Further to previous posts about Fox News getting its knickers in a twist over reports that the Boston bombers received support from government programs ("bombed the hands that fed them" as one Fox headline puts it): pundits have spent a fair bit of time in the past 24 hours trying to whip up anger at the Massachusetts government for refusing to release information about government payments to the bombers. So far they don't seem to have had massive amounts of success.
For example, the segment on last night's On The Record began with Greta Van Susteren declaring that the US had offered the Tsarnaev brothers “asylum, citizenship, freedom, opportunity – and even welfare! And how do they thank us? With bombs!” One of the chyrons read “Taxpayer-Funded Terror? New outrage over suspects receiving welfare.” That wasn't the sole focus of Van Susteren's discussion with her guest, Boston Herald managing editor Joe Dwinell, but it was given the prominent place.
Dwinell reported that everyone in the Tsarnaev family had received welfare at some point, and that the presumed mastermind, older brother Tamerlan, had been collecting welfare up until 2012 “when he was beginning to cook up his hatred for America.” The Herald has been pushing officials of the Deval Patrick [i.e. evil liberal Democrat] administration to disclose more details, claiming we deserve to know what our tax dollars have paid for; but state officials have refused to release records, citing privacy laws. Which, predictably, prompted some comments like this from Fox Nation readers:
Megyn Kelly also brought up the issue today (h/t Mediaite). stridently insisting the public had the right to know whether we "paid for that bomb"; but she didn't get much support from her guests. Even her Guest on the Right, Marc Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute, thought there were more important questions that needed answering. Give it a break, Fox: would the bombing have been any less horrible if private-sector money had paid for it?
Megyn Kelly Rails Against Suspect's Receiving Welfare: 'Don't We Deserve To Know If We Paid For That Bomb?'
Yesterday afternoon, the hosts of The Five expressed their outrage over the fact that at least one of the Boston bombing suspects received Massachusetts state welfare payments. Today on Fox News, Megyn Kelly took on that news along with reports that Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) is "refusing to release any records on taxpayer-funded benefits the accused bombers may have been receiving."
One is the hart, the other the hunter- But not always who you think.
It is a futile game, yet they play is with such endless joy. Almost as if it enables the vices of both.
While they’re at it, they should demand answers about gov’t payments to Tim McVeigh.
Yes, I’m aware any gov’t payments made to him consisted of his military basic pay, but still — the public has a RIGHT to know if we “paid for that fertilizer and rental truck” . . .
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