Chinese scientists are investigating a bizarre case in which a cockerel apparently started laying eggs after all the hens were eaten.

The birds owner Huang Li, 47, kept the rooster together with seven hens on his small farm at Chumiao village, Mengcheng city, in central China’s Anhui province.

He said that his family had been gradually eating the chickens over winter until only the rooster was left – and he was amazed when he went into the cage the next day to discover an egg.

He said: “I thought it was a joke and that one of my neighbours had put the egg in there for fun. But the next day there was another egg and so on the third day I waited – and was amazed when I saw that the rooster laid an egg.”

He said word quickly spread to the local TV station which did a story on the egg laying rooster and after that scientists from the local agricultural ministry office turned up and borrowed the rooster to carry out tests.

He said: “They want to find out if it was a hen all the time that simply looked like a rooster or whether it actually changed to become a hen as a result of the fact that all the females had vanished.

“All I can say is that it did a good job waking us up every morning like every other rooster and it certainly treated the hens as if it was a rooster.” …

CONTINUED at Orange UK.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Recently, in a memoir he published, a former Navy SEAL came forward claiming that he decked and knocked down former Navy SEAL, former professional wrestler, former Governor of Minnesota and television host Jesse Ventura. Chris Kyle, the SEAL who claims he did this, is a decorated sniper who has been awarded an almost uncountable number of medals. Now while I would hate to discredit someone of that stature, certain things about his story don’t add up and since Fox News is just about the only mainstream media source that is even talking about the issue, one can’t not question this situation. Plus, the incident took place over five years ago and it is just now being brought public? Sorry but that is incredibly fishy.

Another thing worth noting is that the book that Kyle wrote ‘American Sniper’ has been published by Harper Collins which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, who also own Fox News. Now also taking into account that Bill O’Reilly has been vehemently opposed to Jesse Ventura for years and the former Governor has had plenty of spats with O’Reilly and his Fox News colleagues makes him a prime target for Fox News’ top ratings getter. It also probably doesn’t help Ventura that O’Reilly has never really been objective or fair and balanced, as he claims that he is. Hell, the O’Reilly Factor’s slogan “The spin stops here” is a blatant lie. O’Reilly often times refers to himself as a “journalist” even though he is a commentator. O’Reilly is either a horrible liar, as anyone with a single brain cell can see through this charade, or he just doesn’t know the difference between a journalist or a commentator. Another reason why O’Reilly may be coming at Ventura with guns blazing is because the former Governor has been very vocal about his support for Ron Paul, which is someone else that Fox News is trying to smear and brush under the rug, as if he were non-existant. In any event, this whole situation smells about as rotten as sack full of sweaty yeast infected orangutan vaginas, so I had to do some investigating of my own, since Bill O’Reilly the “journalist” apparently doesn’t have that magical ability.

Before I get into my investigating, let’s get into O’Reilly’s lackluster attempt. Now while taking Chris Kyle’s story at face value, O’Reilly and almost every other Fox News show promoted this guy and his book and pushed his tale as factual without actually checking on the story for themselves. This obviously outraged Ventura, who went on the Alex Jones Radio Show and said that this event never happened. Ventura said that he never disrespected a deceased Navy SEAL as Kyle claimed and that he never even met Kyle and therefore was never punched by the guy. Ventura went on to name the restaurant where the incident supposedly took place and said that the owner was a friend of his and people were free to call the guy and ask him if the story was indeed true. So what did O’Reilly do after Ventura brought all this up?

Well, O’Reilly didn’t call the bar owner. In fact what he did do was quote two eye-witnesses, who weren’t even actually interviewed, who claimed they saw the whole thing. The catch was that both of these witnesses were buddies of Chris Kyle and therefore, obviously had some biased input, as they don’t want to tarnish their homeboy’s credibility while he’s trying to pimp his book. O’Reilly before the show where he quoted these eye-witnesses was promoting the segment like he had the smoking gun and was going to expose Ventura. Billy O claimed that he had evidence to support his made up conclusion and when all was said and done, this evidence was placed at the very end of his show in the “Dumbest Things of the Week” segment. Okay, so is he admitting his evidence is dumb? Or is he trying to make a joke out of all this to absolve himself of any backlash after carelessly opening a can of bullshit worms? Also in this segment was a story about a Colorado high school senior who wanted to use a topless photo for her yearbook picture. As you can see, O’Reilly was now filing this story, that he made such a big serious deal about the week prior, into the trash bin.

