Palin did note that, for all that she supports Paul on, his almost “isolationist” stance on international relations gives her pause. That said, on the domestic front, “he’s the only one who’s been so adamantly passionate about doing something about the suffocating debt, about doing something about reining in government growth and actually slashing budgets.”

RELATED: Sarah Palin: ‘The GOP Had Better Not Marginalize Ron Paul And His Supporters’ After Iowa

She also came to Newt Gingrich‘s defense, saying that he, like Paul, has been “vilified.” The establishment, she said, has been “trying to crucify this man and rewrite history.”

She didn’t appreciate Peggy Noonan‘s recent characterization of Gingrich as a “little attack muffin,” to say the least.

RELATED: Peggy Noonan Coins Funniest Newt Gingrich Nickname Yet: ‘Angry Little Attack Muffin’

Have a look, via Fox Business Network:

RELATED: Fox’s Eric Bolling: Meghan McCain Might Be One Of The Dumbest People On MSNBC

The two discussed many topics, including President Obama and Newt Gingrich‘s potentially racial comments on food stamps. Jackson began his discussion of the economy noting that the banks came out pretty well from the housing crisis why many families were economically devastated. He went on not only to criticize the banks for the mortgages themselves, but their distribution, saying, “banks have to admit they steered and clustered blacks into subprime mortgages.” Bolling gave him a chance to clarify: “you said the banks had to steer the black community into buying homes?” He noted that the banks had actually lost a lawsuit where it was proven they were targeting black families, calling it “flat-out discrimination.”

They also went on to talk about Newt Gingrich‘s comments about food stamps, and Jackson argued that the food stamp program was not a black program, noting that 49% of people in the program were white. Bolling agreed, but noted that the problem he had with the attacks on Gingrich for calling President Obama the “food stamp president” was precisely that food stamps had no realistic ties to the black community.

Jackson also commented on President Obama, adding that he had a problem with Republicans who were “on the ship [but] willing to sink the ship just to get the captain.”

The segment via Fox Business below:

“We can’t not cover this,” Cavuto tells Mediaite. “These issues are so intertwined, if you think about it. That’s why I’m surprised when competitors drop the ball on it.”

Viewers may have noticed CNBC was in tape for both the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary.

Cavuto admits that he’s a “history wonk” who lives for political drama, and considers the FBN coverage to be “the best of both worlds.” But he also sees it as an opportunity to let viewers know the station is serious about their coverage. He’ll happily opine that the channel doesn’t go left, right, red, or blue: it goes green. Money, and, therefore, business, is a big part of politics. And it’s his job to show that as the results come in.

But what about the overlap with Fox News? Is he supposed to be competing with them or coordinating with them for viewers? Cavuto says that there’s actually a great deal of cooperation between the two networks. The stations figure out, together, when to call most races. In the last election, he went so far as to hold off in calling a couple early results in which Fox News had tabbed a victor because he didn’t feel comfortable declaring a winner, “with just two percent of precincts in.” But his diligence paid off. “At that time, we beat CNBC in ratings,” Cavuto explains. “I think that if you build it, they will come. If you show people you’re serious, they will respond. And this is a work in progress. I know very well when I leave my Fox News show, its a different audience — certainly a smaller audience — but it’s a growing audience.”

One thing Cavuto has learned in this work in progress is not to make promises on air. During the Iowa coverage, he swore he wouldn’t leave the desk until they got a winner. They were planning two hours of coverage — it ended up running six and-a-half. “I get paid a pretty good buck, and I shouldn’t be a lard-ass about it. But by the end of Iowa, I was like Jerry Lewis at the end of the telethon.”

Still, ask Cavuto if he’d do it again (and he will be, next Saturday, with South Carolina’s primary), and he doesn’t hesitate to say yes. “I see rival networks giving a perfunctory, ‘So and so won this primary,’ and then they’re back to a Teflon commercial, or they’re running a seven-year old special, and I think I owe my viewers more. I think that they deserve more. People are into this. And we as a financial network owe it to [our viewers to] be into this ourselves.”

Mediaite readers might remember her for this crackling exchange with Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, in which she chided him for his dismissive attitude toward the disruptive potential of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

Francis earned the nickname “Empress of Energy” for her coverage, on CNBC, of oil and commodities. When she joined CNBC in 2003, she was the first reporter to broadcast live from the floor of New York Mercantile Exchange, providing live hourly reports for the network and distinguishing herself as the foremost expert on commodities.

