Fox, WSJ personalities shocked by arts grants, but Bush funded same groups
Several media figures on Fox News and Fox Business -- including Glenn Beck -- have blasted the National Endowment for the Arts for awarding Recovery Act grants to San Francisco arts organizations, claiming the grants will pay for "porn." However, those personalities ignored significant facts: Direct grants were only made to organizations that were screened to receive funding in the past, and every group they criticized previously received tens of thousands of dollars from the Bush administration.
Fox, WSJ personalities criticized NEA Recovery Act grants to San Francisco arts organizations
Beck claimed NEA "may be spending stimulus money on 'pervert reviews' and underground porn." On the July 30 edition of his Fox News show, Beck said: "Now, our old friend, the National Endowment for the Arts, may be spending stimulus money on 'pervert reviews' and underground porn." He described the grants as "controversial" and later commented: "I don't know about you, but this is exactly where I wanted my hard-earned dollars going. It's great."
Fox's Greta Van Susteren: "Do you want your tax dollars paying for porn?" "[W]hose idea was this?" On the July 30 edition of her Fox News show, Van Susteren said: "If the last story didn't make your blood boil, maybe this one will. Do you want your tax dollars paying for porn? ... The money was supposed to be spread around to different arts groups nationwide, but apparently some of the grants handed out by the NEA go to rather risqué places." She later asked: "So whose idea was this?"
WSJ's Stephen Moore called grants "obscene overspending" and claimed money is going to "projects ... many Americans would feel immoral." On the July 30 edition of Fox News' On the Record, Moore said, "Well, you know, we have been talking in recent weeks about the obscenity over federal spending. This is literally obscene overspending. It's money for things, like you said, porno horror films. ... There is also pervert art and movie reviews. I don't exactly know what that is. I'm not part of that culture." He later added: "But now we find out that it is going to projects that are just -- many Americans would feel immoral, and they should be outraged that this is the way that their tax dollars are being spent."
Fox Business' Eric Bolling: "You want to talk about outrage? Spending our stimulus and tax dollars on that kind of stuff is just absolutely outrageous." On the July 30 edition of Fox Business' Happy Hour, Bolling said: "I want you to tell -- $80 million of your stimulus money went to the National Endowment for the Arts." After describing some of the projects supported by the organizations, he said, "You want to talk about outrage? Spending our stimulus and tax dollars on that kind of stuff is just absolutely outrageous."
Same arts organizations received money from Bush administration
All groups criticized on Fox received funding from the Bush administration:
COUNTERPULSE
2009: $10,000 (Announced December 4, 2008) "To support the Artist Residency and Commissioning Program for local emerging and mid-career choreographers."
2008: $10,000 "To support the Artist in Residence Program for local emerging choreographers."
2007: $10,000 "To support the Artist in Residence program for local emerging choreographers."
FRAMELINE
2006: $20,000 "To support a conference. Persistent Vision will concentrate on strategies relating to exhibition, distribution, and support for filmmakers."
2005: $15,000 "To support a curated film and video series."
2004: $20,000 "To support the presentation of a lecture series."
2002: $16,000 "To support the presentation of a film series."
JESS CURTIS/Gravity, Inc.
2009: $10,000 (Announced December 2, 2008) "To support the creation and presentation of culminating events as part of The Symmetry Project."
2007: $10,000 "To support the creation and presentation of a new work by choreographer Jess Curtis."
2005: $10,000 "To support the creation and presentation of a new work by choreographer Jess Curtis."
SAN FRANSCISCO CINEMATHEQUE
2007: $15,000 "To support a curated film and video series."
2006: $14,000 "To support a curated film and video series."
2005: $15,000 "To support a curated film and video series."
2004: $15,000 "To support a curated film and video series."
2003: $15,000 "To support a curated film/video series."
2002: $15,000 "To support On The Edge, a series of residencies for artists, scholars and curators focusing on experimental cinema."
NEA awarded Recovery Act grants only to groups that have been approved for funding in the past. FoxNews.com reported on July 30, "Though the process was sped up, the NEA's 109 panelist reviewers handled the compressed [grant distribution] schedule by giving their $50 million in direct grants only to individuals and groups that have received funding in the past and have already passed muster."
