NPR fires Juan Williams for Muslim remarks on Fox

Let’s look at a couple of articles on this topic and ask the question…..What is the government doing funding NPR?

NPR terminated the contract of Juan Williams on Wednesday after comments the veteran journalist and news analyst made about Muslims on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly stirred up controversy last week on “The View” after making the blanket statement that “Muslims killed us on 9/11,”  a comment that led to co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walking off the set.

On Monday, O’Reilly asked Williams if there is a “Muslim dilemma” in the United States. The NPR analyst and longtime Fox News contributor agreed with O’Reilly that such a thing exists, and added that “political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.”

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot,” Williams continued. “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.”

Yahoo News

NPR Did Something Really Stupid…They put the Spotlight on Themselves

In firing Juan Williams, NPR did something tactically stupid!  They put the spotlight on themselves!  I knew it was only a matter of time when they would do that and that is strategically unsound (yes, stupid!)  Here is why…

NPR was created in 1967 (formally in 1970) because President Lyndon Johnson wanted to create an independent public broadcasting (modeled after the BBC) with government funding. It was created at at very different time than now.  It was created at a time when we did not have a zillion other media outlets…cable…and yes, the internet.  With the thousands of media outlets, there is now a collection of ideas and an ability of people to get information and to compare and contrast that information.  According to the New Yorker dated June 7, 2004, President Johnson wanted to erect a “moat” between politicians and public broadcasting.

With the creation of all the news outlets and the way to get information, there was going to come a time when taxpayers decided they did not need NPR.  Why pay for NPR when there are so many options?  I figured that sooner or later the taxpayers would “pull the plug” on paying for NPR.  Yes, NPR is not financed totally by taxpayers but enough so that if taxpayers stop paying, they are in big trouble.  (I read one estimate today that taxpayers pick up about 15 % of the cost.)  NPR does not have commercials to support them but rely on big sponsors.

NPR was wise to “fly under the radar” to continue taxpayer assistance, but now?   They have put the spotlight on themselves and people will be questioning: do we still need NPR? is this something we can afford in these
times?

Aside from the economic issue… there is the issue of censoring and
First Amendment.  Does a media outlet – protected by the First Amendment /
Freedom of the Press and Speech – want to get in the censoring business? Let me remind everyone: the First Amendment is not there to protect agreement or to be part of a popularity contest.   It was included in the Constitution for the opposite reason: to protect the UNPOPULAR opinion from the tyranny of
the majority.   You don’t need a First Amendment to protect popular speech.

Gretawire.com

Renewable Electricity Standards Kill Jobs Too

Well this is no news to those of us who saw the report from Spain that to create one  “green job” it  killed 2.2 regular jobs.

Morning Bell: Renewable Electricity Standards Kill Jobs Too

Cap and trade legislation is dead. The left abandoned the policy this summer when it became clear it was a liability. Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) told Politico: “You can’t use cap and trade anymore because it is like manure on the trough. It’s defined, and people are opposed to it.” But that doesn’t mean the left has abandoned plans to hike up our nation’s energy costs in a vain attempt to save the world. All they did was pick a new a set of government mandates and repackage it as Renewable Electricity Standards (RES). Don’t be fooled. The goal (reducing emissions) and mechanism (raising energy prices) are still the same. As is the result: millions of lost jobs at a time when unemployment already is hovering around 10%.

According to a Financial Times/Harris survey conducted this month, most Americans favor an expansion of renewable energy. But that support is very weak. When asked if they would be willing to pay as little as 5% more for electricity, only 32% of Americans answered yes. On the other hand, a full 57% of Americans said they would be opposed to paying for more than a 5% increase in electricity prices for renewable energy. And that is where the left’s RES dreams hit cold hard economic reality. Here are the prices that President Barack Obama’s  Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects for various sources of electricity per megawatt hour in 2016 (in 2008 dollars):

• Conventional coal power: $78.10
• Onshore wind power: $149.30
• Offshore wind power: $191.10
• Thermal solar power: $256.60
• Photo-voltaic solar power: $396.10

As you can see, the prices for alternative energy are at a minimum almost double the cost of conventional coal power. So what would happen if Congress mandated that utilities obtain growing percentages of their power from renewable sources of energy? A Heritage Foundation analysis of 22.5 % RES by 2025 found: 1) household electricity prices would jump 36%; 2) industry prices would rise by 60%; 3) national income (GDP) would be cut by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035; and most importantly 4) RES would kill more than 1,000,000 jobs.

