White House aims to defund NPR and PBS in move slammed as “cultural sabotage”
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Republicans: We take it as an article of faith that if government does it, then it's bad. Except the military. You can't have too much military.
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Reposting this. Absolutely do read this. It’s a long & detailed article but the meat is in the first section (before the article dives into the background of the whistleblower).
One particularly chilling part:
“In the days after Berulis and his colleagues prepared a request for CISA's help investigating the breach, Berulis found a printed letter in an envelope taped to his door, which included threatening language, sensitive personal information and overhead pictures of him walking his dog, according to the cover letter attached to his official disclosure. It's unclear who sent it, but the letter made specific reference to his decision to report the breach.”
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Though apparently you can have too many good generals with how fast trump is firing the top brass to replace them with bootlicking following orders no questions yes men who are not only not opposed to his unconstitutional abusive orders but actively in favor of it
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Why do the knuckle dragging doofuses always think NPR and PBS are just the left version of Fox News? Most of what they do isn't even news, it's mostly cultural and educational.
Going after public broadcasting fits with their erosion of education in aligning with their goal of making this country considerably dumber. It's how you pump up the numbers for the future of the GOP.
Going after public broadcasting fits with their erosion of education in aligning with their goal of making this country considerably dumber. It's how you pump up the numbers for the future of the GOP.
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Because to them anything that isn't strictly white conservative evangelical protestant culture is evil propaganda regardless of if it's news or not
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"Grift" is just the grifter projecting. Speaking for myself, my car radio seldom leaves our local NPR affiliate, and I seek them out on road trips. And there is nothing "radical" about me.
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there is truly no daylight between this administration and the usual dictatures of planet earth. Bringing civil society to heel, terrorizing dissent, ignoring the rule of law and the constitution, taking over the media and instilling a culture of self censorship, while grafting and lining their own pockets as fast as they possibly can. The only difference between china, russia and the US at this point is just how long these guys have been in power. At this rate I doubt sane people will get a chance to vote in the midterms.
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Heart of Dawn
Ars Praetorian
read: facts I don't like.
Reality doesn't have an anti-conservative bias. Conservatives have an anti-reality one.
Also; whenever the word "woke" is used I automatically stop listening. Whoever uses it is not someone to ever take seriously.
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You can't have too much, but you certainly can have the Wrong Sort of military. Plenty of admirals and generals have been dismissed because they are insufficiently loyal to the emperor. Or maybe because they don't look enough like the sort of burly white guy Trump thinks a general ought to look like.
The military will be large, but its ranks are being purged.
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Because that's what Fox News and the rest of the right wing sewage processing plate tells the knuckle dragging doofuses to think. And since they don't have the capacity to think on their own, they believe it.
"I love the poorly eductated" Donald Trump
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Do you not see how NPR has radicalised you and made you the real fascist!? (/SARCASM)
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How long before Ars is illegal to publish? and The Atlantic? You can't publish whatever you want in Hungary, or Russia. Look to them for our future.
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Trump and Co are going after anyone who won't report their lies as truth. NPR and PBS have a duty to report the truth, to The People of the United States. So far as I can tell, they have always tried to do this. Everyone might have an occasional reporting error, and when they do, so far as I know, they report corrections.
This is fascism 101 - they are trying to take over all media and force the media to regurgitate propaganda as true, and to suppress reporting on anyone else who is telling the actual truth.
That said, NPR and PBS, should, for a time, turn down federal funding. As long as Federal Funding comes with such strings attached, they need to seek private sources of support. Which is unfortunate, because private sources of funding often come with their own strings attached.
This is fascism 101 - they are trying to take over all media and force the media to regurgitate propaganda as true, and to suppress reporting on anyone else who is telling the actual truth.
That said, NPR and PBS, should, for a time, turn down federal funding. As long as Federal Funding comes with such strings attached, they need to seek private sources of support. Which is unfortunate, because private sources of funding often come with their own strings attached.
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I make a distinction between small 'c' conservatives and big 'C' Conservatives. The small c conservatives, to me, are more of the neoliberal wing with an emphasis on free trade and deregulation.
The Conservatives aren't really the same. It's more of a nativist/nationalist wing with no real consistent economic ideology.
I can deal with the small c folks. I might not agree with them, but I can tolerate them and I can have a reasonable debate with them. I can't stand the Conservatives.
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The statements by that madman declares that he is the face of conservatism that is spitting on everybody. If anybody is inciting peiple to kill conservatism, that madman is doing the greatest job in the world.
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Which "knuckle dragging doofuses" are we talking about?