Before joining CNBC, Francis was a correspondent for CNET’s broadcast unit, where she covered finance, technology and consumer products. Prior to CNET, Francis served as a reporter for News 12 New Jersey and an anchor for various New England television stations in Hartford, Manchester, and Providence. She also served as producer for WCSH-TV in Portland, Maine, and researcher for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Francis holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard University.

“I loved the job program and it’s not a big deal…I’ll never forget one guy I worked for, Mr. Hoover! He taught me how to count change, he taught me how to make sausage and f–king wake up in the morning and do what I was supposed to do!” Payne exclaimed.

Payne — realizing he had just dropped THE word, the big one, the Queen-Mother Of Dirty Words, the “F-dash-dash-dash” — covered his mouth in surprise.

Varney, amused, said, “Yeah, good!”

“Varney & Company apologizing for Charles getting carried away,” Varney added, before cutting to a commercial.

“I apologize for that, that was a slip!” Payne lamented.

Watch Payne drop the F-bomb on Fox Business Network below:

RELATED: Thom Hartmann Torches Politifact For Nominating ‘Mediscare’ As ‘Lie Of The Year’

In case you missed it, Politifact has been taking flak from every quarter (except their fellow fact-checkers) for naming claims by some Democrats that “Republicans voted to end Medicare” as its “Lie of the Year,” despite the fact that the claim is arguably true, and despite the fact that most Democrats qualified the claim in a way that even Politifact agrees was accurate. Thom Hartmann was way ahead of that curve, decimating Politifact’s argument weeks ago, when it was still just a nominee, and he made the same argument to FBN’s David Asman this week.

RELATED: Fox News’ Alisyn Camerota: President Obama Told Truth About Politifact’s ‘Lie Of The Year’

He also tackled the silly objection that the Democrats’ ads featured senior citizens, even though the Ryan plan wouldn’t have affected people 55 and older. Those affected would, of course, be elderly when they were affected, so unless Politifact wanted to offer an alternative way to depict them, that was a hollow criticism.

As expected, though, the Politifact decision is already being used to plow the road for the new Ryan-Wyden “reform” plan, which is superficially better than Ryan’s original plan because it pegs the voucher amount to the actual cost of health insurance premiums. In reality, it’s just a back-door attack on Medicare that actually illustrates that the true intent of the Ryan plan is to end Medicare.

The modified plan won’t really save any money, but it accomplishes the heaviest lift in the war on Medicare: decoupling senior citizens from their benefits. Once that’s done, cutting the voucher amount is a lot simpler. The Ryan/Wyden plan also weakens Medicare by allowing private insurance companies to cherry-pick the lowest risk patients, increasing the costs for those who remain in the program. The only real “feature” of this plan is that it allows seniors to choose private health insurance, something they already can do, only now, it’s in the form of low-cost Medicare supplement policies.

Asman brought up Wyden as an example of a Democrat who wasn’t worried about Ryan’s privatization scheme

“Senator Wyden is crazy,” Hartmann said.

“He says individuals should have a choice,” Asman replied.

“He is a useful idiot,” later explaining, “There’s a reason why the health insurance companies supported medicare. Yhey did not want to pay the expense of the older people. Now paul ryan says we will issue vouchers for $8,000 per year. Good luck. They will take the healthier older people, then you end up with sicker older people in the government program to turn into a health care ghetto.”

Always beware of Republicans offering a “choice,” because that choice is usually to weaken something that helps average people. Try to imagine this program being applied to some other life-and-death issue, like police protection. Say you gave Americans the “choice” between normal, public police, and hiring their own private security. Most people would not be able to afford adequate protection, and would “choose” to stay where they are, but those few who could afford it would siphon off most of the funding for everyone else’s cops to pay for their vouchers, leaving the people who need the police the most with the worst protection.

The Ryan-Wyden Medicare “reform” plan is nothing but a Trojan Horse attack on an institution that works, and another attempt to end Medicare as we know it. Fact-check that, Politifact.

Here’s the clip, from FBN’s Power and Money:

“Any chance we can see you making a play, even after Iowa or New Hampshire?” Bolling asked. “There’s still plenty of time, Governor.”

“You know, it’s not too late for folks to jump in,” Palin replied. “And I don’t know, you know, it — who knows what will happen in the future?”

So… good news for all those people who bought “Palin 2012″ t-shirts as a joke four years ago; they may soon be wear-able outside of Halloween parties or in ironic neighborhoods of Brooklyn. And love her or hate her, Palin entering the race could add a fun element to the GOP race, which is due for another major shake-up soon.

