Season 11, Episode 10 May 11, 2025

On this episode, we’ll hear about Douglas MacArthur, several Popes, and the ABC’s.  Not the Headlines will examine a misleading NPR story.

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https://pdcn.co/e/www.buzzsprout.com/1940478/episodes/17138137-season-11-episode-10-may-11-2025.mp3?download=true

Transcript

Hello! Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we’ll hear about Douglas McArthur, several Popes, and the ABC’s….but first (Not the Headlines)!

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been ordered to stop funding the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. The Trump administration argues that the media outlets are biased and misleading, and doesn’t think the American taxpayer should be paying for it. PBS and NPR get about a half a billion dollars a year from the federal government, which is actually a small percent of their entire budgets, but now they’re crying foul, even as they knew this was going to happen if Trump got reelected. They had the choice to go back to serving the public interest, or continuing to be a parrot for left-wing talking points. They chose the latter, and now seem surprised at what happened. Most media have been brutal to Donald Trump. They gave Joe Biden a pass, and even covered up his mental decline, and now they want us to think they’re not biased? Well, they are. And in the case of public broadcasting, you better be down the middle if you expect the American taxpayer to support you. 

It is the job of the media to be a watchdog, but you can’t just look the other way for Joe Biden and then bare your teeth again now. We know that the legacy media and public broadcasting have been only telling one side of the story since 2015, and Donald Trump is always the bad guy, no matter what he does. A lot of times, he doesn’t have to do anything. Media groups will happily find a way to fear-monger even while the President is sleeping or golfing.

Case in point: An article from NPR dated April 22nd and heard on All Things Considered warned that the U.S. is “swiftly heading toward authoritarianism.” They make the claim using a survey of over 500 political scientists that was done in February, which they don’t tell you until the last paragraph. Early February. So, just a week or two after President Trump was sworn in. But the survey wasn’t used for a story until late April, which leaves the impression that the survey was more current than it actually was. Trump was barely in office, and already a group called Bright Line Watch was asking political scientists if the country is headed toward authoritarianism. Coincidentally, Bright Line Watch only started doing these surveys in January of 2017, when Donald Trump took office the first time. 

They use a point system that goes from 0, meaning a complete dictatorship, to 100, or a perfect democracy. I find it interesting that none of the political scientists pointed out that our government isn’t a democracy. Maybe that’s what they’re hoping for. After all, the left keeps telling us that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. The experts now rate our democracy at 55. The low mark under Biden was 61 in October of 2020, about nine months into his only term, but rose up to a high of 70 to close out. That’s the highest rating the experts have awarded since 2017.

The story describes a sample of 30 indicators that the experts weigh when taking the survey, including such things as if the government interferes with the press, if the government punishes political opponents, and whether the legislative or judicial branches “can check executive authority.” The way that’s written would lead you to believe that only the president is subject to checks and balances. It doesn’t seem to take into account that maybe it’s the judiciary that needs to be checked. After all, we have federal district judges telling the president what he can and cannot do, but nobody can tell the judges their wrong except other judges who have more power.

The author of the story

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5340753/trump-democracy-authoritarianism-competive-survey-political-scientist?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

uses a lot of writing tricks to make it seem like he’s being unbiased, but he isn’t. He mentions one political scientist who agrees with the way Trump is running the country, and doesn’t see it heading toward authoritarianism. It’s about half way through the story. That’s the part that’s supposed to make NPR look unbiased. Look! We even quoted a guy who said he likes Trump!

But that was after the story quoted a co-director of Bright Line Watch who’s focused on democracy and authoritarianism as saying he’s deeply troubled by Trump’s attempts to expand executive power. To be fair, I don’t think Trump’s trying to expand executive power as much as he’s defining where the lines are drawn.

Then a Harvard professor is quoted as saying, “We've slid into some form of authoritarianism." adding, “...we are no longer living in a liberal democracy.” Next we hear from a Princeton sociologist who focuses on Hungary and claims the U.S. is on a “very fast slide into what’s called competitive authoritarianism.” 

The author then explains what competitive authoritarianism is and how it happens. He says a person gets elected, then they turn around and start eroding the checks and balances, attacks the media, universities and non-government organizations. He fills key positions with loyalists. It kind of sounds like he wants us to believe President Trump is doing all of those things as prep work for forming an authoritarian government. Then he throws in a statement from another Princeton guy who studies China that explains that the government would still be democratic, but the elections wouldn’t be free or fair.

