In lieu of a Talking Points Memo, The Factor began Friday's show by calling on Fox News anchor Shepard Smith for the latest on Malaysia Airlines flight 370, which vanished nearly a week ago. "U.S. officials now say it is more likely that whatever happened to this plane," Smith reported, "was the result of human intervention, some sort of air piracy. A lot of facts have come together that lead officials to believe that. The New York Times is reporting that the plane went up to 45,000 feet, which is nearly a mile higher than it should have been, then went down to 23,000 feet. The plane made zig-zags, which indicates manual flying. They believe the plane flew somewhere in the Indian Ocean, so we have a mystery and a lot left to learn."

The Factor then welcomed former Federal Aviation Administration official Scott Brenner, who laid out some basic facts about the flight. "What we know for certain," he said, "is that it took off on time and checked in with air traffic control about 40 minutes into the flight. Shortly thereafter, somebody aboard the aircraft turned off the transponder, and a few minutes later somebody turned off another communications system. Then the aircraft flew for another four to five hours in some direction, but other than that we have no idea what happened." The Factor theorized that only an experienced pilot could have disabled the systems: "We have to assume that the only people aboard that plane who could do that were the pilot or co-pilot, or some terrorist who knew all about the aircraft. So we know bad things happened." Brenner concluded with a modicum of speculation. "If you have a plan to turn off the transponder and the other communications system, I would assume you have a plan to take that aircraft somewhere. But there are a limited number of places where you can land a 777."

The Factor asked Geraldo Rivera to opine on the upcoming vote in Crimea, in which citizens of that peninsula will decide whether to split from Ukraine and join Russia. "It is a phony vote," Rivera stated, "but they could win it even without a single Russian troop in there. You could easily get a vote in Crimea to secede from the rest of Ukraine. The real peril will come after the vote when Putin and Russia say they are annexing Crimea to become part of Russia, which is an act of war and a violation of every protocol. German chancellor Merkel says this will be a catastrophe for Russia, economically and politically." The Factor dismissed the validity of Sunday's vote in Crimea: "You could get a vote in 150 countries around the world to join the United States, but that doesn't mean anything. Borders are borders and Russia illegally invaded Crimea."

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, trying to recover from the "bridgegate" scandal, has resumed holding town hall meetings across his state. Last week, in vintage Christie form, he shut down a heckler by telling him to "sit down and keep quite or get out!" Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, a New Jersey resident, opined on the governor's presidential chances. "There's no doubt he will be formidable," Dobbs said, "but it is interesting to hear the number of money people who were fervently supporting him and are now discounting him. He's got a big hurdle to overcome with 'bridgegate' because Democrats and the national liberal media want to destroy him." But The Factor conjectured that Christie can easily stage a comeback if no more shoes drop: "The press is trying to destroy Christie, but he could definitely rise because nobody else is dominating right now. There's room for Christie to re-establish himself."

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist who could challenge Hillary Clinton from the left, entered the No Spin Zone and outlined his philosophy. "We have a lot to learn from democratic socialist governments like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway," Sanders declared, "where all people have health care, where higher education is free, where they have strong child care programs, and where they don't have the massive wealth inequality that we have." Sanders refused to specify the rate at which he would tax wealthy Americans, but he did lay out some definite plans for dealing with Vladimir Putin. "We can't repeat what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States virtually did it alone. We are a tight global community and the entire world has to deal with Putin. We should totally isolate him politically and economically by freezing assets that the Russian government has all over the world."

The Factor aired a few of the greatest hits from past "What the Heck Just Happened" segments. One memorable moment came when Bernard McGuirk crucified alleged comic Sarah Silverman for using a Jesus-like character to mock abortion opponents. "This is a manifestation of religious bigotry," McGuirk said. "This chick was on SNL for one year and was fired, then Jimmy Kimmel and Comedy Central dumped her, so she turned to political activism and offending targets like Christians, but not Muslims." Gutfeld was equally dismissive of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment. "They're banning the release of butterflies at weddings," he groused, "because they say it hurts the indigenous population. My theory is that they're killing jobs for butterflies - what other work are they going to do? Butterflies are just good-looking insects, this is totally 'lookist.' These are the Armani models of insects and I've had it with butterflies, kill 'em all!"

McGuirk returned, live and in pasty color, to name the week's most ridiculous people. He roundly ridiculed the campaign to ban the word "bossy" because it supposedly damages little girls. "The pinhead is Sheryl Sandberg," he declared. "She's the COO of Facebook who started this 'Ban Bossy' campaign. I remember when there was a decisive and assertive woman running for president who was called the 'c-word' by a couple of men. Sandberg was silent when Sarah Palin was called that by Bill Maher and a couple of other guys. Plus, she recruited Beyoncé to be in this video and Beyoncé is married to Jay-Z, who uses the words 'bitches' and 'hos' in his songs." The Factor named singer Lady Gaga and her "Born This Way Foundation" as the week's biggest pinheads: "The foundation's 2012 tax return shows that it took in $2-million and donated $5,000. Where did the money go? $300,000 went to 'strategic consulting,' $50,000 to 'social media,' and $800,000 to 'other.' This foundation allows Lady Gaga to travel and do promotions under this banner. It's a ruse, it's wrong, and you shouldn't be doing this."

Virginia, Fallbrook, VA: "O'Reilly, congratulations on showing Beyoncé's video every night. I don't want to see it, but I'm sure you do!"

Mark Reed, Binghamton, NY: "Carville kept insisting the President's policies have increased the number of good jobs in spite of the fact that median income has dropped. That's not spin; it's dishonesty."

Glyn Bailey, Covington, LA: "Bill, you and Miller sounded like adolescent children when talking about troublesome cats. It wasn't funny."

Try to catch Bill on Friday night's Letterman show, where guest and host have a spirited back-and-forth about popular entertainment and its effects on children.