Transcript

5.3.25 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the reading of Today's Washington Post. It is Saturday,
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May the third of twenty twenty five, and your reader
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is Alice Dainger, with the reminder that radio I as
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a service for those blinded, with disabilities and with making
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you unable to really hold a reprinted material. So I
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say good morning on a rainy day here in Lexington,
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and I'll start with the headlines of Today's Washington Post.
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On the bar left side, above the fold. Minerals deal
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leaves Russians worried some elite see possible US tilt towards
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keeb closing a key window by Catherine Belton. And in
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the middle or the wide picture, it's a tender box
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in Cashmere, and you see a rows of Muslims in
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lines in the middle of the street in one, two, three, four,
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five rows of those on their prayer rugs, and they
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are offering Friday prayers in Senegar, the capital of the
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Indian Administered Kashmir. India has voted to punish Pakistan after
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an April twenty second massacre left twenty six tours dead,
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mostly Hindu men. A large Islamabad strongly denies the nuclear
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armed rivals have expelled each other's diplomats and citizens and
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ordered the border's shuts and closed their aspace to each other.
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Pakistan's Prime minister met Friday with envoys from the golf
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allies seeking to diffuse tensions. And there it's a very
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colorful picture of these rows of people shoulder to shoulder
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and curving a line around around the street with tents
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and overhangings. And that's in the dead center. On the
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far right, Trump takes acts to twenty twenty six budget
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seeks one hundred and sixty three billion dollars in federal
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cuts health, climate, targeted Defense DHS wood Rise by Jeff
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Stein and Jacob voge Avogage. Below the picture of the
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prayers on Friday is one entitled President goes after funding
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for biased n PR PBS the Scott Nova, RV Scribner Greener,
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and Francis minnall public broadcasters prepared to contest blatantly unlawful order.
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And below the fold and on the left, as Musk departs,
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doze Anga follows him out to liberals who once saw
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him as an ally. He now embodies the oligarchy by
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Mabe Reston and then it's going to be my first article.
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There's a picture of a colt and it's taken from
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ground level of a man holding the colt with this harness.
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But you see the buttercups, and you see a bright
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blue sky with clouds in it. The man is wearing
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of wool shirt as a cap on. But it's just
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a very lovely colorful picture blues and yellows with the
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man and the horses the centerpiece. And it's called ware
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Horses Healed the Broken out of Kentucky Farm. A recovery
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program pairs addicts with four legged athletes. And this is
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by Chuck Culpeppa of Nicholasville, and the picture is of
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John guiding a young foal out of a paddock at
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Taylor Made Farm. And to the right of that on
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the downside of the paper downsizing planned at intelligence agencies,
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thousands of positions would be eliminated, including twelve hundred at
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CIA by Warren P. Strobul. I'm going to start with
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the at a Kentucky farm star race horses helped people
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fight a monster addiction because it is derby day here
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in Kentucky and sadly raining, I thought this would be
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the appropriate article to begin with the stable recovery program
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at Taylor made farm changes labs with remarkable healing power
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of animals. The story is by Chuck Culpepper and photos
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by Michael Swinson of the Washington Post. And it is
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of Nicholasville, Kentucky. And the picture above it is of
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a man.
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Speaker 2: Holding a feeding bag and is he one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
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eight nine horses in alliance sort of walking towards the
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beating bag with the Kentucky bluegrass and the court ground
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and a dark sky in the background with lots of
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gray clothes. By the time he trembled in the courtroom
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at age forty one in April twenty twenty four, he
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had spent twenty four years brawling back and forth with
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the beast of drug addiction.
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Speaker 1: And the fight had hurled him to another brink of dismal.
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I was facing three years. John Bowman recollected, and the
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prosecutor was not wanting to back down at all yet.
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As he began to address the court on his own behalf,
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and as he described the unforeseen ten months that had
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preceded his appearance on the docket, he outlined a story
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that doubled as a wonder from this courthouse in the
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Commonwealth of Kentucky, that foremost American harbor of the uncanny
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five thousand year relationship between human and horses. Not to
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mention the host of another Kentucky derby on Saturday, meaning today,
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This defendant, who had never really touched a race horse
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before June twenty twenty three, told of what had happened
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since he began working with them routinely. It had rearranged
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his life and provided his cleanest chance yet against the
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scourge of drugs. He read lines such as his program
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has taught me how to have accountability, structure, discipline, and responsibility.
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And these milestones are only the beginning of my new life.
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That stirred's something and at least one listener, and that
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would be the judge who reckoned it, Mike Behoo, Bowman
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and all society if he went back to horsemanship rather
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than incarceration. I was blown away, Moowman said, standing last
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May by a well tended barn, looking out over the
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can't be true view of the green guilt fields and
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thousand pound ekwin athletes. The judge even said, I want
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to thank you for that heart felt story. And there
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is a picture of John Bowman posing with his favorite
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race horse on Taylor Made's farm, and he is nuzzlely
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nose to nose with a gray stallion looking dead at
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the camera. But Bowman's eyes are down. He's got a
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ball cap on the color of a stallion gray with
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the Tailor Made Farm logo on the front of his
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ball cap. As it turns out, he had immurmused with
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the program that at its outset many a bystander our
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farm owner might have labeled hair brained. He had joined
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and thrived at Stable Recovery, the organization with which Vulnerable
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Venerable Tailor Made Farm attempts to help those grappling with
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the diction, housing them in one of its roomy residences
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and teaching them the fastidious care of elite race horses.