RELATED: Sarah Palin: I’m Not Ready To Endorse A GOP Candidate ‘With The Field As It Stands’

The interview, which also touches on Kim Jong Il‘s death, President Obama‘s job in office, and — as every interview these days must — Tim Tebow, airs tonight at 10 p.m. on FBN. But rampant speculation on Palin’s true intentions can begin… now.

Appearing on Fox Business Network’s Best of Imus in the Morning Thursday morning, LeBoutillier shared that Gingrich is… kind of gross?

I got elected in ’80, and when you get elected you go down there and you get in a lottery to get an office. And the office I got was “cannon 417.” And the previous occupant was moving out when I moved in. The occupant was Newt Gingrich. The Congressman’s personal office where he had that I was moving into was the most filthy pig sty you have ever seen, with ground-up peanut shells in the carpet. And my ex-staff have been emailing me since he has re-risen from the dead and said that it took them three days to clean that carpet from Newt.

RELATED: Jon Stewart Stages An Anti-Newt Intervention For The GOP: ‘Don’t Do It’

“If he’s the nominee, I’m voting for the President,” said Imus, who didn’t seem all that surprised that Gingrich would have been working in a veritable makeshift peanut butter factory.

LeBoutillier, who hosts Fox News’ Campaign Confidential online, also shared yesterday during his pre-debate program that the GOP presidential hopeful and former Fox News contributor may be holding something of a grudge against the network because it chose to suspend his contract.

“I think Newt has a little edge against Fox because he used to work here,” he said.

Politico adds that, according to “a Republican source,” Gingrich is “unhappy” that Fox had suspended his contract after he missed the May 1st deadline to decide whether or not he would be running this year. The network, of course, keepton fellow contributor Sarah Palin, who was, at the time, also in the midst of deliberating whether or not she would throw her hat in the race.

Below, have a look at LeBoutillier’s discussion with Imus, via Fox Business Network:

h/t Politico

RELATED: Eric Bolling Trashes Environmental Message Of The Muppets: ‘The Evil Muppet Is Named Tex Richman!’

“The character of Tex Richman is not an allegory for capitalism in any way,” Bobin continued. “The character is called Tex Richman. It’s a joke. Clearly he is a classic, old school bad guy. He’s bad not because he works for an oil company but because he’s evil. No, it’s not a communist movie in any way.”

Watch Bolling’s original segment bashing The Muppets for allegedly being anti-capitalist:

(h/t HuffPo)

RELATED: The Mediaite Muppet Show: Media Figures And Their Muppet Equivalents

“I’ll put it out there: Is liberal Hollywood using class warfare to kind of brainwash our kids?” Bolling asked.

“Yeah absolutely, and they have been doing it for decades,” Gainor replied.

“They hate corporate America,” Gainor continued. “And so you’ll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was ‘Cars 2,’ which was another kids’ movie, the George Clooney movie ‘Syriana,’ ‘There Will Be Blood,’ all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don’t want to tell that story.”

Despite Bolling and Gainor’s repudiation of the environmental message of The Muppets, Kermit has always been pro-green as Jim Henson was a staunch advocate for wilderness protection, which is evident in works like Fraggle Rock and National Wildlife Federation ads, where Kermit’s nephew Robin told viewers to “make Earth Day everyday.” Most notably, one of Henson’s final Muppet productions, in fact, was a segment produced for an ABC 1990 Earth Day special with Kermit raising awareness about species extinction and saying that it was “up to people” “to fix the damage they’ve caused to the earth.”

Watch Bolling and Gainor criticize The Muppets below via FBN:

(h/t HuffPo)

Munk was discussing the themes of his comedic routine with the radio talk show curmudgeon. “The fact that Newt Gingrich is leading the polls means we’re in bizarro world,” Munk observed, prompting Imus to colorfully slam the former Speaker of the House. “Don, that’s a strong opinion,” Munk replied.

RELATED: Don Imus Calls Newt Gingrich ‘Disgusting’ And A ‘Fat, Repulsive Pig’

Earlier in the discussion, Munk said he thought the song The Roots played to introduce Michele Bachmann was funny and the controversy was just political correctness. Imus responded, “I know.” “I know you know!” Munk said and jokingly warned Imus that “nappy-bearded bro better not crease your lips!”

Watch Imus’s snarky description of Newt Gingrich below via FBN:

Imus began the segment by saying what a great guest Meghan McCain had been during her appearances on his show, then bemoaned the fact that she might not be able to come on any longer because of her contract with MSNBC.

“She went over to the dark side, I guess,” McCain said, laughing. “I hope she’ll [still] be coming on. I’m very proud of her. I’m sure she’ll do well. She’s feisty, also, as you know.”

