NPR: If its audience is so much smarter, they can find their own way to keep it on the air.

NPR can go the way of AirAmerica unless their so much smarter audience can keep it afloat. And they need to be worried about defunding because that should be and might be at the top of Congress’ hit list.

After the firing of Juan Williams, a couple of weeks ago, because of statements he made that he felt uncomfortable when he saw people dressed in “Muslim garb,”  there have been loud calls for the defunding of NPR from the public and from Congressional members. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said  “If defunding to public broadcasting were to occur, it would be devastating to public broadcasting. That’s a fact.”

While NPR headquarters only receives about 1 percent of funding from tax dollars, member stations receive about 9 percent of their funding from tax dollars, Schiller said. She said that the 9 percent NPR member stations receive from taxpayer dollars is essential for them to stay on the air.

“For small stations, and even for large stations, that’s a big chunk of their revenue,” she said. “It’s been a critical part of keeping those stations vibrant and, so, we take these calls for defunding very, very seriously.”

Then Schiller goes on to praise her smarter-than-the -average-redneck-hayseed-Fox-News audience member:

Schiller criticized cable news during the forum for what she sees as its partisan nature. [Let me renind the reader of this ‘non-partisan’ cartoon that was featured on NPR a while back.] She also praised NPR’s audience as more intelligent than other media audiences, citing the comment section of a one-year old story about the Colorado boy who was suspected to have flown himself up in a balloon back in October 2009 on its website as evidence.

Two of the posters to NPRs balloon boy blog (I love alliteration) calculated the weight. air speed, gravitational pull and lift (okay, not all that but close) required to get this balloon off the ground with a small child on board and they contradicted each other. But they did it in a polite and civil fashion, unlike posters on other blogs who do nothing but “yell at each other.”

But let me tell you, I went to it’s blog regarding the firing of Juan Williams and I posted on it. There were many  people there who were less than polite to each other over this topic. And there was some “yelling” between those who commented.

Schiller wants to paint her audience as more intelligent and elite. If that’s the case then they are intelligent enough to find the funding to keep it on the air without the need of our tax dollars.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/08/npr-chief-denounces-defunding-calls-in-speech-on-future-of-journalism/#ixzz14lORHa39

Lieberman supports Harry Reid to the tune of $14K

You need another reason to doubt Joe Lieberman’s politics? He tops the list in donations to Harry Reid from legislators – donating $14,000. That alone illustrates his lack of sense. He’s financially backed losers and God willing, Reid will be another.

Lieberman has given $30,000 overall during this election cycle, all to Democrats. The Democrat-turned-Independent has been especially generous to those facing  — or who faced — uphill re-election battles, such as Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Chris Dodd (Conn.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.). Lincoln is trailing in her race by double-digits, while Specter lost his May primary bid and Dodd announced his retirement this spring after polls showed him trailing in Connecticut.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/31/democrats-and-lieberman-dig-deep-in-their-pockets-for-harry-reid/#ixzz0yBUMk7vG

The authentic non-elitists and JournoList ‘journalists’

After reading these JournoList emails, no reporter can ever say, with any credibility, that Obama has been the victim of bad press. They’ve done everything they could do to assure that he looks good all the time. And if we ever thought these so-called reporters and pundits, were sensitive to us, the average American, this should knock some sense into us:

Adam Serwer on Palin and stupid Americans: But she’s so AUTHENTIC! Authentic non-elitist Americans don’t worry about this stuff, they worry about how to teach their kids how to shoot m-16s and use withdrawal as birth control.

 Kathleen Geier, also on Palin and stupid Americans: I’m unsure. Her ignorance is alarming, and I’d like to think it would make voters worry about whether she’s really up to the job.

On the other hand, the GOP obviously takes great pride in being the stupid party. And hey — it’s worked!

Read more here at The Daily Caller.

As Dan Gainor says today in his column, we are not of the same world as the “reporters” of JournoList. We are the unwashed, the clingers of God and guns, the stupid who believe in ‘myths’ like the Bible and Christian values, who are simply too weird, too backward for those elitists to understand.

