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The meme had been brewing for a few days among some of the Fox News guests -- particularly Michelle Malkin -- brought on to talk about the Fort Hood shootings, but it was Bill Sammon, during the broadcast of the memorial for the slain soldiers, who apparently made it official at Fox: The Fort Hood shootings were a terrorist attack -- comparable to 9/11 and Oklahoma City -- by a radical Islamist engaged in Muslim "jihad."

Now, it's not only the conventional wisdom at Fox News, it's one of their major attack points -- they're claiming that because President Obama and the rest of the media aren't adopting their presumptuous and hysterical meme, they're being "soft" on terrorism.

The meme gained momentum when Glenn picked up Sammon's ball and ran with it the next day, declaring: "If you don't call [Hasan] a terrorist, it clears a path for ... an extremist terrorist plan." That night, Sean Hannity explored the question at length with Michelle Malkin, as you can see from the video atop this post.

For Malkin and Hannity, "political correctness" -- which they blame for the military's failure to stop Hasan -- is actually code for "the refusal to engage in ethnic and religious profiling". Because such profiling, it's clear, is what they think the military (and the government generally) should do to prevent future such shootings.

The worst offender, though, has been Bill O'Reilly, who -- as you can see below -- not only harangued Sally Quinn for her reluctance to declare Nidal Hasan a "terrorist," but then devoted his leadoff Talking Points Memo segment last night to chastising the president and the rest of the media for their reluctance to embrace the meme.

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This exchange with Quinn was especially revealing:

O'Reilly: But you have a hard time saying the words "Muslim terrorist," and so does Obama. He has a hard time saying it. I don't know why you guys aren't saying it. You know, why, why?

Quinn: Well, I think, first of all, there are different kinds of terrorists. As I said, Timothy McVeigh --

O'Reilly: He's a Muslim terrorist! What do you mean, different kinds of terrorist? He killed people under the banner of jihad! That's who he is! What do you -- look, what do you want, him to come to your house with a strap-on bomb? The guy did it for jihadist reasons! "Allah Akbar!" That's the slogan! He mails Al Qaeda! Miss Quinn, you're a brilliant woman, and I'm not saying that facetiously. You are. A third-grader gets this, and you're resisting it! I wanna know why!

Quinn: Bill, you're making a very good case. I mean, he's Muslim, and he may well end up being a terrorist. We don't know for sure --

O'Reilly: I know for sure! Ninety percent of the people watching me know for sure! I don't know why you don't know for sure! What else do you need?

Quinn: I mean, you can call the guy who blew up -- you know, who shot up the Holocaust Museum a terrorist --

O'Reilly: Did he yell "Allah Akbar?" If he yelled "Allah Akbar," and he e-mailed Al Qaeda in Yemen, I'd call him that, Miss Quinn!

Quinn: OK, he's a Muslim terrorist.

O'Reilly: Thank you.

O'Reilly seems to have a peculiar idea of what constitutes "terrorism." His definition of the word seems to be "any act of violence by devout Muslims", or something along those lines.

That, of course, is quite a distance from the the legal definition of terrorism (from U.S. Code Title 22, Ch.38, Para. 2656f(d)):

(2) the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;

This term, in fact, perfectly describes Holocaust Museum shooter James Von Brunn, who was, beyond any serious doubt, a classic right-wing "lone wolf" terrorist.

It is in fact still not clear, however, whether the description fits Nidal Hasan's motives in shooting 13 people to death. It is true that all kinds of evidence is emerging showing that Hasan was increasingly becoming politically radicalized.

What that evidence doesn't establish, though, is that he engaged in this horrendous act on behalf of those radical beliefs, or whether those beliefs simply formed part of the context in which he acted. There certainly haven't been any organizational ties established. We probably won't have any idea until Hasan himself starts talking, or at least his attorneys begin preparing his defense.

It's important to remember what mass-murder profiler Pat Brown told Fox's Brian Kilmeade:

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Talking Points Memo notes that former SecState Condi Rice and former NSA Stephen Hadley are joining forces to create a" strategic consulting" firm. May I suggest that this is probably an even bigger farce than former FEMA Director Michael Brown's decision to start a consulting firm on disaster preparedness following his stellar performance during Katrina?

I really want to know what clients these two take on, so that I can relentlessly mock their stupidity for hiring the dynamic duo who brought us into the adventures of invading Iraq and Afghanistan without any idea of the resources required or any form of an exit strategy.

