It appears Republicans are going to give it another shot. Several GOP lawmakers have introduced bills to defund National Public Radio (NPR) after new revelations about the network’s obvious bias in favor of Democrats.

Folks on the right have long complained about the fact that NPR, like most other legacy media, functions as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. They rightly argue that the government should not be funding any news outlet that promotes a political agenda. However, such legislation is unlikely to pass. Still, Republican lawmakers are pushing bills that would take a miracle to pass, given the current makeup of Congress.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., introduced similar legislation to prohibit federal funding for NPR, including barring local public radio stations from utilizing money from federal grants to “purchase content or pay dues to NPR.”

Over the years, Republicans have made multiple attempts to defund NPR, citing similar complaints. The latest outrage follows an editorial from former NPR Editor Uri Berliner, who criticized the news source claiming it had “lost America’s trust.”

Berliner published an article earlier this month in which he highlighted NPR’s bias and how it played out behind the scenes. He referred to the outlet’s refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and its insistence on pushing the Russia collusion hoax as examples demonstrating how NPR’s leadership was working to help Democrats politically.

In response to Berliner’s revelations, NPR suspended him. He later resigned, slamming the news outlet’s CEO, Katherine Maher, “whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” that he discussed in his article.

Rep. Banks characterized Maher as “a radical, left-wing activist who doesn’t believe in free speech or objective journalism.”

Rep. Good argued that “It is bad enough that so many media outlets push their slanted views instead of reporting the news,” and said, “it is even more egregious for hardworking taxpayers to be forced to pay for it.”

Defunding NPR is a laudable goal, given the fact that it is a propaganda outlet being funded by the state. But this current initiative is a legislative version of tilting at windmills. For starters, Democrats control the White House and the Senate. There are not enough Republicans in either chamber to override President Joe Biden’s inevitable veto even if the bills moved that far.

The fact of the matter is that Democrats in the Senate and President Biden wouldn’t dare to strip NPR of funding, considering that it continues to propagandize to its audience on their behalf. It is also worth noting that government funding for broadcasting companies would be quite low on the list of voter priorities.

While many, if not most, Americans would agree that it is wholly inappropriate for the state to shell out taxpayer dollars to a blatantly biased news outlet, the issue is nowhere near as top-of-mind as inflation, continued aid being sent to other countries, and other critical problems Americans are facing.

Of course, it is also worth asking whether Republican lawmakers actually want to defund NPR or if they are merely posturing. Even without Berliner’s article, we already knew that the outlet was advancing the Democrats’ agenda. Why didn’t Republicans defund the institution when they controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress?

There might come a time when NPR is finally deprived of government funds. Unfortunately, that time is not now.