I don't think Grover Norquist, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush or any of their ilk subscribe to Christian theology. They belong to a cult of Mammon that apes the forms of Christianity, and mouths fragments of theology and the Bible that can be made to make them sound sort of Christian. What's sad is that so many Christians are taken in by the brand-name, alone.
Wayne Hoffman hates PBS
Submitted by banjomike on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 12:03pm.
From Wednesday's Post-Register:
" Sorry, Sesame Street" by Wayne Hoffman
The state government of the 21st century should not include government-funded television, writes Wayne Hoffman.
Nostalgic sentiment for government television is no reason to continue funding it. Imagine, if you will, a brand new state called Idaho, born in the year 2010. What government services should this new state offer? Would this new 21st-century government really include a taxpayer-funded television network? Probably not, and the reason is simple: It's not needed. It's government waste.
The arguments once used to validate the existence of taxpayer-subsidized government television no longer hold true. Any number of television channels offer hordes of educational choices. Cooking, science, the arts and academics all have their own channels. Thanks to technology, rural areas and urban areas alike have access to many of the same television signals, either through cable or satellite. Many people are opting to download and watch on their computers content that was once exclusively television programming.
If the Legislature contends that it is a compelling state government interest to run a television station, is the state negligent when it fails to provide each Idahoan a television on which to view the television signal they've dutifully paid for?
If the Legislature contends that every Idahoan needs access to a state television signal, why is the state deciding what information is offered via that television signal? Why not rebroadcast the quality educational programming being offered already by commercial television outlets? Why must the government create and control the content, and why must that government content then be used to compete against the private sector?
If the Legislature contends access to information is the most important reason for having taxpayer funding for Idaho Public Television, can the Legislature really argue that Idaho Public Television is really the single best vehicle for the dissemination of information, especially in light of all the other available technologies -- including those that were not available in 1965 when the broadcaster was created?
And finally, if lawmakers are prepared to continue taxpayer support for government television, are they prepared to go back to their districts and say, "Sorry folks, while TV is the first expense to be cut from your household budget in lean times, the TV in the state budget is exempt from consideration." Or, "We couldn't cut taxes, but you still have 'Sesame Street.'" Or, "We cut programs for the neediest people, but at least we were able to provide a cool episode of Outdoor Idaho."
Idaho Public Television does a great job. But it's a job that would receive no taxpayer support were it brand new in 2010. Today, one must strain to contend that television is the proper role of government. That's the lens through which lawmakers should view the decision of whether to continue funding it.
Hoffman is the executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan free-market think tank. Wayne can be reached at wayne@idahofreedom.net."
To paraphrase a classic sketch from Saturday Night Live...
Wayne! You ignorant slut!
I could go on from there, but I want to see what you folks think first.
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Manufactured frenzy
You know, he's absolutely right about one thing. If we were starting from scratch in 2010, there would be no public support for government anything. People wouldn't be able to see and appreciate, Sesame Street, Idaho Reports, Dialogue, Legislature Live, Outdoor Idaho, Idaho Debates and every other worthwhile service provided by IPTV, and many, like Hoffman, would be able to stir up anti-government sentiment that would doom this service from the outset. Much like the health care debate deteriorated into fears of "government takeovers," "death panels" and "socialized medicine." The loaded language of the anti-government TV lobby would be predictably off-base but effective and in the manufactured frenzy, Idahoans would be left ignorant of what they are actually opposing.
Mebbe
Although I think its more the manufacture than the frenzy. People in Idaho would still be clamoring for their medicaid while they scream about socialism, they'd complain about government messing in the markets while they cash their subsidy check, and they'd gripe about rising deficits while dropping their kids off at school.
You make valid points and I'd love to give this missive the Sisyphus treatment when I find a minute. IPTV is the ONLY thing that unifies the geographically disparate regions in the state and provides the kind of coverage of state government necessary to maintain a semblance of an informed electorate. And its also hilarious that only the ethics of Wayne Hoffman would conveniently omit the fact that cutting state funding will actually cost the state money, $4 million to pay for the digital upgrades. He's a dipshit.