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We probably got about sixty men in housing and have
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graduated a hundred and ten men now, so it's really
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starting to grow. Frank Taylor of Tailor Made said the
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partners have four houses going, including the one on farm premises.
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They have gotten around the bend of some narrow financial
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moments for operational expenses and have loaned their way to
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two and a half years of age to an Eclipse
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award to partnerships with many, including both Kinglin raced track
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and a farm setting up a similar program for women,
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and to a recent annual Galla attracting five hundred and
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fifty people and north of a million dollars in donations.
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And there are pictures of different people in the recovery program.
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One is a man walking mirror a foal and its
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mama Maya, and another feeding the race horses, and another
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racehorse eating out of a man's hands. I think this
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happens to be mister Bowman's hands. But mister Bowman from
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that Shelby County courtroom the other day, his mother, Margie
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over in Frankfort, sick to her stomach. Back on that
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day in court, told John she had chatted lately with
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one of the old regulars from the gas station where
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John worked for ten years. He had told the man,
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if you talk to John today and compared John to
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what he used to be like, it's worlds apart. And
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John said of his mother, I think this is probably
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the most prod she's ever been of me. John has
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an apartment in Lexington. He has a job at Stable
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Recovery as a program director, wherein his tasks include overseeing
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the cadre of house managers and the feat fleet of
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transport fans. He has viewpoints such as this, and you know,
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I'll look at it like this. If you can take
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care of a thirteen hundred pound horse, that paves the
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way for you to be able to take care of yourself.
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I really don't know why he has witnessed these human
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equine bonds that seemed to whosh up out of magic,
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such as the empathy he had with twenty twenty two
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breeds juvenile Phillies Winner one Wheeled before she departed from Japan.
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He would see her lying down at her stall, and
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he would go in there and lie down with her
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and wrap my arms around her and hold on to her,
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and she just let me. Then he would tell her
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something puckash like, are they mistreating you today? Oh? I'm amazed,
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he said, of all of it, and of stable recovery.
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And there's another picture, a couple of pictures of the
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barns and items within the barn, and men meeting race
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horses out of the paddocks and back into the barn.
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Speaking of amazement, I imagine the three other tale brothers, Duncan,
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Ben and Mark. Upon first hearing Frank's pitch such a concept.
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It wasn't no, Frank Taylor said, it was hello, and
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that know and its accompanying hell had it gained umphed
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with the very idea of exposing all your customers and
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your million dollar horses to this. As Frank put it recently, Ultimately,
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their conglomeration of concerns proved no match for the mighty hammer,
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Frank balked forth upon them. Part of our mission statement,
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in the middle of our mission statement is that we
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live out our Christian values by doing business right. Ouch.
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So I threw that on him. One day last spring,
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he told of the drinking rituals played across five of
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his own decades. He called himself an enthusiastic drinker who
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started every party and tried to finish every one, and
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figured he would never have any more fun again without alcohol, concluding,
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my alcoholism was slow progressing. It took away a little
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bit more each year over five decades. When his own
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son said to him, I know I'm an alcoholic. That
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spurred Frank towards sobriety, toward the awareness that it could
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mingle with enjoyment, and eventually toward visionary thoughts. When he
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ate at the restaurant dB A Kitchen in Lexington. He
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began to ask only Rob Perez about its workings, which
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included that for eighty years now, Perez and his wife
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Diane have employed people from recovery programs forty two at
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a time, generally in Diane's idea originally, and have unearthed
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results that run counter to slapdash fears. In a phone interview,
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Rob Perez said that far from the proliferation of chaos,
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the idea birth, the flowering of gratitude, loyal to diligence, collaboration,
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the concentric circles of good just keep popping up, he said,
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soon adding I'm just totally embarrassed that I didn't run
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a business like this before. Further, he found Taylor's idea
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even more promising because of something called a horse that
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just changes people's hearts. Further along, still, Taylor began to
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envision stable recovery as a potential nexus of two solutions.
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One you've got all this addiction, and two then you
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also have a problem with no workers. So these two
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major problems can actually help solve each other, even as
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further ripples could include rebuilt families. That's how this approachable
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man accustomed to large dollar figures in large adrenaline rushes
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around those horse racing out of arm West stars such
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as American Pharoah and California Chrome and Kicks Go have
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galloped through it. One dage or another wound up at
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the morning meeting. It happens just about every weekday dawn.
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It operates like AA. Each man around the large room
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takes a term speaking while the sun starts to think
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about coming up through the big windows outside. One day
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last spring, the topic was celling resentments. Voices carried sadness, regret,
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and uncommon candle. Typically, stable recovery accepts men who have
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spent thirty days in another program so that heads can
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clear some we tell guys, and this is common in recoveries.