Imus asked McCain about the plane that recently crashed into Arizona’s Superstition Mountain, where Imus’ brother’s ashes are spread (McCain didn’t have many details outside of what has been reported). He then touched on the 24 Pakistani troops that were killed by NATO forces, asking McCain how he would handle Pakistan if he were President:

“I would base our relations on the fact that their intelligence agency, ISI, is supporting a network that is killing Americans. That’s a fact. And I would base our relations on that realism and base our aid on their progress and bringing that situation under control,” McCain said, later adding that, “I think the whole relationship has to be re-examined. It’s been out of control for years. They have enormous leverage over us.”

Imus ended the interview on a much lighter note, asking McCain how he spent his Thanksgiving. McCain said he went to the Texas A&M – Texas football game, then lit into the problems that ail college football. “Greed…greed,” he said. “This whole [conference realignment] thing that’s going on right now has everything to do with money and nothing to do with purity of the sport. It’s disgraceful.”

Watch the full Imus-McCain interview below, courtesy of Fox Business Network:

“I say to the viewers, ‘look you bastards! You have a responsibility…’” Imus exploded.

“You called our viewers bastards — they are your life blood!” Cavuto fired back. “And you’re blaming them for the fact that you might suck. It’s not their problem that you’re show is awful!”

“It’s not awful!” countered Imus, asking Cavuto if he would prefer if they brought back the program he replaced. “Wanna go back to Money for Breakfast!?”

“You know what, I would!” Cavuto exclaimed. “Because at least with Money for Breakfast I knew what I was getting!”

“You were getting a program that sucked!” Imus boomed.

“This sucks more,” Cavuto rebutted.

“I’m mad at you because you are attacking the viewers for your inability to keep them,” blasted Cavuto. “That is your problem! That is not their problem! What they’re saying is that ‘Don Imus, you’re not consistent, we’re flipping you off.’”

“They have a responsibility to watch,” Imus said.

“They have no responsibility to watch!” Cavuto countered.

Angered, Imus briefly shut Cavuto’s mic off.

“You are an idiot!” Imus snapped.

Undaunted, Cavuto trashed the Fox Business anchor’s jackets, saying viewers probably thought he was Vincent Price and said Imus’s supporting anchors were doing a much better job than he was.

“They are ten times funnier than what you have ever done!” Cavuto riffed.

Watch the two Fox News personalities playfully trash each other below via FBN:

(h/t MediaBistro)

On holding back from turning around and punching protesters:
You just can’t do that. I got heckled that night, but I’ve been heckled before, in other jobs. It just happens repeatedly.

How he reacts to hecklers and shot-crashers:
When someone starts yelling at me or yelling at anyone on our crew, if someone walks in front of the camera, if someone walks behind the camera, you do not stop them. Don’t touch them, don’t engage them, don’t talk to them. They’re looking for that. The minute you start talking to them or start trying to get them out of the the shot, you escalate what they’re trying to do. The easy thing for us to do when that happens is to say, “We’re going to come back,” put the microphone down, and say, “It’s over.”

On how the scene in Zuccotti Park got so crazy that night:
We were the first TV network in the park when it opened. We were waiting there to go live, videotaping people as they were coming in. Someone started chanting… what they chant. And as I’m waiting, it’s getting louder and louder and I’m just focusing on the camera. My responsibility there is two-fold. I have to read the statement the mayor issued that night about the re-opening of the park, and I have to give the people who are around me a chance to talk about what has transpired, which I had been doing all day. When I got to that point, I turned to a guy who was next to me, who I had pre-interviewed outside the gate — a lot of reporting is not with a camera or a microphone, you just talk to people and listen, and this guy kept referring to himself as a guy who used to throw pies in the faces of politicians.

So there he was next to me, and I turned to him, and I asked him, “What do you think about what transpired here?” And another protester turned to him and said, “Don’t talk to him, turn your back to him.” And the man did.

And that’s when I realized I’m not going to accomplish anything here, therefore, lets wrap. So I threw it back to Gerri [Willis].

But there was nothing to worry about:
We’ve gotten get heckled all the time when we’re down at Occupy Wall Street. I’ve never gotten the sense that we were in harm’s way.

On the crowd’s chanting of “Fox News Lies,” while Shapiro was reporting for Fox Business Network:
I got heckled Thursday morning. And it’s a loud group of people around you. It’s not fun, by the way. I don’t want you to think i enjoy it. But this woman I had spoken to — from Buffalo — she said, as the heckling stopped, something derogatory about Fox. Then she said, “But you’re okay.” And I looked at her and I smiled, and I said, “I’m one and the same with Fox.”

