A Washington Times Communities contributor wrote yesterday, based on documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by a pseudonymous conservative blogger who goes by "Sundance," that police engaged in an intentional coverup to conceal reports that Martin was suspected of stealing jewelry, among other crimes. The post has already been picked up by a number of well-read conservative blogs and is currently leading FoxNation, the conservative news network's aggregation website.

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O'Reilly got particularly angry when talking with Fox News analyst Juan Williams, calling Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion that the backers of Proposition 8 had no standing to appeal the case "just absurd."

Williams argued that in cases like Prop 8 and Obamacare, Roberts "made a decision based on what he thought was in the political best interest of the Court."

"That's not his job!" O'Reilly exploded. "That's not his job, Juan!"

Here's the video. The interview with Williams begins at around 4:25:

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Sure, the cable network covered the DOMA decision as it broke mid-morning, giving the essential details to viewers. But then it swiftly moved onto what it apparently deemed more urgent stories, like an IRS credit card spending spree on porn and wine, a Keystone Pipeline corruption scandal featuring a billionaire supporter of the president, and President Obama's allegedly lavish trip to Africa.

As someone who worked at Fox News for two and half years, I can tell you this coverage decision wasn’t surprising -- it fits right into the network's strategy.

I was employed by Fox for two and half years, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2011. Unlike other former Fox producers who’ve caused a stir, I’m not here to dish juicy tidbits about secret meetings or specific anchors. I have no gripes to share about the No. 1 rated cable news channel. But my time there -- beginning on the cusp of the Obama age in 2008 as a guest booker for Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room,” and ending in 2011 working on “Freedom Watch” with Judge Andrew Napolitano -- did give me valuable insight into the network.

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Few outside Zimmerman's defense team have done more to help him than Sean Hannity, who on Friday declared that Zimmerman had already won the trial. "As far as I'm concerned, this case is over," the Fox host said after playing testimony from a witness who said he saw Trayvon Martin beating Zimmerman "MMA style." The day before that, Hannity said on his radio show that the judge should dismiss manslaughter, let alone the second-degree murder charges.

"So the question is why are we here? And the answer to that question is purely political. Politics influenced the decision, the media influenced the decision," Hannity said, succinctly revealing why the conservative media has found itself vocally defending someone who admitted to killing teenager Trayvon Martin. It goes like this: Liberals and the media made hay out of the fact that Zimmerman was initially not charged in the killing of Martin. Liberals and the media are bad. Therefore, Zimmerman must be good.

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Not surprisingly, Fox has often come in for a drubbing from media watchdogs for its often conservative, narrative-driven news coverage. But Kurtz, while occasionally willing to call foul on Fox, is generally pretty credulous of the cable news channel, defending it during controversies, favorably profiling its personalities, and seemingly overlooking its lapses.

John Cook at Gawker pointed this out, suggesting that Kurtz may have scooped him in 2004 at the behest of a News Corp. PR agent, and pointing to some other examples:

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The man, Bill Cunningham, later asked Fox contributor Tamara Holder, "Are you going to cry?"

Fox on-air personalities on Friday were talking about the exchange on Sean Hannity's prime-time show the night before. Commentator Juan Williams concluded that Cunningham "obliterated the line" of civil discourse in his argument with Holder. The two had been brought on by Hannity to discuss whether Attorney General Eric Holder — no relation to Tamara — had committed perjury.

Cunningham, sitting next to Tamara Holder in a New York studio, called her "one of the stooges of the left that will always be there to excuse away criminal behavior." He said she had the "incurable fatal condition of liberalism that caused people like Eric Holder to be the consulary of Barack Hussein Obama."

He was jabbing a finger at Holder, who returned the favor.

"I really hope that when you speak to a judge, you don't point your finger in the person's face the entire time," she said. "Your finger does not make your point."

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Deen's use of racial slurs, her rep's response to the fiasco, and her bizarre apology have been indefensible. But Fox News, stalwart defender of civil liberties that it is, has come to her rescue. Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes said that the "liberal, anti-South media is trying to crucify Paula Deen."

"They accuse her of using a derogatory word to describe a black person. Paula admitted she used the word -- back in the 1980s -- when a black guy walked into the bank, stuck a gun in her face and ordered her to hand over the cash. The national media failed to mention that part of the story. I'll give credit to the Associated Press for telling the full story."

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Kurtz, who was fired by the Daily Beast and let go by CNN after a string of controversies and errors last month, joins Juan Williams, who was fired by NPR and caught in a research assistant plagiarism scandal, and Judith Miller, who was pushed out of the New York Times after carrying water for the Bush White House.

All three journalists followed a similar arc. They each had talent and promise, which led to meteoric success, which led to hubris that turned into laziness (Williams), complacency (Kurtz), and co-option (Miller). That was followed by flame out, disgrace, and finally refuge in the bosom of Roger Ailes.

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Until today. For one day only, the Capitol has been consumed by what feels a bit like a single-night stand reunion tour for a band that had one good album that mostly gets played for nostalgic reasons today. The event was billed as "the largest demonstration of Tea Party support since 2010," and while it may have succeeded on that count, it also underscores how much the movement has slipped since that year of its glory.

