9 ms·

The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"

211 points by SubiculumCode 2y ago

bryant 2y ago
Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? The courts are themselves slow and ultimately roll up to allies of the despot. People say that the midterms are crucial, but the midterms are only likely to be won if Democrats truly unify and apply winning strategies. Sadly the only winning strategies now seem to involve telling stories, not necessarily the truth. And all of that essentially admits that the next two years are forfeit anyway.
- taeric 2y ago
  Strictly, sevearal things. First, plurality. Second, they voted for Congress, as well. Where are they? Third, they trust in the entire system, even if their trust has been manipulated by some agents. That is why we are supposed to have checks and balances.
  - lazide 2y ago
    The same people voted the folks into Congress too.
    - slater 2y ago
      One can only hope for a blue tsunami for the midterms, though I'm not getting my hopes up.
      - jfengel 2y ago
        I can't imagine why 2026 should be any different than 2024. He's doing exactly what he promised. Those who voted for him will still be in favor, at least compared to the alternative. Voters who stayed home will still see no difference between the parties.
        lazide 2y ago
        Yup. No one can claim ignorance the second time.
        amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        As a wise man once said "it's the economy stupid." If their actions tank the economy, which seems a distinct possibility, things could change drastically.
        lazide 2y ago
        Only if they don’t find a suitable scapegoat in time. I still hear people blaming Biden.
        giardini 2y ago
        As they should! Everything you see around you was provided by Biden. Trump is only starting to make changes.
        lazide 2y ago
        I’m pretty sure Biden had as little to do with gas (or Egg) prices as Trump has.
        amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        The President tends to get the praise or blame, no matter who actually did things. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply, and probably has more to do with inflation than anybody else.
        giardini 2y ago
        Biden was producing lots of gas in the later part of his term!8-))
        giardini 2y ago
        Cherry-picking!
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        Only possible if they reinvent themselves and dump as many 20/80 issues as possible.
    - analog31 2y ago
      Democrats need a super-majority to swing either the House or Senate.
    - dangus 2y ago
      Sure, but the whole idea of representative democracy (a Republic[1]) is supposed to be that Congress and other elected members of government are supposed to be immune from the trappings of mob rule. In other words, the excuse you are making is that people voted for the government to start doing borderline illegal or at the very least highly misguided and self-destrctive things that are against the interest of their constituents, and that because the people want those dumbass destructive things the government should comply with those wishes. That logic only goes so far when we consider the context of the very same government that also denies the people things that are far more popular. For example, 62% of Americans are in favor of universal healthcare, but we aren't getting that. 82% of Americans are in favor of paid maternity leave. And yet, our lawmakers have not delivered to the American people those demands. But here we all are implying that 51% of the country deciding they want to dismantle the US executive branch is enough public support to just go ahead and do so with impunity. The 2024 Trump presidency is, believe it or not, already a historically unpopular administration by the objective polling numbers. Why should they get to dismantle the government with such a weak mandate? Frankly, it's bullshit. [1] This is coincidentally the excuse that every Republican I've ever met including my Fox News Dad makes for the electoral college and gerrymandered congressional districts amplifying rural MAGA votes so that states with majority Democrat constituents are ruled by Republican statehouses and so that Trump and Bush got to win presidential elections without winning the popular vote.
      - lazide 2y ago
        “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken Elections matter. Don’t think I’m a Trump Fan. I’ve been warning about this exact thing since before the first election. But people had to go and stick the butter knife in the wall socket anyway, and they clearly need to learn the hard way what happens. What do you expect? A coup? I’m sure you know as well as anyone how that would go right now. Too few people are willing to believe what is actually happening right in front of them. And frankly, wouldn’t that just be being the enemy?
    - jghn 2y ago
      Let's not forget that the house is artificially capped [1]. It should have a much larger membership. The senate already biases towards land over people. And more and more the house does as well. [1] https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/ https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/Th...