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All you have to change is everything, said marketing director
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Robert Osborne. And so they start with ninety days of
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groom training and horsework that can lead to all manner
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of trades and ops at various places, all while aiming
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to boost mental, physical, spiritual, and financial health. As CEO
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and co founder in twenty twenty two, in came a
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force of a man with a staggering background. He contentedly
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shares in hiring detail. Christian Counselor already four years into
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recovery when he joined Stable Recovery. Served fifteen months in
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Iraq two thousand and three and twelve in Afghanistan two
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thousand and five, got kicked out of the army, went
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home to Western Kentucky, caught a marijuana charge and a DUI,
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and became the very thing I grew up telling myself
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I would never do that, would be a coal miner.
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And so he spent ten years largely underground, working seventy
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eighty hours a week, hard labor, didn't see the light
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of day, went in before the sun came up, and
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went out after the sun had gone down. He did
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this during the OxyContin craze and said, and what was
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so sad about this is I could walk into any
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doctor and all I had to do to say was hey,
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I'm a coal miner, and they're like, you need these,
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Your back must hurt. And so thirty Laura tabs a
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day and drink a pint of vodka to go to
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sleep that night. Then the OxyContin craze subsided, and that's
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when heroin and fentomylon methaphetamine surged, and I was thirty five,
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and I started shooting dope at that time, and that's
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when things got really out of control, and I ended
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up homeless and eating out of dumpsters and lost my wife,
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lost my kids, lost my job, lost everything. He slept
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at a homeless camp in the Owensborough at abandoned houses
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on street corners on river banks. He learned the gas
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station's food discard schedule so he could snare the food
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while fresh. He shoplifted conspicuously in cold months so as
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to gain the warmth of jail. I can remember lying
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down many many nights with a spoonful of dope and
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a bottleful of boos, thinking, man, this is great. I'm okay,
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this is not that bad, he says, which is insane.
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It went incarceration treatment, incarceration treatment, as he puts it,
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until an overdose in twenty eighteen, from which three people
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he wishes he could find two nurses. One doctor saved
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him and then got him on a bust treatment three
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hours away in Lexington. By now he exudes strength and
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health and looks like, no way does he have that story.
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His recovery has spread it to say degree that two
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teenage daughters reside with him amid a country rich in
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treatment programs involving horses, but not necessarily race horses, and
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with counselor rich in experience that treatment concepts in general.
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From experience, he wonders, Here's what I can't figure out.
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Why didn't somebody think of this sooner in central Kentucky?
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The way addiction rates are and the way we have
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horse farms, pictures of them in the morning meetings and
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playing in the backyard volleyball over offens. Please he and
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all know this driving alongside hallatious failability, dealing with broken souls.
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As Counselor puts it, men often depart the program early
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on and sometimes return, as if Bowman says, maybe you
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go out and you just need a little bit more
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keen of what these drugs can do to you. Of
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those who leave, Taylor said, about seventy percent do so
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right off the bat, finding the workload and misery or
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setting a mismatch. There's no revely type of deal. The
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men must wake and ready themselves. There are rules without
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our third parianism, self policing with teammates, enforcing all peer
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driven the way football coaches prefer things. Everyone must meet
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any new guy the newest guy is the most important
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guy here, Counselor said, he's the most dangerous, he's the
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most sick, he needs the most help. He's the most vulnerable,
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as explained Joshua Franks on bopping success story, who's gone
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from ten years of incarceration to a house on the farm.
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The grooms and budding grooms start the seven to four
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shift by giving the horses treatments in medicine, then grooming
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them while checking for cuts and knicks, all on a
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schedule that winds up demanding and pinpoint. You either love
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it or you don't, Frank said last year, there are
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definitely disappointments. Taylors said, we've been very blessed so far
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that we've only lost one guy to addiction that died
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all the time that we're doing it, which is unusual.
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There's definitely cases where you see guys that get good
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and do good and then they relapse. That's the unfortunate
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fact of the matter, Counselors said, is that the business
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that we're in probably has the highest fail rate of
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anything you could do. There's so much that has to
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go right and so little that has to go wrong.
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One bad choice, someone asks counselor how they measure success
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Every single night that one of the guys lays down
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so much, we've won that day, he said. I tell
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the guys all the time, the very thing that tells
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your heart to beat and your lungs to breathe is
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the same thing that's telling you it's okay to do
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the drugs. And so Taylor said, I focus on the successes.
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Stable Recovery has had those, even as it shies from
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crying about exact numbers. Once we get them ninety days,
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Sobo Taylor said, we have about a seventy percent success rate.
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The successes include guys who have gone on to thrive
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for or as Kentucky miners. They include one who once
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overdosed and survived only with Narkhi. Another, Will Walden, has
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surpassed the impasses during which all around him gave up
22:48
plus three turns at Recovery stay or Stable Recovery and
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trains a horse who is set to run Friday in
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the Kentucky Oaks the Highbrow Annual Derby Eve Race for
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Silly's the Horse Blessed the Broken. There they are lying
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down after a hard day, the Broken battle the odds
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at stable recovery with one considerable godsend the aged bond
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between Homo sapiens and Equus cabalas that mysterious feature of
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life on Earth can lend softened ages to hardened men.
