Ohio law requires that citizens genuinely support a political party in order to vote in its primary. To change parties for a primary, a citizen must pledge, under the penalty of election falsification, that he or she is affiliated with the party and "supports" its principles. Lying on the pledge is a felony, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. The law also stipulates that poll workers have a "duty" to challenge voters who are "not a member of the political party whose ballot the person desires to vote."
In Cuyahoga, Ohio's largest county, 16,000 Republicans switched parties for the primary last month. Several did so in bad faith, without truly changing parties, according to newspaper interviews and Internet postings. The Cuyahoga Board of Elections recently voted to investigate the matter; a report is expected on March 31.Bill O'Reilly commented on what Rush was doing, on his radio show, his tv show, and the Brit Hume election coverage show. All the political experts know that Rush Limbaugh did it because he thinks Hillary will be easier to beat than Obama, as all the polls show. But O'Reilly downplayed it, and labeled it a simple "sabotage play" and not only did not condemn it as electioneering, or speak out against it, O'Reilly told Brit Hume that he found it amusing.
Despite the massive crossover voting, however, prosecutions are considered unlikely. A spokesperson for Ohio's Attorney General told Alternet that it is "very hard to prosecute" crossover voting cases, since the crime depends on proving a voter's motive on Election Day.
Limbaugh's motives, however, have been perfectly clear from the start. "I'm asking people to cross over, and if they can stomach it and I know it's a difficult thing to do, vote for Clinton," Limbaugh said before the Ohio primary. The goal, he explained, was to ensure Barack Obama was "bloodied up politically" and to extend the Democratic primary "soap opera."
So we have Rush telling voters to break the law, and O'Reilly says nothing, except that he finds it amusing. Now imagine what O'Reilly would say if Keith Olbermann told Democrats to vote in a Republican primary and break the law. O'Reilly would do a week of shows on it and call for Keith to be put in jail. But when a Republican does it, he basically supports it, and calls it amusing.
Hey Billy, violating federal election laws is not amusing, it's a crime, and you supported it. You and your good buddy Rush both supported it and encouraged it. You and Rush, and anyone who illegally voted should be put in jail.
It's funny how O'Reilly and the Republicans claim to be the law and order party, O'Reilly even does a legal segment almost nightly, and he has even said ALL laws have to be enforced or you have chaos. Then his Republican friends break laws and he laughs it off, or even defends it, but if a Democrat gets a parking ticket O'Reilly reports it and wants them punished.
O'Reilly Factor Fill in Host Bias
- 3-30-08 -- Bill O'Reilly claims to be a non-partisan, fair and balanced Independent, who is fair to both sides, and he has stated he will be fair to Obama, Hillary, and McCain. Yet every fill in host who covers for O'Reilly is a far right Republican.
Last week O'Reilly had a fill in host on wednesday, thursday, and friday. Wednesday night the fill in was Republican Laura Ingram, thursday and friday it was Republican John Kasich. He has also used Michelle Malkin in the past, another Republican, but she no longer does the job.
This is just more proof that O'Reilly is a Republican. A true non-partisan Independent would have one Democrat fill in host, and one Republican fill in host. Then take turns using each one, so they both get an equal time as the fill in.
O'Reilly does not do that, instead all the fill in hosts are died in the wool Republicans, that alone proves he has a right-wing bias, otherwise he would have a Democrat fill in host to provide some balance. And if you read the 6 month bias study I have in my forums you will clearly see the factor has a 99% Republican bias.
The O'Reilly Factor is nothing more than a Republican propaganda operation, pretending to be a news show. O'Reilly hand picks the topics for each segment, then spins it all to make Democrats and Liberals look bad, while ignoring all the corruption and wrong doing in the Republican party, and the McCain campaign. He basically spends 45 minutes to an hour every night smearing Liberals, it's all his biased right-wing opinion.
Once in a blue moon he actually lets a Democrat on the show, in the rare case when that happens, it's usually a fake Democrat, one who works for FOX News, and agrees with O'Reilly 90% of the time. And if it is not a FOX Democrat, it's a moderate Democrat who is almost a Republican.
When a real Democrat does get on the show (which rarely ever happens) O'Reilly will have a Republican guest on at the same time and it's a 2 on 1 with O'Reilly and his Republican friend against the one Democrat. And don't just believe me, watch the show for yourself and count the attacks on right-wing persons or groups, then count the attacks on left-wing persons or groups.
You will find the attacks on liberals outnumber the attacks on conservatives 9 to 1, even though Bush is the president with 33% job approval, and in the last couple years the Republicans have had so many scandals, and so much corruption you could barely keep up with them all. O'Reilly ignores all the Republican corruption to spend 99% of his time attacking Democrats, then claims he is a non-partisan Independent who is fair to both sides, and wonders why the Democrats boycotted the FOX debates.
When it's obvious to any clear thinking American, that FOX News is a right-wing smear machine pretending to be a News Network, and the O'Reilly Factor is a 99% right-wing biased fraud of a News show.
O'Reilly Falsely Claims Obama Would Raise Taxes
- 3-30-08 -- O'Reilly and all his right-wing friends like Rush, Hannity, etc. are saying Obama will raise your taxes if he gets elected President. This is total right-wing propaganda, and it's a lie. In fact, Obama has said he will cut taxes for most Americans.
During a March 27, 2008 interview on CNBC, Obama reiterated, "I would not increase taxes for middle class Americans and in fact I want to provide a tax cut for people who are making $75,000 a year or less":
MARIA BARTIROMO: So what about the top marginal rate for ordinary income? Who ought to pay more and who should pay less?
Obama's website states that he "will create a new 'Making Work Pay' tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family." Obama will overhaul the tax code to lower taxes for the lower and middle class, and make it so most Americans can file their taxes in five minutes. The tax relief plan he envisions for the middle class alone would mean $80 billion or more in TAX CUTS.
OBAMA: Well, you know, what I've said is that we should go back to probably a top marginal rate of 39 percent -- what it was before the Bush tax cuts. So I would roll back those Bush tax cuts, I would not increase taxes for middle class Americans and in fact I want to provide a tax cut for people who are making $75,000 a year or less.
For those folks, I want an offset on the payroll tax that would be worth as much as $1,000 for a family. Senior citizens who are bringing in less than $50,000 a year in income, I don't want them to have to pay income tax on their Social Security.
And as part of my overall approach to housing, I actually want to provide an additional 10 percent mortgage deduction, a credit, mortgage interest credit, for those who currently don't itemize.
If you own a $100,000 house and you're making 65, $75,000 a year, you're not getting that same deduction. I think that they deserve a break as well. That will actually help relieve some of the pressure on homeowners.
Obama would only change the top tax rate from 36 percent to 39 percent. That would be a 3 percent tax increase for people making over $200,000 a year, which is about 5 percent of Americans. The other 95 percent of Americans would get a TAX CUT, and a 10 percent mortage deduction for people who do not itemize.
The top rate increase to 39 percent would only put it back to where it was before Bush took office. In 1993 Bill Clinton signed into law a 2 percent federal income tax increase. That one time tax increase instituted two new upper-income tax brackets: a rate of 36 percent for couples making between $140,000 and $250,000 annually, and a rate of 39 percent applied to couples with an annual income of more than $250,000.
In 1975 the top tax rate was 60 percent, in 1985 the top tax rate was 50 percent.
So even if Obama raised the top federal tax rate back to 39 percent, the people in that top tax bracket would still have recieved an 11 percent tax cut since 1985, and a 21 percent tax cut since 1975. Not to mention after Bill Clinton did that one time 2 percent tax increase on the top income earners, it led to 8 years of economic boom, and during that time the economy added 22 million new jobs, compared to 5 million new jobs during the current Bush administration.
So when you hear O'Reilly and his right-wing friends tell you Obama will raise your taxes, they are LYING!!!!!
Fact Check: Obama will give 95 percent of Americans a TAX CUT, only the top 5 percent of income earners will have a tax increase, and that will only be a 3 percent increase, which is what it was when the economy was booming.
O'Reilly Ignores Wal-Mart Health Care/Lawsuit Story
- 3-29-08 -- O'Reilly claims to be looking out for you, O'Reilly claims to be watching out for the little guy, O'Reilly claims he will report on anyone who does the wrong thing. Yet he has not said one word about this story.
Wal-Mart Plans to Take Money from Brain-Damaged Woman
This is a story that needs to be reported, yet Billy has never said one word about it. If O'Reilly really cared about the little guy he would report this story, and ask everyone to boycott Wal-Mart until they give the woman her money back.
Debbie Shank is a brain-damaged woman from Jackson, Missouri, who used to work for Wal-Mart.
In May of 2000, Debbie's minivan was struck by a semi-truck and her brain received the brunt of the trauma. She now lives in a nursing home. Debbie was covered by Wal-Mart's Health and Benefits Plan but after she settled with the trucking company that hit her, Wal-Mart sued her to get back the $417,000 it had paid out for her care.
What neither Debbie nor her husband, Jim Shank, noticed was a tiny clause in the health plan's paperwork that said if Debbie settles with a third party for damages, which she did, Wal-Mart has a right to recoup the money it spent on her care.
All that's left in the fund set aside to care for Debbie right now is $277,000 and she needs every penny of it. Her husband is working two jobs to care for her. She can't function on her own and, because he has to work, he can't always care for her at home. He even divorced her so she could get more money from Medicaid.
It gets worse. After they lost their first appeal in Missouri, their 18-year-old son was killed in Iraq. Debbie attended the funeral but because of her injuries, she doesn't remember being there or even remember that her son is dead. She still asks for him, and She does not understand why she lives in a nursing home.
Keith Olbermann reported it 2 nights in a row, and he said he will report it every single night until they give her money back. Congress should also step in and make it illegal for a corporation to take money won in a lawsuit, from a health plan you paid for through your employer.
Roland Martin Calls O'Reilly Out
- 3-26-08 -- Roland Martin is calling O'Reilly out, will Billy debate him, or hide under his desk like the coward he is. Here is what Roland wrote to Billy.
Bill and Joel,
O'Reilly Calls Liberal Bloggers Anti-American Fascists
"Oh, Bill, I just watched your segment, and talk about weak!
"Please, please, call me so we can discuss the issue.
"You tell your audience that I'm a Wright apologist, but you don't even bother to tell your audience what I even said on the issue. Dude, that's Journalism 101. You offer no facts, no analysis, just a weak opinion. You paraphrased me saying that I didn't think the issue is no big deal. WRONG. Then you, and Bernard Goldberg, go on to state some of the "crazy" things, as Bernie said, that Wright has said.
"Did you bother to even see that I said ON CNN that what he said about the AIDS issue is flat out wrong? And what he said about the government injecting blacks with syphilis was wrong? BUT it is correct that the federal government allowed black men to go untreated. It is known as the Tuskegee Experiment, something President Bill Clinton apologized for.
"If you want to tell your audience that I'm an apologist, do me the favor and say what I said, as opposed to show a photo of me and offer no facts whatsoever.
"Oh by the way, Bill, Bernie noticed that I'm a black guy and then decided to go on and discuss white liberals.
"Please, ask me if I'm a conservative or a liberal. Be upfront and ask me. Even you would be shocked by the answer.
"Again, just in case you actually want to have a conversation that is fact-based, call me at 4XX-XXX-XXXX.
"For someone who has done your show eight to 10 times, and who has actually defended you from the folks who think you are to the right of Hitler, I'm terribly disappointed that you was so weak with the facts. Had you worked under me at the three papers I've run, as well as website and radio station newsroom, you would have gotten verbally smacked down for such weak journalism.
