It's back-to-school time! Parents are starting to shop for their children's school supplies: notebooks, pencils, crayons, and of course, Bill O'Reilly's book, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids." Talk about one of these things being NOT like the others!

O'Reilly thinks he can teach our children proper behavior, and we can't think of a worse father figure than an angry, hate-filled shock jock notorious for telling guests to "Shut up!" We wondered what would happen if kids read O'Reilly's book and then saw the real O'Reilly for themselves. So we put together a video to illustrate O'Reilly's duplicity.

O'Reilly's bullying antics show he never learned the lessons the rest of us were taught in school. Send this video to all the teachers, parents, parents-to-be, and anyone who has contact with kids, and don't forget to Digg it! Tell us what your teachers taught you that O'Reilly should have learned about how to be a responsible grown-up, or what your kids' teachers have taught them. We'll put all your suggestions together and send the list to O'Reilly at FOX News.

It's bad enough O'Reilly spews hate-filled lies on his shows to grown-up audiences, do we really want our children to be exposed to the same behavior? Do we really want this angry adult influencing our kids? While we only subjected the kids in our video to a few minutes of O'Reilly in order to prevent permanent damage, imagine the harm his children's book could do!

The tragic killing of two people and the wounding of eight others at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville allegedly because of the church's "liberal views" brought up a discussion of hate crime laws on Fox News this week that I analyze in this video.

The four clips in my video come from the July 28, 2008, broadcasts of the Fox News programs "The Live Desk" (showing anchor Jane Skinner and criminal defense attorney Drew Findling) and "Studio B With Shepard Smith" (showing criminal defense attorneys Julia Morrow and Arthur Aidala). These programs are not available online.

I also include in my video screen shots of Tennessee Code § 40-35-114 that you can find in full online at michie.lexisnexis.com

On Sunday, 58-year-old Jim Adkisson entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children’s performance of the musical “Annie Jr.” In a guitar case, he carried a shotgun and 76 rounds. Adkisson killed two church members, Greg McKendry (60) and Linda Kraeger (61), and wounded six more before he was wrestled to the ground as he tried to reload. What was Adkisson’s motive? From RawStory:

A report from the local Knoxville news details the findings from Adkisson's home, along with key statements from a document written by Adkisson related to an apparent motive behind the violent attack that rocked the suburban community:

"Adkisson targeted the church, [Investigator Steve] Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, 'because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.'

"Adkisson told Still that 'he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office.'"

If any of that sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve been hearing the exact same claims coming from the right wing's most prominent stars and spokespeople for years. It’s all there: liberals are ruining the country, Democrats are letting the terrorists win, liberals hate America, the liberal media is bamboozling the nation.

Carol Smallwood, a longtime acquaintance of Adkisson’s, said he hates “'blacks, gays and anyone different from him,” which is also consistent with right-wing ideology. In a four-page note Adkisson left in his car, he explicitly noted his hate for the “liberal movement” — the Unitarian Universalist church is well known for its liberal stances on homosexuality, civil rights, opposition to war, women’s rights, and multiculturalism. While another major cause of Adkisson’s rage was his inability to find work and having his foodstamps reduced, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV noted "[Adkisson] did express frustration that the liberal movement was getting jobs."

And how do we know that Adkisson was a consumer of popular right-wing thinking? Anticipating that he would be shot by police, Adkisson left the door to his house open to make it easier for authorities to enter. He didn’t want his motive and the ideology it sprang from to be a secret. From the Knoxville News Sentinel:

Inside [Adkisson’s] house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

Jim David Adkisson walked into a Unitarian church intent on killing liberals "who are ruining the country." Where did he get such ideas? Well, Bill O'Reilly was on his reading list.

Check out Jonathan Kim's post for in-depth coverage of this story.

It’s official, straight from the mouth of Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan — FOX is Republican propaganda.

From Chris Matthews’ interview with McClellan last Friday, 7/25/08 (full transcript):

MATTHEWS:  Did you see FOX television as a tool when you were in the White House, as a useful avenue for getting your message out?

MCCLELLAN:  Well, I make a distinction between the journalists and between the commentators.  Certainly, there were commentators and others, pundits, at FOX News that were helpful to the White House. Certainly, we got talking points [to] those people.

MATTHEWS:  Did people say, call Sean [Hannity], call Bill [O'Reilly], call whoever?  Did you do that as a regular thing?

MCCLELLAN:  Certainly.  Certainly.  It wasn‘t necessarily something I was doing, but it was something that we at the White House, yes, were doing and getting them talking points and making sure they knew where we were coming from. –snip-

MATTHEWS:  You were using these commentators as your spokespeople?

