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To: steve harris who wrote (285655)	10/21/2010 7:19:10 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 306849

I was fired for telling the truth By Juan Williams 10/21/2010 dailycaller.com Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims. This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings, my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims. In a debate with Bill O’Reilly I revealed my fears to set up the case for not making rash judgments about people of any faith. I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber — as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals — are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion. And I made it clear that all Americans have to be careful not to let fears lead to violation of anyone’s constitutional rights, be it to build a mosque, carry the Koran or drive a New York cab without fear having your throat slashed. Bill and I argued after I said he has to take care in the way he talks about the 9/11 attacks so as not to provoke bigotry. This was an honest, sensitive debate hosted by O’Reilly. At the start of the debate Bill invited me, challenged me to tell him where he was wrong for stating the fact that “Muslims killed us there,” in the 9/11 attacks. He made that initial statement on the ABC program, “The View,” which caused some of the co-hosts to walk off the set. They did not return until O’Reilly apologized for not being clear that he did not mean the country was attacked by all Muslims but by extremist radical Muslims. I took Bill’s challenge and began by saying that political correctness can cause people to become so paralyzed that they don’t deal with reality. And the fact is that it was a group of Muslims who attacked the U.S. I added that radicalism has continued to pose a threat to the United States and much of the world. That threat was expressed in court last week by the unsuccessful Times Square bomber who bragged that he was just one of the first engaged in a “Muslim War” against the United States. There is no doubt that there’s a real war and people are trying to kill us. Mary Katharine Ham, a conservative writer, joined the debate to say that it is important to make the distinction between moderate and extreme Islam for conservatives who support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the premise that the U.S. can build up moderate elements in those countries and push out the extremists. I later added that we don’t want anyone attacked on American streets because “they heard rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly and they act crazy.” Bill agreed and said the man who slashed the cabby was a “nut” and so was the Florida pastor who wanted to burn the Koran. My point in recounting this debate is to show this was in the best American tradition of a fair, full-throated and honest discourse about the issues of the day. There was no bigotry, no crude provocation, no support for anti-Muslim sentiments of any kind. Two days later, Ellen Weiss, my boss at NPR called to say I had crossed the line, essentially accusing me of bigotry. She took the admission of my visceral fear of people dressed in Muslim garb at the airport as evidence that I am a bigot. She said there are people who wear Muslim garb to work at NPR and they are offended by my comments. She never suggested that I had discriminated against anyone. Instead she continued to ask me what did I mean and I told her I said what I meant. Then she said she did not sense remorse from me. I said I made an honest statement. She informed me that I had violated NPR’s values for editorial commentary and she was terminating my contract as a news analyst. I pointed out that I had not made my comments on NPR. She asked if I would have said the same thing on NPR. I said yes, because in keeping with my values I will tell people the truth about feelings and opinions. I asked why she would fire me without speaking to me face to face and she said there was nothing I could say to change her mind, the decision had been confirmed above her, and there was no point to meeting in person. To say the least this is a chilling assault on free speech. The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy. 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. They are taking bits and pieces of what I said to go after me for daring to have a conversation with leading conservative thinkers. They loathe the fact that I appear on Fox News. They don’t notice that I am challenging Bill O’Reilly and trading ideas with Sean Hannity. In their hubris they think by talking with O’Reilly or Hannity I am lending them legitimacy. Believe me, Bill O’Reilly (and Sean, too) is a major force in American culture and politics whether or not I appear on his show. Years ago NPR tried to stop me from going on “The Factor.” When I refused they insisted that I not identify myself as an NPR journalist. I asked them if they thought people did not know where I appeared on the air as a daily talk show host, national correspondent and news analyst. They refused to budge. This self-reverential attitude was on display several years ago when NPR asked me to help them get an interview with President George W. Bush. I have longstanding relationships with some of the key players in his White House due to my years as a political writer at The Washington Post. When I got the interview some in management expressed anger that in the course of the interview I said to the president that Americans pray for him but don’t understand some of his actions. They said it was wrong to say Americans pray for him. Later on the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock crisis President Bush offered to do an NPR interview with me about race relations in America. NPR management refused to take the interview on the grounds that the White House offered it to me and not their other correspondents and hosts. One NPR executive implied I was in the administration’s pocket, which is a joke, and there was no other reason to offer me the interview. Gee, I guess NPR news executives never read my bestselling history of the civil rights movement “Eyes on the Prize — America’s Civil Rights Years,” or my highly acclaimed biography “Thurgood Marshall — American Revolutionary.” I guess they never noticed that “ENOUGH,” my last book on the state of black leadership in America, found a place on the New York Times bestseller list. This all led to NPR demanding that I either agree to let them control my appearances on Fox News and my writings or sign a new contract that removed me from their staff but allowed me to continue working as a news analyst with an office at NPR. The idea was that they would be insulated against anything I said or wrote outside of NPR because they could say that I was not a staff member. What happened is that they immediately began to cut my salary and diminish my on-air role. This week when I pointed out that they had forced me to sign a contract that gave them distance from my commentary outside of NPR I was cut off, ignored and fired. And now they have used an honest statement of feeling as the basis for a charge of bigotry to create a basis for firing me. Well, now that I no longer work for NPR let me give you my opinion. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought. Daniel Schorr, my fellow NPR commentator who died earlier this year, used to talk about the initial shock of finding himself on President Nixon’s enemies list. I can only imagine Dan’s revulsion to realize that today NPR treats a journalist who has worked for them for ten years with less regard, less respect for the value of independence of thought and embrace of real debate across political lines, than Nixon ever displayed. Juan Williams is now a full-time Fox News contributor. This article originally appeared on Fox Forum