"Call me. I'll be happy to chat with you."
See, a real debater would pick up the phone and accept the challenge. Let's see if Mr. No Spin Zone is really interested in the facts.
- 3-26-08 -- Last night O'Reilly said that Barack Obama "doesn't have anything to do" with progressive blogs because he can't "control the kind of filth" they produce. Talk about anti-Americanism, O'Reilly said referring to blogs, adding: "Media Matters, Huffington Post, DailyKos, I mean, these are fascists. They're dishonest people."
O'REILLY: But Barack Obama -- and I don't believe this to be true, I could be wrong -- he doesn't have anything to do with what Media Matters or the DailyKos or any of these people do. I want everybody to be clear about this. None of the candidates can control the kind of filth and -- talk about anti-Americanism, I mean these Media Matters --
Reality check: Basically O'Reilly calls anyone who disagrees with him politically Anti-American Facists. And the reason they speak out is they love their country, we love America, that's why we report on the lies and the corruption by O'Reilly, Bush, Cheney, etc. All those liberals do is report on the corruption and illegal activity by O'Reilly, the Bush Administration, and the Republican party.
INGRAHAM: Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable --
O'REILLY: Huffington Post, DailyKos, I mean, these are fascists. They're dishonest people.
In the warped mind of Billy O'Reilly that's being Anti-American and Fascist. They quote him word for word and hang him with his own words, he calls that an Anti-American smear job by Fascists, when it is nothing more than the truth.
The founding fathers wanted the country to be: of the people, by the people, and for the people. The people should speak out when they see corruption, or illegal activity, O'Reilly has no problem with Republican bloggers doing that about Democrats, he only has a problem when liberal bloggers doing it with Republicans.
Now if you want to know what real fascism is, read this:
The 14 Points of Fascism
In his original article, "Fascism Anyone?", Laurence Britt compared the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet and identified 14 characteristics common to those fascist regimes. This page is a collection of news articles dating from the start of the Bush presidency divided into topics relating to each of the 14 points of fascism.
1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
Read the other 11 here:
2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4.) Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5.) Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
Call me crazy, but those 5 points of fascism pretty much describe O'Reilly, George W. Bush, and the Republican agenda for America. Not to mention the other 9 points of fascism show the same thing. So if anyone is a fascist, it's Bill O'Reilly, George W. Bush, and most (if not all) of the Republicans in Congress and the Senate.
O'Reilly's Biased Attacks on Democrats Continue
- 3-25-08 -- The TPM was on Clinton and her Bosnia sniper fire lie. Then O'Reilly made it the lead story, he had Lanny Davis and Col. David Hunt on to discuss it.
This is a perfect example of conservative bias from O'Reilly. When John McCain had his Iran/Al Qaeda training mistake O'Reilly did not do a TPM on it, did not make it the lead story, did not discuss it for an entire segment after the TPM, and did not spend half the rest of the show talking about it.
In the 2nd segment O'Reilly talked about the Clinton Bosnia sniper fire story with Bernie Goldberg, and no Jane Hall, or anyone to provide the balance. O'Reilly and Bernie trashed Hillary, and they also did more on the Obama pastory story.
In the 3rd segment O'Reilly once again talked about the Clinton Bosnia sniper fire story with the right-wing Laura Ingram, and of course nobody was on with her or after her to provide any balance. The 4th segment was about a man in prison with a dying daughter, that the prison will not let ut to see her before she dies.
Then Miller Time, O'Reilly and Miller trashed Hillary and Obama, talked about the Carville Judas comments, and they also trashed some people in San Fran for doing a hunky Jesus contest on easter sunday.
In the last segment O'Reilly had the great dog whisperer on to talk about training dogs, and talking to them, I guess, I dont know because I never watched it. How in the hell that crap belongs on a news show I'll never know.
Then it was pinheads and patriots, and the stupid hand picked e-mails. In one e-mail a guy said O'Reilly was unfair to Obama, O'Reilly asked for examples.
I have a hundred examples in my forums and on the website, he just dont want to admit they are there. And if you send him examples, they never make it on the air. And btw, the patriots were the people who watch his show, and they are patriots for making him the #1 rated show on cable news.
Will O'Reilly Ignore Two Big News Stories Tonight?
- 3-24-08 -- I believe O'Reilly will totally ignore the Obama passport file breach story tonight, and continue to attack him over what his Pastor said 2 weeks ago. I also believe O'Reilly will totally ignore the McCain lobbyist story in the USA Today Newspaper today.
A real journalist would report both stories, and have a balanced discussion on them with real Democrats, not the fake Democrats that work for FOX News as paid analysts. Any Democrat would be a step up, as O'Reilly usually only has Republicans like Karl Rove and Laura Ingram on to smear Obama in unbalanced one sided segments.
UPDATE: As predicted, O'Reilly never said a word about the Obama passport file story. And he never said a word about the McCain lobbyist story in the USA Today Newspaper either. Basically almost the entire show was a biased one sided attack on Democrats, with no Democrat on the show to provide the balance.
I was wrong about the Obama Pastor story, O'Reilly did not report on it tonight, at least for now he seems to have moved past it, for now anyway.
When Will O'Reilly Report McCain Ties to Lobbyists
- 3-24-08 -- My guess would be, never. But if by some miracle O'Reilly ever does report it, I will post about it. Here is a story from the Monday March 24th, 2008 USA Today Newspaper.
Telecom lobbyists Tied to McCain
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain has condemned the influence of "special interest lobbyists," yet dozens of lobbyists have political and financial ties to his presidential campaign -- particularly from telecommunications companies, an industry he helps oversee in the Senate.
Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade, Senate lobbying disclosures show.
McCain has netted about $765,000 in political donations from those telecom lobbyists, their spouses, colleagues at their firms and their telecom clients during the past decade, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign-finance records shows.
It's unclear how much more money those lobbyists have raised for McCain. Eighteen of them are listed by the campaign as "bundlers," which are major fundraisers. McCain doesn't disclose how much each bundler has raised -- unlike Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who categorize their bundlers by the amount they raise. For example, Clinton's "Hillraisers" have brought in more than $100,000 each.
McCain says restrictions on lobbyists and campaign donations create the appearance of corruption. "It is no coincidence that the most influential lobbyists with the greatest access in the nation's Capitol are also the most prolific political fundraisers," McCain says on his campaign website.
Then McCain hires 66 lobbyists to run his campaign and raise money for him. And some of these lobbyists work for companies where he can help decide what happens to their clients, as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the telecom industry and the Federal Communications Commission.
Damien LaVera said McCain is taking a "Do as I say, not as I do approach to campaign finance, ethics and lobbying reform."
Full Story Here:
www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-23-mccainlobbyists.htm
Yet O'Reilly never says a word about any of it. But he can spend an entire week hammering Obama for what his Pastor said in a church, which has nothing to do with lobbyists, or what Obama does as a Senator. Unlike John McCain who is on the Committee that oversees the industry they lobby for, and then hires those same lobbyists to run his campaign, after he claims to oppose lobbyists.
FOX Host Walks Off After Too Much Obama Bashing
- 3-21-08 -- On Fox and Friends this morning, hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Gretchen Carlson spent multiple segments sensationalizing a comment Sen. Barack Obama made yesterday, in which he referred to his grandmother as "a typical white person" in some of her racial reactions. Obama made the comment while discussing his recent speech on race relations in America on a Philadelphia radio show.
Two Fox News anchors Chris Wallace and Brian Kilmeade are speaking out -- and one walked off the set -- over the "Obama-bashing" on their network.
Hey Billy, when two of your own people think your network is doing too much Obama bashing you have a serious problem, so when are you going to report this.
When the trio welcomed Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace onto the show, instead of previewing his show this weekend, Wallace announced that he was going to take his fellow Fox hosts "to task" for their "excessive" and "somewhat distorting" coverage of what Obama said:
Hey listen, I love you guys but I want to take you to task if I may, respectfully, for a moment. I have been watching the show since 6:00 this morning when I got up, and it seems to me that two hours of Obama bashing on this typical white person remark is somewhat excessive and frankly I think you're somewhat distorting what Obama had to say.
Wallace -- who said that the issue "was a little more complicated than we've been portraying" -- went on to chastise his very uncomfortable-looking colleagues for the next five minutes.
Trying to defend their coverage, Carlson said they played up Obama's comment because she "felt that maybe the attention was being taken away from what people really wanted to hear Barack Obama speak about, which was his association and what he thought about the comments by his minister Jeremiah Wright."
Noting Obama's speeches this week on the economy and the war in Iraq, Wallace replied that "maybe it's the media doing" the deflecting:
Far be it for me to be a spokesman for the Obama campaign, and I will tell you that they would laugh at that characterization, but you know, the fact is that after giving a speech on race earlier this week, on Tuesday, he gave a major speech on Iraq on Wednesday and a major speech on the economy yesterday. And so, I think they would say that in terms of deflecting attention away from the issues people really want to hear about, maybe it's the media doing it, not Barack Obama.
"I appreciate you respecting us enough to say it on camera as opposed to writing an email," said Kilmeade sarcastically after hearing Wallace's criticism.
UPDATE: Reaction from the Obama Campaign:
We appreciate Chris Wallace for doing his job as a tough but fair journalist on a network that has been deeply irresponsible over the last week in its unrelenting and sensationalistic coverage of Senator Obama.
FOX News Ignoring Obama Passport File Breach Story
Senator Obama gave the speech he did on Tuesday because he believes that Americans are ready for a thoughtful, mature discussion about race, and are hungry to move past media-generated controversies that distract from the struggles they face in their everyday lives.
If Fox News wants to play clips of the same offensive sound bites every day from now until November, that's their right, but that type of coverage does a disservice to their viewers and to a nation that is facing serious challenges that merit thoughtful and honest reporting.
- 3-21-08 -- O'Reilly wanted proof of right-wing bias at FOX News, well here it is Billy.
It's 9:30am here in Illinois right now, a few minutes ago Condi Rice was live on MSNBC and CNN talking about the Obama passport file breach story. So I switched to FOX to see if they were covering it, they were not. FOX never showed any of it, instead they had Republican Arlen Spector on talking about his new book.
After Condi was done MSNBC did another segment on the story, went to commercial and are still reporting the story with Pete Williams from NBC News. At the time FOX never showed the Condi press conference, or anything, so once again FOX shows their total right-wing bias.
Just imagine how much time FOX would spend reporting this story if a Democrat was president, and John McCain had his passport file looked at 3 different times in 3 different months in the middle of a Primary.
It's now 9:35 and FOX is finally showing the Condi press conference, but not live, they are showing a tape of it. After they showed maybe 30 seconds of the 4 or 5 minute Condi press conference, Hemmer and Kelly had Steve Centani on to talk about it for about 10 whole seconds.
Then they dropped the Obama passport breach story like a hot potato, and moved on to a story about moral objections of a person working at a pharmacy giving out birth control to women. So FOX devoted a whole 40 seconds to the Obama passport file breach story. With no follow up segment to discuss the story, and no live coverage of the Condi Rice press conference.
It is now 10am and the FOX hot list is on with two new anchors, Greg Jarrett and Harris Faulkner, the Obama story was not on their hot list, but flooding and weather is, and they are not saying a word about the Obama story. I have been watching FOX for 35 minutes now, and the Obama passport breach story is a non story at FOX. They have basically totally ignored the story.
