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Only on Fox News would unemployment insurance be presented as some kind of “cruelty” to the poor that “deters” them from getting hired at low-paying jobs. That’s right, with a straight face, Fox guest John Tamny said that we should scrap federal unemployment benefits in order to make “existing jobs” more attractive and “help” the unemployed by “luring” them back into the workforce. Naturally, host Tucker Carlson was all ears.

It started with a suggestion by Carlson that unemployment insurance benefits are unnecessary and wasteful. He cited a statistic that, during the past recession, the federal government paid “almost $80 million in jobless benefits to households that made more than $1 million a year.” He added, “Is this proof that the system is broken or should top earners be entitled to federal assistance if they lose their jobs?”

His guest, John Tamny took the concept a few steps further. He thought it would be even worse if millionaires were “forced” to pay into a system “that only non-millionaires could collect from.” But he went on to advocate for getting rid of unemployment insurance altogether - couched in the kind of rhetoric George Orwell would surely have loved - by calling one of our most important social safety nets “anti-poor” because it doesn’t encourage them to work for lower wages.

(The system) makes it that much more expensive for (businesses) to lure workers back from the sidelines. It actually raises their labor cost. If you didn’t have the federal government essentially paying people not to work, their labor demands would naturally fall to the level at which the markets would hire them again and they would get back to work more quickly. I think it’s anti-poor to say only you get a program that’s going to make you unemployed for a longer time.

…If you’re being paid money not to work, it’s going to make it that more expensive for businesses to hire you back into the labor force. So if you wanted to rid that, you’d get rid of unemployment benefits and people would then have to accept the existing jobs that are available. Many of them maybe don’t look attractive now. …Unemployment benefits are a deterrent to getting back into the labor force so I think it would be particularly cruel to say if you’re poor, you get paid to stay on the sidelines.

Predictably, Tamny’s solution is to privatize. He wants “401K-style programs" that both employers and employees would pay into "so that if the unthinkable happens, you have a little cushion that you own for during the time that you’re looking for new job.” What nobody mentioned is that this would do exactly what Carlson was supposedly against in the first place - subsidize higher-paid workers' unemployment longer and better.

But if you're new at a job before getting laid off or working at a low-paying job that would only provide a very small “cushion” or if the stock market should tank again – well, I guess the rest of us could count our “lucky” stars as we flip burgers at McDonald’s.

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In case you missed it, Fox and the right-wing have their knickers in a twist over Columbia University’s hiring of former 60s radical Kathy Boudin as a professor of social work. Never mind that Boudin has served more than two decades in jail for her involvement with the notorious Brinks robbery by the Weather Underground. Never mind that she has been rehabilitated and dedicated herself to social issues surrounding women and incarceration. And never mind what her current views, activities or teachings have been. Fox has seized on this issue and used it to paint Columbia as an incubator of radical liberalism and terrorism.

The Columbia Spectator wrote in 2003, when Boudin was asked to establish a women's HIV/AIDS program at New York's St. Luke's Hospital:

As a member of various radical militant groups during the 1960s and 1970s, Boudin advocated extreme measures to combat what she saw as racism, sexism, and American imperialism. And then, in 1981, she participated in the armed robbery of a Brinks security truck--and although she carried no weapon nor directly caused any injuries, she was, in her own words, "morally responsible for all the tragic consequences that resulted." Nobody pretends to justify Boudin's actions--they were repugnant.

However, in the years that followed, Boudin tried to make amends. At Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, where she was incarcerated, Boudin founded AIDS Counseling and Education, a women's group that provided support for HIV-infected women, combated stigmatism and harassment in the prison, and made sure that women had access to needed medication. She organized programs for teenagers with incarcerated mothers, taught classes on parenting, and helped Columbia Law School teach inmates about the rights and responsibilities of incarcerated parents. She published scholarship about her work in--among other places--the Harvard Educational Review.

The Spectator goes on to note, “Although Boudin destroyed lives 22 years ago, she has since made many others better.”

