Tag: PBS

One Step Closer to Firing Books and Capon

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That bill that would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by extension NPR and PBS has moved past a big hurdle on the Senate floor.  So the fear at the NY Times is palpable.

This Is Why America Needs Public Media

Good!

“Republicans complain, not always wrongly, that public media reflects left-leaning assumptions and biases. And they can fairly tell NPR and PBS to do a better job of reflecting the citizenry that is subsidizing them. Yet the “national” part of NPR (or National Public Radio, as it used to call itself) that chafes conservatives may well be just fine without federal funds. Only about 2 percent of its budget comes directly from the federal government, and it may have an easier time raising money from its many dedicated listeners if Congress punishes it.”

They can’t make up their minds.  Is the government funding insignificant or critical?  Well, let’s find out!

All Things Considered, Considered

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Donald Trump has changed America.  Mr. Trump didn’t shift the Overton Window.  He put a brick through it.  His take on what’s wrong with America isn’t shocking anymore because his view has become the mainstream opinion.

So, all of that is true.  But has he changed America?  Well, yes.  On this and that he’s made changes and they are changes for the better.  His immigration policy and the results he’s getting on deportation are important.  His birthright citizenship fight is historic and if it succeeds it will change the dynamics of immigration into this country.

But how will I gauge whether Donald Trump’s second term is a success or failure?  For me success is permanently defunding PBS and NPR.  That’s the whole thing in a nutshell.  That is the litmus test.  I want David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart laid off by PBS due to lack of funding.  I want to see them on YouTube or Patreon making silly noises whenever someone pledges ten dollars for a super chat or whatever it’s called.  I want Big Bird and Elmo forced to go back to being waiters in the NYC theater district and I want that woman who runs NPR and testified before Congress that there was no bias on her watch, fired and forced to start an Only Fans channel.  Let’s face it.  As long as all of us are still paying for these people to insult and slander us on the public airwaves, we are not winning anything.  We’re just losing less.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t need NPR or PBS to cease to exist.  I absolutely want leftists to have their own echo chambers.  This is a free country (theoretically) and if they want to buy tote bags and overpriced wine from their favorite fake journalists at “All Things Considered” or the “PBS New Hour” then let them go ahead and knock themselves out.  By all means do so.  But let them pay for the damn thing themselves.  They’re always saying how public funding is only like 15% of their total funding.  If that’s the case then they won’t miss our money at all.

But everyone knows that’s not the case.  If they suddenly had to get along without the federal government they would be broke.  Brooks and Capehart wouldn’t be able to afford their bow ties and spats.  And there wouldn’t be any money to fund their hard-hitting exposes on the health benefits of attending drag queen story hour in the Tenderloin.

So that’s it.  Trump can announce that he’s winning so much that people are getting tired of winning but as long as NPR still has journalism hacks in hushed tones declaring the body count from the break up of USAID then I won’t declare him the winner.  He’s just losing slightly less hard.

But I haven’t given up hope.  There’s still a window of opportunity for the bill that defunds these stations to be passed in the Senate.  Sometime in August that bill will expire and our last best chance to kill Sesame Street and fake news will end.  So come on Donald from one kid from the Outer Boroughs to another put your shoulder behind this thing and make us both winners.

Trump Signs EO Ending Federal Funding for NPR & PBS

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Sure, I know there will be a court injunction within the hour but still the schadenfreude and just general hilarity from this move makes it all worthwhile.  I dream of all the muppets being laid off.  Elmo, Big Bird and the other weirdos who inhabit the creepy corners of Sesame Street.

Imagine all the NPR hosts of “All Things Considered” talking in the Robert Siegel whisper until they find out they’ve been laid off and then all shrieking and cussing at the tops of their lungs.  How glorious.

But my favorite subtractions will be Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks.  These two pretentious blowhards have been the greatest sources of government funded misinformation on display.  Not having to pay for their efforts will be an enormous relief.

How Will We Know?

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So, we’ve had a lot of fun.  Since November 5th most people on our side have had a real holiday from grief.  We got to enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas buoyed by the knowledge that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been relegated to the ash heap of history.  What a wonderful phrase that is.  What an image.  There’s this enormous pile of cinders and burnt garbage and jumbled among these things are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris laying there covered with debris and looking extremely sad and confused.  So evocative of a better world!

But it’s best not to forget that this victory is just the beginning of a very long and difficult struggle to wrest control of the federal government from the horde of awful bureaucrats that make everything about our government expensive, inefficient and destructive.  It will be up to Trump’s cabinet to force a monkey wrench into the gears of government and wreck it.  And the question remains; will they do it?

I get the impression that Kash Patel really means to do just that.  And the fact that he was a prosecutor leads me to believe that he might have a good idea how to accomplish his goal of disemboweling the FBI.  I think of his tenure as the test case.  How long will it take for him to get going on the job?  And how long will it take before someone like me can tell that it’s working?  I’m guessing I’ll be able to tell if he’s having the desired effect if the New York Times and NPR are screaming that he’s destroying the FBI.

Maybe a bigger fish to fry is the purview of the Secretary of Defense.  Assuming Pete Hegseth is approved by the Senate he’s going to have an enormous job clearing out all the woke generals and other officers that Biden and Obama plunked down in the military.  But almost as important will be his implementation of Trump’s plan to end the Ukraine war.  I assume it’s going to be necessary for Hegseth to micromanage the defense department personnel to prevent them from continuing to supply the Ukrainians with endless weapons and money to keep the killing going until the last Ukrainian is dead.  He’s going to have to replace the existing supply chain personnel with people loyal to himself.  That’s going to take some doing.  There’s an enormous amount of money that gets distributed from the billions that go to Ukraine.  Shutting off that spigot is going to anger hordes of people and it might even trigger violence.  Hegseth will have his hands full.  I guess I’ll know that Hegseth is succeeding if the number of Ukrainians being killed falls drastically.  Probably the best indicator will be peace negotiations breaking out between Ukraine and Russia.

And finally Trump himself has a big part to play.  He has to get involved in the negotiations on the budget.  What I’m secretly craving is to hear that he’s managed to slip into the budget the elimination of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  If this could be eliminated it would put an enormous hole in the funding for PBS and NPR.  The elimination of those two toxic waste sites would in one fell swoop elevate the public discourse in this country immensely.  Think of it.  I might never see Jonathan Capehart’s homely face ever again.  For that alone I would consider Donald Trump’s second term in the White House a thunderous success.