Tag Archives: John Stossel

John Stossel, Lung cancer

John Stossel reveals he has lung cancer; diagnosis doesn’t stop him from remaining a hopeless douche

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This is a touchy subject for me, because I would never celebrate anyone getting lung cancer. Nobody deserves lung cancer, not for any reason.

So, I have to tiptoe carefully around what I want to say, which is John Stossel doesn’t exactly deserve lung cancer, but I will say that, man, his diagnosis is absolutely dripping with irony.

Stossel is a Libertarian wingnut who now works for Fox Business News. He’s too much of a dick to work at a legitimate news network anymore. The reason I find his diagnosis ironic is he has railed in the past against smoking bans as a violation of private property rights, and he claims there is no hard evidence that secondhand smoke is deadly. Never mind the fact that this has been decided by the U.S. Surgeon General, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health and about a million scientists that there is exceedingly overwhelming evidence that secondhand smoke absolutely is deadly and that people absolutely have gotten lung cancer from constant exposure to secondhand smoke; no, John Stossel is a Libertarian and like all Libertarians, they know more than everyone else. They are the smartest people in every room they walk into. Trying to “prove” the deadliness of secondhand smoke to a diehard Libertarian opposed to smoking bans would be like trying to prove evolution to a fundamentalist Christian. Save yourself the migraine.

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Like I said, I’m not going to point at Stossel and go, “ha, ha!” because he now has lung cancer, the same disease that likely thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people have died from over the past 50 years from breathing other peoples’ cigarette smoke. I will say I’m enough of a jerk that I am actually having to fight the urge, however.

Stossel also doubled down on his doucheness by complaining about the medical system and whining that he got lousy customer service in the hospital because of “socialism.” Here’s his idiotic comments:

But as a consumer reporter, I have to say, the hospital’s customer service stinks. Doctors keep me waiting for hours, and no one bothers to call or email to say, “I’m running late.” Few doctors give out their email address. Patients can’t communicate using modern technology.

I get X-rays, EKG tests, echocardiograms, blood tests. Are all needed? I doubt it. But no one discusses that with me or mentions the cost. Why would they? The patient rarely pays directly. Government or insurance companies pay.

Customer service is sclerotic because hospitals are largely socialist bureaucracies. Instead of answering to consumers, which forces businesses to be nimble, hospitals report to government, lawyers and insurance companies.

This Crooks & Liars article makes a pretty good point that anyone who has ever dealt with a bank or an airline (Or WordPress or an Internet provider for that matter), knows damn well about how difficult it is to talk to a live person to get customer service. Yeah, that’s about socialism, all right.

He also claims he’s going to be OK and they caught the lung cancer early and that he’s at one of the top hospitals in the nation, paid for by what I’m sure is an excellent health plan from News Corp.  So, he’s got excellent coverage, they’re curing him, but he’s pissing about lousy customer service. This is beyond being an ingrate. This is typical Libertarian “what about me?” ingrate. Like every Libertarian, Stossel can’t seem to think past his own creepy mustache. Yes, I’m sure there is lousy customer service at times in the health care system, but a) does he actually think he’s the only person out there dealing with a cancer diagnosis? Guess what, pal, over half a million Americans a year get that diagnosis and most of them aren’t whining about customer service … that’s just you being you; and b), most of them are glad to get treatment, especially those people who would never receive treatment in a purely market-driven Libertarian health care system because they wouldn’t have coverage, and there’s lots of people whose coverage is crappier than yours and don’t get the luxury of treatment at one of the top hospitals in the country. I don’t see them going on TV to piss about it.

Honestly, I hope Stossel beats it. Sometimes illness and brushes with death actually changes people — but I seriously doubt that’s even possible with this nitwit.

Fox News, John Stossel, Secondhand smoke

Libertarian stooge John Stossel: No data showing that secondhand smoke kills

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Ladies — I’m a Libertarian … I’m smarter than you. Now make me a sandwich!

