(CNN) — Imagine for a moment that there was a prominent American conservative journalist who ignorantly disparaged an entire minority group on national television, got fired for it by the nation’s largest public radio media organization and then still managed to pull down a $2 million payday with the television network where he made the remarks.

Man, it must be nice to be Juan Williams.

A quick recap: Williams, a National Public Radio “news analyst,” appeared on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday to talk about Bill O’Reilly’s recent remarks about Muslims on ABC’s “The View;” the latter’ shows co-hosts, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, had walked off the television set in protest.

When asked what he thought about the incident, Williams responded: “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.”

When someone begins with the weak disclaimer that he is “not a bigot,” you can probably bet the farm that he is about to say something pretty bigoted.

Soon after, Williams was terminated as an NPR news analyst — a position he had held for 10 years — for reasons that included his repeated opinion statements that have teetered on the brink of bigoted nonsense in the past.

For example, many African-Americans were rightfully shocked in January 2009 when Williams, who is black, said on Fox that the first lady “Michelle Obama, you know. … She’s got this Stokely Carmichael [of the black power movement] in a designer dress thing going. …”

In her first interview after the firing, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “There have been several instances over the last couple of years where we have felt Juan has stepped over the line,” she said, citing the Michelle Obama remark and others. “This isn’t a case of one strike and you’re out. …”

Additionally, during this week’s Fox appearance, Williams kept referring back to the September 11 attacks in describing his uneasiness about people in “Muslim garb.”

Sadly, this is where he should lose any objective argument with any reasonable observer out there.

As a historical fact, neither the 19 hijackers from September 11 nor the failed “shoe bomber” nor the failed “underwear bomber” ever wore any “Muslim garb” when committing their criminal acts of terrorism on an airplane.

Once Williams made that factually wrong statement, he then no longer continued being a “news analyst”; he had crossed over the line into simply voicing his paranoid and irrational fears to the general public.

“Juan Williams is a news analyst; he is not a commentator and he is not a columnist,” Schiller told an Atlanta Press Club luncheon Thursday. “We have relied on him over the years to give us perspective on the news, not to talk about his opinions.”

She added, “NPR news analysts have a distinctive role and set of responsibilities. This is a very different role than that of a commentator or columnist. News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that’s what’s happened in this situation. As you all well know, we offer views of all kinds on our air every day, but those views are expressed by those we interview — not our reporters and analysts.”

As someone who has been an on-air NPR commentator for more than three years now, I can understand the difference between a news analyst and a commentator.

Just as I support NPR’s firing of Williams, I also publicly supported both the firing of CNN’s Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas’ forced retirement from Hearst Newspapers for their own bizarrely bigoted statements about Jews and Israelis. Both crossed any reasonable line for an objective journalist.

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com correctly points out: “The Helen Thomas/Rick Sanchez incidents — and countless others — demonstrate how unequal and imbalanced our standards have become in determining which group-based comments are acceptable and which ones are not. … If we’re going to fire or otherwise punish people for expressing prohibited ideas against various groups, it’s long overdue that those standards be applied equally to anti-Muslim animus, now easily one of the most — if not the single most — pervasive, tolerated and dangerous forms of blatant bigotry in America.”

The First Amendment of our beloved Constitution allows all people to express racist or bigoted thoughts. However, it does not mean that a reputable, mainstream media organization (such as NPR) must give these people a continued platform for those xenophobic views.

Fox News is a different story.

As prominent right-wing figures such as Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee publicly called for Congress officially to cut funding for NPR, Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes “handed Williams a new three-year contract Thursday morning,” said the Los Angeles Times, “in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million, a considerable bump up from his previous salary.” He’ll have a steady gig on the cable news network and a regular column on its website.

The sad moral of this story is that if you take a bigoted potshot against Muslims in the public media today, no need to worry. There is probably a certain “fair and balanced” news network that might have a $2 million check waiting for you.

Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington and all around moron.

By his own admission, President Obama has now realized 70% of the legislation he envisioned to change America. His next two years in office will be an effort to make sure these changes stay, whether Americans like it or not.

If you like what this man and what his congress has wrought then please vote on November the 2^nd. If you do not like the direction our country has taken, then make damn sure you vote on November the 2^nd.

Daily Show host, Jon Stewart, is planning a rally for us moderates on October the 30^th, the weekend right before the elections. Mr. Stewart is holding this rally because he sees that the voice of moderates is being drowned out by hyperpartisan ‘Wingnuts’. (I actually prefer the term ‘nutjobs’).

The rally is being billed as the ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ and will be dedicated to the vast group of hard working men and women whose voices have been drowned out by a minority with personal agendas.

I would encourage everyone to check this deal out.

What a surprise it was to hear that Lou Dobbs has resigned from CNN. He did this on the air on Wednesday, November 12 stating, “Over the past six months, it’s become increasingly clear that strong winds of change have begun buffeting this country and affecting all of us,” remarked and then added. “”And some leaders in media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and to engage in constructive problem-solving, as well as to contribute positively to a better understanding of the great issues of our day. And to continue to do so in the most honest and direct language possible.”

