This is another Fox News/Right Wing talking point. It has nothing to do with the reality of teachers and students, and everything to do with the GOP idea that unions are automatically evil.

Public school teachers live anything but glamorous lives. They work very hard, including many hours spent at home grading papers. The teachers’ union has at least given them a living wage, which is more than they had before the union existed and they were expected to work longer hours for much less. One must believe that the GOP union attackers think that public school teachers should be working for the same wages as a fast food employee to hear the attacks they regularly bring against the people trying to educate children every day.

The usual modes of attack have been to try to eliminate the funding for public schools – whether it be via vouchers (whereby poorer families get a small subsidy toward an expensive private school they will still be unable to afford and which will still bar them from admission on other grounds) or via charter schools (whereby instant schools are created without any regard for whether they have any stability or whether they can actually teach students).

Barring those approaches, pundits on AM radio or at Fox News regularly attack the teachers, insulting them with the idea that they somehow don’t care about their students or that they don’t spend the hours that they do spend working to educate them. Anne-claire’s point is well taken. I have several right wing friends whom I have backed down on this issue, simply on the basis that when they say that the schools aren’t educating their kids the way they think it should be done, I have reminded them that many parents aren’t totally reliable either. How many times have the schools had to deal with undisciplined kids coming from parents who can’t handle their kids, and then had the parents complaining after their child is cited for acting out in various ways?

The fact is that the Fox News pundits and many AM radio pundits don’t have their kids in public schools in any case. They send their kids to private schools and still complain, and they’d rather not pay their taxes to support schools that their kids don’t use. And many of their listeners have fallen for the liberterian scam and think that maybe they’ll be a millionaire someday and will be able to also opt out of the public sector.

This is one of the sillier talking points the GOP has tried to wave around. It’s similar to when they got humiliated with that ridiculous line about the visit to India that was supposed to cost 200 million dollars a day and involve a big part of the Navy.

The reality is that any time the President travels, there is a Secret Service cost and an entourage cost. A big part of this has to do with the open hostility shown to our Presidents more and more over the past 20 years. Of course, the President could just stay inside the White House and never leave, but that’s a ridiculous condition for the GOP to expect the Obamas to observe. World leaders travel, both within and without their countries – it’s part of the job and appropriately so.

The idea of attacking President Obama because he takes a weekend here or there, or takes his family to Hawaii for the holidays, or because they don’t leave at the same time and take separate transportation, is completely hypocritical. The attempt to say that President GW Bush didn’t really take big vacations because he went to his ranch in Crawford belies the fact that he still had to travel to get there, and he still had to house and accomodate all those Secret Service and entourage people. So yes, those ranch “brush clearing” trips were quite expensive – just as expensive as if President Obama had a ranch in Hawaii and was taking his people there.

It seems that Fox News is desperately hanging on to this talking point as a holdover comparison between Bush and Obama, because it was supposed to work for Bush and didn’t. During the Bush Presidency, it’s clear that Karl Rove worked this out as a talking point defense against the accusations that Bush was taking a shocking amount of vacation time after starting two wars. So Rove told Bush not to play golf until after he was out of office, and told him to stay in town or at Camp David for the holidays each year. And what do you know? Now Fox News touts both of those talking points, which are essentially meaningless, in yet another tantrum.

This is the same sour grapes that led GOP pundits to condemn President Obama attending inaugural balls, particularly in 2009. I remember one pundit on Los Angeles saying that the President should just get a sandwich from the White House kitchen, step out the front door and wave to the press, and then get to work, like they say FDR did. (Not counting the fact that FDR was elected four times and that for the first two times, the country was in a complete Depression…) And it’s the same sour grapes that leads to a ridiculous standoff on just about any initiative President Obama proposes.

It seems that the only action they’ll accept from this President is total surrender.

This was one of the more ridiculous segments I can recall in recent times. The Bill Ayers “question” was definitively answered not only in interviews but also during the 2008 Presidential Debates, wherein John McCain brought up Bill Ayers and accused President Obama of consorting with him. Obama immediately and directly responded by saying that he absolutely condemned Ayers’ actions back in the Weather Underground days and noted that he had very little contact or connection with the man. The boards they shared had little contact with each other, and the notion that he started his career in Ayers’ living room was a right wing fantasy.

