Michele Norris hosts NPR’s dishonestly named  ”All Things Considered,” one of those insufferable dulcet-toned offerings where very few conservative ideas or pols are “considered” reasonable or sane. The show would be laughable if not for the fact that my hard-earned tax dollars subsidize all the self-important leftist bias and sanctimony.

Anyway, the decision to remove her from the show seems like an overreach on NPR’s part. There’s no reason why what a spouse does for a living should in any way reflect on the other spouse. Husband and wife should be allowed to have their own separate careers, worldviews, and political beliefs without a guilt-by-association conflict of interest dogging them.

NPR, however, says they think differently:

Michele Norris, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” is temporarily stepping away from all her duties and all campaign-related coverage because her husband, Broderick Johnson, has taken a senior advisor position with the president’s re-election campaign.

“After careful consideration, we decided that Broderick’s new role could make it difficult for me to continue hosting ATC,” Norris wrote in a note to NPR staff. “Given the nature of Broderick’s position with the campaign and the impact that it will most certainly have on our family life, I will temporarily step away from my hosting duties until after the 2012 elections.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The House on Thursday voted to end federal funding to National Public Radio. Republican supporters said it made good fiscal sense, and Democratic opponents called it an ideological attack that would deprive local stations of access to programs such as “Car Talk” and “All Things Considered.”

The bill, passed 228-192 along mainly partisan lines, would bar federal funding of NPR and prohibit local public stations from using federal money to pay NPR dues and buy its programs. The prospects of support in the Democratic-controlled Senate are slim. Seven Republicans broke ranks to vote against the bill.

“It is time for American citizens to stop funding an organization that can stand on its own feet,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., the sponsor. He said it was not a question of content—which many conservatives say has a liberal bias—but whether taxpayer dollars should go to nonessential services. “As a country we no longer have this luxury.”

Other Republicans also denied that the measure was a vendetta against NPR, although the organization left itself open to conservative attacks last week when an executive, talking to conservative activists posing as members of a fake Muslim group, was caught on camera deriding the tea party movement and saying the NPR would be better off without federal funding. Both the executive and the president of NPR resigned after the incident. (more…)

On the day after his historic primary win, National Public Radio rabidly went after Rand Paul, the newly minted GOP nominee for Kentucky Senator, trying to make him out to be a KKK sympathizer or perhaps a racist that would have agreed to keep Jim Crow alive and well in 1964. This rabid, left-wing attack is uncalled for and, further, is meant only to stir anti-Republican hatred and not to help voters discover anything relevant about nominee Rand Paul.

Nearly at the top of the interview, the host of NPR’s All Things Considered tried to paint Mr. Paul as some sort of hater that would have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Catch this loaded and irrelevant question by NPR:

You’ve said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone and that the Americans for Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an over reach by the federal government, would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Paul gave a very good reply but the best thing he said was that he hadn’t read through the entire 1964 legislation because it had been passed 40 years ago and didn’t have any role in today’s campaign. And that is just it, isn’t it? The 1964 Civil Rights Act is ancient history as far as current politics goes. It is fully accepted and is not a law in dispute, nor does it have any part in current political discussion. The law is fact, the legitimacy of which no one questions. Talking about the 1964 Civil Rights Act is not relevant at all to today’s issues.

Of course, that wasn’t good enough for NPR as the hack who was interviewing Paul harped on and on trying to get Paul to say he wished that blacks in America were still forced to live under Jim Crow. In fact, the NPR interviewer wasted most of the interview trying to out Paul as a racist. (more…)

From NPR’s “All Things Considered”:

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Conservative Blogger Faces Criticism Over Protege, by DAVID FOLKENFLIK

The conservative online news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart is, for the moment, doing little to dispel stereotypes about bloggers. During a recent visit to his home on the west side of Los Angeles, Breitbart, 41, is working from his own basement. Barefoot. At the beck and call of his own kids.

But that basement is light and airy, with a decent view of the city. A young assistant works there with Breitbart to help funnel wire service stories to Breitbart.com, his main news aggregation site. And his reach, thanks to a brawling rhetorical style and a protege who taped the undercover ACORN videos last year, is only expanding.

Over the past year, Breitbart has hired editors to run a new network of conservative blogs called BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com and BigJournalism.com. No matter the focus, the media are a prime target throughout. (more…)