UPDATE: In the comments, jenne corrects me:

I think the Cheney "Keep America Safe" Institute is a bigger farce than both Brown and Condi's thingies put together.

OUCH. And touche'

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Bill O'Reilly was helping lead the chorus of whining that erupted on Fox News yesterday in response to Anita Dunn speaking the truth about their right-wing propaganda operation.

He opened with a Talking Points Memo segment attacking Dunn and the White House. He wrapped it up with a series of claims that could only have been uttered by someone who's pathologically delusional:

Finally, Ms. Dunn is seeing the world through the prism of the other media, like NBC News and CNN. By all accounts, those networks favored Barack Obama over John McCain, and NBC actually promoted the president's candidacy and continues to give him excellent coverage.

So by that measure, Fox News is indeed troublesome to the White House. But our hard news coverage is fair and balanced. Again, if somebody doesn't believe that, let's see the evidence because bloviating walks.

Oy. Where to begin. Over the years, there's been a mountain of evidence amassed -- both here at C&L as well as such sites as Media Matters and ThinkProgress -- demonstrating Fox News' extraordinary right-wing bias, and its utter lack of anything approaching fairness or balance. Indeed, Fox's adoption of the phrase "fair and balanced" has transformed it into a popular reference to up-is-down Newspeak.

The fact that O'Reilly blithely dismisses this mountain as the product of a "far left bias" by those groups is itself clear evidence of his own bias: It's clear he a priori dismisses any facts produced by such groups, regardless of their actual validity.

O'Reilly wants evidence of an utter lack of "fairness and balance"? OK, let's try a single sample out of that mountain: Griff Jenkins' reportage from the "Tea Party Express" in which he not only blatantly led the teabaggers in their anti-Obama chants, but where a Fox producer was caught exhorting the crowds to cheer.

Of course, O'Reilly will never accept such evidence simply because it disproves his claim. Yeh, that's the Fox brand of "fair and balanced."

But O'Reilly really severed any tie with reality in the following part of the segment, where he talked over the White House meanies with fellow Foxite Brit Hume. Reaching his apotheosis when the subject of Fox's treatment of George W. Bush came up, O'Reilly claimed:

O'Reilly: And I have to say that when President Bush was in trouble in Iraq, this network and this program, and your program as well, routinely, routinely hammered President Bush. On Iraq.

Hume: Well, we certainly -- we, we were very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq for a very long period of time. The criticisms that were made of him were reported and discussed at length on Fox News. Um, now, he had his defenders, the war had its defenders, there was commentary on Fox --

O'Reilly: But there was no cheerleading -- There was no cheerleading of President Bush on this network when his administration ran into trouble. There was no cheerleading, you know -- it was skeptical coverage, Iraq's going south, when the economy started to wobble last September, we were right on that.

OK, done with that long belly laugh? Good. Because we all remember how Fox not only fawned over every move made by the Bush administration, but how it viciously attacked anyone who dared criticize Bush or Dick Cheney or their incompetent gang of cronies.

Recall how it attacked war critics as the situation worsened in Iraq? (It also transformed proponents of the war into "critics" when it became convenient to do so.) How it openly cheerled for Gen. Petraeus?

Remember how O'Reilly routinely attacked anyone who criticized the Bush torture regime?

Then there was the way O'Reilly consistently dismissed the Abu Ghraib scandal as unimportant.

Remember how it routinely attacked Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, and sturdily defended Scooter Libby?

And those are just a few examples of how Fox didn't merely cheerlead for the Bush administration, but also acted as its propaganda arm by viciously attacking its critics. And there's no shortage of evidence of that reality at all.

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So where do Conserva-Dems retreat when they want to get their Republican "centrist" talking points out there on health care reform? Why Sean Hannity's show of course.

HANNITY: Senator, always good to have you. Thank you for being back with us. Appreciate it.

BAYH: Good to be back with you, Sean.

HANNITY: All right. Let's start a little bit with the House version and the House turmoil that's been unfolding all week here. First, we hear that there's a deal with the Blue Dogs, the more conservative Democrats. They you've got the liberal congressmen rebelling, and you've got turmoil here and you've got a president that really wanted to push this through in two weeks and hadn't read the bill.

As you stand back, what is one to make of this process?

BAYH: Well, to the average American, Washington probably looks a little chaotic, Sean. But the important thing here is that we take our time and get it right. This affects every American. And particularly those 65 percent who currently have insurance. We need to make sure that we try and keep their costs under control going forward.