In reality, then-local candidate Obama did a local junket where he travelled to numerous houses in the area for fundraising and awareness. One of the houses was that of the Ayers family, which was known in the area as the home of a local professor with political interest in the region. The right wing would like to paint that day as all about Ayers but in fact he was a very minor footnote to the day, and certainly not an influence on President Obama.

The new Redford movie is actually a bit of a remake of the 1989 movie “Running on Empty”, which covers the same ground. Neither movie is an endorsement of the Weather Underground. They are instead examinations of what would happen to a family after years of living on the run or under false identities to the point that the family is no longer able to hold itself together. The earlier film concerned itself with the inevitable conflict of the kids growing up and leaving. The new film seems to be more of a thriller. But neither film is intended as an endorsement of the Weather Underground. The earlier film was more of a sad reflection on what happens when you spend your life running from the bad decisions of your youth, and your kids pay the price. The really sad part is that it seems that neither Sean Hannity nor his guest can see past the shallowest, most surfacey part of the discussion.

This is the same nonsense that Fox News has been spouting about Social Security ever since it started broadcasting.

We usually hear the same mantras: that Social Security will be broke in a few years, that Social Security is already broke, that everyone should just invest some money privately, that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, etc.

What is it really about? Some rich backers of the GOP and their pundits don’t like the fact that a fraction of their taxes goes into a retirement plan for people who have less money than they do. The whole point of the system was to make sure that when people retire after working for upwards of 40 years, they don’t just wind up with nothing. For many people, they don’t make enough money to save much for investment or anything else. For some people, they did invest their money, but the investments didn’t pan out, or they wound up with something like the Bush Recession wiping out almost all of their investments and savings. (And if Bush had succeeded in privatizing Social Security in 2005, millions of seniors would have been ruined by that recession.)

Also, these pundits conveniently forget that under the Ronald Reagan presidency, right wingers predicted that Social Security would go under, which led to a slight change in the withholding and one or two other tweaks, which resulted in the system being viable under that criteria for an addtional few decades.

Under today’s system, if there is a concern about the payout ability of the system, the easy fix is to remove the cap and have people making more than 106K (or so) continue to pay into the system. They could also adjust the withholding amount by a very small percentage. And they could gradually raise the eligibility age to 67 for people who are younger than 55 right now. That’s the most likely scenario we’ll see. The rash thought of “Just get rid of it!” is not a solution at all.

And any politician, GOP or otherwise, who actually tries to take steps to get rid of Social Security would simply be asking to find out why it’s usually referred to as “the third rail” of politics…

I didn’t catch this posting last week. Wish I had. This basically vindicates everything I said about this when the situation first popped up.

I’d be very interested to see if the DA wants to file any charges against Crowder for filing a false report, or if the guy he attacked wants to sue him for defamation, etc. Crowder may have opened up a can of worms he wishes he hadn’t…

What if two or three people called into his radio show every day for the next month, specifically to ask him when he will be fulfilling his obligations? Wouldn’t that generate some attention and finally get Hannity off the couch?

What you’re seeing here is the latest example of the complete meltdown happening in the GOP. They don’t know how to deal with what happened last November, and the reactions are varying from tantrums (Hannity, O’Reilly, Limbaugh) to utter confusion (Boehner, McConnell, Graham). The only thing they all have in common is that they can’t stand President Obama. So now they’re all devouring each other trying to figure out what’s the best path forward – and they don’t have the ready-made scandals that plagued Bill Clinton.

So it seems like every week, we get another recycled attack from 1-2 years ago. Now they’re trying to repeal the ACA, again. Now they’re trying to get even more answers about Benghazi, again. Now they’re trying to dredge up Fast & Furious, again. Now they want to argue about who proposed a budget when, again. Now they want to shut down the government, again.

It’s no wonder that people like Michael Reagan are frankly getting fed up with Roger Ailes’ approach, particularly seeing as how it didn’t get them very far. From where I sit, it’s at least some good entertainment. Get a bag of popcorn and enjoy the show…

Laura Ingraham has a radio show, on which she normally opines at least as far over to the right as she does when at O’Reilly’s gig. In the past, she has distinguished herself for not knowing or understanding the facts around multiple issues. Her low point of this came when she spent a show attacking Bush-appointed attorney Johnny Sutton about the infamous Ramos & Compean case, demonstrating that she had no idea what the facts were and just wanted to rile up her listeners.