      - throwaway48476 2y ago
        The Senate represents sovereign states.
        jghn 2y ago
        yes it does. The house does not. The senate was always set up to artificially prop up smaller (by population) states. The House was not. But we've artificially capped the House. Now they both favor lower population states.
        lazide 2y ago
        Those states would never have signed onto the constitution without the senate. It’s not ‘artificial’. It’s a core part of why the USA came to be.
        throwaway48476 2y ago
        Articles of confederation. This is also why the southern states were called the confederacy.
        jghn 2y ago
        Why do you seem to believe anything I'm talking about involves the Senate mattering? I've discussed how the House had its membership artificially capped roughly 150 years into this country's history
        lazide 2y ago
- llm_trw 2y ago
  Decentralise government so a single election doesn't destroy everything. In short: states rights.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Interesting to see this come up so often I. the context of the Democratic party. It sure seems like our two parties have flipped again.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      It's not terribly interesting. There have always been two strains of thought for the Democrats in the US. Once has been that we must move the whole country in the right direction kicking and screaming - this has been the ideology that has been in ascendency since Kennedy. The other that we must be allowed to be as progressive as possible without interference from the Federal government. That's not been in vouge since the end of the new deal. I'm completely in the second camp and would move back to the US if it were possible to get it adopted at the national level.
  - EdwardDiego 2y ago
    Or, reform your Presidency to be a constitutional role only, with executive power devolved to the party or parties of your elected representatives that is able to show the head of state that they have the numbers to govern. E.g. like the President of Ireland, or the King of England (via the Governor General proxy) in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Also, the Electoral College is an archaic anachronism, and may I recommend a system of proportional representation? Devolution to "states rights" is exactly that, a devolution.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      What works for a country the size of a New York neighbourhood doesn't work for a country the size of a continent.
      - 2y ago
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  Many actions the administration has taken are illegal. Not sure if those related to NIH are, but if they’ve been firing people, odds are good, since they’ve been doing that wrong most of the time it seems like. Congress could change the laws, but they haven’t. Lots of this junk is simply against the law. The courts are moving relatively fast, as such things go, but it takes time. Congress is supposed to control spending and taxation. The administration is claiming a ton of powers related, especially, to spending. Various actions they’ve taken certainly violate the constitution and laws that exist to ensure Congress’ budget isn’t simply ignored by a president. This is another matter for the courts… unless the Supreme Court decides to rule that the radical and unprecedented far-right “unitary executive” interpretation is correct, in which case we’ve just entered a new and far worse era of American government, and it’s all “legal”. I give it 50/50 they do that.
  - ivraatiems 2y ago
    We're well past the point where something being illegal or not matters whatsoever. I'm surprised federal court rulings are being listened to at all, really. I'm not sure why they are.
    - selectodude 2y ago
      They really aren’t. Lots of contempt of court happening by the executive branch.
  - closewith 2y ago
    Are you sure that the rule of law in the US is strong enough to avert a dictatorship?
    - jachee 2y ago
      If the military upholds their oath to the Constitution, we should never have a dictatorship.
      - btilly 2y ago
- jghn 2y ago
  > when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person You're not wrong. However the portrayal of a mandate is a bit of a media fiction. He didn't have notably more votes than any other recent president.
  - dralley 2y ago
    In fact, he had less margin than any election since 2000. Even Hillary in 2016 had a larger popular vote margin of victory than Trump 2024 despite having lost the electoral college.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      So, Trump in 2016, not 2024, was actually the lowest (negative, in fact) margin for a winning candidate since 2000 (and was actually lower—more negative—than 2000’s also-negative margin.)
    - jghn 2y ago
      Indeed. And yet with certain previous presidents we've been told that because the margin of victory is so slim, they're already a lame duck. But here, it's a mandate.
    - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
      You seem to be fixated on a vote system that we do not use.
      - jghn 2y ago
        Despite what people say, land does vote. And you're right: land voted for Trump. But that's not what's being discussed in this subthread. The media portray Trump as having a popular vote mandate. That's not true
  - analog31 2y ago
    Also, the House can't claim a public mandate due to gerrymandering.
  - 2y ago
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  True that. But I don't recall Trump campaigning on this policy. In fact he's putting into play Project 2025, the thing that he explicitly disclaimed knowledge of prior to the elections. It's a sad sign of the state of US politics that this, which would cause outrage in the past, barely merits a mention amidst all the other rage bait things he's doing. His barmy executive orders, DOGE, that disgraceful display with Zelenskyy reminds me of the Wizard of Oz trying to distract people from the man behind the curtain.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Trump really is 1984 writ large. > In fact he's putting into play Project 2025, the thing that he explicitly disclaimed knowledge of prior to the elections. He did explicitly disclaim knowledge and awareness. And he explicitly, previously, called them out as some "good people who have some very strong ideas that would be very good for the country". What is amazing, sadly, is just how little this impacts or affects him.
- tw04 2y ago
  > Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? Impeachment. In a functioning government. Because the elected person campaigned on not doing any of these things.
