Bill O'Reilly: "The numbers are frightening!"

Fox News continues to get their "news" from right-wing propaganda blogs. Bill O'Reilly (whose estimated net worth is $75 million) is paid about $17 million a year to tell the American people misinformation.

Media Research Center is a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) organization that runs ads on their website and states that their "sole mission is to expose and neutralize the propaganda arm of the Left: the national news media" and is the "leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias" -- as though, there was no right-wing bias. Media Research Center is the parent of CNSNews.com who states that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story and debunk popular, albeit incorrect, myths about cultural and policy issues."

On October 24, 2013 the right-wing blog CNSNews.com ran a story by Terence P. Jeffrey saying:

"Americans who were recipients of means-tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year-round full-time workers, according to data released this month by the Census Bureau."

They go on to say that there were 108,592,000 people who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs. But they don't tell you that millions of those workers and those receiving government benefits are also ONE AND THE SAME!

According to Census data, the bulk of this number were 82.5 million who were on Medicaid and 49 million who rely on food stamps. But these numbers also include children, but CNSNews.com doesn't differentiate the children who are included in the numbers or the working-aged adults in the labor force who are also drawing these benefits. (But yet CNSNews.com says they "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story.")

A study shows that just for fast-food employees alone, 52% rely on food stamps and only 13% of those employees receive health benefits through their employers. Now add to that retailers like Walmart who also pay their employees sub-standard wages and it's no wonder so many Americans must rely on some form of government assistance just for basic necessities. Government "entitlements" (such as food stamps and Medicaid) are really wage subsidies, and cost taxpayers $7 billion a year.

Last night (on Monday, October 28, 2013) I heard Bill O'Reilly say on Fox News, "More people are collecting welfare than are actually working." Then he says, "We'll have on Karl Rove to discuss the situation...the numbers are frightening."

Does this multi-millionaire, who lives in a mansion on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean, really look frightened? Or is he paid $17 million a year to fear-monger, and to frighten his audience into voting against their own best interests...like lowering Bill O'Reilly's tax rates? Yes, I can understand if you were one of those numbers, it WOULD be frightening!

After the commercial break, we return to Fox News and see Karl Rove with his white board where he's saying:

"28% of Americans are dependent on government. We had a 70% increase in food stamps since 2009, half the increase was because of poverty, but the other half was because of loosening rules for eligibility."

That's because, in 2009, because of the Great Recession and the mass layoffs, Congress loosened the eligibility rules for food stamps for able-bodied adults without children to receive food stamps beyond the 3 month maximum that was previously allowed; and Congress had also extended unemployment benefits (in some states) to 99 weeks because of mass unemployment in a horrific job market (those extended benefits end at the end of the year and cuts in food stamps are already taking effect within a few days.)

50% of all other wage earners in the U.S. takes home a measly $27,000 a year or LESS. Why should Bill O'Reilly care if they all need Medicaid and food stamps, unless he felt bad for them and just wanted to contribute more. Should people like Bill O'Reilly pay less in taxes just so that these other people will eat less?

On the Fox News website, an article titled: CENSUS: Welfare Recipients Outnumber Full-Time Workers, and sub-titled: "Census Bureau: Means-Tested Gov't Benefit Recipients Outnumber Full-Time Year-Round Workers", where their article says:

"There were 108,592,000 people in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2011 who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs [and] there were 101,716,000 people who worked full-time year round in 2011."

But Fox News doesn't tell you that millions of those workers and those receiving government benefits are also ONE AND THE SAME!

Democratic Senators urged committee members to reject House Republicans' stricter eligibility standards for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in a Monday letter:

"While we support efforts to improve the integrity of the SNAP program, we encourage conferees to reject all SNAP eligibility changes designed to erect new barriers to participation, preventing millions of seniors, children and families from accessing food assistance," the senators wrote. "The eligibility changes also will mean an additional 280,000 children would lose free school meals because children in SNAP households are automatically eligible for school meals."

Regardless of what happens with the farm bill, all 47 million Americans receiving food stamps will already see their benefits shrink roughly 7 percent in November, thanks to the expiration of an increase from the 2009 stimulus bill. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the forthcoming food stamp cut will already reduce benefits for nearly a million veterans (the ones that Fox News, Bill O'Reilly and the Republicans always professes they care so much about.)

Why doesn't Bill O'Reilly (and those right-wing hacks) report on that, or why don't they report this?

"Over half the country now thinks that it's a bad thing that the Republican Party controls the House; three quarters of Americans believe that Republican members of Congress don't deserve re-election. By a nearly four-to-one margin, Americans believe GOP lawmakers in Congress aren’t concerned with the nation’s best interests."

Yes, it's frightening when we can't all the facts from the media -- from the Left or from the Right. From the Democratic leaning Daily Kos:

"Good reporting does not mean just laying out the facts. The purpose of the press is to ensure transparent government. It is a check on government. Reporting carries responsibilities as well. Where two factions within a government are at war, it is the responsibility of journalists to be truthful but to minimize the possibility that truth will be used to do harm. Journalist must do their jobs. It is [also] time for liberals in the media to stop hyperventilating. Report truthfully but with the proper context that does not scare, but inform. Otherwise you are nothing more than Fox News Lite."

To get the truth from media, we have to rely more and more on people like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher (but at least they're a lot more entertaining than Fox News, CNN and MSNBC). Here's Bill Maher’s New Rules Snippet On The Minimum Wage:

"When it comes to raising the minimum wage Conservatives always say it is a non-starter because it cuts into profits. You might think that paying people enough to live is so self-evident that even crazy people could understand it. But you would be wrong.

Michele Bachmann is not only against raising the minimum wage, she is against having one at all. She wants said “If we took away the minimum wage we could virtually wipe out unemployment because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”

And naturally Ted Cruz agrees. Ted Cruz thinks it’s a good thing that when his Cuban father came to America he was paid fifty cents an hour to work as a dishwasher.

When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude, this economic death spiral where workers get paid next to nothing, so they can only afford to buy next to nothing, so businesses are forced to sell cheaper and cheaper shit?

Consider the fact that most fast food workers, whose average age by the way is 29, are on some form of public assistance which is not surprising. When even working people can’t make enough to live they take money from the government.

This is the question the Right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts or do you want do you want a low minimum wage because you cannot have both. If Colonel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to. And I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers."

Also, watch Bill Maher blast McDonalds.