- NEA spokeswoman: Grants will help "preserve jobs in danger." FoxNews.com reported that NEA spokeswoman Victoria Hutter "defended the agency's choices and said its grants would help 'preserve jobs in danger of going away or that had gone away because of the economic downturn.' " The article quoted Hutter saying: "Our review process is very comprehensive -- we take great care with applicants and with grantees. ... It's a thorough, rigorous process that they all go through, and we're proud of the projects that we've been able to support." [FoxNews.com; 07/30/09]
- Groups say grants will support their staff, not any specific program. FoxNews.com reported: "CounterPULSE received a $25,000 grant in the 'Dance' category; a staffer there said they were pleased to receive the grant, 'which over the next year will be used to preserve jobs at our small non-profit.' Similarly, the director of Frameline, the gay and lesbian film house, told FOXNews.com in an e-mail that their $50,000 grant was not to support any program in particular." The article further reported: " 'The grant is not intended for a specific program; it's to be used for the preservation of jobs at our media arts nonprofit organization over the next year during the economic downturn,' wrote K.C. Price, who listed four other NEA grants his organization has received." [FoxNews.com; 07/30/09]
CounterPULSE: A nonprofit organization supporting community-based art. According to its website, "CounterPULSE provides space and resources for emerging artists and cultural innovators, serving as an incubator for the creation of socially relevant, community-based art and culture. CounterPULSE acts as a catalyst for art and action; creating a forum for the open exchange of art and ideas, catalyzing transformation in our communities and our society. We work towards a world that celebrates diversity of race, class, cultural heritage, artistic expression, ability, gender identity & sexual orientation. We strive to create an environment that is physically and economically accessible to everyone."
Frameline: A nonprofit organization supporting LGBT media arts. Frameline's website states that its mission is "to strengthen the diverse lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and further its visibility by supporting and promoting a broad array of cultural representations and artistic expression in film, video and other media arts."
San Francisco Cinematheque: A "respected showcase[] of experimental film and video" founded in 1961. According to its website, "San Francisco Cinematheque has become one of the most knowledgeable and respected showcases of experimental film and video in the world. Our intention is to make these works a part of the larger cultural landscape through three main areas of activity: exhibition, publication and education."
Jess Curtis/Gravity: A "research and development vehicle" for "live performance." According to its website, "Jess Curtis/Gravity was founded in 2000 as a research and development vehicle for very live performance. ... In addition to the creation of live performances Gravity also produces and facilitates educational experiences for both professionals and lay people in movement and performing arts." A San Francisco Examiner review of the work said, "the choreography is carefully calibrated, stunning in it's ever-shifting, tightly controlled dynamism."
Transcripts
From the July 30 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck:
BECK: Now, our old friend, the National Endowment for the Arts, may be spending stimulus money on "pervert reviews" and underground porn. I was hoping they were gonna do this. I thought, "When is that gonna happen?"
The NEA was just given $80 million in stimulus dollars to help artists around the country. Stick with me on this story. Most of the money is being spent to save jobs in museum and orchestras and theaters and dance troupes being hurt by the recession.
But some grants are a little more controversial -- uptight people. Fifty-thousand dollars for San Francisco's Frameline film house, which recently screened Thunder Crack, described as, quote, "The world's only underground kinky art-porno-horror film, complete with four men, three women, and a gorilla." I don't know how it ends but, gee, it sounds spine-tingling.
Twenty-five thousand dollars for Counter Pulse -- this is where they hold the weekly Perverts Put Out, described as the long-running pan-sexual performance series. I don't know what a pan-sexual is, but I don't know think I want to know.
It invites guests to "join your fellow pervs" -- I'm quoting -- "join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun." I don't know about you, but this is exactly where I wanted my hard-earned dollars going. It's great.
From the July 30 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:
VAN SUSTEREN: If the last story didn't make your blood boil, maybe this one will. Do you want your tax dollars paying for porn? Eighty million dollars in stimulus funds -- no pun intended -- were given to the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA.
The money was supposed to be spread around to different arts groups nationwide, but apparently some of the grants handed out by the NEA go to rather risque places. Just one example: the Frameline film house that runs pornographic movies.
