Cool: Audience at Congressional Debate Insists on Saying Pledge of Allegiance

Townhall  "A goosebumps-inducing moment at a Congressional debate in Illinois' 8th District:"...(video and sound)

Rich Galen: On Juan Williams (Updated)

Townhall  "Here is a short list of what I suspect are DOs and DON'Ts at NPR:
-- DO say good things about medical marijuana. DON'T say good things about cigarettes.
-- DO say good things about Palestinians. DON'T say good things about Israelis.
-- DO say positive things about "green jobs." DON'T say good things about manufacturing companies.
-- DO say wonderful things about Barack Obama. NEVER say anything good about ANY Republican."
Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. Rich Galen currently works as a journalist and writes at Mullings.com

Juan Williams Firer a Soviet Fan?  "Ms. Schiller is suddenly infamous as the National Public Radio executive with Soviet-style values on display in the firing of Juan Williams.
"Where would an American media executive ever learn that dissent is not to be tolerated?
How about a film project called "Portrait of the Soviet Union?" "


PBS Sends Senior Editor as Presenter to CAIR Conference on ‘Defaming Islam”   "To make this clear: PBS apparently sent Schwartzberg to train “CAIR leadership” at a conference held specifically to “do something about” the alleged problem of “Islam defamed.” The use of the concept of “defamation” of Islam should be a red flag alert to Congressional funders of PBS: CAIR’s conference publicity followed the instructions of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to enforce Shariah blasphemy and defamation laws in the U.S. – in this case, with the support of publicly funded PBS staff."

Fire Juan Williams Right Now!  Our Sneering Liberal Culture in a Nutshell:
 "The Juan Williams Firing — Or a Primer on Elite Liberal Thinking
"There were lots of slants on NPR’s firing of news analyst Juan Williams that reflect how surreal cultural liberalism has become. Let us walk through ten of them."....
"... Does NPR see that it is now in an entirely untenable situation: it simply cannot retain the CEO who slandered Williams, but fire Williams who slandered no one — and retain any shred of respect?"
 Victor Davis Hanson

National Pathetic Radio  by  STEPHEN F. HAYES  "On its website, NPR proudly touts the fact that Totenberg is a panelist on Inside Washington, a talkshow distributed to public broadcasting stations. But the bio for Mara Liasson, NPR’s national political correspondent, doesn’t mention the fact that she is a Fox News contributor.
"Why the double-standard? Mostly because NPR execs disapprove of Fox. But there’s something deeper, too."
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard. He is also a guest panelist on Fox News Special Report With Brett Baier  and the author of the following post as well.

Is Nina Totenberg Next?   by  STEPHEN F. HAYES 

Schiller said Williams' firing is not a reflection of his comments (on Fox News Channel) that he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane. She said she has no problem with people taking controversial positions, but that such opinions should not come from NPR reporters or news analysts.

"If that’s true, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg might want to start looking for a new job."

How America Can Stand By Arizona

Russell Pearce, Townhall  " Even Democrats like Georgia’s Roy Barnes say they’d sign such a bill. Of course a politician’s promise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
"Even if they would in fact sign the bill, they must also pledge to fight the Obama administration and its far left buddies like the ACLU and Mexican American Legal Defense Fund who are sure to file lawsuits and do whatever they can to block implementation of the law."

The New York Times discovers Democratic dirty campaign tactics

American Thinker  "One of the tactics we have been highlighting is their sponsoring of third parties or faux Tea Party candidates to siphon away votes from candidates challenging Democrats. Finally, the New York Times follows our lead-and the lead of other bloggers in uncovering these dirty tricks ..."

Government as a Threat

Big government is a threat no matter who is running the show in Washington.  "...46% of Americans believe the federal government "poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens."
Only 46%? The fact that less than half of our country does not recognize the imminent threat of our ever-growing imperial federal government leads me to believe that we will never be able to overcome our love of government. " Neal Boortz

Fox Guarding the Hen House: Trial Lawyer Who Repeatedly Sued Food Companies Now Regulating Them"He was one of the “Johnnie Cochrans” of ag law: “Got a chicken? Got a case.”"

What Grows An Economy?  "If America wants to recapture its 3.3% average rate of growth it has enjoyed since World War II, it had better get serious about removing the tax and regulatory barriers for these kind of startups with the potential to scale."
These regulations and taxes are liberal policies. But liberals cannot see- cannot be made to see- their fault in this.

First Amendment: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation - and their ideas from suppression.

MakeNoLaw Blog   "I wonder if Gibbs thinks the NAACP was such a sinister group in the 1950s when it fought the State of Alabama over its membership lists.  In a landmark decision the Supreme Court unanimously concluded that the state’s attempt to compel the NAACP to produce the lists violated the right to freedom of association."

Obamacare Defenders: Your Very Existence Is a Commercial Activity

InsiderOnline  "The Constitutional question that’s been presented in about 20 lawsuits is whether the Commerce Clause allows Congress to regulate behavior that is not in any way commercial at all. People who have chosen not to buy health insurance would not seem to be engaged in commerce, and thus would seem to be beyond the reach of Congress’s power to regulate commerce. Emphasis added.

ObamaCare's Incentive to Drop Insurance   The Democrats are getting just what they wanted with Obamacare. It's happening as we speak.

It’s the Mandates, Stupid  "Hewitt Associates recently projected that health insurance premiums will rise 8.8 percent in 2011. That follows a 6.9 percent in increase in 2010. One reason Obamacare may be failing to make health insurance more affordable is that the law does nothing to address one of the major drivers of rising health care costs: government itself."

