It's Time to Defund NPR

Juan Williams and I agree on something, for once. I don't think we came to the conclusion for the same reason though. I think nor should be defunded because I don't approve of my tax dollars being spent on something that goes against every grain of my being. npr has proven itself to be a tax payer funded shill of the left wing of the democratic party. They can claim that they too are fair and balanced, but it's a lie. I don't want my taxes funding abortions because it is against my beliefs, and so is the garbage spewed by the liberal elitists at npr.

Juan Williams was one of them, until he broke the rules and spoke the truth about his feelings about not being comfortable in the presence of muslims on an airplane. Who can blame him? Any American probably has those same feelings, even the stuck up, snooty folks over at npr. They would never admit to it though. It would ruin their holier than thou image.

I'm willing to bet though, that 1 hour before Juan Williams was fired he didn't think npr should be defunded. It was only after his ejection from the den of vipers that he saw the light. I'm thinking there may be a little conflict of interest going on. He can claim all the nobleness he wishes in his decision, but deep down, it has to be influenced by his firing.

By Juan Williams - FoxNews

It just keeps happening. NPR's leadership keeps tripping over its microphone wires and then asking everybody else to plug them back in.

I know everybody thinks I must be in a vindictive mood, celebrating the sudden departure of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller after her hand-picked personal fundraiser was caught on tape disparaging Tea Party activists, Jews and taking more shots at me. I'm human and do have some thoughts but it's okay to keep them to myself.

I will not slander her in the way that she impugned my intellect and my integrity with condescending comments after my firing. She said my comments on Fox News violated journalistic ethics and should have been kept between "him and his psychiatrist or his publicist." Schiller's missteps have been very public and all too visible to the world, allowing everyone to draw their own conclusions about her.

I'm not being vindictive when I say that NPR leadership had become ingrown and arrogant to the point that they lost sight of journalism as the essential product of NPR. People like Schiller and Ellen Weiss, the head of news for NPR, who made it her life's work to fire me, came to think of themselves as smarter than anyone else. They felt no need to answer to any critic. No other point of view had any importance to them. They came to personify anti-intellectual resentment and arrogance in journalism. Any approach at variance with their own was considered traitorous and a basis for exiling them to the Gulag or in my case, firing me.

If you care to read the rest, it is at the link above...

DeMint, Coburn Introduce Bill to Defund National Public Radio, PBS

It's funny, I have been racking my brain trying to think of a single right wing radio or tv network that is funded with tax dollars. I couldn't come up with a single one.

Since I'm not a dumbass liberal, I don't particularly want my tax dollars going to fund a dumbass liberal radio station.

If liberals want to fund npr, maybe they should make donations to it instead of forcing me to donate against my will. At that point it doesn't really remain a donation but instead becomes a tax. And taxing me to fund a radio station with a format that runs counter to my beliefs is just wrong.

Nobody is taxing liberals to fund FoxNews...

By Susan Jones - CNSNews

Two Republican senators on Friday introduced a bill to stop taxpayer subsidies to public radio and television.

Since 2001, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has received nearly $4 billion in taxpayer money for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said with the nation on the brink of bankruptcy, some decisions to cut spending are difficult -- but not this one:

"Americans struggling to make ends meet shouldn’t be forced to fund public broadcasting when there are already thousands of choices for educational and entertainment programming on the television, radio and Web," DeMint said. "President Obama’s own bipartisan debt commission proposed ending these unnecessary subsidies to public broadcasting. NPR boasts that it only gets 2 percent of its funding from taxpayers and PBS gets about 15 percent, so these programs should be able to find a way to stand on their own.”

Coburn called subsidies for public broadcasting "indefensible." "The federal government has no business picking winners and losers in today’s highly competitive media environment. NPR and CPB will do just fine without largesse from Washington," Coburn added.

CPB was incorporated as a private, nonprofit corporation under the authority of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, and its first taxpayer subsidy in 1969 was $5 million. In the current fiscal year, CPB is slated to receive $430 million from taxpayers, and President Obama recently asked for an increase to $451 million, the senators said.

PBS President Paula Kerger received $632,233 in compensation in 2009, according to the tax forms that nonprofits must file, while NPR President Emeritus Kevin Klose received more than $1.2 million in compensation.

DeMint and Coburn also noted that in 2010, NPR accepted a $1.8 million grant from the Open Society Foundation, backed by liberal financier George Soros, to hire 100 reporters. Additionally, NPR has an endowment of over $200 million, they said in a news release.