Oxymoron without the Oxy
I'm still refraining from unloading a can o' whoopass, but I've always thought Wayne's tagline amusing:
"Hoffman is the executive director of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan free-market think tank. Wayne can be reached at wayne@idahofreedom.net."
Uh, yeah. Right, Wayne.
Sick 'em.
I really want to cause I can't let the bullshit go unabated. Help me with this burden. Rip his lungs out.
Okey, dokey. Here goes.
Wayne, if I can peel your eyes off of American Idol and Octamom for a moment...
Idaho PBS is the only television venue that provides the benefits my friend Sisyphus mentioned above.
In addition, Idaho's public television trains young people who want to enter the TV journalism, TV operations and TV engineering fields.
Public TV is the only television offered where an Idahoan can get college credits by watching the lectures offered at home.
PBS offers teachers all over the state supplementary materials and teaching plans that help teachers use many programs in teaching biology, earth sciences, geography, history, anthropology, and many other vital criteria that local districts can't afford to buy. All this makes for good education done cheap.
Two of the PBS broadcast locations- Boise and Pocatello, offer local access channels, where anyone with a plan can get in front of the camera and broadcast. This in itself would be particularly helpful for you, Wayne, and it's free.
And there's that little $4 million the state just spent to do the digital upgrade. Public television has never been better or offered as many choices before. It is the only television broadcast that gives considerable time to all sides of the political and social spectrum, here and abroad.
All of this stuff was supposed to be done by commercial television. That's a part of the licensing agreements they all agreed to when they received the rights to broadcast over the public's air, but none have ever fulfilled the agreement past token programming.
There are many very good reasons why so many of Idaho's largest corporations, trusts, and leadership sponsor programming on PBS. One of the reasons is these folks realize the importance of a well educated public. Another is a sponsorship is a very inexpensive way to garner wide good will for the companies. And these days, big Idaho business needs all the good will it can get.
You are shooting yourself in the foot when you write junk like this. Those people read and remember. How are you going to get a foot in their door when you slap 'em in the face? You should have already learned Bill Sali lesson #1 by now... some deep thinker you are.
Now, I realize that, despite your self-proclaimed leader as a think tank, you neither lead or think. If you ever want to actually make a living in your line of chosen profession, I sincerely hope you spend a little time watching PBS, so you might gain some of the skills you so obviously lack.
But I'm not holding my breath that you will ever learn a damned thing. The vast, dark, cold depths of your ignorance does not serve you well. Go learn to drive a spud truck and earn your living honestly for a change. Idahoans know a slick talker in yellow shoes when they see one. You are no slick talker, but you sure have the yellow shoes.
Ain't noways tired
I could keep this up all day.
Umm...
A clarification: "Two of the PBS broadcast locations- Boise and Pocatello, offer local access channels, where anyone with a plan can get in front of the camera and broadcast. This in itself would be particularly helpful for you, Wayne, and it's free." This, I'm afraid, is incorrect.
Yes, IEPBS does broadcast out of both Boise as well as Pocatello (via the campus of ISU), but they have absolutely nothing to do with either cities' local access channel. I know Pocatello-Vision 12 gets it's operating money from a fee charged to CableOne for the rights to use the City of Pocatello's right-of-way for its transmission lines, and I imagine TVCTV is similar. Neither public access channel is affiliated with Idaho's Public Television service.
Other than that, rock on with your bad self. I recall meeting Hoffman a number of years back when he worked for the Idaho Statesman, and the impression he left was of an insufferable clown with delusions of grandeur. Apparently, nothing about him has changed since then.
I think Wayne Hoffman has provided the epiphany
of the argument about what services government should provide and why. He and his ilk believe that a free market will provide for all and that there should be no need for government services what so ever. The problem with that theory is that it goes against every reason for communal gatherings starting with the nuclear family and tribalism and extending to democratic governance.
Government exists for the common good. Government should not be “run like a business” since most business' exist to profit one, or a few, at the expense of many.
The wingnuts have long used such phrases as “down sizing” and “right sizing” as aphorisms to uphold their principles but the reality of their rhetoric is, unfortunately for them, being driven to the forefront by economic realities and not holding up to the empirical ideals they believed in.
