Your Fear will set you Free

While it has been fairly obvious if you looked closely that the State Department and CIA are filled with Globalists, until today I was unaware of how Influential James Burnham was in the formulation of Conservative politics and the conduct of the “cold war”

https://www.mintpressnews.com/bilderberg-era-end/244731/

Just this week in a private discussion, I mentioned there is very little distance between AT&T and the US Government. The Intercept drops some information

https://theintercept.com/2018/06/25/att-internet-nsa-spy-hubs/

Back from the FindAnISP days, I was fairly certain much of the infrastructure of the Internet, especially underseas cables were able to offer transit and peering because the US government was funding it in order to monitor international traffic.

In general, I trust the Federal government, but can you imagine the potential abuse of human rights if Maxine Waters was in charge of our government?

If you remember King Friday and the Trolley and Mr McFeely, you might want to visit a local theater if you can find “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”, An insightful and entertaining look at Fred Rogers and his PBS TV show. Arrive early before the wheelchair section fills up.

His show was based at WQED, channel 13 in Pittsburgh, PA. The film reminds us of the role Mr Rogers played in securing government funding for PBS by testifying in front of the US Senate in 1969

The movie tries to paint Richard Nixon and the Republicans wanting to smother the infant PBS, but Senator Pastore was a Democrat from Rhode Island. Keep in mind Democrats controlled both the House and Senate in 1969. Contrary to the widely repeated narrative, Nixon supported permanent funding of CPB by a 2% excise tax on radios and TVs, with a government match over $50 million. This proposal had two goals – to pry NET away from the Ford Foundation and keep the budget of CPB away from politics. The idea presented in the film that he wanted to kill PBS to spend the $10 million on the Vietnam war is a preposterous fabrication.

https://current.org/1979/02/nixon-administration-public-broadcasting-papers-summary-of-1969/

As a child, I watched the show for only one reason – to watch the trolley. As soon as the trolley went into the “Land of Make Believe”, I went outside to play in the Land of Reality.

It was quite the contrast going to my friend’s houses where Dad would come home from the steel mill, knock back a six pack of Iron City Beer, and beat up his wife. My Pittsburgh was very different than Fred Rogers’ and his land of make believe. I did not dislike him or the show, he just seemed unfamiliar with the world around him. Early in the film, it discussed his friendship with several childhood development psychologists, including Dr. Benjamin Spock and Margaret McFarland.

Rather than introduce responsible critics who look at Mr Rogers as the motivation behind telling kids they have to do nothing to earn love and respect and should earn self esteem trophies just for breathing, the criticisms are portrayed only as being the “god hates fags” protestors at the 2003 memorial service.

The BBC is having an identity crisis and has decided it can’t compete with commercial radio.

The BBC is funded by an unpopular TV tax – how do you sustain that model competing against streaming video to devices with no tuner?

But it goes deeper – “He [BBC radio head James Purnell] believes that the challenge to BBC radio from technology is not as urgent as the threat to British television from Netflix and others, where he ‘can see a world emerging in which children can only choose American content.’”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/06/16/bbc-admits-defeat-battle-radio-audiences-focuses-challenge-podcasts/

Utter nonsense. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Youtube and a dozen others offer close to everything that exists. His complaint should be to look why Bollywood movies are more enjoyable than BBC episodic TV about the dull lives of the British aristocratic parasites.

CNN

California voters have gathered enough signatures to put the measure to split California on the ballot ballot on November. Undoubtedly, about the only things Democrats are thinking about is they believe adding four new US Senators would swing the US Senate away from Republican control. It is a lot more complicated than that. The same idea is floated to break Texas into 5 parts.

A vote of California voters is not enough. For an existing state to be subdivided – as West Virginia was split from Virginia during the civil war, a process is required in the Constitution.

Heritage foundation,

First, the California Legislature would have to approve the request and the proposed state constitutions. That might happen. But Congress must approve the change. Creating more states would dilute the power of small states like Vermont. It is not a sure thing that even a Democratic controlled Congress would approve the request. Note that this decision is left up to Congress – the President has no veto power.

The most immediate problem, if approved, would be responsibility for the existing $83 billion in general obligation debt. The entities who loaned the money did so based on the full faith and credit of the entire state.