That's what's bothering most people. And put into place some reforms that make sure they won't lose their insurance. If they lose their job or they've got a health care condition of some kind. So that's number one. Number two, get the deficit down. This has got to be a part of long-term fiscal responsibility. Not making it go up.

And third, we shouldn't hurt the economy in the short run and this has got to be part of a long-term strategy to make America more competitive. So, you know, all these shenanigans and going on, it's regrettably part of the process but matters, Sean, is we have to keep our eye on the ball and at the end of all this deliver a product that's good for America.

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Rudy needs a little more work on his be afraid, be very afraid shtick when it comes to health care reform. He obviously hasn't had quite enough time to recite Frank Luntz's talking points memo since he stumbled and stuttered through the interview. Blitzer actually tries calling him out for some of the talking points, but of course like a good little Villager, relents in the end and doesn't really challenge him.

BLITZER: Let's talk about health care reform, a critical issue right now for the country.

Republican Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina, he made news this week when he said this: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

He's not backing away from that either.

Do you agree with Senator DeMint?

GIULIANI: Well, I think it's a critical measure for a different reason. I don't see the politics of it as much as I do a tremendous impact that I think could have a destructive impact on the American system as we know it. I doubt that...

BLITZER: Because right now, 40 million or 45 million Americans don't have any health insurance.

GIULIANI: They don't, but about half of them could afford it if it was just more affordable. And what you don't want to do is ruin the system for the whatever million, 90 million, 100 million, 118 million.

BLITZER: Because President Obama keeps saying if you like what you have with the private insurance, if you like your doctor, you can keep exactly that. Nothing is going to change.

GIULIANI: Well, then what are all these commissioners that he's appointing that are going to determine health care outcomes? And the fact that you add 30 million, 40 million people to a government program that's already very large means the government will be the major player in health care. It already is pretty close...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: He says that he wants one government option to compete with the private insurance companies.

GIULIANI: But that government option will be so big, it will just overwhelm all private insurance companies. If it's 40 million people, that conceivably could be part of it.

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On The O'Reilly Factor last night, the Falafel Master devoted his Talking Points Memo segment to the notion that President Obama is "a secular guy" -- and as proof held up the recent foofara over the Air Force's decision to deny a military-plane flyover at a "God and Country" festival in Idaho.

O'Reilly: But to diminish spirituality by denying the good folks in Idaho a flyover is simply stupid. There is no specific religion in play at that festival. This is another example of secularists being disrespectful to people of faith.

Later, in a discussion of the case with Warren Ballentine -- who laughs at O'Reilly for even making this argument -- O'Reilly repeats the claim:

Ballentine: What I'm saying is this: This president has purposely taken the position that he is not going to be connected to any religion, because he doesn't --

O'Reilly: What religion is in Idaho at the festival, Warren? What religion is there? Tell me what religion is there.

Well, Bill, according to the festival's organizers, the Christian religion is there:

Organizers don't deny the explicitly Christian nature of the annual patriotic rally.

"Yes, it's about as Christian as you can get — we believe in promoting Christianity," Syme said. "And we have no plans to change that."

It's not open to Jews, nor to Muslims. Not even Mormons were welcome at this festival.

Of course, this has all been reported previously, so these facts were available to O'Reilly and his producers. But they had a narrative to sell, so why let facts get in the way of a good story?

Another fact that goes unmentioned (but which we already explored in depth): The Obama administration is in fact simply enforcing longstanding U.S. military policy that has gone ignored for the past 50 years and more. And it is only doing so because it faces likely lawsuits from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation for failing to uphold those policies.

In other words, the administration isn't pushing secularism here. It's just doing the right thing, and making its military adhere to its own policies.

But don't tell Bill O'Reilly because he isn't interested. And he'll just yell at you if you do.

TPM's Josh Marshall visits The Colbert Report.

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The media and conservatives are going to be falling all over themselves today to claim that Sunday's murder of Dr. George Tiller was an "isolated incident."

Never mind, of course, that the killer -- one Scott Roeder -- was formerly a Freemen who was arrested in the 1990s for possessing bomb parts. Never mind that he was someone who had been filling his head with far-right propaganda for decades.

And never mind that Dr. Tiller was made into a national cause celebre, accused of "executing babies" by none other than Bill O'Reilly and the crew of far-right transmitters at Fox News.

No connection there, folks! Move along, move along.