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MarketWatch's Chuck Jaffe reported that Smith issued "sponsored investment research" to tout Petrosonic's stock in a 20-page mailer, for which NBT received $50,000. The paid endorsement is against Fox's policy that "no contributor to FBN [Fox Business Network], nor his/her firm, and/or family members are allowed to accept financial consideration of any kind whatsoever to issue research, advertisements, or to otherwise promote individual stocks or securities." In a post today on his website, Smith acknowledged that he is "no longer a Fox contributor" but defended his "business of sponsored research for uncovered emerging growth companies." He also wrote: "For the record, my last contributor agreement with Fox News did NOT include any exclusion from me or my company sponsored research. But that is water under the bridge."

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On Obama's "fear-mongering":

The Republicans have no message discipline. Obama has incredible message discipline. His message right now is “Republicans want to poison the air and water. Republicans want kids with autism and Down syndrome and the elderly to fend for themselves.” He’s brilliant at fear-mongering, at demagoguery. He is always on the attack, always politicizing everything. Meanwhile, he keeps spending and borrowing us into a trillion dollars in debt.

On whether a Mitt Romney presidency would have ushered in a "golden age":

No, but I think you would have had somebody with the experience and the background and, frankly, not as driven by ideology as this president is. Obama’s an ideologue. Now, this being Playboy, you probably won’t agree with me on this, but I think the president is pretty radical in his views.

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I stopped paying much attention to Palin around the time she self-destructed by trying to make herself the victim after the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the shooting of 18 other people in Tucson, Ariz., in January 2011. After that, not only my attention but others’ seemed to drift away. She declared that she wouldn’t run for president, surprising no one, her spots on Fox News became less frequent (to her loud complaints) and, ultimately, the right-wing network didn’t renew her contract (though it was stated as her choice; she was going on to better things). I thought maybe Palin didn’t matter anymore.

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Murdoch, as the Times reports, may have been of late too preoccupied "steering his $73 billion media conglomerate, News Corporation" (I'm sure we can all relate) to pay attention to his wife, but she has not gone unnoticed by the rest of us.

The 44-year-old Chinese-born businesswoman, whose birth name literally means "cultural revolution," has led a colorful life. As she told Vogue two years ago, "I grew up in a little funny town called Xuzhou, in the countryside, very poor. We didn't have hot water." By the time she was in her early 20s, however, she had an MBA from Yale. She has been a media executive and film producer. She is the mother of Murdoch's two youngest children, Chloe and Grace. But what she is most famed for is her thoroughly no-nonsense loyalty to the man who is now divorcing her.

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The former Alaska governor first joined Fox in 2010 and soon become the network's highest-paid contributor, earning nearly $1 million a year. Fox even built Palin a private studio in her Wasilla home and network head Roger Ailes told the AP that "I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings." But after a series of sour negotiations, Palin "parted ways" with Fox in 2013, after the network seemingly “cancelled all my scheduled interviews tonight” according to a post Palin wrote on Facebook.

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NSA leaker Edward Snowden may be a rebel-heartthrob to the EFF crowd, but his whistleblowing is grating the ears of the politicians and pundits who built the intelligence-gathering apparatus Snowden unveiled. These folks haven’t spent the past dozen years expanding the parameters of government surveillance just to have some ingrate let us all in on it, and their responses have ranged from calling Snowden a dimwit to calling for his head. From Fox News to the Wall Street Journal, here are the most cringe-inducing reactions.

1. Jeffrey Toobin

Jeffrey Toobin’s quick and vicious takedown in the New Yorker set the tone for attacking Snowden as a naïve nincompoop. “Any marginally attentive citizen, much less N.S.A. employee or contractor, knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic communications,” Toobin wrote. Never mind that even many legislators were in the dark as to the size and scope of the NSA’s operations—Snowden was one warrant short of a wiretap for believing we hadn’t just assumed the highly classified intrusion into our lives.

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On Benghazi and Obama:

"You see, when we ask you to go out in the night and risk your life for America, we promise that we will backstop you and try and get you out if its humanly possible. In Benghazi, we did not do that...I've come to the conclusion that I don't even care what the president of the United States was doing that night. However, I would like to know what the commander-in-chief was doing that night."

On the IRS:

"We already know the IRS is arrogant," he said. "They waste as much money as other government agencies. They enjoy pushing people around, and they can't line dance. We don't need 16,000 more people who can't line dance! And we don't need more people with guns enforcing our health care!"

On America:

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"These girls can’t get their ears pierced, they can’t take an Advil at school without parental permission. Yet, they can go into a pharmacy in this Brave New World of women’s equality and -- quote -- reproductive health and get a morning after pill," she added.

Despite what Ingraham would like you to believe based on her inventive use of air quotes, emergency contraception has been proven safe and effective for women and girls -- which is why Judge Edward Korman ordered the administration to make it available without restrictions in the first place, as he noted in his April ruling:

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Now, on Fox News Sunday, he pompously declared “I am the conduit” for “compromise” on immigration reform, suggesting his ties to the far right in the House as well as mainstream Republicans in the Senate make him the man to broker a deal. Except Paul opposes any kind of specific pathway to citizenship for folks who are here illegally, which is a far-right staple that will make a deal impossible (h/t Crooks and Liars).

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