And O'Reilly wonders why FOX is seen as a right-wing news network, just open your eyes Billy, right here is the evidence, what say you?
UPDATE: It's 10:10am and FOX News just did a whole minute on the Obama passport breach story, with hardly any details, and nobody on to discuss it, then they went to commercial, and they call that fair and balanced, haha, thanks for nothing.
Racist Comments on FOX News Website: Where is Billy's Crack Staff Now?
- 3-21-08 -- The Factor has turned their attention away from attacking Daily Kos so Billy could go on a new crusade against the Huffington Post over anonymous comments posted on Arianna's blog. O'Reilly claims these kind of hate comments are only found on liberal blogs and websites, when in reality he just ignores the hate and racism on Republican blogs and websites.
Billy had his producer harassing Arianna at the Take Back America conference yesterday before she talked there. Yelling, "why do you allow these comments to appear on the HuffPost."
With billions of dollars at NewsCorp's disposal, what's Ruppert Murdoch's excuse for these kind of posts to find their home on FOX, what say you Billy.
Here are 2 partial screen captures of the hate filled racist postings found on www.foxnews.com:
Here is the full text:
Wow! Jan L. nailed it right on the head! Reparations? I'm waiting for my thank you! You blacks would be naked and eating bugs if it weren't for white people. Name ONE successful society started by blacks. Any sign of civilization in Africa was started by Europeans. Any city in America with predominately black leaders is a cesspool. Look at New Orleans, Philadelphia, D.C., Detroit...
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I am sooo tired of hearing how the black man has been mistreated since he was shipped over here to help build America! All I hear is them groveling over being victims.
They are the ones making themselves the victims with their attitude that whites owe them something for bringing their ancestors to the best country that has ever existed. All my life I have only witnessed the blacks with their hands out to the government expecting it to give them everything they want and shouting racist if they don't get it!
No wonder most whites have the opinion that blacks are worthless, lazy sloths who know only how to make more babies and steal everything not nailed down. Barak Lenin Obama, the big eared Muslim, is only fostering this "wo is me" attitude with his obvious prejudices. I, for one, like my white race over that of any other, so does that make me a racist? I don't thing so.
The black man will not break free from his self-imposed shackles until he picks himself up, dusts himself off and begins to provide for himself just like every other race has done who came to this country. Before the blacks can do this, however, they have to rid themselves of the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Farakan, and the good reverend Wright.
----------
Those racist and hate filled comments were posted on 3-19-08 at election.foxnews.com.
And this is from FOX's own website rules:
Please note that all comments are moderated and therefore may not appear immediately after submission.
So those comments were acceptable?
Most liberal bloggers with open comments try their best to weed out horrible anonymous comments, but they miss some. If they had millions of dollars at their fingertips to hire a huge staff to make sure outrageous stuff never appeared they would. So when will O'Reilly report on those racist hate filled comments at foxnews.com?
Answer: Never.
Arianna Huffington Nails O'Reilly on His Propaganda, Lies, & Hypocrisy
- 3-21-08 -- Bill O'Reilly Needs to Enroll in "Understanding the Internet 101"
by Arianna Huffington
Posted on March 20th, 2008.
As I arrived at the ballroom of the Omni Shorehem hotel in Washington yesterday to give a speech at the Take Back America conference, I was approached by one of Bill O'Reilly's video crews, looking to do an ambush interview about objectionable anonymous comments that appeared on our site (comments that we unequivocally repudiate and take down as soon as we become aware of them; more on this in a moment).
O'Reilly has been banging this tired drum -- calling me no different from Nazis and the KKK -- for weeks now and is giddily promoting yesterday's exchange on his website as "An Explosive Showdown. We confront the Huffington Post over Tony Snow comments." (It will apparently air tonight).
My first response to the Fox hit squad was that they needed a lesson on the rudiments of how the Internet works, especially when it comes to comments.
HuffPost gets around 500,000 comments a month. These comments are anonymous and in no way represent my opinions, or the opinions of HuffPost or our bloggers. We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to abusive or hateful language or comments -- such comments are taken down as quickly as they come to the attention of our moderators.
And we are constantly working to develop new technologies -- and backing them up with more and more 24/7 moderators -- which will allow us to more effectively filter out objectionable comments. But no system is perfect and offensive comments occasionally slip through -- on our site and any place else on the Internet that encourages a free and open exchange of ideas. Including the Fox News site.
Indeed, Crooks and Liars' John Amato has gathered a collection of hateful comments that can still be found on foxnews.com. And Keith Olbermann has pointed out comments posted on Bill O'Reilly's own site that, among other things, threaten the life of Hillary Clinton.
Let me be as clear as possible. We find the kind of toxic comments O'Reilly is pointing out utterly repugnant and take them down. Period. But we refuse to let the vile actions of a miniscule number of anonymous, trouble-making trolls force us to shut down our comments section -- as many sites, including many conservatives sites, have done. We are committed to striking a balance between freedom of expression and freedom from a noxious atmosphere that ultimately discourages expression.
Finally, I find it laughable to be lectured on hate speech by Bill O'Reilly, who has done as much if not more than anyone else in the media to debase the public dialogue. He spews hate as readily as he breathes. It's his lifeblood.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if O'Reilly had one of his staffers put these offensive comments up on HuffPost, just so he could have something to rail against.
O'Reilly TPM & More Trashing of Obama & Other Liberals
- 3-21-08 -- Last night on the thursday factor once again for the 6th show in a row O'Reilly did the TPM on Obama and made it the lead story. O'Reilly even claimed he has been fair to Obama, now that's funny.
If you call 6 days straight of 50 minute long, non stop, one sided, biased right-wing propaganda attacks on Obama being fair, then yeah I agree with you Billy.
He had Karl Rove on for 2 segments to talk about Obama, with nobody to provide the balance, or give the counterpoint. So the first 20 minutes of the show was O'Reilly and Karl Rove trashing Obama.
O'Reilly claimed Obama was only doing friendly news programs (even though he did Hannity & Colmes) and he was asked tough questions on the so-called friendly shows, and those are the very same so-called friendly shows that have attacked him for a week straight 24/7 btw.
And once again O'Reilly had Rove on as a so-called non-partisan political analyst to discuss Obama, without disclosing that Rove donated money to the McCain campaign, and that he is an informal advisor to John McCain.
In the 2nd segment Rove also talked about Iraq and O'Reilly let him lie his ass off, and of course there was nobody to provide any balance, or any counterpoint.
O'Reilly said the war was managed bad by the Bush administration, and of course Rove disagreed. Then Rove said the only reason things went bad is because Al Qaeda moved into Iraq after they removed Saddam from power.
When the insurgency is 95% Iraqi citizens and former Iraqi military, not Al Qaeda. Only 5% of the insurgency is Al Qaeda, yet O'Reilly let Rove lie and claim Al Qaeda was the majority of the insurgency.
The 3rd segment was another lame attack on the huffington post blog, and Arianna Huffington, the guest O'Reilly had on to agree with every word he said was the biased and partisan Amanda Carpenter from www.townhall.com. She was basically put on to agree with O'Reilly, with nobody on to provide any balance, it was nothing but 2 right-wingers putting out right-wing propaganda.
The 4th segment was law and order with megyn kelly, they talked about 3 lame legal cases, pretty boring really. I think O'Reilly just puts her on because she is a hot blonde, gotta keep the old perverts who watch his show happy.
The 5th segment was more attacks on Obama with Bernie and Jane. O'Reilly claimed the pro Obama media has been easy on him. WTF? That media just hammered him non-stop 24/7 for a week, how in the hell is that being easy on him. Anyone who thinks the media has been easy on Obama needs to be taken away by big men in white coats.
O'Reilly has lost his mind if he thinks the media has been easy on Obama. Every cable news network in America just ripped him to pieces non-stop for a week.
The 6th segment was the usual sex crap O'Reilly talks about once in a while to get ratings from the old perverts who watch his show. It was about girls who go wild on spring break, and of course during the whole segment O'Reilly ran clips of half naked girls on the beach in bikinis and thongs, dancing and flashing.
Like you cant talk about girls going wild, without showing video clips of half naked girls dancing and flashing on a beach. Of course you can, but O'Reilly chooses to do it anyway.
Then O'Reilly did the pinheads and patriots insult segment where all the patriots are conservatives, and all the pinheads are liberals, and then he read the stupid e-mails that he hand picks to read on the air.
It was basically 50 minutes of biased one sided right-wing propaganda attacks on Obama and other liberals, with a legal segment and a spring break segment thrown into the mix, in between the Obama and Huffingtonpost.com attacks. Not a Democrat in sight for the entire show, it was all right-wing propaganda, all the time.
O'Reilly Ignores McCain Mistatement on Iran And Al Qaeda
- 3-20-08 -- John McCain was totally confused over Iran and al Qaeda, and that poses serious issues about his leadership. Yet Bill O'Reilly never said a word about it, imagine what he would say if Obama or Clinton made such a big mistake.
What kind of leadership is that. He is over there talking to foreign dignitaries, and he has no idea who the players are. The McCain campaign even admits that he was wrong yesterday when he said that Iranian operatives were taking al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back, but O'Reilly and the right-wing bloggers refuse to acknowledge it.
John McCain embarrassed himself by falsely claiming on multiple occasions that Iranian operatives are "taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.
Sen. John McCain said 3 times that Iranian operatives are taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back -- despite the fact that Iran is a Shiite nation and al Qaeda are Sunni fighters. Responding to reports of McCain's factually inaccurate claim, the McCain campaign released a statement attempting to paint the senator's error as an isolated slip of the tongue:
In a press conference, John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself by stating that Iran is in fact supporting radical Islamic extremists in Iraq, not Al Qaeda -- as the transcript shows.
The fact that McCain made identical remarks on Hugh Hewitt's radio show as well makes it clear McCain did not simply misspeak. What's more, McCain corrected himself only after Sen. Joe Lieberman "stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear."
Fox News even aired footage of Lieberman correcting McCain during the press conference. And a video by CNN shows that McCain repeated the inaccurate claim twice during the same press conference, bringing his total number of "misspeaks" to three.
The story was reported everywhere, except on the factor. O'Reilly ignored the entire story and never said a word about the mistake by McCain.
O'Reilly Continues Biased Attacks on Obama
- 3-19-08 -- O'Reilly did another TPM on Obama, his Pastor, and his speech. He also trashed Jesse Jackson for refusing to comment on the Obama Pastory story. Then he had Laura Ingram and Rick Santorum on to discuss Obama. The TPM and those 2 segments lasted about 20 minutes.
In that 20 minutes not one Democrat was on to provide any balance or give the counterpoint, it was 20 minutes of non-stop right-wing talking points.
Ingram basically trashed Obama for 6 minutes, as expected from a right-wing partisan. During the Santorum segment he said Obama is done, tied to the Pastors comments forever, and that if he wins the Democratic nomination he will lose to McCain in November.
Then O'Reilly had 2 pollsters on to claim Obama has been hurt in the polls, he had Rasmussen and Paicopolos on to say Obama is down in the general election polls because of the Pastor story.
But they are talking about polls for a general election that is 8 months from now, not the Democratic primary where Obama has not lost any support at all, and is still 4 to 7 points ahead of Hillary among Democrats.
After that O'Reilly had some religious woman on for 5 minutes to talk about what new sins people are discussing.
Then O'Reilly went to Dennis Miller for 6 minutes to trash Obama more, and trash Bill Moyers. Miller trashed Moyers and Obama, said he is done, and that it suddenly came to him that McCain is now going to win in November because of the Obama Pastor story.