We’re all the same, we’re all one team. And I disagree with what they yell at me about my team, but that’s what they yell.

Picking and choosing the interview subjects:
Some of the protesters that I’ve talked to have legitimate gripes about what has happened with the economy, and I think those complaints sometimes get drowned out by other protesters who don’t share that sentiment.

I tried to interview a woman the other night. She looked tired. And then as we’re interviewing her, it became clear she was stoned. So we stopped the interview.

We interview legitimate people. I interviewed a man named Steve White, a retired laborer, and he was a great interview. I interviewed a college student. Great interview. It’s finding the people who are legitimate and giving them a chance to talk about legitimate issues, and using your best judgment to strain out those who may not be legitimate.

NEXT>>>> Shapiro Discusses The Tortured Relationship Between The NYPD And Protesters. Plus, Video Of Him Getting Yelled At On-Air!

In late September, FOX Business Network anchor Gerri Willis cut up her Bank of America card in protest over proposed five dollar fee for debit card users. After the bank announced that they would not be imposing the fee, Willis had her producers play “Celebration” as glitter was thrown and she did a little dance.

One problem: Willis promised to do a jig if BoA killed the fees, but instead pulled out something that disgruntled boyfriends who “haven’t had enough to drink yet” do at weddings — wave their arms a little, give a shake of the hip, and then abruptly stop as everyone around them keeps happily dancing. She claimed “the real jig is still to come,” but we’re not sure if that was a metaphor for more banks caving to consumer backlash.

Props at least go to producer Alex Reid for doing an emphatic twist and rocking the double-horned party hat in the background. And, to be fair to Willis, she likely stopped her dancing when she realized that the cash she keeps in her pockets, now that she has no debit card, would likely fly out if she kept shaking.

Enjoy video of Willis doing her fake jig below, courtesy of Fox Business News:

“Well, you can see that, in the Occupy movements, in internal emails, that they are working off not the Greek model – and we’ve seen protests and we’ve seen riots in Greece – but we’re actually seeing the unions and the anarchists and the Socialists working from the Hamas playbook in trying to incite violence with the police in order to foment a greater violent revolution.”

Breitbart went on to allege that the recent violence seen in places like Oakland (specifically the injuries of Iraq War vet Scott Olsen) would all be used according to this plan.

Breitbart’s argument is the same being made in a piece on his website, Big Government, written by Joel B. Pollak and featuring the provocatively sinister headline: “Learning from Hamas: How #Occupy Uses Human Shields–Veterans, Women, the Young, the Old, the Disabled.”

Watch the clip from FBN below:

Remember the FBN slogan; “If you don’t have Fox Business…demand it!”

The whole segment is pretty awesome as Bolling, a huge Perry fan, marvels at the footage, telling King he’s “proud” of him for having such a wonderful day. Perry, of course, considers shooting his “golf” and Bolling introduced the clip as the Governor “shooting 18 holes in a bunch of pheasants.” King also revealed that he’d invited all the GOP candidates out for a hunt but that, so far, only the two Rick’s (Perry and Santorum) had taken him up on it although Bachmann had expressed interest.

We can only hope that the other candidates jump on this chance. After all, knowing how to find food is an important part of surviving on the island. Whatever the case, hopefully King and Bolling will keep us posted!

Watch the video from FBN below:

The clip in question features FBN’s David Asman talking to economist Thomas Sowell and the basic tone of the segment can be summed up as “What’s the deal with those crazy crazies and their crazy ideas? They are cur-raaaaazy!” It begins with Asman saying that the protesters reminded him of the talk of “complaining classes” and “parasites” in Sowell’s new book. Sowell agreed, wondering how the protesters had enough money to just “hang around in parks.” This got a good, hardy chuckle out of Asman who thought it was amazing that these “anti-capitalist” protesters would dare (DARE) to use cell phones.

Sowell continued the attack:

“The thing that strikes me the most is, whenever they’re interviewed, they are incoherent. They will toss out a few scraps of rhetoric and they’ll feel that they said something. But they can’t tell you exactly what they want, they can’t tell you what they’re complaining about other than the world is not built to their specifications.”

Right now, there’s an interesting column from John Wilson up on our site entitled “Occupy Wall Street: GOP Is Making Similar Mistake As Democrats Did With Tea Party”. Watching segments like this one on the Fox channels, you can’t help but agree with him. Everyone in this clip is just so damn smug. It’s no surprise that the clip is now rocketing up Reddit. And that’s certainly not because people agree with the sentiments displayed.