The next huge issue is water rights and management of the California dams and irrigation systems. The water for Los Angeles comes from Northern California and the Colorado River from the East. Wars have been fought over less. This is just the beginning.

For the past few years, when a radio station in a rated market comes up for sale, the Educational Media Foundation (EMF) shows up with a bushel basket of cash making an all cash offer with no contingencies. That makes the seller happy and other commercial stations less so – along with competing radio ministries and brick and mortar churches. EMF primarily runs two Contemporary Christian national networks – K-Love for adults and Air1 for angst filled teenagers.

Mike Novak is the CEO of EMF. He is 68 years old and has decided to retire.

Business Wire

EMF is a non-profit, non-commercial radio operator that owns 397 FM Stations and 387 FM translators according to my count. Some of those translators are leased to other broadcasters and they also lease stations and translators they don’t own. Brian can attest to how fluid their affiliate list is.

They are the second biggest radio station owner in the United States by FCC license count, yet few people in the commercial radio business know they exist or understand how a non-profit religious operator can be so successful. Do they have a billionaire sugar daddy? or is the funding coming from contributions, or are they borrowing money from Goldman Sachs in order to do God’s work? Countess is very curious and so am I.

The organization is rated with four stars by Charity Navigator and they belong to and support the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, an organization designed to keep religious charities honest, or at least transparent.

ECFA has a report on EMF

EMF profile

Accounting for non-profits (and governments) is very different than profit making (and profit taxed) organizations. Typically the financial statements focus on cash balance at the start, revenues and their sources, and expenditures. Less emphasis is put on assets other than when a purchase or sale affects the cash balance. Expenses are broken down to satisfy the IRS 990 filing requirements. Since they pay no corporate income tax, the numbers are there to satisfy the IRS that it is a bona-fide charity.

In 2016, EMF took in $170 million in cash donations (and another $8 million from other sources) and spent $113 million, leaving a surplus of $65 million for the year. They ended the year with $521 million in assets and $47 million in liabilities. Most of the debt was tax exempt bonds due in 2018, which they were redeeming as fast as possible. Around 60% of their assets are FCC licenses, not physical buildings or equipment. Upon buying a commercial FM station (above 92 Mhz), they convert the license to non-commercial, but that is reversible if they want to sell the license.

2016 Audited Financial Statements

Note that the auditor is a smaller CPA firm called K*Coe Isom, not a large sophisticated audit firm. The audience is not the SEC or IRS, where errors can have serious consequences. The audience is the people donating money, most of whom do not care and would not understand financial statements. They are giving money to spread the love of Jesus and the tangible proof of their gift is there each time they turn on the radio.

The organization was founded in 1981 by a man named Dick Jenkins to run a 10 watt FM station. According to his LinkedIn profile, EMF has a weekly cum (cumulative audience) Of 13 million and GE capital provided loans after they abandoned seller financing. He went to Portland (OR) State University and studied Broadcasting and Psychology.

Dick Jenkins left in 2007 around normal retirement age and continued his radio career running Catholic Immaculate Heart Radio, and is now doing consulting around the world.

Mike Novak was a commercial music radio guy in the Bay Area before joining K-Love in 1998, and was eventually promoted to CEO in 2007. He was just married in January of 2018. In this 2002 interview, he identifies the founder of K-Love as Bob Anthony Fogal who started K-Love in 1980, which Dick Jenkins also confirms, more or less.

Another important player in the history of EMF is Richard Bushell, who pushed the idea of using low power FM translators and was ready when the George H.W. Bush administration relaxed rules to allow satellite fed religious stations without a local studio or business office. He died recently and his widow has filed a lawsuit over a purported verbal “revenue sharing” agreement.

Related Story

Following the abrupt resignation of totally unqualified Mignon Clyburn, Donald Trump has nominated an employee of the FCC.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/trump-grants-democrats-request-for-a-new-fcc-commissioner/

Geoffrey Starks is running the enforcement Bureau and under his leadership, I have noticed a serious improvement cracking down on pirates and derelict licenses.

He has law degrees from Harvard and Yale. His policy interests are reported to include redirecting Universal Service fun money away from fraudsters, like cell phone companies giving away multiple Obamaphones to one individual

Something about June bugs me