Read about it at Reclaim Conservatism.

That is all.

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Find out about FreedomConnector at Reclaim Conservatism.

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Massachusetts Representative Ed Markey held a little press conference where he explained how evil Republicans want to shoot, field dress, and serve Bigbird for Sunday dinner, or something like that.

The House GOP leaders have announced intentions to slice funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the continuing resolution, resulting in the elimination of programming for the over 170 million people that use public media each month.

But Markey, along with Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Nita Lowey, Sam Farr, Paul Tonko, and Bill Owens plan to unveil an amendment to a spending measure that will refund educational programs like
“Sesame Street” and “Arthur,” as well as funding for National Public Radio and local broadcast networks.

“The GOP should be less preoccupied with silencing cookie monster and more focused on reviving the economy,” said Lowey, who in 1995 invited Bert and Ernie to testify on Capitol Hill when Republicans tried to eliminate public media funding under then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. “How long will it take for some people to learn that people want Congress to focus on creating jobs, not laying off Bert and Ernie.”
Lawmakers said rural parts of the U.S. are likely to be hit hardest by the cuts, where programming is more expensive to fund.

This, from the Daily Caller’s story on the event, is particularly telling.

The members warned that ending government funding to public broadcasting would eliminate the programs, and that the market could not be trusted to provide quality broadcasting for children or news content for adults.

Sure, we can’t trust the market to provide quality programing. Look what happened to Air America!

Two arguments made by the left seem especially silly. One is that public broadcasting only receives 2% of it’s funding from the government. Well, if that’s the case then they should easily be able to replace that piddling amount with a check from George Soros, or another 10-minutes-of-content-20-minutes-of-begging fund raiser. The second point they try to make is that eliminating $430 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be a drop in the bucket of the federal budget. That’s true, but hardly a reason not to do it. It’s going to take a lot of drops to drain that bucket.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint posted this:

The Muppets are in town. No, not for a show. They are in Washington to do business.

Inside the Beltway, Sesame Street turns into K Street and Elmo is a lobbyist.

Last year, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was allocated $420 million by Congress. And, President Obama is asking Congress to give a whopping $451 million to CPB in his new budget, even though the nation is more than $14 trillion in debt.

To put that in perspective, it would take Count Von Count more than 42 years to count the 451 million, one “Ah! Ah! Ah!” dollar at a time.

[...]

Publicly funded media simply has no place in our modern, tech-savvy society. CPB was created by the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act to “facilitate the development of public telecommunications.” Only a handful of television channels existed. More than 30 years later, Americans have thousands of choices in news, entertainment and educational programming provided by innumerable television, radio and Web outlets.

Shows like Sesame Street are multi-million dollar enterprises capable of thriving in the private market. According to the 990 tax form all nonprofits are required to file, Sesame Workshop President and CEO Gary Knell received $956,513 — nearly a million dollars — in compensation in 2008. And, from 2003 to 2006, “Sesame Street” made more than $211 million from toy and consumer product sales.

When taxpayer funding for public broadcasting ends, rest assured, Cookie Monster will still be fed.

Saving the country from crushing debt and taxes is going to require hard choices. Telling the Muppet lobby “no” should be one of the easy ones.

h/t: Cubachi via a link from someone on Twitter. Cross posted at Reclaim Conservatism.

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I have two sites, Reclaim Conservatism and The Regiment, that have been around for a while, but pretty much neglected. The ideas for both are similar with just slight differences. The main difference is this, Reclaim Conservatism is meant to be a group blog — several writers contributing on a single blog. The Regiment, instead of being a group blog, is intended to be a group of blogs — each writer on their own with some common connections and functionality.

Both ideas have merit, but which one deserves my primary attention? While you’re thinking about that, let me tell you what I’ve done at Reclaim Conservatism.

I had to blow it up, haul off the ruble, sweep up the dust, and rebuild it from the ground up. A nasty combination of neglect and spammers had trashed things so badly that I had no other choice. I spent several hours over two or three days trying to repair things. I just didn’t work. I’ve spent several more days rebuilding the site. The bad news is that I lost hundreds of posts, and had to dump all the authors. I may be able to recover some, but that’s going to take even more time.

Please note that part of the remodeling involved moving the address. Please update your links to http://reclaimconservatism.com the old site added “/blog” to point to a subdirectory.

All of that being said, I kind of like the way the changes have turned out. And speaking of changes, when I first started writing this post on Tuesday my thoughts were more along the lines of asking which one I should pursue. As I’ve worked on Reclaim Conservatism I’ve decided to place some new effort there. First, I’ll be reaching out to the original contributors — Douglas Ross, Doug Welch, Texas Fred, Dana, GM Roper, as well as those who had signed on to contribute, but never got around to posting anything (Fausta, Obis Sister, Kate, Sam Pierce).

