Ellen wrote “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if President Obama – even an SNL version – called up O’Reilly to give him some tips on being a good family man?”

Too bad SNL wrapped up its latest season last Saturday (5/16). By the time the show returns, this will effectively be “yesterday’s news.” And, unfortunately, there’s not really any other program with enough of an audience to pack the same kind of punch.

As an aside, even if there were, it’s unlikely that such a bit would air since you put it out there as a suggestion for fear of a plagiarism lawsuit.

@ Rozum: You show us all REAL evidence of Rifqa’s claims, rather than the crap she goes on FoxNoise and spews.

The woman is quoted as wanting “to worship Jesus” but no REAL Christian “worships” Jesus. Jesus (according to Christian mythology) was merely the human form of God (even in the New Testament, Jesus never seeks to be worshiped).

But, for you to act like you know the “mission of NewsHounds”—you signed up when exactly?—suggests you’ve got other problems. I’ve been at NewsHounds for years and the site’s only “mission” is to expose the lies and propaganda spread by the kkkrew of FoxNoise. And that includes guests like Rifqa whose sole purpose for the network is to be yet another Islam basher.

From the article:

“This is a serious problem,” O’Reilly agreed. “We hear about the inner city drug gangs, we don’t hear much about the motorcycle gangs all over the place.”

Gee, Bill. That couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that, in the world of FoxNoise, “inner city” all too often equates to “scary Black folks” while “motorcycle gangs” all too often equates to “white guys enjoying the freedom of the road,” now could it?

If a TV show had spent some 7 or 8 years partially glamorizing the Bloods and Crips in the same way that “Sons of Anarchy” had done for motorcycle gangs (and, let’s not forget that EVERY promo for “SoA” showed violent actions, either explicitly or implicitly) or if shows like “Weeds” and “Breaking Bad” had focused on Black lead characters (instead of the rather sympathetically portrayed white leads), FoxNoise would’ve been out there criticizing the programs as some sort of “liberal propagandizing of violent criminals as simply misunderstood victims of their situations.” But, because the leads were white, no big deal.

Well, I’d sure love to know how any of the GOPers are going to “champion” the middle class or poor when ALL of their policies have done nothing but screw the middle class and poor for the last 35 years.

And for Stein to talk about “education” the way he does………Has he bothered to look at how the GOP (red) states have screwed over education at every opportunity in just the last decade? It’s kind of absurd to talk about “achiev[ing] better educational and better skills” when you’ve got states which are deliberately removing scientific information (especially about evolution) or changing/rewriting history (especially concerning slavery, the Civil War and the Civil Rights era). Although, as quoted, Stein may have inadvertently exposed the GOP’s actual philosophy. As the rest of his “achieve” quote reads, “to have more human capital.” What exactly does he mean by “human capital?”

As defined in Merriam-Webster Online, “capital” is

1a (1) : a stock of accumulated goods especially at a specified time and in contrast to income received during a specified period; also : the value of these accumulated goods (2) : accumulated goods devoted to the production of other goods (3) : accumulated possessions calculated to bring in income
b (1) : net worth (2) : stock
c : persons holding capital : capitalists considered as a group
d : advantage, gain
e : a store of useful assets or advantages

To me, it sounds like he’s describing the “middle class or poor” as nothing more than part of the corporate bottom line. Of course, the corporate bottom line is NOT served with a middle or poor class that is better educated or better skilled, since folks with better education and better skills generally want better pay. And corporations don’t want to pay more than a certain level. If the employees start wanting higher pay, then they’ll find their jobs “suddenly” outsourced to another country (or even another state which offers better—ie, lower—tax rates and can fire employees for no reason at all).

You just know if Mittens had won in 2012, not only would FoxNoise be screeching if the other news networks didn’t give the story a full 24 hour coverage but FoxNoise would spend the whole next week covering the story from every angle (and their only complaint would be the Army’s refusal to let FoxNoise interview the members who took part in the mission; of course, that wouldn’t actually stop FoxNoise from making up something).

Well, if Obama’s the “reincarnation” of Wilson, then Hannity is the reincarnation of Bull Connor and Innis is the reincarnation of one of Connor’s attack dogs.

Innis is nothing more than what used to be called an “Oreo” (Black on the outside and white on the inside) or what would now be termed a “self-loathing” Black man. I’d love to know how many Tea Party social functions he gets invited to. I’d be willing to bet he only gets invited to the “official” Party fundraisers but never to the more casual get-together pot-lucks. (Of course, given the feelings of hate I’ve seen at most teabagger protests, I’m not really sure any of them ever just have “casual get-together pot-lucks.”)

To “Pastor” Jeffress: It’s worth noting that particular Jesus quote you make was a RESPONSE to a question posed by some Pharisees*, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” (Matt 19:3, New American Standard Bible). After he makes the “man/woman” answer, then the Pharisees ask why did Moses allow for divorce if, as Jesus said, God “made” marriage as you idiots think (even though marriage was a tradition millennia before the Bible stories were first passed down).

