VK, it sounds like you haven’t taken the time to see what McFarland did when she carried the offer to Petraeus. Or you haven’t actually listened to the tape and thus don’t know what you are talking about.

So I’ll be clear. K.T. McFarland was sent to Afghanistan to interview David Petraeus for Fox News, specifically as a journalistic endeavor. After asking him a few questions, she then turned to the real purpose of her visit, as directed by her boss, Roger Ailes. So while sitting with the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, she attempted to influence his political and intelligence decisions, including an implied money offer. She told Petraeus that Roger Ailes was disappointed with the current (2011) crop of GOP candidates and would support him if he were to run for President, and further told him to reject appointment by Obama to anything other than the highest possible level. When this tape was publicized, she tried to play off her offer as “a joke”. But the tape makes clear this was no joke.

VK, I would recommend that you look up the definition of “influence peddling” and see how this would relate to a Fox News reporter trying to influence the actions taken by a U.S. military commander in the field. This is not a small matter, and if it were to be investigated, could lead to serious trouble for both McFarland and Roger Ailes. You can shake your head all you like, but that doesn’t diminish the significant ethical violation here, and the potential criminal violation that goes with it.

The point of the connection here, which you are attempting to ignore, is that if Fox News is trying to directly influence outcomes of the matters they cover, then they are surrendering the notion of practicing journalism to practice advocacy instead. If they want to be advocates, and it sounds like they do, then any claim to being “Fair and Balanced” is nullified. Take a little time to think about what that means, and you’ll see why the story was posted here.

As I said, Joshua, you’re entitled to your opinions and your feelings about them. It’s unfortunate that you believe it appropriate to project them onto others, but so be it. This thread was about a specific unfortunate situation regarding Fox Nation, and we’ve made very clear what that was. We’ve also provided you with plenty of information for you to examine. If you choose not to actually look past the talking points, you’re entitled to do so, but the facts speak for themselves.

Conrad wasn’t asked about it, and he chose not to interrupt Wallace to do so. I think he was trying to be collegial and polite. And he’d already given several specific solutions which could be adopted, provided that the GOP wishes to get anything done.

Barrasso was cleary in the mode of just saying anti-Obama talking points, and his attitude makes clear that Senate Republicans intend to filibuster anything that doesn’t give them what they want. Meaning that they don’t intend to compromise in any way.

Which mean it’s their intention to let the deadline pass and then try to blame any fallout on Obama. They also get an added bonus for this – in that they can punish people on Unemployment or needing other services that will be cut back. The trick here is that the tax rates will not make that much of a difference to wealthy tax payers, and the cuts to defense will not gut the military, regardless of the right wing complaints. But the cuts to social services and to people on the less fortunate end of society will hit a lot harder. People like Barrasso clearly think they can hang tough longer than the Dems.

If they actually play this card in this fashion, it indicates a different GOP strategy than people anticipated. People had thought the GOP had learned its lesson from 2012 and would be willing to finally come to the table and participate in government for a change. The thought was that they would temper their positions and finally compromise a little in order to do what the voters clearly wanted – get something done. But the approach the GOP seems to be taking is 180 degrees away from that idea. They seem to be hardening their positions, particularly after Boehner’s attempts to reason with his own party failed.

The writing on the wall seems to be that they intend to put in a new, harder-line Speaker – which would mean that Eric Cantor’s unfortunate behavior will be rewarded with a promotion. Their statements indicate that instead of governing, they intend to fold their arms more firmly than before. That would put them in a position of voting NO in lockstep and generating another record number of filibusters over the next four years. That would make EIGHT years of deliberate obstruction – all out of their animosity against this President and against anyone that doesn’t totally cave to them.

I really hope I’m wrong about this.

That is an unbelievable clip. Wow.

It’s another reason why it’s valuable to have a site like this to immediately set the record straight. You can’t just have people let that many flat-out lies go out without correcting them.

In case anyone was fooled, Bork’s behavior during Watergate only served to enable President Nixon’s desperate attempts to evade punishment. The Nixon Justice Department didn’t fall apart just because people were resigning. It fell apart because Nixon was telling them to do illegal things and they were resigning rather than taking those actions. The honorable thing for Bork to have done was to have resigned with the rest and force Nixon to either try to appoint an all new Justice Department or succumb to the inevitable. Bork’s actions only prolonged the situation, which could have ended much earlier.

