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Another Saturday, another segment on Faux News where they're attacking the poor and food stamp recipients, which, other than attacking union members, seems to be one of their favorite pastimes during their so-called "business block," From Cavuto on Business, after Cavuto opens the segment dismayed about all of the people "on the dole" still receiving food stamps and guest Dagen McDowell carrying on about how this is proof that "big government" is out of control, we got this bit of nastiness out of regular, Charles Payne:

CAVUTO: The argument, Charles Payne, is that once you get them, it's hard to stop them, so the benefit is there and it's hard to take the benefit of it away and the more people that are getting them, then it's just exponentially grows.

PAYNE: Yeah, well there's absolutely no doubt about that, that there's this idea that, you know, between the food stamps and the welfare and the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit and the local programs, you know, it gets a little comfortable to be in poverty, you know... and I know people are going to.... listen. No. Listen, I've lived it first hand. I've seen where people don't go to work because they get everything paid for them. The incentive is not there.

Yeah, all of those lucky ducky poor people who are just living the high life out there. Charlie Gasparino attempted to assert himself as somewhat of the voice of reason in the segment and a number of the members of the panel admitted that unemployment numbers are still terrible and people are hurting out there, but it really didn't get much better from there. Ben Stein made the ridiculous remark that "the war on hunger" appears to have been won, ignoring the fact that we've got millions of children in this country who don't know where their next meal is coming from -- and ignoring that lack of access to nutritious food and eating cheap junk that is bad for you instead is contributing to the problem with obesity, not that poor people out there have too much money to spend on food.

What we were treated to here is yet another example of Fox and their war on anti-poverty measures:

Not content to shame food stamps recipients and bully them into silence, Fox News is now targeting efforts to raise awareness of poverty and food insecurity.

The latest front in the Fox News war on anti-poverty measures takes aim at chef Mario Batali as he highlights the difficulties of living on food stamps -- problems that are routinely dismissed on Fox while the network pushes for drastic cuts to nutritional aid and other anti-poverty measures.

h/t Media Matters

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So much for all of that rhetoric about small businesses being the engine of our economy and job growth. After the news this week that Wal-Mart has decided to pull back its efforts to open a store in Brooklyn, New York amidst protests and political pressure, the talking heads on Fox's "business block" decided this was a perfect opportunity for another round of union bashing -- which is pretty much their favorite thing to do on Saturday mornings. However, panel member Dagen McDowell may have let one slip when she decided to attack "mom and pa" stores as well.

When it was pointed out by her fellow guest, Adam Lashinsky on Fox' Cavuto on Business this Saturday, that how many small businesses are going to end up being shut down if Wal-Mart is allowed in ought to be part of the debate, McDowell wound up the segment by saying that "mom and pa need to get over it."

And of course even though all of them had plenty of time to complain about how terrible those evil union thugs were for keeping that wonderful "job creator" Wal-Mart out of Brooklyn and for stomping on the hopes of all of those poor people out there just dying to get one of those minimum wage jobs, the true cost of the way Wal-Mart does business with shoving their costs onto the taxpayers never came up.

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Stephen Colbert took on everything from President Obama's promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire, to a poll by The Hill showing that 75 percent of Americans think wealthy should pay 30 percent or less in taxes, to a bill in Florida that would slash minimum wage for tipped workers in his Word segment this Wednesday night.

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If Jon Stewart and his staff need more material for segments like the one he did this week -- slamming Fox for attacking Warren Buffett for saying the rich should pay more in taxes and attacking the poor as a bunch of freeloaders who just want to suck off the government teet and for daring to have things like refrigerators and air conditioning -- you need not look any further than their "business block" that airs on Fox "News" every Saturday morning.

Here's how Cavuto opened up the segment in the clip above:

CAVUTO: Sock it to the rich! But what if I told you there aren't as many rich folks to sock?

Oh my god! We can't have that now can we? Naturally that means we can never raise taxes on anyone that's still in those upper income brackets. Cavuto goes on to quote some statistics from the IRS showing that there were 13% fewer people earning $200,000 and above from 2007-2009 and 55% less making $10 million and above during that same period and tells Ben Stein that that's not a good trend.

Ben Stein was actually the voice of reason here with his response to Cavuto and pointing out that that doesn't mean there still aren't plenty of rich people around and it wouldn't kill them to pay more in taxes. Cavuto responds by asking him if he thinks those making over $200.000 are rich and out there buying jet airplanes. Stein got a pretty good shot in on Cavuto by telling him, no, he was talking about people like him, who have incomes of $10 million a year or more.

Cavuto and his panel end up spending the rest of the segment pretending that the poor don't pay any taxes because many of them don't pay federal income tax and having another pity party for the rich if anyone like Warren Buffett dares to say they should pay higher taxes.

UPDATE: And surprise, surprise, it appears those stats are cherry-picked to suit their new meme over at the Wall Street Journal and now Fox "News." Here's more from Media Matters breaking that down -- "Millionaires Go Missing?" WSJ And Fox Cherry-Pick Stats To Claim Number Of Millionaires Shrinking.

