LL Cool J & Palin Together at Last? Cool J Says No!

Sarah Palin’s Fox News Special to feature L.L. Cool J?

Via Mediaite:

This is not an April Fool’s joke. Sarah Palin will take her first stab at television hosting when she fronts a new Fox News series, Real American Stories, premiering Thursday April 1 at 10pmET.

Guests for the first show include country singer Toby Keith, rapper/actor LL Cool J and Jack Welch. Get excited.

The show will “focus on a range of such stories including a Marine Medal of Honor recipient who gave his live to save his comrades.” But also there will be the celebrity guests – a very broad range of celebrity guests.

But LL Cool J says it not happening. After I sent out a link about this story, Cool J (or someone with access to his verified account) sent me a terse tweet on Twitter claiming the story is false:

That tweet linked to this one:

Interesting. I suspect there are at least two sides to this. I suppose we will hear more about this story soon.

More

LL Cool J: Closet conservative?

In case you were fortunate enough to have forgotten: LL Cool J... Mama Said Knock You Out

Another Black Conservative: What's brewing? A big Palin "controversy" involving LL Cool J?

Update: Fox has agreed to cut LL Cool J from the promo.

Discussion: Memeorandum

Welcome, Express Night Out readers.

Data Scrubbed: Media Matters vs. NEJM (updated)

Media Matters, the mindless mouthpiece of the radical left, is having difficulty accepting the fact that ObamaCare is threatening to drive doctors away from medicine. So Media Matters has attacked the validity of data featured on a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) website:

Right-wing media have seized on a dubious, three-month old email "survey" that purports to show that physicians are concerned about health care reform and that 46 percent of the primary care doctors surveyed "indicated that they would leave medicine - or try to leave medicine - as a result of health reform."

Many media figures have falsely attributed this survey to the New England Journal of Medicine. For example, on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: "The New England Journal of Medicine has published a report and did a survey, and they said the impact of reform on primary care physicians, 46 percent, they say, feel reform will force them out or make them want to leave medicine."

This is false.

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the "survey."

False? Interesting conclusion. Here's what I found:

(From page 1, click image to enlarge)

(From page 3, click image to enlarge)

http://www.nejmjobs.org/content/rpt/pdf/marApr_10.pdf *

You can click on the link above for a PDF file (while supplies last).* The PDF file is all that is available at the moment. I suspect the PDF file will eventually become inaccessible because the original NEJM web page that featured the same controversial data has been scrubbed.* The cached page (provided by Google) was scrubbed while I was writing this post, just moments before I decided to try to get a screen shot.

The document sports the NEJM seal; it is clearly marked as a product of Massachusetts Medical Society, and it clearly features the information that was later repudiated:

46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

...

Source: “Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,” The Medicus Firm, www.TheMedicusFirm.com.

There is nothing in the document (and nothing on the scrubbed web page) to suggest that the information had not been approved and endorsed by the NEJM.

Here's a note with which the progressive folks at the NEJM attempted to cover their tracks after controversy began to swirl:

On December 17, 2009 The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm based in Dallas and Atlanta, published the results of a survey they conducted with 1,000 physicians regarding their attitudes toward health reform. To read their survey results at The Medicus Firm website, click here.

The opinions expressed in the article linked to above represent those of The Medicus Firm only. That article does not represent the opinions of the New England Journal of Medicine or the Massachusetts Medical Society.

If you didn't know better, you might think that the NEJM was just innocently minding its own business when it was mugged by vicious right-wing yahoos from Medicus wielding dubious data. But you do know better (or you soon will). Here are the relevant relationships...

The Massachusetts Medical Society publishes the New England Journal of Medicine (nejm.org), NEJM CareerCenter (nejmjobs.org) and Recruiting Physicians Today.

Recruiting Physicians Today (RPT) is a newsletter available at NEJM CareerCenter and is the publication that featured the data that caused Media Matters to go into conniptions. The link to the March/April issue of RPT at NEJM CareerCenter is currently missing, but the URL is here.

Here's the deal: The polling numbers published on the NEJM Career Center website are entirely consistent with what we've seen elsewhere (i.e. the IBD/TIPP poll).

The data published in RPT (by left-leaning organization with no clear incentive to have published fabricated right-wing talking points) are also consistent with common sense. The Mayo clinic pulled out of Medicare earlier in the year and this week we learned that Walgreens is pulling out of Medicaid. Also, consider what's happening with physician shortages resulting from RomneyCare in Massachusetts. Isn't it fair to say that a pattern is beginning to emerge? Isn't that pattern consistent with the Medicus data?

If Media Matters and the NEJM find it inconvenient to acknowledge the fact that doctors are serious about leaving their profession if ObamaCare passes, just wait. If their ObamaCare wishes come true, they will get a bitter dose of reality soon.

*Update: I was correct. Massachusetts Medical Society discovered this post today (3.30.10) and the link to the incriminating PDF file now takes you to this: "The NEJM CareerCenter was recently redesigned and the page's address may have changed. We apologize for any inconvenience. "

This content post has been changed to reflect the latest MMS scrubbing.

Here is the publication that contains the data of which the MMS is apparently very ashamed.

Bret Baier vs. Barack Obama

Bret Baier is tough! Would you have the courage to interview a sitting president of the United States in this fashion? This is awesome:

h/t: Sister Toldjah

On the road to Demon Pass, our leader encounters a Baier.

New Polls: Obama Lost His Coattails

Members of Congress who think they can rely on Obama to rescue them from the consequences of their health care vote had better think twice. Obama's approval numbers have dropped to new lows across the board.

In the Gallup's Daily tracking poll, Obama's approval has dropped below 50% for the very first time. It should be noted that Gallup samples all adult Americans in its poll; it does not focus on registered voters or likely voters. Ratings for Obama based on samples of all adults are always several points higher than those based on likely voters. That's because some of the Democrats' most enthusiastic supporters, e.g., young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote.

Obama also dropped below 50% in polling by Quinnipiac University for the first time this week. In their poll of registered voters, Obama's approval is at 48%. Obama’s approval rating was 59 percent in a Quinnipiac survey conducted Feb. 25 to March 2.

Quinnipiac also found that only 47% approve of most of Obama's policies, and voters strongly disapprove of the health care overhaul passed by the House of Representatives which he has endorsed (51% to 35%). Voters also disapprove of Obama's handling of health care 53 - 41 percent.

Obama's numbers have been especially bad this week in Rasmussen's polling. In fact, today’s results match the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for Obama and it’s the third straight day at -14. Prior to these three days, Obama’s presidential ratings had fallen to -14 on only one day since taking office. (Approval Index = strong approval - strong disapproval).

Overall, 47% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of Obama's performance. Fifty-two percent (52%) now disapprove.

Obama's approval rating has also hit a new low of 46% in Fox News' polling. Despite the fact that Fox's sample included a slightly higher-than-expected percentage of Republicans, results on approval of ObamaCare (40% approve, 52% disapprove) were similar to those found by Quinnipiac.

h/t: Memeorandum

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