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Bill O’Reilly’s Flying Circus

Four years ago, I was a guest on the “O’Reilly Factor,” part of a panel discussion on the income gap. It was a wonderfully surreal moment that, alas, I have yet to repeat. I just stumbled upon a transcript of the show. Below is a pretty funny bit that I believe is short enough that I can legally quote it.

Missing here is O’Reilly’s assertion that Cornell University is a socialist plot, “Parade” editor and DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias inviting me to join the Democratic party, and, finally, Mr. O’Reilly brusquely ending the segment and announcing that Mel Gibson would be next after the commercials.

O’REILLY: OK, but here’s the deal. And you ought to know this, too, Shaun, is that for many years, I didn’t make any money. OK? And I lived in my younger time in a very frugal environment. OK? So I don’t believe that the government has the right, now that I’m successful, due to hard work and some luck, to come into my house and take my money and give it to other people, and they don’t even know what these people are going to do with it. That’s wrong, morally wrong.

…

RICHMAN: Are you living in poverty as a result of this 50 percent [tax rate]?

O’REILLY: Am I living in poverty? No, but what right do you or anybody else have, even in France, to take other peoples’ money and give it to somebody you don’t know? What right do you have, morally?

RICHMAN: It’s a basic system of fairness. Now when you weren’t making that money…

O’REILLY: Yes.

RICHMAN: When you were living in dire straits, wouldn’t it have been nicer to have a system where…

O’REILLY: No, I wouldn’t have taken a dime.

RICHMAN: You wouldn’t have taken a dime?

O’REILLY: No. Absolutely not.

RICHMAN: You would have died of tuberculosis?

O’REILLY: That’s right. And I wouldn’t have kids unless I could support them. That’s right, because I don’t believe in taking other peoples’ stuff and giving it to me. I won’t even take Social Security when I’m older. I’ll give it back or I’ll give it to charity. You see? That’s where you guys are wrong. You’re taking stuff, you’re making value judgments. You’re giving it to other people and you don’t know what those other people are going to do. That’s wrong. Am I wrong?

Why did they never invite me back?

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Newsflash

This just in. After analyzing subpoenaed Google search records, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced that they foiled a new 9/11 Al Quaeda plot involving “blonde hair big tits.”

I hope that all you refuseniks and ACLU’ers out there stop and think about what kind of busty, peroxide doomsday your interference might have caused. Have more faith in your government. You’re not even using those civil liberties, anyway.

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“…But they don’t mind throwing a brick…”

It’s touching that there are still people in this world who care enough to riot. I first heard about France’s proposed “first job contract” law from some of the French scientists with whom I am working. They’re absolutely pissed off.

The law would allow employers to hire first-time workers under the age of 26, and, for the first two years of this job, have no obligation to provide benefits and can fire the employee at any time for any reason. American workers have a similar status when they are hired for the first job, and for their second, third, fourth and tenth up until the day they die. Unless they have a union contract, that is.

Where is our outrage?

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McLaughlin is Presumed Innocent

In a very troubling development, FBI agents raided the offices of the New York Central Labor Council and the district office of Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, the President of the CLC. McLaughlin has been President of the CLC for two decades, the third of three representatives of IBEW Local 3 who have headed the Council for the entirety of its 51 year history. His files were seized in connection to an investigation of a contractor, Petrocelli Electric, that did business with the city.

While McLaughlin’s tenure as President of the city-wide coalition of trade unions is open to criticism (McLaughlin is a skilled politician who has strived for unity in the labor movement; that unity has often been achieved through a lowest common denominator agenda that has precluded bold leadership stands), I have never heard any of his critics accuse him of corruption. To date, there have been no charges or allegations against McLaughlin or the CLC. The raid does have the unmistakable whiff of a politically motivated hatchet job. We should keep a critical eye on situations, as they develop.