Basically it was 45 minutes of non-stop Obama bashing, except for the 5 minute segment with the religious woman talking about new sins. At 50 minutes into the show O'Reilly finally did a non-Obama story, and that was about the girls gone wild guy getting out of jail, and the Spitzer hooker being on a girls gone wild tape.
In summary, it was a typical 45 minute long Obama smear campaign by O'Reilly and his right-wing friends.
BTW, today is the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq war, and not a word was said about it on the Factor, by Bill O'Reilly, or anyone. And this is after O'Reilly complained that the media is not reporting on the war enough, when he does not even report about it on the 5 year Anniversary.
O'Reilly Lies About Iraq Media Coverage Exposed
- 3-19-08 -- A couple weeks ago O'Reilly was complaining that since the surge things are better in Iraq, and the liberal media has ignored reporting on Iraq. He claimed that it shows how biased the liberal media is because they have stopped reporting on Iraq since the violence has decreased.
Yet a new media study shows that in 2007 FOX News had the least amount of Iraq reporting than anyone. MSNBC spent 18% of their time reporting on Iraq, CNN spent 16% of their time reporting on Iraq, but FOX News only spent 10% of their time reporting on Iraq.
Yesterday, the Project for Excellence in Journalism put out its annual report on the State of the News Media. In their report they show that In 2007, Fox News featured the fewest stories on Iraq.
Which is the exact opposite of what O'Reilly claimed. He said the liberal media is ignoring the Iraq war because things are better there now, when FOX News is the one ignoring it more than anyone.
So how does that explain FOX News reporting it less than everyone else, are they part of the so-called liberal media too Billy?
The truth is when things are going good it gets less coverage, from everyone, including FOX News, not just the so-called liberal media. When things go bad the media report it more, that's why in the media business they say if it bleeds it leads.
The media does not report when people are not killed, they only report when someone is killed. When Iraq has a lot of killing it gets reported more, when the killing is down it does not get reported as much, it's that simple, and has nothing to do with bias.
The study also shows that FOX News devoted a substantial amount of coverage to celebrity affairs. For example, the death of Anna Nicole Smith received more coverage than the Valerie Plame scandal, the U.S. attorney purge, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Fox News led the cable networks in the most amount of celebrity coverage and the least amount of Iraq war coverage.
PEJ notes:
MSNBC, at least in terms of time spent, was indeed the place for politics in 2007 -- by nearly double over its rivals in the percentage of time studied (28% vs. 12% on CNN and 15% on Fox News). Fox, in turn, spent less time on the war in Iraq than the others (10% vs. 18% on MSNBC and 16% on CNN).
And it was more oriented to crime, celebrity and the media than its rivals (28% vs. 19% on MSNBC and 16% on CNN).
As reported in March 2007, three weeks after Anna Nicole's death, Fox News devoted more time to the late celebrity than to the Walter Reed scandal. Fox gave Anna Nicole roughly 12 times more coverage.
O'Reilly Falsely Calims he Broke The Obama Pastory Story
- 3-19-08 -- In his 3-18-08 column at the biased right-wing website newsmax.com O'Reilly said this:
O'REILLY: "Likewise, the nightly network news programs have downplayed the situation. On Friday, ABC News ignored it and NBC News gave it 20 seconds."
What he dont tell you is that ABC News reported it on thursday morning on Good Morning America. And MSNBC has been reporting it almost as much as FOX has.
Had the "O'Reilly Factor" not broken the story last Thursday night, it would have likely died which is exactly what the leftist media wants.
O'Reilly implies that ABC News has totally ignored it, when they actually broke the story on thursday morning. And he says NBC only gave it 20 seconds, when their cable news network MSNBC has covered it 24/7 since last thursday.
Then O'Reilly claims he broke the story thursday night. Which is a lie, he did not break the story.
On thursday morning 3-13-08, on Good Morning America, ABC's Brian Ross reported on the 2001 sermon by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Sen. Barack Obama's church, in which Wright made controversial remarks regarding the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
That was about 11 hours before O'Reilly reported the story. So O'Reilly is lying about breaking the story, and taking the credit for breaking the story away from Brian Ross who actually did break the story. Then on top of all that he claims ABC ignored the story, and that NBC barely reported it.
When ABC had already reported the story on thursday morning, and actually broke the story, well before O'Reilly reported it. And NBC has pretty much covered the story 24/7 since last thursday on it's cable news network MSNBC.
The NY Times actually broke the story when they reported it on April 30, 2007, so they broke the story before ABC News did, they had the story almost a year ago. If anyone broke the story, it's the NY Times and ABC News, not O'Reilly as he claims.
O'Reilly also claims the liberal media wants to ignore the story, when they are the ones who broke the story. If they wanted to ignore it, why would they break it?
If they wanted to ignore it they would have never reported it, they would have stayed silent and let FOX News, or some other biased right-wing media source report it, which is what they did not do.
They did their job, they broke the story, and reported it. Then dishonest liars like O'Reilly take credit for breaking the story, and do not give credit to the people who really broke the story, the NY Times and ABC News.
And btw, Hannity also claims he broke the story. The night before the Obama speech in Pennsylvania Hannity said this to Karl Rove on Hannity & Colmes.
HANNITY: We broke this story. I know everyone's taking credit for it now. Won't this put him in the category of being seen by the American people as your average politician, spinning like a top, and that this is done to save and salvage his campaign, and it's being done for political expediency.
They are both liars, neither one of them broke the story, and I wonder if Billy knows that Hannity also claims he broke the story. I do know one thing, only right-wing idiots would fight over who broke the story, especially when neither one of them broke it.
Hypocrisy Alert: Keith Olbermann on Billy's Spitzer Hypocrisy
- 3-18-08 -- If you want to understand a sex scandal that turns a prominent man into a laughing stock, who better to ask than Bill O'Reilly? We bring you highlights of his column supposedly about Eliot Spitzer, but really a lot more about Bill-O.
What's in play here, the columnist writes about the Eliot Spitzer saga, is what I call the Belushi Syndrome. That's when a famous person who has money and success subconsciously tries to destroy himself. Ordinarily, we do not listen to this man's analysis, but this is a man who subconsciously tried to destroy himself over sex. So his writings, Bill O'Reilly's writings, that is deserve a little attention next.
After years of having talked out of his seat, Bill O'Reilly of Fixed News has finally found a subject to pontificate about in which his personal knowledge actually reaches to the level of expertise, a topic in which he is not just hypocritical scold, but battle scarred veteran.
Our number one story on the COUNTDOWN, Bill-O analyzes Eliot Spitzer. The New York governor's resignation only becoming official today after a money and prostitution scandal laid him low. Spitzer, as you doubtless know, has been accused of financial shenanigans, possibly employing state funds to pay for the services of Kristin, the singing prostitute with the heart of gold, or at 1,000 dollars an hour, the something of gold.
For reasons unknown only to Billy, he decided to deconstruct the Spitzer saga in the latest edition of his not-so widely read newspaper column. Again, when it comes to having your pockets drained and your name turned into a punch line by your pursuit of a woman, Bill O'Reilly knows his topic.
Why he would write this column and remind everybody of all of this all over again? Well, maybe in trying to explain Spitzer, perhaps Bill-O has wound up explaining Bill-O.
October 13, 2004, also known around this business as cable Christmas, his former producer Andrea Mackris filed suit in New York against O?Reilly and Fox for 60 million dollars, claiming he had repeatedly harassed her by telling her lurid stories of his own sexual history, describing his fantasies, trying to coral her into sexual liaisons by phone, in person, with others, with loofas and with a falafel.
The case was settled just over two weeks later with Bill-O shelling out a reported 10 million dollars. So Billy decided to write about Spitzer? Leave us to quote from the writings of the bard of Babe-ology, the Frank Burns of news, the falafel king himself, and then translate them for you back into what he really meant.
O'REILLY: "Let's analyze this Eliot Spitzer situation without emotion because there are lessons to be learned here."
OLBERMANN: Expensive lessons, embarrassing lessons, lessons which, even if they did cost you 10 million dollars, you might forget and bring up the topic again anyway.
O'REILLY: "If you watch cable TV news, you will hear the braying pack talk about Spitzer's arrogance, his I am above it all mentality, but if you examine the facts, this shallow analysis doesn't wash."
OLBERMANN: Hey, pal, if you are going to call Greta Van Susteren, Sean Hannity and John Gibson the braying pack of cable TV news, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside.
O'REILLY: "Governor Spitzer had to know that repeated visits with people breaking the law, prostitutes, put him at enormous risk. At any time, any one of these ladies might have been arrested and facing prosecution could have easily offered authorities Spitzer's name in return for having all charges dropped."
OLBERMANN: Translation, if you are going to associate yourself with prostitutes, strippers, porn stars, body language experts, or other ladies who might be arrested, make sure you do it like Bill-O does.
"Defendant Bill O'Reilly, read item 42 in the Andrea Mackris lawsuit, "without solicitation or invite, regaled plaintiff and her friends with stories of a girl at a sex show in Thailand who had shown him things in a back room that blew his mind."
Yes, if you are going to visit with sex workers, make sure you do it like Bill-O does, in a foreign country that has weak extradition laws.
O'REILLY: "The ladies also could have blackmailed Spitzer, could have sold their story about him to the tabloid media, could have done many things to destroy his life."
OLBERMANN: Translation, here Bill is saying, trust me, I know. For a change, he sure does know.
O'REILLY: "Then there's the money. Spitzer knew that wire transfers to off shore facilities are closely monitored as part of terrorist surveillance."
OLBERMANN: Translation, Bill-O is, in a round about way, tipping his hat to the former governor. Mr. Spitzer paid a reported 80,000 dollars for a variety of activities. Mr. O'Reilly wound up paying a reported 10 mill to Andrea Mackris and he didn't even get a kiss.
O'REILLY: "Spitzer also knew that talking on the telephone to pimps, people setting up liaisons with prostitutes, left him open to being tapped."
OLBERMANN: Talking on the telephone, did you say? Item 35 in the Mackris suit, "Defendant Bill O'Reilly proceeded to inform plaintiff Andrea Mackris that he advised another woman to purchase a vibrator and had taught that woman how to masturbate while telling her sexual stories over the telephone."
O'REILLY: "So you're telling me that Eliot Spitzer thought he wouldn't get caught? Sure, and I'm Paris Hilton. No, what's in play is what I call the Belushi Syndrome. That's when a famous person who has money and success subconsciously tries to destroy himself. You see it all the time, movie stars, athletes, politicians doing incredibly stupid stuff."
OLBERMANN: The Belushi Syndrome, you say?
O'REILLY: "This is not some dime store psychoanalysis."
OLBERMANN: Not unless by dime you mean 10 million.
O'REILLY: "There are many people walking around who are deeply self-destructive and who will hurt themselves and others around them. That's a fact. A self-destructive, self-loathing personality will find a way to blow everything up. It doesn't matter what kind of career the person has."
OLBERMANN: Either kind of career, broadcast or cable television.
O'REILLY: "We all know people like this. Stay away from them."
OLBERMANN: As we digest your analysis of what makes Bill-O--I'm sorry--what makes Spitzer tick, we would be happy to stay away from people like this, Bill, if only you would stay away from us.
Obama Speaks Out (Again) About Pastor Wright
- 3-16-08 -- In the last few days Barack Obama went on a lot of tv news shows to once again speak out against what his former Pastor said. He was on morning news shows, Keith Olbermann, Hannity & Colmes, etc. He was everywhere, saying over and over that he outright rejects the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue. Which is what O'Reilly and everyone else in the media said he should do to get past this story.
