Redundant

Adam Mill writes in American Greatness,

The November 29 edition of “All Things Considered” reminds us that taxpayers are being forced to pay for the deep state propaganda organ that NPR has become.

An otherwise unremarkable radio segment perfectly represents the transformation of NPR from a left-of-center news source to a daily infomercial for the Democrats’ effort to impeach, remove, or at least defeat the president in the 2020 election. It’s certainly their prerogative to espouse those views if they hold them—but why are taxpayers subsidizing them?

Beyond the moral culpability of forcing taxpayers to pay for free negative advertising for the Democrats, NPR makes itself redundant by simply adding to the choir of CNN, NBC, the New York Times, ABC, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and so forth. Even formerly pro-Trump outlets such as the Drudge Report and Fox News find themselves sliding into the anti-Trump hive. Do we really need taxpayers to supplement the already bountiful feast of get-Trump propaganda?

...The NPR segment is a microcosm of the whole thing: An echo chamber of Trump derangement through which reality cannot penetrate. There’s no careful weighing of the risks or sensible internal debates in which somebody points out the gaps in their arguments. The Democrats’ impeachment strategy is very simple: The get-Trumpers can’t be wrong if nobody is allowed to disagree.

Read more here.

Trump budget proposes a two year phase out of funding for NPR and PBS

Joe Concha reports at The Hill,

President Trump's newly proposed budget includes a proposal to end federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), part of a package that includes $300 billion in new spending overall.

CPB provides federal funding for PBS and National Public Radio stations.

"The Budget proposes to eliminate Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) over a two year period," according to the proposal.

"CPB grants represent a small share of the total funding for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), which primarily rely on private donations to fund their operations," it continues.

"To conduct an orderly transition away from Federal funding, the Budget requests $15.5 million in 2019 and $15 million in 2020, which would include funding for personnel costs of $16.2 million, rental costs of $8.9 million; and other costs totaling $5.4 million."

Reach more here.

Changes

I am now listening more to NPR than to conservative talk radio. I realized I had heard the commercials so often that I almost had them all memorized. There are just so many of them, and they are too long. NPR just gives two sentence ads that say, "support comes from..." and goes on in those two sentences to list one or two notable things about those businesses. (However, NPR is now in their Spring drive to build more listener financial support, so I am flipping back to conservative talk radio during their membership drive).

I am also reading more centrist blogs, such as Ann Althouse. I realized during this primary season that the mainstream media is not the only place that is biased. The Drudge Report and Breitbart were two internet sites I used to read regularly. I used to prefer Fox News to CNN. No longer. I now view them as similar, while Drudge and Breitbart have been in the tank for Trump, who was not my first choice during the primary season.

It's up to us readers and viewers to realize the biases influencing how news stories are presented by those sources. Glenn Beck is one I still listen to. He stands for the principles inherent in the founding of our country. Today he told us that he is going to a face-to-face meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg tomorrow. It was revealed recently that Facebook's "trending" stories are not always based on computer algorythms, as they are purported to be. Stories of interest to conservative readers often do not make that list. But Beck recognizes Facebook's rights as a private business. They should be free to run their business any way they want, and they must be doing something right, because they have over one billion users! If businesses make the wrong choices, they should eventually lose customer support. Beck just wants to "look Zuckerberg in the eyes" and see what he has to say about the allegations of bias.

Where do I go to find news stories I post on this blog? That's changing, too. Notice that in my last two posts I have quoted from New York Times stories three times. That used to be anathema. For years Rush Limbaugh has been showing us how the media is biased against conservatives, especially. places like the New York Times and CNN. That remains one of Rush's strengths, and I still tune him in for brief moments during the day. Oh, and by the way, I am using Facebook more than I ever have. I am finding stories there every day that are worth discussing here on this blog.

Death of "Car Talk" host

Did you know that "Car Talk" host Tom Magliozzi died last year? I just listened to him and his brother this weekend. They must be replaying older segments of the show. I learned about his death while perusing the Facebook timeline of Richard A. Solomon here.

This weekend they played a segment from a woman from Sioux City, Iowa, where I was raised. I loved the segment, especially because of the woman's sense of humor, which many Iowans have. Tom and his brother appreciated her, too, even though they told her she was wrong about her Honda.

Normally I can't stand to listen to National Public Radio, because of its extreme leftist bias. On the weekends, though, my beloved conservative talk radio hosts are mostly resting.

Reporting on the Apocalypse

Buzzfeed has a humorous look at how various publications would respond if the Apocalypse happens in 2014.

This was my favorite.