LISTEN: The Book Of Mormon

JMG reader Evan tips us that NPR is streaming the cast recording of The Book Of Mormon, which garnered 14 Tony nominations last week. Today only, folks.

Rep. Weiner Mocks GOP Over NPR Bill

I love this guy so much, it should be illegal.

Selective Punishment

GOP Congressional Group Plans To Cut Federal Funding For The Arts To ZERO

A coalition of Tea Party-backed Congress members headed by wingnut Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) plans to cut 100% of all federal funding for the arts.

A group of conservative Republicans, called the Republican Study Committee, revealed a new plan on Thursday to cut federal funding for arts down to zero. This means the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities would be left in the cold. Not to mention the potential hit at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Run by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the over 150-person group's plan, the Spending Reduction Act of 2011, would "save" $167.5 million pulled from the NEA and the Humanities endowment and $445 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They are forecasting that this erasure of cultural funding would reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion over the next decade.

FRC's Tony Perkins: Our Hate Speech Deserves To Be Heard On NPR

"This week another group that demands the celebration of homosexuality called on National Public Radio to exclude the viewpoint of Family Research Council and other conservatives because we 'have nothing productive to bring to the table.'

"We are all agreed that every suicide by a 'gay'-identified teenager is a tragedy. And there are not two sides to the issue of bullying--we are all agreed that no one deserves to be bullied and that bullies should be punished. But there most certainly are two sides to the claims that orthodox theology and pro-family public policies are to blame for such bullying and such suicides, and the media has an obligation to air both sides, not just attacks by homosexual activists. In their definition of tolerance, the truth that would prevent a young person entering into homosexuality, or that change is possible for those seeking to leave the homosexual lifestyle, must be silenced." - Family Research Council head Tony Perkins.

Tony Perkins: Gay Kids Kill Themselves Because They Know They're Abnormal

Tony Perkins appeared on NPR today to declare that the rate of suicides among LGBT youths is so high because those kids know they are freaks. And not because they're taught every day of their hopeless lives that God hates them. Via Right Wing Watch:

Tony Perkins, president of the evangelical Family Research Council, says gay activists are exploiting the concern over bullying — and twisting the facts. "There's no correlation between inacceptance of homosexuality and depression and suicide," he says. Rather, Perkins says, there is another factor that leads kids to kill themselves. "These young people who identify as gay or lesbian, we know from the social science that they have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict." Homosexuality is "abnormal," he says, and kids know it, which leads them to despair.

Repulsive and typically full of Christianist love. But what the FUCK was NPR doing hosting Tony Perkins? Do they bring on the KKK to discuss affirmative action? Would they give airtime to Faisal Shahzad to provide an opposing view on the political value of car bombs? Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council are spending millions of dollars every fucking month to enable the murders and suicides of LGBT Americans. What about that is unclear to NPR?

NPR Fires Host Juan Williams Over Muslim Comment, Wingnuts Go Berserk

National Public Radio has fired host Juan Williams (who also does political commentary for Fox) after he said on the Bill O'Reilly Show that seeing Muslim-looking people on airplanes makes him nervous. And all of Teabagistan is going nuts.

Williams, who is also an analyst for Fox News, told Fox today that he was not given a chance to defend himself. "'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person and have a conversation," he said. "I've been there more than 10 years. We don't have a chance to have a conversation about this." On an appearance of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," on Monday Williams, 56, said, "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country, but when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Williams' Fox News colleague Mike Huckabee says that the federal government should now suspend all funding for NPR.

"NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left. While I have often enjoyed appearing on NPR programs and have been treated fairly and objectively, I will no longer accept interview requests from NPR as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship, and since NPR is funded with public funds, it IS a form of censorship. It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR."

Mama Grizzly, who probably can't even spell NPR, see blood in the water.

AFA'S Bryan Fischer Tells Teabaggers: Attack On Social Issues Or Lose Christianists

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer debated a Tea Party organizer on NPR to warn that unless the teabaggers embrace the AFA's positions on gay rights and abortion, they'll lose the support of the nation's Christianists. It's rather astonishing that NPR would provide a platform to a crazy like Bryan Fischer, who has called for homosexuals to be sent to internment camps, along with a zillion other outrageous things.

(Tipped by JMG reader Jack)