The question now is this; will the media (especially O'Reilly and FOX) finally move past this story, or will they continue the biased smear of Barack Obama for the words of another man. We will see monday, the honest news networks will stop reporting on it, the dishonest news networks will not. I will bet the farm O'Reilly and FOX will not move past this story, and show that they are a dishonest propaganda machine for the Republican party.
Obama has denounced, rejected, and condemned the statements by Rev. Wright. What more can he do, they are not his words, and he does not agree with them. It is time to stop smearing Barack Obama with the words of another man. And any news network who continues to do it is dishonest, biased, and unethical.
The American people should decide who they want to be the next president based on the positions and the policies they support, not on what their current or former Pastor said.
Here is the statement in full from Barack Obama:
On My Faith and My Church
3-14-08 -- The pastor of my church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who recently preached his last sermon and is in the process of retiring, has touched off a firestorm over the last few days. He's drawn attention as the result of some inflammatory and appalling remarks he made about our country, our politics, and my political opponents.
Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.
Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.
As I have written about in my books, I first joined Trinity United Church of Christ nearly twenty years ago. I knew Rev. Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago.
He also led a diverse congregation that was and still is a pillar of the South Side and the entire city of Chicago. It's a congregation that does not merely preach social justice but acts it out each day, through ministries ranging from housing the homeless to reaching out to those with HIV/AIDS.
Most importantly, Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.
I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments. But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.
Let me repeat what I've said earlier. All of the statements that have been the subject of controversy are ones that I vehemently condemn. They in no way reflect my attitudes and directly contradict my profound love for this country.
With Rev. Wright's retirement and the ascension of my new pastor, Rev. Otis Moss, III, Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good. And while Rev. Wright's statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.
Barack Obama
O'Reilly Failed to Disclose That Karl Rove is Advising McCain Campaign
- 3-15-08 -- Bill O'Reilly put Karl Rove on the factor as a politicial analyst. This implies you will be objective and give your analysis with no bias. But Karl Rove has given money to John McCain, and he is also an informal advisor to his campaign. So Journalistic ethics rules state you should disclose that fact, but O'Reilly never said a word about it.
Former Bush political adviser Karl Rove recently confirmed that he has made a financial contribution to John McCain's presidential campaign. On March 8, the Politico reported that Rove is "now informally advising" the McCain campaign. But Bill O'Reilly and FOX News don't want you to know it.
O'Reilly demands full disclosure from everyone else, when he don't do it himself. At CNN when Paul Begala and James Carville reported they were advising the Clinton campaign, CNN took them off the air, and they are only allowed on if there is an Obama spokesman on with them.
Since the Politico story, Rove has made four appearances on Fox News primetime in his official capacity as a political contributor to discuss the 2008 presidential elections. In the 2 factor appearances, he has praised McCain and attacked Barack Obama -- without being identified as a McCain adviser.
Despite discussing how John McCain should run against Barack Obama if he is the Democratic nominee, neither Karl Rove nor Bill O'Reilly addressed Rove's role in "informally advising" McCain's campaign. Further, Rove did not disclose that he has given $2,300 to McCain's campaign.
In the Politico article, David Paul Kuhn reported that Rove "gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator," adding: "A top McCain adviser said both [former Bush campaign manager] Ken Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove has not addressed these issues in repeated appearances on Fox News, and refused to detail his conversation with John McCain."
Not only did FOX News and the O'Reilly factor not take Rove off the air, they put him on as an objective analyst, without disclosing he donated money to McCain, or that he is an advisor to the McCain campaign. So when O'Reilly talks about a biased and corrupt media, he should look in the mirror, because he is more biased and corrupt than anyone.
Imagine what O'Reilly would say if Begala and Carville were advising the Clinton campaign, and donated money to her, then CNN put them on the air without disclosing that information. O'Reilly would do half the show on it and call them part of the biased and corrupt liberal media. Yet O'Reilly is the one doing it with Karl Rove, and somehow he sees no problem in doing it.
It's called Hypocrisy, Corruption, Double Standards, and Bias. From Bill O'Reilly and the FOX News Network.
O'Reilly Continues Attacks on Obama & His Pastor
- 3-14-08 -- Normally Billy takes friday off so his right-wing stooge Laura Ingram can spread Republican propaganda for him, but tonight he did the show, I suspect he did it so he could work the Obama Pastor story for all it's worth.
Once again O'Reilly did the talking points memo on the Obama Pastor story. He started off by saying he hates the story, he dont want to report on it, and he believes Obama does not agree with the Pastors statements.
Then he made it the lead story for the 2nd night in a row, and spent half the show talking about the story. For a guy who hates the story, and dont think Obama agrees with the Pastor, he sure spends a lot of time talking about it.
O'Reilly played more video clips of the Pastors statements. Then discussed the story with Bernie Goldberg, and with two Obama supporters, then talked about it with Geraldo.
During the Geraldo segment Geraldo mentioned John Hagee, the crazy Pastor for John McCain, but O'Reilly totally ignored it, he never said a word about Hagee, or even acknowledged Geraldo said the name Hagee. He just kept talking as if Geraldo never mentioned the word Hagee.
In case you dont know, O'Reilly has a total blackout on the John Hagee story. He is the crazy Pastor for McCain who said the USA and Israel should turn Iran into a parking lot because God told him that's what he wants. And he said if we do that Christ will be re-born.
Yet O'Reilly refuses to say a word about Hagee, even when another guest brings it up. Talk about bias in the media, this is it, from O'Reilly.
And O'Reilly continues these attacks on Obama after he has profoundly denounced and rejected the Pastors comments. Obama even went on national tv tonight and said he disagrees with the Pastors comments. But O'Reilly continues to hammer it, even after Obama said he disagrees with the Pastor.
When John McCain accepted the endorsment of Hagee, and Obama rejected the words of Pastor Wright. Yet to this day O'Reilly has not said a word about the Hagee endorsement of McCain.
Talk about media bias, that is the ultimate bias, from Bill O'Reilly.
And on top of all that O'Reilly said the media did not cover the story enough. When the media covered this story all day long, it was everywhere. FOX News was on it almost all day non-stop, every time I switched to FOX they were talking about the Obama Pastor story, all day long.
MSNBC covered it almost as much as FOX did, it was an all day story, every time I switched to MSNBC they were talking about it. CNN covered it a little less than MSNBC did, but it was still reported at least 10 times, that I know of, off and on all day long.
It had massive coverage, and O'Reilly still complained that the media did not cover it enough. Which is ridiculous, you could not watch any cable news channel for 5 minutes without seeing the story talked about.
The only way they could have covered it more is if they talked about it all day long and never reported anything else. To claim the media did not cover it enough is insane.
O'Reilly Attacks Obama For Something His Pastor Said
- 3-13-08 -- Tonight O'Reilly spent half the show playing clips from the Pastor of Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright. Pastor Wright made what O'Reilly called un-American statements, and O'Reilly also said the Pastor hated America. Then O'Reilly linked those comments to Barack Obama, even though Obama denounced the comments in a statement.
O'Reilly discussed the comments in the talking points, and made it the lead story. Billy also claimed it was a big problem for Obama. I sure would like to know how, when Obama can not control what the Pastor says, and he said he disagrees with the statements the man made.
Then O'Reilly had 2 guests on, Juan Williams and Wendy Schiller to discuss it in the segment after the talking points memo. They both agreed with O'Reilly, and no guest was on to give the counterpoint.
Then O'Reilly did another segment on the comments with Dick Morris. And later in the show he did another segment on it with Bernie Goldberg and Jane Hall. I would say 30 to 40 minutes of the show was devoted to the comments made by the Pastor of the church where Obama is a member.
Even though Obama has no control over what the Pastor of his church says, after all he has free speech rights. But O'Reilly tried to link his comments to Barack Obama anyway. Even after Obama put out a statement saying he does not agree with the Pastors comments.
The problem with these attacks on the Pastor of Obama is this, O'Reilly has never said a word about the crazy hateful comments from the Pastor for John McCain.
I think it is ok to report on the comments from Obama's Pastor, but if you do, then you better report on the crazy comments from McCains Pastor too. Which O'Reilly has not reported on, not done a talking points memo on, not made the lead story, and not done 40 minutes of the show on the story.
In fact, O'Reilly has not said a word about John Hagee, the Pastor for John McCain, not a word, not one, ever, in the history of the factor. And that story has been out for weeks, not to mention McCain actually accepted the endorsment of Hagee.
The best part was when O'Reilly said it was hypocrisy for the media to ignore the story. When he has done the exact same thing by totally ignoring the crazy comments made by John McCains Pastor.
On top of that the Obama Pastor story just broke today, how does he know the media will ignore the story. They might report on it tomorrow after they have had time to investigate it. The McCain/Hagee story has been out for weeks and O'Reilly has refused to cover it, that's real bias, and we know it.
After saying the media was biased by not reporting on it, later in the show O'Reilly predicted the media will report on the story tomorrow. Huh? How can you say the biased media will ignore the story one minute, then 5 minutes later predict they will report on it tomorrow?
If they report on it tomorrow then they are not ignoring it, and if they do, then you can not claim bias for not reporting a story if they report on it. It's too soon to claim bias, because the story just broke late today, yet O'Reilly did it anyway.
O'Reilly is so quick to claim liberal bias he can not even wait to see if they ignore the story or not. So he claims bias before they have even had a chance to report the story.
In the whole show not one person was on to defend Barack Obama, or to give his side of the story. The worst part is that O'Reilly has not done 1 second on the McCain Pastor story, let alone devote half the talking points memo to it, make it the lead story, or spend 40 minutes of the show talking about it, like he did with the Obama Pastor story.
NOTE: O'Reilly claims the media has ignored the story, and that it proves they have a liberal bias. When a simple google search shows that O'Reilly is a liar.
I found articles on the story out today, from ABC News, The NY Times, The National Review, Yahoo News, The Guardian, Slate, CBS News, The Washington Times, Raw Story, The Dakota Voice, and UPI. And I expect most (if not all) of the media will cover it tomorrow.
UPDATE - 3-14-08 -- As I predicted pretty much all of the media is reporting the Obama Pastor Wright story today. I have seen it on MSNBC and just about everywhere.
Not to mention a lot of the media reported it yesterday, well before O'Reilly did. Including Good Morning America who reported the story yesterday morning.
Last night O'Reilly claimed he was the only one reporting it. When we now know he was lying, at the time he said that, 8 to 10 media outlets had already reported it, and those are only the ones I know about. Including ABC, The NY Times, UPI, etc.
O'Reilly said he was the only one reporting the story, and he claimed it showed a liberal bias because the rest of the media had ignored the story.
He was lying, and he is a liar. That is a fact.
The story just broke yesterday morning, some of the media reported it then, and the rest reported it today. So his claims of bias were unfounded, he claimed bias before they even had a chance to do the story. And a lot of the media had already reported it when O'Reilly said they had not, and a lot of them reported it before he did.
The real bias is from O'Reilly, by ignoring the McCain Pastor Hagee story, and all other stories about John McCain. Not to mention Obama has profoundly rejected and denounced the Pastors coments, yet O'Reilly tries to link him to Obama anyway.
Several of the morning shows covered the issue today. On Morning Joe, John McCain's campaign manager Charlie Black said this:
Black: What Sen. McCain has said repeatedly, is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them, or people who befriend them. And fortunately, I heard you report earlier that Sen. Obama has repudiated these very unusual views. But what John McCain believes is that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton should be held accountable for their public policy views. The things we've described before. Big government vs. small government.
