Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
It has been estimated that approximately 50 million Americans watched the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney that took place on October 3rd. Many viewers of the debate are diehard fans of Sesame Street. They were taken aback when Romney brought up the name of one of this country’s most well-loved TV avian characters that evening. It’s a good thing that John James Audubon wasn’t alive to hear the words that emitted from Mitt’s mouth in responding to Jim Lehrer about cuts that he’d make in federal spending if he is elected President:
“I’m sorry, Jim. I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I’m not going to — I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”
The following day, PBS issued a statement expressing disappointment that it had become a target in the political discussion the previous evening. Big Bird himself issued no statement on his own behalf. Since the debate, however, he has appeared on television entertainment and news shows and in a number of Youtube videos. It has been reported that our fine feathered friend was truly disheartened when he learned of Romney’s plan to eliminate funding for PBS programs like Sesame Street, the show that brought him fame and helped to make “Big Bird” a household name.
Big Bird will be happy to learn that his fans are organizing an event to show their support for him, for his fellow Muppets, and for PBS. The event is called the Million Muppet March. It is scheduled to take place on the National Mall on November 3rd.
Take heart, Big Bird!
PICTURES (From Million Muppet March site)
SOURCES
Million Muppet March’ Planned Against Romney (ThinkProgress)
‘Million Muppet March’ planned to defend U.S. backing for PBS (Reuters)
Paul Ryan Stimulus Funds Requests Show VP Nominee Asked For More Than Previously Reported [READ]
By Sam Stein & Jason Cherkis
10/12/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/12/paul-ryan-stimulus-funds_n_1962163.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — During Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden attacked Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for criticizing the president’s stimulus act despite having sent two separate requests for stimulus funds for his district.
Biden was wrong. Ryan sent at least four requests.
A Freedom of Information Act request for correspondence between Ryan’s office and the Environmental Protection Agency, filed by The Huffington Post, unearthed two additional instances in which the Wisconsin Republican petitioned for American Recovery Act funds. In addition, there were many other occasions in which the GOP vice presidential nominee asked the EPA for grant money for projects in Wisconsin’s 1st District, which encompasses Ryan’s hometown of Janesville and has a slight Democratic lean. Combined, the letters muddy Ryan’s claim that the stimulus wasn’t helpful and that government spending, more broadly, doesn’t assist small businesses.
The letters, Ryan’s spokesman Brendan Buck said, were sent as part of the congressman’s basic responsibility to advocate on behalf of his district. “Part of being a congressman is vouching for constituents and helping them navigate the federal bureaucracy when asked,” he said.
But the letters’ language reveals a congressman who was involved in reviewing the applications and determining that taxpayer money could be useful economically. Moreover, the direct petitioning of the EPA could prove awkward for the Republican ticket, owing to the insistence among many in the GOP that the agency is a hindrance and should be eliminated.
nick,
There is no way that any PBS show could be exempted from having commercials.
Nick, there is no proof if on paid TV sesame street, (opera, art shows, etc) would ever find a place on commercial TV because of profitability. PBS provides for who have no access to this, esp in case sesame child education they used to get from head Start
nick,
I’m not a liar–and I’m not in the habit of trying to bullsh*t anyone. You can choose to believe whatever you choose to believe. I have no control over your mindset.
Elaine,
Goosed?! Ouch!
I do agree w/ you about the ads that kids would have to watch on commercial tv. However, I think Sesame Street could exert some control over that because of their clout.
Elaine, “I was trying to honor their request that it[Obama campaign ad] not be used.” That wouldn’t pass a smell test even if I had a bad cold. Come on, don’t try and bullsh!t me for chrissake. You should have just let that one go, and you know it.
The Final Word on Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan
By Josh Barro
Oct 12, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-12/the-final-word-on-mitt-romney-s-tax-plan.html
Excerpt:
Mitt Romney’s campaign says I’m full of it. I said Romney’s tax plan is mathematically impossible: he can’t simultaneously keep his pledges to cut tax rates 20 percent and repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax; broaden the tax base enough to avoid growing the deficit; and not raise taxes on the middle class. They say they have six independent studies — six! — that “have confirmed the soundness of the Governor’s tax plan,” and so I should stop whining. Let’s take a tour of those studies and see how they measure up.
The Romney campaign sent over a list of the studies, but they are perhaps more accurately described as “analyses,” since four of them are blog posts or op-eds. I’m not hating — I blog for a living — but I don’t generally describe my posts as “studies.”
None of the analyses do what Romney’s campaign says: show that his tax plan is sound. I’m going to walk through them individually, but first I want to make a broad point.