Let’s back up a little bit here. Donald Trump is not eroding checks and balances. He’s establishing where the lines are drawn. If there’s one thing we’ll know more about when Trump’s term is over, it’s which parts of our government have what powers and responsibilities. Next, ALL presidents line appointments with loyalists! That’s not new! President Biden appointed lackeys to lead the Department of Justice and Homeland Security just so they would sit there and not do too much. But it’s sliding into authoritarianism when Donald Trump does it. Does Donald Trump attack the media? Well, yea….and they deserve it. This hit piece I’m describing right now is one example of how the media has mistreated him ever since he came down the escalator and announced his candidacy for president the first time. They never relented. They lied to us at every turn about what he was doing and how it was going to kill us all and how there’s a madman at the helm of the federal government. He should attack the press for what they did and what they continue to do. The press knows they deserve it, so they have to make it sound like it’s part of a plot to overthrow our system of government, when it’s the legacy media trying to overthrow the government while Donald Trump is president. And when it comes to attacking Universities, again, some of the need to get themselves in order. Colleges like Columbia and Harvard have done little to quell the unrest on their campuses, either unwilling or unable to do so. These Hamas sympathizers pretending to be something honorable have no business on a college campus. But they know they have the support of the faculty and administration, so it’s a safe space for them to feel important. The best thing that could happen to America’s universities would be to let the federal government go in and clean them up. Well-known universities have become havens not for freedom of thought and salons of exchanging ideas, but lock-step elites who demand obedience when preaching anti-American doctrines while being supported by American taxpayer money. Foreign students come here to experience life in the USA, and then all they hear is how terrible a place it is because of racism and capitalism. The very racism every college used to determine who would be allowed to enroll until the Supreme Court said the couldn’t anymore. The same capitalism that allows theme to charge exorbitant tuition, even if a student can’t use the library because a bunch of Hamas supporters have it occupied.

This writer then goes on to say that many democracy scholars can point out specific actions Trump is taking that are similar to tactics used by autocrats, but only mentions one. He cites the example that the FCC is investigating all the major broadcast outlets except for FOX. Because FOX is pro-Trump. But why are they being investigated? Well, the author of the story does mention that CBS is being investigated for the way 60 Minutes edited a Kamala Harris interview just before the election. Trump’s also suing CBS for the act, in addition to the FCC looking into it. PBS and NPR are accused of breaking underwriting rules by airing commercials, which it’s not allowed to do. These are legitimate inquiries, but the story allows the Princeton professor to chime in again, by saying that it’s the same thing that happened in Hungary, along with a photograph of people protesting the government in Hungary. I thing Donald Trump has every right to put pressure on the media that played an active role in trying to undermine his every move. Trump was a media darling until he ran for president. Since then, we’ve been able to witness just how biased the media is toward the left-wing of American policy, and it ain’t just a little bit. The networks are not living up to their responsibilities when it comes to serving the public interest, and need to be held accountable. They’ll claim it’s an infringement on their free speech, but lying to the people when you have an FCC license to operate on the public airwaves is not protected free speech. American trust in the media is the lowest it’s ever been. We know why, but they can’t seem to figure it out. Or they don’t feel like they should have to, because they know they’re right and there’s nothing we can do about it. I say if they can’t figure it out and fix it, they don’t deserve a broadcast license.

Another way we’re heading toward authoritarianism is when opposing the government comes at a cost, according to one of the experts. The example they use is the Trump executive order “barring lawyers with firms he doesn’t like from entering government buildings…”

What he doesn’t tell you is that these lawyers aren’t barred from government contracts because the president doesn’t like them. He might actually thing some of them are good lawyers. But it was these lawyers who took part in the lawfare that tried to keep Donald Trump from running for president again. These are the lawyers who deliberately twisted the law and did the research for ways to bring down a probable candidate for the highest office in the land. These lawyers aren’t being isolated because Donald Trump doesn’t like them, but because they took part in one of the most diabolical smear campaigns in American history in an attempt to deprive the voting public of the option they knew many would support. But according to NPR, it’s just because Trump doesn’t like them. And that’s what many people believe because they can’t see through the lies of the media. Or maybe because of Democrat policies, they can’t read it. Well, I can, and I see it, and that’s why I’m pointing it out.