The Bork confirmation hearings were notable because Bork’s record was quite clear, as Teddy Kennedy discussed. Bork didn’t back away from his record or play the games that current SC nominees regularly do. To his credit, he openly stated his beliefs. And to the Congress’ credit, he was soundly rejected as a totally inappropriate choice. (It was actually quite brazen of Reagan to name him, but then Reagan had gotten away with making Rehnquist the Chief Justice and thought this would be a great way to get another idealogue up there. Keep in mind that it was Reagan’s presidency that started the idea of conducting a “litmus test” before naming judicial appointees…)

The fact that Bork couldn’t get a job anywhere but at a lower-level right wing college founded by the head of Domino’s Pizza speaks volumes by itself. His career ended in the disgrace that he had brought upon himself.

Thank you for catching this.

I too was surprised that Goldberg didn’t specify that he was talking about Huckabee – I think he didn’t want to push it any farther than he already had. Yes, he could have said “Mike Huckabee said exactly that both on Fox and Friends and then on his own program!”, but while he’d be correct, O’Reilly would have taken it as a challenge.

Jeramie, I’m curious as to which two Active Duty Marines have “first hand knowledge” about this case and are talking about it in public. Unless you’re referring to the defendant and his friend, who were discharged some time ago, long before this personal trip to Mexico. Having worked with Marines for several years, I can tell you that one thing they understand quite well is a system of rules and regulations. Going past multiple signs saying “NO GUNS” and deciding to bring a rifle into the area anyway would go against that training in a big way.

It’s a shame that your defense appears to be a smear against the Mexican Ambassador. If you read his statement, you would see that he put a great deal of time and thought into his response, which included taking the time to review the case itself.

Nobody is saying that Jon Hammar is a bad person. The facts are that he broke Mexican law, and he was on Mexican soil when he did it. The Mexican legal system has been processing him since August and his court date will be in January, after which I’d expect him to be deported back to the U.S. in short order. I’m sure that Hammar will never make this mistake again, and that a lot of other Americans will pay attention to the mistake he made, and not repeat it themselves.

Showing that it is possible to compound an initial mistake, Crowder popped up again on Fox News tonight, showing a few minutes of what he said was unedited video from around the time of his fight with the union guy. According to Crowder, this footage, from two different cameras, is supposed to show that Crowder and the right wingers were not doing anything wrong and were somehow blindly attacked by the “thugs”.

Except that even Crowder’s footage shows he has his hands on the guy before he falls down. It’s no wonder that the guy went for Crowder a moment later.

Crowder actually compounds his mistake further by insisting that he’s the only one who has provided footage of what happened out there. He isn’t, and the independent footage makes Crowder’s situation even worse.

One would think that Crowder would learn to stop doing these things, particularly if he expects to accomplish anything in court other than get himself imprisoned for perjury.

VK, I would think you would have better things to do during a tragedy like this than to come on a website with which you disagree and nitpick.

That given, the comment made to you about your moniker is unfortunately appropriate in light of what happened today – and it’s a shame that you don’t see the terrible irony.

The criticism of Megan Kelly was that she was advocating for more guns in a situation when so many children were just gunned down – which is a recipe for disaster.

And your comparitive statement of “My Child is on the Honor Roll” does not mean a condemnation of other children. That statement is a parent expressing pride in their child, and it doesn’t preclude other children from being on the same honor roll. But the statement “Self Reliant Americans on Board” as pitched by Bill O’Reilly is a deliberate slap at people who disagree. I have to wonder if anyone who buys such a bumper sticker has ever made use of any social services. After all, if they’re self-reliant, they shouldn’t need anything, right?

This kind of exposure, more than Morris’ stubborn insistence on a fantasy Romney landslide, is the kind of thing that could lead to him quietly being shown the door.

It’s one thing to be shown to be really drinking your own kool aid. It’s another to be taking the backers’ money and using it to salt your own nest. Newsmax will find a way to weasel out of this but I don’t know how Morris will. If it’s shown that he was getting any kind of kickback from this (and this material indicates he was), he’s got a serious amount of splaining to do.

So Hume is pleading for compassion for the House GOP that got us into this situation?

Let me see if I understand that correctly. This is the same House GOP that could have averted this entire matter by making the “grand bargain” in 2011 regarding the debt ceiling – but then refused to do so in a temper tantrum because they hoped to damage President Obama’s reelection chances. (And by the way, that tactic backfired, in case they hadn’t noticed.)

This is the same House GOP that pulled a stunt like this last year to try to keep Obama from going on a holiday vacation, only to find themselves humiliated.

This is the same House GOP that has hardline members advocating for going over the “cliff” so they can somehow get imaginary leverage.

