New Sleeping Giant?

MoonHowler

Several weeks ago, several scrappy little labor unions banded together against big brother out in Wisconsin.  Support grew until thousands of protesters piled into Madison, the state capital, to protest the attack on the very life blood of unions everywhere.  Governor Scott Walker might just have overplayed his hand. 

Walker went after the public sector unions using the state budget crisis as a reason for draconian measures that held union members accountable for a higher percent of health care and pension contribution.  The union conceded and then Walker tried to take collective bargaining away from them.  Like the gambler, he couldn’t walk away from the table and now he has a tiger by the tail.  The 14 Democrats are still self-sequestered away so a quorum is not possible.  Thousands of people from other unions have joined in solidarity with the Wisconsin public employees. Read More

Look out Oscar, Elmo and Big Bird, this time it’s real

MoonHowler

Politico.com

Break out the Big Bird and Elmo props again — Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) introduced a bill Friday that would eliminate federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the latest shot in a long-running GOP effort to kill PBS funding.

Their legislation would stop all taxpayer subsidies to CPB and its entities, including National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, which the GOP pair argues can survive financially without taxpayer dollars.

“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,” said DeMint in a statement about the bill.

Coburn chimed in that the “federal government has no business picking winners and losers in today’s highly competitive media environment.”

It sounds like DeMint and Coburn want more Faux News and less neutral programming. This yearly threat to PBS and NPR has been going on for years.  It has nothing to do with our budget crisis.  That is a ruse.  This is all about conservative control. 

Earlier last week we discussed the threats to defund NPR and PBS in the Ken Burns thread.  Now the threat   is real.  What shows do we like and watch and what do these shows give us that are uniquely American?   What can be done to stop these people from ripping away what many of us consider our culture?  When will they decide to defund the national parks and monuments?