By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
National Public Radio (NPR) is using taxpayer dollars to pay for high-priced lobbyists to fight Republican efforts to prohibit federal funding for the broadcaster. Despite outrage over the openly liberal network receiving tens of millions of dollars in subsidies while government deficits are at record levels, NPR brass have engaged a new lobbying firm to keep the spigots flowing.
Full disclosure: I'm a snob. Increasingly, I shun popular culture for the esoteric film, theater, literature and music given far wider exposure on NPR than on commercial stations. While I'm in confessional mode, I should add that I'm rooting for the future of the network, as I've been a daily listener for more than 30 years.
Imagine for a moment you were named the new president of National Public Radio (NPR). Your organization has just gone through several public relations disasters. They include firing respected liberal pundit Juan Williams for simply expressing his personal opinion on Fox News - and having former fundraiser Ron Schiller secretly caught on tape calling Tea Party activists "bigots" and making offensive comments about Jews. It's come to a point where many people across the ideological divide are debating whether NPR deserves to continue receiving public funding.
News analysts say that a hidden-camera video by a conservative activist targeting NPR was edited in misleading ways to showcase inflammatory remarks from a public radio executive.
Americans consider their politicians to be behavioral role models.
It is a bloodbath over at NPR. First this pinhead, Ron Schiller, resigns after initially being defended by NPR, then by the end of the day Tuesday, he's given the shuffalo to Buffalo. Then Vivian Schiller, no relation to Ron Schiller, resigns the next day as chief executive officer and president of NPR. Ron Schiller was caught on tape saying NPR did not need its subsidy from the federal government to survive, but I guess the board of directors of NPR is taking no chances. Off with both of the Schillers' heads.
Republicans and conservatives aren't your usual merry pranksters. It turns out that conservatives are pretty good at it.
"Charlie Sheen refused to play the part of the fallen star. He just kept on partying. He became the Keith Richards of television," writes Rob Long at Richocet.
Are you a white, middle class, gun-owning, church-going conservative? Then NPR hates you. This stark but unsurprising revelation came in an undercover investigative video by conservative activist James O’Keefe targeting NPR senior executive Ron Schiller. Mr. Schiller thought he was chatting up Muslim activists promising a $5 million donation to the embattled publicly funded network, and he sought to appeal to them by disparaging people who disagree with his liberal worldview.
PBS on Wednesday said it had been contacted by the same fake Muslim group that arranged a meeting with an NPR executive and secretly videotaped him calling the tea party racist.
Republicans said Wednesday that the resignation of NPR's top executive in the wake of an undercover video sting will not blunt their determination to cut off all taxpayer funds for public broadcasting.
National Public Radio found itself swept up in a perfect storm of criticism and static Tuesday after an undercover videotape captured a top executive condemning tea party supporters as "seriously racist" and suggesting the nonprofit network would be better off without its federal taxpayer subsidies.
In the longer tape, Schiller said the loss of federal funding would be disastrous in the short term.
All of this Mr. Schiller says to indict the Republican Party: "The current Repub lican Party is not really the Republican Party," says Mr. Schiller. "It's been hijacked by this group."
