Flu fear mongering
Can you spot the fear mongering in this Associated Press report?
A better question would probably be “Can you avoid the fear mongering in this report?”
No one has died – but the “federal officials” are telling us it’s “likely”. Way to keep us calm, fellas.
What I can’t help but point out is that the article trumpets the Obama Administration’s emergency $1.5 billion request but they fail to acknowledge that the Democrats traded away their initial request a few months ago to get some Republican votes to pass their massive economy-killing package.
The Administration urged calm yesterday and today, but it seems that they’re being anything but calm. As soon as it was discovered that an LA County coroner was investigating two recent deaths for the possibility of being related to swine flu, the (Republican) governor declared a state of emergency. In one case, swine flu has been ruled out as the cause. I figured I’d better screen cap that story in case it disappears;
64 confirmed cases – of course Fox News told me earlier that confirmed cases “rocketed” from 50 this morning. This map is scary, isn’t it?
Whole states colored brown for minuscule portions of their populations with confirmed cases. I’m getting flu symptoms just writing this stuff. If you’re not scared yet, they have another map that shows how many 64 people are with little brown dots – you know, in case you’re a moron who has never seen 64 brown dots all in one place before;
I can’t help but shake the feeling that the media is throwing Obama a softball of a “crisis” so he can save us from the impending evil menace – then we can all clap like supporters at the Special Olympics when the little handicapped child finally finishes.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media, Politics
As usual, the AP’s stats are, shall we say, suspect? There has been no report that I’ve seen that says that “hundreds” of students from the NYC school are ill with the flu. How can there be hundreds, when the map shows only 45 flu cases in NY state, total? So, the whole story falls apart, as is usual for the AP.
I was listening to Canadian radio last night and noticed how the swine flu story was only about a minute long. The other stories were about how despite a trillion dollar bailout, a) Chrysler was bankrupt, b) 12,000 GM workers would lose their jobs, and c) the entire Pontiac Division is being eliminated.
They also reported that Citibank and Bank of America are in lousy shape and need more “stimulus” money.
You want to know why the American media is playing this flu thing so heavy (40 cases in a nation of 270 million people is NOT a crisis)? It’s because they are burying the failure of Obama’s bailout fiasco, the only thing he has to show for 100 days of being in office.
Like Twinkletoes said, never let a crisis go to waste.
Out here in CA, we have too many illegal aliens around here that are coming in without being checked for diseases. They get picked up, put in jail, and infect more there; or they go into the ER for treatment, and infect everyone there.