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Fox News host Eric Bolling on Wednesday accused some schools of "pushing the liberal agenda" for teaching an algebra lesson about the distributive property.

During a segment about "indoctrination in schools," Bolling reminded viewers of a 2009 video of children chanting, "Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Barack Hussein Obama," which outraged conservatives at the time.

"But even worse is the way some textbooks are pushing the liberal agenda," the Fox News host explained, pointing to an algebra worksheet that Scholastic says gives students "[i]nsight into the distributive property as it applies to multiplication."

"Distribute the wealth!" Bolling exclaimed, reading the worksheet. "Distribute the wealth with the lovely rich girl with a big ole bag of money, handing some money out."

Co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle explained that the algebra worksheet had put her on "high alert" for the liberal agenda in her 6-year-old son's curriculum.

"Barack Hussein Obama. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm," Guilfoyle added to mock the so-called indoctrination video.

Co-host Dana Perino also expressed concern over an effort to stop children from role playing "cowboys and Indians" at Thanksgiving because experts say that "the historic enemy of Indians was not cowboys, but the U.S. government."

"So it starts in third grade and guess what happens?" Bolling remarked. "Through their whole educational experience, they continually get indoctrinated, even through college."

"Everybody has anecdotal evidence of this," co-host Greg Gutfeld agreed. "I think the only way leftism can survive is through indoctrination because its number one adversary is reality. So you got to get them young and it's perfect for kids. Paul Krugman's logic is child's play: Share your stuff... A lot of this comes from the teachers. They get their news from The Huffington Post and their antiperspirant from a health food store. This is the way they live."

Bolling advised parents to read their children's history books because his son's textbook addressed the Iraq war "and they were very, very liberally biased, saying George Bush went in there because he heard there were weapons of mass destruction and they were never found. It was a very liberal bias to the history books."

"There are science teachers that if they hear that if a student is questioning, like, any kind of climate change thing, they just, like, think you're an idiot," Gutfeld observed.

"You guys just gave two examples of things that are right," left-leaning co-host Bob Beckel quipped.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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The hosts of Fox & Friends on Friday suggested that NBC should postpone a Hurricane Sandy telethon until after the election because making sure that the event did not benefit President Barack Obama was more important than helping storm victims.

NBC announced earlier this week that Christina Aguilera, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and Sting would all be performing a the Friday benefit concert, "Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together." Money collected during the one-hour broadcast will go to the American Red Cross Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

But because most of the announced stars have supported Obama in the past, conservative media have panned the concert as "an ode to Obama’s grand and glorious leadership during Hurricane Sandy."

On Friday, Fox & Friends guest host Eric Bolling floated the idea that NBC had rushed the concert "to make President Obama look presidential."

"It does look like they are trying squeeze things in," co-host Steve Doocy agreed. "Where are the conservative performers? There aren't any on the list I saw.

Doocy recalled that during a telethon for 2005 Hurricane Katrina, singer Kayne West had declared that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

"How is NBC going to control what the people say?" the Fox News host wondered.

Bolling noted that NBC had waited for 10 days to host an event to support victims of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"It let the city get its feet under itself first," Bolling insisted. "This just seems like a rush job because the election is going to be three days after that."

"Is it a hurricane benefit or a concert for Obama?" Doocy added.

"I don't know," Bolling replied.

(h/t: Huffington Post)

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Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod on Sunday warned that the budget plan authored by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), was a "prescription for economic catastrophe."

During an interview on NBC, host David Gregory predicted that Romney and his VP pick would claim that President Barack Obama was trying "scare seniors" by claiming Ryan's budget would end Medicare as it exists today, turning it into a voucher system.

"There's no doubt, David, that we've got to do more [to make Medicare solvent]," Axelrod explained. "But the question is are you going to do it in a way that preserves the program and the basic integrity of the program and the access to care that seniors need, or are you going to turn it into a voucher program with ever-decreasing value of the vouchers relative to health care costs and throw seniors onto the tender mercies of the private insurance market?"

The senior adviser said he agreed with an assertion made by former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, that Ryan's budget was "right-wing social engineering."

