Krugman:

[T]he new British budget announced on Wednesday and the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement might have come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. [. . .] The British government’s plan is bold, say the pundits — and so it is. But it boldly goes in exactly the wrong direction. It would cut government employment by 490,000 workers — the equivalent of almost three million layoffs in the United States — at a time when the private sector is in no position to provide alternative employment. It would slash spending at a time when private demand isn’t at all ready to take up the slack.

[. . .] What happens now? Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Shades of teenager Michael Fay, only this time it's a Florida businessman who overstayed his visa. Sinapore is deciding whether to impose caning as a punishment on Kamari Charlton, 37, a former Florida State University college football player who owns a construction company in Florida.

Charlton's case is unique, his defense team argues. His wife was in the country on a six-month medical visa, while he was on a three-month tourist visa. Unlike most offenders who overstay, Maaran said, Charlton was not in Singapore to take advantage of its strong economy by working illegally. He overstayed by 169 days, according to court documents.

Charlton was arrested as he was leaving Singapore with his pregnant wife. He also faces six months in jail.[More...]

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.