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Apparently Bill-O doesn't believe that something can be both a tragedy and and act of terrorism, because he decided to spend his opening segment on this Monday's The Factor, attacking President Obama for calling the Boston Marathon bombings a tragedy and not using the word terrorism during his brief press conference this afternoon.

Note to Bill-O -- the President may not have used the word "terrorism" during his presser, but it was clearly implied and what he said was we should wait and find out more information before we jump to conclusions about what happened.

Which is exactly what O'Reilly and his guest Rep. Peter King did here. And pardon me if I'm not in the mood to hear from hypocrite Peter King given his record on terrorism. He doesn't seem to mind it so much if he supports the cause in question.

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It looks like Bill O'Reilly still isn't finished spreading the same lies he was telling when he had his meltdown on air with Alan Colmes last week, because he decided to devote his Talking Points Memo and the opening segment of his show this Monday to defending and repeating those same lies -- and as Media Matters noted, despite getting his facts wrong again, O'Reilly claimed his "righteous anger" elevated the conversation about the debt.

The only thing we see Bill-O "elevating" in this segment is his ego. We've already been through the litany of B.S. O'Reilly was shoveling in the previous post here, so I'm not going to rehash that, but my fellow contributor here at C&L, Ellen at NewsHounds took the time to break down the segment above and I'll share just a bit of that here: O’Reilly Justifes His Meltdown With Alan Colmes: I’m Looking Out For You:

You don’t need to be a psychologist or a body expert to figure out that Bill O’Reilly’s justifications tonight for his bullying attack on Alan Colmes last week are a lot of hooey. In fact, there was so much hooey, I’m not sure I can catch it all in one post. But for starters, there was the hooey that O’Reilly likened Colmes’ “lie” about federal spending cuts to the danger posed by Al Qaeda (which included the hooey that Colmes had his facts wrong in the first place), plus the hooey that O’Reilly attacked Colmes out of a public-spirited desire to draw attention to this big danger, plus O’Reilly’s "admission" that he shouldn’t have called Colmes a liar – even though he immediately afterward described Colmes as lying. And my favorite hooey: O’Reilly said he’s not in his job for money or fame, but to look out for us.

Sure he is. How could anyone ever get the idea that O'Reilly was just all about the money or fame? Go read the rest for more of Bill-O's hackery and the back and forth during the panel segment, and as she noted, Mary Katharine Ham and Juan Williams did nothing but suck up to O'Reilly and reassure his poor bruised ego that he's really just a nice guy, no matter how badly he treated Colmes the previous week. I don't know about anyone else, but watching those two during this segment reminded me of a couple of battered wives telling their abusive husband that they still love him.

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After Bill O'Reilly's outburst at his fellow Fox contributor Alan Colmes this week, Lawrence O'Donnell took his viewers on a little trip down memory lane with Bill-O and his anger management problems.

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For the second night in a row, old Bill-O couldn't manage to keep his temper in check with a Fox Democrat who dared counter his lies on whether President Obama put forth any specific proposals to reduce the deficit. This time it was Kirsten Powers' turn in the box, who actually bothered to bring material printed straight from the White House's web site to read to O'Reilly, but as she told him during the segment, he just responded by moving the goal posts on what would satisfy him.

Bill O’Reilly to Kirsten Powers: ‘You Can’t Give Me One Specific on Obama’s Proposed Spending Cuts’:

The Daily Beast columnist said it’s “completely untrue” that Obama hasn’t proposed any cuts, citing Medicare as an example. In the president’s fiscal year 2013 budget, Powers said there’s $400 billion in cuts to federal health care spending.

O’Reilly began grilling Powers on how those health care cuts will manifest themselves and asked her to name one specific drug company the administration wants to negotiate prices with.

“Hold on,” Powers interjected. “This is what you do, you change the discussion. […] I’m giving you specifics. What you said last night was the president did not propose anything. The president proposed this to the Republicans.”

