FOX

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Tuesday cherry-picked an "O'Reilly Factor" segment to drum up a feud between Fox News's top prime time host and the former Alaska governor.

Five sentences about Sarah Palin pulled from a six and a half minute segment ridiculing President Obama for not scheduling Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates as guests on last weekend's "Fox News Sunday" led "The Last Word" host to conclude that O'Reilly is now assuming a role in Republican politics "bullying the nuts off the stage to make room for viable candidates" (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were featured guests on all the broadcast network Sunday morning shows with the exception of the one on Fox.

Host Chris Wallace was clearly unhappy about this, and let his viewers know (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported in February, vulgarian comedienne Kathy Griffin was cast to do a guest stint on the hit series "Glee" portraying a Palinesque Tea Partier.

The advanced billing turned out better than the reality, for on Tuesday's show, Griffin mocked Palin and Christine O'Donnell while depicting Tea Party members as homophobic birthers (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Two weeks ago, George Soros went on CNN claiming that Rupert Murdoch and Fox News are like Nazis dangerously trying to deceive the American people.

On Sunday, an organization that Soros funds attacked Fox News by cherry-picking 53 seconds from an almost 12 minute segment to make it look like host Chris Wallace and the network he works for support the disgusting views of the Westboro Baptist Church (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

So much for any scintillating future chit-chat between Rachel Maddow and Don Imus.

Imus cut loose with a withering broadside today against Maddow for what he perceived as her disloyal initial response to news of colleague and mentor Keith Olbermann's abrupt departure from MSNBC --

Having nothing to do with her politics, she is a gutless coward and I'll tell you why. Because everybody knew what the situation was with Olbermann at MSNBC. We used to work there. Tom Bowman, who's our producer, Elisha who's one of our producers, they both worked with me at MSNBC. They left there to come with me, by the way, don't look for any of Olbermann's producers to go any place with him. However, so we all know people, we still know everybody who's at MSNBC. So, everybody knew what was going on with Keith. Everybody knew what was going to happen to him. For this woman, who owed her job to him, she's live there with Bill Maher, a lot of people watch that terribly influential program, not to offer a defense of Olbermann, in spite of what you think about Olbermann, is unconscionable.

[Video after page break]

 

The November 9 episode of Glee titled “Never Been Kissed” was quite the show stopper – unless you’re the media. The unexpected homosexual kiss between male high school students was nothing short of jaw-dropping, and yet the liberal media were “ho hum” on the controversy.

Glee’s stereotypical jock character Karofsky, who has been bullying the openly gay character Kurt all season, in a moment of passion, planted a kiss on Kurt in last night’s episode.  Kurt, played by actor Chris Colfer has been heralded as nothing short of a superhero for his sensitive portrayal of the difficult high school experience of gay high school students.

On Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith got into the Halloween spirit by dressing up as Sue Sylvester, the cheerleading coach from the show 'Glee,' and on NBC's Today, correspondent Tamron Hall showed up as President Obama. For Smith, it was the second consecutive Halloween he chose a female persona, going as celebrity chef Julia Child in 2009.

[Video below]

Jay Leno on Friday made an oral sex joke about Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell.

His "Tonight Show" guest was "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, who last week himself made a sexual comment about O'Donnell on HBO's "Real Time" as NewsBusters previously reported.

Leno brought this up with MacFarlane who joked, "I think the second she opened her mouth, it would probably ruin everything."

The "Tonight Show" host responded, "Or make it really good" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Conservative radio host Mark Levin thinks Delaware Republican senatorial nominee Christine O'Donnell is "smart to bypass" the Sunday talk shows she was scheduled to appear on this week.

As the Associated Press reported Saturday, O'Donnell canceled her appearances on CBS's "Face the Nation" and FNC's "Fox News Sunday":

Campaign spokeswoman Diana Banister cited scheduling conflicts and said O'Donnell needed to return to Delaware for commitments to church events and afternoon picnic with Republicans in a key county where she has solid backing. 

Sunday morning, Levin told his Facebook followers this was a good decision:

Children today are often so voracious and versed in the latest communications technology that they make their parents feel like Miles Standish and Betsy Ross. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 now own cell phones, reports the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  And get this: 87 percent of those who send text messages told researchers that they sleep with or next to their phones. Half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day, and one in three send more than 100, or more than 3,000 texts a month. By contrast, only 30 percent of teenagers talk on those caveman “land line” phones.

