Huffington Post

I meant to talk about this yesterday while it was fresh in my mind, but life got in the way of my blogging time so I put it off until today (always). Anyway, I was sitting on the sofa in front of my beautiful 46 inch Samsung Series 8000 LED TV watching Countdown two days ago when an advertisement came on blasting health care reform. I couldn’t believe my ears. Not only was this advertisement ranting against health care, it was outright lying about it, and worst of all, it was during Countdown! I wondered who was behind this and at the end they proudly claimed that an organization called the US Citizens Association sponsored the ad.

So I went to their website this morning just to see what I could see, and there it was – the ad. But first, a little snippet from their mission statement, just to let you know who they are.

The mission of the U.S. Citizens Association will be:

1. To inform the public on the fallacies of the information being spread by the liberal socialist organizations and the facts on capitalism versus socialism;
2. To promote conservative capitalist candidates for public office;
3. To file lawsuits against unconstitutional laws and actions by government and counter-lawsuits to those lawsuits filed by the liberal socialist organizations; and
4. To form grass root organizations to compete with ACORN.

The U.S. Citizens Association is a non-profit organization made up of U.S. citizens. U.S. Citizens Association Membership is free. Donations are optional. As a member, you will get a member kit, which will instruct you on how you can change the government to benefit you. And you will get continuous information on what is going on in government that affects you that you will not get in the leftist news media. You will be educated on how you can become an Empowered Citizen.

“Made up of US Citizens” means that it is not made up of non-citizens, I guess. When they tell me I will get continuous information that tells me how government affects me I can’t help but think that I will continuously be fed BS by right-wing jerk-offs who want me to help them push their agenda. Oh – and this is stuff that you will not get in leftist news media.

I wonder what channel that’s on because all the news I ever get from the Main Stream Media is slanted to the right. And further, they are claiming they can counter the misinformation being spread by “liberal socialist organizations” as if this is a big problem area that needs immediate attention.

Again, I wonder from where those particular messages emanate. They are special and specific, those messages, not just being “liberal”, but worse, “liberal socialist” as if that is a step below liberal. I wonder if the US Citizens Association is aware that there was actually a socialist political party since the early 1900’s and it split into two factions in 1976, one called the Socialist Party USA and Social Democrats USA? And I wonder if they know the Socialist Party ran a candidate for President in 2008?

According to their propaganda, it is these two organizations that draw their ire. I mean, it couldn’t possibly be Barack Obama, a political centrist. Is it possible that the US Citizens Association has their wires crossed? This, from an article on Huffington Post- well worth the time to read- is about Obama’s political centrism:

Some of the disappointment many progressives feel in the Obama presidency is because the Obama administration, in spite of its roots in progressive politics, has largely governed from the center.

The mission statement goes on to say that they are the biggest and most powerful organization designed for the purpose of countering the Obama socialist agenda (non-existent).

Now, we’ll get back to the ad. It is too bad that they didn’t provide embed code or even a url for the ad so I can post it here.

The voice-over begins with a graphic in bold red font announcing “Senior Citizens Alert!” Then states:

Finally, after months of deception and empty promises, the true costs of social health care have been exposed and our seniors who rely on Medicare to survive are paying the highest price.

And the ad, which can be viewed here, makes the following hair-on-fire claims:

1. Seniors will pay the most.
2. Bills debated in Congress call for Medicare to be gutted by up to $500 billion.
3. Medicare will be cut by 25%.
4. 10 million illegal aliens could get free health care at the expense of our seniors.
5. Seniors could see Medicare collapse and face severe health care rationing

The claim that health care will be rationed and that 10 million aliens could get free health care are lies that have been debunked. The claim that there will be a government take-over of health care and that it will subsequently be rationed is countered by FactCheck.org and the fact that health insurance companies do ration health care today is explained by Media Matters here. The claim that “10 million illegal aliens could get free health care” is explicitly denied in the language of the bill, and explained by Think Progress. And if you want to hear it from the horses mouth, so to speak, read what the President is telling the AARP about cuts to Medicare benefits.

There is an FCC policy against airing false and misleading advertisement. Whoever is responsible for airing the ad, either MSNBC or DishNet, my programming provider, is in violation of that FCC policy.

Others have noticed the US Citizen Association ads in the past.

This is via US Citizen Association | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Submitted by CREW on 1 September 2009 – 8:02pm. US Citizen Association

Today, CREW sent a letter to Comcast, urging the cable provider to stop airing an ad sponsored by the U.S. Citizens Association. The ad, which ran at least once on August 27, 2009 during MSNBC’s Morning Joe, violates Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding misleading ads.

Since the ad aired on MSNBC, CREW had sent a letter to MSNBC President Phil Griffin on August 27, 2009, urging the network to pull the ad. MSNBC has since informed CREW that the ad was not running nationally through its network, but rather through the local Washington, D.C. cable provider – Comcast.

As reported today in The Gainesville Times, several media outlets have outright rejected U.S. Citizens Association ads.

It seems that there is some money behind this organization as they keep buying air time. We need to complain about every instance of their misleading and illegal advertising. We need to send more letters. Email MSNBC, DishNet, Comcast.