So is that really how your money should be spent? Joining us live is Steve Moore, senior economic writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
Some of those parties look like a good deal. I mean --
MOORE: Yeah, exactly. They should have brought the cameras there.
VAN SUSTEREN: The parties are -- well, actually kill two birds with one stone. But, anyway -- really, porn?
MOORE: Yeah. Well, you know, we have been talking in recent weeks about the obscenity over federal spending. This is literally obscene overspending. It's money for things, like you said, porno horror films. There's one, I guess, with four men, three women, and a gorilla. I don't know what that's about.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why do I feel sorry for the gorilla? But anyway.
MOORE: There is also pervert art and movie reviews. I don't exactly know what that is. I'm not part of that culture. Nude sex dances, things like that. But, by the way --
VAN SUSTEREN: Nude sex dances, we're paying -- wait a second. Stimulus money goes for nude sex dances.
MOORE: Right. And this is -- remember, the whole idea of giving stimulus money, which is supposed to be creating jobs, for the National Endowment for the Arts was absurd in the first place, $80 million. But now we find out that it is going to projects that are just -- many Americans would feel immoral, and they should be outraged that this is the way that their tax dollars are being spent.
Remember, this is the agency about 10 years ago, remember, that funded piss art with a crucifix in the toilet. This is the kind of art that the National Endowment for the Arts funds.
VAN SUSTEREN: So, whose idea was this? We know whose idea -- I always want to know, like --
MOORE: I wish I knew whose --
VAN SUSTEREN: -- who comes up with these good ideas --
MOORE: Right.
VAN SUSTEREN: -- so to speak?
MOORE: Well, this is sort of the arts community. And now some of the money, look, goes to things like orchestras and symphonies, but a good portion of the money is going to this kind of obscene art.
VAN SUSTEREN: But somebody's got to -- someone's got to write -- I mean, I understand orchestras, and I love music, and that's in a whole other category. But for the porn --
MOORE: Right. They have an arts reviewer.
VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, someone's got to make -- someone's got to make a decision.
MOORE: Yeah, somebody pulled the switch and said -- right.
VAN SUSTEREN: See, this is a good place to put taxpayer money. I'm going to write the check for how much?
MOORE: That one was, you know, several hundred thousand dollars.
VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, and we have people who can't make mortgages.
MOORE: And people -- whenever you talk about -- I mean, you will probably get, you know, email from people saying, "Oh, you're trying to censor people." Nobody is trying to censor anybody here.
If people want to, you know, have porn movies and things like that, that's fine. They just shouldn't pay for it with your and my tax dollars. I mean, this is what makes people so angry, is that we're forced to fund things that many people find just highly offensive.
From the July 30 edition of Fox Business' Happy Hour:
BOLLING: And last but not least, I want you to see this video. I want you to tell -- $80 million of your stimulus money went to the National Endowment for the Arts. And two things came to mind. I read the list. Listen to this. One of them, $50,000 to fund a project to Frameline Films entitled, Thunder Crack, the world's first kinky art-porno-horror flick, complete with four men, three women, and one gorilla.
That, and also 25 grand to fund the weekly production of Perverts Put Out, a San Francisco-based web company, guys. You want to talk about outrage? Spending our stimulus and tax dollars on that kind of stuff is just absolutely outrageous. Cody -- Rebecca -- Rebecca.
REBECCA DIAMOND (co-host): Do I look like Cody? And what was that video about, Eric? Wow. Girl's butt in your face and everything?
Even though W cut funding for the NEA, they still funded the EXACT SAME THINGS!
Amazing how conservatives like Fox News ignore these things while someone with an (R) next to their name is in the WH.
But as soon as that turns to a (D), all of a sudden this OUTRAGEOUS!
Conservative art critism should take its rightful place amid other oxymorons.
....
......
........
yeah
I'd like to introdcuce you to a friend of mine... Professor Keynes?
The story is about the disparity of treatment between Bush and Obama, when each administration funded the exact same NEA supported artists (a small fraction of all working artists) at almost identical levels. Obama was lambasted for it, and Bush was completely unaffected by it. That was the whole point. One more brick in the proof that there is NO liberal bias in the media, rather that the reverse is true.