But all this cell-phone (not to mention Internet) usage carries new risks – even new crimes.

Last year, the hot trend was sexting – teenagers sending each other lascivious messages (and often nude or semi-nude photographs). If a teenaged boy received a nude photo of a friend and e-mailed it to buddies or posted it on a Facebook or MySpace page, there was the very real possibility of being prosecuted for distributing child pornography.

Now there’s a new and related crime in the court houses. It’s called “sextortion.”

Sarah Palin said on Sunday that when it comes to securing America's borders, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer "has the cojones that our president does not have to look out for all Americans."

Speaking to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," Palin addressed this week's decision by a federal judge to block much of the anti-illegal immigration law passed by Arizona earlier this year.

"Well, this is a temporary suspension of some of the key elements in the law that Jan Brewer pushed hard for Arizonans and for the rest of the country to have the result of us being more secure," said Palin. 

That's when she really took aim at the White House (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Appearing as a guest on Monday’s The Ed Show on MSNBC, former DNC chairman Howard Dean renewed his discredited claim that FNC had played clips of former USDA official Shirley Sherrod before her forced resignation, and suggested that Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace had deceived him in denying that there was FNC coverage before her firing. Dean: "I happen to like Chris Wallace, but he was really not being exactly accurate when he talked about ‘we didn`t say one word about this before the Secretary of Agriculture fired her.’ The fact of the matter is they were pushing this story very, very hard all day. It may be true that they didn`t mention her name, but they sure did run the tape without mentioning her name."

Earlier in the show, host Ed Schultz had played the clip of Wallace correcting Dean’s assertions about FNC from the previous day’s Fox News Sunday. Wallace: "I know facts are inconvenient things, but let`s try to deal with the facts. The fact is that the Obama administration fired or forced Shirley Sherrod to quit before her name had ever been mentioned on Fox News Channel."

After Dean’s claims about FNC showing the Sherrod video, Schultz followed up by asking if Fox News is "racist in what they do," leading Dean to answer in the affirmative and to accuse Fox News of "inflaming racial hatred":

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean on Sunday accused the Fox News Channel of being racist.

With the opening subject of "Fox News Sunday" being last week's controversial termination of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, Dean said, "I think Fox News did something that was absolutely racist. They took a, they had an obligation to find out what was really within the clip."

Dean continued, "They have been pushing a theme of black racism with this phony Black Panther crap and this, this business, and Sotomayor and all this other stuff...The Tea Party called out their racist fringe, and I think the Republican Party's got to stop appealing to its racist fringe."

That apparently was all host Chris Wallace could stand, for he struck back and struck back hard beginning with, "I know facts are inconvenient things, but let's try to deal with the facts" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

On July 12, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City warmly offered the TV networks exactly what they wanted: the shredding of the FCC's lamely enforced rules against broadcast indecency. As of now, the network stars can swear at will in front of impressionable children. These judges did not rule narrowly on the focus of the case – “fleeting expletives” that networks aired unintentionally. They ruled broadly in favor of all expletives.

There’s no other way to say this. The ruling is idiocy.

Judge Rosemary Pooler, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, concluded the FCC's prohibitions against F-bombs and S-words are somehow “unconstitutionally vague.” She claimed they weren't suggesting it was impossible for the FCC to construct a constitutional decency regime. But the decision made it clear these judges don't think the FCC should even bother. 

“The observation that people will always find a way to subvert censorship laws may expose a certain futility in the FCC's crusade against indecent speech,” Pooler wrote. Note the wording. “Censorship laws.” “Crusade.” It is precisely the language of Hollywood lobbyists.

A senior official of the NAACP appears to have further undermined the credibility of his organization when, in a Fox News debate with Project 21's Deneen Borelli Friday, he directly contradicted something he said on Fox News Tuesday.

The Media Research Center created a short video comparing the two clips that is available here.

The debates centered on the controversial, though still secret, NAACP resolution adopted this week at the NAACP annual convention, which alleges racism within Tea Party events.  A number of Tea Party officials and attendees have hotly disputed the charge, including a series of black Tea Party speakers, organizers and attendees whose statements have been published at BigGovernment.com.