And Hume’s petulant attempt to dismiss Obama’s reelection margin is telling. Yes, Obama won with 51 percent of the popular vote, which is about the margin one would expect in a polarized country. And yes, Obama mobilized his base, as you would expect any successful candidate to do. So what? Obama won the election, not Romney. Sorry to burst the bubble on that, but the election was over a month ago. And to quote an Aaron Sorkin film, Hume’s guy was running for President, Obama IS the President.

Are you sure about that one, Pat?

And while we’re on the subject of videos, you should look at the longer video Aria referenced. It makes it clear that most of Crowder’s story is not correct. The most disturbing part is the guy pulling the gun – which at least explains why on Crowder’s edited video you hear someone referencing using a gun. Only, in true Breitbart fashion, Crowder would have you believe that the union guy was threatening him with a gun where the truth was that the union guy was outraged that the right winger was trying to brandish one at the protesters.

Nice try by Adam. But his post is full of untruths.

The actual uncut version of the Crowder instigation video was reviewed by the County Prosecutor (Stuart Dunnings) in 2013. Dunnings noted of the union man shoved by Crowder, “It’s pretty clear the person that they wanted to charge was acting in self-defense." Dunnings also wondered why Crowder didn’t provide the unedited footage to the prosecutors if he wanted to press charges: “I’m not holding that against him, but why would they provide the edited video? The longer video clearly shows the guy got pushed down and came up swinging." And the result was that Crowder’s nonsense was laughed out of discussion and never even made it to a courtroom. Essentially, Crowder started a fight, got punched in the face and was unsuccessful in his attempts to monetize the situation for himself. As someone noted here back when this was recent, Crowder got himself punched in the face for nothing.

Adam is forced to admit that his own account of the “thugs” destroying tents and attacking “women in children” is not based on the actual footage but rather from his own opinions about it.

Adam also foolishly admits that he would enjoy provoking union members and trying to parlay that into some kind of notoriety.

Unions have done a heck of a lot more for workers than get people their weekends. It’s because of unions that most workers have better working conditions, decent pay and benefits. I’m a member of both the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA. Thanks to the DGA, I am paid on a solid basis for my work, I have strong medical coverage and I am building a good pension. Were it not for the existence of the DGA, I would be required to work for far less with no coverage and no pension.

Adam’s nonsensical comparison aside, the NRA really does make major donations to Right Wing candidates, and they do collect on them. Whether Adam wants to admit it or not.

You’d think that Laura Ingraham would have learned from her own history with discussions like this. In June of this year, she was humiliated by Dr. Berman when she tried to play games like this about Planned Parenthood opening a clinic at a high school.

Ingraham’s actual agenda is clear in both cases: she doesn’t want the kids to have access to birth control. To her mind, the kids should just say no to sex, since Ingraham doesn’t approve of it. That’s great, but the statistics show that this approach just leads to lots of unplanned pregnancies.

In both discussions with Dr. Berman, Ingraham tried to act like an expert herself on the subject, only to be corrected by Dr. Berman, who would fill in the rest of the facts that Ingraham was conveniently ignoring. In this case, Dr. Berman gently reminded Ingraham that they were discussing prescription medication, not over-the-counter materials. Ingraham’s attempt to scare everyone with possible side effects was answered by the obvious note that all prescription medications can have side effects.

I agree that the opening comment from Dr. Berman about the silliness about Christmas was priceless.

I don’t see racism from Whitlock – just an understandable level of irritation that Bill O’Reilly thinks he can get him to jump when he calls. Yes, Whitlock presented his irritation in racial terms, but that doesn’t mean it’s racist. It means that Whitlock was calling O’Reilly on his behavior.

And Whitlock is correct that O’Reilly and Hannity have been complaining since the election about how a majority of the country wants “free stuff” and is lazy and feels “entitled”. Which are all dog whistles.

Things were even nastier on Hannity late last week when Hannity insisted it was President Obama pulling the race card. Hannity demanded that the halfway reasonable guest somehow immediately provide specific citations of racist statements by the GOP during the election campaign and acted satisfied when she wasn’t able to instantly do so. I wish he could have a guest on who could actually answer questions such as that, like Amy Goodman. She would have instantly cited the shocking statements by John Sununu and Newt Gingrich throughout the campaign, including both men calling Obama lazy, unintelligent and various other smears. She would have brought up Donald Trump’s demand that Obama present his college transcripts and papers – which is based on the premise that somehow Obama wasn’t a good student, which would indicate that Obama just magically did well at Harvard, right?

