Medicare Fraud Costs Trump Sequester Cuts By Over $100 Billion
Have any of the liberal journalists who have bellyached over the sequester's supposedly draconian cuts -- which amount to a mere $44 billion -- considered that it pales in comparison to the amount of money that Medicare fraud costs the taxpayer every year?
That would be as much as $300 billion a year, or three times what the U.S. government spends on education, as Chris Parker of the Houston Press noted in an April 25 story:
Given how often such blatant thievery goes undetected, no one's sure how much fraud there really is. Conservative estimates place the bill at $100 billion annually. The more adventurous peg the figure closer to $300 billion — three times what the feds spend on education.
It has left federal health care little more than an unlocked home, where street punks and gangsters, doctors and even states walk right in and help themselves to whatever's inside.
Parker also observed that some people who were involved in Medicare fraud look mighty familiar, like Democratic Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee of Texas. Houston Riverside General Hospital, the medical center she vouched for after it was hit with cuts, was found to have committed $116 million dollars in Medicare fraud – and her husband, Elwyn Lee, was once on the board.
Medicare malfeasance is, alas, a bipartisan fiasco. Florida Governor Rick Scott (R), you may recall, was CEO of a hospital company that also has engaged in felonious Medicare transactions.
While liberal journalists like E.J. Dionne have been squawking about how disastrous the sequester cuts -- in truth they are actually reductions in the rate of spending --are, the fact of the matter is they are a drop in the federal budget bucket, and are significantly less than money we as taxpayers lose every year thanks to fraud in Medicare, a program which needs fundamental reform to prevent insolvency in a few decades time.
Medicare Fraud Costs Trump Sequester Cuts By Over $100 Billion
Have any of the liberal journalists who have bellyached over the sequester's supposedly draconian cuts -- which amount to a mere $44 billion -- considered that it pales in comparison to the amount of money that Medicare fraud costs the taxpayer every year?
That would be as much as $300 billion a year, or three times what the U.S. government spends on education, as Chris Parker of the Houston Press noted in an April 25 story:
Given how often such blatant thievery goes undetected, no one's sure how much fraud there really is. Conservative estimates place the bill at $100 billion annually. The more adventurous peg the figure closer to $300 billion — three times what the feds spend on education.
It has left federal health care little more than an unlocked home, where street punks and gangsters, doctors and even states walk right in and help themselves to whatever's inside.
Parker also observed that some people who were involved in Medicare fraud look mighty familiar, like Democratic Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee of Texas. Houston Riverside General Hospital, the medical center she vouched for after it was hit with cuts, was found to have committed $116 million dollars in Medicare fraud – and her husband, Elwyn Lee, was once on the board.
Medicare malfeasance is, alas, a bipartisan fiasco. Florida Governor Rick Scott (R), you may recall, was CEO of a hospital company that also has engaged in felonious Medicare transactions.
While liberal journalists like E.J. Dionne have been squawking about how disastrous the sequester cuts -- in truth they are actually reductions in the rate of spending --are, the fact of the matter is they are a drop in the federal budget bucket, and are significantly less than money we as taxpayers lose every year thanks to fraud in Medicare, a program which needs fundamental reform to prevent insolvency in a few decades time.
In Shift, NY Times Embraces ‘Moral Dimension’ Provided by Bishops — at Least for Expanding Obama-Care
Friday's lead New York Times story celebrated "G.O.P. Governors Providing a Lift For Health Law." The most notable convert: Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who reversed his position this week and announced his support for expanding Medicaid.
The Times' Abby Goodnough and Robert Pear credited Scott for the embrace of Obama-care (via "proponents" who "say that doing so will not only save lives, but also create jobs and stimulate the economy") and also found a convenient "moral dimension" in the call by Catholic bishops to expand the Medicaid program, a dimension the paper never found when the Church was opposing the Obama-care requirement that religion institutions provide contraception coverage.