Scarborough: So this isn't an issue for John McCain.
Black: I don't think Sen. McCain wants to get in the middle of a discussion about Sen. Obama's former pastor, or his faith. He believes that people who endorse you, people who befriend you, are entitled to their own views, but you are not personally held accountable. That when someone endorses you or befriends you, they are embracing your views - the candidate's views - not the other way around.
I agree with Charlie Black, nobody can be held accountable for what someone else says. And yet O'Reilly and the Republican smear machine still continue to link the comments to Obama, and O'Reilly plans to talk about it more tonight. I just want to know when O'Reilly is going to actually be fair and balanced and talk about Pastor John Hagee. Answer: Never.
Dumbest Man in All of Cable News Award
- 3-11-08 -- On Fox and Fools yesterday morning, Steve Doocy claimed media bias in the coverage of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's tie to a prostitution ring.
DOOCY: "When David Vitter, the senator from down south, was caught up in the DC Madam scandal, of course the mainstream media said, look this is just part of the culture of corruption with the Republican party."
DOOCY: "Will the mainstream media talk about this being a big scandal in the Democrat party?" To illustrate his point, Doocy claimed that coverage of Vitter's scandal led to "steep losses in the 2006 congressional elections" for Republicans.
There is one big problem with his claims. Vitter's prostitute scandal could not have possibly affected the November 2006 congressional elections because the story did not break until July of 2007. Not to mention the VItter sex scandal was the 3rd Republican sex scandal in less than a year. And those Republicans were in Congress, and they were the very same Republicans who preach moral values, and family values.
What a dumb ass, how in the hell does this guy even have a job in journalism. Wait, I forgot, they dont do journalism at Fixed News. They just make it up and hope nobody notices. Hey Doocy, we noticed.
And btw, the media did not go after Republicans because of bias, the reason the media went after Republicans, and called it a culture of corruption, was not just from one, or two, or even three Republican scandals.
It's because they had so many scandals in such a short time it was hard to keep track of, let alone remember them all. So all those Republican scandals over a two or three year period is a culture of corruption, especially after George W. Bush said he would restore honor and integrity to the white house, and he said his administration would be the most honest administration in history.
That's why the media covered it so much, and that's why they called it a Republican culture of corruption. It had nothing to do with bias, it's called reporting the facts. You can not compare one sex scandal by one Democratic Governor to this amount of Republican scandals:
-- Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby resigns after being indicted on felony charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation.
-- Republican super lobbyist Jack Abramoff convicted of Bribery and other chargesm then ordered to report to prison by June 29th, 2006.
-- Tom DeLay, former GOP House Majority Leader already under indictment in Texas, suddenly resigned from Congress under a dark cloud of corruption speculation after two of his former senior aids copped pleas and a third may be about to follow suit.
-- Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation for possible securities violations regarding his stock in the company his family founded.
-- Michael Brown was the unqualified FEMA director who was appointed by George W. Bush and resigned September 2005. Before joining FEMA, Brown was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for a Horse Association.
-- Ohio Republican (And Bush Pioneer) Tom Noe indicted on 2/13/06 on 53 counts, including forgery, money laundering, and theft, related to Coingate.
-- Republican Congressman Randall (Duke) Cunningham sentenced to eight years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges of accepting over two million dollars in bribes from a defense contractor while we were at war.
-- Presidential Domestic Policy Advisor and self proclaimed Christian conservative Claude Allen arrested for shoplifting over $5,000 worth of items from Target stores.
-- In August of 2005 Republican Gov. Bob Taft pleaded no contest to four criminal ethics charges for his failure to disclose golf outings paid for by lobbyists, as well as undisclosed gifts worth $5,800, he was fined $4,000 plus court costs.
-- In September of 2005 Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher fired 9 of his own staffers for a crony hiring scandal, all of whom he had recently pardoned. Among them was Richard Murgatroyd, Fletcher's deputy chief of staff.
-- Department of Homeland Security Assistant Press Secretary Brian Doyle facing arrest on 23 charges related to soliciting sex from a 14 year-old minor in a police sting operation.
-- Shaun Hansen, co-owner of Mylo Enterprises, was indicted March 8th on charges of conspiring to commit and aiding the commission of telephone harassment. Hansen's firm was hired by Allen Raymond's consulting firm, GOP Marketplace, to jam the phone lines of Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts on Election Day, November 5, 2002.
-- Chuck McGee, the former Executive Director of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, pled guilty July 28th, 2004 to one count: Conspiracy to engage in interstate telephone communications with the intent to annoy or harass.
-- Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) investigated for accepting bribes from Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon. He was named as a coconspirator ("Representative #1") in Abramoff's plea and ("Legislator #1") in Scanlon's plea and (Representative #1) in Tony Rudy's plea.
-- Michael Scanlon, Jack Abramoff's partner in the Indian fraud and bribery schemes, pled guilty to Conspiracy to Defraud the United States.
-- James Tobin, the former New England Regional Political Director for the Republian National Committee, was found guilty December 15th, 2005 of two counts: Conspiracy to commit the commission of interstate telephone harassment and Aiding and abetting the commission of interstate telephone harassment.
-- Neil Volz, a former aide to Bob Ney and member of Team Abramoff, was named ("Staffer B") as a coconspirator in Abramoff's plea.
-- Republican George Ryan was the Governor of Illinois from 1999 until 2003. Ryan's term in office was marked by a scandal involving the illegal sale of government licenses, contracts and leases by state employees during his prior service as Secretary of State; in the wake of numerous convictions of former aides, he chose not to run for reelection in 2002. In December 2003 he was indicted on 18 federal racketeering, fraud and conspiracy charges.
-- Bob Livingston (R-Louisiana) was about to replace Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House until he resigned in disgrace when it was revealed that he admitted to had been involved in several adulterous affairs, (while attempting to crucify Democratic President Clinton for having done much less).
-- Religious right Republican Ralph Reed, candidate for Lt. Gov. in Georgia. Under investigation for involvement in Abramoff, Kidan, DeLay Indian casino money laundering scandal.
-- Republican Congressman, Bill Janklow, who has been elected by his Republican supporters for years either as Governor, Attorney General or Congressman. Janklow has a long series of charges against him, including a dozen speeding charges, the most recent of which involved driving some 70 miles over the speed limit (i.e. through a stop sign) and killing another motorist.
-- John Roland, Connecticut's Republican governor forced to resign and went to Federal prison for corruption.
-- Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels under investigation for soliciting campaign donations in return for INDOT (Indiana Dept. of Transportation contracts).
-- Former Republican Illinois House Leader Rep. Lee Daniels under Federal investigation for misuse of state employees for political activity and state contract kickbacks.
-- Republican Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson, investigated for violating the Public Broadcasting Act, resigned after the results of the investigation were published.
-- Republican Adam Taff, a 2004 congressional candidate from Kansas was indicted for campaign violations and wire fraud.
-- Lawrence Novak, Vice Chair, state GOP, Arrested by FBI for drug money laundering.
-- Republican Congressman Mark Foley, R-Florida Resigns Over Gay Love Letters to 16 Year Old Boy.
-- Republican minister Ted Haggard, who is married with five children, stepped down as head of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and as senior pastor of the New Life church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, after being accused of paying for sex with a male escort.
-- Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft. From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illegally accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.
-- Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq. According to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," the Bush administration diverted $700 million in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion.
The problem: Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power "to raise and support armies." And the emergency spending bill passed after Sept. 11, 2001, requires the administration to notify Congress before changing war spending plans. That did not happen.
-- The Medicare Bribe Scandal. According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration's Medicare bill hanging in the balance, someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son's forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would support the bill.
The problem: Federal law prohibits the bribery of elected officials.
-- The Medicare Money Scandal. Thomas Scully, Medicare's former administrator threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill.
The problem: Congress voted on the bill believing it would cost $400 billion over 10 years. The program is more likely to cost $600 billion.
-- The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release." To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush administration produced fake news videos touting the legislation. About 40 television stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the administration's education policy have come to light.
The problem: The administration broke two laws: One forbidding the use of federal money for propaganda, and another forbidding the unauthorized use of federal funds.
-- Niger Forgeries: In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
The problem: The statement was untrue. The International Atomic Energy Agency showed the claim, that Iraq sought materials from Niger, was based on easily discernible forgeries.
-- In Plame Sight: In July 2003, Bush administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
The problem: Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act it is illegal to disclose, knowingly, the name of an undercover agent.
-- The U.S. Attorney firing scandal.
The list is endless, and that's only a partial Republican scandal list. Note to Doocy, that's an actual culture of corruption list, a culture of corruption is not one Democratic Governor in a sex scandal. And in case you have not noticed, the media is ripping the DEMOCRAT Eliot Spitzer to pieces, all the media, not just FOX.
Ignored News Alert: O'Reilly Ignores Republicans Losing Hastert House Seat
- 3-11-08 -- Ho hum, just more bad news for Republicans that O'Reilly totally ignored and never said a word about. Even though it was a big news story about a special election, where former speaker of the house Denny Hastert lost his house seat to a rookie Democrat.
Last saturday Democrat Bill Foster beat Republican Jim Oberweis in a special election for former House Speaker Denny Hastert's seat, a previously solid Republican seat. A senior Republican official called the loss a "disaster."
Oberweis, a wealthy owner of dairy stores, was targeted by grassroots supporters of comprehensive immigration reform. They found he had the same problem as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney -- he employed undocumented immigrants while bashing them on the campaign trail.
Despite voters concerns over the war in Iraq, jobs, health care, economic recession, and the mortgage crisis, Oberweis website listed immigration as his number one issue.
The Republican Party in DC and in Illinois not only expected to keep this seat with a well-known candidate -- they needed to win to demonstrate the party's ability to win in November. To lose in a GOP district would point to serious problems down the road.
So, the party invested heavily. It didn't matter. By last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee had poured $1.2 million into this race; the Democratic Congressional Committee had given $620,000. Obama cut an ad for Foster, while McCain campaigned for Oberweis. Score one for Obama.
It's just another setback for the National Republican Congressional Committee: " You think Tom Cole (R-OK) is having fun yet as chairman of the NRCC?
Since taking over the NRCC after the 2006 midterms, he's struggled to compete with the DCCC financially, faced an ugly embezzlement scandal within the NRCC, and now lost the seat held by the last Republican Speaker of the House."
It's also worth remembering that the NRCC, after a year of fundraising struggles, spent 20% of its cash on hand to win this race. And lost. Republicans entered this race with everything on their side. They spent lots of money, ran a well-known candidate, took on a Democratic rookie, all in a district that's backed Republicans consistently for 30 years.
If the GOP doesn't look at these results and feel awfully nervous, the party just isn't paying attention. And not a word about this huge loss for the Republican party was ever mentioned on the factor.
O'Reilly Trashes Obama & Clinton While Promoting McCain
- 3-11-08 -- Billy says he is an Independent who would never tell anyone who to vote for, and he gets mad if anyone in the media tells anyone who to vote for. Then he tells the people at a bankers convention to vote for John McCain.
Bernanke, O'Reilly supply food for thought
It was a dramatic change of channels last week for community bankers attending an industry conference in Orlando.
First, they "tuned in" to The Ben Bernanke Show as the Federal Reserve Board chairman narrated a meticulous, detailed update on the housing and mortgage crisis and urged more efforts to help homeowners caught up in it.
