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On Fox's The Real Story, host Gretchen Carlson approached the CVS decision with suspicion and a remarkably uninformed premise, asking, "Is it OK legally ... to restrict tobacco availability in a private store like this?" She questioned her guests as to whether they would continue shopping at CVS and observed that, "For people who smoke, you know, they have a right to buy cigarettes. It's not illegal."

On Your World, Fox host and VP Neil Cavuto noted that President Obama supported CVS' decision, and speculated that CVS was "getting scaredy cat" because "with the health care law and the changes and everything else," selling tobacco products "didn't look good."

And on Fox's The Five, co-host Dana Perino tried to use the decision to attack President Obama's health care law.

A private company's decision to part ways with a proven carcinogen and the cause of one out of every five deaths in the United States annually may seem non-controversial -- and in fact fits within the free market ethos that many Fox hosts purport to champion -- but Fox News has a long history of manufacturing conflict on almost any topic if it can be used to attack President Obama.

In 2009, Fox News declared itself "the voice of the opposition" to Obama, and in every year since the network has illustrated it will go to any lengths to do just that. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/05/fox-freaks-out-over-cvs-ending
-sales-of-tobacco/197947

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Cavuto: "You wanna light up, you better stock up…at least at CVS…

…It was up to CVS to make that decision for shoppers….You're worried, Melissa, that it's a slippery, sugary slope."

Melissa: "What's next? Ding Dongs? Ring Dings? They sell diet pills. They sell alcohol."

Cavuto: "So you get the diet pills with the Ring Dings…"

Melissa: "I guess, I mean those are terrible for you…they sell alcohol, they sell sugar, they sell soda…"

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Cavuto (to the lady marked "Nutritionist" who approves of the move): "Yeah, but I also know you're a health freak and now you're saying we got rid of the cigarettes, now we're heading for the snack-food aisle"

Tanya: "Eventually I'd like to see a lot of positive changes…"

Cavuto: "Ah HAH! This is all a cabal!"

Tanya: "Doritos in moderation have not been shown to increase the chance of morbidity, but we know even one cigarette causes damage."

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Cavuto: "You know what I think, I really do think CVS is getting scaredy cat here. You know, with the health care law and the changes and everything else, it certainly didn't look good in this environment--I'm not a fan of smoking, believe me--for them to be selling these products when the nation is moving en masse into this healthcare law, bumps notwithstanding, and you don't want to be one of the country's top five providers and sell this stuff."

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Dana Perino: "President Obama praised this decision in a statement, so let them know, they got the pat on the back from the White House, but I just wonder; is this President Obama now saying that corporations are allowed to have values? And express them? 'Cause if that's the case, maybe corporations don't have to provide contraceptive care to their employees for their health plans

"Ooooo, that's a good point…"

"And the Supreme Court Justices might want to think about that."

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