Nicaraguan Public Radio (NPR) One Step Closer to Dirt Nap
Globalists dumfounded by Trump non-shift on Ukraine. Trump should fire Powell.
Congress has taken one key step closer to honoring a Trump administration request to defund NPR, better known as Nicaraguan Public Radio for its longtime propagation of leftwing garbage at taxpayer expense (HT: JS).
Last night, Vice President JD Vance broke two tie votes in the Senate: the first to yank the de-funding provision from the Appropriations Committee and the second to begin debate on the rescission package.
The bill would also rescind funding for PBS, an obsolete vestige of a time when media was dominated by three commercial TV networks before the proliferation of cable in the 1980s, the internet in the late 1990s, and smart phones in the 2010s—any of which should have led to the defunding of PBS. Non-profit media will live on and even prosper without the corrupting influence of government money. But the future looks dark for the junta at NPR.
NPR supporters inevitably claim that it only gets two percent of its funding from Uncle Sam. If this strikes you as a prima facie lie, then you weren’t born yesterday: there is not an organization in existence that wouldn’t forgo two percent of its budget in order to be free of the stigma and regulations that come with taking loot from government. In reality, government funds make their way to NPR “member stations,” which turn around and buy the crap that NPR produces. This legerdemain is even lazier than laundering the intelligence bureaucracy’s budget through the Department of Defense.
In recent years, NPR’s woke reporting has included hyping the Russia hoax, covering up the Hunter Biden laptop revelations, cheerleading illegal immigration, and lamenting the problems of “whiteness” and “white privilege” and “the myth of America.” It has also advocated mutilating gay adolescents to advance the transgender agenda of so-called “gender-affirming care,” and ran a “children’s program” that featured a drag queen named “Lil’ Miss Hot Mess.” One of its own longtime employees, Uri Berliner, detailed at length how NPR lost public trust by becoming a propaganda outfit, including through deranged and hysterical coverage of Trump.
This is par for course for much of America’s failed media, but as with NPR broadcasting cousins like the Soviet Union’s Pravda or Cuba’s Granma, this is being done with mostly government money. The balance comes from private donors who can get an NPR t-shirt or tote bag if they donate a certain amount. Some people used to think this paraphernalia made them look smart but today it would strike most Americans as extremely gaytarded.
Three Republican senators dissented from the rescission vote, necessitating the tie-breaking vote from Vance, who perhaps mistakenly thought he was escaping listening to senators bloviate when he was promoted out of the body in last year’s election. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted no despite a deal to restore funds for the Bush-era relief funds for AIDS and malaria in Africa that has saved millions of lives. (Digression: we have the technology to eliminate malaria-carrying mosquitoes globally to end untold human suffering but inexplicably don’t use it.)
The other “no” votes came from Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Cocaine Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), the once powerful Republican leader in the Senate now relegated to pathetic and irrelevant resistance to Trump. While Collins gets a pass since she needs to do what she thinks is necessary to avoid being succeeded by a Democrat in Maine, it is noteworthy that she failed to stop the rescission despite being chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Cocaine Mitch, falling from power as Republican leader, also ensconced himself as head of the appropriations subcommittee that handles defense (also ensuring continued power for Robert Karem, his Cheney-acolyte neoconservative aide). It’s noteworthy that these two once-all-powerful personages are now now bystanders to the Trump train.
The legislation still has to pass the Senate, but presumably will do so on a 51-50 vote. It then goes back to the House, which passed a version of the rescission with steeper cuts to foreign handouts. This action is all being done under the stupid rules stemming from the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, which unconstitutionally purport to limit a president’s power not to spend surplus funds appropriated by Congress—a power that existed from the presidency of Thomas Jefferson to that of Richard Nixon.
Anywho, the airwaves carrying Nicaraguan Public Radio won’t fall silent anytime soon. The rescission affects funds for Fiscal Year 2026, which begins on October 1 of this year. The organization can continue with private funding. My guess is it will go even harder left, appealing mostly to neurotic Karens who think Trump is Hitler and are looking for a reason to put their face masks back on, which they probably should. That decision is NPR’s constitutional right, but it can at least do so without taxpayer funds from the nation it hates.