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Franks told of one who had come out every day
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calling and cooing for a particular gray male. Counselors spoke
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of guys that have been imprisoned for fifteen years and
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have faced tattoos and everything else, whispering sweet nothings in
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the ear of a thoroughbred. They say that dogs are
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man's best friend, but I think if people really had
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the opportunity to have horses in their lives, I think
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horses would be man's best friend. There's just something about
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them that just takes your heart and mends it and
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builds it. Just how they can pick up on people's
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emotions and understandings. They're so perceptive towards people's emotions. I've
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had guys tell me I was really sad today, and
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this horse just came up and put his hair on
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my shoulder. They're probably the most emotionally intelligent creatures on
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this planet. Roman said. Counselor added something about broken people
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and horses. I don't know what it is. It's like
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the horses knows this person is damaged. They have this
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sixth sense this guy needs me. We're fear based individuals,
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our whole life, Frank said. And we get here and
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we've never touched this horse, and it's like this magical
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animal that will allow you to pick up the feet
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and go through those processes and break the areas with them.
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I just think it's really special, and I see it
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come on in guys. At lunch one day last spring,
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Josh Bryan, a young man and a second cousin to
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the tailors, said, if you go into that barn in
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the morning frustrated or just mad at the world, they'll
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give you a handful. They'll be honory and look at you.
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But if you go in there and you're calm and collected,
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they'll work with you. And I feel like if you're
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kind of in a depressive state, they'll be calm and
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they'll be kind of by your side. They can really
25:30
sense your heartbreak, and you know they react to that.
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Ryan knew all about that because he had been to
25:38
some depths and back. He had begun life with Golden
25:42
Harris syndrome, a rare congenital condition of undeveloped bone, underdeveloped
25:48
bones and muscles in one side of the face, capable
25:52
of wreaking complications upon the very acts of eating and speaking.
25:57
He had lost both parents and had felt lost in
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the world, and had used alcohol to numb his sense
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of purposes. One day, he had what he called in
26:07
Aha moment, realizing the farm and horses were his purpose.
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You're the one feeding them, he said that day. You're
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the one taking them outside. You're the one rubbing on
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them so that the horses would coome He's your purpose
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in life, he said. You know, you can talk to
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horses and they're not going to judge you. They don't
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care if you're from the inner city. They don't care
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if you're from a rich family. He ceased to drink
26:35
and began to thrive. He helped start and leave Taylor
26:38
Maid's School of Horsemanship, which led to the hatching of
26:42
Stable Recovery. Amazing to watch how he blossomed, Taylor said,
26:48
and the last two years he's been sponsoring at least
26:51
three other alcoholics. All the time. He began to try it,
26:55
a practice new for him dating. He also needed yet
26:59
an another surgery come this past April, his fifteenth or
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so in life, a seven hour saga gaged to ease
27:07
his worsened capacity for eating and speaking. He joked that
27:11
the guys ought to have a last supper, even for
27:15
a surgery with risk that did not seem overly daunting.
27:19
On April sixteenth, he took a date to Kingdom. He
27:23
wore a jacket and tye. He walked around and accepted
27:26
so many hellos. Hey, Josh, Hey, Josh. Then when he
27:30
met up with everyone later at the restaurant, he joked,
27:33
as date hadn't realized she would be accompanying a celebrity. He
27:38
was as happy as I'd ever seen him, Taylor said,
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calling it a pinnacle. Brian went into surgery the next
27:45
day and all seemed all right until five days later
27:49
when he died suddenly from complications in a louder phase
27:53
of the surgery. It left everyone just devastated, Taylor said,
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as he called it just a bad deal, totally unexpected
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and to stable recovery. Morened a mainstay who in his
28:08
thirty three years had done something formidable. He had found
28:12
his way all the way from unfair hardship and untold
28:16
hopelessness to the Magic Realm at the ancient intersection of
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human and force. Lexington has quite a few programs for
28:27
recovering alcoholics. And if you haven't been to Dbaight, do go.
28:31
It's a wonderful restaurant. And Shepherd's House has now five
28:35
or six facilities both for men and women to help
28:38
with recovery efforts. O next article in Today's Washington Post.
28:46
Public media ready to fight unlawful Trump ordered the funding
28:51
PBS NPR. Legal scholars say the executive order may exceed
28:57
presidential authority and violate first and men, while local stations
29:01
fear impact on communities. And there is a rally outside
29:06
the NPR headquarters in Washington on March twenty six to
29:10
demand Congress to protect funding for public broadcasters. And there's
29:17
a group of men and women with signs saying no
29:20
bullying of PBS and NPR and a picture of Elmo
29:25
and a picture of I am stealing from you. That's
29:29
a picture of Elon Musk defend in PR and PBS.