 

I can’t believe in this day and age, people are still stupid enough to try to argue this point, but then again, John Stossel is an avowed Libertarian and he does work for Fox News, so wonders never cease.

A decade ago, I butted heads on the old Topix forums with people who claimed secondhand smoke was harmless and the anti-tobacco Nazis were exaggerating the dangers from it. Dave Hitt and the Smoker’s Club used to be really hung up on the secondhand smoke is harmless argument (haven’t checked out either Website in several years, they probably still do).

Remember, decades ago, the tobacco industry argued, with some success that there was no proof that cigarettes caused lung cancer. My own parents argued that lung cancer was caused by air pollution; my mom continued to argue this even after her four-pack-a-day husband died of lung cancer at 49. They totally bought into the industry propaganda.

But, the narrative completely changed with the U.S. Surgeon General’s report on secondhand smoke that came out in 2006 detailed unequivocally, with considerable  backing from the science community, that yes, secondhand smoke is bad for you and that yes, people have actually gotten sick and died from longterm exposure to it. This was followed up with a second U.S. Surgeon General’s report in 2014 with even further details, again with considerable backing from the science community, that secondhand smoke is bad for you and that people have died from breathing it constantly.

In addition, the World Health Association, the American Cancer Society, the International Center for Research on Cancer and National Academy of Sciences all also agree — secondhand smoke kills.

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OK, that big run-up brings me to Libertarian stooge idiot John Stossel, who recently claimed, and I quote: “There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people.”

You mean there are still clowns trying to claim this? The Tampa Bay Times Pundit Watch, in doing a study on Fox News lies, found that 61 percent of the time, Fox News employees (not guests, employees) are making false statements or outright lying. Stossel’s whopper about secondhand smoke made the list as plain old “false.”

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Good, thanks guys for catching it and calling out Stossel.

The Pundit Watch story does a pretty good job of explaining how the data is determined to calculate deaths from secondhand smoke. It’s just idiotic to claim there is no “good data,” but then again, science is hard for people whose worldview revolves around the  fairy tales of Ayn Rand.

From the Pundit Watch story:

It’s a complicated statistical analysis, one with which Stossel obviously finds fault. But it’s not unusual. The same method is used to attribute the number of deaths from obesity through diabetes, for example, Samet said.

“This is the basic way to use to understand how the disease is exposed to this risk,” Samet said. “We understand that there are uncertainties that go with this, but this is a very basic tool. … The approach here is embedded in science and policy and understanding how much a disease is caused by something.”

Now, part of me doesn’t care what idiotic things global-warming denialist Stossel says (Offhand — Earth to John Stossel, the porn stache hasn’t been a “look” since 1978). One thing I learned about Libertarians, don’t waste your time arguing with them. The U.S. Surgeon General, the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, the Academy of Sciences can all agree on a point … “Nope, I’m a Libertarian, I’m smarter than thou. You’re all wrong.” Never met a Libertarian yet who wasn’t convinced he was right about everything and had all the answers.

I mean there’s a reason that Stossel is on Fox, where once-legitimate journalists go to watch their integrity and careers wither and die (Brit Hume, Geraldo Rivera — yeah, Geraldo was considered a legitimate journalist at one time). I mean the guy has claimed that the U.S. government has helped Native Americans more than anyone, and he’s been a sexist, misogynist male chauvinist pig on not one, not two, but three separate occasions. So, I can’t take his ignorant crap about secondhand smoke terribly seriously based on his track record.

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What bothers me is people who watch Fox believe whatever swill Fox pundits put out there. There’s a reason why they’re watching Fox in the first place. They only want to hear things that fit their worldview, which is immigrants are taking over, blacks are all thugs, Obama is a communist Muslim tyrant and that women are begging to be raped. So, when Libertarian moron John Stossel makes up crap on Fox and Friends, Fox viewers buy it hook, line and sinker — like my parents bought the propaganda by the tobacco industry 40 years ago hook, line and sinker.