"In terms of debt, I heard Congressman Ryan talking about debt -- as you pointed out, this was a guy who rubber stamped every aspect of the Bush economic policy, including not paying for two wars, a Medicare prescription plan, two big tax cuts," Axelrod charged. "And now he wants trillions of dollars of more budget-busting tax cuts skewed to the wealthy."

He added: "We have more to do, not just to deal with unemployment, but to rebuild the middle class in this country. And the way to do it is not to give trillions of dollars in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, raise taxes on the middle class and cut things like college loans, research and technology, infrastructure, energy. This is prescription for economic catastrophe."

Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopolous on Sunday, Axelrod went even farther, claiming that Romney and Ryan "do not believe" in Medicare.

"He’s the guy who’s the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program and ship thousands of dollars of costs onto senior citizens. He’s someone who was the architect of a Social Security privatization scheme that was so out there that even George Bush called it irresponsible, and he believes that we should ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest," Axelrod said.

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As Mitt Romney's campaign was trying to distance itself from his running mate's proposed budget on Sunday, senior adviser Ed Gillespie admitted that the candidate "would have signed" Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial plan.

After the Republican presidential hopeful on Saturday announced that he had selected Ryan as the vice presidential nominee, CNN obtained a campaign memo that sought to distinguish Romney's policies from Ryan's budget proposal.

"Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget, and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance," the memo said.

In a briefing to reporters on Sunday, campaign spokesman Kevin Madden tried to prevent the race from turning into a referendum on Ryan.

"Gov. Romney is at the top of the ticket," Madden insisted. "And Governor Romney's vision for the country is something that Congressman Ryan supports."

But in a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Gillespie was forced to admit that Romney supported Ryan's budget and would have signed it into law.

"Well, as Governor Romney has made clear, if the Romney -- sorry, if the Ryan budget had come to his desk as president, he would have signed it, of course," Gillespie told CNN's Candy Crowley. "And one of the reasons that he chose Congressman Ryan is his willingness to put forward innovative solutions in the budget."

Meanwhile, Democrats like Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod were calling the Ryan budget a "prescription for economic catastrophe" because it would turn Medicare into a voucher system while giving tax breaks to wealthy Americans.

"This was a guy who rubber stamped every aspect of the Bush economic policy, including not paying for two wars, a Medicare prescription plan, two big tax cuts,” Axelrod told ABC's David Gregory on Sunday. “And now he wants trillions of dollars of more budget-busting tax cuts skewed to the wealthy.”

"He’s the guy who’s the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program and ship thousands of dollars of costs onto senior citizens," the senior Obama adviser added on ABC's This Week. "He’s someone who was the architect of a Social Security privatization scheme that was so out there that even George Bush called it irresponsible, and he believes that we should ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Looks like Bill Maher and I are on the same page this week with this GOP talking point that somehow having business experience makes someone a good candidate for president. Maher used the examples of George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Mitt Romney's experience as CEO of Bain Capital to shoot that down during his New Rules segment on Real Time.

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Grover Norquist, no big surprise here wants those Bush tax cuts kept in place and wants to see Social Security turned over to Wall Street. What was surprising was his attempt at some history revisionism. When Eliot Spitzer pointed out how unpopular the idea was when George Bush tried pushing it, Norquist pretended that's not what Bush was wanting to do. I wonder if Norquist had read this yet before he came on Parker and Spitzer's show?

George W. Bush Reveals His Biggest Failure Was Not Privatizing Social Security

Oh well, it's not like anyone ever accused Abramoff buddy Norquist of being honest about anything. Another typical Republican liar trying to make sure the rich keep theirs.

SPITZER: We spoke with Fareed Zakaria about his piece in "Time" magazine, "How to Restore the American Dream." We now have a very different perspective.

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, thank you for being with us. Grover, a central piece of your proposals is to extend the bush tax cuts in perpetuity, which many people, including the Congressional budget office, says would double the federal deficit to about $11 trillion over the next decade.

So, I'm going to ask you the same question we're asking everybody in our new program here called "Name Your Cuts," how do you balance the budget with that enormous tsunami of red ink facing us? What are the specific cuts you would make? What are you doing specifically on Social Security and Medicare? Because the other things you list here, I agree, about Afghanistan, those numbers are not going to be there available in the next year or two. What are you going to do on Medicare and Social Security?