29:37
Scott Nover, Herb Scribner, and Francis manall President Donald Trump's
29:45
executive odor seeking to end federal funding for NPR and
29:49
PBS because of news coverage he called biased and partisan,
29:54
triggered a fierce backlash from public broadcasters that appears poised
29:59
to expec the White House's larger legal background with the
30:03
media industry. Issued Thursday night, though order instructs the congressionally
30:09
charted Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cut off direct funding
30:14
to the vulnerable public media giants, producers of long running
30:19
news shows such as All Things Considered and PBS News Hout,
30:25
as well as any grants to local stations that might
30:28
underwrite the National Broadcasters programming. PBS President and Chief executive
30:35
Paula Kerger said her organization was exploring all options to
30:40
assist its member stations and challenge what she calls a
30:44
blatantly unlawful move that threatens their ability to serve the
30:50
American public with educational programming as we have for the
30:54
past fifty plus years. NPR vow to vigor defend their
31:01
right to provide essential news, information, and life saving services
31:05
to the American public. Some legal scholars agree that Trump
31:11
that the Trump Owner may exceed the president's actual powers
31:15
over CPB, a nonprofit corporation that receives and distributes federal
31:20
funds but is not a federal agency. And violate the
31:24
First Amendment. Meanwhile, a move that seems aimed at media
31:29
coverage of national politics left local public stations perplexed by
31:35
how cuts of this magnitude would affect their ability to
31:38
serve their audiences. Corporate consolidation and shifts in the advertising
31:43
businesses have shuddered or shranked many commercial stations. Now some
31:49
public stations are the primary local news source in their communities.
31:56
The staff of ww No. Eight nine nine point five
32:01
in New Orleans has gone all hands on deck to
32:05
cover natural disaster such as Hurricane Ida in twenty twenty one,
32:10
said general manager Paul Madison. When people lose power, they
32:14
may not be able to watch TV or square off
32:16
fhone for news, so radio but comes the de facto
32:21
way to reach people, he said in the phone interview Friday.
32:25
For the loss of public funding would really hinder arability
32:30
to do that. Mason said, we'll have to cut back
32:34
in some areas to continue to operate. We'd like to
32:37
be able to continue those kinds of services. If this
32:41
is going to make it that much tougher to do.
32:45
The news landed as wil l A M five eighty
32:50
in Urbana, Illinois, wrapped up its three day pledge DRAP.
32:55
You might have heard about the executive order by the
32:57
Trump administration to eliminateeral funding for public media. Producer Steve
33:03
mork said told listeners Friday morning, without breaking his chipper cadence.
33:09
He noted that AM five eighty and its affiliated Illinois
33:13
public media stations had received one point five million in
33:17
federal funding this physical year. Losing that money would compromise
33:22
the essential service we provide to our community, to you.
33:28
The Trump administration is already embroiled in court battles to
33:32
deny the Associated Press access to White House events because
33:36
of its resistance to adopt Trump's renaming of the Golf
33:40
of Mexico as the Gulf of America and dismantled Voice
33:45
of America and other government funded news services aimed at
33:49
overseas audiences. The president has personally sued several news organizations,
33:55
including CBS News, for twenty million twenty billion dollars, for
34:00
what he claims was a deceptibly edited interview to boost
34:05
his twenty twenty four arrival Kamila Harris. But the biggest
34:09
brands in public media have been in conservative crosshairs for decades.
34:14
Trump and his allies had long accused m PR and
34:17
PBS at favoring liberal positions. Last month, the White House
34:21
cited an NPR article of a queer animals and the
34:25
PBS documentary of a transgender teenager while announcing plans to
34:31
urge Congress to rescind funding already allocated to c b P.
34:37
It also accused the broadcasters of having zero tolerance for
34:42
non leftist viewpoints. In March, lawmakers grow the heads of
34:47
each network over alleged bias. At a congressional hearing led
34:51
by Representative Marjorie Taylor Green, Republican of Georgia, both executives
34:57
rejected the accusation of partisan slant. Kurvetted the one hundred
35:02
and sixty million dollars television and online viewers, not million
35:07
dollars one hundred and sixty million television and online viewers,
35:11
and she said, explore the world through our trusted content.
35:15
NPR asserted Friday that it's at a trial, practices and
35:19
decision making are independent and free from outside influence. The
35:25
legal wrangling is already under way. On Tuesdays, CPV sued
35:30
the Trump administration after it sent a letter to three
35:33
board members attempting to terminate their positions, arguing that the
35:37
White House has no authority over the private corporation. Lenard N. Kneehawk,
35:45
First Amendment and media law professor at the University Mission
35:49
Law School, agrees. Niehof said Congress controls the federal purse
35:55
rings and has approved a budget for the Corporation for
35:58
public broadcasting. The President does not have the power to
36:02
undo budget allocations created by Congress in nineteen sixty seven.
36:11
CPB receives about five hundred and thirty five million dollars
36:15
in federal funds each physical year, which it mostly spends
36:19
on grants to hundreds of stations nationwide. The stations use
36:24
the grants to create their own programs or bias shows
36:27
from national programmers like NPR or PBS. CPB contributes about
36:35
one percent of NPR's budget and funds a portion of
36:40
the hundreds of stations that license MPR content. According to
36:44
the broadcaster, PBS is owned by its local member stations,
36:49
which are usually partially funded by CPB grants. About sixteen
36:55
percent of its funding comes from the government, the service
36:59
told The Washington Post in January. On average, CPB says
37:05
it provides one eighth of local public station funding, with
37:10
the remainder coming from alternative sources such as donations and sponsorships.