If O’Reilly is truly interested in combating ugly racism, he should clean up the situation in his own house before throwing rocks at another building.

This is the same vicious attack that was inflicted upon Wisconsin, and it looks like it’s having the same backfire effect.

The GOP state people trying to inflict this attack have no interest in workers or their families. They just hate unions and wish to do anything they can to undermine and destroy them. The point of the legislation is to destroy their funding source and drive as many people out of the unions as possible. If it were successful, the unions would no longer have a voice in politics, while the major corporations that are outsourcing their jobs would have a monopoly on access. Given how poorly the GOP has performed in such matters (c.f. Paul Ryan’s disregard for the devastation in his own community until he could try to blame it on Obama), this is not a winner for them.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that they rushed it through the legislature. Meaning that they knew this couldn’t go through and would likely be thrown out, and that they’re trying to get it in before the end of the year. By the middle of next year, whatever hasn’t been immediately tossed by the new state legislature will likely be thrown out in court. Again.

I agree with Joseph West. If O’Reilly had really been trying to get both Obama and Romney on his show and had been declined, he would have tried to make a much bigger deal about it. He certainly made no bones about talking about such things earlier in the campaign.

If anything, this is just another giveaway that O’Reilly was pulling as hard as he could for the GOP to win, even in light of the strong indications that they would not. He had predicted doom for Obama, all the way from the 2010 midterms, and he had predicted doom for the country if Obama somehow did get re-elected. He had presented Obama’s positions in a way that would make them sound irresponsible and ridiculous, while presenting Romney as a sensible businessman. Of course, he also expressed skepticism when people like Dick Morris embarrassed themselves with predictions of Romney landslides, but he was clear that he wanted to see Romney win in any case.

The thing to remember about Fox’s ratings, and O’Reilly’s in particular – is that it isn’t just the devoted fanbase. There is a large number of people who DON’T like Fox News who tune in as well, including people like myself, who want to hear what the other side is saying. Of course, the Fox base viewers don’t also tune into MSNBC, because they’re not interested in hearing that point of view. Hence, MSNBC has a lower rating number.

The best part of the whole thing was Watters thinking he scored a “gotcha” by running up and surprising Fordham students and demanding that they immediately list out her various offensive remarks just off the top of their heads. As if they do nothing but wait for someone like Watters to come running up to ask that question.

There are literally books full of her offensive comments, starting with the titles she chooses – which are clearly intended to be incendiary.

While O’Reilly’s continued nonsense about how he’s defending Christmas is a perennial, I was even more concerned about the complete load of baloney he and Adam Carolla tried to foist later in the evening. They managed to finagle an attack on California and on unions into a single, nearly fact-free segment that was literally breathtaking.

What makes this situation so offensive is that the facts are quite easy to see, if you take no more than five minutes of looking for them.

The reality is that Hostess has been terribly managed for around 20 years. The CEOs made terrible decisions during the 1990s, overexpanding far beyond their ability to sustain themselves, and then compounded them with a ruinous decision to buy back their over-priced stock around 2000. This was followed by a revolving door of changing CEOs during the 2000s, a bankruptcy in 2004, and repeated assurances by the changing management and ownership of the company that this time they would handle things correctly.

In 2004, the Bakers Union agreed to drastic cuts in their compensation and benefits equalling 110 million dollars, given that the company was in its first bankruptcy then and was promising to upgrade their equipment and do the right things to stay alive. Instead, they slashed half their payroll at that time and continued to use the outmoded machinery while throwing lavish salary packages and bonuses at the revolving door of executives and CEOs.

With the current bankruptcy, the current management realized they were going down and decided to try to squeeze a little more blood out of the stone on the way out. The Bakers realized what was happening and made the honorable decision that enough is enough. The response by management was both childish and possibly pre-meditated. If I didn’t know better, they knew they were going to have to close anyway and wanted to find someone else to blame other than themselves.

There is precedent for this kind of chicanery. In 2009, the Stella D’Oro Biscuit Company closed its doors as a petulant response to losing a strike when it tried to inflict deep pay and benefit cuts on its employees. After a judge ordered the company’s owner to pay the back wages, etc, the owner immediately sold the company to another organization that moved everything to another state and left the workers behind. We should keep this in mind when people try to blame the employees for the bad intentions of the people who actually hold the purse strings.

I would be very interested to see Jay Sekulow actually have to go on the air with someone who could point out the convoy-sized holes in the arguments he makes. He’s entertaining in that he always tries to make a case for impeachment, but after a while this really comes across as a one-act play he keeps repeating over and over again.