In a debate about the resolution July 13 on the Fox News Channel, Dallas Tea Party organizer Phil Dennis asked NAACP Senior Vice President for Advocacy Hilary Shelton if Shelton had been to a Tea Party event.

Shelton replied, "I have watched you on TV.  I’m afraid to go… I have not."

Earlier today, also live on Fox News, Deneen Borelli asked Shelton, "Have you been to a tea party?"

Shelton replied to Borelli, referring to a Tea Party rally held in March, "I was.  As a matter of fact… I was on Capitol Hill at that tea party rally…"

It seems impossible that Shelton could have been telling the truth both times, raising the question: If a senior official of the NAACP is confortable telling a fib on national television, whatever else might the organization be fibbing about?

"Down Syndrome Girl," the unfunny and offensive Family Guy song poking fun at a female character with special needs, has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

The Feb. 14 Family Guy episode, which the song appeared in, sparked outrage after its premiere - most notably from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin who has a son with Down syndrome.

At one point in the episode, the character with Down syndrome said that her mom was "the former governor of Alaska," a clear reference to Palin and her son, Trig.

Palin quickly criticized the show for the distasteful jab at her son. "[W]hy make it tougher on the special needs community? When is enough enough? When are we going to be willing to say some things just aren't really funny?" she said on Feb. 16.

Bill O'Reilly recently hosted a “culture warriors” segment at Fox News where both “warriors” agreed that homosexuality is morally acceptable. That same no-debate mentality has been a regular drumbeat on the Fox television series “Glee,” a musical drama/comedy about a high school glee club in Lima, Ohio.

This show is wildly popular because of the music. Songs performed on the show sell feverishly on i-Tunes within hours. It’s not a hit because it's a political or social debate forum. But just as it dazzles viewers with musical performances, it’s hammered hard against traditional values at every turn. How does “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy make it tilt into utter intolerance? It isn’t through smash-mouth indoctrination. The treatments are subtle, but unmistakable.

There’s the mockery of famous social conservatives. In April, the show's villain and most popular character, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, proclaimed "You may be two of the stupidest teens I've ever encountered. And that's saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to a young Sarah Palin." Interestingly, this Fox Entertainment show has even mocked Fox News. At one point, a pregnant cheerleader is thrown out of her house by her heartless Christian father when he learns of her condition, but only after he's excited by the news that it’s time for Glenn Beck on TV.

Editor's Note: The following was originally posted at Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood.

[WARNING: Major series finale spoilers]

Before the series finale of “24” began, Kiefer Sutherland (a.k.a Jack Bauer) appeared on the Fox network and thanked the show’s audience for their support of the long-running program. After eight seasons (eight days in the show’s life), “24” was cancelled earlier this year, although the show will likely be made into a movie. However, after so many great seasons and an emotionally satisfying conclusion, it should be the audience thanking both Kiefer Sutherland and his alter ego.

As the series finale began, the president of the United States, Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones), was preparing to have a historic peace agreement signed. However, the idealistic Taylor had been forced to make numerous ethical compromises in order to get the agreement signed and then discovers that Russia’s leader had planned the assassination of a Middle Eastern leader who was set to sign the agreement. Even knowing that, Taylor continued to obsessively pursue the treaty, which would likely become a major part of her presidential legacy.

NPR's Juan Williams on Sunday spoke an astonishingly inconvenient truth about the Gulf Coast oil crisis: "[President Obama] just hasn't conveyed that he really cares about this issue, and that he's not off to the side watching."

This was in stark contrast to Time's Joe Klein who said this weekend, "This is more Bush's second Katrina than Obama's first," and New York Times columnist Frank Rich who on Sunday blamed the oil spill on George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and Rand Paul.

No, Williams, participating in bonus online coverage of "Fox News Sunday," made it crystal clear that unlike many of his colleagues in the Obama-loving media, he's not carrying the administration's water on this critical issue facing the nation (video follows with partial transcript and commentary, relevant section at 5:50):  

Fox News Channel's Craig Rivera, on Sunday's Geraldo At Large, in a shipboard interview from the Gulf of Mexico, actually asked a conservationist if the oil spill there was a real world equivalent of the fictional disaster seen in the recent James Cameron blockbuster as he pressed: "Do you see what's happening in the oil industry and offshore drilling comparable or some kind of parallel to, like, the movie Avatar?"

