Republicans killing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a crime that should haunt the party forever.

It's terrible that the Republican Party has shut down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This should hang around their neck forever and if the Dems had any guts they'd run on it.

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

Worse, it is shut down on a lie, the lie that NPR and PBS produced biased news. Public broadcasting provides essential information to communities and builds informed voters. Their reporting of the facts might hurt Republicans, but only because what the Republicans are doing has and will hurt Americans. This is another of the endless bullshit measures where the cowards of the GOP must hide from factual reporting of what they're doing.

This is a crime that will hurt every American. Without CPB, children will have a harder time learning, radio stations that provide daily entertainment will have a harder time running, and the news will have a harder time getting out. The end of CPB represents a major shift in the news landscape, and a darker future for the American people.

Don't forget this moment because what was once built won't be re-created so easily. This is a major change that will echo into the future long after Donald Trump is dead.

CPB not only served as a funding middleman between Congress and public media stations but also negotiated music rights and procured technical infrastructure on behalf of the stations. That leaves an open question as to what entity, if any, will fill that gap.

The closure was announced one day after the Senate Appropriations Committee released a bill that would zero out funding for CPB.