Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Juan Williams Pledge Drive Bounce

I like to listen to NPR on Saturday mornings - "Wait Wait, don't Tell Me" is my favorite show (radio, TV, or Web). This is a fundraising week and as of noon today, they are well ahead of their projected pledges.

Must be the result of sacking that two-faced Fox News hack Juan Williams.

It has always been a serious disconnect for me that Juan Williams worked for NPR and was a contributor to Fox News and a panelist on Fox News Sunday. WTF?

The Bush administration bullied NPR with threats of de-funding and intimidation for years keeping NPR on the defensive, running Republican partisan stories they may not have run otherwise. I used to keep track of how much time John Kerry would get compared to Bush, before the 2004 election, during news hours. It was no contest, Bush cronies would get double and sometimes triple the airtime that the Kerry camp would get. The content from the repubs was always the same discredited bullshit. Drove me crazy. Then, watching Moira Liasson and Juan Williams on Fox News was the nail in the coffin that told me that they were trying a little too hard to please the conservatives.

And now the conservatives want to de-fund NPR. Big Whoop. They always want to defund NPR.

I read Mike Moore's article on this and agree that (paraphrased) ANYONE who shills for corporations and ignorance on Fox News is a traitor to this country, an idiot and deserves to be fired from a legitimate news organization like NPR.

Moira, you're next.

Friday, October 15, 2010

The Ant and the Grasshopper - 2009

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for the Vid