MSNBC’s Bashir Falls for Hoax, Reports Satanists to Rally for Rick Scott; Turns Out It’s Part of Mockumentary
While the mainstream media has been transfixed with the Manti Te'o fake girlfriend story, it seems many outlets in the gullible liberal media were biting on another hoax, this one involving Florida Gov. Rick Scott and a band of Satanists supposedly set to stage a rally expressing their support for the Florida Republican.
Among the journalists taken in by the fake story was MSNBC's Martin Bashir, who could not wipe the devilish grin off his face as he reported what he thought to be a legitimate news story on his January 14 program, in a segment entitled "Dread Scott." [MP3 audio here; video embedded below]
MSNBC’s Martin Bashir Outrageously Compares GOP Governor to Murderous Dictator Ceausescu
MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Wednesday outrageously compared another conservative to a brutal dictator. According to the cable host, because Florida Governor Rick Scott supported cuts for programs that included funds to programs that serve disabled residents, he's just like Nicolae Ceauşescu, the vicious dictator of Romania who killed thousands.
Talking to arch-liberal Congressman Alan Grayson, Bashir fumed, "I was reminded of Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania, whose treatment of disabled children there, which started in the 1970s, where they were hidden and housed in the most appalling conditions." The anchor wondered, "But is this his preference for disabled children in America in 2013?" [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
WashPost Editorial Misleads Readers About Florida Voter Roll Cleanup Effort
The Washington Post editorial board today set out to slam Florida's Republican governor for "threaten[ing] the integrity of elections" with his voter "purge" effort and for enforcing the state's new curtailed early-voting hours.
But in their editorial on the matter, the Post misled readers with deceptive language about how the state undertook its voter roll cleanup effort (emphasis mine):
Despite Biased Media Onslaught, Florida Voters Approve of Voter ID, Stand Your Ground, Voter Rolls Cleanup
This year, as always, Florida is a crucial swing state. Because of that, the liberal media is doing all it can to gin up Democratic base voters, attempting to energize them for the November election by bashing Florida's conservative Republican governor Rick Scott and his attempt to clean up voter rolls of noncitizens, who by definition are not allowed to cast votes. The liberal media, particularly hyper-partisan MSNBC, has also attacked efforts in other states to require voter ID. Florida has had a photo ID law since 2002.
The tragic February shooting death of Trayvon Martin also led the Left to work up attacks on the Sunshine State's Stand Your Ground laws. But new polling shows that the media's attacks are just not working. Sure, Gov. Scott himself is personally unpopular, but the policies he's pursuing are, reports Steve Bousquet of the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times (emphasis mine):
TALLAHASSEE -- After 18 months as governor, Rick Scott remains personally unpopular with a majority of Floridians, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll.
But despite voters’ displeasure with Scott, they strongly support his efforts to rid Florida’s voter rolls of noncitizens in this presidential election year.
The latest survey by the nonpartisan Mason-Dixon Polling & Research of Jacksonville shows that 51 percent of voters disapprove of Scott’s job performance and 40 percent approve, with 9 percent not sure.
[...]
The statewide telephone survey of 800 registered voters, all likely to vote in the Nov. 6 general election, was conducted July 9-11 for the Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, Bay News 9 and Central Florida News 13. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.
Scott’s popularity remains low even though his policies have broad support, and despite a run of TV ads paid for by the Republican Party promoting his agenda.
[...]
Despite misgivings about Scott, a majority of Florida voters agree with him on the need to remove noncitizens from lists of voters.
By a margin of 54 percent to 35 percent, with 11 percent undecided, voters said they support the purge efforts.
Republicans overwhelmingly support the purge, 80 percent to 13 percent, while a majority of Democrats oppose it.
The purge of suspected noncitizen voters was halted last month, but it will soon resume. The state announced Saturday that it has gained access to a federal citizenship database that it says will allow for more accurate screening of the citizenship status of voters.
By a larger margin of 82 percent to 15 percent, voters agreed that people should be required to show a photo ID before they cast a ballot. Florida’s photo ID requirement has been in law since 2002.
