O'Reilly is in trouble with my school district (attorney involved)

Dear Plano ISD eNews Subscribers

On Friday, December 9, on the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," with Bill O'Reilly and guest Jim Pinkerton, Fox 4 News analyst, it was falsely reported in a segment entitled "More Victories for Christmas" that ...

....."In Plano, Texas, a school told students they couldn't wear red and green because they are Christmas colors."......

Due to the number of e-mails, inquiries and phone calls to Plano ISD regarding students "wearing red and green," Superintendent of Schools Dr.
Doug Otto is e-mailing this communication to eNews subscribers (and has posted this message on the PISD website) to assure the school community that this rumor is false.

"The school district does not restrict students or staff from wearing certain color clothes during holiday times or any other school days," noted Dr. Otto, who said that the school district's attorney has requested that Mr. O'Reilly retract the statement.

Dr. Otto said that our attorney requested of Mr. O'Reilly that, in the future, he ask his fact checkers to do a more thorough job of confirming the facts before he airs them.

"It would be our hope that you would engage in fair and balanced reporting of this nationally recognized school district in the future," PISD's attorney wrote to Mr. O’Reilly.

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http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=getShowByShowTopic&showTopicID=2252#1

"While the secular media continues to spout that there is no Christmas controversy, in the real world we have proved there is. More evidence: Apparently Sears and Target, two operations that were not saying 'Merry Christmas,' have turned around and are now Christmas kind of people. This is about respect. Banishing the words 'Merry Christmas' is simply disrespectful to people who celebrate that federal holiday. In Wisconsin, an elementary school changed the name of 'Silent Night' to 'Cold In The Night.' In Plano, Texas, a school told students they couldn't wear red and green because they are Christmas colors. That's flat-out fascism. If I were a student in Plano, I'd be a walking Christmas tree after that order. Talking Points understands that you know what is going on here. The good news is that we're actually winning, and nearly every time we embarrass the secular forces they cave. Only a few stores are now banning 'Merry Christmas' - they are listed on BillOreilly.com. We are defending Christmas, we are exposing the people who are disrespecting the federal holiday and the media that covers it up. And we'll continue to do that."

Are O'Reilly's.

:rofl:

And, the ones that are rooted in true statements, 100% of the time, would be concluded incorrectly. He's dumber than dirt.
The Professor

Does O'Reilly (or Fox "News" for that matter) even EMPLOY fact checkers? Whenever I happen to hear him, it seems like he is just pulling his "facts" right out of his ass.

Media Matters usually has one good o'Reilly whopper up per day. Guy is pathological.

he doesn't like facts.

He can't prove it but he can say it.

Based on their core demographic (dangerously violent white males), they review what possible scenarios could most outrage their audience. They then spend a great deal of time fabricating the most lurid possible story around this scenario, designed to send their audience's blood pressure sky high.

It's a type of pornography, and has just as much a basis in reality.

I'd call it "fascist pornography"

is him even trying to talk about something like "respect."

Since we know he has none.

but why..WHY would lawyers have to get involved with this silliness?

How about the thousands of emails pouring into school mail servers sent from ignorant pieces of crap that listen to O'Reilly? How about the time spent having to deal with this bald faced lie?

to ignore email for a couple of days?

How about you post your email on the freep site with a statement that you hate Jesus, Christmas and Smirky and we can judge the results. Sounds like fun!!! I predict that you will find that even this comparatively miniscule experience might change your mind. The only problem is that the freepers have never been interested in debate and they have a policy of immediately "disappearing" any posts even remotely critical of "Der Smirkenfuhrer".

to the question. What will involving lawyers do?

He should be fined or made to prove his claim.
emdee

are consequences to his actions?

What, you think HE doesn't have lawyers? :eyes:

Oh, and welcome to DU yadda yadda yadda...

I don't know. Maybe you should ask the RW whackos like Falwell et al. They're ALWAYS talking about suing "liberals" over some non-issue.

I don't understand where you're coming from. Or came from.

n/t

No one ever said anything deragotory to me and this was back in cicero. Are kids still allowed to do this? If so someone should till oreilly to shut up. I am glad your school board is standing up to the mother.

Most schools have the rules set that student prayer or student's personal displays of religious beliefs or rites simply have to not "disrupt the educational process."

what kind of people actually work on these shows. To me these people are worse than the host because they can actually see before their eyes these liars weaving their tales. Ugghh

is actually hurting them.

He contrives these stupid non-controversies and then supports them with lies. A certain number of people will buy into it because it's "on the TV."

He's a loon.

"We distort, you comply."

Happy Holidays, BO.

They had a sign that said "Merry Christmas" on every pane of glass at their entrance, and had about five or six "Merry Chrstmas" signs right as you walk in.

It seemed almost sarcastic, which is the impression I got after talking to some employees...

I would have objected if it did.

What the school did do was use a song -- that was written for another program and copyrighted in 1988 -- that used the same TUNE as "Silent Night."
(Think "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and the Alphabet Song. They both use the same tune.)

