They say they love America, but they keep trying to silence its voice.

In a late-night vote, the U.S. Senate approved the most sweeping attack on public broadcasting in modern history, passing a rescissions bill that would slash up to $1.9 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)—effectively gutting both PBS and NPR.

Backed by P=Trump and passed 51–48 along mostly partisan lines, the legislation moves to the House for a rushed vote by Friday night. If it clears that hurdle, Trump has vowed to sign it into law—bringing a slow, deliberate chokehold on America’s most trusted non-commercial media to completion.

You don’t have to be a fan of Sesame Street or All Things Considered to recognize the scale of this assault. What’s at stake isn’t just Big Bird and Terry Gross—it’s access to education, public safety updates, local journalism, and independent media not controlled by commercial or corporate interests. This is ideological retribution masquerading as fiscal responsibility.

Let’s be clear: PBS and NPR aren’t lavishly funded federal beasts. They’ve been surviving on budgetary crumbs for decades. The proposed cuts would eliminate those crumbs entirely.

http://gowstakeout.com/2011/01/03/morimoto-waikiki/imag2846/ The Cuts at a Glance

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)

• 2025 federal appropriation: $535 million
• Proposed rescission: $1.1 to $1.9 billion over two years
• CPB funding supports over 1,500 public radio and TV stations nationwide

PBS (Public Television)

• Receives ~$267.8 million annually via CPB
• Federal funds = ~15% of PBS’s overall national budget
• For rural PBS affiliates: funding = up to 50% of budget
• Impact: major cuts to children’s programming, emergency broadcast systems, rural signal access

NPR (National Public Radio and Member Stations)

• NPR itself gets <1% of its budget from federal funds
• Local NPR member stations get 10–16% of budget from CPB
  
  • In rural areas: up to 60%
  • In cities like LA, Boston: 7–12%
• Impact: station closures, layoffs, loss of local newsrooms and weather alerts

This is a playbook, not a policy. Trump’s executive order in May directed CPB to cease all support for NPR and PBS. Today’s Senate vote is the scalpel. Together, they’re the culmination of a long war against independent, fact-based media. One that began with cries of “liberal bias” and is ending with financial censorship.

A 2023 Pew survey found that 72% of Americans trust their local PBS and NPR stations more than any cable news outlet. That trust is now on the chopping block.

And what’s the price tag for all this carnage?

Roughly $1.1 billion, or about 36 hours of Pentagon spending.

We’ve been told this is about cutting waste. But the real waste is what we’ll lose: programming that informs without ads, teaches without charge, and tells stories without allegiance to sponsors.

The only thing this administration seems willing to subsidize is ignorance.

The House voted this week, 211–210, to block the release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s child trafficking case.

Every Republican present voted to keep the files sealed. Every Democrat present voted to unseal them.

The Democrats may not hold a majority in the House or Senate, but they may have been handed a Trump card for the upcoming elections.

And they’re certainly not entering this clean. Bill Clinton’s name is already etched in the Epstein saga, and others in their ranks likely appear in those sealed files.

But they voted to release them anyway—either because it’s the right thing to do, or because they’re betting the fallout won’t be as catastrophic as what it could expose on the Republican side. That’s the calculation. That’s the opportunity.

Republicans, meanwhile, secured child molestation behind congressional procedure and dared the public to find the key. In doing so, they handed Democrats a blueprint for attack heading into the primaries.

Here’s what that looks like:

• Make the vote the issue. Don’t wait for the names. The vote is the evidence. Frame this as a moment of moral clarity.
• Name names. Voters may not know what’s in the Epstein files, but they should know exactly who voted to keep them buried.
• Run it everywhere. Every campaign, every district, every state—make Republicans answer for choosing secrecy over sunlight.
• Use Republican voices. MAGA media figures like Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino, and Bannon are already demanding answers. Quote them.
• Nationalize it. This isn’t local. This is systemic. This is one party telling the country: You don’t deserve to know who raped those kids.

Trump, of course, called the push to release the files a “hoax” and mocked his own supporters for caring. Speaker Mike Johnson publicly supported transparency, then voted to stop it.

Their playbook hasn’t changed—deny, distract, discredit—but it’s showing its age. Even parts of their base aren’t buying it anymore.

Democrats have been handed something rare: a moral high ground carved from procedural bedrock. It’s not about virtue. It’s about vision. One party flinched at sunlight. The other didn’t.

Or at least play it that way. We know you’re good at that. No one’s pretending Democrats are saviors here. They’re not. This vote doesn’t cleanse them. It indicts the system.

But it also clarifies the stakes. If you vote to bury the evidence in a child sex trafficking scandal, you’re not cautious. You’re complicit.

And now the voters know who stood where.