It’s about time to defund NPR. 

This isn’t a budget deficit argument. The $80 million that goes to NPR is a drop in the bucket next to our $14 trillion debt.  Matter of fact, it’s also a drop in the bucket compared to NPR’s $800 million budget, and if you ask Ron Schiller, NPR’s Senior Vice President of Development, they’re “better off without federal funding in the long run anyway.”  He also mentioned something or the other about supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, Jews owning all the newspapers, and racist Tea Partiers (heard that one before).  Oh, and Schiller threw a cheap shot at Juan Williams while he was at it, saying he’s proud of NPR for firing Williams because he’s  a bigot. Consequently, Juan didn’t take too kindly to being hung out to dry (again):

As if that controversy wasn’t enough, NPR CEO Vivian Shiller (no relation to Ron Schiller) resigned effective immediately.  If you recall, Shiller had already agreed to leave NPR in the wake of the Juan Williams Fiasco.  So, this just accelerates the inevitable.  Taken alone, today’s announcement is not particularly worthy of further condemnation.  But here’s an excerpt of a statement issued by the NPR Board of Directors:

“It is with deep regret that I tell you that the NPR Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Vivian Schiller as President and CEO of NPR, effective immediately.

“The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.

“Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization. She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR’s mission, and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network.

She was passionately committed to NPR’s mission?  What exactly was that mission?  She fired Juan Williams for being a bigot even though he’s written three books on civil rights in America, and she hired Ron Schiller as her chief fundraiser who is just about as racist as they come.  They have great respect for her leadership?  You can’t really make the argument that those two people “don’t represent the views of NPR” when the Board of Directors regrets the resignation of a woman like that.

To be clear, I’m not someone who’s ever wanted to defund NPR before.  I’ve always thought that battle to be pointless, and the effort it would take to pry that money away is just not worth it.  But enough is enough.  We don’t need to cut funding to NPR to shore up the budget.  We need to cut funding to NPR because it’s a complete misrepresentation of the people who subsidize it.  I don’t believe Juan Williams is a bigot.  I don’t discriminate against Jews (or anyone for that matter), and I don’t support the Muslim Brotherhood.  If people who support those things want to pay for it, I guess that’s fine.  But I don’t want to pay for it, and no other honest person should either.