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"Let these families take their White House tour next week and I'll cover the added expenses," he explained. "Word is it will cost around $74,000. If I can get the White House doors open, I'll pick up the tab... You know this is an offer you can't refuse. Give me a call."

"I think we just realized that The Five isn't your primary source of income," co-host Greg Gutfeld quipped.

Later in the hour, Fox News host Sean Hannity joined in Bolling's offer, tweeting, "[G]reat idea! Count me in, I will pay for a week also!"

But in all the fuss over whether or not lawmakers can give out White House tours as gifts, MSNBC host Martin Bashir pointed out that everyone was missing a very serious point that "it’s the public who are being injured by the sequester."

For the money that Bolling and Hannity have agreed to spend so that lawmakers can give constituents access to a short walk through the White House, the Fox News hosts could also provide one year of nutritional and preschool programs to 15 of the 75 children that could be cut from the Head Start program because of sequestration.

Or according to the Nation, they could fund over 90,000 meals to hungry families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps program, which is also expected to face cuts.

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart takes his viewers through our self-inflicted wound called the sequester which he believes he's finally found the perfect metaphor for -- auto-erotic asphyxiation:

STEWART: Because Congress did rig it up and if they had pulled off the compromise, I guess it would have felt amazing to them, but as usual, they did it wrong and yet somehow, we're the ones blacking out while they're all still jerking off.

Stewart wasn't much kinder to the media for obsessing over President Obama's Star Wars/Star Trek gaffe and completely ignoring that House Speaker John Boehner called taxation "theft."

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Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney asserted in a recent interview that President Barack Obama was like the Roman emperor, Nero, who was "fiddling" while Rome burned.

"It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done," Romney told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "The president is the leader of the nation. The president brings people together, does the deals, does the trades, knocks the heads together. The president leads, and I don't see that kind of leadership happening. He's campaigning."

The former Republican presidential nominee faulted Obama for "blaming the Republicans" because they had refused to the avert automatic spending cut in the so-called "sequester."

"That causes the Republicans to retrench and to put up a wall and to fight back," he insisted. "It's a very natural human emotion... I have to tell you, the hardest thing about losing is watching this critical moment, this golden moment just slip away."

Romney added that the White House may have opposed a Republican plan to give Obama more flexibility in how the $85 billion in spending cuts are implemented because "there may be more interest in showing pain in saying, 'See what the other guys did?'"

"Look, this is the country," Romney opined. "This is America we're talking about at a critical time and, you know, Nero is fiddling."

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After previously giving dire warnings about the sequester in a recent op-ed he penned for The Wall Street Journal, House Speaker John Boehner did an about face and told Meet the Press' David Gregory that he wasn't sure if it was going to hurt the economy or not and he told Gregory “I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved." If he really wants to get the country out of this self-inflicted mess, there's a pretty simple way, which is to pass the bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers this week, entitled the Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013.

While they're at it, they could pass the Progressive Caucus' budget rather than insisting on more austerity measures. Instead we're being treated to this Kabuki theatre: Boehner: 'I don't think anyone quite understands' how sequester gets resolved:

In an exclusive interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner said there is no easy way to stop the budget cuts -- known as the “sequester” – that began taking effect Friday night, and voiced uncertainty over how Washington can solve the overall fiscal problems that have consumed the nation’s politics for more than two years.

In an exclusive interview on Meet the Press, House Speaker John Boehner weighs in the economic impact of the sequester and whether or not it will hurt the country's economy.

“I don't think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved,” Boehner admitted in his interview with NBC’s David Gregory. [...]

But Boehner said, “I don't know whether it's going to hurt the economy or not. I don't think anyone quite understands how the sequester is really going to work.”

The speaker said the House would pass a spending plan this week to fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, and that in his conversation with Obama at the White House Friday, the president had agreed “that we should not have any talk of a government shutdown. So I'm hopeful that the House and Senate will be able to work through this.”

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Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of abusing members of the media like "battered" women and prostitutes -- that he had a one-night stand with and then left them because "he got what he wanted."

Ingraham told the hosts of Fox & Friends that "you can see the whole Obama machine begin to crumble" if members of the press began to doubt the president's assertion that Republicans should get most of the blame for refusing to avert automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester.

Fox News host Alisyn Camerota noted that Obama had recently asked the media to leave a meeting with members of the National Governors Association.

"It's like the battered press syndrome," Ingraham opined. "These people are so in love -- many of them, not all of them -- so in love that, like, 'Oh, he's telling me to leave? I guess that means he loves me.' I mean, at some point -- the battered press syndrome -- you have to shake them from this and say, 'You guys have been used and played and manipulated.'"

"Should we tell them he's just not that into you?" Camerota asked.

"Well, he used them," Ingraham explained. "It's like the one-night stand that lasted for four years. He got re-elected, he got what he wanted. 'So, sweetheart, I'll leave your payment on the table and I'm gone.' I'm sorry, but it's embarrassing."

(h/t: Media Matters)

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A depressed Florida man shot his wife and two children before killing himself after closing his hot air balloon business and facing losing his job as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector because of automatic budget cuts known as "sequestration."

A source told CBS News that 45-year-old Carlos Zuniga was depressed in the weeks before he shot his wife 43-year-old wife, Michelle, his 14-year-old daughter, Lauren, and his 11-year-old son, Stefan. Carlos Zuniga then killed himself.

Stefan Zuniga died at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center on Thursday morning. Both the wife and the daughter were in critical condition.

According to The Miami Herald, Carlos Zuniga was in the process of shutting down Winds Aloft Aviation Inc., a hot air balloon business that he had started with this wife in 2005. He had recently taken a job as a safety inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration. But the FAA is expected to be forced to furlough a "vast majority" of it's employees because of automatic budget cuts in the so-called "sequester" if Congress does not act quickly.