Who would guessed that, we the people, want IPTV. That we actually like our park system? That we are our brothers keepers and don't want an end to the meager public services that we have fought so hard for in the past.
"Sorry, Wayne, by banjomike"
That should be the title of your comment.
Honestly, who gives two shits what Wayne Hoffman thinks? Besides Wayne Hoffman, that is.
I'm just glad I haven't seen Hoffman's drivel in The Statesman lately. Why do you suppose The Statesman quit running him? It's not as though they actually paid for the column. Could it be that they recognized what a morally and intellectually bankrupt whiner he is?
Nah, probably not.
Anyone get a look at IFF's "report" on government waste? Good for a laugh. It was fully of typos, obvious inaccuracies, and loaded statements that consistently betrayed his bias and thus made the entire thing suspect and ludicrous.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation ... "think tank." Sorry, Wayne. Donnie doubts it.
digging up Wayne
Untamedshrew asked some very good questions. They started me wondering about just what Wayne is up to, so I just spent a little time looking around the net.
The obvious answer, of course, is Wayne is feathering his own nest. Maybe he's not getting column space anymore in the Statesman, and can't get work as a reporting journalist, but he getting guest column space from the Post-Register in I.F., and although I didn't look, I'll bet he's getting it in the Twin Falls paper, too. I'm sure he gets space in other papers around the state.
Hoffman is big on creating anonymous shadow sites that further his cause and fatten his wallet. The Unequivocal Notion hit this in 2009, and provided the starting place for my hunt. Here's the page:
http://unequivocalnotion.com/2009/01/idaho-freedom-foundation/
His first effort was a site intended to fluff up his boss, Bill Sali. Later on, he used several other websites he put together later on to pick up whatever chump change was tossed his way.
After Sali's defeat, Hoffman started the IFF, and used his Sali connections to go get some grant money from whatever organization he could find that would cough up.
Apparently, the IFF's Pork Report was funded by an outfit called Citizens Against Government Waste, who gave him a $4000 grant for the work. You can read it here:
http://apps.itd.idaho.gov/apps/MediaManagerViewer/NewsClipping/Story.aspx?ID=45716&Type=NewsClipping
CAGW believes government should get out of tv broadcasting. Here's their homepage:
http://www.cagw.org/
Scroll halfway down to see their notice of the Idaho Pork Report.
So- all is clear. Wayne is still fluffing up his employers. He probably gets paid multiple times for every piece that appears in multiple newspapers, and probably gets funding for his blogs and websites. Good work for a shill if you can get it, I guess.
An amusing thing happened about a month ago in the P-R. A local nutbag named Wallace Hoffman wrote a guest column, and the editors screwed the names up. Wallace's screed was published under Wayne's name and picture. There wasn't much difference in the reading between them... Wally is a tad more unhinged, but that was about it.
We've been tracking Wayne for a long time
Since his foray into his own government funding was cut short, in no small part due to his own questionable ethics, he's been doing nothing but feathering his own nest and feeding his vindictive nature against Democrats. Check this post by the blogmother when he first started supplying 'free' editorials to the Statesman on behalf of his PAC IFF. Lately he vastly expanded his operation by hiring a couple out a work conservative journalists and launching the 'fair and balanced' Idaho Reporter. Its a post waiting to happen on where he's getting his funding.
Here's a post I wrote with some links on Wayne's checkered past. He first came to my attention when he wrote hit pieces on Democrats while a reporter for the Statesman. He soon parlayed that into a state job with the Dept. of Ag while simultaneously representing the Sali and Luna campaigns. As I recall it was the Mountain Goat who first caught him in a shady operation while working for Sali and suffered some flak of her own because of it. If you really wanna find out more, just do an advanced google search of 'Wayne Hoffman' on this site, Red State Rebels, or the Mountain Goat Report, which will surely link you into plenty. Of course you could also start checking the IFF financial disclosures at the Secretary of State's website. Happy hunting.
scoundrel
Thanks, Sis.
Hoffman is simply a scoundrel, through and through. He reminds me of how Limbaugh got his start on radio- Limbaugh gave stations his show for free and depended on his advertisers only. Hoffman is doing the same monkey biz, except in print, not the airwaves.