The Corporation For Public Broadcasting Is Closing Down

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has released the following memo: 

August 1, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades.

For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

CPB informed its employees today that the majority of staff positions will conclude with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025. A small transition team will remain through January 2026 to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations. This team will focus on compliance, final distributions, and resolution of long-term financial obligations, including ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the public media system.

“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. “We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.”

CPB’s Board of Directors and management are working closely to address the legal, financial, and operational requirements of the closure. CPB will provide regular updates and guidance to stations and producers navigating the profound challenges ahead.

Trump's Memo To Federal Employees Is A Scam, A Purge, And It's Illegal

Here is the Trump/Musk memo to federal employees:

 

And here is Robert Reich's advice to those employee's:

I’m addressing this post to America’s 2.3 million federal employees.

My message: Don’t accept Elon’s offer. 

Yesterday, Musk — via people he’s planted in the Office of Personnel Management — sent an email to all 2.3 million of you, offering to pay you for eight months of work, through September 30, if you’ll resign from the government before February 6. Otherwise, you risk being furloughed (that is, not paid) or fired. 

You know what this is about. Not slimming the federal workforce, but substituting Trump loyalists for people like you, who are working for the American public. 

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said it out loud Tuesday on CNN: "The 2 million employees in the federal government are overwhelmingly left of center.” And now that Trump is elected, "it is essential for him to get control of government.” 

But the fact is, neither Musk nor even Trump has legal authority to offer you eight months of pay if you’ll resign by February 6.

 

Your salaries are funded by the federal agencies and departments you work for, not by the Office of Personnel Management, not by Musk, and not by Trump.

 

None of them is authorized by Congress to move money from one agency or department to another without Congress’s approval. I know. I used to be a cabinet secretary. 

Besides, the funding for your agency or department is guaranteed only through March 14, when the government is expected to shut down unless the debt ceiling is lifted. If not, any commitment for additional pay is worthless.

In fact, Musk (and Trump) are violating the law by agreeing to spend money that the administration doesn’t have. Congress could declare the entire offer illegal — which it is. Then where would you be?

May I also add that you shouldn’t trust Trump or Musk. 

Trump has a long history of stiffing workers and contractors. 

So, for that matter, does Musk. During the pandemic, Musk gave Tesla employees permission to remain at home if they didn’t feel comfortable reporting to the factory. Then he sent them termination notices alleging “failure to return to work.”

When he bought Twitter in 2022, Musk denied he wanted to lay off 75 percent of its staff (“No way I’m laying off 75 percent of them”) but then fired 80 percent of them (maybe that’s what he meant when he pledged not to fire 75 percent?) 

In short, it’s a bum offer. Reject it.

 

By the way, thank you for your service. 

And Paul Krugman's advice to federal employees:

The latest and biggest move has come in the form of an email from the Office of Personnel Management, which appears to have effectively been taken over by associates of Elon Musk, effectively offering a buyout to federal employees who resign in the next few days. On paper, it isn’t exactly a buyout; those who accept the offer will be placed on administrative leave but supposedly continue to be paid until September. But being told that you can stop working while receiving eight months’ salary is just a buyout by another name.

There are five things you should know about this plan:

1. It’s illegal.

2. It’s almost surely a scam: workers who take the offer probably won’t see the money they’ve been promised.

3. To the extent that workers actually take up the offer, they’ll be the workers we can least afford to lose.

4. The move will cost, not save money.

5. What this really amounts to is a purge, replacing professional civil servants with political loyalists.

It’s pretty clear that the principal motivation is political. This is a purge, an attempt to push out government workers who believe that their job is to serve the public and replace them with Trump loyalists.

Barr's Memo Is A Meaningless Gesture To Appease Trump

On November 9th, Attorney General Barr issued a memo to his assistants and the Director of the FBI. His memo gave them permission to investigate any instances of fraud regarding the 2020 presidential election. (The entire memo can be read here.)

Democrats, and the talking heads at cable news, immediately became upset. The thought was that Barr would force an investigation that came up with dubious results and called the legitimacy of the election into question. They based this on Barr's past actions, where he acted more like Trump's personal lawyer than the attorney for the people of this country.

I understand their concern. But I think it is unwarranted. Why? Because of an important paragraph in the memo. That paragraph reads:

I authorize you to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdiction

since certain cases, as I have already done in specific instances. Such inquiries and reviews may be conducted if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State. Any investigation of claims of irregularities that, if true, would clearly not impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State should normally be deferred until after the election certification process is completed.

Note that it says an investigation should not be done unless it could affect the outcome of the election in that state. If it would not, then an investigation should be deferred until after the election is certified.

The New York Times has contacted the election administrators in all of the states, and every administrator said there was no evidence of any fraud in their state. Without such evidence, there is no chance of an investigation overturning the results of an election -- so no investigation would be done.

This memo is virtually meaningless. It was issued to keep Trump happy, and for no other reason.

There's No Beef In The GOP Memo - It's A Nothing-Burger

The House Republicans, with the blessing of Donald Trump have released the Nunes memo. Was it a success? Did they successfully indict law enforcement (FBI)? Were the contents truly "shocking"?

First, let's examine what we know of this memo:
* It is not an official document from either the FBI or the FISA court. It is just an opinion piece from a Trump-supporting Republican congressman (Devin Nunes, a member of the Trump transition team).
* It was written by Nunes staffers in collaboration with White House staffers.
* The memo does not contain all of the information used to get the FISA warrants on Carter Page. It just includes those that Nunes thought supported his cause, and omits the rest.
* The FBI had asked the memo not be released, because they feared it could expose sources or investigative techniques that could harm future investigation efforts.
* For a couple of weeks now, the Republicans have been talking about the "shocking" information in the report.

Considering all of the above, one would have thought the memo would contain some truly earth-shattering information (whether true or not). It didn't.

The big accusation was that the investigation and FISA warrants were issued solely on the basis of the Steele dossier. That fails on several counts. First, the investigation started before the Steele dossier was issued. Second, most of what's in that dossier has been established to be true. And third, that dossier was not all that was used to get the FISA warrants. Nunes just omitted the other things establishing probable cause.

The memo was nothing more than a rather tepid and disingenuous (and boring) effort at propaganda to confuse Americans and protect Donald Trump. I am reminded of a past burger commercial, where a lady asks "Where's the beef?". There is no "beef" in that memo. It is just a nothing-burger.