The trolls are completely ignoring the actual results.

After all the tantrums being thrown by GOP Senators about Chuck Hagel and John Brennan, both men were quickly confirmed and are of course in their Cabinet positions today. So these tantrums accomplished nothing of substance.

Rand Paul’s tantrum was interesting in that he decided to champion a cause actually held by the left. But as another poster listed, such protests during the George W. presidency were described as treasonous on the Fox channel.

It’s hilarious to hear people like Hannity yell about how the left isn’t holding President Obama accountable for things like the drone strikes, when you can hear exactly that left criticism from Pacifica and Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now every day.

Aria, I think we’re in agreement. I just find it strange that the GOP and Fox News seem to want to present this situation in two contradictory lights.

On the one hand, they say the sequester and any bad results are all President Obama’s fault and that he was behind the whole thing all by himself.

On the other hand, they say that the sequester isn’t really a big deal anyway and it won’t do anything other than slow some spending growth a little bit, so what’s the big deal, anyway?

They can’t have it both ways. And none of their “analysis” includes the fact that most of the actual spending growth that will occur is in Social Security and Medicare, which are unaffected. Meaning that the 85 billion in cuts here are in the discretionary part of the budget – and they are CUTS, not slowed increases.

“Come on”,

Not sure where you’re getting the idea of anger from me. You may be confusing me with someone else. I don’t recall holding MSNBC’s hosts any less accountable. But you continue to avoid the central question I posed to you. Are you saying that the name calling by Hannity et al is okay in your book or just as you putti “over the top”?

Shapiro and the Breitbart organization are in disarray, as they have been since Breitbart’s death last year. He’s probably happy to have any opportunity to go on television and pose as a legitimate commenter rather than a fringe blogger. But the fact is that the Breitbart material was always just personal attacks, smears and slanders. If Shapiro thinks he can start a big career by doing that kind of thing, he’ll have only himself to blame when it bottoms out.

This was a particularly nauseating segment.

We should keep in mind that Watters was on private property and Mr. Obama repeatedly told him to leave and that he wasn’t welcome there. That means Watters was trespassing to start with, and then adding harassment to the charges. I don’t think Obama was kidding about calling the police. Watters could and should have been arrested and taken to the local jail.

As far as Mr. Obama’s deportation hearing, it’s really nothing to do with the President. The hearings for those things are backed up for months if not years due to the massive number of cases. It sounds like Mr. Obama has lived in this country for 50 years and the only thing he’s done wrong is get a DUI. Granted, I don’t approve of drunk driving at all. But there are standard punishments for that kind of thing and I don’t know that one DUI automatically gets anyone deported immediately.

This was a hit of a different kind, but I still remember the “Sabra Price is Right” sketch from 1990 or so. Complete lampoon of Israeli salesmen, completely inappropriate on about ten levels, and really funny. Could someone be offended by it? Sure. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny. And that’s the basic rule that SNL at its best plays by.

There’s something pretty funny about a sketch from the late 80s with Phil Hartman as Orel Roberts meeting Charlton Heston as God. With Heston’s God having the opening line of “Did you bring the Money?” Inappropriate? Yup. Funny? Yup.

I have to admire the good humor of many religious people. Fred Rogers famously did not object to Eddie Murphy’s “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood”. He saw the humor in it and didn’t jump to condemn it. One wishes that the more sanctimonious would learn from Fred Rogers’ example.

I’ll give Cain credit for owning a statement that’s been making the rounds of the right wing media ever since November 6th. He’s just repeating the line that Rush Limbaugh coined the morning after Mitt Romney lost: the notion that the “low information” voters re-elected Barack Obama because they must have somehow been too stupid to vote for the correct candidate.

More and more I’ve been hearing this nonsensical claim about the “low information” voters – which seems to be turning into a dog whistle now. When you hear right wing pundits use the phrase, it’s a shorthand for people that want handouts, people who want a free ride, people who are too stupid to be able to vote correctly. When O’Reilly says “How dumb are we?”, he’s missing the point of what Cain and Rush are saying. From their point of view, “smart” people like O’Reilly voted for Mitt Romney but there were just too many more stupid people voting for Obama. This is a ridiculous argument, of course, and it really smacks of sour grapes. But it won’t stop the right wing from trying to establish that lie as their truth in years to come.