So why did O’Reilly waste his audience’s time with these bullshit witnesses that he promoted heavily leading up to the show? Then again, anyone who watches this douchenugget is wasting their time regardless. Anyway, why didn’t O’Reilly take Ventura’s advice and call the owner of the bar and get him to make an official statement? Maybe Ol’ Billy Boy didn’t want to have someone come in and ruin this story. Maybe if he asked the owner for his account it would’ve ruined this pointless smear of an American hero who deserves the same amount of respect that Chris Kyle is getting from his News Corp. brothers. Well, being the pot-stirring jackass that I am, I couldn’t let justice not be served so I made a couple phone calls.

Last week I called the restaurant in question and asked to speak to the owner. When I called, he wasn’t in but I did get some information from the manager who picked up the phone. The manager said that he didn’t specifically remember if the event happened or not, as it took place over five years ago. The manager told me to try again to see if I could talk to the owner, who he claimed was hard to pin down.

I called the next day and had no luck and then called a third time and was cued in to something noteworthy. I was told by one of the managers that they were getting a lot of calls about the incident from other people. I asked if any major news organizations had contacted them like Fox and they said “no”. Aha! So O’Reilly didn’t even bother! Anyway, the guy on the phone told me that the owner wasn’t there but that he didn’t want to talk about it anyway and I agreed to not call back out of respect for their wishes not to be bothered. I was told however that even if it happened so long ago, an incident like that wouldn’t have been forgotten and that it would still be the talk of the bar, which it isn’t. In his own way, this was the manager’s confirmation that this story was most likely a fabrication. It’s really for you to decide but the point is, journalists, bloggers and concerned citizens working outside of the mainstream media circle have been trying to get to the bottom of this while the media giants didn’t even make a phone call to check and cover their own asses.

In fact, after O’Reilly quoted the bullshit witness testimonies, he brought on Greg Gutfeld and Arthel Neville to talk about it. Gutfeld tried to poke fun at Ventura being a 9/11 Truther because that’s all that he could do to try and discredit someone of Ventura’s stature, which is a much higher stature than Chris Kyle in my book. Neville added, “I tend to believe the Navy SEAL in this story.” She was referring to Kyle of course, as the three amigos didn’t mention or just simply forgot that Ventura too was a Navy SEAL. However, by her reasoning, both Kyle and Ventura would be telling the truth! That’s that good ol’ Fox News journalism for ya! I guess the fact that Ventura is a former SEAL and a former governor means nothing to these establishment cockpuppets. What’s sad is that I always liked and respected Gutfeld but ever since he became a co-host of ‘The Five’ he has been firmly assimilated into the mainstream media’s culture of bullshit. When on the television, Gutfeld always came off as the smartest and wittiest guy in the room but once getting himself out of that 3 a.m. time slot, he’s quickly regressed into being your run-of-the-mill mainstream shamster.

The purpose of this is not to say who is telling the truth or who isn’t, it is to show how the mainstream media takes potential bullshit at face value and disregards evidence in an effort to sell a story, that could be complete fabricated garbage. Fox News, as was confirmed, did nothing to really try and find a resolution to this story. Hell, they couldn’t even get an intern to pick up a phone and make a call? I made three calls and I run several websites with no real staff to speak of and I have a full-time job on top of that! If there is anything to learn from this, it is that you should question the trash that these ass clown talking heads try to shove down your throat. I wish we could trust the news coming from the top but this is just another account of why they are just lying bastards more interested in trash television than truth.

It’s a seemingly absurd idea on the surface: Why would democrats and liberals want to vote for Ron Paul (a Republican) over President Obama? Maybe because they want freedom instead of tyranny, it turns out. Because if you’re a total slave to the police state, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re on the left or the right, does it?