A little further along in that very same chapter, it’s worth noting that Jesus also said “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” (verse 21) This was in response to a wealthy young man who’d earlier been told to follow the Commandments to be good, but wanted to “have eternal life” (ie, go to Heaven). The man then says that he’s kept all those Commandments but what else was he lacking—at which point Jesus gives him the advice about the possessions. But, as the following verse states, “when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.” (verse 22). It’s at this point that Jesus makes the statement about it being hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (along with the “camel through the eye of a needle” proverb).

Something tells me that Mr Jeffress has chosen willfully to ignore Jesus’ demand to “go and sell your possessions and give to the poor.” Which makes him unworthy of being a Christian (except in name only).

*The Pharisees, it should be remembered, were the smug, sanctimonious religious purists who ultimately had Jesus arrested. You know—because they didn’t like Jesus’s just going around telling the people they didn’t really need all the formalities that formed the Pharisees’ bread-and-butter. I mean, if the people didn’t really need the priests as much as the priests needed the people, why it could cause a revolution—which is what Christianity was about (for its first century or so, after which it fell into the same hierarchy rut, where “some” people knew God’s word better than others).

Anyone who would truly consider themselves to be “center-right” (as Mr Rosen suggests America is) would avoid FoxNoise since there’s NO “center” there.

Mr Rosen is entitled to his opinion; he’s NOT, however, entitled to his definition. Politically, “center-right” means the politics starts in the center and veers SLIGHTLY to the right. It does NOT mean the same as “right of center” since, in that scenario, the center is completely ignored.

To put it on a number line from 0 to 100 (with 0 being most left and 100 being most right*), then 50 is THE center. “Center right” would run from 50 to about 70 at most. “Right of center” would run from 51 to 100. If anything, FoxNoise begins at 60 and runs hard right from there.

*The number line as I depicted is standard form in mathematics, especially in graphing along the X-axis.

I’m sorry, Donald. Please tell us HOW EXACTLY you’d “fix the infrastructure,” especially considering how many times YOUR BUSINESSES have declared bankruptcy.

The BEST way to “fix the infrastructure” is to raise the damned taxes on multi-millionaires (and billionaires) like you and the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson and all the rest of you right-wingers who feel that even a 10% tax rate is too high. If we did something reasonable, and raised corporate AND personal tax rates to early 1960s levels (interestingly enough, MOST of our country’s current infrastructure was built before the 1970s and has only been patched up at best), then we’d be swimming in money to fix all the infrastructure problems.

But no. You right-wingers only want to “fix the infrastructure” by privatizing everything. Turn our highways into toll roads (where the money goes to private companies which can, at their discretion, decide to shut down the road if it’s not profitable; and, of course, folks who don’t want to pay the tolls are forced to rely on the beat-up roads that only get more decrepit as the government’s funds become less and less available). Run railroads and buses but ONLY if they can make a profit; unprofitable routes (or routes serving “undesirable” areas) are shut down, no matter how many people actually need to use them (note that “profitability” does not equal “widely used”). In short, you want to “fix the infrastructure” by destroying the government’s ability to do so.

More to the point, NONE of those students are forced to take the class; from the description, it sounds like an elective and for students who might have to take the class as a requirement for their major, it could give them some insight into how the hundreds of actors (a disproportionately high number of whom will have vaginas and breasts) feel when auditioning for parts where they’ll have to be naked on stage or on screen.

Additionally, since this is a “college” class, it’s not like any of these “kids” are underage; they’re all adults (if they’re getting financial aid from their parents, the parents might have some right to be concerned over the class BUT, again, these are ADULTS, capable of making their own decisions and a parent who withholds financial aid out of spite needs to re-examine their own parenting skills).

One last point: Where’s Douchey’s concern for middle school and high school students who may be forced to be nude in gym class? Who may have to take a shower with classmates (think “Carrie”)? I mean, these are UNDERAGE kids being forced to be nude, as opposed to college-age kids.

truman, you are so funny. (You do stand-up comedy on the side, right?)

Expecting FoxNoise to be consistent on anything………

They don’t need to be consistent since their audience can’t remember anything that happened before today. Goldfish have better memories.

Timothy, your analysis of free speech and the “fire in a theater” shows your LACK of knowledge.

The “fire” reference is actually from a case in which there was NO “direct threat” nor was there any “incitement.” I suggest you do a little research on how the Supreme Court actually STRIPPED a man of his freedom of speech based SOLELY on his political activity—activity that posed NO LEGITIMATE THREAT to anyone (except the government).

That case was Schenck v United States. The background of the case is that Charles Schenck (the General Secretary of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia), along with Elizabeth Baer, had thousands of leaflets printed and mailed to men of conscription (ie, draft) age, urging them to “resist” being drafted. Schenck and Baer were convicted primarily of violating part of the Espionage Act of 1917 and appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court, however, ruled that one’s freedom of speech (during “wartime,” at least) could be curtailed.