Later, the bankers found themselves immersed in a live version of The O'Reilly Factor as polarizing political pundit Bill O'Reilly took the stage.
O'Reilly: "The jihadists think McCain is crazy. They're thinking this guy, he was in 'Nam, he was in a prison camp, he wants payback now!! Imagine bin Laden sitting in his cave, watching TV and seeing McCain, Clinton and Obama. If you're bin Laden, who are you going to vote for? I submit you're not going to vote for the little guy who was in a prison camp."
O'Reilly touted his "independence" and promised listeners he would "never tell people how they should vote." Still, by the end of his time slot, he had effectively done just that, generally skewering Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, while burnishing the stature of Republican John McCain.
"Do you think ol' Hugo Chavez in Venezuela wants to have to deal with someone like McCain?" O'Reilly asked. "But if you've got Obama in the White House, he'll probably want to meet Chavez somewhere like Aruba where they can hang out. McCain is not going to meet you in Aruba. If he's there, he's probably going to slap you around some. Big advantage, McCain."
Full Story Here:
www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-banks1108mar10,0,259800.story
He basically trashed Obama and Clinton, and implied that Bin Laden would vote for them. While at the same time endorsing John McCain by saying he is a tough guy and Bin Laden would not vote for him. Someone should ask O'Reilly this question: If conservatives scare Bin Laden so much why did he attack us on 9-11-01, while the conservative George W. Bush was president?
Most people believe Bin Laden wants another Republican president who will lie the American people into more un-needed and un-justified wars in the middle east. Then if he does another terrorist attack on the USA he can use the Republican war mongering president to justify the attack. It's insane for O'Reilly to say that Bin Laden would vote for Obama or Clinton, and only a Republican would say something so stupid.
Ignored News & Why You Should NOT Vote Republican in November
- 3-10-08 -- This is what Republicans do when they become President, Senators, and Congressman. And this is just one example of why you should never elect any Republican to any office. I could fill a book with examples just like this, it is an example of the culture of corruption in the Republican party, and it goes all the way to president George W. Bush.
President Bush has installed more than 100 top officials who were once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee. Bush appointed former Timber lobbyist Mark Rey to head the Forest Service, he appointed Michael Brown to head FEMA when he had no disaster experience, etc.
Among the advocates-turned-regulators are a former meat-industry lobbyist who helps decide how meat is labeled; a former drug-company lobbyist who influences prescription-drug policies; a former energy lobbyist who, while still accepting payments for bringing clients into his old lobbying firm, helps determine how much of the West those former clients can use for oil and gas drilling.
Six of the former industry advocates have faced ethics investigations or resigned amid conflict-of-interest charges. Those and at least 14 others have been lambasted by public-interest groups.
This specific story starts in 2006, George W. Bush appointed Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration during a Congressional recess.
Richard Stickler is a former Beth Energy executive, whom the Senate had twice rejected because the mines he managed "incurred injury rates double the national average." Stickler has also stated that he believes no new laws or regulations are needed for mine safety.
MSHA is the Government agency in charge of keeping miners safe. Putting Richard Strickler in charge of MSHA is like the Fox guarding the henhouse.
So we have Bob Murray, he owns a mine through Murray Energy Corp. He has donated $115,000 to Republican political candidates over the past three election cycles. He has also given another $724,000 to the GOP over the past ten years through political action committees connected to his businesses.
In 2003, when safety inspectors ordered Murray, the owner of a Utah coal mine where six workers have been trapped for more than a week to shut down one of his Ohio operations because of repeated safety problems, press reports say he did not hesitate to flex his political muscle to get the inspectors off his back.
West Virginia Public Radio reporter Jeff Young filed a story at the time that said Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray had a meeting in Morgantown, W. Va. with Tim Thompson, then a district manager for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Young obtained notes from the meeting which showed Murray threatening to have MSHA employees fired.
"I will have your jobs. They are gone. The clock is ticking," Young quotes Murray as saying at the meeting. The notes then go on to say Murray dropped the name of a pair of powerful Republicans in order to underscore his own political clout.
"Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and last time I checked he was sleeping with your boss," Murray told the inspectors, referring to the senior GOP senator from Kentucky.
McConnell - the Republican leader in the Senate - is married to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who oversees MSHA. And McConnell has received $176,800 in campaign donations from mining interests since 2001. Thompson was later transferred to an office away from Murray's mines, and retired from MSHA in 2006.
Murray's Galatia mine in southern Illinois racked up 2,787 violations in just two years. MSHA has proposed more than $2.4 million in fines at Galatia. Another Murray-owned company - Ken American Resources - and four of its top employees were convicted in a federal court in Kentucky of conspiring to violate federal mine safety rules. The company was ordered to pay $306,000 in fines, an amount federal prosecutors considered too lenient.
Now last year Murray submits a dangerous mining plan to Strickler at MSHA, most mining experts oppose the plan because it is unsafe and dangerous. Yet Strickler approves the plan, 9 miners are killed, and the bodies are never recovered. Murray goes on TV and says it was an earthquake, when they know it was not an earthquake. The side walls of the mine burst in and caused the cave in that trapped the miners during unsafe and dangerous retreat mining.
Just 3 days ago on 3-7-08, a Senate report said the owner of a Utah mine where nine people died ignored hazardous conditions and should be criminally investigated by the Justice Department. Murray Energy, the owner of Crandall Canyon Mine, "disregarded dangerous conditions at the mine, failed to tell federal regulators about these dangers, conducted unauthorized mining and -- as a result -- exposed its miners to serious risks," according to Sen. Ted Kennedy, the chairman of the committee that released the report.
Kennedy says he wants a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and also implicates the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in last August's Utah mine disaster. "MSHA also unconscionably failed to protect miners by hastily rubber-stamping Murray Energy's plan."
The report states that "MSHA entered into an illegal agreement with Murray Energy" and that "MSHA must be held accountable for their failures of diligence, care and oversight."
And that is what Republicans do, they bribe other Republicans in Congress, the Senate, and even the President, to let them break the law, which allows people to die. And president Bush was part of it because he put Strickler in there as the head of MSHA with a recess appointment after the Senate rejected him twice.
This is a big story, about corruption in the Republican party that goes all the way to the president. Yet you will never hear a word of this reported by Bill O'Reilly on the factor. This story will be, and has been, totally ignored by Bill O'Reilly. Which makes him one of (if not the most) corrupt journalist in America. The report came out 3 days ago, ABC News reported it, but not a word about it from Bill O'Reilly, or anyone at FOX News.
But if this story was about a Democratic Senator, and a Democratic president, Bill O'Reilly would be all over this story like stink on you know what.
And that's a fact, and real no spin.
NBC & CNN Win 25 Journalism Awards
- 3-8-08 -- The 2008 National Headliner Awards have been announced, and CNN leads the pack with 13 wins. NBC/CNBC follows with 12. HDNet earned two nods, sharing one win with PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Headliners are issued by the Press Club of Atlantic City. The Awards program is one of the oldest and largest annual contests recognizing journalistic merit in the communications industry. The awards are issued for the Broadcast Television Networks, Cable Networks and Syndicators division, with first, second, and third place for each category.
Best Newscast
First Place: NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
Second Place: CNN - Anderson Cooper 360
Third Place: NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
Coverage of a Major News Event
First Place: CNN
Second Place: CNN
Third Place: CNN
Continuing Coverage of a Major News Event
First Place: CNN
Second Place: NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
Third Place: CNN
Environmental Reporting
First Place: CNN
Second Place: NBC Nightly News
Third Place: NBC Nightly News
www.nationalheadlinerawards.com/Winners2008
NOTE: Number of awards for FOX News & Bill O'Reilly - A big fat zero, as in 0.
Because FOX News is not a real news network, it is nothing more than a propaganda outlet for the Republican party. The real measure of a news network is the number of journalism awards they get, not their ratings. That is why NBC, PBS, and CNN win all the awards, because they do real journalism. Ratings are for entertainment shows, which is what FOX News is, entertainment, especially the O'Reilly Factor.
Hypocrisy Alert: More McCain News Ignored by O'Reilly
- 3-7-08 -- When Minister Farrakhan endorsed Barack Obama it was a week long story on the factor. Even though Obama denounced and rejected the endorsment as soon as he found out about it.
But when hard-line conservative Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, endorsed John McCain. O'Reilly never said a word, not a peep.
Hagee said that McCain "is a man of principle, who does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue." McCain, who had been courting the endorsement for over a year, said that he was "very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement."
Demonstrating how wildly out of the American religious and political mainstream Hagee's views are, McCain's acceptance of Hagee's endorsement was condemned by conservative William Donohue, president of the Catholic League. Calling Hagee a "bigot," Donahue said he has waged "an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church" by calling it The Great Whore, an apostate church, the anti-Christ, and a false cult system.
Hagee holds many other radical beliefs. In a 2006 address to CUFI, Hagee declared:
The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West....a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.
More quotes from John Hagee:
"Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews." - Jerusalem Countdown (revised edition, 2007, p. 114)
O'Reilly claims that he is a non-partisan Independent who will be fair to both sides. Yet he ignores every negative story there is about John McCain. John Hagee is a right-wing nut who wants the USA and Israel to blow Iran off the map because God told him to. And he thinks if we do that Christ will be re-born. This guy is 100 times more scary and dangerous than Farrakhan, yet O'Reilly don't say a word about him because he endorsed John McCain.
"Anyone who makes the life of Jewish people difficult or grievous, as did the Pharaoh, as did Hitler, will be cursed by God." - keynote address to AIPAC, (March 12, 2007)
You will either offend the world and please God, or please the world and offend God." - Faith under Fire broadcast, (September 12, 2005)
"If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God Almighty through the authority of Christ and His blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." (October, 2006)
"All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."
"The most important thing to the Christian community is not the environment but evangelism." "The Fish Gate" (9/2/07)
"Christians don't steal or lie, they don't get divorced or have abortions. If the Ten Commandments were followed by everyone we would be able to fire half the police force and in six months the prisons would be all half empty." ("The Fish Gate" 9/2/07)
But O'Reilly does a 10 day long story of Farrakhan endorsing Obama, even after Obama rejected it, and denounced Farrakhan. McCain proudly accepted the Hagee endorsment and O'Reilly never said a word about it. When Hagee is far worse, and way more dangerous than Farrakhan, yet O'Reilly ignored it totally.
O'Reilly Not Only Journalist Ignoring Hagee Endorsment of McCain
- 3-6-08 -- Even the so-called liberal media is pretty much ignoring the Hagee endorsment of John McCain. This is the media O'Reilly calls the liberal media, even though they are doing the exact same thing he is doing.
After repeatedly asking Obama about Farrakhan during debate, Russert ignored guest's reference to Hagee's endorsement of McCain on Meet the Press.
Last Sunday on Meet the Press, Tim Russert ignored Republican strategist Mike Murphy's reference to Sen. John McCain's acceptance of an endorsement by evangelist John Hagee. Russert did not identify Hagee by name or mention Hagee's statements denouncing or disparaging homosexuality, Islam, Catholics, and women.
By contrast, during the last Democratic debate, Russert persisted with questions to Sen. Barack Obama about Louis Farrakhan's support of Obama, despite Obama's repeated denunciations of Farrakhan's statements.
During the March 2 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, Tim Russert ignored a reference by guest commentator and Republican strategist Mike Murphy to Sen. John McCain's acceptance of an endorsement by evangelist John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas.
