NPR, that radical, left MONSTER

 

May 2, 2025 (102/1461)

As any good dictator worth their weight knows, the first thing you must do is control the media. And with a stroke of his mighty sword, his pen, TOM has struck down two important media institutions in our country. “President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday to end public funding of National Public Radio and PBS to stop what he called "biased and partisan news coverage. The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS" to the extent allowed by law. The order could be challenged in court. The White House said in a Friday statement that both organizations had received "tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'" Trump and his loyalists, including Elon Musk, have long complained that NPR and PBS are biased and promote left-wing causes, an allegation staunchly denied by executives at both organizations. Last month, Trump called for their defunding on Truth Social, calling them "RADICAL LEFT 'MONSTERS' THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!"  Monsters. All of them.

It Can’t Happen Here….”Windrip rules the U.S. with an iron fist by censoring all the news, while Jessup tries to fight back by publishing opposition pamphlets with the New Underground. Clearly, then, Sinclair Lewis sees how the media—and especially the global systems of mass media that formed in the first half of the 20th century—can shape people’s political consciousness on a monumental scale.” The first step is to control the narrative. And there is no man that can spin better than TOM. All good things are attributable to him and all bad things to anyone else. Anyone. He must have a large Wheel of Fortune type gizmo in the Oval with his favorite scapegoats on each tab. Every day he saunters in, spins the wheel and chooses his patsy of the day.

I’m unclear on how so many people in TOM’s admin missed out on rule #1 of group emails – read twice, send once. These people push send like they’re a rat with a food dispenser paddle. Type type type, SEND! Only then do they read (actually more likely, a recipient reads something not meant for their eyes) what was actually sent. And today’s example is a note about axing research on improving Head Start and other child welfare programs. “The information was mistakenly included in an email sent Wednesday to grant recipients at universities and nonprofits by an HHS employee, who asked them to review and update their contact information. HHS recalled the message only after the spreadsheet, which had a column on whether funding would “terminate” or “continue” for each grant, had been downloaded by recipients. A department spokesperson said the document contained “outdated and predecisional information” but did not rule out that research inside the ACF could be cut.”

Predecisional. I love the language that gets made up to cover up in TOM’s House. “These grants are aimed at learning how to make programs more effective at pursuing goals like healthy child development, reducing abuse and neglect and promoting economic self-sufficiency,” said Naomi Goldstein, who led the office for nearly two decades before she retired in 2022. “It’s hard to see why they would want to cancel these efforts.” It is hard indeed. Mind boggling.