A separate question in the same poll shows Floridians oppose making changes to the Stand Your Ground law, which George Zimmerman is using as a defense against a second-degree murder charge in the Trayvon Martin shooting:
TALLAHASSEE -- Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law continues to enjoy widespread support among likely voters, even as a state task force considers rewriting the law, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll.
Nearly 65 percent say the 2005 law — which allows people who believe they are in grave danger to use deadly force to defend themselves — does not need to be changed. There’s less consensus when it comes to voters’ thoughts on the Trayvon Martin shooting, which thrust “Stand Your Ground” into the national spotlight this year.
CBS Confronts Rick Scott: If ObamaCare ‘Is Not the Right Way to Do Things, What Is?’
CBS This Morning went after Governor Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Thursday, throwing an Orlando Sentinel op-ed and a PolitiFact report at him and challenging him to answer just why ObamaCare wasn't the best option for his state to follow.
CBS questioned the governor over his opposition to Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid in Florida, and his refusal to follow the law. "But you have the third highest rate of residents without health insurance," CBS's Jeff Glor told Scott. "So I wonder if the ACA is not the right way to do things, what is?" [Video below the break.]
Glor also cited two outlets slamming the governor's claims and challenged Scott to respond to the "wide range of sources" that claim he's wrong.
"Governor, the Orlando Sentinel says you've greatly exaggerated the projected costs of Medicaid. PolitiFact recently looked at this, said you've overstated the cost. How do you respond to the wide range of sources that say you simply have these numbers wrong?" he asked.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on CBS This Morning on July 5 at 8:00 a.m. EDT, is as follows:
ERICA HILL: Republican Rick Scott was elected governor of Florida as an outspoken opponent of President Obama's health care law. One week after the Supreme Court upheld it, the former hospital CEO says his state will not comply with the law. Governor Scott joins us this morning from Tallahassee. Nice to have you with us, sir. Good morning.
Gov. RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.): Good morning. I hope (Inaudible) – everybody comes down and enjoys our beaches.
HILL: (Laughing) Everybody can use a little dip to cool off these days. Governor tell us –
SCOTT: It would be nice.
HILL: Tell us, governor. Why do you oppose the expansion of Medicaid in Florida, and refuse this extra federal funding?
SCOTT: Here's the problem we're dealing with in Florida. Medicaid has been growing at three and one half times our general revenue. And so it's making it very difficult to fund our K-12 education. So if we go and now do an expansion, rather than do what our citizens want. Our citizens want jobs. So that's what I'm focused on, get our citizens jobs so they can afford insurance. This expansion is going to cost both the federal government, which is our tax money, and the state a lot of money. We can't afford it. We already went through this experience with the stimulus where they put money into out education system, then took is away and our schools relied on it. I don't want to do the same thing to our citizens.
HILL: So you're saying this isn't even an issue of the amount of money, or where it comes from. But it's simply that no matter what, your taxpayers have to pay for it. Is that your issue?
SCOTT: Yeah, I mean, it's one – it's our tax money. It goes to the federal government, they give it back. It's a significant expansion. We're already struggling. Medicaid has been growing in our state at three and one half times our general revenue. If you talk to our citizens, they want a job, they want to be able to make sure that their kids can get a great education. Every time we expand Medicaid, we make it more difficult to fund our education system, which is very important to our citizens.
JEFF GLOR: Governor, the Orlando Sentinel says you've greatly exaggerated the projected costs of Medicaid. PolitiFact recently looked at this, said you've overstated the cost. How do you respond to the wide range of sources that say you simply have these numbers wrong?
