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| All content taken from The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel. Each weeknight by 6 PM EST a preview of that evening's show will be posted and then updated with additional information the following weekday by noon EST.
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| "This afternoon the President interrupted the White House daily briefing to enter the fray over the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, and he made race the centerpiece by saying, 'Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.' I don't begrudge the President his deep visceral reaction to what he obviously sees as an injustice. But the Trayvon Martin case was not about race, at least according to the FBI, the trial judge, and even the prosecution. Of course, there is a devaluing of human beings in our country and sometimes it is racial, but it's sadly much more universal. We've embraced pornography as part of our culture and have objectified and dehumanized women; we welcome vile profanity into our homes, our ears, and everyday conversation. The vitriol spewed anonymously on Twitter or blogs is often the vilest and most violent assaults on another person. Our movies glorify the most graphic violence and treat the dismemberment of human beings as a form of entertainment. We cheapen human life and demand the right to terminate an unborn child at any time for any reason, and we declare marriage, family, and the presence of both mother and father to be irrelevant. The President may have a point when he talks about the plight of black children growing up in America, but it's not just children of color who are being treated as disposable and expendable." |
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| Mike invited Mark Sawyer, a professor at UCLA, to evaluate the Talking Points Memo. "You're way off base," Sawyer declared. "What devalues life in our country is poverty and neglect, child poverty kills kids. A parent can turn off pornography or violent movies, so we have control of that. And we dehumanize women when we don't give them equal pay. Grown women choose to participate in sex work, they're making choices, but that is not what causes sexism." Sawyer also applauded President Obama for focusing on Trayvon Martin's race. "If you don't believe that Zimmerman in part decided to profile Trayvon Martin because he was black, then you are denying the experiences that most young black men have in this country. The President articulated that." |
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| For more on the President's remarks, Mike spoke with Democratic strategist Mark Hannah and Republican strategist Brad Blakeman. "I think the President was addressing something that a lot of Americans were seeking some kind of explanation for," Hannah said. "I don't think it was so much a political comment he was making, he was using his own personal experiences to move America forward." But Blakeman argued that President Obama's comments were inflammatory and unnecessary. "The President knows there are marches and demonstrations planned over this verdict that are strictly racial in tone. So why in the world would he come out before these demonstrations and add gas to a fire that never should have been lit? There was not one scintilla of evidence in this trial that race was a motivation." |
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| Republican Congressman Frank Wolf has claimed that survivors of the Benghazi attack have been asked to sign secrecy pledges; the State Department denies the allegation. Mike hashed it all out with Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and Col. David Hunt. "Benghazi is a huge deal because we lost four Americans," Hunt said, "but the non-disclosure agreement is signed by everybody. The issue is that this administration is not making people who were in this fight available to help us understand what really happened." Peters was far harsher on the Obama team. "Congressman Wolf isn't one of those hair-on-fire crazies, he's a very level-headed solid American who is admired enormously by his constituents. This is a cynical and duplicitous administration that has made an art of stonewalling, and that is certainly what they've done in this case. They don't want anyone dredging this up or talking to anyone involved." |
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| Massachusetts State Police officer Sean Murphy, incensed by the beatific depiction of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the Rolling Stone cover, released photos showing a far-less-glamorous Tsarnaev as he surrendered to cops. Mike spoke about the incident with Boston radio talk show host Michael Graham. "There's a guy in Boston who will never buy another beer for the rest of his life," Graham said, "and that is Sgt. Sean Murphy. The terrorist was glamorized on the cover and then the elites called it art and journalism, but Murphy reminded people that there are photos that tell a completely different story." But attorney Geoffrey Nathan complained that the photos could compromise Tsarnaev's prosecution. "These pictures should come out in the course of the judicial process, not by some State Police sergeant, who probably sold them for personal profit. He has infected the criminal justice system and he should be booted off the force!" |
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| Mike turned to the new Texas legislation that effectively bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Christina Page, a pro-choice activist, entered the No Spin Zone to denounce the new law. "The pro-choice movement is saving America," she said, "by doing all the things the pro-life movement claims to do. It results in lower abortion rates, happier families, and healthier children. What's happening in Texas is an example of why pro-life laws have a counter-intuitive effect. Why are you so concerned with the 2% of abortions that occur after 20 weeks, and why is there not one pro-life organization that supports contraception." Governor Huckabee responded with a question of his own: "56-million babies have been aborted in the last 40 years. How can we say that somehow we're better off when we've ended those lives?" |
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| Mike asked economist and author Ben Stein to analyze the startling fact that 49% of U.S. households now receive some kind of government benefit. "It's an extremely disturbing number," Stein said, "although some of those are retired people getting Medicare or Social Security and some people are genuinely disabled. But there is so much fraud in the government entitlement system that it's almost unbelievable. Everyone knows someone who is on the government dole and is lying about being disabled or unemployed. It's so easy to get food stamps, I had a friend who is an heiress and got food stamps. The system is rife with fraud and gradually more of the weight is being put on the shoulders of those who do work." |
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| Detroit has become America's largest municipal bankruptcy ever, and Jesse Watters recently spoke with some Motown residents about their city's dire condition. Some of their responses: "We can put billions and billions of dollars overseas to rebuild economies but not put one quarter into our cities" ... "My house got shot up 37 times and we didn't report it because they don't do anything about it" ... "If you call 9-1-1 the wait is 25 or 30 minutes, sometimes they don't come at all, it's unconscionable" ... "We need to blame ourselves for being dependent on Democratic government" ... "We don't have to live like this, we can do better." |
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