Nancy Pelosi Radio (NPR) got its walking papers in early May when the Trump Administration announced cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and instructions that NPR and PBS be defunded, dismantled, even. That they no longer served a purpose for which taxdollars should be spent.
The hippies are pissed. How dare you (that phrase is getting a lot of work these days). Keybaord warriors ranting, and lawyers shuffling papers. This. This is an outrage. Hence, the lawsuit “brought by NPR and three Colorado-based public radio stations, (which) alleges that Trump’s executive order cutting federal funding to the left-wing NPR and PBS violates their right to free speech.”
Judge shopping continues to yield early favorable results for the offended, and we’ve noted that the CPB was created by Congress, which will ultimately have the final say on its fate, but the free speech argument is going nowhere.
The Courts have weighed in on this. There is no requirement that the government fund anything enumerated in the Bill of Rights, such that not funding them is a violation of those rights. It’s settled law, or at least opinion.
“The [Executive] Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radios across the country,” the suit states.
If your legal team convinced you this would work, they’re dumber than we thought.
In other words, unlock the supply cabinet and roll out those 100% cotton Mozart tote bags, but don’t expect the hippies to cough up enough to fund you. You’ll need all those foundations you mention at the beginning of programs to spend more on you than they do on CRT, DEI, and gender bending programs in local schools and communities.
To be fair, there are aspects to the suit that have legs. Congress allocated funding that the Trump Administration has recalled. A case can be made given that Congress created the CPB and defined its charter. Feeding it is their job, and so they have. To take the spoon and the food back is subject to judicial consideration, but there’s no taxpayer-funded mandate to free speech. That’s grist for the left-wing media headline mill. A way to enflame the already hostile to keep them angry about all things Trump. One of the reasons why NPR and PBS are staring down the defunding barrel at the end of their taxpayer-financed propaganda.
I think the courts will allow the lawsuit space to breathe so the case can be heard, but Congress could simplify matters by codifying DOGE and other cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill.
For the record, if I’ve not mentioned it, I am no fan of omnibus, trashcan, dumpster fire legislation. I’d like to see bills for each department’s funding with cuts, but I get why they are avoiding that. The GOP majority is not large enough to avoid the swamp’s ability to mire everything down in the process.
We need those 2017 Trump tax cuts renewed before the end of the year.
Democrats would drag their heels and take a few soft-shelled invertebrate Republicans with them. Delay until the mid-terms and hope for a Democratic majority in the House or Senate. The issue there is that Trump’s approval ratings are strong. Polling shows a majority of Americans see the nation headed in the right direction. Getting in the way of that could backfire. But the left need not worry. Even if NPR or PBS were defunded, there are more than enough Left-Wing media outlets to spread whatever news they want Americans to hear.
Or, not to hear, in the case of inconvenient things like approval ratings.
