Bill O’Reilly has a long history of threatening and retaliating against journalists and others who say or do things he doesn’t like. But calling for an entire governing board of a large American city breaks new ground in anti-Americanism for him.
O’Reilly has rejected calls for stronger gun laws after mass shootings by saying, “All the guns control laws in the world will not stop maniacs from committing murder.” He also shrugged off African American concerns about police brutality by saying that out of 630,000 active law enforcement agents, 516 people were killed in shootings. “That’s infinitesimal!” O’Reilly declared.
But after one white woman, Kate Steinle, was killed by an “illegal” immigrant, O’Reilly mounted a crusade to enact an anti-immigrant law and to smear sanctuary cities. When it began to look not good for Congress passing his “Kate’s Law,” O’Reilly railed, “Any politician opposing (Kate’s Law) is unfit to hold office. Unfit to hold office!” Later, after Kate’s Law was blocked in the Senate, O’Reilly threatened Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who voted against the bill: “He better wise up, this man, alright? I’m coming after him unless he changes his mind.”
O’Reilly has also decided to punish San Francisco, a sanctuary city. First, he sent producer Jesse Watters to hijack a city supervisors’ meeting. However, O’Reilly doesn’t seem to mind that Watters, also the managing editor of Fox Nation, allows talk of assassination for hire on the site.
Another O'Reilly producer ambushed various San Francisco city officials – only to have the effort hilariously backfire.
Recently, one San Francisco city supervisor had the audacity to specifically call out Fox News in her rejection of O’Reilly’s demands. He decided she should be immediately placed under arrest. From the Media Matters transcript:
BILL O’REILLY: The supervisors voted to retain their sanctuary city policy and not cooperate with federal authorities when asked to detain criminals. And if you think that’s outrageous, listen to this sound bite directed at Kate Steinle’s family and supporters.
MALIA COHEN: We cannot allow one event to dictate 25 years -- 25 years of our city’s policies towards undocumented immigrants in our city. And more importantly, more importantly, we cannot allow hateful conservative news stations to drive how we respond to incidents in our city. I’m not afraid of Fox News and they don’t influence how I make my policy decisions here in San Francisco.
O’REILLY: So let me be very clear. That woman is a disgrace, and if I were the attorney general of the United States, I would immediately place her under arrest. I might not win the case, but I would send a message to all subversive office holders in this country, that if you do not obey federal law, you yourself will be prosecuted.
Obviously, that hasn’t happened. In fact, another city supervisor, David Campos, has called out O’Reilly. So what can a loud-mouth host with a fragile ego do but up the ante? Monday night, O’Reilly called for the entire board of supervisors to be arrested. From another Media Matters transcript:
DAVID CAMPOS: What happened in the Steinle family case is tragic. But what’s equally tragic is that this tragic incident is being used by people like Donald Trump, Bill O’Reilly, and others to scapegoat an entire community.
O’REILLY: Complete lie. We have never scapegoated anyone. And to say what is equally tragic is that a political commentator disagrees with him when there is a 32-year-old woman in the ground. That’s equally tragic? Is it, Mr. Campos? In fact in 2014, Talking Points laid out a very fair and effective immigration reform plan. You can check it out on BillOReilly.com where we posted it. So David Campos does not tell the truth, but even worse than that—even worse than that—he and his peers are anarchists. They are refusing to comply with federal law putting innocent people like Kate in danger. If I were the attorney general of the U.S.A., I would have Campos and his cohorts arrested and charged with obstruction of justice. I’d do it.
Ironically, O’Reilly’s latest call for arrests was part of a Talking Points commentary called “Big Lies.” He was attacking the rest of the media for not telling the truth. While giving himself a big pass on the lies that have been caught coming out of his own mouth recently.
The killing of Kate Steinle was indeed a horrible tragedy. But is this the appropriate response?
Watch O’Reilly call for arrests below, from the October 21 and October 26 The O’Reilly Factor, plus a clip of O’Reilly dismissing the “infinitesimal” 516 people killed by police, also from the October 26 O’Reilly Factor.
Sanctuary cities, as defined by people like Billo and commentor Ed? Don’t exist. That definition was created by opponents of reform to demonize certain cities. In fact, I can’t trace this round past O’Reilly starting it as a guest on a radio show.
As much as I wanna give the usual long-winded expot about how the real reason he hates San Francisco is that he can’t get even with Pelosi, couldn’t get even with Newsom, and even among our conservatives, very few people take him seriously… The bottom line version is that he’s mad he couldn’t make us foot soldiers in his grudges, and got cancelled trying when he was obsessed with our electorate. He has a lot of special places in his hate over being cancelled, but it eats him alive that he couldn’t control us when he had the platform.
It’s OK, because as a whole… We hate him back when we can be bothered to remember him past that he’s the clown that’s always getting owned by The Daily Show.
Some reports say that miss Steinle was killed when the bullet “ricocheted” off the pavement and that he wasn’t shooting at her. If that is found to be true, Billo’s really going to be mad about the verdict.
I can only assume that O’Reilly’s hatred of San Francisco is likely due to his radio show being cancelled by a local affiliate. He hates Madison, Wi. for the same reason. Soon after his terrible radio show being cancelled he started calling it “little Havana” and saying that "Che’ " would love it there.
He’s just a big cry-baby who takes everything as a personal attack on him.
Last I heard, the Supreme Court has NOT ruled on the legality of “sanctuary cities.” It’s worth pointing out to you—since you’re so fucking ready to bring up the Kentucky Cow—that the BIBLE itself (the same item that Davis uses to back up HER illegal actions) not only permitted sanctuary cities, they were MANDATED BY GOD. (And, in the Biblical case, these were refuges for people who’d actually killed or gravely wounded others but feared they wouldn’t get a fair and just hearing.) Now, the Supreme Court DID rule on marriage equality and Davis went against not only local court decisions but defied the Supreme Court as well.
But, really, why are right-wingers like you so upset? You had no problem when certain fascist states (like Texas and Arizona) chose to violate the President’s directives on undocumented aliens because the governors of these states believed that THEY had a “right” to enforce Federal laws when the Federal government itself didn’t. (For the record, they DON’T. There is NO Constitutional provision by which a state has the right to dictate foreign policy—and when you’re dealing with undocumented aliens, that crosses into foreign policy.) But when a local government chooses to adopt its own policies regarding undocumented aliens (and the Feds aren’t overly concerned about the policies), you right-wingers go into a fucking frenzy. Pick ONE side, you moron. You can’t have it both ways. Either local governments DO have a right to determine how they want to deal with undocumented aliens or they don’t. But you can’t whine when their policy isn’t what you want.