By the way, nice waste of vertical space. Are you, um, compensating for something?
LOL
There's diminishing returns to some of this technology, you see.
And seeing how few memebers there are in their own party that seem entirely satisified with thier vanilla wives/lives, they've once again picked a very ironic target to attack, the hypocritical self-righteous bastards.
Foley, Craig, Vitter, Ensign, Sanford... don't look at what I do! No! Look the other way... as long as there isn't a naked person over there!
If there is... DIBS!
And then politicians wonder why cynicism runs rampant when they ask for more money, and why the public is hopefully waking up to this nonsense. I just love these government administrative bureaucrats trying to rationalize why they should get money. They live in such a bubble of arrogant entitlement it is stunning, such as this "The grant is not intended for a specific program; it's to be used for the preservation of jobs at our media arts nonprofit organization over the next year during the economic downturn". Good grief.
Awesome fake outrage, Tommy.
Congrats. Take a bow.
*golf clap*
You can tell you made a point when the only comebacks are directed at you personally.
Umm... YEAH, you CAN. It's called SELL SOME $#!T TO THE PEOPLE WHO GET GOVERNMENT GRANTS OR BAILOUT MONEY!!!
This is what I'm talking about, folks. These con's think that woking hard will make you rich. NO! Working hard will make you TIRED. You get rich but making OTHER PEOPLE work hard and by SELLING $#!t to people who have some money. It's aburd.
Hey moron: THEY DON'T JUST GO AND STUFF THIS MONEY IN A MATRESS YOU KNOW!!! You want some of it? OFFER THEM SOME GOODS OR SERVICES AND YOU'LL GET YOUR CUT!
And the LESS people there are getting money (from ANY source) the less safe your job is! So stop whining and let's see some of that HARD WORK you're alwasy boasting about put to soem PRODUCTIVE USE.
And stow your ignorant outrage over "what your money is paying for." Even if they don't 'shop at your store' it's almost guarenteed that someone ELSE who's store they shopped at DOES. So you're still benefitting and your job is still made more secure.
I'll say it again, I'll say a thousand times:
TAKE A GOTT-DAMNED ECONOMICS COURSE!!!
Well, yeah, apparently. What would be difficult for me to be is MORE hysterical. (Or did you intent that as a compliment?) (Or were you trying to suggest that my post lacked some sort of urgency?)
Your continued cluelessness in how one becomes rich is not only naive garbage, but petty envy.
YOUR clulessness in this regard is laughable. Pray, tell... how do YOU believe one makes money other than the sale of goods and services? And pray, tell... are these consumed by people, other than them giveing you some of their money? To say otherwise is... well, it's ludicrous. As for my 'envy?' Puh-lease. I make a decent enough living, and am quite happy with my lifestyle. But I also know that we'd sell a lot more stuff if people out there had a little more money to spend. Personally? I don't care if we sell to an artist getting a gov. grant or a regular working-stiff like you. Long as the customer pays, it's all good to me.
So keep screaming and CAPITALIZING your class warfare nonsense, I ain't impressed.
They day I impress you, I'll hang up the keyboard and quit.
You can rest easy knowing that it's been very few times you've impressed me. Obviously this thread is really far from being one of those time.
You say: "that government bureaucrats feel they are entitled to it to save their jobs, then why not the private sector?"
And my point was that the actions that they take in preserving jobs in ANY sector will have a direct impact in YOUR sector, even though a single penny may not be given directly to [your sector.]
I don't know what business your in, but unless it's in demolishing forclosed homes or something similar, there no way it can benefit from more people being out of work, out of homes and out of money. You might like some "free money," but the fact is that you're already in fact getting your share of it just by doing your job in the first place.
I also find it rather amusing that you accused me of "envy" in thepost prior. Seems to me that YOU are the envious one.
You are so envious of the artists that get grants (or the beurocrat that cover's his a$s) that you would deny them a decent living even as them having a decent living supports YOUR having the living you do. Are you suggesting that YOU should get a grant/bailout? Maybe you should. I wouldn't know. But whether you deserve one or not, whining about it here certainly suggests a bit of envy on your part.