No teachers at this school were involved.

http://www.journaltimes.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=3127

about the Politician, (named Caman or Kaman - I don't know how to spell it) stopping a priest from blessing a Christmas tree. Is sounds completely ridiculous and if it ever happened in Long Island the politician would have been beat up by the people watching.

This guy just makes shit up. Why doesn't someone bitch enough like they did with Dan Rather and get his ugly ass off the air?

Because Dan Rather dared to tell the truth about King George and they couldn't have that so they bitched and whined.

The more lawsuits the liar has to settle the more it costs Faux News, and at some point they realize he's not worth it. He's costing them more than he's bringing in. It becomes a business decision. Let him keep those lies getting him in more legal trouble.

Sonia

Me too! :hi:

I don't have any kids, so I don't know much about the ISD, but I think it's really funny that this bastion of redness is on the receiving end of an O'Lielly. Presumably, many of the teachers and administrators are Bush supporters and Fox News viewers, and now they are in the position where they have to explain to students and parents that "No, even though Bill O'Reilly said it, it is not true." Maybe some of them will even use the L word--Liar! And I love the request from the PISD attorney for Billy Bloviator to "engage in fair and balanced reporting." Don't mess with the PISD! The people of Plano are very proud of their school district.

especially on national TV. You read my mind..how funny is it that an area that is one of the top three counties on the "most repuke" TX county list is taking aim at a repuke faux news person??? Plano/Collin County turning off his show could make for quite a DROP in ratings....


:rofl: :popcorn:

I'll keep an eye on other e-newsletters that the district sends out.

I think that one even went to court. That's probably why they are responding so swiftly and decisively to this. They just got that mess resolved and they are NOT going to go down that road again.

I'm in Plano ISD too (although live in Richardson). My daughter is 4th grade, so perhaps the candy cane caper predates us.

I knew someone who tried to sue PISD over having an elementary school reading group celebration use a Harry Potter theme. There are some real right-wing wackos around here. :crazy:

December 2004

(Court TV) -- Thanks to a last-minute court ruling, Jonathan Morgan was able to share the religious origin of the candy cane with his elementary-school classmates at this year's winter-break party at Thomas Elementary School in Plano, Texas.

Jonathan tried to hand out pens in the shape of candy canes with an explanation of their Christian symbolism at last year's party, but school officials said it was against district policy.

But just in time for this year's festivities, a judge granted a temporary restraining order against Plano Independent School District's policy prohibiting the distribution of items with religious messages. The U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating the case.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/27/schoolreligion/

I think the final outcome is that kids are allowed to hand things out before or after school hours, but not during class.

some parent coming into my daughter's classroom and discussing anything Christian. I'm Catholic, and I know that the beliefs of some of the more fundamentalist Christian groups are very different than ours.

I agree with PISD on this one. There are ALOT of non-Christians in my daughter's school. I don't have a problem handing out candy canes. I draw the line at someone presenting a discussion about Christian symbolism in the public school.

Edited to add: I received a notice in my daughter's take home folder about the winter party in her class next week. The room mom specifically noted that anyone who brings paper goods, etc must be sure not to have anything overtly Christmas (no Santas or Rudolph) and absolutely no religious overtones. The War on Christmas is being lost in Collin County! ;)

Unless it's a party or something. I remember being in school and we couldn't pass things out during class unless it was a holiday like with Valentine's day we used to pass out little cards and have a party.

He has a way with spin. A clunky, stupid way. These attempts at framing are just wrong, just so amatuerish, stupid, its amazing he has managed to rile the nutjobs at all.

When Martin L. King's birthday comes up.

Cuz right above the section that has the super again setting O'Reilly straight is this:

'Symphony of Brotherhood' Theme of Jan. 19 Martin L. King Tribute Event
Plano ISD invites the community to join in a "Symphony of Brotherhood" on January 19 at Plano Centre, as hundreds of students join hearts and hands to celebrate the many cultures of PISD. The school district's annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Tribute event will feature music, theatrical performances and awards...


http://pisd.edu/

He made a good point too. You don't see them freaking out whenever his day comes up.

Because the uniforms were blue and white.

I can never remember. :)

Fox fired two people who would not change their materal in a story about genetically modified foods ( milk, to be specific, staff of life to many wee people) to please Monsanto, and got fired for their integrity when they threatened to blow the whistle on FOX. They won whistleblower cases, Fox appealed and got ruling overturned.

From beginning of the saga: Case won initailly.
http://www.purefood.org/rbgh/jlistssue.cfm



Saga continues:
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/courses/geog100/ITT-Akre.htm



Here is link to PDF of a petition to deny license renewal to the FL Fox affilate involved filed by Akre & Wilson

http://www.foxbghsuit.com/PetitiontoDenyWTVTlicense.pdf

FOX fought the first verdict, of course, ended up getting it overturned AND was awarded damages! The reporters fired for refusing to lie for FOX & Monsanto were ordered to pay some of FOX's legal expenses!