Three years ago, O'Reilly and his ambush-crew specialist, Jesse Watters, went hard after Tiller, accusing him of wantonly murdering babies because he performs late-term abortions:

Bill summarized in a heartfelt Talking Points Memo on Friday, November 10th: "If we as a society allow an undefined mental health exception in late-term abortions, then babies can be killed for almost any reason... This is the kind of stuff that happened in Mao's China and Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union... If we allow this, America will no longer be a noble nation... If we allow Dr. George Tiller and his acolytes to continue, we can no longer pass judgment on any behavior by anybody."

Including, evidently, murderous extremists. And, as you can see in the video above (from 2006), O'Reilly similarly accused anyone who refused to buy into his accusation of coddling killers:

I don’t care what you think. We have incontrovertible evidence that this man is executing babies about to be born because the woman is depressed…if you don’t believe me, I don’t care…You are OK with Dr. Tiller executing babies about to be born because the mother says she’s depressed.

O'Reilly later attacked Kathleen Sebelius for her refusal to prosecute Tiller. And he kept it up. As recently as this spring he again spent a segment excoriating Tiller as a murderer.

Priscilla at Newshounds ran through the file in March:

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Let's give Bill O'Reilly some credit: He's smart enough to recognize that the GOP's desire to try to tear down Sonia Sotomayor is a classic case of cutting one's nose off to spite what's left of your face.

Here's a political party, after all, that's caught in a death spiral of declining membership and vanishing power. One of the key reasons for that has been the sharp decline in Hispanic participation in the GOP -- a significant loss among the nation's fastest-growing ethnic component.

O'Reilly can see this, and discussed it in last night's Talking Points Memo segment. But he also thinks it's just a PR problem:

So Hispanic voters actually put Barack Obama in the White House, and the GOP needs some of them back, thus Republicans face a quandary.

This morning on ABC, conservative Ann Coulter pretty much defined the problem:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Saying that someone would decide a case differently, better in fact, because she is a Latina rather than a white male, I mean, that statement is by definition racist. I'm not saying she's a racist, but the statement sure is.

DIANE SAWYER, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA" CO-HOST: Were you moved by the Hispanic breakthrough, Ann?

COULTER: Why aren't Democrats — why aren't they choking up over Clarence Thomas or Miguel Estrada? I mean, you know, come on, why are we all supposed to weep only when it's a liberal Hispanic or a liberal black?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Yes, indeed, Coulter does define the problem. So do Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Their own bigotry has been on display so often, and so nakedly, that we already know where they're coming from. Coulter's performance -- including a flat refusal to offer even the smallest note of grace -- spoke for itself.

And how does it look to have the Right's leading bigots shouting "Racist!" at Sotomayor? Besides hilarious?

But O'Reilly didn't see it that way:

Ms. Coulter's point is true. Liberals gleefully attacked Clarence Thomas and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, but the media is now lurking, looking to pound any conservative who goes after Ms. Sotomayor. So the Republicans have a tough situation on their hands.

The judge is vulnerable, especially on affirmative action, and her racial tone on who has a better outlook on the law, minorities or whites. But to the Hispanic-American community, that might not matter much, especially considering the judge's background.

So according to O'Reilly, Hispanics aren't concerned about her alleged racism, because she's such a swell "life story." When actually, they're not concerned about it because she's not racist.

A little later, in discussing it with Dick Morris, O'Reilly described it again:

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Bill O'Reilly has a plan for the Republican Party to get its mojo back: Go after Bruce Springsteen!

Seriously.

O'Reilly last night, in his Talking Points Memo segment, cites a remark Springsteen made at the Pete Seeger tribute concert the other night:

At 90, he [Seeger] remains a stealth dagger through the heart of our country's illusions about itself. ... He sings all the verses, all the time. Especially the ones that we'd like to leave out of our history as a people.

This incensed O'Reilly -- who nonetheless spotted an opportunity therein:

Now, Bruce Springsteen is not a PhD in political science, obviously. But his snide reference to America defines how the far left sees this country. And you know what? Most liberal and conservative Americans disagree with him.

So let me spell this out to that even the Republican leadership can understand it. Get solutions to problems. Explain your Culture War positions clearly and without spite. And most important, stick up for America! Because the Democrats are certainly not doing that. Use that strategy, GOP, and you'll get back in the game.

He repeats the point a little later with Karl Rove:

All right, but the Democratic Party has been very successful in demonizing the Republicans as a bunch of people who, uh, say no to everything, ah, are bigoted, you know, because of their social issues of gay marriage and illegal immigration. And they've been very, very successful in doing that. And I would say now that conservatives are on the defensive. And the Republican Party certainly is.