None of that was discussed this morning on “fair and balanced” Fox & Friends as they trotted out the son of someone killed in a completely different incident – the bombing of New York City’s Fraunces Tavern by the FALN, a Puerto Rican separatist group. Sadly, Mr. Connor also lost a godson in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and was there when the planes hit. Connor is certainly an expert on personal tragedy and the impact of extrremism on everyday lives. But on radicals and terror in general? Not so much. His bio in a 2009 editorial in the Los Angeles Times merely reads, “Joseph F. Connor works in finance in New York.” Still, Connor has made a name for himself in right-wing circles. He has testified and written against the confirmation of Eric Holder (as he did in the LA Times), appeared on right-wing radio and blogged for RedState.

But Connor had something better than credentials for Fox News: a willingness to suggest that Columbia is in bed with radical liberalism and Islamic terrorism. Tying Boudin to Bill Ayers at another academic institution, Connor indicated he had no knowledge of either of their curricula when he said:

There’s no doubt about it, there’s a connection between (Boudin’s) left-wing background, her radicalism, and the people at Columbia wanted that kind of celebrity, that kind of person in their school.

...(Boudin and Ayers) moved from an active terrorist role to the academic world to politics and even into the media. …It’s a dangerous involvement of these people to mold people’s minds and whitewash their background, really. And it’s a trend. It’s undeniable.

...Some of the same things that went on in the 70s are happening now with the Islamic terrorists, CAIR and all these other groups are becoming respected parts of our society. But you’re never quite sure where they’re going with this.

Any smart Fox-watcher knows where they’re going with this. It’s nothing more than their latest attempt to undermine universities. Because if Fox really cared about not presenting former criminals as experts, they wouldn’t have the likes of Oliver North and Mark Fuhrman on their payroll as credible news sources.

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The city of Stockton, California officially went bankrupt yesterday. Instead of concern for what that might mean for its residents in terms of services and their quality of life, Fox predictably focused on one thing: public pensions. And, instead of doing any kind of real analysis of the pension issues, or delving into the pushy behavior of the Wall Street creditors, Stuart Varney suggested the whole problem is due to slacker public employees living high on the hog for decades after just a brief stint of work. He looked forward to pensioners taking the hit and expressed hope that the same would happen in other California cities, too.

Varney was nearly ecstatic over the federal bankruptcy judge’s ruling that allowed Stockton to go into Chapter 9 bankruptcy, and receive protection from its creditors. “Yes, I do, I do,” he crowed when asked if he liked it.

This ruling by this judge opens the door for Stockton to cut the payments that it makes to its pension fund. That opens the door for other cities in California to get out of their pension mess in the same kind of way. And it means, just a little way down the road, maybe existing pensioners will take a haircut.

Varney acknowledged to a less enthusiastic Brian Kilmeade that cities have “a moral responsibility to pay up on a contract” but he swiftly moved on to “the other side of the coin” which was to suggest that most pensioners are moochers. “Take for example a firefighter in the City of Stockton," he said. "They can retire at the age of 50 and they get 90% of their best year’s salary for the rest of their lives. You can work for just six months for the City of Stockton – just six months, that’s all it is – and you get lifetime health benefits. That’s all.”

And how many of those pensioners have worked for decades educating and protecting the public based on the promise of a comfortable retirement? While retiring at 50 may seem young to the 60ish Varney, I’d like to see him start hauling firefighter equipment and running into burning buildings before he sneers about retirement ages again.

Meanwhile, neither Varney nor Kilmeade said a word about the Wall Street creditors who are very much players in the Stockton bankruptcy. In fact, you could make an argument that they are gaming the system. From the New York Times:

In the ruling, issued on Monday in Sacramento, which affirmed the legal status of Stockton’s bankruptcy, Judge Christopher M. Klein said he could see battle lines being drawn between Calpers — formally the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — and the city’s other major creditors, including several Wall Street companies that either bought Stockton’s bonds or insured them. But he ruled that it was still too early in the case for that battle to be joined.