PARKER: Would you raise the retirement age to 70? GROVER NORQUIST, AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM: Well, I'm actually more in favor of moving all of our entitlement programs from defined benefit plan, which is what we have at present, what General Motors had for their pension setup, to defined contribution, basically to 401(k)s. The state of Utah has just done this. And I'm big on taking a look at something that just happened somewhere. Utah, this last year, just passed a new law, next July 1st all new hires in the state of Utah, state employees and local government employees, will have your pay plus 10 percent into a 401(k). They're not creating any more unfunded liabilities in Utah now into the future.

Every state could do that. The federal government could do that both with their employee, we do that with postal employees, which are a large chunk of government employees and we could do it with Social Security. I'm not necessarily in favor of raising taxes or -- on Social Security and cutting benefits. Both of those make your investment in Social Security as a taxpayer worse, a worse deal. That...

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Keith Olbermann and The Nation's Jeremy Scahill respond to the "revisionist historian", "credit where credit's due" right wingers who are demanding that everyone "thank Bush" after Obama's speech on Iraq this week. They've got some thanks for him alright, as in yeah, thanks a lot of your illegal invasion and wrecking our economy while enriching your defense contractor buddies. Thanks.... thanks for nothing.

John McCain, Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Dan Senor and the rest of these war mongers who think we should be praising Bush for invading a country that wasn't a threat to us and squandering our tax dollars should be ashamed of themselves, but that would imply that they have the capacity to feel shame.

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In an Oval Office speech to the nation, President Barack Obama officially declared an end to US combat operations in Iraq Tuesday. The speech's praise for President George W. Bush quickly drew outrage from MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

In 2002 while Obama was an Illinois state senator, he was one of the few elected officials to attend an anti-war rally in Federal Plaza. "An anti-war, anti-Bush speech would make him even more appealing to Democrats who were feeling distraught and powerless over the country’s race to war and were still angry about the 2000 presidential election," wrote NBC Chicago's Edward McClelland.

But eight years later, Obama found himself praising the president that started the war in his Oval Office speech.

I’m mindful that the Iraq war has been a contentious issue at home. Here, too, it’s time to turn the page. This afternoon, I spoke to former President George W. Bush. It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset. Yet no one can doubt President Bush’s support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security. As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis’ future.

The greatness of our democracy is grounded in our ability to move beyond our differences, and to learn from our experience as we confront the many challenges ahead.

"I think we shouldn't get past how remarkable it is how much the proponents of the Iraq war are getting off easy here," Maddow said to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann immediately following the speech.

"And to to have in this speech, as combat operations are ending, to have, as you point out Keith, the president not only not addressing the circumstances in which he we went to war, but these kind words for President Bush, describing his commitment to our security, despite the recklessness with which President Bush discarded that national security in favor of this war of choice, which only diminished our security, and is responsible probably for the Afghanistan war still going on today, for the depths of people who have died in Afghanistan after the time, after which that war would have ended had we not gone to Iraq, not to mention all of the people who died in Iraq," Maddow continued.

"To talk about him having a demonstrated commitment to our security, having started this war on the terms on which he started it, -- I mean, it's beyond restraint from President Obama and anyone in the pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush camp who doesn't feel like they've been given the greatest political present they never deserved was not listening to this speech," she concluded.

But on another network, hosts complained that Obama didn't praise Bush enough.

"Here's the debate," announced Fox News' Gretchen Carlson Wednesday. "Did President Obama thank President Bush for the Surge and for bringing Iraq to its current state?"

"He tipped his hat," replied guest host Eric Bolling. "I don't know if he outright thanked him."

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Rachel Maddow reviewed the various justifications for the invasion of Iraq which sadly were changing month by month under the Bush administration and I agree with her completely here. If Republicans are now screaming that we need to be “giving Bush credit” for what’s happened since we decided to invade a country that wasn’t a threat to us, bring it on and let’s give them all full credit for the consequences of their actions and not just George Bush.