So, Fox News and FBN are blindly demonizing the protesters while channels like MSNBC are blindly supporting them. I hope everyone has extra pairs of pants, because someone’s going to get bit in the ass. Hard.

Watch the clip from FBN below:

“Look, I have my limits. Remember when a bank would give you a toaster for opening a checking account?” she asks, recalling the good old days when “freebies used to abound.” Tee shirts, magazine subscriptions, and small kitchen appliances all a thing of the past, Willis seems to feel abandoned by her once adoring bank:

“It used to seem like companies wanted our business, not just for today’s transaction, but for a life time. What a difference from today. That $5 fee might not seem like a lot, but it’s the principle of the thing — more and more coming out of my pocket! I just don’t buy it.”

“Right here, right now, I am going to show Bank of America just what I think of their fees,” she said. And then, like that, she cut up a Bank of America card in protest. $5 monthly fees? Not her problem anymore.

Deferring rumors of a $400 billion price-tag, she said, “I will let the President discuss the details this evening.” She was clear, however, that the bill will be fully paid for:

“The President will be setting up a bill next week. In that bill will be the details of the legislation as well as how he intends to pay for it.”

Jarrett emphasized that the bill would have immediate effect, creating jobs and providing tax benefits, and sounded confident that it would be well received:

“The goal of the American Jobs Act is to create jobs right now. It will be fully paid for. We are going to create a wide range of jobs. There will be a range of tax benefits for small businesses and start-ups. The important message is we need to act now and that is what the President will be calling on congress to do. There are programs in the package that have received bipartisan support in the past. This should not be controversial.”

President Obama will speak tonight at 7PM.

Gasparino, who held a series of interviews with Madoff over email and phone, makes his feelings about his subject pretty clear from fairly early in the piece, saying, “it’s hard to believe much of what Madoff says about anything” (not to mention the implied smirk that accompanies the simple headline “Madoff: I’m a Victim, Too”). And he gives a good example. He quotes Madoff at length discussing a class he will be teaching at Harvard Business School. These quotes are quickly followed by one from, of course, Harvard Business School: “The entire matter is not true.”

The profile does go into Madoff’s claims of what really went down (he’s quick to say there was no justification for his wrongdoing but would very much like us to understand the all-encompassing atmosphere of corruption that led to it) but, especially for us, the most interesting parts are Gasparino’s descriptions of the media frenzy to get the first video interview with the man.

“Is the exclusivity of a Madoff interview now making competing news channels forget they are dealing with one of the world’s best liars who is intent on remaking his image? According to media experts, it’s easy to be manipulated, particularly by someone as skilled as Madoff, when a major scoop is on the line.

‘Now with heightened competition from the Internet, bloggers and shows like TMZ, mainstream journalists are facing even more pressure to get the story first including this one,’ says Robert Steele, Distinguished Professor of Journalism Ethics at DePauw University. ‘Interviewing him is one thing, but to give someone like Bernie Madoff who has hurt so many people, a media megaphone to lie is counterintuitive of the values of the journalism profession.’

Ethics aside, the race to be the first network to put Madoff in front of the camera goes on, as does Madoff’s desire to make himself into a different person.”

It’s a pretty fascinating read which includes the theory that perhaps Madoff is making this big media push to head off a potential big interview his one surviving son who isn’t much of a fan.

Read about Madoff’s attempts to turn himself into “a reluctant swindler who was in a business that’s filled with them” in the public’s eye here.

News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch wants you to know his Fox Business Network’s not losing money anymore. On an earnings call Wednesday, Murdoch described the four-year old business channel as reaching “cash break even” status–not losing money, but not making money either. At the time of FBN’s 2007 launch, the network projected breaking even within five years, so executives see the milestone as a victory even as CNBC continues to dominate the cable business news niche. “Fox Business has made great strides,” News Corp. president Chase Carey said on the earnings call.

Many observers inside and outside News Corp. have noted that as market woes have brought intense interest in business news, CNBC and FBN have seen ratings jumps–but as The Los Angeles Times reports, Fox has jumped a bit higher:

Fox Business has posted huge — in many cases record — percentage increases in ratings over the last week. The gains have been bigger than those experienced by CNBC, which is not surprising given that Fox Business is in only 58 million homes while CNBC is in north of 90 million homes.

From Thursday through Tuesday, the daytime audience (9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.) for Fox Business grew 256% to 128,000 viewers, from 36,000 viewers for the same period last year. From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m, Fox’s audience was up 162% to 131,000 viewers from 50,000 a year earlier.