One has to wonder what really exists between these lines and what is going on internally in the large media outlets (CNN, Fox and MSNBC) amid increasing pressures from both within and without. There is a widening gulf here in the United States between those who believe in the government’s current expanding role of authority and those who would like to see a return to stronger self-rule. All this happening while the world seems as fragile as an eggshell on so many fronts.

For my part I would be very happy to hear that Dobbs has joined up with Fox News! (Yes, I’m trying to start a rumor here).Now that would make for an interesting line-up. Where would you stick Dobbs? Before or after Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly?

Article from Andrea Tantaros on the Fox Forum – Anita Dunn Resigns

The White House just lost its chief media strategist and Fox News just lost its best P.R. tool. Anita Dunn, the outspoken and controversial communications aide to President Obama has announced today that she’ll be leaving her post; her deputy, Dan Pfeiffer is to replace her. Though Dunn’s title was communications director, at times, “Fox News Basher” seemed more appropriate as she seemingly and bizarrely began to publicly wage war on the network roughly a month ago.

Fox is “opinion journalism masquerading as news,” Dunn snapped, which ignited the White House attacks on Fox News’ journalism.

When asked further to elaborate, Dunn expanded:

“If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest story, the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called ACORN, when the reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”

It was comments like these that had many Democrats gripping their foreheads. They saw the move as misguided and questioned the administration’s decision to launch an ideological crusade against a thriving cable news channel.

Dunn later drew even more ire when she praised the Chinese dictator Mao as one of her favorite political philosophers:

“Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa — two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say, ‘Why not?”

So that’s what Mao was thinking when he killed 50 to 70 million of his own people in political purges?? Why not?!

Typically, White House politicos quote the words of our forefathers from Lincoln to Washington, not communist murderers.

Liberal groups are already spinning Dunn’s announcement, insisting that her role as communications director “was always meant to be temporary.”

Was Van Jones was just keeping someone’s seat warm, too?

And if she was expected to serve as an interim attack dog, then the end goal seemed to be use her as a paper tiger in an attempt to demonize and discredit Fox News, while at the same time, clearly define an enemy. If this was the strategy, it was a very bad one that very definitively failed.

The Dunn-led White House attacks on Fox have been a huge boon for the news channel, propelling the networks’ already sky-high ratings even higher with a 9 percent uptick in the three weeks following the dust up, according to Nielsen Co., the leading tracker of television viewership.

Perhaps Dunn’s early departure is a signal that Democrats are waking up to the fact that after Tuesday’s election results, the public views the troubled economy, out of control federal spending and the White House’s failure to keep unemployment below 8 percent paramount to an intellectual exercise (though gauging from their maniacal focus on health care and climate change, that’s unlikely).

With radical, loose cannons like Dunn and Jones gone from the Obama team, the real question is how many more like them are hiding in the White House woodwork?

This story was written by Andrea Tantaros who is a conservative commentator and columnist. She is the former press secretary to House Republican Leadership and Communications Director for Massachusetts Governor William Weld. For more go to: www.andreatantaros.com or follow her on Twitter: @andreatantaros.

So Who’s Actually at Risk from the Swine Flu?

A study of H1N1 swine flu in Mexico finds that while babies and people under the age of 40 are most likely to get sick, elderly people have the highest death rates.

The research, published online Nov. 11 in The Lancet, analyzed medical records of patients at clinics in the Mexican Institute for Social Security network, who became sick with flu-like illnesses between April 28 and July 31, 2009.

The researchers found 63,479 cases of flu-like illness. Of the 6,945 confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu, about 1 percent (63 patients) died. Seven percent (475 patients) were admitted to the hospital and lived.

Of those aged 70 and older who got sick, 10.3 percent died. By contrast, 0.9 percent of those aged 20 to 29 died, the study authors noted.

The researchers found that the risk of infection fell by 35 percent in those who received vaccinations for seasonal flu. Chronic disease boosted the risk of death by six times.

Those who didn’t go to the hospital within four days after developing symptoms boosted their risk of death by 20 percent for each extra day they delayed a hospital visit.

Pregnant women made up 6 percent of the deaths in Mexico. That rate is a bit lower than in the United States (8 percent) over the same time period.

“In Mexico, all pregnant workers were sent home during the peak of the pandemic, which probably accounts for this difference,” Dr. Victor Borja-Aburto of the Mexican Institute for Social Security in Mexico City, and colleagues wrote.

“A $1.50 [fee] here, a $1.50 there,” he said. “Forty cents for a balance inquiry. Fifty cents to have your card denied. Thirty-five cents to have your account accessed by telephone.” He was quoting fees listed in a brochure that goes out to every unemployed person in Pennsylvania who chooses to receive benefits via debit card. He was given the option when he filed for jobless payments: Wait 10 days for a check or get the card immediately. Like most of the 925,000 state residents who received unemployment benefits in February in Pennsylvania, he chose the debit card and only then, he says, did he learn about the fees. “I was outraged by it,” he told CNN. “I was very noisy about it. I just couldn’t believe it. An outrage is just too weak a word. It’s obscene.”

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 30 states offer direct deposit cards to the unemployed. Many of the nation’s biggest banks have contracts with the individual states. JP Morgan Chase, for instance, has contracts with seven states and has pending deals with two others, according to Chase spokesman John T. Murray. About 10 states, the Labor Department says, pay by check only. (See the balance of this story at the CNN site).