37:16
Nihoff and other legal scholars arguing that the Trump executive
37:20
order is also flawed in specifically criticizing the perceived points
37:25
of view presented on PBS, an NPR, and a nineteen
37:30
eighty four case VCC versus League of Women Voters, the
37:35
Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot condition federal funding
37:39
on a station's editorial decisions. According to David Cole, a
37:44
professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Cole noted that Trump's
37:51
executive order appears to do the same thing here. The
37:55
order may also run counted to Congress's detailed instructions about
38:00
how the funds this CPD receives are to be distributed,
38:04
said Richard A. Pilde's, a professor of constitutional law at
38:09
New York University. The President can't order this CPD to
38:14
act in a way that would be unlawful. Local NPR
38:19
stations nationwide have been sounding the alarm on potential cuts
38:23
for weeks. South Dakota Public Broadcasting, like other NPR affiliates,
38:29
created a page on its website to explain to readers
38:32
how its stations are funded. Blue Ridge Public Radio p
38:38
b PR, which were puted extensively on Hurricane Helene's devastation
38:44
of North Carolina in September twenty twenty four, has been
38:48
especially vocal about the importance of local news coverage. The
38:52
organization warned of an effort to destabilize the very foundation
38:57
of public broadcasting naval statement as talks of CPB cuts circulated,
39:06
we shudder to imagine our devastating loss of b p
39:10
r's emergency news coverage when it's needed most. While the
39:15
Trump measure appears targeted specifically at PBS and NPR, its
39:21
ripple effects through the web of local affiliate stations could
39:24
undermine less famous public media outlets. It's going to make
39:29
it difficult for a show like mine to survive, said
39:33
Jeremy Hobson, host of an independent news talk show funded
39:37
by more than four hundred local public stations nationwide that
39:41
aired as the name suggest the Middle despires to elevate
39:46
the voices of people in the middle of the country
39:49
and who want to meet in the middle to find
39:52
solutions to the biggest issues based in the United States.
39:57
I'm just trying to bring in enough money to make
39:59
it happen. Hobson told the Post, and if a huge
40:04
part of that money is now in jeopardy because these
40:06
stations are just going to be trying to figure out
40:10
what they can do, that's difficult for a show like this.
40:15
As the CPB Board met Finday, some of the sharpest
40:19
criticism of Trump's order came from one of its own appointees,
40:24
Ruby Calvert, who occupies one of the board seats reserved
40:28
for a Republican and currently serves as its chair. She
40:32
invoked her family's conservative bonu feeds, including her Bubb, a
40:37
former Leita in the Wyoming State legislature. Like him, I'm
40:42
very physically conservative and philosophically conservative, and I want to
40:47
note that there are many conservatives who support public media,
40:51
she said. Calvert continued, I know firsthand the value both
41:00
services that public media provides to all Americans involved in
41:04
urban and rural communities, and my role on the CPB
41:08
Board is shaped by my Western values, my Republican values,
41:13
and my fiduciary on Capitol Hill, reaction fell along partisan lines.
41:19
Good riddance, wrote Representative Clodia Tenney, Republican of New York,
41:24
who promised to back the president with legislation she dubbed
41:28
the Defend Government Sponsored Propaganda Act NPR and PBS have
41:35
turned into taxpayer funded echo chambers for the left. President
41:39
Trump is right to pull the plug. If these networks
41:43
want to push bias, they can do it without your money,
41:46
wrote Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina. Some Democrats
41:53
evoked the Gentle Children's educational programming that put public broadcasting
41:59
television on the MAC half a century ago. So many
42:03
of us know mister Rogers kind smile and guiding words.
42:08
His legacy was possible because of PBS. Choosing to dismantle
42:13
this legacy is a shameful, shortsighted betrayal of public good,
42:19
said Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey. Representative Dan Goldman,
42:25
Democratic New York accused Trump of going after sesame Street,
42:30
emergency alert systems, rural stations, and educational show for kids.
42:36
He added, this is another attack on free speech and accountability.
42:44
Next article. Trump administration plans major downsizing at US spy agencies.
42:52
The planned cuts include twelve hundred positions at the CIA,
42:57
along with thousands more from other parts to the US
43:00
intelligence community. In the days of my DC years in Alexandria, Virginia,
43:07
DC and before the computers, many of my friends worked
43:12
in the photography departments at the CIA back in the seventies.
43:18
Warren P. Strobel wrote this article. The Trump administration is
43:24
planning significant personnel cuts at the Central Intelligence Agency and
43:29
other US major spy units, downsizing the government's most sensitive
43:34
national security agencies, according to people familiar with the plans,
43:40
the administration recently informed lawmakers on Capitol Hill that it
43:45
intends to reduce the CIA's workforce by by twelve hundred
43:49
personnel over several years, and cut thousands more from other
43:54
parts of the US intelligence community, including at the National
43:58
Security Agency, a highly secretive service that specializes in cryptology
44:03
and global electronic espionage, a person familiar with the matter said.