The Tax Policy Center paper that sparked this discussion found that Romney’s plan couldn’t work because his tax rate cuts would provide $86 billion more in tax relief to people making over $200,000 than Romney could recoup by eliminating tax expenditures for that group. That means his plan is necessarily a tax cut for the rich, so if Romney keeps his promise not to grow the deficit, he’ll have to raise taxes on the middle class.
http://millionmuppetmarch.com/ This’ll show ’em
One cruise missile costs about a million dollars. How much subsidy does PBS receive? Does Mitt want to keep borrowing money from China to buy cruise missiles? Shoot Big Bird so we can have cruise missiles?
rafflaw,
I hope he is goosed by Big Bird!
😉
Elaine,
I hope that Mitt gets bit by the Bird.
Mitt Romney’s Big Bird Problem: Kids Can’t Vote, But Moms Can
By Laura Bassett
10/05/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/mitt-romneys-big-bird-moms_n_1943398.html
Excerpt:
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may have some ground to make up before November if he hopes to gain more support among female voters, a majority of whom have consistently shunned him in the polls. But his comments during Wednesday’s debate about cutting funding to PBS are not likely to do the trick.
“I like PBS. I love Big Bird,” Romney said. “But I am not going to keep spending money on things [we have] to borrow money from China to pay for.”
The comment provoked a strong, emotional reaction among some parents. “As a mother of two young girls (5 and 7) raised on PBS, my jaw dropped when Romney made that statement,” Liz Gumbinner wrote to The Huffington Post. “The more I thought about it, I went from shock to outrage. It alienated an entire nation of parents.”
“I told my husband, ‘The few mothers of young children who are still behind Romney — he lost them there,'” said Christina Nanof, a 27-year-old mother in Potomac, Md. “Even a lot of the fathers of young children, I’m sure, were like, ‘What? You’re not getting rid of Elmo! There will be riots in the streets!'”
Jessica Pieklo, a 38-year-old law professor and mother of two in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., was “rendered speechless” by Romney’s comment. “We don’t have cable, so PBS is the only children’s television my kids have,” she said. “The idea that we would lose that, or that it would be privatized — it’s shocking to us for a whole lot of smart reasons and a whole lot of emotional reasons.”
“Sesame Street,” a publicly-funded television program, is one of the few children’s shows that teaches kids about numbers, colors, and sharing without the adult-centered advertising found on other cartoons or cable channels. But beyond the obvious educational benefits, the show provides mothers an invaluable, if short, opportunity to answer work emails, pull together dinner, or even just to stare at the wall for 15 minutes while their kids are distracted by something wholesome.
Sesame Workshop responds to Mitt Romney’s Big Bird comments
By Lisa de Moraes
10/4/12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/sesame-workshop-responds-to-mitt-romnyeys-big-bird-comments/2012/10/04/1a40292c-0e68-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_blog.html
“Thank goodness someone is finally getting tough on Big Bird,” President Obama told a Denver crowd the morning after his televised debate with GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
One of the show stopping moments of Wednesday’s first presidential debate — for serious students of television, anyway — happened when Romney, addressing moderator (and PBS veteran) Jim Lehrer, said, “I’m sorry Jim, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS.”
“I like PBS, I love Big Bird, I actually like you too, but I’m going to stop borrowing money from China to pay for things we don’t need.”
The next morning, Big Bird parent Sesame Workshop, and others, suggested GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney needs to do his homework.
You can debate whether there should be funding of public broadcasting, “but when they always try to trot out Big Bird, and say we’re going to kill Big Bird – that is actually misleading,” Sesame Workshop exec vp Sherrie Westin scolded the next morning, on CNN.
“Sesame Workshop receives very, very little funding from PBS,” she explained.
“We are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship,” Westin added.
Sesame Workshop, meanwhile, issued a statement Thursday: “We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. We do not comment on campaigns, but we’re happy we can all agree that everyone likes Big Bird!”
In its own statement, issued after the debate, PBS said, “The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt.”
Or, as astrophysicist and PBS “Nova ScienceNOW” host Neil de Grasse Tyson put it, more pithily, on Twitter, “Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive.”
One of the reasons the economy is stagnant is because of the loss of public sector jobs at all levels. If we had the same amount of public sector jobs that we had under George Bush, the unemployment rate would be much much lower.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/30/romneys-budget-would-require-a-40-cut-to-everything-but-medicare-social-security-and-defense/ If Romney and Ryan cut everything by 40 percent as they say that means a fantastic amount of federal, local and state jobs will be lost. Many economists are predicting that unemployment will skyrocket with this amount of austerity.
Nox Ninox,
I think all Americans are concerned about jobs and unemployment. I don’t think it has anything to do with which candidate one supports.
Would that Romney and Ryan would provide voters with specifics on their tax plan and how they plan to reduce the deficit and create millions of jobs.
A useful political distraction. Nothing more.
Would that our President and his supporters were as concerned about the jobs of millions of real people as they appear to be about the job of a single puppet.
And I’m not talking about Big Bird either.
Christian talk radio is big, too.
Frankly, MPR used to be pretty good. Do you have another alternative station in the twin cities? NPR is as good as it gets it Texas. We either have screaming preachers or the Rush Limbaugh channel or worse.