A particular standout is Lou Dobbs, whose Lou Dobbs Tonight beat CNBC’s The Kudlow Report by 45% among viewers 25-54 last Thursday. As Murdoch told investors, “the ratings are in fact improving. Certain times of the day we are head-to-head with CNBC and we are beating them. We do need more distribution, that’s true.”

Judge Napolitano seemed a bit perplexed at how the President’s voucher proposal without Congressional approval would meet the requirements of the Constitution, asking how the President would be able to get away with it. Gillespie retorted that he would likely in “the same way he got away with not consulting Congress about bombing Libya.” Comparing President Obama to President Bush, Gillespie noted that he was “following suit in a lot of ways” with the Bush doctrine of “excessive use of executive power and just trampling the Constitution.” He added that, in this specific case, it was worth noting that “No Child Left Behind is a terrible law in virtually every way,” so a reform may be helpful but, as Judge Napolitano added, the real problem was the federal government involving itself in K-12 education at all.

Then the Judge proceeded to continue to link Libya to the No Child Left Behind proposal. “He announced this today,” he noted, “Where’s the Congress? On vacation? When he bomed Libya, where was the Congress? On vacation. Is this a new pattern?” Gillespie wasn’t as quick to blame this on the President, instead accusing Coungress of “not holding to their constitutional obligations” by making the President stay accountable to them. “Maybe the problem is that Congress is taking too many vacations,” he added, though on a serious note warning that the growth of executive power was, according to him, facilitating America’s “rapidly becoming a banana republic.”

The segment via Fox Business below:

Simpson blamed everyone across the board for the downgrade, since no one listened to the recommendations of his commission. Yet he was particularly critical of Tea Party Republicans in Congress:

“[Obama] is smarter than rigid people who don’t compromise on anything. If you came to Congress not to compromise you’re totally ineffective, you oughta’ go home. You can compromise an issue without compromising yourself. These guys think the word compromise is a silly word. They’re nuts!”

Some other unique pearls of wisdom from Simpson include telling Republicans who are opposed to new taxes to “go back to school” and warning “if you can’t do something with Medicare, forget what you call it Obamacare or Jack Benney Care, makes no sense it’s just unsustainable.” Although beneath all of Simpson’s bizarre and sometimes funny language, he did make one interesting prediction regarding the potential success of the new “Super Committee” to find and approve of additional spending cuts. Simpson warned, “if you don’t see [Senators from] the Gang of Six become part of this new super group of 12, then you know that [the Congressional leadership] rigged it for failure.”

Watch the clip from Fox Business below:

When asked on whether Romney can continue to sit on the sidelines and stay in the lead, Dobbs said “I think it won’t work. I think that there are so many voices right now in the Republican party that are competing. He did something very interesting. I’ve got to give the Governor credit, he came out and actually said he’s against this debt ceiling deal and…that’s a big position for him. I think he’s wrong, but it’s a great position.”

He then was asked about whether he felt Donald Trump‘s reconsideration of a presidential bid is a joke. Dobbs replied “As far as I’m concerned it is. He’s a well-meaning guy, a smart guy, but you know, one thing folks should always understand are their limitations.”

Watch the clip below, courtesy of NBC:

Small world! Turns out Fox Business Network anchor Charlie Gasparino works out six days a week in the very same city park along the East River where I (before my move to the internet and the requisite relocation across the river into Brooklyn) used to do pushups, pullups, dips and crunches. As Gasparino reveals to The New York Times, skipping the gym and getting in a “grueling” working in the great outdoors is “interesting, free and effective.” There’s no juice bar, no lockers, and no steam room, but you have river, FDR Drive and skyline views. “When you have scenery around you like this,” he said, “it’s not difficult to get motivated to work out in it.”

Gasparino tells the Times his almost daily workouts, running about 75 minutes, help him burn off stress of life on cable. “I can get a little heated on air, and my park sessions help me calm down,” he said.

Gasparino recently showed off his form (one-arm pushups, people!) on air. Check it out, from Fox Business:

But where Hartmann’s commentary really shines when he debunks the notion that wealthy corporations and individuals “create jobs.” This myth has been a linchpin in the Republican argument against allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, arguing that “taxing the job creators” will hamper the economic recovery. It has also been repeated, unchallenged, by countless mainstream media reporters and hosts. The fact is, you could cut taxes on corporations to zero (which is what many of them pay anyway), and not create a single new job.

Businesses don’t hire people based on the amount of cash they have on hand, they hire on the basis of need. No matter what the tax rate, if a business can make more money by hiring someone to make/do something they can sell, they will do it. Conversely, if they can make the same amount of money, or more, without hiring someone, they won’t, and cutting all the taxes in the world won’t change that.

