Whatever the details of each particular controversy in which NPR has embroiled itself in recent years, its more fundamental problem is the blatant left-wing bias saturating its reporting. Turn on any NPR radio station, and you'll figure this out in less than 10 minutes. Listening to their stories is as predictable as hearing a tune for the first time; you might not predict the every note, but you know exactly how the melody is going to resolve before you hear it. And with that as a primary commitment, it can sometimes be difficult to stay within the bounds of what is strickly true.                                       It's tempting to respond by insisting that the federal government defund NPR. But it turns out even the name "National Public Radio" has very little truth in it anymore. NPR now operates largely on donations, including from outfits like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Influence Watchers reports, "Presently, NPR receives funding for less than 1% of its budget directly from the federal government, but receives almost 10% of its budget from federal, state and local governments indirectly."  That indirect funding comes in the form of grants to local stations, many of which are linked to universities. While the government could cut off up to 10% of NPR's budget, it can't turn its propaganda off at the spigot.            One reason why NPR pretends to "launch" a disinformation team, subsidized by government funding, this summer may be because the last effort to launch a publicaly funded disinformation team flopped so spectacularly. When the Department of Homeland Security proposed to launch a "Disinformation Governance Board, " conservatives mocked the effort to shame, dubbing it the Ministry of Truth. It's a good thing, too, as whistleblower documents eventually revealed that everything the government publicly claimed about the board was false.    Leftists may figure that NPR is a safer bet, because the government doesn't actually control enough of the funding to stop the effort from proceeding.  The left wants to control speach, and they believe "countering disinformation" is the best way to pitch that un-american idea.  So they will keep trying as many times as it takes.                                                            JOSHUA ARNALD - Staff writer at The Washington Stand