insurance–on the grounds that the president’s own health-care law was creating new avenues to obtaining vaccinations. Many families might have been dissuaded from getting vaccinations because of the higher costs involved. What are those numbers? That’s still unclear.

The administration’s vaccination statistics earn Two Pinocchios.

I would have given them at least three.

 

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Be Careful Who You Believe When You Look For Fact-Checkers

"The Honorable Rick Perry (front right), ...

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post, a liberal reporter who now claims to be The Fact-Checker, and his fact checking of a recent Rick Perry speech. When asked whether there should be a Palestinian state, Rick Perry called for Palestine to denounce terrorism and to require that any Palestinian state be required to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Sounds pretty basic to me.

The Fact-Checker replied:

As part of the 1993 Oslo accords, in an exchange of letters between then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the Palestine Liberation Organization met all of these conditions nearly 20 years ago. The letters are posted on the Web site of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Really? Is Mr. Kessler familiar with the term ‘Intifada?’ Mr. Hinderaker points out that Palestinian children are taught that Jews have no right to be in Palestine and the maps shown to these children show Palestine as including all of present-day Israel.

The article at Power Line concludes:

One last thing: Kessler thinks that Israel has nothing to fear because of a twenty-year-old letter from a dead terrorist. What is the PA’s real intention, as of today? Look no farther than this: as Scott reported earlier today, “Palestine” is represented in the United Nations by the heroine Latifa Abu Hmeid. What is her claim to fame? She is the mother of no fewer than four terrorist murderers, who together are serving a total of 18 life sentences. Is Rick Perry’s concern about whether the Palestinians and their leaders are really reconciled to the existence of Israel unfounded? Let’s be blunt: Glenn Kessler either is woefully ignorant of Middle Eastern history, or he is deliberately misleading his readers.

Palestine does not want a two-state solution–they want a one-state solution with Palestine as the state. Creating a Palestinian state at this time under the current Palestinian culture would be a recipe for war–not peace. Until the schools stop teaching hate and the state stops honoring terrorists and terrorism, we need to make sure Israel is armed to the teeth. That is the path to peace in the Middle East. A weak Israel is an easy target.

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