After Steiner theorized: "It certainly could be," Rivera then made the following hard transition to an interview with Avatar star Sigourney Weaver: "Although the fight Sigourney Weaver and director James Cameron are waging to protect the rights of the indigenous people of the Amazon from a huge hydroelectric plant is a world away from the situation in the gulf oil spill, the principle is the same - protecting the planet from those interested in only quick profits." Rivera then aired a clip of Weaver boasting that Avatar showed the world "how concerned people are about our planet." [video below the fold]

The following is an excerpt from the Craig Rivera piece as it was aired on the May 9 edition of Geraldo At Large:

On Fox Chicago News Friday evening, reporter Tera Williams did a piece on Chicago's gun buyback program scheduled for today.  The city gives prepaid credit cards for weapons turned in.  This year it's paying $100 for each assault weapon, $75 for guns and $10 for BB guns, air guns and replica guns.
Williams questioned several residents on the effectiveness of the program.  One man told her (at about 1:47 of the video), "It's a good way to start."  Williams replied: "Something's better than nothing, right?" while nodding her head affirmatively.

During Fox News Sunday's "Roundtable" segment, regular panel member Brit Hume chided the news media for spreading misinformation about the new law in Arizona aimed at enforcing federal immigration laws, as he charged that "It's turned out that a lot of the news stories simply flat had it wrong, and a lot of the critics of the bill itself have also got it wrong."

After recounting that the law requires "that there be a legitimate law enforcement incident, a stop, a detention, or arrest," and "reasonable suspicion," he concluded that "all the hysteria about it is grossly overdone, in my judgment."

Shhh!

Don't tell anybody but Congress is scheduled to vote today on H.R. 2499, a bill that could end up paving the way to Puerto Rican statehood, that is being presented with such incredible stealth that it has been given almost no coverage in the mainstream media. In fact, about the only person in the media shining a light on this bill until recently has been Glenn Beck. Liberals can be expected to write off Beck's criticisms of H.R. 2499 as just another example of "right-wing kookery." Frances Martel of Mediaite has already mocked Beck for his opposition to this bill.

However, liberals will have a hard time writing off similar criticisms of the stealth Puerto Rico status bill being made by liberal Democrat Luis Gutierrez of Illinois who is of Puerto Rican descent. While reading Guiterrez slamming H.R. 249 in his Huffington Post blog, you sometimes have to slap yourself  as a reminder that these criticisms are not coming from a conservative Republican...or Glenn Beck:

H.R. 2499, the Puerto Rico statehood bill was brought to the House this week after a surprise announcement last Thursday. Debate on this bill has been severely limited by the way Democratic Leaders are managing the process. Democratic Puerto Rican Members of Congress are being shut out of the process and will be severely limited in their ability to debate the bill and offer amendments. Under the current Democratic Leadership, there will be less opportunity for Members and for the people of Puerto Rico to gain a better understanding of the bill. 

Fox's musical/drama show Glee aired a Madonna-themed episode about female empowerment Tuesday night -- complete with an Ann Coulter joke.

The female guidance counselor was fretting about the poor role models for girls today -- she mentioned Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Ann Coulter. There was no verbal explanation for Ann's inclusion -- just a wide-eyed pause.

The show also contained the usual feminist complaint about unequal pay for equal work. Quinn, the pregnant teen on the show, proclaimed "The fact is that women still earn 70 cents for every dollar for doing the same job. It starts in high school."

Originally published yesterday at Big Hollywood. For a related blog post, click here.

Must be nice being a leftie and NEVER having to worry about some childish television creator taking a gratuitous shot — from completely out of nowhere — at what you believe in. Not so for we righties. When all we want after a hard day of gay bashing, cross burning and kitten punting is to get lost in mindless entertainment, we always have to worry about stuff like this (see video embed at right).

This is why I stopped watching television over a decade ago. Tired of being insulted. Tired of being disappointed. And you can practically feel the people behind the childish political shot laughing at your Charlie Brown as they once again pull the football away.

“Glee” spent all of last season building up buzz and an audience, and as soon as they get one: POW!

Screw you, righties. We don’t like you and we think you’re stupid for liking Palin.

But it’s more than that. This stuff matters.