It’s an old story, but the explanations are the same. “We are not of your world,” journalists whine as they miss the news of the day. The elusive concerns of God, country, Constitution and family are too unusual, too much like fairy tales for modern journalists to acknowledge.

~~~ooOoo~~~

This morning the Patriot Post, highlighting James De Long of the American Enterprise Institue,   said that any employer of these “reporters” should not only be offended and outraged at the attempts to use their publications to promote their progressive agenda, but should fire the whole lot of them.

The real problem with JournoList is that much of it consisted of exchanges among people who worked for institutions about how to best hijack their employers for the cause of Progressivism. Thus, the J-List discussion revealed yesterday in the Daily Caller was about how the group could get their media organizations to play down the Reverend Wright affair and help elect Barack Obama.

Were I an editor of one of these institutions, I would instantly fire any employee who participated in this gross violation of his/her duty. For example, the J-List included Washington Post reporters, and the idea that the paper has been turned into a propaganda organ is a big reason it is bleeding readers and influence.

But of course, this is all provided that the publications these “reporters” work for want to appear unbiased and fair in their reporting. The jury’s still out on that.

Com’on – who are real the haters?

Rush Limbaugh from NewsBusters.org

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.

But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.

In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”

Spitz’s hatred for Limbaugh seems intemperate, even imbalanced. On Journolist, where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it barely raised an eyebrow.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/liberal-journalists-suggest-government-shut-down-fox-news/#ixzz0uKrkYwTX

Point me to the conservative bloggers who are posting wishes of horrendous death on fat headed Ed Schultz or other dimwits like him. I know there are some out there, but they are not conservatives – they are assholes.

I will agree that Keith Olbermann gets a lot of grief but none of what I read wishes him to die an ugly death.

It’s just disgusting to read this stuff from people who are supposed to be providing us with unfiltered (as can be possible) information.

Not only has this story from Carlson put the spotlight on unbiased journalists, but it has made us all more disappointed in the 4th Estate and it’s fairness to provide us with information that we need to make informed decisions. Who can you trust? Is it any wonder that so many are turning to the internet and to blogs and bloggers?

The “new media” seems to be the only place to find any semblance of fact. And the big sites (pardon the pun) like Carlson’s and Breitbart’s are being held to a very high standard. The best news is that they seem to be up to that task.

The real LEFT WING CONSPIRACY – label the enemy racist.

“Our country [America] disappears people. It tortures people. It has the blood of as many as one million Iraqi civilians — men, women, children, the infirmed — on its hands. You’ll forgive me if I just can’t quite dredge up the requisite amount of outrage over Barack Obama’s pastor,” [Chris] Hayes [of the Nation] wrote.

This is the sentiment of those who are supposed to be bringing us the news, the facts. And this is not isolated in the world of journalism. We’ve known for over 2 years that the press and media were in Obamas corner but this story from The Daily Caller, puts klieg lights on the culprits.

To channel the darling of the TEA party (not) Jeanine Garafalo: These are America haters, STRAIGHT UP!

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how these “journalists” would survive in a not so free nation?

This, by Spencer Ackerman (of the Washington Independent), taken right out of the Alinsky playbook:

If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Ackerman  put forth the “call them all racist” strategy. He suggested that their little group pick out some folks like Karl Rove or Fred Barnes and label them racist for not jumping on the Obama Hope’nChange wave, especially if those on the right are appalled by Jeremiah Wright’s rhetoric.

Kevin Drum, then of Washington Monthly, also disagreed with Ackerman’s strategy. “I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Obama is trying (or says he’s trying) to run a campaign that avoids precisely the kind of thing Spencer is talking about, and turning this into a gutter brawl would probably hurt the Obama brand pretty strongly. After all, why vote for him if it turns out he’s not going change the way politics works?”

But it was Ackerman who had the last word. “Kevin, I’m not saying OBAMA should do this. I’m saying WE should do this.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-stories-about-rev-jeremiah-wright/3/#ixzz0uENOt5Oe