Here, I give you ten solid reasons why even liberals and progressives are supporting Ron Paul. And by the way, I don’t worship Ron Paul or any individual. What I honor isthe principlesthat Ron Paul stands for — the very same principles President Obama has outright abandoned in his broken promises and disturbing reversals against the American people. Out of all the candidates, only Ron Paul has the ethical and moral strength to carry out his office from a place of principle rather than betrayal.

#1) Ron Paul supports decriminalizing marijuana and ending the War on Drugs. Obama does not.

Remember when Obamapromisedhe would decriminalize marijuana, but now his own administration continues to raid legal drug dispensaries in California? That’s a classic Obama lie: Say one thing to get elected, then turn around and do the exact opposite.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, openly supports decriminalizing marijuana and ending the failed War on Drugs. Although he doesn’tpromoterecreational drug use (and neither do I), he understands that treating weed smokers as hard-core criminals is ethical, morally and economically wrong. See my related article on Snoop Dogg and his recent drug bust in Texas:http://www.naturalnews.com/034612_S…

#2) Ron Paul supports the freedom to choose what you eat and drink, including raw milk, but the Obama administration continues to run armed raids on raw milk farmers

Under Ron Paul, the FDA would be forced to end its vicious armed raids on Amish farmers and raw dairy producers. Obama has openly allowed such armed raids to continue under his watch, refusing to even take a stand for food freedom in America.

Ron Paul understands thatliberty is the most important component of abundance. If you are not free to choose what you want to eat, smoke what you want to smoke, and choose your own type of medicine and health care, then you are a slave, not a citizen. Ron Paul seeks toget Big Government out of your life, away from your kitchen, out of your medicine cabinet and away from your children.

#3) Ron Paul would seek to eliminate FDA censorship of the scientifically-validated health claims for herbs, nutritional supplements and natural remedies

Under Bush and Obama, the FDA’s continued censorship of truthful statements about medicinal herbs, homeopathy and nutritional supplements has been fully supported by the White House. Obama is just a corporate puppet, of course, and that means he does whatever the powerful corporations tell him to do — especially the Wall Street and Big Pharma corporations. So it’s no surprise he hasn’t taken a stand to support health freedom for foods and supplements.

But Ron Paul has pushed theHealth Freedom Protection Actyear after year (http://www.naturalnews.com/019382_H…), tirelessly working tolegalize nutrition in Americaand restore Free Speech for Chinese Medicine herbs, Western medicine herbs and dietary supplements. Where Obama wants people to remain ignorant and malnourished, Ron Paul wants to restore your right to know the truth about supplements and natural medicine. As Ron Paul said in late 2005:

“The Health Freedom Protection Act will force the FDA to at last comply with the commands of Congress, the First Amendment, and the American people by codifying the First Amendment standards adopted by the federal courts. Specifically, the Health Freedom Protection Act stops the FDA from censoring truthful claims about the curative, mitigative, or preventative effects of dietary supplements, and adopts the federal court’s suggested use of disclaimers as an alternative to censorship. The Health Freedom Protection Act also stops the FDA from prohibiting the distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease.”

#4) Ron Paul would shut down secret military prisons like Gitmo, but Obama wants to expand those prisons and fill them with Americans!

It is now common knowledge that Obama lied when he said he would shut down Guantanamo Bay. As it turns out, Obama actually signed the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) on New Year’s Eve (when no one would notice). The NDAA grants the U.S. government the claimed “legal” right to “indefinitely detain” U.S. citizens, throw them in secret military prisons, interrogate them and even kill them withno due process. All this can now take place without a person even beingchargedwith a crime, much less given their day in court. (http://www.naturalnews.com/034537_N…)

Obama quietly signed this bill on New Year’s Eve, hoping no one would notice. This is how low his morals have stooped, by the way — to signing traitorous bills in the dark of night, on the evening before a major holiday where half the nation is hung over from alcohol. Why no signing ceremony with full coverage by CNN, huh? Maybe it’s because nationaltraitorsdon’t want their crimes against the United States Constitution to be filmed on camera.

