Abandoning NPR

As most of you know, I've been an open and loud supporter of PBS. NPR less so, but they're not horrible compared to everything else.

However this morning on my drive to work NPR did something beyond the pale. Adam Entice.

She said there was a "high bar to get a warrant from them."
And then the liberal hack said that "to get a warrant you have to have probable cause that Carter Page was acting as a Foreign Agent.

This is absurd. "High Bar"? FISA denies .003% of all surveillance requests. This was too much. I just can't. I don't need a government funded version of Air America.

If PBS goes the way of NPR then they can get their funding cut too but they aren't this bad yet. Listen to the disgusting and sickening exchange here. It happens within the first minute and prepare to you have your mind blown at how shamelessly partisan NPR was on this story. It was so awful I actually sent a complaint to the local office at KNPB and national office of NPR. This is just crazy.

FBI Reportedly Obtained Warrant To Monitor Trump Adviser : NPR

EDIT: REMEMBER WHEN LIBERALS HATED WIDESPREAD NATIONWIDE SPYING ON AMERICANS?
Despite Obama?s claim, FISA court rarely much of a check - Salon.com

So, since the start of the War on Terror more than 11 years ago, the court has denied just 10 applications, and modified several dozen, while approving more than 15,000.

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I divided 10/15000 in my calculator and my calculator couldn't even hold the number without going into scientific notation. HIGH BAR my ass.

reinoe said:

This is absurd. "High Bar"? FISA denies .003% of all surveillance requests. This was too much. I just can't. I don't need a government funded version of Air America.

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FISA approval does not tell you anything about how high/low the bar is.
I would imagine they do diligence to ensure it will pass FISA BEFORE bringing it to FISA, they have rules that they follow and they can ensure it WITHOUT FISA. FISA provides the oversight to ensure those guidelines ARE followed.

So no, your armchair outrage should stay in your armchair.

Also, the notion that you'd can the entire funding because of what one [host] (per renoe) had to say (they have guests from all sides of the isle and no isle at all...)? Keep on making America great...

found it now unsuprising that 3 days after proposing the elimination of funding for PBS, tRump requested the muppets perform at a white house easter function

the only high bar set there was for tRump chutzpah

Mach said:

FISA approval does not tell you anything about how high/low the bar is.
I would imagine they do diligence to ensure it will pass FISA BEFORE bringing it to FISA, they have rules that they follow and they can ensure it WITHOUT FISA. FISA provides the oversight to ensure those guidelines ARE followed.

So no, your armchair outrage should stay in your armchair.

Also, the notion that you'd can the entire funding because of what one GUEST had to say (they have guests from all sides of the isle and no isle at all...)? Keep on making America great...

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Oh yea. It wasn't what the guest said. It was what the host said AND then allowing the guest to just spew talking points. She said it was a "high bar". If warrants are being denied at a rate of 10/15000, then it's clear that the standards are not high at all.

And NPR has been leaning left for a while. But the host working in tandem with the guest to engage in a smear campaign was too much to bear. It's a shame to see someone engaging in partisanship like yours.

reinoe said:

As most of you know, I've been an open and loud supporter of PBS. NPR less so, but they're not horrible compared to everything else.

However this morning on my drive to work NPR did something beyond the pale. Adam Entice.

She said there was a "high bar to get a warrant from them."
And then the liberal hack said that "to get a warrant you have to have probable cause that Carter Page was acting as a Foreign Agent.

This is absurd. "High Bar"? FISA denies .003% of all surveillance requests. This was too much. I just can't. I don't need a government funded version of Air America.

If PBS goes the way of NPR then they can get their funding cut too but they aren't this bad yet. Listen to the disgusting and sickening exchange here. It happens within the first minute and prepare to you have your mind blown at how shamelessly partisan NPR was on this story. It was so awful I actually sent a complaint to the local office at KNPB and national office of NPR. This is just crazy.

FBI Reportedly Obtained Warrant To Monitor Trump Adviser : NPR

EDIT: REMEMBER WHEN LIBERALS HATED WIDESPREAD NATIONWIDE SPYING ON AMERICANS?
Despite Obama?s claim, FISA court rarely much of a check - Salon.com


I divided 10/15000 in my calculator and my calculator couldn't even hold the number without going into scientific notation. HIGH BAR my ass.

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Using that same logic, the higher conviction rate for black people accused of murder (as compared to white people) means that the criminal justice system discriminates against black people by setting a lower bar for convicting them of murder (as well as most other crimes)

Listening to NPR right now. Good stuff.

reinoe said:

Oh yea. It wasn't what the guest said. It was what the host said. She said it was a "high bar".
If warrants are being denied at a rate of 10/15000, then it's clear that the standards are not high at all.
And NPR has been leaning left for a while. But the host working in tandem with the guest to engage in a smear campaign was too much to bear. It's a shame to see someone engaging in partisanship like yours.

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Who is being smeared, liberals?


as of 2013 nearly all currently serving judges [on the FISA board] are of the same political party (the Republican Party),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court

A related bias of the court results from what critics such as Julian Sanchez, a scholar at the Cato Institute, have described as the near certainty of the polarization or groupthink of the judges of the court. Since all of the judges are appointed by the same person (the Chief Justice of the United States), as of 2013 nearly all currently serving judges are of the same political party (the Republican Party), hear no opposing testimony and feel no pressure from colleagues or the public to moderate their rulings, group polarization is almost a certainty. "There's the real possibility that these judges become more extreme over time, even when they had only a mild bias to begin with", Sanchez said.[27]

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Maybe you are thinking you want a more liberal set of judges, since it's going to be liberals that put more emphasis on right to privacy from government?

sangha said:

Using that same logic, the higher conviction rate for black people accused of murder (as compared to white people) means that the criminal justice system discriminates against black people by setting a lower bar for convicting them of murder (as well as most other crimes)

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And that's true but for entirely different reasons. Blacks do get harsher penalties for crimes and get higher conviction rates than their white counterparts. That's a different thread though.