But this guy’s not done. He claims that fear of government retribution is spreading through society. Is it? Maybe it is. Like when flood victims with Trump signs in their yards were skipped over by FEMA representatives? That kind of retribution? Or when the FBI investigates mothers at school board meetings who are opposed to progressive curriculum? 

I’ll point out here that those lawyers weren’t isolated because they opposed the government. Donald Trump wasn’t part of the government when all the lawfare was happening. And they bet that he wouldn’t be again. They lost the bet, and now they pay the price. You can’t claim they opposed the government when they were working on behalf of the Biden administration against a possible opponent.

The only reason this article was written was to try to scare people into believing our country will be destroyed by the current president. It’s a lengthy story with a plethora of comparisons and hypotheticals that could only lead to one conclusion. The United States of America is destined to become an authoritarian regime under Donald Trump. Most of the political scientists and professors and policy experts agree, and the survey proves it!

But you know what’s missing from the story? Any solutions. None of the experts seem to have any sense of urgency in their statements or warnings. There are no opposing viewpoints, only acknowledgments that we’re headed in the wrong direction, toward authoritarianism, and it’s only because of who’s president. Maybe they’re not worried because they know something else. Something that makes this whole article irrelevant. We still live in the United States of America. We are governed by the same constitution that has guided us since the 1700’s. There is no way a single person can overthrow the government from the inside. In order to become an authoritarian government, the constitution would have to be changed. As the congress stands right now, that won’t happen. Even if the Republicans had a two-thirds majority in the house and senate, I still doubt they’d want to change the constitution to change our form of government something other than what it is now.

Clearly, the author used a distorted form of polling to create a reason to try to scare people. To create a false narrative that either instills fear or perpetuates the negative emotions the media has worked so hard to create when it comes to conservative values and specifically, Donald Trump. 

But just when you think the story can’t get any more misleading, the author, in the next to last paragraph, claims that Donald Trump was reelected with just under half the popular vote.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “As of 7:01 a.m. ET on Nov. 25, Trump has 76,838,984 popular votes and Harris has 74,327,659. Trump leads Harris by approximately 2.5 million votes.”

So, the author of the NPR story is either mistaken or still in denial.

Let’s Go Back 

1787

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the United States; George Washington presides. Today, just about everything the current administration tries to accomplish on behalf of the American people is called a “constitutional crisis” by many on the left, especially progressives. In fact, the phrase “constitutional crisis” is thrown around so much lately that it’s kind of lost any meaning. Just a couple weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claimed that the constitutional crisis he’s been warning us about for so long has finally arrived. What was he talking about? He claims the Trump administration is trying to intimidate judges who don’t agree with him. So, it’s okay for a judge to criticize the president’s actions, but it’s not okay for the president to criticize a judges actions, according to the a top Senator. The same Senator that threatened Supreme Court Justices after the overturning of Roe v Wade. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer spent time in the White House on President Trump’s 100th day in office. Afterward, she claimed that “we've got an administration that is just blatantly violating court orders.” She didn’t specify any particular court orders that were being violated.

Just because two of the three branches of government don’t agree on a subject doesn’t create a constitutional crisis. There isn’t even a clear definition of a constitutional crisis. But the left loves to use the term in order to create the illusion that there is some type of crisis where there is none. Ironically, perhaps the largest example of what could have been called a constitutional crisis was when Joe Biden let tens of millions of people enter the country illegally, claiming only Congress had the power to do anything about it. But I never heard any Democrat crying about a constitutional crisis while that was happening. Now we know the Biden Administration purposely created the crisis that we’re trying to deal with now, and the judges who are getting in the way are the only constitutional crisis we have at the moment.

1813

Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As far as I can tell, this may be the first use of Politically correct language in the United States! It was later renamed the Frankford Asylum for the Insane. Their mission statement said the hospital was "To provide for the suitable accommodation of persons who are or may be deprived of the use of their reason, and the maintenance of an asylum for their reception, which is intended to furnish, besides requisite medical aid, such tender, sympathetic attention as may soothe their agitated minds, and under the Divine Blessing, facilitate their recovery." Still in business, today it’s called Friends Hospital. Hardly a descriptive name at all.