It’s the same way that the right wing is trying to blame the entire “sequester” cliffhanger on Obama. Which assumes that their viewers were asleep in 2011 when all of this was set up. The right wing assumes everyone has forgotten how the House GOP blew up a budget deal between John Boehner and President Obama and made noises about shutting the government down rather than doing the usual procedure to raise the debt ceiling. As a stopgap measure, Obama’s people presented the notion of raising the ceiling and establishing a bipartisan committee to work on budget cuts and new taxes. If that committee failed to do their job, then the “sequester” would kick in as an undesirable fallback for both sides. It wasn’t intended to be used – it was intended as a disincentive, to make both sides bargain fairly. The GOP then refused to bargain, asserting their Grover Norquist pledges, and the committee broke up. Leaving us with only the undesirable cuts for both the military and the domestic sides of the budget. The point was the Congress was supposed to find a real solution to the problem. Instead, the GOP decided to use the situation as another political grenade to throw at Obama. They can rewrite this all they like, but there are too many people who do know the real history.

I think Hart Bochner could have gotten away with the cottonmouth moment with a tad more aplomb. But yes, that crazed look in the eyes is about the same.

I put this in another thread, but it bears repeating. The funniest part of this frantic attempt to throw more mud at President Obama is the indignation stated by Ed Henry now that he has a nominal title to go with his work as Fox’s voice in the White House press room. It’s almost as funny as the tries Henry made in 2011 and 2012 to get Mitt Romney’s talking points into the Daily Briefings with Jay Carney.

What’s really funny about this is watching Fox News desperately trying to gin up outrage over something really pedestrian. This ranges from nasty comments coming from both Greta and Hannity to the hilarious display of Ed Henry trying to pretend he’s shocked, shocked that President Obama does not want photos taken while he and Tiger Woods are trying to play a round of golf.

The thing is, there really isn’t much of a story to the USDA thing. It’s a normal procedure at large companies and at government agencies for the employer to hold various assemblies – for racial senstivity training, for sexual harassment awareness, etc. And yes, the people who teach these assemblies get paid to do this. Considering they’re hiring an expert in the area, holding a PhD in it, it sounds like par for the course for a federal agency. This isn’t a matter of people spending money to go to Vegas – it’s a matter of them going to a seminar at their workplace.

The reason Fox News objects is because they don’t like the content of the seminar. But when you hear what the guy is saying, there’s nothing outrageous there.

Trying to sift through this mess is not fun.

Dorner was completely unhinged and in the end had committed himself to a murderous rampage. The apologists for him ignore the fact that he killed that woman and her fiancee just because of who her father was. He gets no sympathy from me, regardless of his grievances with the LAPD. Plenty of people have grievances with police departments and they don’t do this.

That said, the handling of this matter was ridiculous, including innocent people being shot at by police because their vehicle looked like his. The final night, with the LAPD and San Bernardino PD arguing in public over whether the manhunt was over, was a prime example of two department heads really needing to have their heads knocked together.

It was inevitable that once Dorner was cornered by police, something like this was going to happen. There was no way he was going to be taken alive, and I think everyone involved knew that. We can discuss the nature of how that final confrontation was handled but we should keep in mind there had just been an exchange of automatic weapons fire during which Dorner had just killed another policeman and seriously wounded a second. I don’t think he had any intention of walking out of that cabin with his hands up, and I’m not sure how he could have after the mayhem he had committed.

Given all that, Hill’s comments were also ridiculous, even when taken in context. And it’s not just that he was being insensitive to the victims – it’s just ridiculous to be talking about how exciting it is to see a modern day John Rambo shoot at police and civilians. Hill was legitimately trying to explain the appeal of such a man, but he also got a little carried away. Which gives people like Bill O’Reilly room to make nasty comments to him, unfortunately. I don’t like the way O’Reilly approached it, with the really sanctimonious lecture, but I can’t argue that it was okay for Hill to make the comments. Another guest on another show mentioned that Hill has been a supporter of Wesley Cook (aka Mumia Abu Jamal). This is unfortunately true, and it damages Hill’s credibility, particularly in this matter.

That said, watching O’Reilly enjoy lording it over Hill and then cut his mike at the end was distasteful.