SCOTT: Well, there's -- there's, you know, if you look at the Wall Street Journal, I think their article, I think it was Tuesday. They said for the first six years it would the state 1.2 to 2.5 billion dollars. Cost the federal government 20 to 25, I think it was, billion dollars. It depends on what number you want to use. How fast you will want it implemented. But the truth is, it's a lot of money. Whatever the number is, it's a lot of money. We're already struggling. My first budget was a 3.7 billion dollar budget deficit. My second one was a 1.7 billion dollar budget deficit. So we're struggling to make sure we fund our K-12. Any expansion of Medicaid, which is already growing at three and one half times our general revenue is going to be tough. We want jobs. We've had the biggest drop in unemployment in the country since I became governor, other than one state. That's what we need to be doing. Get our citizens back to work so they can afford their own health care. The problem with ObamaCare is it doesn't deal with the core issue. The core issue of the health care reform should be how do we reduce the cost of health care? This doesn't do anything to reduce the cost of health care. That's what we should be doing. Make sure people know what things cost in health care. Give people more choice. Make sure that individuals get the same tax breaks as employers so you own your own policy. Reward people for taking care of themselves. Those are the things we ought to be doing, and those are the things we're going to be doing in Florida.
GLOR: And all that sounds – governor, that sounds nice. But you have the third highest rate of residents without health insurance. So I wonder if the ACA is not the right way to do things, what is?
SCOTT: Well the most important thing is working on getting everybody a job. So we still have 800,000 people out of work. But we've had a dramatic drop in unemployment. So that's the most important thing we'd do. And then make sure the industry focuses on reducing cost. Look at how you can, through competition, drive down the cost. Make sure you allow people to buy the insurance they want to buy. Those are the things that are going to make it easier for people to get insurance. Not a federal program that they're not going to be able to afford, and we can't afford, as taxpayers of this state.
GAYLE KING: You know, the big story that we keep hearing is that Florida is certainly going to be a swing state in this election. Right now, the numbers show that they're very close. But I believe that President Obama is ahead at this time. What do you think Governor Romney needs to do?
SCOTT: I think it's going to be no different than my race in 2010. That was all decided based on who had the best jobs plan. I mean, it's the biggest issue we have in our country. It's still the biggest issue in our state. We need more jobs. Which approach is going to be the best approach to more jobs? I think President Obama is going to suffer because jobs haven't come back. Governor Romney has got to show a plan where Floridians say hey gosh, I believe in that and that's how we're going to get back to work.
PolitiFact.com: Chris Matthews’s Claim About Florida’s New Voter Registration Law Patently False
Of course you probably won't hear an apology or retraction on the network's programming, but PolitiFact.com has determined that MSNBC's Chris Matthews was in error when the Hardball host claimed on his June 4 program that a new Florida law -- which has been on hold by a federal judge -- made it utterly impossible for voter registration drives to sign up new voters over weekends. The law requires voter registration drive volunteers to turn in new voter registration forms within 48 hours after having collected them. "You don’t have to be a lawyer to own a calendar or know what a weekend is. A weekend is 48 hours," Matthews sneered at Florida GOP chairman Lenny Curry, insisting that its impossible to register new voters over a weekend without running afoul of the law
But the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald-run PolitiFact site did what Hardball producers should have done before Chris took to the air, actually look up and read the text of the legislation. In doing so, PolitiFact found that there's an exception in the law that takes weekends into account:
Matthews was relentless about his point. But he is also incorrect.
We read the bill (HB 1355) that passed the Legislature in 2011 and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott.
The 158-page bill does indeed create a 48-hour deadline for voter groups to turn in completed registrations. But there’s a caveat.
According to the law, a completed application "shall be promptly delivered to the division or the supervisor of elections within 48 hours after the applicant completes it or the next business day if the appropriate office is closed for that 48-hour period." (The passage is included on page 21 of the bill text. We added the bold for emphasis.)
Put plainly, if someone is registering voters on a Friday evening -- as Matthews said -- they would have until Monday to turn in the completed forms. If Monday was a holiday, the deadline would be extended until Tuesday. If Monday and Tuesday were holidays, or if the elections office was closed for any reason, the deadline would be Wednesday. And so on.
We confirmed our interpretation of the law with Florida Department of State spokesman Chris Cate.