And as Rachel also noted, our military personnel who have been sent over there deserve to have their service honored. The people who decide to put on a uniform and defend this country are not responsible for the decisions made by their leaders. They’re just doing their jobs and that sacrifice is not being shared by the rest of the country. If we had a draft in place that did not exclude the rich, I don’t think we’d be occupying either Iraq or Afghanistan right now since more people would be questioning our military presence in either country if it was their kids being shipped overseas. Sadly our volunteer and over stressed volunteer military allows most of us to ignore what’s going on.

But back to Rachel’s segment on our justification on invading Iraq in the first place. Here’s the list

1. Iraq was behind 9-11 and had ties to terrorists.

2. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction that they were going to use against the United States.

3. Spreading peace and democracy.

4. We had to invade because Saddam Hussein was gaming the U.N. oil for food program.

5. Saddam Hussein was a bad man, which no one could disagree with.

Which, as she noted, the final reason they settled on had absolutely nothing to do with why we said we were supposedly justified in invading Iraq in the first place.

And then we have Republicans saying that President Obama should be thanking George Bush and apologizing for having opposed “the surge” which they falsely claim “won” the invasion of Iraq.

Rachel reminds us of just what “the surge” was. It was supposed to be “political breathing space” for a functioning government to be set up in Iraq, which has yet to happen, despite all of the claims by the likes of John McCain and his friends that “the surge worked!”

Maddow: Republicans are clamoring for credit here as this war finally ends. Well credit where credit is due. Two American things have been accomplished in Iraq. Tens of thousands, more than a million Americans, served their country in a horrible war for seven and a half years under horrible circumstances and under political leadership that was not honest about why they had been sent there. Those Americans are to be honored for what they did and what they gave and they are to be taken care of as veterans now that they’re home.

The other accomplishment in Iraq is that we have finally found a way to leave, to get combat troops out now. Those two accomplishments belong to… this president who was overseeing the withdrawal from Iraq and to the people who served, the people who served honorably these seven and a half long years.

Credit for all the rest of it, for the made up reasons for going in, for going in in the first place, for letting Afghanistan still out of control and in favor of this war, for the constant revision of the justifications for war to obfuscate the petty radicalism that really started it, Republicans you guys can go right ahead and take that credit. Go right ahead. Credit where credit is due.

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Apparently Liz Trotta has dispatched a team of investigators to Martha's Vineyard to check on t-shirt sales and they discovered that Sarah Palin is very popular there, or she's just making stuff up. She also thinks that we shouldn't take any attack ads about George Bush seriously because some of the beltway Villagers that she decides to label as the "far left" said some nice thing about George Bush and his insistence that we don't conflate the religion of Islam with terrorism. It's all an evil plot by the terrible "liberal media" where they're pretending to miss Bush now, only to attack him later when the mid-term elections come around, or something.

What Trotta really doesn't want to discuss here is that Republicans would like to keep George Bush locked away somewhere far from sight until the mid-term elections are over and aren't happy about the timing of the release of his new book.

Trotta: Well, let me give you... in keeping with the spirit of what we've just seen, you know, the president is a... President Obama is vacationing up at Martha's Vineyard and apparently the t-shirt that's selling the most is one that deals with President Bush and it says “Miss me yet?” Apparently the subtitle says, "How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out for ya'? " Well we know where that would come from.

But that's the funny part. The serious part is yes, there are invocations to Bush. the Washington Post editorials, their columnists; namely Eugene Robinson " you can't get any more far left than that. And the New York Times and of course Maureen Dowd are all making the case he took the right stand on the... the right Constitutional stand, the right First Amendment stand when it came to separating terrorists from the Muslim... from the Islamic religion.

And so there's what what looks to be a sort of nostalgia at first glance about Bush. What you are seeing from the liberal media is attempt to use his arguments to further their own cause; and that is, that the mosque should be banned. So, I don't think we should take much of it seriously.

Howard Fineman of course of Newsweek did a sort of half serious piece saying that because of Obama's sinking popularity, because of the economy, because of the upcoming elections, there is this kind of wistfulness for Bush and he does have a book coming out.

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