In signing this, Obama violated his own oath of office, nullified the U.S. Bill of Rights, and essentially committed an act of mass civil rights violations against the People of America. Rep. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is one of the very few people who has openly and sternly opposed this unlawful NDAA which blatantly and arrogantly violates the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

This single point alone outweighs everything else you might think about Ron Paul. Even if you disagree with Ron Paul on other issues, none of that really matters if you’re rotting away in a secret military prison for daring to protest in a public park, for example.Without the Bill of Rights, nothing else really mattersbecause tyranny takes over. The Bill of Rights must be defended first and at all costs. It is the only thing limiting the power of government and protecting the People from tyranny. Without it, we are all little more than slaves to a military dictatorship.

#5) Ron Paul is anti-war, Obama is pro-war.

Remember when Bush was the President, and everybody on the left was screaming about getting us out of all those wars in the Middle East? Funny how they suddenly fell silent when Obama took over the reins from Bush and continued running those same wars, isn’t it?

Ron Paul is solidly anti-war. Although he agrees with the need to “defend our shores,” he also believes that the United States has no moral authority (nor financial stability) from which to engage in running around the world as some sort of global police force, intervening in the business of nations,especially in the Middle East.

He is solidly against a war with Iran even as all the other candidates seem to be almost desperate to throwother people’s sons and daughtersonto the front lines of violent conflict. Only Ron Paul truly honors the troops bybringing them home. All the other war-mongers who say “support our troops” are really screaming, “Let our troops get killed overseas!” And unlike Gingrich, Ron Paul actually served his country as a military man, even with a child to care for:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-pau…

#6) Ron Paul’s wants to end the Fed and stop bailing out wealthy banksters, while Obama is a Wall Street sellout

Don’t you find it astonishing that, under the Obama administration, wall street crooks like Jon Corzine have been involved in thetheft of billions of dollarsfrom American farmers and investors, yetno one has been indicted, prosecuted or criminally chargedfor those crimes?

Under the Obama administration, white-collar crime gets a wink and a nod. That’s because people like Vice President Joe Biden actually worship Jon Corzine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm3V…). Wall Street crooks were some of the largest contributors to the Obama election campaign, and they continue to promote both Obama and Mitt Romney.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, gets no support from the criminal banksters. That’s because he pledges to reign in the Fed, end the disastrous trillion-dollar bailouts and halt the theft of money from U.S. taxpayers by the wealthy elite.

Once again, this reason alone is enough of a reason to vote for Ron Paul.He’s the only candidate who doesn’t support the financial criminals on Wall Street. Maybe that’s why the crooked corporate media keeps smearing him in the news… they’re all tied in with the same crooks who run Wall Street.

#7) Ron Paul does not need a teleprompter to tell you what he believes, and his message has remained consistent for over 25 years

Obama needs a teleprompter to figure out what to say. That’s because he’s mainly a puppet who says what he’s told to say and signs what he’s told to sign (like the NDAA, which he of course promised he wouldn’t sign but did anyway).

Ron Paul needs no teleprompter. He doesn’t have to keep track of which lies he told in which speech to which group. That’s because Ron Paul tells the truth every time, and his message is the same whether he’s in Iowa, New Hampshire or Texas.

Ron Paul isn’t sexy, trendy or hip. Instead, he’s honest, reliable and ethical. Gee, those might be good qualities for leaders to possess, ya think?

#8) Ron Paul is not really a Republican loyalist

This should come as quite a relief to the Democrats out there. Ron Paul is really aLibertarianwho is running on the Republican ticket thanks to the necessary mechanisms of our two-party system. Most of today’s Republicans are just as corrupt as status quo democrats. They start wars, stage false flag terror events and hand out trillions of dollars in bailouts and government contracts to their corrupt buddies.

Ron Paul is none of that. He’s a humble, highly intelligent and principled individual who often votesagainsthis fellow Republicans on bills that run counter to the United States Constitution.

If Ron Paul wins as a Republican, that would of course give Republicans some additional power in Congress, but Ron Paul answers to no one other than God and the People. As all the corrupt corporate lobbyists realized long ago,Ron Paul thinks for himselfand cannot be bought off, no matter how high the offer. He sticks to principles, he honors the Constitution, and he is dedicated to improving the future of our nation, period!