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Bill O'Reilly's been on a jag the past couple of months claiming that the mainstream media are dying on the vine because of their "far left" bias, which he think is killing them economically. Last night on his Talking Points Memo segment, he continued this thesis by pointing to a couple of cases.

The first is the swine flu story, which he says so confused him and his staff they just didn't report on it. So up front, we get an admission these may not be the sharpest journalistic tools in the shed.

Then he continues:

O'Reilly: Second example: In early March, reports out of Sacramento, California, said a very important story was a homeless camp featuring hundreds of people damaged by the recession, was a very important situation.

[video clip]

O'Reilly: Wow! Can you believe it?

Guess what? Story's bogus!

The Economist magazine, a British publication, writes, quote: "the tent city had actually been around for close to a decade. There may have been a foreclosed homeowner or two among its denizens, but ... almost all of the people there have problems with mental health, drug abuse or both."

Again, it took a British magazine to tell the truth about a false story generated by the U.S. media.

But if you actually read read the Economist piece, you can see clearly that its intent is not to "debunk" the "tent city" story but to argue that it's not important.

It attempts this with a shoddy and shallow piece of reporting; if the writer was only able to find "one or two" foreclosed homeowners among the tent city residents, he wasn't trying very hard. Indeed, he likely wasn't looking at all; MSNBC's Chris Jansing (in the piece O'Reilly clips) was able to interview three of them for her piece. Indeed, a more honest journalistic effort -- such as that from the Los Angeles Times a couple of weeks ago -- makes clear that it's a complex story, but there's no question that the recession is a major driver in the very real expansion of California's homeless population.

As for the camp having existed in some form or another in that locale for some time, that in fact had already been widely reported -- including by, among others, O'Reilly's arch-nemesis, the New York Times -- over a month ago:

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Both in his Talking Points Memo segment and later on in "Policing the Net," Bill O'Reilly is shocked, shocked that those dirty-minded liberals at that competing network actually had a little fun with the "Tea Bag" protests.

In the later segment, O'Reilly brings on Amanda Carpenter, who can't bring herself to openly reference "teabagging," and the Gallant Sir O'Reilly won't let her go there. Of course these scumsucking perverts earn nothing but contempt from him for their dirty-mindedness and low sexual mores.

So sayeth the author of Those Who Trespass:

"Say baby, put down that pipe and get my pipe up."

"I would like you to unhook your bra and let it slide down your arms. You can keep your shirt on."

"Cup your hands under your breasts and hold them for ten seconds."

Funny thing: I always thought it was liberals who lacked a sense of humor.

We can only hope they don't decide to hold any Bareback Parties, or Fudgepacking Parties. Or even worse, Santorum Parties. It will drive us all insane with suppressed laughter.

Meanwhile, I'm sure Amanda and Bill will be appalled, but I had to share this shot from a lonely liberal who showed up too early yesterday (like me) at Seattle's Tea Bag party site:

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Bill O'Reilly decided to take off after his liberal critics yesterday, devoting his Talking Points Memo to the "far left smear machine" -- ostensibly headed up by MoveOn.org and George Soros, underneath whom is David ("a guttersnipe") Brock's Media Matters. On the next tier are the evil liberal blogs, MSNBC, and the liberal media.

Hoo boy. It must be nice, on Planet Wingnuttia, to be able to throw a bunch of people who have no connection to each other up on a chart and say that's proof they're conspiring.

My favorite part of the rant came when (stealing from Patterico without crediting him) he trotted out a poll from August 2006 (conducted by Fox News, natch) suggesting Democrats did not want George W. Bush to succeed then.

Um, guys? In August 2006, George W. Bush had been in office the better part of six years -- by which time he had already made a complete bollox of things, his approval ratings were in sharp decline, and his further success might mean electoral success for a Republican in 2008.

It's now only March of 2009 -- less than two months into Obama's tenure. And Republicans are already openly announcing his desire for him to fail. Opposition is natural and to be expected, but the Right will not even give Barack Obama a chance out of the gate.

In any event, O'Reilly then brought on Bernard Goldberg, who proceeded to list the five top components of the "far left smear machine":

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They are, in order:

5. "The Hollywood Glitzocracy"
4. Bill Moyers
3. Daily Kos
2. The New York Times
1. MSNBC

About Kos, there was this:

Goldberg: They have one of, if not the biggest, left-wing political websites. They are rabidly anti-conservative, yet its founder, Markos Moulitsas, has so much clout that not only does he get on the most mainstream of shows, Meet the Press, to talk politics, but the Democrats who are running for president of the United States went there and made speeches to the Daily Kos convention, that's how afraid they are of offending the Daily Kos.

