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No PBS, Shooting Republicans Is Not A Laughing Matter
Townhall.com ^ | March 23, 2020 | Jake Hoffman

Posted on 03/23/2020 4:17:11 AM PDT by Kaslin

“If they don’t change the statute… they should be shot.” Based on the liberal mainstream media’s usual narrative you might guess those words were said by some mean conservative; however, you would be wrong. Those violence-inciting words were proclaimed with apparent pleasure by a leftist pundit on a taxpayer-funded PBS channel—and to make it worse, the PBS host, Ted Simons, not only failed to rebuke the comment, he can be heard chuckling at it. Watch the exchange here.

Leftist activist and political commentator, Chris Herstam, was speaking about Republican lawmakers when he decided to threaten them. Many of our state legislators and our governor are people I know. I know many of their spouses and children as well. I am currently a Republican candidate for the Arizona House of Representatives. This is personal for me.

At a time when tensions are running high, society is quarantined in a near lockdown, and Republicans are focused on solving real issues to help the American people, there is absolutely zero room for such disgusting, dangerous rhetoric.

It would be natural to expect that calling for violence like this would bring about widespread condemnation from the likes of PBS, station management, advertisers, and both sides of the political aisle, yet holding those expectations would once again leave you wrong. In fact, when Herstam made his despicable statement, the show’s host, Ted Simon, first chuckled audibly and then moved on as if nothing had occurred.

The PBS station in Arizona and this particular news broadcast has been on the air for decades. This was no rookie reporter. Moreover, PBS is subsidized by nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer money each year. Still no one blinked an eye when shooting Republican lawmakers was uttered on air.

And lest you think it was a momentary slip of the tongue or maybe a misstatement on the part of the pundit, he tweeted out the same phrase later that day. He has since deleted the vile tweet.

It is long past time for the media to be held accountable for their vivid double standard when it comes to inciting violence toward Republicans. Media pundits and Democrat activists routinely attempt to portray Republicans and conservatives as hateful, violent people just waiting to do harm to others, despite the evidence pointing squarely to the contrary.

After all, let’s not forget that it was Republican members of Congress that were targeted and literally shot by a crazed leftist in June of 2017. The left-wing activist responsible for the shooting was shot in return by Capitol Police officers who were there as part of Scalise’s detail. It was only their quick action that kept more Republican elected officials from being shot.

Step back and consider for a moment that on a publicly funded broadcast there was zero push back from the host when an invited pundit on the show said that Republicans deserve to be shot. The PBS host offered zero resistance; zero request for the pundit to clarify his disgusting remark, and, in fact, seemed to enjoy the comment with a slight on-air laugh. This episode serves as yet another stunning example of the liberal media’s double standards and hypocrisy.

Laughably, The Arizona Mirror, Herstam’s employer, has indicated that his only “punishment” will be a one-month hiatus on being allowed to publish columns on their website. Adding further insult to an already bad situation, Ted Simon, the show’s host who chuckled at the insidious remark, has received no punishment at all from PBS.

Every year PBS demands millions from us—the American taxpayers—yet when the lives of our elected officials are threatened on their programming they refuse to do anything about it. It’s time for their taxpayer-funded joyride to end. It is time for serious accountability. It’s time to defund PBS once and for all.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: defundpbsnpr; despotism; leftists; leftwing; politicalviolenc; tedsimons; violence; youpayforthis
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To: Kaslin

Here’s the link:

https://twitter.com/JMHoffman/status/1241395779530448897?s=20


21 posted on 03/23/2020 5:11:34 AM PDT by Jack023
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To: laconic

Paul Ryan married into a wealthy Dem family. He swallows.
Q made a mistake in letting the GOP traitors walk.


22 posted on 03/23/2020 5:23:02 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
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To: Kaslin

The anti-American PBS has got to go. Those commie sh*theads have been out of control for years. They are doing the same job that is already being done by the clowns on the Hate Night TV shows.


23 posted on 03/23/2020 5:33:33 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (You can vote your way into socialism but you have to shoot your way out of it.)
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To: Kaslin

And on top of everything else, the left wants to ban the sale of guns and ammo in the middle of Covid-19 crisis.

No wonder gun sales are way up, with lefty liberal fascist a$$ hats like this talking about shooting political opponents


24 posted on 03/23/2020 5:34:24 AM PDT by Candor7 ((Obama Fascism)http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/05/barack_obam_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: laconic

“Freedom of the press” does not include the government subsidizing some of it. In fact, it seems counter intuitive that government should be in the broadcasting business at all, unless you think of despotic states and their state run media.

I like how you called it a welfare scheme.

In this day and age with Trillions of dollars of debt and a mounting public safety crisis, we should not be sending money to some two-bit propaganda outlet.


25 posted on 03/23/2020 5:39:41 AM PDT by z3n
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To: TTFlyer

“Civil war grows ever closer.”

Right after we get out of lock down we’ll get right on it.


26 posted on 03/23/2020 5:45:03 AM PDT by dljordan
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To: Kaslin
Somebody is confusing a locally-produced program on a local Arizona public TV station with the national group PBS.

PBS has no more control over what local stations produce and air than ABC, NBC, CBS, or FOX do over what local stations produce and air.

The outrage should be directed at Arizona Public Television, not PBS.