There’s no doubt the deadlines were deterring groups from going out to register voters. After the law’s passage, the League of Women Voters said they wouldn’t conduct their usual voter registration drives because the new requirements were too difficult to meet.
But Matthews said that Florida’s 2011 voting law made it impossible for third-party groups to register voters on Friday afternoon, because a 48-hour deadline to turn in those applications would expire before the elections office opens Monday morning.
That’s not correct. The law factored in weekends and holidays and gave voter registration groups until the next business day. We rate Matthews’ claim False.
Thus far it appears Matthews has not taken to his program to offer a correction or an apology for misleading his viewers.
But even granting that Matthews's strong assertions were based on sheer ignorance, that only illustrates that Matthews does not in fact do his homework. Perhaps Lenny Curry, knowing the hostile environment he was walking into, could have been better equipped to cite the law back to Matthews and inform viewers that Matthews's claim was all wet. But it's not, and shouldn't be, the role of a guest on a cable news program to be an ombudsman who corrects the faulty assertions of a cable news journalist.
Miami Herald’s Caputo on Voter ‘Purge’: There’s ‘Less Evidence of Suppression and More Evidence of Fraud’
While the national liberal media, particularly MSNBC, have been eager to portray Florida's efforts to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls as a "purge" that is really motivated by partisan attempts at "voter suppression," the Miami Herald reporter who's been covering the story as it develops seems to see it quite differently than his colleagues.
In his June 12 story, Marc Caputo notes (emphases mine):
The fight between the state and federal government is but one battle in the war over voting rights and voting integrity in the nation’s most important swing state, where the scars of voting irregularities were magnified in the 2000 elections.
Liberals accuse Scott of “voter suppression;” conservatives say the Obama administration is allowing “voter fraud.”
So far, there’s less evidence of suppression and more evidence of fraud.
The number of noncitizens who are on the rolls or appear to have cast unlawful ballots grows by the day. And there’s no evidence yet that any lawful voter has been kicked off the rolls. Still, it’s tough to prove if someone actually cast an illegal ballot.
Consider the case of Andre Fiset, a 59-year-old noncitizen from Quebec who lives in Hollywood. Records show he voted before 2006 — far back enough that no records survive to show if he actually signed in and cast a ballot at the polls. He said he didn’t.
“I don’t know what this is about,” Fiset said. “I didn’t vote. They keep sending me voter cards, but I never voted.”
He was removed last week from the voter rolls. It’s a state and federal felony for noncitizens to register as voters or cast ballots.
About 87 percent of those listed as potential noncitizens are minorities, a Miami Herald analysis showed. Hispanics and Haitians are Florida’s largest immigrant group. So any search of noncitizens will disproportionately target them.
Caputo was a guest on the June 5 edition of MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports, where he noted that some 13 people have been removed from the state's voter rolls after confessing that, yes, they in fact were not U.S. citizens.
I'll keep an eye out for Caputo making future appearances on MSNBC, but I'm not holding my breath, especially when it comes to Martin Bashir's program, given his propensity to compare the voter roll cleanup effort to a Stalinesque purge.
WashPost’s Krissah Thompson Gives Readers Distorted Picture of Fight Over Voter ID Laws
In today's 16-paragraph page A6 story, "Legal challenges tie up new voting restrictions,"* the Washington Post's Krissah Thompson reported that many "[s]tricter ID laws and other controversial voting restrictions" could be held up in the courts until after November election.
At no point in her story, however, did Thompson note recent polling shows 70 percent of Americans back photo ID for voting. What's more, while Thompson noted Obama/Holder Justice Department staffers are working to thwart "an effort by Florida's Republican secretary of state to remove noncitizens from voter registration lists, saying it is illegal to conduct such a purge this close to an election," she failed to note that in this instance, it may well be the Obama administration that is violating federal law by refusing to assist Florida officials.
As former federal Department of Justice attorney and conservative Heritage Foundation legal expert Hans von Spakovsky told the Miami Herald recently (emphases mine):
The Department of Justice acted politically and erred in demanding Florida cease its purge of noncitizen voters, according to a conservative former Justice lawyer who helped enforce federal voting laws for years.
