While abortion is still legal, the anti-choice right wing continues to work towards the defunding of Planned Parenthood in order to ensure that women will have less access to abortion. In vilifying Planned Parenthood and validating those who want nothing more than to shutter an organization that provides vital health care for low income women, Fox News is a willing partner. During a recent "news" piece about Planned Parenthood, Bret Baier said that a Delaware clinic is "under assault" because three former workers have made accusations, which the clinic denies, of unsafe practices. He followed that up with news (A lede on the Fox website) about a GAO investigation of Planned Parenthood. Baier asked if Planned Parenthood is "playing fast and lose with taxpayer money." On Fox news' "Happening Now" Jenna Lee asked if taxpayer dollars should be going to an organization that provides abortion. And just to make sure that the pro-life propaganda blast reached even more viewers, "pro-life luminary" Laura Ingraham told us how Planned Parenthood wastes our tax dollars and in so doing, helped birth a Fox propaganda meme. Aww....
Last Thursday night, Sister Mary Laura began with the hyperbolic charge that Planned Parenthood is involved in "massive waste, abuse, and possible fraud." She added the obvious Fox talking point about TAXPAYER DOLLARS with her assertion that "it's costing taxpayers millions." (Texas and the Texas Planned Parenthood reached a settlement over alleged billing fraud brought by a former Planned Parenthood employee who got a nice $1.2 reward for her "whistleblowing.") Without noting the right wing, Christian creds of the "Alliance Defending Freedom" she brayed that it had found evidence of Planned Parenthood being "rife with corruption." In referencing the amount of "taxpayer funding" (rather than "federal," the Fox buzz word is "taxpayer" funding) received by the organization she prefaced it with a chuckle and "get this." After alluding to the GAO investigation (the GAO does lots of investigations), she whined that the media is "silent." She didn't mention that the investigation was requested by only GOP lawmakers including her fellow devout Catholic, the diaper fetishist GOP Senator from Louisiana, David Vitter.
She introduced her guest Kellie Fiedorek of - drum roll please - "Alliance Defending Freedom." (Fiedorek testified, earlier this year, against the RI marriage equality bill. Too bad for her that it passed). Ingraham bloviated about how the media's silence about the evil Planned Parenthood's misuse of - drum roll please - "taxpayer" money is "journalistic malfeasance." Fiodorek agreed and sweetly droned on about how the public isn't being told the truth about the evil Planned Parenthood which is wasting - wait for it- "our hard earned tax dollars" and "exploits women by killing innocent little children." (We silly gals just can't make decisions on our own). She continued to whine about - wait for it - the waste of taxpayer money and how if people only knew the truth they wouldn't want a dime of their - wait for it - taxpayer dollars spent on Planned Parenthood.
Ingraham lied when she claimed that the government has "resisted audits" because Planned Parenthood is audited on a regular basis. She gravely intoned "it does shock the conscience." She claimed, as fact, that Planned Parenthood is engaging in malfeasance in a number of states. What she didn't say was that her information was from the "Alliance" report which alleges fraud which, in several cases, involved underpayment notices from states to Planned Parenthood. Fiodorek breathlessly spoke of - wait for it - waste of taxpayer dollars.
She whined that no other corporation can get away with this abuse and asked why this is happening. Ingraham, with her trademark shit eating grin, answered "special treatment." She brayed about we "look the other way" about "the horror of partial birth abortion" (which is illegal), unregulated clinics (Gosnell was not part of Planned Parenthood) and "dispensing pregnancy tests when they don't have to." (WTF?) She concluded that nobody cares about how Planned Parenthood is bilking Medicaid (Medicaid bilking is done by lots of other health care providers and Fox doesn't seem to care). She asserted if this had happened in the Bush defense department, the press would have done "lots more reports."
Planned Parenthood provides vital reproductive health care to low income American women. But according to a Christian, anti-choice group, Planned Parenthood is wasting taxpayer dollars - a bogus claim aided and abetted by Laura Ingraham who obviously doesn't care about wasting taxpayer dollars on, say, abstinence education. Once again, there should be no question about the "fair & balanced" Fox News being a vital part of the real "war on women."
I KNOW corruption when I smell it! The Vatican frinstance …