To: steve harris who wrote (285655)	10/21/2010 8:05:36 PM
From: joseffy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

EDITORIAL: Cut off NPR Public radio fires distinguished journalist for recognizing Muslim threat The Washington Times October 21, 2010 washingtontimes.com Respected National Public Radio analyst Juan Williams lost his job this week for offending liberal orthodoxy. On the bright side, no one can ever again defend NPR as being fair and balanced. This experiment in taxpayer-supported broadcasting must be put out to pasture. "I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Mr. Williams told Bill O'Reilly on Monday. "But when I get on a 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." On Wednesday, NPR terminated its contract with Mr. Williams, saying his remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR." A post on the NPR website said Mr. 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." News flash to NPR: Muslims are to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks. The terrorists who killed 3,000 people were Islamic extremists, not "extremists who happened to be Muslim." Their violent actions were motivated by and intended to further their hateful religious views. Denying the Islamic motivation of the attacks - a view actively promoted by the Obama administration and its surrogates - is willful and dangerous blindness to reality. Mr. Williams has a reputation as a thoughtful liberal whose views go beyond the usual Democratic Party-approved talking points, and he's earned deserved respect beyond those who were predisposed to agree with him. But it was no secret that NPR management was uncomfortable with Mr. Williams' appearances on Fox News. In 2009, the taxpayer-subsidized operation demanded that Mr. Williams stop being identified as a "senior correspondent for NPR" when appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor." This incident was a useful pretext for management to engage in some ideological cleansing. The firing looks even more suspicious coming as it does hard on the heels of a $1.8 million grant from ultraliberal sock puppeteer George Soros. News organizations have a right to adopt whatever editorial positions they want, but NPR receives a chunk of its budget from the federal government, and more importantly wields the imprimatur of being an essential public resource, which anchors its other fundraising efforts. NPR's persistent liberal bias raises the question of why the government is in the business of promoting such enterprises. The rationale that created public broadcasting more than 40 years ago - the then lack of available educational and public service programming - has been overcome by technological innovations unforeseen at the time. Blue-state America has MSNBC for news; it doesn't need NPR. When the new Congress begins the process of cutting wasteful government programs, public broadcasting should be high on the list.

To: steve harris who wrote (285655)	10/21/2010 8:14:59 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

US Fed chief Bernanke puts his trust in Canadian bonds independent.co.uk Insider trading and conflict of interest only apply to the rest of us.

To: steve harris who wrote (285655)	10/22/2010 2:22:15 AM
From: joseffy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Obama Edits the Declaration of Independence .................................................. October 21, 2010 By Peter J. Colosi americanthinker.com President Obama has taken to referencing the language of the Declaration of Independence while omitting key words. Although the practice has garnered attention of late, it dates back to the beginning of his presidency. An October 19 article at CNSnews by Penny Star noted that "For the second time in little over a month, President Barack Obama stripped the word 'Creator' from the Declaration of Independence when giving a speech." These speeches have generated much debate concerning whether the president's omissions were deliberate or mistaken. The answer, I think, can be found in President Obama's inauguration speech, which is perhaps the most striking example of this phenomenon, yet no one seemed to notice it then. Toward the beginning of President Obama's inauguration speech, he said, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents. A few paragraphs later, he said, The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. These opening lines are obviously meant to remind the listener of the Declaration. A little later, in the same speech, the president called on the Founding Fathers, the documents they wrote, and the ideals those documents contain. He said that we will not give up those ideals: Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. But what does the Declaration actually say? It says this: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Notice that in President Obama's speech, the words "created," "Creator," and "Life" are conspicuously missing. Why? Notice, also, how he utilized three terms: "equal," "free," and "happiness." He removed the term "Life" from the list of the three rights and then replaced it with the term "equal," which occurs earlier in the Declaration. By retaining three terms and by replacing "life" with another word from the same document -- namely, "equal" -- Obama succeeded in generating in the audience a vague recollection of the Declaration while at the same time rewriting it. With well-crafted sophistry, he did precisely what he said we would not do: he gave up the original ideals for expedience's sake. To say "all are equal" is not to say "all are created equal." To say that there is a "God-given promise" is not to say that there is a self-evident truth that we are all endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. To leave "Life" out of the list of rights, is, well, to delete the first term in the original list of three. To paraphrase one of his recent predecessors, I wonder what President Obama's meaning of the word "all" is. By removing the term "Life," who, one wonders, is included in "all"? In the very same speech, right under our noses, Obama said that we would not give up those ideals and then promptly gave them up. He did it in such a way that no one noticed. Why? In his inauguration speech, President Obama gave up "created," "Creator," and "Life." Is this true to our founding documents, or is it the work of a skilled rhetorician bent on the deconstruction of those documents by stealth? Is it a deliberate attempt to take the opportunity of a presidential inauguration to make major headway at deconstructing the Declaration in the minds of people, or was he just waxing eloquent, but inexactly? The recent speeches give powerful evidence that from the inauguration on, this has been deliberate and calculated.