After charging that the other is in fact “100 percent wrong,” O’Reilly reasoned, “We’ll let the folks decide.”

Laughing, Powers retorted, “You are wrong about this and now you’re playing a game […] because we can’t name a drug company, I mean come on.”

“Listen Powers, you say you’re going to negotiate with drug companies to bring down spending on drugs and you don’t have one company mentioned,” O’Reilly argued. “[…] This is where you and I will never agree.”

“Because I use facts?” chastised Powers.

h/t Media Matters

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I'm not sure how much of this is just political theater. Has Bill O'Reilly decided it's good television to act like a raving maniac in the hope of increasing his viewership over at Fox? Or is Bill-O just not unable to keep his temper in check because he's mad that he might have to fork out some more money in taxes? O'Reilly lost it with Alan Colmes, one of his regulars, last night. It was bad enough that even the generally mild-mannered Colmes, who put up with years of abuse as Hannity's sidekick on the same network, expressed his disgust at O'Reilly's over-the-top attack.

My fellow contributor here at C&L, Ellen has more here: O’Reilly Loses It Big Time With Alan Colmes:

Bill O’Reilly had a major meltdown tonight with Alan Colmes. It has to be seen to be believed but let’s just say that O’Reilly was screaming at Colmes that he’s a liar and Colmes respectfully but firmly shot back, “Don’t you call me a liar.” Later, O’Reilly seethed, “It’s jack what you’re saying. There’s another word for it but it’s an obscenity.” In a subsequent segment, John Stossel told O’Reilly he had been out of line and “obnoxious.”

O’Reilly started out with a vicious chip on his shoulder in his Talking Points commentary immediately preceding the discussion. Then he said:

It’s almost like Mr. Obama is sabotaging the country so he can reshape it. There comes a point where every nation in history gets what it deserves. Rome, Japan, Germany and Russia all were destroyed by venal leaders exploiting an apathetic population. I pray that doesn’t happen to us but we the people need to wise up fast.

Colmes came on and, as usual, did an excellent job holding up his end. And O’Reilly apologized to Colmes at the end. But not before he came off looking one big bloviating, bullying blowhard. It was a worse outburst than O’Reilly’s famous “Just shut up!” temper tantrum made famous in Outfoxed. And he kept simmering with rage afterward. Read on...

And as she noted, Media Matters took on Bill-O on as well: Confronted With Facts, O'Reilly Screams "Bullshit":

Continue reading »

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CNN media critic Howard Kurtz on Sunday said that Fox News host Bill O'Reilly had "missed the mark" by offering an absurd defense after asserting that NBC News had not covered a story about drone attacks that the network was actually first to report.

On Wednesday night's O'Reilly Factor, the Fox News host opined that liberals had not complained about recent revelations of the Obama administration's justifications of drone attacks on American citizens the way that people on the left were outraged about the use of waterboarding against detainees during President George W. Bush's presidency.

"Remember the outcry over waterboarding?" O'Reilly asked Fox News contributor Bob Beckel. "You know, everybody jumping up and down? NBC News, I thought they were going to, like, melt down over there."

"You heard anything on NBC about the drones?" he continued. "So you haven’t heard anything over there about this, and neither have I. Neither has my staff. Okay? So we haven’t heard anything. But we heard a lot about waterboarding, but nothing about drone strikes. How do you process that?"

Kurtz pointed out that O'Reilly's comments were "kind of curious," given that the story had been discussed on NBC News and the MSNBC cable network repeatedly after NBC News chief investigative reporter Michael Isikoff exclusively released the memos that President Barack Obama's administration used to justify the drone strikes.

"So O'Reilly obviously misspoke and I thought he would just come back the next night and correct the record," Kurtz assumed.

But, instead, O'Reilly shocked viewers by blaming the "far-left machine" for painting him a "deceiver."

"True!" he exclaimed. "I didn't say NBC broke the [drone] memo story because we weren't talking about that. Waterboarding vs. drone strikes!"