...The judge also said that California statute required all Chapter 9 candidates to go through a 60-day mediation period before declaring bankruptcy, and creditors were supposed to help pay the cost. But the capital markets creditors dropped out of mediation, he said, when they learned Stockton was not seeking any concessions from Calpers. That left the city to pay the whole bill.

"The capital markets creditors contend that the city gave them a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, and that that is not negotiation,” Judge Klein said. “I’m sorry. I’m not persuaded. Negotiation is a two-way street. You can’t negotiate with a stone wall. You cannot do it. It cannot be done. It is a contradiction in terms.”

In other words, this is shaping up as a battle between Wall Street and the public employees.

Varney continued, “On one side, you’ve got the moral obligation to pay on a contract that you signed. And on the other, the reality is, you can’t afford this. And for years, Stockton and other cities have been laying off young people so that they can pay the older retirees. What’s the morality here? Which side of the coin are you gonna choose on the moral compass here?”

It’s pretty clear Varney chose the Wall Street side of his “moral compass.”

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Under fire for his anti-gay comments on the Hannity show the other night, Fox’s GOP savior, Dr. Ben Carson, forgot all about how he dislikes divisiveness and playing the victim. Instead of taking the personal responsibility he advocates for others, Carson blamed those who were offended for “misconstruing” his remarks that equated homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia. And then he doubled down on them by saying he can’t think of other “examples of variations on marriage and relationships.” Right before delivering an Easter message for the Fox & Friends viewers this morning.

It was telling that while Carson and host Clayton Morris whined about those “politically correct” meanies taking offense, they never re-played those “innocent” remarks that got Carson in so much hot water to begin with. Specifically, he said:

No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality - doesn't matter what they are - they don't get to change the definition.

Jon Stewart nailed it in a scathing takedown: "It's not, you know, whether you're having sex with another consenting adult, or a horse, or a doughnut, it's all the same."

But Morris neatly mischaracterized the outcry by saying Carson is “under fire for some comments he made about marriage this week.”

By the way, much of the protest has come from medical students at Johns Hopkins University, where Carson is a professor of neurosurgery, who feel that he should withdraw as commencement speaker. But it’s not only for his comments about gays. They also feel that Carson has used his platform as a famous neurosurgeon to promote the rejection of evolution and used his platform at the National Prayer Breakfast as a partisan vehicle. They don’t want that kind of partisanship at their commencement.

Predictably, Morris didn’t go into any of that. He was too busy casting Carson as a media victim. “The media seemed to have jumped down your throat pretty quickly. ...Do you think you’ve gotten a fair shake in the media?” Morris prompted asked.

Carson didn’t quite jump through the hoop the way Morris was leading him. But he was more than willing to play the victim, point the finger at others, and then pretend that they were the ones doing the dividing:

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Michelle Malkin and her Fox News Friends demonstrated a stunning hostility to democracy as they didn't just whine about legally-mandated voter registration opportunities in Obamacare applications but thought there should be a lawsuit to prevent them.

Malkin and her Fox Friends joined in Republican outrage over a provision in Obamacare application that allows an applicant to register to vote. There is nothing in the application that suggests people should register as Democrats or vote Democratically and a similar provision has existed for years on federal Medicare applications. In fact, it’s part of the so-called “Motor Voter Law” which requires public agencies that provide public assistance to offer voter registration opportunities.

But to Malkin and her like-minded Fox friends this is an effort to buy or coerce votes.

STEVE DOOCY: You think, “OK, If I want Obamacare, I’m going to have to register to vote,” right?

MICHELLE MALKIN: The new Hippocratic oath is no longer “First do no harm,” it’s “First get them registered to vote.” …We all knew that it was transparent that Obamacare was just another vehicle to recruit the next generation of Democrats. Now that has been confirmed.

GRETCHEN CARLSON: Is that legal for them to put it in there?

MALKIN: It sounds like a potential lawsuit or certainly a question that should be raised by some public interest law firm.

BRIAN KILMEADE: If Punxsutawney Phil can get sued for not having spring start on time, why not sue them for putting this voting thing in there?

