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Dear Progressive Reader,
Most of the media seems to be currently obsessed with Epstein-gate and the divisions within Donald Trump’s base. In many ways, Trump and his coterie of MAGA conspiracists are somewhat like the dog who chased a car, and then caught it. What do they do with it now? Trump’s classic play book of deny (“there’s nothing there ([link removed]) ”), deflect (“Obama did it ([link removed]) ”), and sue (in this case The Wall Street Journal and his longtime ally ([link removed]) Rupert Murdoch) all seem so far to be of little help in quieting the uproar. But wait, there are some other things in this week’s news that might be more deserving of uproar!
In the early hours of Friday morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed ([link removed]) (after the Senate had already approved) a rescissions package that cuts foreign aid funding and all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). A “cost savings effort” they claim, but CPB’s $1.1 billion appropriation ([link removed]) over the next two years (an advance funding system that was designed ([link removed]) to be safe from Congressional interference) is a tiny fraction of the $3.4 trillion that the recently signed “Big Beautiful Bill” will add ([link removed]) to the federal deficit.
The foreign aid cuts in the bill were far greater than the CPB portion, and may well have been the vehicle to get so much support in Congress for the action. Foreign aid funding has always been less popula ([link removed]) r ([link removed]) , while public broadcasting has generally enjoyed ([link removed]) wide, bipartisan support (everyone loves “Big Bird” and other PBS favorites). But even though the funding for public media is small, the longterm effects of these cuts could be devastating to our democracy (which is based ([link removed]) on the notion of an informed electorate). The legendary Bill Siemering, in a recent extended interview in The New York Times, called
([link removed]) the public broadcasting system a “unique, invaluable cultural resource” and he continued, “Imagine the silence without it.” In my 2017 article ([link removed]) on the fiftieth anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act, I spoke with Siemering, who wrote the original mission statement ([link removed]) for National Public Radio. Siemering told me the goal of public radio was to “encourage a sense of active, constructive participation, rather than apathetic helplessness.” Today we need that constructive participation more than ever.
Russel Vought, current director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, speaking to reporters after the passage of the rescission bill, called it ([link removed]) a “very historic moment—the return of using recissions, getting the muscle memory for that back into the system. We’ve talked about defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for decades,” he continued, but “President Trump’s the first one to be able to do it.” Vought is the key author of the plan known as “Project 2025 ([link removed]) ” which, in chapter eight, specifically called for defunding of the CPB and “the even-further-to-the Left Pacifica Radio and American Public Media.” The document explains that: “Stripping publi
c funding would, of course, mean that NPR, PBS, Pacifica Radio, and the other leftist broadcasters would be shorn of the presumption that they act in the public interest.”
The number of plans and proposals in Project 2025 that have already been accomplished in full or part continues to grow, now exceeding 46 percent according to the Project 2025 Tracker ([link removed]) website. But the success of this week’s rescission vote is an ominous precursor of the direction the Trump Administration may now take to achieve its goals of remaking the government—the clawback of funds already allocated (in many cases by the same Senators and Representatives now voting to cut them). Vought teased out this agenda earlier in the week when he told ([link removed]) The Christian Science Monitor on Wednesday, that more rescissions were yet to come. “This is the kind of thing that’s necessary for us to change the paradigm of the way the town has worked,” Vought explained. “The notion that we have now dusted off a process that allows [us,] on a majority basis, to
come along after and cut funding is very, very substantial.” Get ready for more attacks on Congressional approved funding in the weeks and months to come.
On our website this week, Mike Ervin writes about ([link removed]) the quiet change in White House press conferences with a decision to cease sign-language interpretation of the audio; Terrence Sullivan looks at ([link removed]) how the recent Supreme Court ruling against nationwide injunctions takes us back to divided past; Eleanor Bader reviews ([link removed]) a new memoir by labor and social justice activist Michael Ansara; and Nourdine Shnino shares ([link removed]) his own moving personal story of the search for baby formula in Gaza. Plus, Laurie Mazur pens an op-ed ([link removed]) on the ways climate-change denial exacerbated the Texas
floods; and Michael Felsen and M. Patricia Smith, both former staffers in the U.S. Department of Labor, opine ([link removed]) on changes in enforcement that will further harm working people and their ability to receive the wages they have earned.
Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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