Juan Williams' post-firing statement confirms what those who have listened to him over the years have known all along: Fox News is where he belongs.

Two statements say it all:

I say an ideological battle because my comments on "The O’Reilly Factor" are being distorted by the self-righteous ideological, left-wing leadership at NPR.

and

They are taking bits and pieces of what I said to go after me for daring to have a conversation with leading conservative thinkers.

NPR is "Left wing" while Fox showcases "leading conservative thinkers." What more do you need to know? [More...]

LATimes:

Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes handed Williams a new three-year contract Thursday morning, in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million, a considerable bump up from his previous salary, the Tribune Washington Bureau has learned. "Juan has been a staunch defender of liberal viewpoints since his tenure began at Fox News in 1997," Ailes said in a statement, adding a jab at NPR: “He’s an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis.”

Heh. Maybe Fox News can "protect" me too. What does it take to get that kind of protection? Who do I have to offend?

Speaking for me only

Slate, which is owned by the Washington Post, and Fred Hiatt, who works for the Washington Post, think Juan Williams should not have been fired.

Why doesn't the Washington Post hire him then? He's available. And gawd knows the WaPo Op-Ed page publishes a stunning array of crap already. One more source for it won't matter. It is obvious that NPR's standards are different than WaPo and Fox News. Why not stick to worrying about their own editorial decisions and less about those made by other media organizations?

Open thread.

In a North Carolina town, the meaning of the separation of church and state is being well demonstrated:

The Christian flag is everywhere in the small city of King: flying in front of barbecue joints and hair salons, stuck to the bumpers of trucks, hanging in windows and emblazoned on T-shirts. The relatively obscure emblem has become omnipresent because of one place it can't appear: flying above a war memorial in a public park.

This is in keeping with the First Amendment - which prohibits government endorsement of religion AND government interference with the exercise of religion. Thus, while the religious flag (I never heard of it before myself) can not be flown by the government, every person has the right to fly that flag (and apparently they all are.) The lesson is apparently lost on some:

now appears:

[Mike] Huckabee [. . .] call[ed] on Congress to pull funding from NPR. “NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left,” Huckabee said. “It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR,” he added.

Cutting government funding because of a decision by NPR on what speech to air would amount to government interference with free speech and would likely violate the First Amendment:

Via Atrios, Naked Capitalism discusses the new PR push in the foreclosure fraud scandal - the Wall Street Jorunal "reports" that it's all those damn lawyers' fault:

Let’s parse some sections of the article, starting from the top: "The paperwork mess muddying home foreclosures erupted last month. But the legal strategy behind it traces to a lawyer’s gambit in 2006 that has helped keep one couple in their home six years beyond their last mortgage payment."

[. . . T]he efforts of various attorneys who have been chipping away as aspects of this problem are incorrectly lumped together, as if there was really only a single, simpleminded strategy, a mere “lawyer’s gambit” which by implication, was copied by other low life attorneys. And this effort was to keep a deadbeat borrower illegitimately housed. Funny, this James Kowalski, the attorney behind this dastardly act, did what members of the bar normally do (at least if they are competent): they look for weaknesses in fact and law in the case presented by the other side. And part of the process involves, stunningly enough, depositions! Kowalski’s evil deed was that he was early, perhaps first, to find a robo signer, back in 2006.

(Emphasis supplied.) What the plutocrats are demanding, and what the Obama Administration seems to be accepting, is a continued moratorium on the rule of law and due process. It is a disgrace.

