U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who issued overly harsh sentences to the J6 defendants, even going beyond prosecutors’ recommendations, is refusing to allow cuts to the bloated, leftist Voice of America (VOA). This makes no sense, considering regular media not funded by the government is drastically shrinking. This is because there is less of a need in the modern era for traditional media due to the rise of social media and citizen journalists. 

The mainstream media has suffered from leftist bias for years (only 3 percent of journalists are Republicans), so Republicans are deserting the media. The decline is severe, with even the most well-known news organizations experiencing deep cuts — The Washington Post laid off 30 percent of its workforce in February.

The VOA controversy began early last year, when the Trump administration, through Kari Lake, placed over 1,000 employees out of about 1,147 at VOA on administrative leave. Lake framed the cuts as part of a broader mandate from President Donald Trump to "cut bloated bureaucracy, eliminate waste, and restore accountability to government.” She said last March when canceling an expensive new lease for USAGM, “From top-to-bottom this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer — a national security risk for this nation — and irretrievably broken.”

Partisan unions, including AFSCME, predictably filed groundless lawsuits. On March 7, Lamberth ruled that Lake’s appointment to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) was improper since the U.S.........

© Townhall