(Post title updated as well.)

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Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino insisted Sunday that the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network had provided adequate coverage of the scandal involving their parent company News Corp.

"It's a story, we've been covering it a lot," Gasparino told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "Thank God I cover Wall Street. I don't have to report on my boss."

"If you look at this from a purely business standpoint, you know, the market -- I think the stock fell to $13 a share. Nineteen was the high. After Rupert Murdoch spoke [to Parliament], it went up to $17 a share. When they heard his explanation, they believed him. Confidence was returning back to the company."

"Actually, the coverage on Fox and The Wall Street Journal of the story has been embarrassing for journalism," The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington pointed out. "Editorials in The Wall Street Journal -- forget Fox, nobody really expects Fox to do this seriously..."

"Fox has covered this very seriously, Arianna," Gasparino objected.

"The Wall Street Journal's editorial is whitewashing what is a very serious scandal that we have not seen the end of," Huffington continued.

"I think we have covered this well. We have straight news reporters that have covered this all day," Gasparino claimed.

In fact, the Pew Research Center found that Fox News' coverage of the Murdoch scandal trailed far behind CNN and MSNBC between July 6 and July 15.

Fox News had devoted less than 30 minutes to the story, while CNN and MSNBC each devoted over 140 minutes.

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Oh what a lovely bunch we've got here. Fox's weekend carry over from their sister network Fox Business, Cashin' In hosted a panel segment on the problem we have with long term unemployment. Apparently the problem is not as Susie rightfully noted that we don't have enough jobs to go around. No... the lazy unemployed bums just don't want to get off of their couches as long as they're still collecting those checks. They ask if making the unemployed pay those benefits back later might solve the problem. Yeah, that'll solve the problem. Let's squeeze some more nonexistent blood from that turnip.

How about a discussion on how to create jobs that doesn't involve the words "tax cuts" from you cretins?

And the apparently soulless Jonathan Hoenig thinks that the government shouldn't offer unemployment benefits at all, which absolutely stunned Charlie Gasparino who couldn't believe Hoenig actually thought that. Yeah, let's just have people starving in the streets immediately after losing their jobs. That's the ticket. Who needs a safety net?

When Julian Epstein attempted to point out as Susie did in her post that due to outsourcing and our rotten economy we've got some real structural problems with having enough jobs available to put Americans back to work, he was immediately shouted over by the other guests on the panel and cut off by the host. Heaven forbid we can't have anyone pointing out the real reasons for our unemployment numbers.

I've got to wonder how long shows like this that feed off of racial animosity are going to start finding diminishing returns with hating on the poor. This might play well when we're close to full employment and you want to get some employed white guy to resent the lazy dirty brown person who's sucking off of the government teet in his view, but when we've got unemployment numbers as high as they are now, everyone knows someone out of work. And it's your family, your friends, your neighbors and not just the scary black person that they want to demonize and dehumanize with their divide and conquer class warfare game. How long can they keep this up before it's not just liberals who watch hate filled segments like this and see through the game they're playing and start getting angry at these pundits?

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I wonder if this is what Ruth Marcus was talking about when she said we need to have an "adult" conversation about Social Security. From Cashin' In, these Fox talking heads think we need to get rid of it and the one "liberal" on the panel, Julian Epstein wants to means test it. Yeah, great idea there Julian. That turns it into a welfare program for the poor, and we know what that will lead to.

h/t Media Matters

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From the little bit I've watched of that channel, I suppose this is what their viewers get treated to day after day on the Fox Business Channel. On Fox News' weekend show with some of the regulars from their sister network, Cashin' In, it was one big union bashing fest during this panel discussion with them opining over the horrors of union members helping people get out to vote for the mid-term elections and blaming them for the loss of jobs in the United States.

Yeah, it's those evil union workers that are to blame for the state of our economy. Never mind the CEO salaries, outsourcing, a race to the bottom with competing with cheap labor over seas and no willingness to fix our rotten trade laws that help encourage that behavior. Those workers who dare to want a living wage without having to work two or three jobs to get by and heaven forbid might want a pension so they can retire without living in poverty are destroying America.

And apparently free speech is great for large corporations, but if the unions want to help people or their members get out there to the polls, they're destroying democracy. And below from CNN's weekend show, Your Money, more of the same flame throwing from their weekend show two of my least favorite regulars on that show, Peter Morici and Stephen Moore.

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In a week that saw Wall Street treat itself to $18.4 billion in bonuses (while receiving billions in taxpayer money), and both President Obama ("outrageous") and Sen Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) ("idiots") lambaste them for it, CNBC's loudmouth commentator, and Wall Street apologist, Charlie Gasparino picks an especially inopportune time to put his foot in his mouth.

Gasparino: The bonus question, we shouldn't be talking about it. It's a stupid, fucking...it's a stupid debate.

Deutsch: Wow, did he?

Gasparino: I'm sorry.