As to "why not the private sector?"
Ummm... please allow me refer you to Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Meryl Lynch, Fannie Maw, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, General Motors, Chrysler, TARP, BAILOUTS... just a few search words you can google if you don't think the gov't is doing enough to help the private sector. (I though you con's all thought they were doing way too much?)
OK. You've now gotten two well-reasoned responses following an admittedly hysterical rant. I have to admit that had a lot more fun writing the hysterical rant, but I've pretty much gotten that out of my system. So whatever. By all means, please continue to press your "points" and I'll continue providing relatively drab, yet well thought out answers. Hopefully this is as amusing to soemone else as I have found it to be.
"the National Endowment for the Arts for awarding Recovery Act grants to San Francisco arts organizations"
So I can only assuem that you're talking about something else.
But again... you are still decrying someone else making a living as 'waste' even though they pay your salary every bit as much as you pay theres. I realize you'd like to have their job security (so would I) but lowering ANYONE else's job security will do nothing to improve yours and mine. The more people you have spending money, the more secure our jobs are.
I didn't like it (tax-n-spend), or even understand it, either until I learned about Keynes in B-School. But I guess that's what happened when you grow up in the glory-days of Friedman and the supply-siders. But [SS Econ] just doesn't work in the long term, and we're seeing that only now, and it's probably too late to recover much of what we've lost. Yet you propose only more of what got us here.
I don't have the room (or inclination) to do the entire proof here, but when the government rasie taxes by, say, $1B accross the board and then SPENDS $1B they increase the collective (equilibrium) income of the nation as a whole by $1B. This is do to the multipler effect, and the fact that the balanced budget multipler is "1." And that income doesn't just hit one person and disappear. Most of everyone's income get spent, which in turn become someone else's income, which in turn gets spent... you get the idea. The money is not static.
Thus when you say "[you] cannot multiply wealth by dividing it," you could not be more wrong. WEALTH is derrived from INCOME, after all. To get wealth, you must keep some of your income. But (as I've explained) everyone's INCOME is dependant on everyone else's. And nothing will make everyone's income fall faster than FALLING INCOMES. And THAT, my friend, destroys wealth, especially in this country where so much WEALTH derrives from STOCK VALUES - which fall when consumption does, and consumption falls when income does.
What you 'lose' when you pay taxes is money that you would not have had in the first place, were it not for the gov't spending that it supports. The same theory I mentioned aboed PROVES that when you CUT taxes by, say, $1B you will also cut (equilibrium) income by the same $1B. So doing what you propose will, in fact, KILL the economy; starting with your and my incomes, and finishing by devaluing any wealth we've managed to aquire.
Now... the only problem with MY philosphy is that money spent on the financing of the national debt does NOTHING to support people's income. So I don't like that we keep running a deficit year in and year out. I;d like to see the budget balanced again, and get bakc on track to eliminating the debt. But I'm completely sick of the critics (all supply-siders) who only think it's a problem when DEMOCRATS run a deficit in a RECESSION (something that's both good and necessary - again, you're 100% ignorant of economics and history if you believe otherwise) but think it A-OK when a Republican runs a deficit during boom-times. (Something that is a complete vice.) I'd like to see a balanced budget myself, but I'll raise taxes before I cut spending, and I wouldn't DARE do both (you can ask Herbert Hoover about that.) But cutting spending will hurt the economy every but as much (more, actually according to Keynes) than raising taxes will.
I don't say "take an economics course" just to mock. I say it because you argue like someone who's only knowledge of economics comes from one far side of the spectrum, and from non-academic sources at that. I've studied supply-side economics, and so I KNOW, very clearly, why it can't work in the long term. And we're seeing the effects of it's failure EVERYWHERE.
Your exhaustive diatribe did nothing to dispell one thing I said.
Tommy,
You can tell you made a point when the only comebacks are directed at you personally.
HA HA HA x 2
For starters, these are not "government employees." They are paid through a number of different public and mostly private sources.
And how do you know it's paying for porn? Why do cons always have to make things up?