Honestly, it makes no earthly sense to assert that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will “kill jobs.” Imagine a vending machine that dispenses $100 bills. Can you imagine anyone in the world stepping out of line because the price on that vending machine went from $35 to $39? If a business can make more money by hiring someone, they will, 100% of the time.

As Hartmann points out, it is demand that “creates jobs.” I scare-quote “creates jobs” because the phrase itself is misleading, giving the impression that businesses have a godlike ability to materialize employment, if only we would perform the right incantations and animal sacrifices. The fact is, our economy, like our government, consists of three (theoretically) co-equal branches: businesses, workers, and consumers. In order for the economy to do well, all three branches must be kept healthy. The problem is, the practices of one branch (businesses) have critically weakened the other two.

This is all the more amazing because those two weakened branches consist of the same people, yet all of the power still rests in the hands of business. There are no jobs because there is no demand, because consumers can’t afford to buy business’s products and services, because there are no jobs. In the short term, businesses can realize record profits by cutting costs (killing jobs), exploiting foreign labor (killing jobs), and gouging consumers for whatever they can (killing demand), but eventually, these “makers” will have no consumers left to sell to, and thus, no need to hire any of them.

Setting aside the logical disconnect at work here, the “Entitlement Nation: Makers vs. Takers” construct is downright insulting. So-called “entitlements” are actually contracts that we have made with each other, expressed through our representative government. They are a way to ensure the health of two out of the three branches of our economy, which in turn, ensures the health of the third. We’re not leeches, we are the reasons these businesses exist. The FBN attitude mirrors that of slacker Clerks character Randal, who says “This job would be great if it weren’t for the f***ing customers.”

Unfortunately, a lot of those customers don’t realize how much power they could have. Maybe they’re starting to catch on.

Here’s the clip form Hartmann’s show, which should be shown to every news personality before they interview another business flack:

Dobbs, who considered politics after departing CNN a year ago, decided his future–like his past–was in television. The first step begins tonight, with a reintroduction to viewers and working to build the Fox Business brand. “It’s about building back the pace, establishing a comfort level and rebuilding my relationship with the audience. And that’s all on me. I don’t want to let any of my colleagues down.”

Dobbs says the show that debuts Monday will cover the news of the day and how that news affects taxpayers. A “Lou Dobbs Moneyline” segment, a throwback to his CNN days, will look at financial trends. As for CNN, Dobbs describes those years as a “period that’s increasingly smaller in my rear-view mirror,” he says. “My focus is on the road ahead.”

An interesting discussion about the role of Government with relation to citizens rights and legislating “morality” crosses over to a theater of absurd when Napolitano hypothetically asks his guest how it would be different if he were to buy her dinner before the two got intimate, or if he had simply paid her before and for getting intimate. Quan handles the potentially awkward question reasonably, but not before telling the host “what you are talking about usually requires a steak dinner” in a hamfisted metaphor about vegetarians wanting to outlaw carnivores.

To his credit, Napolitano is pretty fearless and dispassionate in this interview, even though its one of the more interesting and bizarre interviews we’ve seen on Fox Business.

Rep. Paul, who is also a regular guest on the program, chatted for some time with the injustices of having a “secret government” like the Federal Reserve with Judge Andrew Napolitano, calling the agency “as unconstitutional as it gets” and its practices “immoral,” “wrong,” “bad economics,” and “built on counterfeit money.” In light of the recent diplomatic cables, however, Rep. Paul seems to have found hope that there is a concrete way to take the Fed down:

“What we need is more Wikileaks on the Federal Reserve. Can you imagine what it would be like if we have every conversation of the last 10 years with the Federal Reserve people and the Federal Reserve chairman, with all the other central bankers of the world, and every agreement and quid pro quo that they have? I mean, it would be massive. The people would be so outraged.”

Later in the discussion, Judge Napolitano asks Paul directly about his views on Wikileaks, to which Paul replied, “in a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.” He also called the desire to charge Assange for treason “wild,” given he is an Australian citizen, and questioned what difference in media there was between Wikileaks and the New York Times that prevented one of them from being prosecuted over the other.

Having the support of American legislators is certainly a new thing for Assange, as most have either refrained from commenting or called him a terrorist. Paul and the libertarian-leaning American commentators seem to have been won over, though Paul made it clear nothing would make them happier than seeing the semi-anonymous group take down the Fed. The discussion from last night’s Freedom Watch on Fox Business below: