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Last Straw For NPR?
IBD Editorials ^ | March 8, 2011 | Staff

Posted on 03/08/2011 7:38:06 PM PST by Kaslin

Taxes Misspent: It's bad enough that taxpayers are forced to support a left-wing media outlet long since rendered obsolete by the Internet. Now we learn NPR is seeking booty from terrorist sources.

Where to begin in describing the damning revelations produced by filmmaker James O'Keefe's Project Veritas in its videotaped undercover sting of National Public Radio officials?

NPR claims innocence, but why was Ron Schiller, until recently the president of the NPR Foundation, so eager to do lunch at Georgetown's schmancy Cafe Milano with two men posing as high-ranking members of a Muslim Brotherhood front?

The investigative reporters were offering NPR a $5 million donation, and the videotape they made shows Schiller giving them the impression that it would be money well spent.

The whole episode provides plenty of new reasons for taxpayers to demand the end of NPR public funding.

An NPR spokeswoman insists that O'Keefe's phony Islamists "repeatedly pressed us to accept a $5 million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept." Does she expect people to believe that NPR fundraisers spend their working hours meeting with prospective donors for the fun of it?

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: jamesokeefe; npr
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To: Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears

The House just needs to leave it out of the budget.


21 posted on 03/08/2011 8:30:16 PM PST by Frantzie (HD TV - Total Brain-washing now in High Def. 3-D Coming soon)
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To: stickywillie

I doubt anyone except for congressional aides understand what’s going on. That’s the problem.


22 posted on 03/08/2011 8:33:46 PM PST by yup2394871293
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To: Kaslin

O’Keefe should have had ‘em meet with a couple of underage Muslim sex workers...the dopes from NPR wouldn’t have caught on.


23 posted on 03/08/2011 8:37:06 PM PST by bigbob
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To: Frantzie
The House just needs to leave it out of the budget.

They already have. I believe the $61B in cuts currently being negotiated with the Senate include de-funding for NPR, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

24 posted on 03/08/2011 8:40:56 PM PST by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance On Parade)
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To: okie01
They already have. I believe the $61B in cuts currently being negotiated with the Senate include de-funding for NPR, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

They'll just pull their money from the NEA and call it a day. Considering CPB doesn't know how much federal money NPR actually gets due to all of the backroom accounting practices at NPR, it would be next to impossible to eliminate federal funds being misappropriated by NPR.
25 posted on 03/08/2011 9:02:20 PM PST by Renderofveils (My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. - Nabokov)
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To: stickywillie
“Why” can it not be defunded? I don’t understand

Bachmann 'exposes' $105B 'fraud' in health care law

The three amigos, hid the $105 billion so that Obamacare can not be defunded. No one knew it because it was hidden in several places in the 2,900 page bill. If they don’t get the $105 billion back now, then Obamacare can and will be funded without congressional oversight. the money is already there. Get it??
26 posted on 03/08/2011 9:02:50 PM PST by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Kaslin

Bump....


27 posted on 03/08/2011 9:15:13 PM PST by Intolerant in NJ
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To: Kaslin

How do I nominate James O’Keefe for a Nobel Prize?


28 posted on 03/08/2011 9:30:25 PM PST by Rembrandt (.. AND the donkey you rode in on.)
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To: Longbow1969

“NPR is already liberal, but without tax payer funding it can come out of the closet and be a full on left wing media outlet.”

How would we be able to tell the difference vs. now?


29 posted on 03/08/2011 9:32:46 PM PST by Rembrandt (.. AND the donkey you rode in on.)
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To: Longbow1969
NPR is already liberal, but without tax payer funding it can come out of the closet and be a full on left wing media outlet.

And it's not already?

And, in the absence of federal funding, if it becomes another iteration of Air America..........well, we all know how that ended.

30 posted on 03/08/2011 9:48:19 PM PST by okie01 (THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Ignorance On Parade)
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To: Rembrandt

Is this the same guy who made the “Schiller’s reel” on SNL in the 70’s?


