Fox News finally got around to discussing Rep. Joe Walsh’s callous attacks on his Democratic challenger, war veteran and double amputee Tammy Duckworth – now that there was an opportunity to “clarify” them, as FoxNews.com described the segment. Walsh appeared on The O’Reilly Factor tonight where guest host Laura Ingraham offered a sympathetic platform and didn’t ask any tough questions. Rather than apologize for having said Duckworth talks too much about her military service and suggesting she is not a “true hero” because of that, Walsh played the victim: “All she does is film me talking to people and the left-wing blogs just went crazy with it.”

In what appears to be a small victory for journalistic integrity, Fox management might have, under pressure, directed Todd Starnes to change one of his headlines. As reported by Mickey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, "Fox News' Fundamentalist Barking Dog" Todd Starnes erroneously described the MRFF, in one of his headlines, as an "atheist group." As noted by the MRFF's attorneys, in a letter to Fox News' legal department, 96% of the group's membership are Christians. The MRFF lawyers indicate that they had previously sent another letter regarding another misleading Starnes headline. A request was made that the headline be "modified" and that Starnes issue a retraction. While no retraction was done, the headline changed from "Military Halts Use of Trademark on Bibles as Atheist Group Demands Their Removal" to "Group Calls Military Bibles a National Security Threat."  Good times.

In the two years of teabagger triumphalism there has been a concerted effort by the American right wing to curtail women's reproductive rights. While Bill O'Reilly's prediction that Planned Parenthood would be defunded hasn't materialized, a record number of anti-choice measures, many of which have passed, have been pushed by those for whom Fox News provides a mouthpiece. As we speak, only a court injunction prevents Mississippi from being, as the GOP governor proudly proclaimed, an "abortion free state." But that doesn't stop "pro-life media luminary" Laura Ingraham from using the "fair & balanced" news network to push anti-choice talking points. Last week, however, when she subbed for Bill O'Reilly (June 25th), she got as good as she gave. And for that, Alix Magill Johnson gets muchos kudos from your humble correspondent!

After years of accusing President Obama of engaging in "class warfare," Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett finally struck back. Of course, the right wing is having a hissy fit.

Cenk Uygur did an excellent rebuttal of John Stossel's panhandling stunt in which he suggested that because he got money from people who reflexively gave to him, that was some kind of proof that panhandlers and other street people were just scammers too lazy to get a real job. Mediaite's Tommy Christopher wrote up Uygur's commentary and added some terrific points of his own.

I just love it when a feisty Democrat refuses to allow Fox News to set the agenda for a discussion. Tonight, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz took control of a segment that Fox tried to make about President Obama's electoral struggle in Florida. But Wasserman Schultz got in more Democratic talking points than a DNC ad.

Roger Ailes must be in a snit over the kind of publicity that's coming down the pike toward him. In the works is a biography by Gabriel Sherman, author of the exhaustive NY Magazine article about Ailes last year. You may recall that Ailes was so unnerved by Sherman's forthcoming book that he canceled Sherman's subscription to a suburban newspaper Ailes' wife owns. Now comes word that HBO is planning a movie based on Sherman's book. It sounds like the Roger Ailes edition of Game Change. But there's even more to ruin Ailes' day, if not his year. UPDATED: HBO has nixed the film.

On July 3, 2012, Your World, Neil Cavuto and his climate-change denying guest played the media victims over reports that scientists blame the wicked weather on global warming. But the real perpetrator of media bias and distortions of facts was this very segment.

As I reported, Eric Bolling provided the Fox & Friends audience with three segments in which Eric Bell, a filmaker who was formerly liberal but now hates Islam, was given an unrebutted platform from which to spew his hatred and whine about how his former friends have deserted him. While he spoke, the Fox chyrons framed his message as "the truth about radical Islam." I covered two of the pieces; but if you want more of Eric Bell's bigotry and Fox's propaganda, here's the third video. It's the same-old, same-old stuff.Bell whines about how the librul media ignores him and Bolling validates him while the Fox audience learns about the "truth."

Todd Starnes is quite the patriotic American. I'd call him a Yankee Doodle Dandy but as he's from the South, that's probably an insult. His love for America is shown in his loathing of all those evildoers, especially the "gay agenda," that seek to undermine the USA. And while his concern for our troops isn't evinced by commentary about issues like PTSD or veterans employment, he ferrets out examples of how the secular agenda is trying to keep the troops from Jesus. But even so, wouldn't ya think that, as a patriotic American, he would be concerned about GOP Congressman Joe Walsh's attack on a real American hero; i.e. former Lt. Colonel Tammy Duckworth who left her legs in Iraq. Think again.