MCCLELLAN:  Well, certainly.  I mean, certainly.

Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who frequents this site, though it is nice to have official confirmation. McClellan went on to try to draw a distinction between FOX’s “commentators” and their “journalists,” but FOX has purposefully blurred the line between the two. That’s how “journalist” Brit Hume suddenly becomes a noxious hard right “commentator” when he’s a guest on other FOX shows and how “commentators” like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity can claim to be “journalists” doing “investigations” when they want to give their propaganda an air of legitimacy. And if you think FOX maintains some sort of principled policy delineating the two, well, you probably also believe they’re “Fair & Balanced.”

FOX Business likes to trot out the opinion du jour at the faux business network. It's a FOX favorite tactic to omit key information about a guest that they feel might jeopardize or weaken that guest's credibility.

On July 25th, on "America's Nightly Scoreboard" host David Asman did a lengthy interview with Texas Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling on the topic of the millions of dollars of campaign donations made over the last ten years by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Poor Rep. Hensarling!

Halfway through the interview he made a slip of the tongue that gave it away, telling Asman that the Freddie and Fannie lobbyists hadn't been to his office "in a while"!

Oops!

A little research on the Congressman reveals that since 1989 he's accepted $1.8 million in campaign donations, largely from banking PACs.

Once again Fox News' alleged business news spins right-wing politics. This time the red meat conservative topic is sanctuary cities harboring illegal immigrants.

This happened a little while ago, but Sean Hannity’s hypocrisy is so astounding that I couldn’t let it go.

As you saw in our latest video, FOX ATTACKS! Michelle Obama (nearly 500,000 views and #1 most viewed News & Politics video this month!), the folks on FOX are simply shocked, SHOCKED! that Michelle Obama would dare say she thought America is a “downright mean” country where more and more people are struggling to get by. FOX had endless hours of “analysis” on this subject, claiming it proved the Obamas were elitists, radicals, socialists, America haters, etc. “What country is she living in?” asked disgraced Abramoff asshat Ralph Reed, as if no one in their right mind (even a black person!) could even entertain such a notion. In fact, I believe it’s FOX's official policy that Michelle Obama’s name may never be uttered without saying “not proud of her country” and “downright mean.” Of course, notorious racist Hannity led the indignation fiesta, claiming a statement like Michelle’s is a wound that would doom the Obama campaign (but don’t tell the Germans).

So, in the name of Fairness and Balance, you’d expect Hannity to have a fraction of the same indignation towards Phil Gramm, John McCain’s top economic advisor (and stinking rich UBS bank chairman), when he proclaimed that America is a “nation of whiners” and that the suffering of millions of Americans under the Bush economy is simply a “mental” problem. You’d expect that — but that means you are unfamiliar with the depths of hypocritical asshattery that is Sean Hannity. From C&L:

HANNITY: I’ve met people that grew up in tyranny. I knew people that grew up in the former Soviet Union for fear of speaking out against their government. Never had an opportunity to pursue their dreams…In this country, maybe we do, is there some truth to the fact, maybe we do whine too much. Maybe we don’t to appreciate this gift we have of freedom. Maybe we don’t take advantage of, maybe too many of us look to the government to solve every problem we have, Health care etc…

So let me get this straight — if your government ruins the nation’s economy, you should shut the hell up because you have the freedom to criticize your government? Even Newt Gingrich couldn’t believe Hannity could be so tone deaf and idiotic. I could believe it.

So which would you rather have: a president whose wife thinks the country is downright mean, or a president whose chief economic advisor thinks the problems ravaging the US (and the world) economy are imaginary and people suffering its effects should stop whining?

After FOX thwarted Nas' attempt to deliver our 620,000-signature petition in Manhattan yesterday, Nas outfoxed FOX.  Nas took the petition over to The Colbert Report, where he and Colbert lit into FOX for its racist slander against the Obamas as they literally sat on our boxes of petition signatures. 

So many highlights: Nas calling Colbert a gangster host; Colbert dropping rhymes like atom bombs; Colbert declaring Tucker Carlson less qualified than Lil Jon to host the news; Nas ending the show with his anti-FOX anthem, "Sly Fox."  But what really stood out for me was the sight of Nas and Colbert using our petition as a table for their discussion.  What a clear, powerful message that sends about how many people are standing up to FOX's overt racism.   

When Republican presidential candidate John McCain got in a fight with the New York Times editorial page this week, Fox News was right there to stick to the McCain campaign talking points even when confronted with contradicting facts. To show you what I mean, I put together the several clips in this video.