MSNBC finally took Mark Halperin off the air for all the wrong reasons this week after he said President Obama acted like a "dick" because he dared to call out the Republicans for acting like spoiled children during these debt ceiling talks. I wonder what it would take to get this racist relic Pat Buchanan to finally leave their airwaves as well?

The mild mannered Martin Bashir, who actually did a good job of calling out Mitch McConnell the previous day with his revisionist history on who's to blame for our deficit skyrocketing, found himself outgunned by the volatile and aggressive Pat Buchanan during this segment where Buchanan was brought on to discuss the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, and where Buchanan insisted that Republicans should stick to their guns no matter what and force Democrats and President Obama to accept massive budget cuts with absolutely no increases in taxes, even if those taxes are on a privileged few, like private jet owners.

Here's how that interview went down.

BASHIR: Well, let's focus for a moment on those tax hikes. The president said he wants to get rid of tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, corporate jets, only, okay? Republicans say they're not the only ones with so-called sacred cows that are being protected and we know that. Meanwhile it's the everyday American that's suffering while both sides are as it were pointing fingers at each other. So how does this situation resolve itself? Tell me.

BUCHANAN: First you're... Obama is engaged and the president I should say is engaged in class warfare in some little form of demagoguery. Now I know corporate jets are fine to make fun of. I don't ride around on one. I'm a successful individual.

If Pat Buchanan thinks getting rid of tax cuts for jet owners is class warfare, maybe someone should ask him to go read this post at Think Progress where it shows just who is actually winning that war -- Since 2009, 88 Percent Of Income Growth Went To Corporate Profits, Just One Percent Went To Wages.

BASHIR: We're talking about two billion dollars, or actually around between two and three billion dollars.

BUCHANAN: Let me tell you what Martin. I went down, you know when we had the famous luxury tax, I went to a boat factory in Georgia where they had working class guys who built luxury sort of big yachts, big boats for rich people. They used to build eight a year, twelve a year, they were building one. Because the luxury tax meant they moved the building to Mexico.

These taxes have an impact. But let me ask you this. Is it fair? Is it just that fifty one percent of all American wage earners don't pay a nickel, in federal income taxes. And half the nation of free loaders pays not a nickel in federal income tax. And twenty three million of them get checks, earned income tax credits they call them, from the government.

You can't carry half the nation, the one percent, you know, Morton Zuckermann can't carry the nation on his back.

If Pat Buchanan has ever spent one minute actually talking to anyone that has worked in a factory, I'd like to hear from those people he supposedly talked to. It's really disgusting to hear him defending tax cuts for the richest among us while claiming that there are poor lazy slackers out there that don't pay any taxes just because they don't pay federal income tax.

I already addressed this issue when Republican Jim DeMint told that same lie on Hannity's show here -- Jim DeMint Repeats the 'Half of Americans Pay No Federal Income Tax' Big Lie About Taxes.

As I noted there, Joshua Holland wrote a great post on just how much most Americans pay in taxes and how we've basically got a flat tax in America right now when you look at all of the taxes Americans pay. Pat Buchanan would like to pretend that the least among us are lazy, no good, slackers that don't want to do their share to contribute to our tax base.

Shame on him and shame on MSNBC for keeping this racist liar on the air. He's as harmful to our democracy and to what should be a press that tells us the truth instead of lying and demagoguing as anyone on our airwaves and if MSNBC thinks Mark Halperin should be pulled off the air for giving what might be an honest opinion of President Obama and heaven forbid using the word "dick", it would be nice if they took another look at their pundits who regularly do a greater disservice to the American public, and that is lying to them on a daily basis.

Whether it's the likes of Buchanan and his ilk still being allowed to come on the air and lie daily or a great deal of the rest of them either playing the all sides are equal game with pundits who have little use for the truth, but political spin instead, or lies of omission where they ignore stories daily that are of national importance to viewers and fill it up with bullshit like some murder trial no one gives a damn about, MSNBC and CNN and Fox do the public a great disservice on a daily basis by calling the majority of their coverage "news."

Maybe if we somehow manage to break these companies up that are monopolizing our airwaves with garbage about 80 or 90% of the time plus, we'll break that cycle, but I've pretty much lost hope of that happening any time soon. In the mean time, we get treated to the likes of Pat Buchanan being considered anyone the public should take seriously or listen to when this relic of a racist should have been booted off the air a long time ago and their "polite" pundit Bashir giving him a chance to repeat a whole lot of conservative talking points that go unchallenged. Shameful, just shameful.

When Pat Buchanan is allowed to pretend like Mort Zuckermann of all people is carrying the weight of our tax burden on his back and he's not immediately called out for that nonsense, you're not watching news. You're watching right wing propaganda. Heaven forbid the rich S.O.B. should be asked to be paying a few more dollars in taxes instead of taking it out of the hides of seniors, or in Pat's mind, those lazy, listless tax avoiding poor who haven't quite given enough yet so Mort Zuckermann can get his tax break to make it to The McLaughlin Group to pretend like he's a liberal on one of their panels where Eleanore Clift gets gets beaten up on four to one by Buchanan and his friends.