Freedom Line Blog

In an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that aired on Super Bowl Sunday, President Obama declared that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” with regard to the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups.

The American people are not buying it.

According to a Fox News poll released last week, a whopping 64 percent of registered voters, including a majority of Democrats, think the targeting scandal does suggest corruption at the IRS.  A mere 27 percent don’t view the IRS’s targeting as corrupt.

When questioned about whether Congress should continue to investigate the IRS scandal, an even greater majority says “Yes!”

Majorities of Republicans (83 percent), independents (72 percent) and Democrats (60 percent) agree lawmakers should persist until they ‘feel they know the truth.’

For the poll results, click here.

Bill O’Reilly quite literally has no clue what he is talking about when he trashes New Orleans by effectively endorsing Geraldo Rivera’s ignorant description of everything outside of the French Quarter as a “vast urban wasteland” and directly says that local claims to the contrary are just “putting a happy face on things that aren’t happening.” The fact is that every single word of the citizens’ groups letter to O’Reilly is true. I write this not as a native, but as somebody who has done extensive research on this for an as-yet-to-be-written story for a major publication.

In education, civic reform, entrepreneurship, flood protection, and all sorts of other areas, New Orleans actually has become a model of how to do things right. The Wall Street Journal noted as much in a recent piece, as well. Finally, as for crime, as of about 15 months ago (the last available stats I looked at), the odd truth is that while the murder rate is atrociously high (most of it concentrated in several small geographical pockets, which doesn’t make it okay but does mean that most of the city is far safer than the overall number indicates), the overall rate of violent crime per capita puts New Orleans better than at least 70 other American cities. In other words, rape, armed robbery, etcetera are all well down — and while horrid random acts of violence occur there, as they do in any city, they are actually less common than in many, many other places of the same size.

In short, O’Reilly and Rivera are just plain wrong on this one. The Crescent City is an exemplar not of urban decrepitude, but of hugely successful urban renaissance.

Gossip Cop has learned exclusively that President Obama has invited Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony to watch the Super Bowl with him at the White House.

Lopez’s rep confirms to Gossip Cop that the invitation was extended, and now Lopez and Anthony are arranging a trip to Washington to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Green Bay Packers with the Commander-in-Chief.

Let’s review. This Sunday, the President of the United States will welcome two of the biggest Latin pop stars of the last decade to watch a Super Bowl featuring a team owned by his Ambassador to Ireland, preceded by an exclusive interview that he’s giving to a Fox News host. We’ve gone through the rabbit hole, people.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.