Now we all know for certain where some of the  “racism as a strategy” came from.  Call me paranoid but there really is a left wing conspiracy at work in this country.

Our leader suffers from an STD (Short-Timers Disorder)

I was too young to remember this devastating ad:

But from all historical accounts, it was definitely an election changer. It’s been shown many times over the years for that reason and I can see why it was a real game changer. During the last election, I saw the maker of this ad on a news show and this is one political ad that hit a home run and will live on in history for how it affected the electorate.

Which brings me to this ad:

Even though Hillary lost, this is another high impact ad. It reinforced my opinion, when I saw it that Obama was not the right guy to sit in the oval office. It gives you pause to think: Who do you want taking that call? Who do you trust to do the most right thing?

Even his running mate gave reason for voters to question the decision to elect Obama:

Obama’s been tested from all sides and he shows nothing but annoyance (or naivety or downright incompetence) to events, not decisiveness or a vision of purpose during any critical event that he has faced. The only time he shows determination in a purpose is when it’s a crisis he has generated (remember the “health care crisis”?)

In the book Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, at a time while Obama was still debating his run for president, he asks his handlers if he can be home every weekend during the campaign. When I read this little paragraph in the book, I was astounded. Is it just me, or does this sound a little naive? Did he think that running for president of the United States was going to be a 5 day work week, 9-5 job? Did he think this was a day job? And does he think that while he’s president, he can close shop at 10pm and turn out the lights?

I think he does. And I think that anything that happens while he’s “indisposed” will be nothing short of an annoyance and a distraction. I just do not believe that he ever had a clue what this job entailed, what level of responsibility living in the White House requires. (It was reported that during the transition, and after Bush had met with Obama, Bush told one of his aides that “this cat is clueless.”) As I’ve said before, I think he knows he’s a one-termer and he’s going to get all the perks he can get from this job – traveling the world, seeing everything, hosting glittering parties for celebrities, enjoying private concerts and flying in chefs from all over the country.

All the while, he’s standing back and letting his underlings write policy, draft bills and generally run the country and the world. (If he knows nothing else from community organizing, he knows how to delegate. Hence, all the czars in this government.)

All of this rambling brings me to this column by Alex Pappas in today’s Daily Caller.

Can you think of anything scarier than this?

Well, aside from an Obama second term?

Another self admitted “progressive” on the Supreme Court.

It really doesn’t sound all that far-fetched after you read the opinion piece from The Daily Beast:

Last week, ABC News reported: “Lawyers for President Obama have been working behind the scenes to prepare for the possibility of one, and maybe two Supreme Court vacancies this spring. Court watchers believe two of the more liberal members of the court, Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, could decide to step aside for reasons of age and health. That would give the president his second and third chance to shape his legacy on the Supreme Court.”

…

Some have suggested Hillary play musical chairs with Joe Biden in a second term. Biden actually wanted to be secretary of State more than he wanted to be vice president. So, he’d probably be game. The problem with this scenario is that in terms of power and influence, the veep slot would be step down for Hillary. And Team Obama never liked the idea of giving Bill Clinton entrée to meddle around the familiar old 18 acres.  On the other hand, the surest route to a party nomination is to launch your candidacy from the cat bird’s seat of the vice presidency.

…

But if in the end if it’s about what is realistic, and how Hillary could have the greatest impact on society, most would agree she could have the greatest political influence by hanging around for a couple of decades casting votes and writing opinions on the Supreme Court.

… why would Obama consider her?

One possibility: legacy. As popular as Obama is, and as many votes as he received in 2008, he still stepped over Clinton to get to the throne.  And a lot of woman haven’t forgotten or forgiven. In one stroke, he would eliminate any remaining bad feelings and would become a Hillaryland hero.

Stripping away the drama, the politics and psychobabble, she’d be a great choice for Obama and the Democrats.  She’s as smart and as qualified as any prospect her party could nominate.