O'Reilly: And it's about as hateful as you possibly -- you can't get a more hateful website than them.

Um, guys? The 2007 YearlyKos convention to which Goldberg refers was connected to Kos only in name; it was run by an independent organization now called Netroots Nation. It was in fact the national gathering of liberal bloggers, not merely those from Kos, and those candidates came to try to garner support from bloggers, not out of fear of Kos.

As for Kos being a "hateful" site -- one of O'Reilly's oldest and most specious charges -- he evidently wiped right out of his memory cells the recent revelation that there are indeed many sites significantly more hateful than Kos -- and they're right-wing sites.

Indeed, don't be surprised if one of the hard cases from Stormfront winds up reading Bernie's latest list and drawing from it the same kind of inspiration as David Adkisson did.

Download | play    Download | play   (h/t Heather)

The cognitive dissonance involved in being Bill O'Reilly is truly stunning.  Take, for example, the latest edition of his Talking Points Memo, in which he castigates Obama for saying that he would give an $1000 energy rebate check to American families derived from windfall profit taxes of the oil companies.

Oh noes! Obama is talking about taxes, that liberal!  Doesn't he realize that we have a HUGE deficit???  That we can't afford to keep spending money frivolously?  Of course the fact that Billo's been cheerleading and apologizing for this deficit every dime along the way is conveniently swept under the rug.  Because damnit, we're on the edge of a collapse! We can't tax oil companies, silly Obama.

Bill's solution: ask the oil companies to volunteer 2% of their record-breaking profits.  That's fair, and since it's voluntary, we don't have to use the dreaded T-word.  Of course, when Billo sent his minions to approach the oil companies, they were less than receptive.  Quelle surprise!  But it's unacceptable to think that Americans will go cold this winter, and since the oil companies so far are not interested in helping their fellow Americans (a surprisingly *gasp* socialist notion coming from O'Reilly), so what's a presidential candidate to do?  Maybe not giving them tax breaks would be a good first start, right, Bill?

Full and ridiculously circular logic of the transcripts available below the fold

Should the oil companies help out the folks?  That is the subject of this evening’s Talking Points Memo.  Understanding that many Americans are furious with the oil companies, Barack Obama is trying to tie John McCain in with them and putting forth this:

OBAMA:  I believe we should give every working family in America a $1,000 energy rebate and we should pay for it with part of the record profits the oil companies are making right now.

Taxing windfall profits, how exactly would that work?  Would that be constitutional, selecting a single industry for advance taxation?  That’s not going to get done, for a variety of reasons.  Also giving the folks another rebate is a bad idea.  The government must get out of the giveaway business, this country is now running a half-trillion dollar deficit.  All together, we owe about ten trillion dollars.  That’s why the U.S. dollar is a disaster.  If the USA continues to spend more than it takes in, we will have a complete economic collapse. Does Obama or McCain want to be the next Herbert Hoover?   If so, continue to run up those deficits. 

The United States simply must stop its massive spending, must begin to balance the budget and must return to the value of the US Dollar to its once elite status. We’re all in big trouble if that doesn’t happen.  But — and this is an important but – many Americans are getting hammered by energy prices.  Some will have trouble heating their homes next winter.  That is completely unacceptable. 

So here is my proposal: I am asking the five major American oil companies, Chevron, Occidental, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil and Hess, to donate 2% of their profits for the last four quarters to a fund that would help struggling Americans pay their heating bills.  That way, the oil companies could pay back their country.  A nation that has allowed them to prosper more than any other concern in the history of civilization.  A 2% charitable disbursement would alleviate the suffering of tens of millions of Americans and not hurt the oil companies much at all.  Last year, they made a combined $80 billion in profit, a record amount for any industry at any time.

Now we contacted the five big oil corporations and to say the response to my idea was lukewarm is to be kind.  Exxon and Chevron pointed out they pay huge amount of taxes to the government, which is true.  But what about directly helping those in need?  Not much enthusiasm so far.  If just one of the oil companies would establish such a charitable fund, the goodwill that corporation would receive would more than make up for the money spent, as millions of Americans would buy that company’s oil over the others.  So we encourage the oil companies to directly help out their fellow Americans who are struggling.  No one – no one -- in this country should be cold this winter. But it is going to happen.