PEAK TO PEAK - Last week both House and Senate voted to claw back funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)…in other words, from public radio and TV.

It’s a rather small amount in the greater scheme of things political…a mere $1.1 billion, although the administration’s excuse for cutting back on communication is that they are trying to slash the budget…of trillions.

Trump admits the real reason for the rescission is that NPR and PBS are, in his own words on Truth Social, “THE RADICAL LEFT 'MONSTERS' THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!"

We are blessed here, in Peak to Peak country, with a number of public radio options. KUNC and CPR in Greeley and Denver, respectively, are there for us, as well as KGNU in Boulder.

  A diversion here: Have you ever driven across the country, listening to NPR as you go, driving from one zone to another, with local shows interspersed with national news and current events?

NPR actually has a map (or used to; it’s been a while) of local stations or repeaters everywhere in the US. You can even plan your trip so that you are never out of range of a public radio station.

Indeed, most of the country is within range of an NPR station or repeater. And for the most remote (and often the poorest) parts of the country, NPR is all they have for local or national information.

It’s those stations, not the well-supported big-city NPRs, that will suffer the most from this unspeakable action against the freedom of the press.

Because that’s indeed what this is doing. MAGA world doesn’t care about the morning traffic reports or the afternoon farm reports: they want to silence NPR’s “radical left” newsrooms where they dare to criticize the current regime. Which, in Trumpworld, means saying positive things about minority groups, flouting the MAGA anti-“DEI” obsession.

Remember our lament earlier in the year, when we bemoaned the fact that costs were going up throughout the publishing world, threatening our very existence?

Well, that’s what is happening in rural areas all over the country. Local newpapers are dying, leaving radio the only news source in remote communities. And now that, too, is threatened.

In checking details for this article, I went to the CPR website. They already have a pop-up asking for additional donations. They can do that, and will probably survive.

But the residents of remote rural areas in Colorado and elsewhere don’t have that option. They have neither funds to operate nor bodies to supply a volunteer list.

The ironic thing is, they probably voted for the man who is now doing this to them. Oh, dear.