~~~ooOoo~~~

It takes a Village to get on the Supreme Court?

Is the MSM paying attention… yet?

If you have 33 minutes, I can promise you it will be the best you spend this week listening to Breitbart’s Tea Party Convention speech.

Christian Science Monitor/Patrik Jonsson

Nashville, Tenn.

Recounting the exploits of two young reporters who went undercover to uncover the ACORN scandal, online publisher Andrew Breitbart on Saturday exhorted a widely held view among those in the tea party movement: Liberals and media organizations “can no longer control the narrative.”

The rise of conservative media outfits like Breitbart’s Big Journalism [bigjournalism.com] and Big Government and Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller [thedailycaller.com] have offered a kind of counter-media that, in Breitbart’s view, tells the stories that the mainstream media won’t tell Americans – including that of the nascent tea party movement, which has grown largely by Twitter, Facebook and via blogs like Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit [instapundit.com].

Technology the great equalizer

“Technology has been a great equalizer,” says Judson Phillips, founder of the Tea Party Nation website, a sort of tea party Facebook that sponsored this weekend convention. “It reminds me of how the British used old-style tactics and the patriots would be behind the trees, shooting.”

In a fiery speech to the first-ever National Tea Party Convention on Saturday, Breitbart – who runs his counter-media empire from his basement office in Hollywood – painted a vivid picture of a press in lockstep with liberal values, where reporters use words like racist and homophobe as weapons to suppress dissent. (At that point, a woman wearing a t-shirt that said “I resist” stood up and waved.)

Breitbart said reporters put all news involving conservatives into two basic buckets: “racism and Watergate.” He urged the 600 tea party activists gathered at the Opryland resort in Nashville to take inspiration from conservative reporters like James O’Keefe, the videographer behind the undercover ACORN expose.

Andrew Breitbart with James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles

“I’m trying to tell you, wink, you can do it, too. You have cameras! You have ingenuity!” he said. “What we are starting to do is create our own media … that is reporting what the mainstream media refuses to tell you .We are exposing the corruption of the mainstream media.”

Breitbart’s may have a point. Proof to many here is how the mainstream media for weeks missed the story of Scott Brown’s surging candidacy in Massachusetts (one likely reason for all the interest in the Tea Party Convention), or how the New York Times put Mr. O’Keefe on page 1 only after he was arrested for alleged phone-tampering at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans.

Jabs at the mainstream media

But while the roomful of tea partiers stood up at several of Breitbart’s jabs and pointed to the TV cameras at the back of the room, the fact that there were TV cameras there at all partly undermined Breitbart’s point that mainstream reporters are totally out of touch.

Convention organizers realized it, too. After originally banning all but a few mostly conservative outlets, the organizers ultimately opened the convention doors wide, even allowing media into Sarah Palin’s speech tonight.

True, some of the ensuing coverage has been critical and snide. But the willingness of people like California tea party activist Heather Gass to speak her mind to mainstream reporters may do as much, or more, to legitimize the tea party movement as the counter-media’s attention.

“People can now see who we are and they can see that we’re not dangerous,” says Ms. Gass. “We’re their neighbors.”

Not everyone agrees. One caller to C-Span – which aired nearly the entire convention – said the sight of primarily white and older self-described “patriots” frightened her. She said the gathering looked like a lynch mob.

But the fact is that the 200-plus old-school reporters attending the convention is giving the potent but inchoate movement something it craves and, ultimately, needs: respect.

That includes a Swedish radio reporter who sent an earnest piece back to Sveriges Radio on Friday, explaining how a modern-day tax revolt movement that appeared at first to be woefully fringe is looking more and more mainstream.

~~~~ooOoo~~~~

• Andrew Breitbart at National Tea Party Convention to Media: “It’s Not Your Business Model That Sucks, It’s You That Sucks”
• Palin to tea party: It’s revolution time

• Progressive Exploding Head Parade: re: Sarah Palin Tea Party Address
• Sarah Palin to Barack: How’s that hopey changey thing working out for you?