Mach said:

Who is being smeared, liberals?


as of 2013 nearly all currently serving judges [on the FISA board] are of the same political party (the Republican Party),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court


Maybe you are thinking you want a more liberal set of judges, since it's going to be liberals that put more emphasis on right to privacy from government?

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You could listen to the linked discussion. It's a little over three minutes. Or you can just listen to the first minute, which is what I'm talking about.

The host working in tandem with a liberal shill was smearing the Trump campaign. The host was literally parroting DNC talking points in introducing the liberal guest.

As for the FISA court, I don't care about the makeup of the judges. They're a rubber stamp organization and for the host to say "THERE'S A VERY HIGH BAR TO GET A WARRANT" is the height of absurdity. I don't want government funded AIR AMERICA. NPR needs to go.

azgreg said:

Listening to NPR right now. Good stuff.

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Yep there's some good there. Never denied it. But the bad outweighs the good.

reinoe said:

As for the FISA court, I don't care about the makeup of the judges. They're a rubber stamp organization and for the host to say "THERE'S A VERY HIGH BAR TO GET A WARRANT" is the height of absurdity.

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I think it's interesting that it's Republicans rubber stamping, often requirements loosened by other Republicans, but you're bad that a host thought getting a FISA warrant was a high bar. You don't see the oddity there? But going further, there are many ways that people in the U.S. government can get legal surveillance WITHOUT FISA approval, so if you compare "no process", to "FISA process", it's relatively higher in any sense. I do agree FISA is not a high bar in the absolute sense...but then the issue is a lot more involved, and it's sure as hell not a liberal issue!

I think part of the issue with Trump is that in a nonpartisan way he appears to be doing terrible, that being associated with how he's terribly unqualified and unmotivated.
That liberals and non-partisans happen to agree on that, is hardly evidence of rampant bias sufficient to stop funding.

NPR has incredible programming much of the time, and most of it is not political in nature, it's often just "the world" type stories. I would say personally that I find no other station worth turning on, ever. Use to turn on Stern sometimes. Other than that, it's junk on the airwaves.

It's your money though, if you want to protest the tiny overall tax burden that causes you, knock yourself out. Be it for good or terrible reasons, does it matter? I suppose to some, it doesn't!

Mach said:

I think it's interesting that it's Republicans rubber stamping, often requirements loosened by other Republicans, but you're bad that a host thought getting a FISA warrant was a high bar. You don't see the oddity there?

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The only thing odd is that liberals hated unjustified surveillance until it fit their agenda. Now they're praising it to high heaven and singing it's praises on the radio. Actually, come to think of it, it's not odd at all. These liberals are already demanding we get into another quagmire in the Middle east via Syria, even though the couldn't stop whining about how unnecessary getting into Iraq was.

Mach said:

Who is being smeared, liberals?


as of 2013 nearly all currently serving judges [on the FISA board] are of the same political party (the Republican Party),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court


Maybe you are thinking you want a more liberal set of judges, since it's going to be liberals that put more emphasis on right to privacy from government?

Click to expand...

Interesting bit of history, but no longer accurate.

reinoe said:

And that's true but for entirely different reasons. Blacks do get harsher penalties for crimes and get higher conviction rates than their white counterparts. That's a different thread though.

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You mean that in order to see if there is a high bar or a low bar for something, we have to look at more than just the success rate?

Gee, what a shock!

NPR has reported on FISA a number of times, from various sources:

FISA Court Appears To Be Rubber Stamp For Government Requests : NPR

FISA Court Has Approved Majority Of Surveillance Warrants : NPR

Crikey! ACLU wants FISA to be more robust...but we all know what Republicans think of the ACLU right? You are so many kinds of wrong in general on this, just let it go.
In any human endeavor you will agree and disagree with people, with hosts, with opinions, with news bias, etc. This is IRRELEVANT. What matters is how overall good it is/credible, and how it compares to the competition in those regards.

What are you comparing NPRs accuracy and breadth and depth to exactly? Bill O'Reily? Because as it stands, it's running circles around this sort of peanut gallery partisan hack job.

The Justice Department says it presented 212 requests to conduct surveillance in the U.S. to the FISA court last year. It says the court modified 200 of them before they were approved. The problem: the public doesn't know why these orders from the government were modified or how they were changed.

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100% approval, with modification? And this is a liberal issue...come on, wise up.

"This is absurd. "High Bar"? FISA denies .003% of all surveillance requests." r #1

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That's cause for alarm.

But it's not conclusive.

You are right. It is EXACTLY what we'd expect to see from a MONUMENTALLY corrupt government.

- however -

You are wrong. It is EXACTLY what we'd expect to see from a MONUMENTALLY scrupulous government as well.

It's simply a ratio.

It's not a valid test of legitimacy.

Because the libearals are doing such a good job of protecting the crimes of obama and his henchmen I think we will have to accept that the CIA can legally spy on politicial opponents of their boss - the president.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that the boss is trump now and what his political enemies are saying to each other should make interesting reading for him