1891

Pope Leo XIII defends workers’ rights and property rights in the encyclical Rerum Novarum, the beginning of modern Catholic social teaching. More Pope news just ahead.

1935

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith (founders of Alcoholics Anonymous) meet for the first time in Akron, Ohio, at the home of Henrietta Siberling. Those people tell the best stories…..

1948

Israel is declared to be an independent state and a provisional government is established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. And the attacks continue today, but not from exactly the same adversaries. Israel now has peace agreements with many arab countries, including those participating in the Abraham Accords, spearheaded by President Trump during his first term. Just since the horrific attack by Hamas more than a year ago, Israel has come under attack from Iran, Hezbolla, the Huthis’s, and other groups. Unfortunately, even in the United States, college campuses are hostile ground for Jewish students. The Biden administration let it slide, but the Trump administration is enforcing the law and even exporting students who participate in violence or act in ways that are detrimental to U.S. foreign policy. Another constitutional crisis, according to the left-leaning politicians.

1962

Douglas MacArthur delivers his Duty, Honor, Country valedictory speech at the United States Military Academy. Here are two paragraphs of what he said that day: 

Duty, Honor, Country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points: to build courage when courage seems to fail; to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith; to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.

The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.

1981

Mehmet Ali Ağca attempts to assassinate Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. The Pope is rushed to the Agostino Gemelli University Polyclinic to undergo emergency surgery and survives. Last week, the world got a new Pope, following the passing of Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV was introduced as the first ever American-born Pope. Born and raised in Chicago, I kind of expected him to come out on the balcony and say, “What are you lookin’ at?” Instead he said, “Peace be with you.” Despite being an American, his first address as Pope included three languages, Latin, Italian and Spanish, but not a single word of English.

Speed of sound

email liner

You may not know this, but I’m actually reading to you right now. I know it sounds like I’m just talking, but I’m not. I did write what I’m reading to you, so I’m not copying anybody or plagiarizing. But I want it to sound like I’m just talking, so I write in the way that I would speak it. Then I read it as if I’m just saying it. There’s no way I could memorize a 40-minute program or just spout one off the top of my head. Some people can, and they’re probably better at talking than they are at writing. Not everybody is good at writing, and not everybody is good at talking. Neither of those things are much of a surprise. But was is surprising to me is that 48-million American adults can’t read above an elementary school level, if at all. Twenty percent of us can’t read. I can’t even express how much this breaks my heart.

So, why are so many of us illiterate? Some never had the opportunity to learn, others have learning disabilities that hadn’t been overcome. But a story by Larissa Phillips for The Free Press, suggests that the methods of teaching how to read have gone off course. Children haven’t been taught how to read in a constructive and meaningful way. A way that makes sense and lasts for the rest of your life. And it seems that the methods used over the last 50 years or so are even less useful when it comes to teaching adults how to read.

As you listen to this, I don’t know if you’re able to read or not, but for those who can, imagine not being able to order from a menu without pictures of the food. Imagine not being able to figure out how to pay for your parking at a machine where you have to enter your license plate number because you can’t understand the instructions. There are so many things the literate take for granted. One out of every five of us can’t take anything for granted. Like reading the instructions on a prescription, or filling out a job application. 

If you’re someone who can’t read, maybe you just didn’t like school, or got caught up with the wrong crowd, or maybe your school did a poor job of teaching how to read, I encourage you to learn. Reading opens up a whole new world. Not just of opportunities and pleasure. Once you learn to read, you’ll notice words are everywhere, and you’ll know what they mean, and the whole world will make more sense. Street signs will have meaning. You’ll know to look for Mulberry Street instead of counting the blocks and hoping you get it right. And now you know you’re not alone. There are 48-million Americans out there just like you. 

There will be some readers and non-readers who will think, “Well, if they’ve made it this far without knowing how to read, it must not be that important to them. You don’t need to know how to read in order to dig a ditch or carry something.” While that last part may be true, it only addresses the needs of someone else. It doesn’t speak to the quality of life that comes with the ability to read. And it’s not just being able to tell what street you’re passing, or telling the waiter what you’d like instead of pointing at something on the menu when you’re not even sure what it is.