44:09
The person, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of
44:13
anoniminity to discuss sensitive matters. The specifics of the planned
44:18
cuts have not been previously reported. The CIA does not
44:23
publicly disclose the size of its workforce, that it is
44:27
believed to be about twenty two thousand. It is unclear
44:31
which parts of the sky agency would be most effective.
44:34
The downsizing is happening even as CIA Director John Ratcliffe
44:39
is pledged to put more agency resources on China and
44:43
on a cartel smuggling fensanol and other synthetic drugs into
44:47
the United States. The staff reductions would take place over
44:51
several years and would be accomplished in part through reduced hiring.
44:56
No outright firings are envisioned. The goal of roughly twelve
45:01
hundred persons stair production includes several hundred individuals who already
45:06
have opted for early retirement. The person familiar with the
45:10
matter said. The downsizing is taking place separately from efforts
45:16
by the US Doeze Service, led by billionaire Elon Musk,
45:20
to radically restructure the federal government. Musk met with Ratcliffe
45:26
in late March for a discussion that included government efficiency measures,
45:30
but no DOZE teams have been working at the agency's Langley,
45:34
Virginia campus. Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the
45:41
CIA workforce is responsive to the administration's national security priorities
45:48
and sposor agency spokesperson said in the statement, adding these
45:54
moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the
45:58
agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge,
46:04
and better positioned c i A to deliver on its mission.
46:09
Both Radcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Telsey Gabbed have
46:13
pledged to streamline their agencies, and, at President Donald Trump's bidding,
46:18
have eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs, firing personnel who
46:24
worked on those issues. Nineteen employees of the CIA in
46:28
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence sued in
46:32
federal court to stop their dismissal. A federal judge in
46:36
late March issued a temporary injunction heart halting the firings.
46:42
Since assuming her oppost, Gabbard has frequently spoken to conservative
46:47
media outlets and depicted some U S intelligent personnel as
46:51
part of a deep state working to undermine Trump, echoing
46:55
charges the president has made. As a congresswoman from Haway,
47:01
she sometimes expressed skepticism of US intelligence judgments, including a
47:06
twenty seventeen assessment that Bashar al Asai used chemical weapons
47:11
on his own citizens in Syria. Gabrin said at the
47:15
White Has Cabinet meeting on Wednesday that the ODNI is
47:21
twenty five percent smaller and more lean today than when
47:24
I walked in the door. She was confirmed to her
47:27
post on February twelfth. Gavit did not specify what has
47:32
been eliminated at the ODNI, which coordinates the vast intelligence
47:38
apparatus across eighteen separate spy agency and has about two
47:43
thousand employees. A spokeswoman's details were not available. Quite a
47:50
few DEI related cuts have already been announced, the spokeswoman said.
47:56
The planned workforce shrinkage comes at a perilous moment, with
48:00
the US involved in multiple global crises, and at a
48:03
difficult time for tens of thousands of intelligence and law
48:07
enforcement professionals. Gabbard and other Trump appointees have ramped up
48:13
leak investigations, including methods such as using polygraphs at the FBI,
48:19
which some current and formal officials say is creating a
48:23
climate of fear and intimidation. An early round of dismissals
48:27
of probationary workers in DEI employees deeply unseld s obedient
48:33
and military intelligence employees. Critics of the plane's reductions at
48:39
the CIA and other agencies said they posed a threat
48:43
to national security. These sweeping, reckless cuts of experienced intelligence
48:49
personnel by the Trump administration will undoubtedly undermine their ability
48:54
to detect and respond to threats and make America less safe.
48:59
Senator Mark Rhuna, Virginia, the ranking Democrat on their state
49:05
Senate Intelligence Committee. Current and former US officials also warn
49:12
of a counter intelligence risk, noting that having thousands of
49:16
potentially disgrundled intelligence personnel out of work represents a right
49:21
recruiting target for adversary nations spy services. Russia and China
49:28
have recently directed their intelligence services to ramp up attempts
49:31
to recruit US national security workers, targeting those who have
49:36
been fired to feel they could soon be CNN reported
49:40
in March, citing US intelligence assessments on the issues. Last month,
49:46
the National counter Intelligence and Security Center, a part of
49:49
the ODNI that coordinates programs to thwart foreign spies, warned
49:55
that foreign intelligence entities, particularly in China, a target being
50:00
current and former US employees online offering jobs while posing
50:05
as consulting firms, corporate headhunters, and think tanks. While intelligence
50:12
officers are trained to spot and resist such attempts, and
50:16
recently laid off staff are legally compelled to report any
50:20
overtures to US counterintelligence authorities, even a single breach could
50:24
have serious national security consequences. Former CIA officer Kevin Mawory
50:31
was convicted of espionage and related charges in twenty eighteen
50:35
after prosecutors allegedly he sold deeply damaging secrets about US
50:40
intelligence operations to China. He had been mired in debt
50:46
when a Chinese intelligence officer posing as a head hunter
50:50
contacted him on LinkedIn. Several senior former US intelligence officials
50:58
said they have received numerous calls and emails from friends
51:01
at the CIA asking for help and transitioning to private
51:05
sector work. People are just flooding out. One such official
51:10
said people who are senior but not qualified necessarily for
51:15
early outs are thinking about leaving at the ODN I.