Murphy asserted that "the McCain campaign's got to understand that the primary is over, they don't need to be campaigning with televangelists in San Antonio." But Russert did not address Murphy's comment: He did not identify Hagee by name. Nor did he mention Hagee's endorsement of McCain, the Catholic League's Bill Donohue's criticism of McCain over the endorsement, or Hagee's controversial statements about, among other topics, homosexuality, Islam, Catholicism, and women.
Rather, Russert moved on to a different subject after Murphy finished speaking. By contrast, during the February 26 Democratic primary debate in which he was a moderator, Russert repeatedly asked Sen. Barack Obama about comments made by Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan despite Obama's saying in answer to Russert's first question on the topic: "I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments.
I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible" and despite repeating his "denunciation" in response to follow-up questions. Obama had also previously denounced Farrakhan's statements.
And btw, O'Reilly later said in his talking points memo that Russert did a great job in the debate. This is the same Tim Russert who works for NBC News. And the same Tim Russert O'Reilly has called part of the liberal media. When Russert reports on Bush or Cheney, O'Reilly calls him the devil, and part of the evil liberal media, but when Russert attacks Obama and Clinton suddenly O'Reilly loves the job he is doing.
O'Reilly Thinks Vote Rigging is Amusing
- 3-5-08 -- O'Reilly is spinning the Rush Limbaugh story when he implies Rush was asking Republicans in Texas to vote for Hillary in the Democratic primary. Everyone knows Rush was doing it because he wants Hillary to beat Obama. The Republicans are scared to death of Obama because all the polls show him beating McCain.
But they think McCain can beat Hillary. So they are trying to help her win by rigging the Democratic primary elections. Which is wrong and unethical, even Karl Rove and Sean Hannity have said it's wrong, and they dont think Republicans should be doing it.
But Mr. (so-called Independent) Bill O'Reilly is saying Rush is not doing it because he thinks McCain can beat Hillary. O'Reilly is calling it a sabotage play, and claims that Rush just wants to see the two Democrats go at each other for a couple more months.
O'Reilly even told Brit Hume he found it amusing. He did not denounce it, or say it was wrong, he thinks it is ok to try and rig another partys primary. And that Rush just did it as a sabotage play.
That is just garbage. Everyone knows the Republicans are scared to death of Obama, and they knew if he won Texas or Ohio she would be done. So Rush tried to get his crooked followers to rig the Texas and Ohio primaries.
O'Reilly is spinning it as a sabotage play, because he knows it makes Republicans look bad if they are seen as trying to rig another partys primary elections. Then he says it is amusing.
But if a Democrat radio host told his followers to do the same thing to Republicans O'Reilly would go nuts. He would call it treason, and un-American. Demand election laws be changed, and call Democrats Nazis for trying to rig another partys primary.
But when a Republican does it, he spins the reason for it, and says it is amusing. It's just more hypocrisy and more biased double standards from O'Reilly.
Bias Alert: More John McCain News O'Reilly Will Probably Ignore
- 3-4-08 -- John McCain has hired John Green, "a leading GOP lobbyist" and founding partner of Ogilvy Government Relations. Green will coordinate McCain's "message and travel schedule with congressional Republicans."
According to Public Citizen, "McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates."
And of course I am guessing not a word of this will be reported tonight on the factor, I will publish an update tomorrow, and let the people know if O'Reilly mentions this story.
UPDATE #1 - 3-5-08 -- No O'Reilly factor last night because of primary election coverage. I will watch tonight to see if O'Reilly mentions that McCain hired a big GOP lobbyist, after he said he does not deal with lobbyists. I predict O'Reilly will not say a word about it, just as he does with all negative news about McCain, he will ignore it.
UPDATE #2 - 3-6-08 -- As predicted right here, O'Reilly did not say a word about McCain hiring a big time GOP lobbyist to run his campaign. So much for fair and balanced, it is clear that "no negative news" about John McCain will ever be reported by Bill O'Reilly on the factor.
O'Reilly Cites Biased Right-Wing Media Study
- 3-4-08 -- Billy claims this study proves that the media is in the tank for Obama because 84% of his coverage has been positive. But notice he never says a word about the positive coverage for John McCain. The CMPA study also says McCain got 73% positive coverage, which is 22% better than Hillary Clinton at 51%.
Not to mention the study shows the Democrats had 62% positive comments, and the Republicans had 58% positive comments. So in reality a 4% difference in overall coverage is not so astounding as O'Reilly claims. Especially when the study is biased and flawed.
Here is a quote from last nights TPM.
O'REILLY: And then there's the press. A study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs says that from December 16 to February 19, an astounding -- are you ready for this? -- 84 percent of network news reports on Barack Obama were favorable. Eighty-four percent. And Hillary Clinton, the number was 53 percent. Very high, favorable.
NOTE: O'Reilly has the date of the study wrong, he claims it ran from December 16 to February 19. That is wrong, the study ran from December 16, 2007 through January 27, 2008. O'Reilly also has the percentage for Hillary wrong, it's 51%, not 53%, so he cant even get the dates or percentages right.
Once again, "Talking Points" is on the case. You'll get no spin here, despite all the madness.
It's 84% for Obama, 73% for McCain, and 51% for Clinton.
Here is a quote from the study.
Sen. Barack Obama has led the race for good press and Sen. Hillary Clinton has lagged the farthest behind. From Dec 16 through Jan 27 five out of six on-air evaluations of Obama (84%) have been favorable, compared to a bare majority (51%) of evaluations of Mrs. Clinton.
What O'Reilly dont tell you is that in the same study John McCain has 73% positive press coverage. So it's ridiculous for O'Reilly to claim the media is in the tank for Obama when McCain is getting 73% positive press coverage, which is only 11% lower than Obama.
The CMPA media study O'Reilly cited is worthless. And this statement from the study proves it.
These results are from CMPA's 2008 ElectionNewsWatch Project. They are based on a scientific content analysis of 765 election news stories (22 hours 15 minutes of airtime) that aired on the flagship evening news shows on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX (the first 30 minutes of (Special Report with Brit Hume) from December 16, 2007 through January 27, 2008.
The study is flawed, because they only did an analysis of one show on FOX, and only used the first 30 minutes of that one show. When all the bias is in the last 30 minutes, and most of the bias on FOX is on all their other shows.
CMPA claims to be non-partisan, but it's a lie, they are a right-wing media watchdog group. Just like the Media Research Center, which is run by Brent Bozell. CMPA gets most of its funding from conservative sources, its founder, Dr. S. Robert Lichter, once held a chair in mass communications at the American Enterprise Institute and was a Fox News contributor.
Bill O'Reilly never disclosed any of that when he cited their bogus right-wing biased study.
Here is a quote from their study about FOX News.
Perhaps surprisingly, coverage of the candidates on Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Brit Hume" was very similar to that of the broadcast networks. FOX's coverage of Hillary Clinton was evenly balanced - 50% positive and 50% negative comments, compared to 51% positive and 49% negative on the "big three" networks.
Which is a total joke, and laughable. Because their analysis was only for one show on FOX. They ignored the other 99% of the network, and the last 30 minutes of Brit Hume, which is where all the bias is. They cherry picked the first 30 minutes of one show, then they claim it shows FOX coverage was the same as the broadcast networks. That is just insane, and anyone who cites this flawed study is a right-wing moron.
Just look at this quote from their study.
Overall the presidential field has received more good than bad press - 62% combined positive comments on the Democrats and 58% positive about the Republicans. The broadcast networks and FOX both treated the Democrats slightly better than the Republicans, but FOX's coverage was more negative toward candidates of both parties -- only 53% favorable evaluations of all candidates combined vs. 63% favorable evaluations by the other networks.
It shows the Democrats had 62% positive comments, and the Republicans had 58% positive comments. That's a 4 point difference, a virtual tie. Yet O'Reilly claims the liberal media is helping Obama with all the positive coverage. When overall it's only a 4 point difference from Democrat to Republican.
Hillary got more negative coverage than McCain did, so how can anyone in their right mind claim it shows a liberal bias, when the overall coverage is only 4 points different.
This CMPA is the same group that put out a media study a couple months ago that said FOX News is the most fair and balanced News Network in all of tv news. That is all you need to know to see how biased they are. That study used the same flawed methods to do their analysis.
Their studies compare the first 30 minutes of the Brit Hume show, to NBC, ABC, and CBS. While ignoring the last 30 minutes where all the bias is, and CMPA also ignored ALL the other shows on FOX that have all the bias. Like the O'Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, John Gibson, etc.
And the CMPA study is flawed in another way, they stopped it on January 27th. When most of the negative Obama coverage happened in the last 2 weeks of February. The study should not have stopped until the Democratic primary is over. If they had just continued the study until February 29th, that 84% number for Obama would be much lower.
A valid study of media coverage for the primaries should last until the primaries are over. You cant stop the study in the middle of the primary and expect to get credible findings. Then once the primaries are over you can stop the primary media study, and start a new one on the media coverage for the presidential election. And if they do a study on media coverage for the presidential election, that study must also run until the election is over.
Right-Wing Poll Bias From Bill O'Reilly
- 3-1-08 -- Last week O'Reilly had Dennis Miller on to talk politics etc. During the segment Miller mentioned that a new national poll had McCain 2 points ahead of Obama. Miller cited that poll and claimed that it shows McCain has a chance to beat Obama, O'Reilly agreed.
What they failed to mention is that the LA Times/Bloomberg poll they talked about has a 3 point + or - margin of error. So Obama could actually be one point ahead of McCain in that poll.
But the real bias is in what O'Reilly and Miller did not report. That there are 12 national polls out about the November presidential election, 11 of them have Obama beating McCain by 3 to 12 points. And those 11 polls all have Obama winning over McCain by 3 points, or more than the 3 point + or - margin of error.
The 11 polls that show Obama beating McCain have never been reported by O'Reilly or Dennis Miller. Here are those 12 national polls, Obama is beating McCain in all of them but one, and surprise suprise, O'Reilly and Miller only mentioned the one with McCain winning.
Obama vs McCain:
1) RCP - Obama - 47.3% -- McCain - 44% -- Obama + 3.3
2) Rasmussen - Obama - 46% -- McCain - 43% -- Obama + 3.0
3) Time - Obama - 48% -- McCain - 41% -- Obama + 7.0
4) CNN - Obama - 52% -- McCain 44% -- Obama + 8.0
5) Cook/RT - Obama - 45% -- McCain - 42% -- Obama + 3.0
6) ABC/Wash Post - Obama - 49% -- McCain - 46% -- Obama + 3.0
7) AP/Ipsos - Obama - 51% -- McCain - 41% -- Obama + 10.0
8) CBS/NY Times - Obama - 50% -- McCain - 38% -- Obama + 12.0
9) Pew Research - Obama - 50% -- McCain - 43% -- Obama + 7.0
10) Reuters/Zogby - Obama - 47% -- McCain - 40% -- Obama + 7.0
11) FOX News - Obama - 47% -- McCain - - 43% -- Obama + 4.0
12) LA Times/Bloomberg - McCain - 44% -- Obama - 42% -- McCain + 2.0
Talk about bias, even the FOX News poll has Obama beating McCain by 4 points, and O'Reilly still ignores it to report the poll from the LA Times, when it's a poll from the very network he works for.
It shows that O'Reilly has so much bias for John McCain he will cite a poll from what he calls a liberal newspaper,and a paper he hates. While at the same time ignoring the other 11 polls that all have Obama beating McCain, including the poll from the very News Network he works for, now that's bias.
If that's a no spin zone, I'm Elvis.