Originally published at: Lauren Boebert and Elon Musk call to defund NPR | Boing Boing
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Something like 1% of NPR’s budget comes from the Federal government. That’s waaaaaaay less than the billions and billions that Elon’s companies get from the Feds. Who the hell do these people think is paying for all those SpaceX rocket launches?
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Now she is going to rail on and on about defunding Sesame Street.
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Isn’t Sesame Street now owned by HBO?
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Who is doing a pretty good job of defunding themselves
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Since NPR / PBS are getting so much money from the government, it’s obvious that they must really enjoy doing frequent pledge drives.
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Silly goose, you assholes have been doing that since Nixon (since there have been so many attempts to destroy NPR, PBS and CPB, this article gives the best historical overview I could find).
No, Sesame Street is still owned by Sesame Workshop (formerly CTW, Children’s Television Workshop), the nonprofit that was founded to begin production of SS in the 60’s. HBO just bought first-broadcast rights by being able to fund full seasons which PBS could no longer do.
I disagree with the framing of this article’s assertion that SW has “betrayed” the founders’ intent to bring quality education television to children for free. The landscape is radically different than it was 50 years ago and PBS still has broadcast rights, just not first-run. PBS does very well with their branding and broadcast reach (including digital) and could fund a season if they wanted to, but their priorities have shifted, as well.
Edit to fix links and typos
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Meanwhile in Canada, our local Boebert/MTG wannabe is sad to be left out:
(For context, this Poilievre guy is a real piece of work. The most disingenuous, dishonest, populist right wing talking point machine we’ve seen in Canada in quite a while).
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Presumably (for Musk, Boebert et al) Twitter would be better off without NPR & PBS, no? Guess it’s more to do with not being able to further bully another patron who’s already left the bar.
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“I can see no positive result in committing government funds just to improve the electorates’ awareness of government, or for that matter anything else.” --Senator Cletis Moneebags
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A new revolutionary bootstrap that has cornered the market obviously. /S
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That Mr. Snuffleupagus character seems pretty shady. And who knows what the hidden behind Count von Count is.
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No. HBO just signed a deal to run the show there first… it’s still owned by Sesame workshop.
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Conservatives have been defunding the CBC for years, when they weren’t calling for it to be scrapped entirely in favour of private networks, precisely because the CBC is independent and they can’t turn it into their own version of Pravda.
The result is that CBC TV is increasingly ad-supported, to the point that some shows are nearly unwatchable. Fortunately CBC Radio has not yet succumbed, although the quality of its programming has declined.
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Well, for Elno, not so much - high profile users such as NPR, PBS and NYTimes, either leaving or not playing his game, undermine Twitter’s viability as a platform/business. Of course, Elno seems to ignore business concerns most of the time, and attacking them certainly doesn’t make the platform more appealing to the institutional users he can’t afford to alienate…
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Yeah I feel like this general rallying cry comes up once a decade or so like clockwork.
I remember it happening in the 80s as a kid and it keeps coming.
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Grimes? /s
I mean, she ALMOST managed to sail the Mississippi on a homemade raft. 
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Fortunately the editorial quality of the written news still seems to be holding as far as I can tell. Hopefully they don’t fall down the clickbait rabbit hole that ruined nearly all US media. 
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Yep, like publicly funded art show hand wringing that comes around like cicada cycles.
Lot’s of crying with these people.
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Take the time to watch the cast of Sesame Street performing at NPR’s Tiny Desk. That will make you day better and take your mind off these two knuckleheads.
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