Full Disclosure, I am one of the demon spawn lawyers involved in foreclosure cases representing homeowners, and am speaking for me only

Jeralyn details the Juan Williams firing by NPR. Glenn Greenwald comments:

I'm not someone who believes that journalists should lose their jobs over controversial remarks, especially isolated, one-time comments. But if that's going to be the prevailing standard, then I want to see it applied equally. Those who cheered on the firing of Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez -- and that will include many, probably most, of the right-wing polemicists predictably rushing to transform Juan Williams into some sort of free speech martyr sacrificed on the altar of sharia censorship -- have no ground for complaining here. Those who endorse speech-based punishments invariably end up watching as the list of Prohibited Ideas expands far beyond the initial or desired scope, often subsuming their own beliefs. That's a good reason to oppose all forms of speech-based punishment in the first place. There's obviously a fundamental difference between (a) being punished by the state for expressing Prohibited Ideas (which is isn't what happened here) and (b) losing a job for doing so, but the dynamic is similar: those who endorse this framework almost always lose control over how it is applied. And that's how it should be.

I think Glenn's formulation misses the point - people have a right to complain about speech that offends them. What media entities do about these complaints is entirely up to them. Everyone has the right to complain. Attempts to chill this right are not only ineffective, they are wrong. Juan Williams won't be heard on NPR now, but he will be heard on Fox and almost anywhere else Williams wishes to speak. He won't lack for a platform. Just because someone complains does not mean a media entity must act. It's their choice. Fox of course will not only not drop commenters who engage in bigotry, such commenters become Fox All Stars. That's part of the Fox model. NPR obviously has a different model. As does CNN, etc. The myth that all viewpoints and expressions are accepted and aired is simply that, a myth. One person's "decency" is another person's "political correctness."

Speaking for me only

NPR commentator Juan Williams got the axe last night for comments he made Monday on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show. The context:

O'Reilly has been looking for support for his own remarks on a recent episode of ABC's "The View," in which he directly blamed Muslims for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Williams' comments:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Williams also warned O'Reilly against blaming all Muslims for "extremists," saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Tim McVeigh.

In announcing the firing, NPR said: [More..]

At the request of the Obama Administration, the 9th Circuit has reinstated DADT discharges for now.

There's a new catfight between Gloria Allred and Meg Whitman.

Al Gore is urging Californians to vote no on the climate initiative.

What's on TV tonight: Survivor, America's Next Top Model and The Defenders. Now, if I only knew what's for dinner....

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Alan Newton served 22 years for a rape he didn't commit. For years, New York police kept insisting there was no DNA to test. The Innocence Project took up his case and got a DA to find the evidence the police insisted didn't exist:

The rape kit, it turned out, was in its original storage bin from 1984, Barrel No. 22, in the same police warehouse that the authorities said they had searched at least three times since Mr. Newton first asked in 1994.

The DNA cleared Newton and he was released from prison in 2006. A New York jury yesterday awarded him $18.5 million in damages.

The Innocent Project said in 2006 that Newton could have been cleared in 1994, and that 17 other inmates face the same dilemma.

In Apprendi v. New Jersey, the Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a defendant to more than the statutory maximum provided for a crime unless the facts supporting the enhancement are proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Via Sentencing Law and Policy, the New Mexico Supreme Court has decided that Apprendi does not apply to juveniles and upheld a 25 year sentence for a child. The opinion is here.

From the dissent by Justice Edward Chavez:

The Framers of the Bill of Rights would be alarmed to learn that a child can be condemned to an adult prison for up to a life sentence without at least the same constitutional protections afforded adults.

[More...]

Update: The Arizona Supreme Court has denied the requests for a stay of execution and to produce information about the drug's origin. The ruling is here.

At a court hearing in Arizona today to stay the execution of Jeffrey Landrigan set for next Tuesday, the Arizona Attorney General admitted that the sodium thiopental it planned to inject into Landrigan was not made by Hospira, Inc., the one U.S. company authorized to manufacture it. In other words, it came from a foreign source.

His lawyers argue that using the drug sodium thiopental that has expired or was obtained from an unreliable source may not work correctly, potentially subjecting Landrigan to cruel and unusual punishment through death by suffocation.

They want the Supreme Court to order the state to disclose the source of the drug..... prosecutors said they can’t identify the source because state law requires confidentiality for those involved with executions.

But, the prosecutor did acknowledge it didn't come from Hospira, which isn't currently producing the drug. And no other U.S. company is authorized to manufacture it. [More...]