More of the adventures of FOX fighting against truth, justice & the American way on this one:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/fox-news.cfm



* bold and italics mine to draw your eyes to the outrage

FOX is FAUX and there are court documents to prove it.

edit: typo

Seems we need a new law ... mandating that they tell the truth! Sheesh! :shrug:

The liars, cheats, and too many politicians count on that human trait. Most folks are decent enough that they never even consider all the vile and evil things which are possible. When others pull some stunt, we are almost always surprised.

OT: Ever contemplate the words vile and evil? Just different arrangements of the same elements.

I know I shouldn't be amazed anymore by anything they do ... but that the court allowed that as a defense just boggles my mind.

My how we keep coming back to Jeb-land isn't it?

a story because it was bullshit? Is there any way to know?

Plano schools do have some lame dress code policies, but wearing
green and red at xmas aren't one of them.

Maybe he can talk to * about his strategy for winning the war on xmas.

Say you are winning over and over and the stupid people will believe it!

And here's the gist of what it said....

Dear Bill,

Schools requiring students to not wear clothing that is green or red is nothing new. I graduated in 19XX, and I was never once allowed to wear green or red at school at all in December. The school still won't allow it.

has school uniforms that are blue and white, and therefore no green or red shirts, pants, shirts, sweaters are allowed. The same goes for pictures of Santa Claus and Christmas trees on T-shirts, sweat shirts, and sweaters. Thought you might be interested.

While you're going after , you might want to look into . This should get you started. I'm sure there are others out there.

Keep fighting the good fight on this supremely important issue.

---

These idiots are so wrapped up in this idiocy, they can't see the dumbness for what it truly is. I got a huge laugh from you today and I needed that. I thought I'd feed the fire and hopefully I'll get a mention as an Enemy of Bill who would dare to point out something he should already know especially since he grew up Catholic.

While they're being distracted by this utterly ridiculous non-issue, I'm having fun at their expense, and the rest of us can focus on things that need real adults looking at them. Like the rising unemployment rate, the 30000 people GM is laying off, the people working 3 jobs and still have no benefits of any kind.

Why would you write a fake letter like that? Why do you hate Christmas???

I am of course kidding. :) Geez, O'Reilly's such a fucking psycho.

I'll post it. Though I doubt he'll even see it, since I'm not a member of his site and I had to send it to FOX News.

But it was a buncha fun writing it and hitting the Send button. Hee hee hee.

K and R...

I betcha dollars to donuts.

:hi: rainbow

I see many students/teachers wearing Christmas colors at my daughter's elementary school. I missed the O'Reilly controversy though. I don't get Plano ISD ENews.

Plano should ban Fox News. :7

"he pulled THAT out of his butt"...one girl at her school is wearing Xmas headbands and even has one that has little springs on it with different Xmas symbols that wave around.

2 things that piss off PISD the most: falling standardized test scores and making national news in a bad way..so making it in a bad way thru something not true is really going to have the person not checking the facts catching a large dose of hell...


Remember how PISD adamantly denied have an athlete steroid problem for the longest time? Then a PISD high school student posed for the cover of Newsweek, wearing a Plano sweatshirt..the cover story was high school steroid use. Weeks after Newsweek hit the national news stands, the district announced that they had hired a new "steroid czar"..hmmm..hire someone for a problem we "don't have". They really don't take to bad national attention.

PISD seems to have fired a shot across the (Fox) bow by getting their attorney involved. If Fox knows anything about the local demographics, they will have O'Reilly issue a retraction ASAP.

I hope they pursue this.

Way to PISS OFF YOUR OWN DEMOGRAPHIC, asshat. :rofl:

Cuz look at this:

http://www.wnem.com/Global/story.asp?S=4235657

A Mid-Michigan Township makes national news but there's a problem, local officials say the whole thing was made up.

Bill O'Reilly is making the claim that Saginaw Township officials banned residents from wearing red and green during the holiday season. Local officials say he's dead wrong.


“In Saginaw , Michigan , the township opposes red and green clothing…on anyone, in Saginaw Township they basically said anybody, we don’t want you wearing red or green. I would dress up from head to toe in red to green if I were in Saginaw Michigan .”

WNEM TV-5 Talked to Saginaw Township supervisor Tim Braun who says O’Reilly’s comments are flat out not true. Braun goes on to say the township hall has red and green Christmas lights adorning the building at night.


----------------

Faux News Channel sidestepped the above issue, saying it was a radio station problem..Ok, well O'Reilly's PISD same-song-different-verse was on Fox News Channel. Now what, assholes????

I guess it depends on how much Fox cares about its growing reputation for brazen untruthfulness.

time spent not doing their regular jobs but answering stupid phone calls and emails in response to Bill's ignorant statements about the district on his show. Plano tax payers shouldn't pick up the tab for Bill's fabricated allegations and overthetop theatrics.