Glen Kessler of the Washington Post is the Angel Hernandez of fact checkers. For those who don’t follow Major League Baseball, Hernandez is widely considered the worst umpire in the game. If you have any doubts about Hernandez, just check this out installation.
As for Kessler, earlier this month he was caught trying to produce evidence about Christopher Rufo, who led the nationwide fight against Critical Race Theory. Kessler was not trying to discredit the positions Rufo took in opposition to CRT, but rather was engaging in a politics of personal destruction, attacking the reporting process but not the reporting itself.
First strike!
But Kessler has long been involved in fraudulent checks. His antics include: giving Mitt Romney two Pinocchios (out of a possible four) for criticizing then-President Barack Obama for not traveling to Israel in his first term, which is an objectively true statement considering Obama did not travel to Israel in his first term.
Second strike!
Kessler also caused controversy when attempted to invalidate the life story of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott that his grandfather dropped out of school to pick cotton during the Jim Crow era. Not cheerful that Senator Scott’s grandfather dropped out of school to pick cotton during the Jim Crow era, Kessler conducted an in-depth background check on the Scott family, using what he describes as notoriously unreliable records, discovering that Tim Scott’s great-grandfather dropped out of school to pick cotton on a farm…owned by his family.
The fact remains that the senator’s grandfather dropped out of school to work on a farm, and that’s part of Scott’s life story. Apparently, for the Washington Post’s watchdog, Scott’s story had to be downplayed because he was on the verge of delivering the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. It was the same Kessler who wrote defense of Elizabeth Warren’s false claims about her Native American ancestry when it mattered.
Strike three! You’re usually OUT, but not Kessler, who continues his official role as Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos legitimizing attacks on his political enemies.
Now Kessler is using his failed fact-checking to evaluate the objectively true statement in an ad opposing Nancy Pelosi’s disastrous attempt to gain control over drug prices in HR 3.
The ad begins: “They want to repeal the Medicare protections that protect access to my medications. They call it negotiation, but what it really means is the government decides what medications I can get.”
— Sue from Ohio, who says she had type 1 diabetes, speaks in a television ad sponsored by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).
It’s either true or it’s not that “repeal the Medicare protections that protect access to my medications. They call it negotiation, but what it really means is the government decides what medications I can get.”
The Congressional Budget Office writes in its analysis of the impact of HR 3 that:
“Under H.R. 3, manufacturers that do not agree to participate in negotiations or do not agree to a negotiated price would be subject to an excise tax on the sale of the drug, in addition to the income tax. CBO and JCT expect that the manufacturer will withdraw its drug from the U.S. market rather than pay the excise tax, so the tax would have the same effect as if the drug had not been approved for sale or if the drug had been excluded from the national drug list (i.e., formulary) that any insurer could cover.”
So H.R. 3 would impose a system of negotiations between the government and the drug manufacturer over price, in which the government holds all the cards. If the manufacturer does not participate or no agreement is reached, the government would impose an excise tax on the sale of the drug. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation expect that if the government imposes an excise tax, the manufacturer will withdraw its drug from the U.S. market.
The government’s actions would therefore result in the drug being withdrawn from the U.S. market, depriving American patients of access to the drug.
It seems obvious that the net effect of HR 3 will be price suppression, and if the drug inventor himself objects, a punitive tax will be introduced that will make it unwise for the company to allow people to buy the drug.
In summary, under HR 3, Sue from Ohio will not be able to obtain her medications due to the government coercion permitted by this bill.
Apparently Kessler is unable to see this basic cause and effect with his left-focused vision.
On a side note, maybe that’s Angel Hernandez’s problem. Some say he’s blind or just guessing as an umpire, but maybe he’s calling balls and strikes with his right eye closed?
But when it comes to you, Sue, and me, the truth is clear.
Richard Manning is president of Americans for Limited Government.