As to the “fire in a crowded theater” line from the case, the full line from the opinion was “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” In other words, you CAN shout fire in a theater (provided there IS a fire; most common sense analysis, of course, suggests if you see a fire starting in a theater then you contact management to avoid a panic—but if there IS a fire, you cannot be held accountable for inadvertently creating a panic).

But, the ultimate ruling from Schenck (and, unfortunately, it still holds as “good” law) is that UNPOPULAR speech CAN be grounds for prosecution and it’s not seen as a violation of the First Amendment.

Remember that, in the early days of the Iraq War, Dubya and his GOP cronies/allies/handlers had little problem referring to political opponents as traitors, especially when those opponents dared to question the “official” line. (Dubya was also very well-known for his forcing hecklers and other critics to remain within specific areas well away from him—even to the point of making many of his “public” speaking events, effectively “invitation only.”)

I wonder how much money it’s cost the good taxpayers of Milwaukee County for their sheriff to be doing all this out-of-state political work?

You know, if Obama were really the evil man that right-wingers like to think he is, he’d be blocking every last dime of Federal funding going to Milwaukee County (as well as demanding a full refund of all moneys sent there for the last few years).

CARSON: Well, Dred Scott, a perfect example. You know, the Supreme Court came up with this and Abraham Lincoln did not agree with it. Now, admittedly, it caused a lot of conflict and eventually led to a civil war, but we’re in a better place because of it.

Yeah, MISTER Carson. You’ve just proven your complete lack of qualification to run for President (hell, you’re not even qualified to run for dog catcher). The Dred Scott case was decided in 1857; Lincoln didn’t run for President until 1860. While Lincoln did denounce the case, he had no say in enforcing the decision which had been made long before he took the oath of office (which, incidentally, does include the phrase “to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Now, as to the timeline of events involving Lincoln, and that little “civil war,” again, the Scott decision was effectively settled law long before the 1860 election and really had NO part in the election’s outcome. You, MISTER Carson, might want to reread the text of Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation. In it, he specifically exempted ALL slaves held within Union territory including not only recently liberated areas in the Deep South (Union commanders were urged to free any slaves in their zones of occupation but they were NOT under a mandate to do so) but also within the Union (ie, “Northern”) states where slavery was still legal which included Missouri. (As a complete incidental, Scott’s emancipation was purchased by a former owner just 2 months after the SCOTUS decision and Scott died more than 2 years before the Civil War broke out. Scott may have died a free man but thousands of other Black slaves in Missouri remained in bondage until 1865.)

It should be recalled too, that ALL the slave-holding states rejected Lincoln’s candidacy, not just those that eventually seceded.

And, as Wallace pointed out, our CONSTITUTIONAL government is made up of three EQUAL branches. Yes, the legislative branch (aka “Congress”) makes the laws but, ultimately, it’s up to SCOTUS (as well as the lower courts) to determine the CONSTITUTIONALITY of those laws—not just the ones with which you agree, but also those with which you disagree.

We might need to toss you into a time machine and set the co-ordinates for 1850 Maryland and see just how well-received you are—especially with no identification. I don’t think you’d be able to charm the “conservatives” of that era as easily as you do their modern counterparts. (Then again, if it weren’t for the fact that the current President is Black, nobody in the GOP would be paying you the least bit of attention. You’d be in the same dung heap as Alan Keyes and Herman Cain.)

I think Mr Dershowitz needs a little reminder about MLK’s life. He was PUT IN JAIL by the authorities over his alleged provocative actions. His free speech was CONSTANTLY attacked by the powers that be.

As soon as Geller’s put in jail for inciting violence, then Dershowitz can make a modest claim to compare Geller with King. Until such time, however, Geller is NOTHING like the late Dr King and Dershowitz needs to repay Mike Barnicle the $75K he got after suing Barnicle over Barnicle’s “freedom of speech” in attributing a comment where Dershowitz allegedly said he preferred Asian women because they’re more likely to be deferential to their men. (I guess Dershowitz doesn’t appreciate free speech as much as he claims.)

I’d also suggest Dershowitz take his ass to Israel since he supports that country so much. Amazing, though, that he prefers supporting Israeli policies from afar where his ass is safe.

Well, it was a terrorist attack.

And the terrorist involved was Pamela Geller.

She KNEW her little stunt would be provocative (in the strictest, most literal sense) and she PLANNED it to be. The only thing she regrets is that no innocents were hurt as the result of her actions.

How exactly does she really differ from the Tsarnaev brothers? Or Jared Houghner?

And she dares to hide behind the First Amendment.

She needs to be rounded up and locked up in Gitmo.

John, I think you’re insulting both birds and reptiles.