51:21
More than one hundred people have taken an early resignation
51:24
offer known as the Fork in the Road, that would
51:28
see them paid through September thirtieth. Gabbert also has been
51:32
reviewing the numerous intelligence centers under the ODNI focused on
51:37
topics such as terrorism, counterintelligence, and weapons proliferation, with an
51:42
ion staff reductions of folding them into other agencies at
51:47
the CIA. The person familiar with the Knight have said
51:51
of the twelve hundred positions to be cut, slightly more
51:54
than five hundred represent workers who have already put in
51:57
for earlier retirement. A total of several thousand positions would
52:02
also be cut from the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
52:07
the National Reconnaissance Office, which designs and operates spy satellites,
52:12
and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which analyzes satellite imagery
52:19
and provides targeting data to as troops. According to the
52:23
plans described to The Washington Post, the former senior intelligence
52:28
officials said the staff reductions at the CIA, if handled properly,
52:34
would not necessarily be disruptive, particularly if they are focused
52:38
on underperforming employees. The reductions appear to represent roughly five
52:43
percent of the CIA's workforce. That does not seem that
52:49
out of line, the former official said. In the March
52:54
thirty first note to the CIA workforce, laying out his
52:58
priorities for the spy agent, Bradcliffe wrote, for decades, CIA
53:05
has known nothing but growth. But the years of growing
53:09
budgets and resources are behind us. Moving forward, you will
53:14
be part of a smaller, more elite, and efficient workforce.
53:19
The memo was first reported by The New York Post.
53:25
I won't finish the next article, but I'll start. White
53:29
House budget calls for one hundred and sixty three billion
53:32
dollars in federal cuts next year. The president's budget chief
53:37
has sought to assert far more unilateral control over government
53:41
spending than has recently been the case by Jeff Stein
53:46
and Jacob Boviage. The White House released a partial budget
53:50
proposal Priday calling for one hundred and sixty three billion
53:54
dollars in cuts to federal spending in the next physical year,
53:58
pushing reductions to healthcare, education, and many other government programs
54:03
while boosting spending on defense and homeland security. The White
54:08
House's twenty twenty six physical budget plan would CUTIFO for
54:12
next year. Many of the spending cuts already unilaterally implemented
54:17
this year by President Donald Trump or billionaire Elon Musk's
54:21
US Doze service. The administration has struggled to persuade Republicans
54:26
in Congress to enshrine even the small portion of those
54:29
cuts in the law, and the courts have also ordered
54:32
the White House to resume much of the spending, leaving
54:36
the fate of the changes unclear for now. The one
54:40
hundred and sixty three billion in requested cuts amount to
54:43
nearly twenty three percent. They would come from a portion
54:47
of federal outlays known as non defense discussionary spending, which
54:52
excludes the Pentagon, as well as programs such as Social Security, Medicare,
54:57
and Medicaid, which collectively make a the bulk of what
55:00
the government spends every year. The cuts would fall on childcare,
55:05
education programs, climate assistance, funding for research and development, and
55:11
the range of other government functions. The budget also proposes
55:16
one trillion dollars in defense spending, a thirteen percent increase,
55:21
as well as more money for charter schools and health
55:24
in Human Services. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Juniors Make America
55:29
Healthy Again initiative would also increase funding for immigration enforcement
55:35
by one hundred and seventy five billion dollars. The recommended
55:41
funding levels result from a rigorous line by line review
55:44
of f WI twenty twenty five spending, which was found
55:48
to be laden with spending contrary to the needs of
55:51
ordinary working Americans and tilted towards niche funding. Niche ganan
55:56
government organizations and institutions of higher education committed to radical
56:01
gender and climate ideologies, an tithical to the American way
56:06
of life. White House Office of Management and Budget Director
56:11
Russell Bulock said in the letter to Senator Susan Collins,
56:15
Republican of Maine, the top Republican appropriator. Trump's budget would
56:21
bring non defense discretionary spending to the lowest level on
56:25
record by far, said Bobby Cogan, an all analysis at
56:30
the Center for American Progress of center left think tank,
56:36
there is no way to achieve this level of cut.
56:38
Are thou deeply harming the American people? This cut is
56:42
extreme both in its own right and also extreme by
56:45
even Trump's own standards, Cogan said. In Trump's first term,
56:50
he proposed a fifty four bigion dollar cut to this category.
56:54
According to Cogan, his current request makes that extreme request
56:59
see moderate in comparison. Presidential budget request are typically reviewed
57:06
as just that request for Congress to enact certain spending levels.
57:11
They lay a broad priorities which will makers typically rework
57:15
even when the president's party controls the Senate and the House,
57:20
as is currently the case. And with that, I have
57:24
to close for two days May the third, twenty twenty
57:28
five Washington Post reading. I hope that the derby this
57:35
afternoon is not marred by a lot of rain, and
57:39
that if one is betting, which I'm not, that they
57:42
do well in their bedding and have a wonderful afternoon
57:48
at Churchill Downs or watching TV or whatever. Please stay
57:55
tuned to continue programming on radio, and if you have
57:59
any proper please call a fat Man four two two
58:04
sixty three ninety five