"Bill, the only reason there is a drone debate right now is because NBC News revealed that memo," Kurtz said.

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I'm not sure what Bill O'Reilly's smoking this week, but during his Talking Points Memo on Tuesday's show, he seemed very enamored with wingnut Ted Nugent and his second appearance on CNN this Monday and his "straight talk" with anchor Piers Morgan.

So much for Fox trying to help the GOP with not being the "stupid party."

Note to Bill-O -- embracing the likes of Nugent isn't going to help the Republicans with their "messaging."

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After complaining about the fact that the economic recovery in the United States hasn't been as robust as most people would like to see and of course blaming President Obama for the number of people who are still out of work, The O'Reilly Factor's guest host, Laura Ingraham, brought in Fox regular Gary B. Smith and Demos' David Callahan to discuss the topic. To no one's surprise, when Callahan suggested that the wealth being generated by our economy is going to the 1 percent and that stronger labor unions and a higher minimum wage might help to fix that problem, he was immediately pooh-poohed by Ingraham.

INGRAHAM: Stronger labor unions? How do we compete with China, Vietnam, South Korea, India, when we are going to have stronger labor unions that insure that we have more work place regulations, more ways that business has to pay more money to make ends meet? The two things don't add up.

Ingraham went on to complain that it's unfair to blame our obstructionist Congress for any of the problems with our economy. She then allowed Smith to make the claim that unionization doesn't work and that is why we have record low levels of unionization in the United States.

Sorry Gary, but record low numbers of union members is not because unions "don't work" or because people don't want to join unions. It's due to union busting and having the laws stacked against them. Unions have worked just fine for what they're supposed to do, which is collectively bargain for better working conditions and wages for their membership -- and we can thank unions for things like ending child labor, the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, and a long list of other protections for workers too long to list here.

I have a question for Laura Ingraham. If she would like a race to the bottom in the name of staying competitive, maybe she can volunteer to work for that same wage, instead of being paid millions to bloviate on the radio and Fox “News”. If below-minimum wage keeps us competitive with Asia, I say let's start with her salary. What do you think Laura? You ready to work for a few dollars an hour or less?

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Ingraham has a net worth of $45 million and is paid $15 million a year. There's nothing like listening to a millionaire telling the rest of us how horrible it is for business that someone is actually paid a living wage.

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What a shock. Sour grapes Bill O'Reilly didn't like President Obama's inaugural speech today. And what set Bill-O off that irritated him so badly about it? President Obama was advocating for... gasp... social justice! The horror! The only thing that was missing here was him calling us Greece. That and saying the words that didn't cross his lips, which is Social Security and Medicare. Apparently those are "welfare" now.

I wonder how many of the retirees who watch his show and actually take it seriously realize he's talking about them?

Bill O’Reilly: ‘President Obama’s Attempts to Redistribute Prosperity Will Bankrupt America’:

Tonight in his Talking Points Memo, Bill O’Reilly critiqued President Obama’s inaugural address. Instead of focusing on the country’s fiscal problems, O’Reilly assessed, the president argued that America’s top priority must be social justice.

President Obama stated in his speech, “We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.”

O’Reilly said, “Talking Points disagrees with President Obama’s priority, all though social justice is a noble goal. It is simply impossible to do what the president wants to do. Ensuring prosperity and fairness for every American can’t be done no matter how much money you spend.”

The Factor host said it would be more productive to build a strong society based on robust free market and effective social programs that provide opportunity rather than charity. “The danger is that Mr. Obama’s persistent attempts to do that, to redistribute prosperity, will bankrupt the nation,” he said.

Bill-O seems like he's still pretty crabby now that his taxes are going to be going up. I'm still waiting for him to make good on his promise and move out of the country.

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On his first night back from vacation over the holidays, Stephen Colbert came to the defense of his hero, "Papa Bear" O'Reilly, better known as Bill-O around here, for his remarks about Asian-Americans on The Factor last week.

Somebody had to stick up for him after that mean old Ed Schultz was picking on him.