There may be hope for you yet. Your statement above is the perfect reason to keep taxes low so people "had a little more money to spend". I couldn't have said it better myself. Many thanks. Now if some of your comrades around here would finally see the wisdom in your post.
You are either rich and greedy or poor and stupid. But I'm not going to venture a guess which.
I've told right OFF that line numerous times. Get ready for the class warfare rebuttal in 5...4...3...
Tommy,
You can tell you made a point when the only comebacks are directed at you personally.
HA HA HA
Pwned.
Did you lose your job due to the economic downturn? I did. Guess what I did? I found another one. Isn't that what you guys always talk about, personal responsibility and all? I mean, I lost one job, found another one, a better one even, a better paying job.
Funding the arts in this country is necessary I believe, and I'm all for it. Why? Because the arts, generally, bring culture, and culture brings learning (in my belief), and all great societies have been enlightened as far as the arts go. Don't you think? And in comparison with what the NEA gets for grants every year, it's a pittance in terms of the overall federal budget, and it always amazes me, and amuses me, when people complain about it. If they eliminated ALL funding for the NEA what would happen to the budget? Nothing. It would hardly be impacted. And it's not necessary.
What is it John Adams once said? "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."
But to be so damn arrogant to think that you deserve someone else's money they work hard for to pay taxes so you don't have to cut your budgets and your expenses at all is mind-boggling. And then to say well these agencies passed muster before so rather than take a hard look at their expenditures again, especially during economic turmoil where everyone is forced to cut the fat, we will just give them the same amount of money. No questions asked, not even a blink.
It's the systemic problem within government, they don't know what it's like to live the rest of us and worry about bills piling up and ways to trim expenses. As I said, an arrogant sense of snobbish entitlement.
You don't have a problem with the money, or how much it is, but you have a problem with them not firing people because they got the same money as they did before? And also, a lot of federal budgets are allocated the same money year to year, and if they don't spend it, they don't get it the following year, in other words, they have to spend it. And also, you think people who are employed by the federal government don't pay taxes or something like that? These folks need their jobs as well. What is better? Keeping these folks employed, and therefore off of the unemployment dole, or laying them off to make a point? How do you know that their jobs aren't necessary? Or are you just assuming that?
Believe me, I work for the government, and know what it's like to "live like the rest of you", it's the same. We worry about funding, cutting costs, and being good stewards of the tax payer's money ALL OF THE TIME. Actually, I just got out of budget meeting, where this was just reinforced, again, for about the millionith time.
And you have just identified another systemic problem within government.
And you have yet to address the point I have been asking everyone here. If it's fine for us, the taxpayers, to ensure government jobs are not cut, then why the hell do you or others in the private sector given the same guarantee? That is exactly what I mean, government agencies don't know what it's like to live like a regular business because they nobody to be accountable for. You just said it, if they don't spend it, it may not come next year. A helluva way to run a business, what most wouldn't do for a luxury like that.
But they can't. They will be out of business in a heartbeat.
Well, duh, that's why they're called government agencies, not "regular businesses".
But anyway, are government agencies really accountable to no one? Not even to the elected officials who oversee them or the voters who empower them? I know that's debatable depending on the agency, but to say that all government agencies operate with complete impunity while health care insurance executives live in mansions and fly in private jets while they abandon policy holders in times of need kind of blows a hole in your twisted view of who's accountable and who isn't.
This is why I say they don't function they same way businesses do, who realize that unless they CUT their expenses and spend FEWER dollars they will have less next year. They are polar opposites.
Worse, they have all experienced DEEP cutbacks the last few years. Huge.
So-- there kind of goes your arguments.
If you work in automobile or insurance or banking industries, chances are excellent that your employer, directly or indirectly, has received money to preserve your job.
"The reference is to the National Endowment for the Arts' budget:
Thirty years ago, the NEA received a modest 12 cents per $100 of non-military discretionary spending. Today that is just 3 cents per $100. If the NEA had simply maintained its 1979 percentage of discretionary funding, its 2008 budget would have been $613 million.
The Obama administration has requested $155 million for the NEA's 2009 budget.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/03/nea-budget.html
"Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html
The upshot of these numbers? Twelve average hours of the Iraq war would pay for the -entire year- of NEA funding. So, why weren't you complaining about the cost of the Iraq war in 2007 when this economy started to tank? And why are you complaining about comparative small change now?
