Being Accountable: Where Does the Line Start or End?

This morning my neighbor and I went on our walk and the subject of NPR’s big brouhaha of management shake down came up.  To bring up to speed about the current event, NPR fired contributing journalist Juan Williams for saying he was uncomfortable boarding a plane with a Muslim on it, when he was on FOX news.  James O’Keefe, a conservative activist, recently did an undercover sting on one of the execs, Schiller, no relation to the CEO Vivian Schiller,  said that the tea party are racists Christian fanatics and that NPR does not really need the federal funding it gets from the feds.  Vivian Schiller stepped down because the board pretty much told her either she was fired or she had to resign and executive Ron Schiller was fired. 

First off did they not  fire Juan Williams for “racist” comments on another network?   Isn’t it what is good for the goose is good for the gander?  I really don’t care what was said about the tea party or Juan’s issue with getting on a plane with Muslims.  What I care about, and what I think NPR cared about, was Ron Schiller getting caught with his pants down on tape saying that NPR does not need federal funding.   He is one of the faces of NPR and even if he believes that, he is accountable to the board of directors and those that sign his paycheck to have and edit button on his pie hole, he just had a huge wake up call.  I feel NPR did the right thing.

Now, let’s get real here.  Anyone that listens to NPR on a daily basis, knows that NPR leans more to the social left so being targeted by a conservative activists because it is funded by the tax payers on where they really stand on issues is not suprising and they should know that as well.

I don’t like shady operations, I like everything out on the table and seeing everyone’s cards.  However we live in a society where both sides of the political spectrum do pretty outrageous things to prove or make a point and the conservative activist group found their golden nugget of opportunity and now we are dealing with the emotional fall out of that act.

 I see that many are outraged that NPR fired these two executives and a journalist for saying and doing things that are not “socially/politically correct”.  I say good for NPR.  These people were representatives for NPR and getting paid very well to be that face of NPR and there should be consequences to be in that role stating extreme opinions and speaking off the record about financial standings of that company.  Luckily for NPR President Obama is going to protect its funding despite this hiccup of diarrhea of the executive pie hole.  Yet, I do ask the question if NPR can really afford to be on the air without the federal dollars, then why are we not taking the money back and applying it to other areas of need?  Just a thought to ponder on.

The question I have for you fellow bloggers is the what was asked me today.  Where is the line crossed when you are accountable of what you say and do even if it is off the record and in a casual environment? 

My answer is that if you have a level of authority or a face of a “thing” you are accountable for everything you say and do on and off the record.   You are being compensated accordingly to be that face and it is a 24 hour job.  If you don’t want that responsibility, then step down.  I think the consequences that NPR handed out were fair.

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We Don’t Need Constitutional Weight Watchers, but Congressional Spending Gastric Bypass

Lately I have heard that  this past Congress has spent more than the fist 100 Congresses combined. Considering this past Congress is the 111th that seemed like a fairytale, and it was hard to believe.   I went to research this and the only place I could find that fact was on conservative news presses, there was nothing coming up on mainstream media.  So I went to the treasury site and started breaking it down for myself.  They are right!  Why is that not being reported? 

Regardless of what your political views are we all agree that living within your means is an absolute.  When you think about putting the national debt (which is not just this and the former administration’s fault, this has been decades of doing) in perspective with an  average individual that is making 100k a year, that person’s credit card debt would be around a million dollars.  We would think that person was insane and understand that they would never get out from underneath that kind of debt nor would his kids, grandkids, and great-grandchildren. 

Obviously the politicians have a serious spending problem!  Everyone of us would questions the judgement if an individual behaved like this with their own life, why are we not doing the same with politicians that are in charge of spending the taxpayer’s money to make this country a great place? 

Regardless if we need healthcare reform, extensions on unemployment, bail outs of companies, the first thing that the politicians should ask is can we afford it and if we can’t and it is important to us, then what do we have to get rid of or cut down in order to make that happen?  I know that is how I have to live. 

When an average person hears that the national debt is around 14 trillion dollars, it is a number that is so hard to conceive, that we just blow it off.  But when you put that number into perspective to someone who deals in just thousands, not billions or trillions, it changes its shape to having a great deal of concern. 

Today Congress changed hands, and there was  a lot of grand standing and show-boating of reading the Constitution like it was the first day of grammar school.   Politicians as a whole are not trust worthy and they should have been reading the Constitution decades ago.  It is like someone with their New Year’s Resolution diet plan; we all know how those work out in the end.   Unfortunately, it looks like we need Congressional Spending Gastric Bypass,  not Constitutional Weight Watchers.  Counting points to cut spending is not going to cut it, we need an extreme and invasive spending cuts that may be hard to digest to get us on the right track. 

It is time to wake up America, this is our future and it is in some seriously scary hands on both sides.  We are the ones that can change this, not Congress or any politician in Washington DC.  We need to start holding these overpaid, out of touch, on their own health care plans, guaranteed retirements and the “unlimited credit card” funded by us, the world and our future generations accountable and really see what is happening on the Hill.

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