Will America Accept Bureaucratic Rationing of Healthcare? "The numbers are as startling as tragic. According to the Daily Mail, “Up to 20,000 people have died needlessly early after being denied cancer drugs on the NHS, it was revealed yesterday. The rationing body NICE has failed to keep a promise to make more life-extending drugs available.”
"British cancer patients are routinely denied access to critical life-extending drugs because of their costs. "

Charles Krauthammer: "Obama Underappreciation Syndrome"

WaPo "Faced with this truly puzzling conundrum, Dr. Obama diagnoses a heretofore undiscovered psychological derangement: anxiety-induced Obama Underappreciation Syndrome, wherein an entire population is so addled by its economic anxieties as to be neurologically incapable of appreciating the "facts and science" undergirding Obamacare and the other blessings their president has bestowed upon them from on high."

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK: Woman seeks 'Christian roommate,' state cites her for discrimination

WorldNetDaily  "A single, 31-year-old woman in Michigan who posted a note on her church bulletin board seeking a "Christian roommate" to share her residence has been cited by the state for violating the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against those of other faiths."

NPR and Juan Williams, Day Two (Updated)

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

Now we know what will get you fired at NPR. Just what won't get you fired?  "What's this about wishing Jesse Helms would "get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it." Can you believe that? Expressing a wish that the grandchild of a U.S. Senator get AIDS? Totenberg is still working for NPR as the legal affairs correspondent. Wow. "  Neal Boortz


Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly Exposes CAIR's Agenda With Juan Williams' Firing [Video]  "It took 36 hours for NPR to make a move, but they ended up firing Williams, apparently out of the blue according to Juan.  There's no explanation for the timing other than they were pressured by an outside group - CAIR."

In wake of NPR controversy, Fox News gives Juan Williams an expanded role   "The cable news network signs the analyst to a new three-year contract for nearly $2 million. Meanwhile, conservative figures blast the public radio network for its response to Williams' comments about Muslims."

Should NPR's CEO Fire Herself in the Juan Williams Debacle?  "National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller has now apologized for a "thoughtless" remark about Juan Williams, whom she fired as an analyst for admitting that he gets "worried" when he's flying and sees people in "Muslim garb" on the plane. Schiller had told an Atlanta crowd that Williams should take his feelings up with "his psychiatrist or his publicist.""  The word snarky has appeared in articles about Vivian Schiller lately.

Juan Williams: Fair and Balanced  Unlike NPR   by Fred Barnes 
"I have no doubt that Juan’s comments about Muslims were merely a pretext. There had been prior run-ins between NPR and Juan over his appearances on Fox. But fire him over remarks that most Americans would identify with? I didn’t think the loathing of Fox would cause NPR to do something so ideologically driven, unprofessional, and bigoted."

National Politically-correct Radio by William Kristol  "No inconvenient truths here, please."  Then this:  "Muslims who wear Western clothing and speak English with Marxist-Islamist vocabulary are vastly more likely to be suicide bombers in the West than a devout Muslim in an abaya or thobe or Pakistani shalwar qameez. But while his manner may have been clumsy, Williams was right to suggest that there is a troubling nexus between the modern Islamic identity and the embrace of terrorism as a holy act."

Juan Williams, Welcome to Imusville   "Williams carries the scars of battle -- those many rapier-like "now wait a minute Juan" moments he had to tolerate from Hume -- just before having his blather dissected and discarded by the senior Fox anchor for all to see. Williams faithfully carried the liberal torch in an environment that would have destroyed the Matthewses and Barnicles and Meachams of the world. (Can you imagine Olbermann trying to debate Hume?)"

Let NPR Pay Its Own Way "Liberals tend to prefer Thomas Jefferson’s vision of religious liberty to the one actually enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, so here’s one for them, from his bill for religious freedom in Virginia: “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.” "  Emphasis added.

Citizens should not be forced to fund NPR’s progressive propaganda.  "Not one more red cent of public money should go to NPR, PBS, and CPB. Let the speech-squelching progressives and jihadi-whitewashing apologists pay for their own propaganda. Free the taxpayers!"  Michelle Malkin

The Closing of NPR’s Mind "In its unwillingness to tolerate Juan Williams, NPR has shown how little regard it has for even the slightest dissent from approved orthodoxies, especially if broadcast on the hated Fox News network. Just because you speak in dulcet tones, it doesn’t make you any less close-minded." Rich Lowry

Proposal: The Juan Williams Law "Meanwhile, according to most predictions, a very different Congress will be taking their seats in the Capitol this January. The big question is what they will do with their new-found power. I have a humble suggestion for a piece of legislation that I think the public would appreciate seeing enacted as quickly as possible." ... Roger L Simon, Pajamas Media

WikiLeaks plans 'major' announcement in Europe

myway  "The task force has informed the U.S. Central Command of some of the names of Iraqis and allies and of other information they believe might be released that could present a danger, officials have said, noting that - unlike the WikiLeaks previous disclosure of some 77,000 documents from Afghanistan - in this case they had advance notice that names may be exposed."

What If Christine O'Donnell Were Right About The First Amendment?

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion "At the same time, however, the Court has recognized that"

total separation is not possible in an absolute sense. Some relationship between government and religious organizations is inevitable.
Ibid. In every Establishment Clause case, we must reconcile the inescapable tension between the objective of preventing unnecessary intrusion of either the church or the state upon the other, and the reality that, as the Court has so often noted, total separation of the two is not possible. [p673]

And On O'Donnell's Flub: After 24 Hours, It Appears It Was No Flub At All. Washington Post Reporter Ben Evans Simply Lied. "In other words, she makes it perfectly clear what she's questioning. "Not that the Establishment Clause says what it says, but whether the phrase "separation of church and state" appears in the clause.
"And of course, on that point, she's 100% right.
Don't believe me? Well believe the Washington Post, which now reports the exchange as concluding thus:"...
Strong language advisory in this article, regrettably.