Renewables like hydro, wind, solar energy and biomass account for only 6% of our nation’s electricity generation. But when was the last time you saw a dam built? Take hydro-power out and renewables account for only 3% of our nation’s power. And this is after decades of existing generous renewable subsidies. If electricity created by wind and other renewables was cost competitive, consumers would use more of it without a federal law to force consumption. But renewable energy is not cost competitive, hence the need for government coercion to force the American people to buy it.

There simply is no upside to a RES. In fact, in some ways it is even worse than cap and trade. Heritage analyst David Kreutzer explains: “Electric power is one of the most critical inputs to a modern economy. Thus, it is no surprise that forcing the cost of electricity to rise dampens economic activity. The cost increase for electricity can be viewed as a particularly damaging energy tax, because a renewable mandate, unlike the case of a normal tax, provides no revenue to at least partially offset the higher cost.

By way of comparison, the highway use tax on gasoline raises the price of gasoline, but it also generates revenues for building and maintaining roads and bridges. On the other hand, a renewable energy standard raises costs in the form of less efficient production, which provides no economic benefit.”

blog.heritage.org

Chattanooga Tn School Bows to Freedom from Religion Foundation and Ends Prayers

Well here we go again….two  students are “offended” by prayers at the school and contacted The Freedom from Religion Foundation in Wisconsin which wrote a letter to the school system in Hamilton county threatening a lawsuit, so they are discontinuing the prayers. Although a poll I saw said 87% were in favor of the prayers, the minority prevail and stopped the free speech rights of the majority……again !!!

I have studied the Founding Fathers extensively and you won’t find even one example of them practicing “separation of church and state” as demanded by the courts today. Again, I challenge anyone to give me an example of the Founding Fathers practicing “separation of church and state” in their day as demanded by the courts today of us.

Either the Founders had no idea what they meant or had created, or the federal courts and the Supreme Court of the United States  today has invented another document out of what our forefathers wrote, and meant when it was written!

Tenn. High School Bans Pre-Game Prayers

A southeastern Tennessee public high school will no longer allow prayers to be said over its public address system before the start of its football games.

Hamilton County School Superintendent Jim Scales has ended the tradition of a prayer being said over the loudspeakers after two students at Soddy – Daisy High School near Chattanooga objected to the practice.

One of the students contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a Madison, Wis.-based group that promotes separation of church and state.  The organization’s officials sent a letter of complaint to Scales asking him to halt the prayers.

“The fact of the matter is that prayer in not allowed at public functions including graduation and football games, and it can’t be done over a loudspeaker. It can’t be done at graduation ceremonies,” Freedom From Religion attorney Rebecca Markert said.

“Once someone presses the issue, then we know how the courts rule on these things, so it’s probably incumbent upon us at this point to act in a responsible manner,” Scales said.

Scales instructed Principal John Maynard to stop the practice.

However, several students say they support publicly praying before the games and they don’t want the practice stopped.

“I think before a football game everybody should get together for a prayer to God for everyone to make sure nobody gets hurt and nothing goes wrong,” student Taon Harris said.

“Everybody that I know is all for it,” another student said. “They see that good things come from prayer. It’s what we do around here.”

Jim Rogers is the father of East Hamilton School’s football team manager. He told the Associated Press that public prayer is protected under the U.S. Constitution.

“Our country was founded on the principle of religious suffrage and the freedom to express that religion,” he told the newspaper.

The new rule applies to all Hamilton County schools. It also forbids teachers and coaches from taking part in group prayer during school events.

CBN.com