31 posted on 03/08/2011 11:29:01 PM PST by boop ("Let's just say they'll be satisfied with LESS"... Ming the Merciless)
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To: Kaslin

They fail to mention Betsey and her cheerleading the National Palestinian Radio comment.


32 posted on 03/09/2011 4:51:11 AM PST by Presbyterian Reporter
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To: Cheerio

so, because the 105 billion was found, the 105 billion can be stopped? if the 105 billion had NOT been discovered, no one would have noticed the huge checks being written? is that it?


33 posted on 03/09/2011 5:43:40 AM PST by stickywillie
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To: stickywillie
so, because the 105 billion was found, the 105 billion can be stopped? if the 105 billion had NOT been discovered, no one would have noticed the huge checks being written? is that it?

NO. It must be REPEALED - that is not going to happen until the GOP retakes the WH from the boy king.
Pelosi: Have to pass bill to find out whats in it


March 5, 2011

In a shocking new report by C. Stephen Redhead from the Congressional Research Service it has been revealed that within the Health Care Reform legislation recently passed by Congress there exists over $105 Billion in appropriations to fund the legislation.

So while the electorate in November sent a strong message that they wanted the health care bill overturned or defunded, the defunding option was NEVER an option. The bill must be overturned.

I would go so far as to say that the perpetrators of this deception must be investigated and punished if at all possible under the law.

Please notice all the NEW AUTHORITY the government has grabbed for itself over our lives with this bill. Children in public schools will have a health care authority to watch over them.

$375 Million tax dollars will pay for "Personal Responsibility Training" in birth control.

$1.5 Billion will fund maternal, infant, and early childhood home visitation programs.

The report follows with interesting information highlighted by me.

I inserted several rows of asterisks to mark the area of the document where the actual appropriations begin in case you want to skip past the first part.

(read more at this link)


If I understand the legal technicalities correctly, voting to approve a CR cannot remove non-discretionary funding - this is the result of which Piglosi HID non-discrtionary future funding in the bill. Thus the reason why she so proudly proclaimed "Have to pass bill to find out whats in it.

The GOP can certainly DEFUND it fully in the FY2012 budget, BUT I do not look to the GOP to stand up and fight. Tea Party will have to organize a whole lot of PRIMARIES in 2012.
34 posted on 03/09/2011 8:31:50 AM PST by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Cheerio
Ugh. I followed the link in your post to the report. (Thanks for posting it BTW.) I must say that I found the exercise of reading through the "appropriations" section to be nauseating. In various little (2-3 sentence) paragraphs filled with meaningless government buzzwords, millions and billions of OUR dollars are doled out to various entities that have failed miserably from their inception, or to new entities that will be established to further build-out the beast. How many times do we see the phrase: "to remain available until expended." IOW, don't worry if you can't spend it fast enough, it will still be there to spend.

I do not understand how the act of that prior congress can establish these fiscal burdens for years into the future. (I always thought that there was something about one congress not being able to assume appropriations for a future congress? Maybe that was wishful thinking on my part?) It is disgusting. As a matter of fact, it appears that $105 billion is the minimum amount since I see that the (new) PPHF is established and "appropriates amounts to the fund in perpetuity." (All this at a clip of "FY2015 and each fiscal year thereafter = $2 billion.") WTF?

You are correct, this monstrosity must be REPEALED in total. None of it can be allowed to stand.

My further chilling thought as I type this, I suspect that there are scores of similar legislative pieces that have done the same in terms of cavalier misappropriation for unconstitutional purposes. Is it any wonder that we find our "government" operating at such obscene levels of deficient spending that are growing larger with each passing month and year.