For most people, passing legislation designed to be popular with the electorate and then encouraging them to vote would be considered the American way of governing. Laudable even. Only on Fox News – which embraces GOP voter suppression efforts - would such activity be presented as something evil that must be prevented.

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Ever on the alert for new reasons to play the victim and gin up resentment, Brian Kilmeade seized on NBC's firing of Jay Leno from the Tonight Show as “proof” that life is just so unfair for anyone who criticizes President Obama, especially in Hollywood. But about the only thing he really proved is that Fox is as out-of-touch with young people as ever.

Kilmeade asked his guest, “If you watch the late night monologues, back to back to back, Jay Leno is the one that’s somewhat fair and balanced. He’s number one and he might be paying the price for his job. Is there a relationship to that?”

Given that the guest was “conservative comedian” Evan Sayet, we could pretty much count on a “fair and balanced” discussion from one perspective only. Sayet admitted he didn’t know the inner workings of NBC “but it’s at the very least suspect.” Sayet, who looked to be in his 50s, commended Leno for continuing the Johnny Carson and maybe the Will Rogers traditions of taking on politicians in general.

Nostalgic for Johnny Carson and Will Rogers? Could anything say “your father’s comedy” more?

Pointing a finger at NBC’s connection to MSNBC, Kilmeade suggested, “Maybe they just couldn’t tolerate a guy at the top looking at the news, just trying for jokes, rather than an agenda.”

Yes, yes, it has to be the politics. Sayet – an unknown as far as I can tell – argued that Showtime turned down his “very, very successful” comedy routine because, he claimed, Showtime said it would “hurt our brand and the other entertainers would be angry at us.” Even though, according to Sayet, Showtime said it “would probably be the highest rated show in our history.”

So now Mr. Successful says he avoids comedy clubs and late-night shows, instead appearing at Republican events and “shows like this.” “So I don’t need Hollywood at all any longer,” he added.

Right.

Of course, what they didn’t mention is that Leno is just not cool any more. As Perez Hilton put it:

Personally, we'd love, love, LOVE to see Jimmy (Fallon) take over for Grandpa Leno! He's young, fun, easy on the eyes and the best guy to help steal the attention from Jimmy Kimmel over on ABC.

Our only problem with the switch is it's not happening sooner! HA!

The fact that neither Kilmeade nor Sayet get that or else didn’t want to get that speaks volumes about their old-world thinking.

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A few nights ago, Bill O’Reilly declared victory in the War on Christmas, only to gird himself for the War on Easter. He and Laura Ingraham lamented the coming of “spring egg hunts” and the banishing of the Easter Bunny as “a new era of persecution that we have never seen in this country before toward traditional faiths.” This morning, Fox & Friends joined the crusade as Professor (and right-wing extremist) Carol Swain sent out a call for the Fox faithful to “stand up against political correctness.”

“I can tell you that if we remove the name “Easter,” then we might as well call them ‘pagan egg hunts,’" Swain said. Predictably, she also saw this as “part of a larger effort across the country” to attack Christianity.

The host for this segment was none other than O’Reilly’s stalker/ambush producer Jesse Watters. The guest-host spot was his reward, apparently, for harassing people like President Obama’s uncle and liberal blogger/journalist Amanda Terkel on camera.

Watters asked, “What effect do you think this has on children growing up? Are they gonna grow older and realize this was all nonsense? Or do you think this is going to stick with them and they’re gonna pass this kind of stuff on to their kids?”

Swain replied:

It all depends on what the Christians in America do. The last survey that I saw, 78% of Americans profess to be Christians. If they are Christians, they should not be participating in pagan egg hunts. If Easter is removed from the egg hunts, then it’s a meaningless pagan holiday. And they need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with their children. And they need to begin to speak up. We, the people, need to speak up and fight for our traditions and values. We need to organize, use social media and boycott.

That's right, America. Boycott any and all "spring egg hunts" because it's the Christian thing to do.

