The removal of Lee Greenwood's right wing national anthem, "Proud to be an American," from a school graduation program is essentially a local NY City issue. But in what appears to be a shameless attempt at race baiting, Fox News has taken quite the interest in taking this issue national. Bill O'Reilly has threatened to send his producer/stalker, Jesse T Watters, to harass the school principal responsible for this latest, bogus right wing outrage. Fox & Friends has reported on story. And Fox Nation, the website for "those opposed to intolerance," ran a straight up race baiting thread, complete with photo of African-American school principal Greta Hawkins, asking if she "hates America."  And now they have another thread which is full of the vile racist comments that the "proud to be American" Fox Nation denizens are noted for.

The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro got his predictable dose of Republican Rehab on the Hannity show last night. Munro laughably claimed that his disrespectful question which interrupted President Obama’s immigration announcement was due to a mistaken belief he had finished speaking. Sean Hannity made it pretty clear even he wasn’t buying that story, but he was still perfectly happy helping Munro spin it.

Bristol Palin was a no-show today for her interview on Mike Huckabee's radio show - and he was not pleased.

Fox Nation - you know, the website dedicated to civility and tolerance - has once again erupted in very disturbing racist comments about President Obama and his wife. The occasion this time? A post designed to stir up animosity and a sense of otherness, called Ann Romney Takes Swipe At Obama Vacations. For extra animosity, Fox Nation highlighted the following sentence: Ann Romney: 'I doubt' we'll take as many overseas vacations as the Obamas. Click through to see what ensued.

David Plouffe appeared on Fox News Sunday yesterday where Chris Wallace repeatedly (and predictably) tried a number of gotcha questions that Plouffe seemed unprepared for. What was worse, when the subject of the deficit came up, he looked like he was trying to suck up by twice saying Obama wants a “fair and balanced” approach to reducing the deficit.

Fox News has been unabashedly supportive of the American Catholic bishops in their opposition to the Obama administration's birth control mandate which the bishops claim is really about their right to "religious freedom." Fox News has promoted this meme about religious liberty at every opportunity in what seems to be an effort to ensure that aggrieved Catholics vote GOP. Fox's only clergy religion contributor, Fr. Jonathan Morris, has spoken about this supposed violation of religious freedom. He has also discussed the the "non-negotiable" items which Catholic are supposed to use as the basis for voting. Yesterday, during his weekly homily, Morris combined these two issues in a discussion about why southern Democrats are deserting the party. While he tried to be non-partisan, the message was clear. Even the video title, which seemed to be culled straight from an article from the Catholic News Agency, framed the agitprop: "Democrats Leaving Party Over" - you guessed it - "Religious Freedom?"  

If you look at the "hot topics" tab of FoxNews.com's video page, there's only one subject right now: Meet the Romneys. There, you'll find six videos with such burning issues as: How does Mitt Romney handle negativity? Mitt and Ann Romney reveal what bugs each other. And my personal favorite, Does Mitt Romney ever get angry?

On Saturday’s Bulls and Bears (7/16/12), the excuse to bash unions topic was big labor helping to unionize the unemployed. Kicking off the discussion, conservative Tobin Smith quoted Milton Friedman and said, “Union members get higher pay because they allow fewer jobs to exist. Now, that’s what a cartel does. That’s the whole idea here. So by definition, it would not help jobs.” The almost all-conservative panel agreed. UPDATED:

Although Rupert Murdoch told British inquirers that, "I've never asked a prime minister for anything," former Prime Minister Tony Blair's media chief disagrees. His newly-published diaries allege that Murdoch joined American Republicans in trying to prod Blair into moving faster toward going to war against Iraq in 2003.

The right wing "Newsbusters" website whines about how the librul media focuses on dissident nuns while ignoring the Catholic bishops crusade against the Obama administration. They say that no conservative Catholic views are entertained. Meanwhile, the "fair & balanced" news network focuses on the bishop's concern about "religious freedom" while ignoring the nuns who are the subjects of the newest Vatican inquisition. While Fox has provided coverage of the upcoming Catholic protests against the mandate, they ignore the rallies in support of the nuns. Voices of liberal Catholics, one of whom says that the bishops convey the image of "the Republican party at prayer," are not heard on Fox which keeps hammering home the bishops' talking points about "religious freedom." During last week's Bishops' Conference, religious freedom was a huge agenda item. But they also discussed how the church is dealing with sexual abuse. Outside the meeting, supporters of the nuns rallied. But in reporting on the conference, alleged Fox "news" guy Bill Hemmer conveyed the impression that it was all about - wait for it - "religious freedom."