It’s being able to read the news. It’s being able to find out what your local school board is doing, or that there was a drug bust across the street from where you live. It’s being able to read a storm warning at the bottom of your television screen.

But the most important thing that comes with the ability to read is the ability to write. Because when you can read, you know enough to write stuff down, even if you don’t spell it right. Once you start writing stuff down, you have a recorded history. Until you learn to read and write, your entire being is only viewed from the outside. But when you gain the ability to write down your thoughts, you attain a higher place in history. There is now a record of you, your ideas, opinions, grocery lists, apologies, for all the world to see. On a more personal level, you can now write a love letter to someone you cherish after thinking about how you feel and taking the time to find the perfect words to express your emotions. I beg you to take the time and energy required to gain the skill of reading if you haven’t already done so. 

I’ll remind you. I’m reading this right now. I wrote it, I’m reading it to you. Learn to read, and you’ll have the ability to do what I’m doing. You don’t have to let your thoughts just run around in your head, you can write them down and then share them with the world. But don’t start a podcast right away. Start out with a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, or a statement on a social media site. When you’re ready to try podcasting, drop me a text from the homepage and I’ll tell you how to get started.

Podcasting aside, the issue here is reading, and the fact that 20 percent of American adults can’t do it well.

The good news is, we now have some date on which to judge which methods of teaching work best. As it turns out, it’s the method they were still teaching when I was a kid. The story says the methods started changing around 1980. That’s the year I graduated from high school. My reading habits and comprehension methods were already well ingrained in me by the time textbook publishers and school boards started trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. 

As has often been the case in education, as well as other things, in an effort to hasten a process, we skip some of the basics. And that’s what happened to reading education. Instead of learning it from the ground up, letter by letter, rule by rule, and being told when we were wrong, educators tried to find shortcuts to the end result. The problem is, they never acknowledged that the end result they were seeking wasn’t going to be achieved. They just kept pushing more progressive teaching methods instead of going back to what always worked.

The same thing happens with math. I probably went through three different experimental ways of teaching math between 7th and 12th grades. You know what still works? An abacus and a slide rule.

The same goes for how to teach English and how to read. It’s all in the basics. Learn the letters and what they do, and how they’re put together to form words. Then you can read any word in the English language, and many other languages, too. You may not know what it means, but you don’t have to know what it means to be able to read it. Hell, I’m old and I still come across words I have to look up. But once you learn more about how words are made, you can often figure out what they mean by how they’re put together or the other words around them. And that’s okay. Reading is a lifelong experience, not something learn once and know everything. So, if you want to learn how to read, find someone who is willing to start from the beginning, and don’t be offended or ashamed by where you need to begin. Where you begin is irrelevant. Start with the basics and your progression will be accelerated as you learn.

When you can’t read, you can’t contribute to society in a way that you otherwise could, and right now, we need everybody to contribute. By contribute, I mean have a voice in our government. How can you vote if you can’t read? How can you stay aware of the issues we confront? How can you form an opinion or an idea if you can’t read a proposed law or a court decision? The real advantage to literacy is power. The power to make up your own mind and tell your government how you feel. Too often our politicians take advantage of our ignorance or try to fool us with semantics. The more you know about words, the more tools you’ll have to see the true meaning of what they say. Even if you don’t have to read it. Knowing how to read will also help you better understand what you hear.

There’s an old saying that goes, “Knowledge is power.” That’s still true. The foundation of knowledge is knowing how to read. The foundation of reading is knowing the alphabet. It’s not rocket surgery, it just takes some time to grasp the concept and then off you go! Once you master the ABC’s, the only thing stopping you is another alphabet in another language. But that’s okay. What’s important is that you have a voice in our elected government and that you know why you’re voting for someone and you came to that conclusion on your own, based on what you read and what you learned and what you know about the issues and how they make you feel. If you can’t read or would like to get better at it, there is a place the story says you might find some resources to help. It’s called the Volunteer Literacy Project. If you go to the transcript of this podcast and click on the blue letters at the bottom of page 2, it might take you there. I’ll have to try it myself to see if it works. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how you would get there if you can’t read, so maybe have someone you trust help you.

https://www.thefp.com/p/a-fifth-of-american-adults-cant-read-i-teach-them?utm_campaign=email-post&r=2b93rn&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2025. Thank you for putting your ear to The Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.