For the Fascist supporters, Fox tells them what they want to hear, while NPR tells them that what they don't want to be true. In their mind, news must "tell it like it is" (ie: what they want to hear). Since NPR is saying things that right-wingers oppose, they must be "the left".
For Fascist leaders... it's all about power. They want to destroy any media organization that is insufficiently supportive. That's why Bezos bent the knee to Trump before the election via the Washington Post and continues to do so.
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This. I'm so tired of NPR still relying on "the view from nowhere," even now. Start calling this shit out, FFS!
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What, he can't just zero it out on his own authority?
As usual, Trump is making a fool of himself because he's stupid and ignorant. NPR is almost entirely funded by contributions from member stations, listeners, and underwriting from corporate sponsors. The only part that involves federal money is support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That amounts to only 1% of NPR's budget.
Funding from CPB for public television is somewhat higher, at 13%, but still not very large. On top of that, in both cases, most of the funding goes to individual local stations, not to NPR or PBS themselves.
In both cases, foundations and corporations could easily make up the gap.
Republicans regularly go apoplectic under the impression that 100% of the money for all forms of public broadcasting is from the federal government.
Republicans are either idiots or liars and it doesn't much matter which.
As usual, Trump is making a fool of himself because he's stupid and ignorant. NPR is almost entirely funded by contributions from member stations, listeners, and underwriting from corporate sponsors. The only part that involves federal money is support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That amounts to only 1% of NPR's budget.
Funding from CPB for public television is somewhat higher, at 13%, but still not very large. On top of that, in both cases, most of the funding goes to individual local stations, not to NPR or PBS themselves.
In both cases, foundations and corporations could easily make up the gap.
Republicans regularly go apoplectic under the impression that 100% of the money for all forms of public broadcasting is from the federal government.
Republicans are either idiots or liars and it doesn't much matter which.
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Small 'c' conservatives don't seem to exist in the US any more in any significant number. Certainly nobody who voted for Trump is a small 'c' conservative.
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Here's the problem: the "little 'c'"s are 100% willing to allow the "big 'C'"s to do what they want. Little 'c's have always acted as fascist enablers. The little 'c's would rather the "big 'C'"s win than to let "the left" get anything they want.
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Also, a grift is a con game. CPB is no more a grift than Raytheon when it receives defense funding. Congress is well aware of the funding level they appropriate. They are fools, but they haven't been fooled.
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The extreme right has been on a campaign to purge the party since Gingrich in the 1990's. At this point, they've pretty much succeeded. Trump's contribution was to normalize lies and self dealing, and to make public bigotry OK again.
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PBS particularly is so far from the left of the political spectrum that I'd say this was shocking, but it's also not actively sucking Trump's dick every day the way Fox and the rest are, so from his perspective, the enemy.
I can't believe we elected this clown twice.
I can't believe we elected this clown twice.
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The Trump administration doesn't care about state and local GOP reps except to have them vote on a party line. They don't care to support anyone thinking or talking about issues. Just voting for Trump.
Keep it simple and stupid.
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There is no such thing as culture and education in Trump's mind. That should be fairly obvious.
This is all a grift for Trump and Friends. All of it.
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And back then, someone posted a video of Elmo getting fired.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hgkJMfZFzI
Pity Sesame Street had been let go already because it stopped being self-sufficient from licensing deals and DVD sales - PBS certainly wasn't going to pay for it! That sent Sesame to the "warm" embrace of HBO (the new HBO, which is basically Discovery Channel) and now they're actually firing or demoting to cameos most of the cast because HBO "doesn't see the value".
Take it to heart, PBS, NPR, CPB, (NEA) - there is no negotiating or both-siding with these people, and it serves no purpose to mollify them; just look at Columbia U. You've already been a patsy long enough.
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Another point to make is that in the big picture of the federal budget, the total amount of money that goes to all public radio and television is miniscule. Trump and Heritage and their ilk have been banging the drum about public radio and television for a long time, acting like taxpayers are giving SO MUCH MONEY to them, and it's hardly anything with respect to total federal budget.
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Yup. Trump wanted to have the military fire live rounds at the BLM protestors in front of the White House in 2020, but Bill Barr and and Mark Milley said no way.
Pam Bondi and Dan Caine would help load ammunition.
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When the midterms come. We the people need to drive a wooden stake through the heart of the Republican party. Take strong majorities in both houses of Congress and impeach Trump and Vance.
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I'm not extremely worried about Congress pulling funding for NPR and PBS. They'll have hard times but I think they'll survive. I'm more worried about what Trump will do with the FCC regarding "fake news". (Read: Inconvenient truths about Republicans.)
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