#9) Ron Paul wants to legalize Free Speech (again)

Isn’t it interesting how many of the OWS protesters are now being forced to pay daily fees for the “privilege” of protesting? Gee, I thought America was a free country, and I thought you could peaceably assemble anytime you wanted and shout your grievances to your government. Guess not:http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=FF2F1…

Now the police state pepper spraying has begun, all under Obama of course, who now wants to send Americans into secret military prisons and deprive them of their due process rights. If you believe in the First Amendment and freedom of speech, youcan’tbelieve in Obama! He is the polar opposite of freedom (plus, he flat out lies a lot).

Ron Paul has fought for the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution fordecades, and he has a PERFECT voting record in defending it. He does not waver. He does not bend. He fights for your freedoms in a way that no other Democrat or Republican has ever done.

If you want Free Speech to be legal again in America, vote for Ron Paul.

#10) Ron Paul wants to criminally investigate the crooks in Washington

Most Democrats and Republicans are all crooks who just cover each other’s backs. Yeah, you raped a little kid, but I stole a billion dollars from the taxpayers, and we’ll just agree to both remain silent. Sound familiar? That’s what happens in Washington D.C. almost daily.

Ron Paul thinkselected officials should follow the law. Shock! What a concept! Along with that, he also believes that Attorney General Eric Holder should not run guns into Mexico as part of a staged scam to blame the Second Amendment. Gasp!

Who else dares to say the bureaucrats in Washington are crooks who should becriminally investigatedfor their crimes against the People? You won’t find status quo officials pursuing any of this, of course, becausethey’re all corrupt!

Only Ron Paul stands out above the lawless corruption and criminal-mindedness of the status quo in Washington D.C. He is the “anti-insider,” the one man who actually threatens the entire corrupt system (which is why the press smears him every single day). This is why the recent voting in Iowa was falsified and rigged to make sure Ron Paul wouldn’t win (this was openly admitted by the Republican leaders on local radio). The crooks in Washington absolutely do not want Ron Paul to become President, and that alone should be sufficient reason to put Ron Paul into office!

You want real hope? Real change? Support Ron Paul

If you love the way things are today — unemployment on the rise, a government drowning in debt, soldiers coming home in body bags, your friends and neighbors rotting in prison after getting caught with a little weed — then vote for Obama! He’s happy to carry on the insane policies that have led us to this point in history.

But if you wantreal changein America, support Ron Paul.Make a donation today, so that he can raise the necessary funds to clobber “Mittens” Romney and win the Republican nomination. Then we’ll have a faceoff between Barack Obama and Ron Paul, and there’s no question Paul would win that contest if the voters still have a couple of brain cells functioning when they go to vote.

Make your donations at:
www.RonPaul2012.com

Or support theSouth Carolina money bombby donating here:
http://ronpaul-2012.org/mbpledge_sc…

Source: Natural News.

With last week’s Iowa Caucuses in the United States, we’re starting the long haul to November’s election day where we’ll be inundated by hundreds of advertisements and speeches filled with all kinds of promises. But how do you know whether those promises will be kept, or what the your member of Congress is really about? The truth is, a candidate can tell you a lot more about what they’re going to do via their actions and their associations than their advertisements and speeches. And thanks to the work of a lot of great watchdog groups, a lot of that information is now publicly available online.

So how do you get started digging underneath the rhetoric and into the good stuff?

First, let’s figure out who all your representatives are. Project VoteSmart makes this easy just type in your zip code, and they’ll tell you who all your representatives are from the state level on up. If you live in a relatively dense area, chances are you live in a five digit zip code that has more than one legislative district in it, so the chances are that you’ll need to know your Zip+4— you can figure that out courtesy of the USPS.

Now that you know who your rep is, it’s time to put on your private investigator hat on. Start local! — but I think that’s a much better place to start. Your local city council and state representatives impact your daily life far more frequently than your representative or even the president. If you live in California, Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Maryland or Minnesota, you’re really in luck, because OpenGovernment.org is pulling together a great website for you to see what’s happening in your area. For everyone else, Google for your state’s state legislative website, or if you’re a developer, check out the Sunlight Foundation’s OpenStates project, which has bulk data available for 44 states.