The latest Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media report is out and there are very troubling indicators for Fox News in it. While Fox remains “by far” the ratings leader among cable news networks, its prime time viewership remained flat, even though 2012 was an election year. Pew reports:

Fox News Channel, which still has higher ratings than CNN and MSNBC combined, experienced weaker ratings gains than MSNBC. That comparatively small growth was striking given that 2012 was an election year, playing to Fox’s near singular focus on political news. During daytime hours, Fox was up 4%. Across the total 24-hour day, Fox was up just 2%. And in prime time, Fox was basically flat (with a loss just under 1% compared to its 2011 median viewership).

This follows two years of small but real prime-time declines for the top cable news channel and may suggest that the challenge of growing an audience on cable can extend beyond CNN and HLN. Robert Thompson, a television expert at Syracuse University, argues that cable news has reached a saturation point. “Fox figured out how to get a core set of viewers to watch their programs on a nightly basis, as opposed to tuning in to cable when there was breaking news,” Thompson told the Pew Research Center. “But it may be that those numbers are settling in to what will be the general size of the audience. They can’t expect constant growth.”

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Crossposted from News Hounds

At News Hounds, we have theorized privately for quite some time that something deeply disturbing must be going on in Bill O'Reilly's private life to be driving him so far off the rails so often lately. Thanks to a post on Gawker yesterday afternoon, I think we now know. O'Reilly's involved in a very nasty custody battle with his ex-wife and he seems to think he can get God to side with him against her. Seriously.

We've previously reported that O'Reilly and his wife had separated and that he had allegedly tried to wreak revenge on his wife's police-detective boyfriend by having him investigated by the internal affairs unit. It turns out that O'Reilly is now divorced from his ex and she has married that detective. Gawker and the ACLU are suing for the public records showing whether O'Reilly engaged in any activity designed to intimidate his wife's lover that could be inappropriate at best and illegal at worst. In yesterday's post, Gawker's John Cook says that action is still pending.

Meanwhile, Cook has this at Gawker:

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In case you missed it, the right wing has been feasting over a Daily Caller report that President Obama has a food tester. Besides the fact that this is not news – Hot Air reported on President Obama’s food tester in 2009 - it’s not even new for this presidency. Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher points out that St. Ronnie Reagan had one, too. But leave it to born-into-privilege Tucker Carlson to use his site's “scoop” as an excuse to accuse Obama of behaving like a king and then suggest the security measure is a waste of money.

Wonkette snarked Friday afternoon:

Why the nation’s first black president would feel compelled to employ someone meant to protect his food in this wonderful era of complete racial transcendence and political civility is beyond our comprehension, but it does automatically mean that Obama is an evil aristocratic dictator whose tyranny is only matched by his disdain for the common people.

From Wonkette's print to Carlson's lips, but in all seriousness. Friday night, he sneered on the Hannity show: “A food taster? It is good to be king. …and you’re paying for it.”

For anyone who didn’t get it that Carlson was suggesting we’re spending too much money on President Obama’s vainglorious security, he made that more explicit on Fox & Friends Weekend this morning.

In yet another segment in which the “fair and balanced” network whined about cuts to White House tours (and ignored cuts to programs for the poor), co-host Clayton Morris "asked," “How could you turn down kids yelling outside your gate, ‘Please let us in?’”

Carlson replied, “Because you gotta pay your food taster... your dog walker and all the rest.”

OK, it was a throwaway line and, fortunately, nobody has called for an actual reduction in President Obama’s security operation. At least not yet. But Carlson is deliberately planting the meme that a food tester is a wasteful frill less important than a White House tour. And nobody on Fox is objecting. In fact, Morris chuckled heartily at Carlson’s jab and FoxNews.com did its part with an article called, "Longtime Presidential Secret Revealed? GOP Senator Says Obama Has a Food Taster." Given the disgusting NRA ad suggesting the Obama daughters enjoyed special privileges with their security, it shouldn't surprise any of us if this latest nastiness didn't work its way into the mainstream of right-wing rhetoric.