27 posted on 03/23/2020 5:55:42 AM PDT by Yo-Yo ( is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: TTFlyer

“Civil war grows ever closer.”

Yup, this is not going to end well.

Our local grocery stores initiated a “seniors only” period for the early mornings (i.e., 6:00 or 7:00, to last two hours), so those considered most vulnerable will have a chance to do their shopping. I’ll be 70 next year, so I went this morning at 6:05, and only about half the people there were seniors; the other half were in their twenties and thirties, with a handful of shoppers in their forties and fifties (I did not see any teens). There were two groups of four or five of what can only charitably be referred to as “day laborers” (hint: no speaky de ingles), and they were strutting around with their chests (such as they were) puffed out. At least they didn’t have their baskets piled high with toilet paper.

I know one of the cashiers and I told her that I thought this period was set aside for seniors, and she said that it was, and on the first day they even had the police at the doors checking IDs. But, the usual suspects cried discrimination and racism, so it was decided not to enforce the “seniors only” program.


28 posted on 03/23/2020 6:09:23 AM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Steely Tom

“It’s all politics, people. When they get the upper hand, the cattle cars roll again.”

If they get the upper hand, that is when the shooting really WILL start. It cannot be stressed enough just how much they hate us.


29 posted on 03/23/2020 6:11:41 AM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: NFHale

“Sorry to disappoint them. We shoot back.”

Indeed.


30 posted on 03/23/2020 6:13:24 AM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: z3n

What are there? 1000 cable channels? The argument for PBS/NPR was that the three networks all had the same programming so come up with an alternative that is creative. Even assuming this is correct, it would have been correct int he 1970s and 1980s; not now with the cable and internet access. There is no justification for an American BBC, just as biased, and we pay the enormous salaries of the leftists bureaucrats who run and staff it. I saw Bannon on YouTube, great interview; he said he advocated throwing Ryan out as speaker in 2016; Trump felt he needed to appeased congressional Republicans, he was just starting out and Ryan made all sorts of promises on repealing Obamacare, etc. The only thing he did was the tax cuts.


31 posted on 03/23/2020 6:15:46 AM PDT by laconic
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To: ought-six
It cannot be stressed enough just how much they hate us.

When you start talking about cattle cars and shooting, you've already stressed it way too much.

32 posted on 03/23/2020 6:17:57 AM PDT by x
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To: TTFlyer

The Left is very lucky we are so slow to ire


33 posted on 03/23/2020 6:36:11 AM PDT by griswold3 (Democratic Socialism is Slavery by Mob Rule)
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To: x

Are you implying that the left does not hate us? All the left have ever known is hatred, and they have never really tried to hide the fact. Everywhere leftism raises its ugly head one can find hatred behind it.


34 posted on 03/23/2020 6:46:39 AM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Kaslin

Turn about is fair play...I’ve been advocating for years that traitorous media scum be taken out back and shot.


35 posted on 03/23/2020 6:47:51 AM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
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To: ought-six
Politics is about opposition. It means politically active people may not like each other. But that's a long way from cattle cars and execution squads.

It's easy for you to say that they hate us. And it's easy for them to say that we hate them. But the "them" and the "us" are very large groups, and you aren't going to get all of those groups going after the other group to murder them, or get enough people to do the killing and the others to stand by and cheer them on.

There's always an assumption that the politicians on one's one side are all wimps and the leaders of the other side are steely, determined types out to establish a dictatorship, but if Biden is the appointed leader and he gets elected, how likely is it that he'd be sending out death squads or rounding up people in cattle cars?

When I said "you," I didn't mean to single you out personally. Your post was the first one I saw, and after all this talk of coronavirus and self-quarantining and lock-down, I saw "hate" and "shooting" and "cattle cars" and thought enough of this BS, we have real problems now to deal with.

Lotta people are quoting Rudyard Kipling's "If" now. Maybe find it, read it, and think about it. Some wisdom there.

36 posted on 03/23/2020 6:59:45 AM PDT by x
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To: Theodore R.

I hear Sesame Street has gone full queer-hugging, SJW, save da erf.


37 posted on 03/23/2020 7:05:38 AM PDT by polymuser (It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and so few by deceit. Noel Coward)
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To: Spok
The left wants us dead; that’s no secret.

Which is why they must never be in full control, for their sake.
38 posted on 03/23/2020 7:09:53 AM PDT by Old Yeller (Abortion mills are kept open as a necessity, but the churches have been closed.)
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To: x

I not only read “If” in fourth grade, I recited it at a speech contest. I’ve always like Kipling.

I’m a student of history, and have been reading history ever since I learned to read as a small boy. My degree is in History. I am not much of an optimist when it comes to mankind in general, as mankind has a sad tendency to overact. It’s been a game of one-upmanship for thousands of years, when what was usually needed was someone calling “Time out!” History shows how easily we let things spin out of control, primarily because of a lust for power.

Peace and comity are the actual aberrations, and compromise or truce are just temporary agreements, reluctantly entered into just to buy time to gain an advantage.


39 posted on 03/23/2020 7:49:47 AM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Kaslin

Sadly, once this is over and commercial radio stations have lost half or more of their advertisers, NPR and PBS will be what’s left.


40 posted on 03/23/2020 8:05:24 AM PDT by allwrong57
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