The Justice Department’s voting-rights section said last week that Florida’s attempted purge probably broke federal law because the 1965 Voting Rights Act requires federal permission for the program and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act bans voter purges within 90 days of a federal election.
“If this ended up in court, the DOJ would lose,” said Hans von Spakovsky, with the conservative Heritage Foundation. “The justice department doesn’t have a basis in the statutes they’re citing.”
But von Spakovsky and other Republican lawyers say the law probably has been broken – but by the federal government itself.
Under federal law, the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to furnish citizenship information to the state for, among other things, checking voter registration rolls. But DHS, first asked for the data in mid October 2011, has refused, email correspondence shows.
Later in her article, Thompson addressed attacks on Texas's voter ID law, noting that the law is "often cited as unfair because it allows gun permits as identification but not student IDs, with opponents arguing that gun owners are more likely to support Republicans while students may lean toward Democrats."
While it's true that that's a favored talking point of the laws opponents, there's a simpler and more logical reason that concealed carry permits are valid ID while student ID cards are not. In Texas, concealed carry permits carry the home address, signature, and photo of the registrant. Officials at the polling place can check the address and signature against those on file.
Student ID cards, on the other hand, do not typically list the holder's address and are issued to noncitizens and non-residents of the state as well as citizens who reside in Texas. As such, student IDs are worthless to confirm the identity against information on file with the elections board.
What's more, many colleges and universities -- like UT Austin -- require that students produce a government-issued photo ID to prove their identity BEFORE they are issued a student ID, making it unlikely that they would show up to vote with a student ID but lack another form of photo ID.
*the online version's headline is different: "Restrictive voting laws tied up in court."
MSNBC’s Wagner Continues Pushing Grossly Distorted Voter ‘Purge’ Meme; Fails to Note Obama DHS May Be Breaking Law
In a segment titled onscreen "What's the Matter with FL," MSNBC's Alex Wagner today continued her network's efforts to flog conservative Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) for his voter "purge." This despite the fact that the "purge" -- which targeted a mere 0.02 percent of registered voters in the state-- has not disenfranchised a single eligible voter and has in fact brought to light noncitizens who were illegally registered to vote. What's more, neither Wagner nor anyone else on her panel informed viewers that the Obama administration itself appears to be violating federal law by not helping Florida with its voter rolls cleanup effort.
To service her network's spin on the matter, Wagner turned to Rolling Stone magazine's Eric Bates and Ari Berman, the latter of whom insisted that the Sunshine State's efforts were part of a GOP effort to "depress the turnout" of Obama-friendly voting blocs.
Of course, Berman failed to produce nor did Wagner demand evidence to substantiate such a claim. For her part, Wagner simply took it on face value and argued that, because the suspected noncitizens questioned by Florida were 58 percent Hispanic, 40 percent Democratic, and 14 percent African-American that it was proof enough that Gov. Scott had personally taken it upon himself to "purge the voter rolls."
"You've got a Southern state purging the rolls, clearly of people of color," agreed Bates.
But as Miami Herald reporter Marc Caputo informed MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell yesterday, there's a simple reason most of the suspected noncitizens caught in the "purge" were Hispanic. "Florida's largest immigrant group happen to be Hispanics and they're disproportionately registering as independents," Caputo noted.
Caputo also told Mitchell that some 13 noncitizens were caught by the state's inquiry thus far.
MSNBC has latched onto the fact that the Obama/Holder Department of Justice has called on Florida to stop its voter registration reconciliation as damning evidence that Florida is in the wrong,
But as the Herald's Marc Caputo reported today, there are legal experts who say the DOJ overstepped its bounds. What's more, it appears it is the Obama administration itself is derelict in enforcing a federal law which requires it to help states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls (emphases mine):
The Department of Justice acted politically and erred in demanding Florida cease its purge of noncitizen voters, according to a conservative former Justice lawyer who helped enforce federal voting laws for years.