35 posted on 03/09/2011 10:18:02 AM PST by zzeeman ("We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.")
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To: zzeeman
My education and studies taught me that no Congress can obligate a future congress to appropriate anything. I understand that “entitlements” do not need annual appropriations, bur one congress cannot obligate future congresses. In the Government contracting world, congress created a special category of contract titled “MultiYear Contract” but since future congresses will have to vote annually on whether that program gets more funds, what happens is that each year there has to be an amount obligated for termination fees to pay the contractor for termination in case the future congress refuses to fund it.
36 posted on 03/09/2011 1:18:37 PM PST by Cheerio (Barry Hussein Soetoro-0bama=The Complete Destruction of American Capitalism)
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To: Cheerio
My education and studies taught me that no Congress can obligate a future congress to appropriate anything. I understand that “entitlements” do not need annual appropriations, bur one congress cannot obligate future congresses.

It sounds like you and I have both encountered the same concept (though for the life of me I can not recall or find the source).

The problem that we have here with this specific aspect of the monstrosity is that this "act" is a mishmash of "Appropriations" and "Authorizations" mixed in with the establishment of a new set of "Entitlements."

Using this Glossary of Political Economy Terms, we can distinguish:

Entitlement program:
The kind of government program that provides individuals with personal financial benefits (or sometimes special government-provided goods or services) to which an indefinite (but usually rather large) number of potential beneficiaries have a legal right (enforceable in court, if necessary) whenever they meet eligibility conditions that are specified by the standing law that authorizes the program. The beneficiaries of entitlement programs are normally individual citizens or residents, but sometimes organizations such as business corporations, local governments, or even political parties may have similar special "entitlements" under certain programs. The most important examples of entitlement programs at the federal level in the United States would include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, most Veterans' Administration programs, federal employee and military retirement plans, unemployment compensation, food stamps, and agricultural price support programs.

Authorization bill:
A (proposed) formal act (or “law”) of a legislative body (such as the U.S. Congress or a state legislature) that legally establishes a new government agency or program or else renews or extends an existing agency or program whose previous legal authorization to exist would otherwise expire with the passage of time. Authorizations may be for one year or more than one year — about one-half of current Federal spending is by agencies or programs subject to annual re-authorization, while the other half gets its legal basis either from longer term authorization bills or from permanent laws that provide spending authority automatically to ongoing "entitlement" programs like Social Security. Authorization bills also include specific figures as funding levels for the agencies and programs, but these sums are upper limits only (for the guidance of the appropriations committee) — no money can actually be spent or committed by the agency or program administrators until after a separate appropriation bill has also been passed and signed into law, legally enabling the Treasury to disburse the money.

Appropriation bill:
A (proposed) formal action by a legislative assembly (such as the U.S. Congress or a state legislature) that specifies exact amounts of the government's money that the Treasury may legally pay out (through new hiring, contracts for purchases, findings of individuals' eligibility for income transfer payments, etc.) for each of a list of particular pre-authorized programs carried out by governmental agencies over a specific period of time (normally one year).

There are so many aspects of this goliath that are clearly NOT Entitlements (as commonly defined and used), and are enacted via Authorizations contained within, but are clearly NOT to be funded beyond the prior FY (when it was enacted) without the passage of specific Appropriations bills. They simply can not be allowed to mash all of this garbage into this one bill and assume that they have going forward funding (especially into perpetuity like the example I described in my last post).

I don't think it would be difficult for the current House to put the kibosh on this illegal spending if they set their mind to it. Hopefully disallowing the spending for the current FY will hold off implementation, until the whole thing is sent into the trash-bin by SCOTUS later this year.

37 posted on 03/09/2011 3:45:04 PM PST by zzeeman ("We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.")
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To: Cheerio

so, can be money be spent before it is repealed? Why couldn’t the house just refuse to write the checks. they were illegal as h*ll the way they put it through to begin with


38 posted on 03/09/2011 5:31:23 PM PST by stickywillie
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To: Longbow1969
The problem is Democrats know they just need to trot out pictures of Big Bird, round up some teachers to say how essential public broadcasting "for the kids", and the public folds like a cheap suit - particularly women.

hmmm. Do you think that maybe this dude that did the recording is NOT acting alone?

39 posted on 03/09/2011 5:33:18 PM PST by SeeSac
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