We’re still a little behind with county and municipality votes and websites. But search for yours, you may have something useful out there. The most important thing about local candidates is that they’re accessible. While you can (and should) try and meet with your federal representatives, sometimes the travel to Washington can be too burdensome. But local candidates are there and waiting for you to call them. Call their office, and ask for a meeting, and ask them what they’re about. You’ll be amazed at the reception you get.

There are two great tools for researching federal (President, Congress) office-holders:GovTrack.us and OpenCongress.org. If you live in the 7th Congressional District of Virginia, for instance, here’s Eric Cantor’s page in on GovTrack, and on OpenCongress. Take a look at the bills they’ve sponsored and co-sponsored, and what they’ve voted on, and see if they align with your issues. And if they don’t — well, you know what to do.

As important as the voting record is the company your member keeps. InfluenceExplorer.com, from the Sunlight Foundation is a great place to start. If you’re interested in Ron Paul for instance, you can see how much money he’s raised, as well as what his top Earmark requests are. Over on OpenSecrets.org you’re able to see what industries have Ron Paul as a top recipient of money, and even sort donors by zip code. At the state level, the National Institute on Money in State Politics offers the same service on FollowTheMoney.org.

Another interesting thing to look at is how politicians invest their money. OpenSecrets also has the neat feature of being able to see the kinds of investments that your member of Congress makes — they’ve catalogued each member of Congress’ “Personal Financial Disclosure” form — the form all high-level government employees have to fill out when they get their job. What’s the top asset held by a member of Congress you ask? That’d be the Milwaukee Bucks, owned entirely by U.S. Senator Herb Kohl.

If you want to dig deeper, *all* of this data is generally a hard-working non-profit compiling and delivering government data in a usable format. The federal financial contribution stuff comes from fec.gov, laws come from Thomas.gov (which celebrates its 17th birthday this week), and state official information comes from elections, ethics, and secretaries of state websites across the country. With a little sleuthing, you can figure out whether or not your politicians are right for you and make a little more sense out of how your government works.

In 2012, don’t just listen to what the candidates have to say, or even listen to what everybody else has to say about them. Part of a healthy information diet means getting closer to the source: watch what they do, instead. If you can, meet directly with them, too. In my 10 years working in Washington, I’ve yet to hear a scheduler complain that their member has too many meetings with their constituents. Book some travel to Washington (April is a great time to visit, for the Cherry Blossoms), meet with your member of Congress, and participate in democracy.

Source: Lifehacker.

My Two Cents: This may be tyrannical but you’ve gotta admit it was pure genius. End Two Cents.

The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama bin Laden was hiding in an elaborate attempt to obtain DNA from the fugitive al-Qaida leader’s family, a Guardian investigation has found. As part of extensive preparations for the raid that killed Bin Laden in May, CIA agents recruited a senior Pakistani doctor to organise the vaccine drive in Abbottabad, even starting the “project” in a poorer part of town to mak … Read More

via Xenophilia (True Strange Stuff)

*Taken from Reason. Written by Jesse Walker.

Get ready to suspend your disbelief. One of the most resilient acts in theatrical history is returning to the D.C. stage: the We’re Going To Defund Public Broadcasting show.

Every time this play gets revived, the director alters the story slightly to reflect recent events. This time the performers are riffing on National Public Radio’s decision to fire Juan Williams after he said he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on a plane. John Boehner, who might be the country’s next speaker of the House, has told National Review “it’s reasonable to ask why Congress is spending taxpayers’ money to support a left-wing radio network—and in the wake of Juan Williams’ firing, it’s clearer than ever that’s what NPR is.” Newt Gingrich, who’s having one of his periodic flirtations with a presidential run, announced on Fox that “Congress should investigate NPR and consider cutting off its money.” The conservative direct-mail king Richard Viguerie has launched a petition to defund the network, accusing the suits who dismissed Williams of “censorship of ideas not in conformity with the ruling class elites.”