The Justice Department’s voting-rights section said last week that Florida’s attempted purge probably broke federal law because the 1965 Voting Rights Act requires federal permission for the program and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act bans voter purges within 90 days of a federal election.
“If this ended up in court, the DOJ would lose,” said Hans von Spakovsky, with the conservative Heritage Foundation. “The justice department doesn’t have a basis in the statutes they’re citing.”
But von Spakovsky and other Republican lawyers say the law probably has been broken — but by the federal government itself.
Under federal law, the Department of Homeland Security is supposed to furnish citizenship information to the state for, among other things, checking voter registration rolls. But DHS, first asked for the data in mid October 2011, has refused, email correspondence shows.
A DHS spokesman declined to comment on whether the agency is breaking the law.
MSNBC’s Roberts Attacks Florida Noncitizen Voter ‘Purge’ in Error-laden Softball Interviews with Liberal Activists
It's the Monday after a woefully disappointing unemployment/jobs report and the day before the Wisconsin recall looks likely to blow up in Democrats' face. You're MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts. How do you rally the Democratic base? It's as simple to turning to an old network standby: blasting those dastardly Republicans for "voter suppression" efforts.
On two programs today -- Roberts's 11 a.m. EDT MSNBC Live and filling in at 2 p.m. EDT on Tamron Hall's NewsNation -- Roberts treated viewers to softball interviews with liberal activists who bemoaned a voter "purge" in Florida.
"Florida's Gov. Rick Scott is vowing to keep purging people suspected of being ineligible to vote from Florida's rolls despite a warning from the federal government," Roberts noted as he introduced Judith Browne Dianis of the liberal Advancement Project.
Neither Roberts nor Browne Dianis informed viewers that Florida elections officials give suspected noncitizen voters "30 days from the receipt of the letter to provide documentation of citizenship" to keep their names on voter rolls, as the Miami Herald reported. What's more, noted the Herald last Tuesday, in Miami-Dade County:
...359 voters have provided proof that they are citizens. The county determined on its own that an additional 26 were citizens, while 10 others either admitted they were ineligible or requested to be removed.
So there were, in fact, noncitizens who were on the voter rolls who have since been removed as a result of the state's vigilance, a fact that was also missing from Roberts's interview with Browne Dianis.
Besides failing to challenge her assertion that Florida's Gov. Scott is a "foe of democracy" engaged in a campaign of "voter suppression," Roberts also let Browne Dianis deceive viewers when she charged that Florida removed from voter rolls "a 91-year-old citizen" and "World War II" veteran who was "taken off the rolls."
In fact, that 91-year-old veteran, Bill Internicola, proved his citizenship and is securely on the voter rolls, something that the Miami Herald reported last week. What's more, Internicola probably raised red flags with the state because his driver's license listed his date-of-birth two years earlier than the date listed on his voter registration file, as I've noted previously on NewsBusters.
Three hours later, subbing for Tamron Hall on NewsNation, Roberts turned to another representative from the liberal Advancement Project, Penda Hair for another softball chat.
In a segment entitled "Voter Injustice," Hair insisted that there was "no evidence that there are any noncitizens on the voting rolls of Florida." Roberts let Hair's assertion go uncontested. Once again, that's patently false. As the June 1 South Florida Sentinel reported (emphasis mine):
Miami-Dade had removed 13 people who admitted they weren't citizens. And Broward had received notice from only three people that they were not U.S. citizens.
That's at least 16 people off the rolls who should not have been on them in the first place.
To her credit, unlike Browne Dianis, Hair noted that suspected noncitizens have 30 days to reply to the inquiry from the board of elections to contest removal from voter rolls.
In neither the 11 a.m. nor 2 p.m. programs did Roberts bring on a defender of Florida's so-called purge, nor did he promise to work to get such a perspective on the air, even though he promised viewers in the 11 a.m. hour that the June 5 program would feature "one of those voters who was unfairly purged" from the Sunshine State's voter rolls.