More broadly, the move should spark a global movement against government-funded “journalism,” which corrupts and crowds out real journalism. President Trump will head to Britain twice this fall, including for a state visit hosted by King Chuck. Trump should seek either the full privatization of the anti-American BBC as part of the U.S.-U.K. trade deal or at least an agreement to prevent the wokeistas at BBC from using British public funds on anti-U.S. propaganda. News is currently breaking that BBC allowed a family member of a Hamas big to narrate a documentary on the Gaza war. Par for course for the Beeb.
The Biggest Little Change on Ukraine

Globalists, interventionists, and members of the Europe-first uniparty on Capitol Hill are cheering an apparent shift by President Trump for offering more weapons to Ukraine and warning Russia of expanded U.S. tariffs if it doesn’t agree to a ceasefire with Kiev within 50 days.
In reality, this marks the ebbing of Trump’s patience and interest with the war that neither side seems eager to end. The Russians have been expecting this development and are probably surprised it didn’t arrive sooner.
More to the point, what Trump has done in offering to let Germany and other NATO states provide Ukraine with missile-defense munitions is Europeanize the Ukraine problem. Under the framework, European nations will buy the arms from the United States and then pass them to the increasingly repressive and corrupt government in Kiev. This is a big change from the Biden era when the White House and Congress shoveled hundreds of billions to Kiev that could have been spent at home. Trump has done exactly what he suggested he would do during the presidential campaign.
Whether the shift will make a difference on the battlefield is unclear. Russia has been advancing slowly on a broad front—very slowly—but surely. Headline-grabbing UAV and missile attacks on civilians (i.e., war crimes) distract from what is happening at the actual line of contact. Moscow hopes for a sudden collapse like the kind that befell Germany in 1918 after years of stalemate and resilience. The Europeans are talking a big game about spending more on their own defense and Ukraine’s but with the continent facing economic and political crisis, we continue to predict that they will continue to fail at not sucking. Europe is good for vacations and second-rate wine, and that’s about it.
Albo the Panda Hugger, Elon’s Loser Party, Dems Want Biden to Go Away, Media Humiliating by Losing to Trump

On “Outsiders” on Sky News Australia, which is excellent and highly profitable in contrast to Oz’s government-funded ABC, I hit on a variety of topics and points. Video linked above. Some talking points:
Joe Biden has been telling the make-believe story that foreign leaders are calling him and asking him to get involved in whatever. In reality, Democrats are desperate for Biden to fade away.
Elon Musk’s party is a total joke. As a foreigner (and the biggest welfare queen in U.S. history) he cannot run. Silicon Valley types need to remember that everyone else in America hates them. Musk and the other tech bros want to give your kids’ jobs away to Indians and other foreigners through H1-B visas and other immigration scams.
The media is rightly humiliated by being forced by parent companies to settle defamation cases brought by Trump. The dotard progressives at “60 Minutes” were reportedly enraged that parent company Paramount instructed CBS News to settle. The same pattern occurred when Disney forced ABC News to settle with Trump.
Progressive journalists have no real sources in the Trump administration. As a result, what they produce is a combination of already-publicly available information and gossip. This can be replaced by AI. Real journalism will occur elsewhere.
Parting Shot
U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) said on X that Trump is set to imminently fire Federal Reserve kingpin Jerome Powell. Let’s hope it’s true. We have argued repeatedly that Trump has the power to fire Powell like any government employee based on his constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch. In addition to causing the worst inflation in modern U.S. history and now failing to cut interest rates in an effort to hurt the economy and Trump, recent revelations call into question whether Powell is corrupt and lied to Congress and the public.
[Related from RealClearPolitics: “Trump Can and Should Fire Fed Boss For Political Meddling,” by Christian Whiton]
Let’s hope Trump acts decisively and makes a criminal referral on Powell. There is an inclination in the administration to undermine Powell by announcing his successor early and letting his term run out next year. But a straight-out firing would be better for the economy, Republicans’ electoral prospects next year, and further restoring the power of the presidency. All of the liberal financial media predicts market and economic mayhem when Powell is terminated. In reality, the market may or may not bounce for a day or two, but both it and the broader economy will benefit from the prospect of lower interest rates that are clearly warranted by the relative lack of inflation and strong supply-side expansion of the economy that Trump’s now-enacted Big Beautiful Bill and deregulation push are causing.
What's the rationale for lowering rates? Historically capital has earned about 3% when all risk is discounted. Inflation remains at about 2% or so. 3% + 2% gets you to the nominaĺly 5% typicaĺly on offer to the most creditworthy borrowers. Rates lower than this encourage bad lending and borrowing behavior.