It’s a snappier setup than the one Richard Nixon used in 1971, when he was upset about the political programming on public TV and proposed a “return to localism” that would have kneecapped the crowd in charge of the system. On the other hand, it doesn’t have the cloak-and-dagger spirit that the State Department flunky Otto Reich brought to the play in 1981, right after Ronald Reagan’s election, when he met with NPR staffers in a smoky little room and warned them that the White House thought they were “Moscow on the Potomac.” Nor is it as colorful as the 1993 spectacle starring Bob Dole and David Horowitz, who attacked the radical Pacifica network rather than NPR, allowing them to quote a much weirder series of statements than anything in the Juan Williams kerfuffle. (“We didn’t have Satan before the white man. So the white man is Satan himself.”) And the specific focus on NPR means the stakes don’t feel as high as they did in 1995 when then-Speaker Gingrich started skylarking that he might “zero out” the entire public broadcasting budget, let alone that moment 10 years later when a House subcommittee actually voted to eliminate federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That element of danger was a nice suspenseful touch. You could almost forget it was all an act.

Because an act is precisely what this is. The Williams story will be stale by the time the new Congress is in a position to do anything about it, making it less likely that there will be a big push to add anti-NPR conditions to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s next check. Now, if Republican leaders want to keep the issue alive between now and then, I’m sure it won’t be hard to keep finding stuff on public radio that offends rank-and-file conservatives. But even then, there’s a difference between wanting to keep the issue alive and actually intending to end the network’s subsidies. These standoffs never end with public broadcasting getting defunded. The point of the exercise isn’t to cut NPR loose; it’s to use the threat of cutting NPR loose to whip the network into line.

After Nixon made his threats, the system was still standing but all but one of the programs he found objectionable left the air. After the Gingrich-era battle ended, Fred Barnes, Peggy Noonan, and Ben Wattenberg all found themselves with new gigs at PBS—and following an initial cut, the CPB’s budget crept back upward. The funding fight five years ago took place against the backdrop of a conservative appointee atop the CPB crusading for a more right-friendly PBS and NPR. Now the Republicans are getting ready to retake the House and possibly the Senate. With the Juan Williams spat, the party has found a familiar way to flex its muscles.

Every time this happens, I fantasize that this time, just maybe, the broadcasters won’t blink. NPR can certainly survive without the subsidies. It gets very little direct money from the CPB—less than 2 percent of its budget. In practice, to be sure, it depends on the government far more than that: About 40 percent of its money comes from its member stations, which usually receive their own federal subsidies and are frequently affiliated with publicly funded universities. Still, the network has been picking up other sources of support, just this month receiving a $1.8 million grant from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations—already more than half the amount it got directly this year from the feds. As for the affiliates, nothing quite boosts a public radio station’s pledge week like the possibility that those Republican meanies might pump CS gas into the Morning Edition compound and set the place on fire.

More importantly, a number of plans have been floating around since the 1990s that would transmute the CPB from a de facto arm of the government into an independent trust with a private endowment. One effect of this would be to prevent anyone offended by NPR’s personnel decisions from being required to give the place any more support. Another would be to shield public broadcasters from any politician attempting to stick his snout into their editorial choices. The idea has thus attracted support from both sides of the conventional political spectrum, with free-market economists endorsing the concept and with left-wing documentarians boosting it via groups such as Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting. And so I imagine a new ending for this recurring show, one where public broadcasters and their critics decide to call each other’s bluff and the whole rotten system comes tumbling down.

But that’s a pipe dream, not a prediction. Way back in 1995, one press report in the aftermath of the broadcasters’ budget battle declared that “all the groups agreed on the need to establish an independent trust fund that eventually could replace federal funding,” citing a CPB spokesman as its source. Fat chance: Fifteen years later, that independence is still little more than a fantasy. The voters may elect some Tea Party backbenchers next month who really are serious about cutting off Nina Totenberg’s allowance, but those legislators will have a hard enough time persuading their own party to pull the plug, let along the Democrats running the White House and possibly the Senate. The establishment Republicans know how this script ends, and it doesn’t wrap up with a great big cut. As Ben Wattenberg is alleged to have said when he heard the Gingrich Congress was thinking of defunding PBS: “What! Just when we’ve taken it over?”