Again, the point of the article was the disparate treatment Bush and Obama received for the same levels of funding of the same artists.
My point is not about the amount of funding, it's about the misappropriation of funds to directly secure government jobs.
I have made my points already and nothing in your post offers anything new, or worthy of a different response.
As for the second part of your post, dealing with government bureaucrats demanding money to preserve their jobs because of sense of entitlement:
"FoxNews.com reported that NEA spokeswoman Victoria Hutter "defended the agency's choices and said its grants would help 'preserve jobs in danger of going away or that had gone away because of the economic downturn.' "
Nowhere are bureaucrats mentioned. Since you were quite mistaken in your assertion, I have this time kindly pointed it out.
NEA spokeswoman Victoria Hutter - fine, replace "bureaucrat" with "employee" if you are a stickler for such things, you know what I meant, so unless she is an unpaid staffer, then she is an identified government bureaucrat/employee, as are those who hold the "jobs in danger of going away or that had gone away because of the economic downturn."
Thanks for pointing that out.
Have you helpfully pointed this out to Halliburton? And, when can we be expecting their multi billion dollar rebate check for the taxpayer funds they either wasted or just plain stole? That could certainly be used to put some people back to work, rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure in this country.
'Bureaucrat' is an emotionally loaded word, but if you are willing to make cuts to save money, perhaps there are better places to begin than with the NEA. Especially considering what a tiny fraction of the annual budget it consumes.
You should be happy, right ON. Government money is demonstrably being spent to preserve jobs!
There's no way the right would oppose funding porn since red states (that's right, Utah, I'm looking at you) are the biggest consumers of porn.
It will be a great day for America when we finally lay aside Puritan and Victorian attitudes about sex and the body.
You don't know what a hard-earned dollar is Glenn, at least not anymore.
Frameline is not a movie theater or a production company. It's a film festival; they gather a bunch of new movies and revivals from all over the world and show them at various theaters, just like any film festival. Given that it's San Francisco and queer-themed, they'll sometimes throw in something pretty raunchy - like <i>Thundercrack!</i>, a cult movie from 1975, which these Fox guys seems to think is a new movie produced with federal funding. Fox wouldn't have to be up to date on LGBT art to know this stuff - they'd just have to read the damn brochure of the event they're talking about. Anyway, Frameline is an internationally renowned film festival and has nothing to do with making porn.
"Perverts Put Out" is not a "nude sex dance" show, or a party. It's a reading event where writers read their poems and stories, which are usually dirty and usually very funny. It's not weekly, it's every few months. More importantly, it doesn't get any money from the government, or from CounterPulse, or from <i>any</i> organization; it's a benefit <i>for</i> CounterPulse, in other words the writers donate their time for free and they donate the ticket money to the theater to help sponsor other art events.
I happen to live in San Francisco and know people who work with these organizations, but a few seconds on Google would provide the same information. Fox got every single fact in this story wrong.
One weensy correction: the event is not a benefit for CounterPULSE, though they do benefit from our rental fee. It's a benefit for The Center for Sex and Culture.
We all know that Fox lies, of course. But I've never been in the middle of it before. Fox, in their wisdom, contacted CounterPULSE (I've been told by the head of the organization) with one phone call, spoke briefly to an intern, and that was that. Never spoke to anyone higher up in the organization, never asked for a response. And they never, never contacted me (despite an easy-to-find e-mail link on the webpage they showed in the "exposé") or anyone else connected with PPO! And, of course, their reports on this have been totally free of any opposing voices, just phony outrage.
Thing is, they never actually, actually quite lied, not quite. E.g., they never stated outright that Frameline actually gave funds to make Thundercrack!, a film shot two years before Frameline was even founded. They simply said the NEA "funds porn," and let the moronic dittoheads in the rightwing blogosphere do the rest. So now you got moronic squallings about how Obama is giving $80 million bucks to fund subversive sexual works. I wish!
Mark Sanford went hiking on the Appalachian Trail, and all I got was this lousy headache!