"FAA is going to face a cut of roughly $600 million under sequester," Office of Management and Budget controller Danny Werfel told a Senate committee last week. "A vast majority of their 47,000 employees will be furloughed for one day per pay period for the rest of the year, and, as importantly, this is going to reduce air traffic levels across the country, causing delays and disruptions for all travelers."

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has also notified senators that allowing the automatic cuts "would force the FAA to undergo an immediate retrenchment of core functions."

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama warned that there would be stark consequences if Congress allowed the automatic cuts to take place.

"These cuts are not smart," Obama said on Tuesday. "They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again."

Former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour on Tuesday told Fox Business that "I hope and believe that Republicans will allow the sequestration to go into effect, so that we can start down a path of trying to get control of spending and reduce the deficit."

Thom Hartmann talked about the sequester with Jamie Weinstein, who's an editor at the Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson's rag. He pointed out that Republicans are now trying to lay all of the blame on President Obama's feet, even though House Speaker previously said that he got "98 percent of what I wanted" with the deal. Thom says the real reason that Republicans want to see sequestration go through is that it's going to tank the economy and they want to blame President Obama.

It's more of the same. Republicans are more than happy to inflict economic damage onto the American economy if they think they'll benefit from it politically. I'm pretty sure Weinstein and his ilk will do their best to make sure that happens and that there is no accountability if Republicans don't reach some deal next week, when Congress comes back from vacation.

Hartmann also took on Weinstein over whether it's fair to be asking those who make their living from capital gains and investments to pay the same tax rates as those of us who work for a living instead of just shuffling money around, like the Mitt Romneys of the world. He pointed out that even the Republican St. Ronnie agreed back in the day and had Republican crowds cheering for the rich to pay their fair share of taxes.

Weinstein responded with some weasel words about the average tax rate of most millionaires, which is a distraction from the point Hartmann was making about the difference in how income from work compared to income from investments is taxed, and whether we've got too many Mitt Romneys out there who are paying lower tax rates than those who work for them.

All in all, I'd say Weinstein brought a knife to a gun fight, because he didn't do a very good job of rebutting most of Hartmann's points.

I don't know how all of this is going to end up, but right now, I'm about as cynical as Hartmann when it comes to what kind of damage Republicans will inflict on this country if they think they won't pay a political cost for their actions. As long as we've got a compliant media treating their actions as normal or as something the public should consider acceptable, they don't have any reason to change their behavior.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday suggested that President Barack Obama's health care programs for the middle class should be slashed to stop scheduled sequester cuts from "destroying the military."

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace point out that the White House has said that if the sequester cuts are not stopped then 70,000 children will lose Head Start, food inspections would be cut and $900 billion in small business loan guarantees would be lost.

"You know the president will say that your party is forcing this to protect tax cuts for the wealthy," Wallace told Graham.

"The commander-in-chief came up with the idea of sequestration -- destroying the military and putting a lot of good programs at risk," Graham insisted. "Here's my idea, let's take Obamacare and put it on the table. You can make $86,000 in income and still get a subsidy under Obamacare. Obamacare is destroying health care in this country."

"If you want to look at ways to find $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade, let's look at Obamacare. Let's don't destroy the military and just cut blindly across board," he added. "The president promised it wouldn't happen, he's the commander-in-chief and on his watch, we're going to begin to unravel the finest military in the history of the world at a time we need it most."

"The Iranians are watching us, we're allowing people to be destroyed and slaughtered in Syria. So, I just really -- I'm very disappointed in our commander-in-chief."

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The video above is not safe for work.

At least three AIDS activists were arrested on Tuesday after they and other naked demonstrators briefly took over House Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) to protest budget cuts to health care services.

Activists from ACT UP, New York ACT UP, Philadelphia ACT UP, Housing Works and the Student Global AIDS Campaign stripped down in the lobby of the Speakers office and began chanting to send Congress a message ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.

"Budget cuts are really rude, that's why we have to be so nude!" the protesters shouted. "Boehner, Boehner, don't be a dick! Budget cuts will make us sick!"

After several warnings from Capital Police the protesters agreed to get dressed and leave the building. But after media left, activists said at least three of the women who had been nude were arrested on charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure. No male protesters were reportedly arrested.

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White House senior adviser David Plouffe on Sunday chastised Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan for backing away from his earlier support of defense cuts, saying the Wisconsin congressman "was running away from them with the kind of pace he ran in that fictitional marathon."

Although Ryan voted for a deal that would have triggered significant cuts to defense, he has recently criticized the sequestration plan.

During an interview on Sunday, CBS host Chief White House Correspondent Norah O'Donnell asked Ryan why he was "criticizing the president for those same defense cuts you’re voting for and called a victory."

"I have to correct on you this, Norah. I voted for a mechanism that says the sequester will occur if we don’t cut $1.2 trillion in government," Ryan explained.

"Right, a trillion dollars in defense spending, and you voted for it!" O'Donnell pointed out.

"No, Norah," Ryan replied. "I voted for the Budget Control Act."

"That included defense spending!" O'Donnell pressed.

"Norah, you’re mistaken," Ryan insisted.

After hearing that he had refused to even admit he had supported defense cuts, Plouffe drew a comparison to Ryan's recent false claim that he had run a marathon in less than three hours.

"Interesting to hear Congressman Ryan," Plouffe told O'Donnell. "You asked him questions. He voted for the sequester. He voted for the Budget Control Act. He was running away from them with the pace that he ran in the fictitional marathon that you asked him about."

"Getting our fiscal house in order, dealing with the sequester is very simple. We need compromise," he added. "President Obama is the one person in Washington who is very committed to compromise."