I would also ask other conservative writers to contribute as well. If you would be interested, please let me know. Send an email to lakelandjim at gmail dot com. At least go by and take a look, and send a bit of linky-love our way. Hope to see and hear from you soon.

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Want to follow me on Twitter? There’s more involved than you might think. I have multiple twitter accounts for the various blogs. Here they are:

• bRight & Early — @brightandearly
• Reclaim Conservatism — @ReclaimCons
• Blog News Co-op — @blognewscoop
• FloridImagine — @FloridImagine
• The Regiment — @Marblehead_Reg

While you’re out and about on the inter tubes, please go over and sign up at The Regiment. My goal is to have people from all 50 states actively involved in the first half of 2010. Just 48 to go!

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WordPress version 2.9 has been released, which means I’ve been busy getting my publishing empire upgraded.

• bRight & Early — Done
• FloridImagine.com — Done
• Floridimagine.com/blog — Done
• Blog News Coop — Done
• Reclaim Conservatism — Done
• Blogs4Bauer — Done

That should do it for now. I’m going to bed.

And I’m up again. Meant to add the links last night. I’ve done so now.

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You may have noticed (or maybe not) that I’ve been spending more time at, and promoting, Reclaim Conservatism. The reasons are these:

• I’ve neglected it far too long. It’s a good place to blog, and it deserves some attention — at least from me. I want to build up the readership and showcase the writers there.
• In light of the recent elections and the direction President Obama and the Congress are taking the country, the topic of conservatism is very relevant.
• In light of the first two points, I’ve been spending a bit more time there than here. That’s likely to continue.

We are also looking for additional people who would like to post at Reclaim Conservatism.

If you want to contribute on a regular basis just register here (the link is down at the bottom of the right sidebar) and shoot an email to lakelandjim at gmail dot com letting me know of your interest. Or, if you just have a guest post you’d like to add here send it to contributors at reclaimconservatism dot com.

I’d really like your help. If you could visit and leave a comment, add the site to your blogroll or feedreader, tell folks about the site, and follow @ReclaimCons on Twitter, it would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I guess I better get over there and get to work. Hope to see you there.

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I have a new post up at Reclaim Conservatism. Here’s a taste.

Looking at the results from yesterday’s elections I see different meaning in the different races we all were following. It’s almost as if people are individuals with differing outlooks and ideas of what is important. (Yes, that was sarcasm)

Please go over and read the whole thing and leave your comments. While you’re there why not add Reclaim Conservatism to your feed reader and/or blogroll, and follow @ReclaimCons on Twitter. Thanks.

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I’ve spent a good part of the day working on Reclaim Conservatism. Please go over there and let us know what you think of the new theme.

Reclaim Conservatism is a group blog focused on the conservative core principles and positive action.

If you would like to contribute over there, drop me a line at lakelandjim at gmail dot com. Even if you don’t want to add your own posts, you can always add your comments.

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Yes, bRight & Early is where I do the majority of my writing, but it’s not the only place. Consider this a PSA for the other sites I work on. They need a variety of things, but mostly more eyes.

Reclaim Conservatism — http://reclaimconservatism.com/blog is a group effort with the aim of reclaiming conservative values. We are looking for bloggers (frequent or not so much) to contribute on that theme. You can follow @ReclaimCons on Twitter.

Blog News Co-op — http://blognewscoop.com/blog/ is a great idea that needs a push. I’m looking for original reporting by bloggers to use in a shared setting. That’s why our tag line is “by bloggers, for bloggers.” I’m looking for bloggers who want to contribute stories that other bloggers can use and link to. The only criteria is that it has to be original reporting rather than commenting on the writings of someone else. It doesn’t have to be a big national story. Coverage of a local council race or regional news story, interviews with local politicians or celebrities, and even your personal coverage of local events are all the type of stories I’m looking for. You can follow @BlogNewsCoop on Twitter.

FloridImagine.com — http://floridimagine.com/blog/ is my business site for web hosting and design, specializing in setting up WordPress blogs for others. Of course I do other sites as well. It is also a site for Florida news and information. I am looking for people who would like to write on Florida sports, events, news, people, and attractions. If you are a writer from here in the Sunshine State please let me know if you are interested in contributing. And if you are a blogger ready to move to your own domain or someone looking for a web site, please get in contact. On Twitter you can follow @FloridImagine.

Last, and far from least, is a blog I didn’t start but I am proud to be a part of — Blogs4Bauer — http://blogs.4bauer.com As you probably know, this is a site for all of you 24 fans. Season eight will be starting in January, and Blogs4Bauer will once again be the most irreverent fan site out there. The unique combination of snark and dedication is always a lot of fun. And while the real fun starts when the clock starts ticking on yet another long day in Jack Bauer’s life, we don’t rest during the “off season.” Casting news and other tidbits are up all year long. Check us out.

Well, that’s the roundup. Check out those other sites and see what’s going on there. Hopefully you’ll find something interesting, or even somewhere that you can contribute.

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