  - rezonant 2y ago
    He campaigned on doing exactly these things
    - afavour 2y ago
      When did Trump pledge to destroy the NIH? He did also specficially disavow Project 2025 and is now enacting a whole bunch of it.
      - bagels 2y ago
        When he brought the person who wrote the forward to Project 2025 on as VP? How about when he nominated Russell Vought as Director of OMB in 2020?
        mullingitover 2y ago
        Irrelevant. He disavowed it. He might be a well known liar, and people might’ve been stupid to believe him when he disavowed Project 2025, but his campaign did not promise to enact these policies.
      - shakna 2y ago
        He said he wouldn't in statements, however every single one of his proposed budgets included cuts that would do so. https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/donald-trumps-2024-campaign-promises-heres-his-vis/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/donald-trumps...
        afavour 2y ago
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - PKop 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - EdwardDiego 2y ago
      They're not advocating for violence, they're answering the question of "what's left?" And, given the American justification of the right to bear arms, such a response is coded into American culture's DNA. Unless all the 2FA proponents were lying about needing those guns to prevent tyranny?
      - PKop 2y ago
        Bullshit. They are pathologizing the democratic result of the last election as well as promoting extremist rhetoric that ignores the fact people can vote if they don't agree, but it is not acceptable to claim a president and his administration can't operate within Constitutional rights to run the executive branch else "violence" is necessary and justified. No, the 2nd amendment does not codify terrorism because your side lost a vote that will be run again in four years.
        bongodongobob 2y ago
        This government doesn't represent any sane informed person with a rudimentary understanding of even just the last 50 years of geopolitics. The system is clearly broken. First past the post voting is mathematically stupid. When the system no longer serves the people, violence has been the solution for the entire history of humanity. You know who doesn't like violence and prefers sign holding? The people with the boot on your throat. In 4 years, we will be given another "choice" handed to us by the business class that serves their interests, if we're lucky. We are going down a very dangerous road, and it's not one that can be fixed by drafting a nice bill or focusing on local politics.
- nielsbot 2y ago
  FWIW a lot of people didn't vote for this even if they voted for Trump and the GOP.
  - andrewflnr 2y ago
    That would be a cowardly excuse if anyone used it. It was clear enough what Trump is.
  - MVissers 2y ago
    I mean, if you re-elect the guy that tried to forcibly stay in power last time, I'm not sure what else to say... Zero sympathy for Americans that voted for this and the ones that stayed home. I feel bad for the ones that voted Kamala and for the West.
    - motorest 2y ago
      > I mean, if you re-elect the guy that tried to forcibly stay in power last time, I'm not sure what else to say... You're arguing what you think would happen if Trump was elected. OP is saying something different. He's saying the among the people who voted for Trump, some believed something else would happen and they might feel defrauded.
  - jghn 2y ago
    No, they did. Absolutely nothing about what's happening is a surprise. Anyone claiming otherwise is either lying or so uneducated that they shouldn't be voting.
    - nielsbot 2y ago
      There are plenty of examples of people who wanted to vote conservative but "didn't have time to do the research" and now they're about to be caught up in the billionaire looting of the government. Low information voters, people busy with their jobs, lots of ads and propaganda.. and voila. That said, both the Dems and the GOP are there doing the bidding of lobbyists and the wealthy... if we had an actual populist party in the US we wouldn't have ended up here. At least, not so quickly.
- D13Fd 2y ago
  It’s not clear what good the midterms can do. It appears likely that the Supreme Court will hold that the president has the power to make these cuts regardless of any laws passed by congress. And even if he didn’t have that power already, he cannot be prosecuted for any official act, and he can pardon his subordinates at will. Beyond that, any action taken by congress is going to be reliant on individuals in the executive branch to execute, and the president can fire them at will until he finds someone who declines to follow the law. The only thing Congress could do is impeach the president and remove him from office, but that seems unlikely when roughly half the country is ecstatic about what he is doing.
  - jmcgough 2y ago
    > roughly half the country is ecstatic about what he is doing A number of his actions are wildly unpopular. The Jan 6th Pardons, and his pro-Putin agenda. His polling is historically poor for a month into a president's term, and there are large protests around the country. In another month, his polling will be completely underwater.
    - jiggawatts 2y ago
      Realistically, that won’t matter. He can’t be reelected, so he’s free to do as he likes, irrespective of public opinion.
    - arp242 2y ago
      "Only" 58% oppose the pardons according to [1]. I mean, it's a majority, but it's not what I'd call "wildly unpopular". It was always going to be opposed by a vast majority of Democrat voters, so relatively few Republican voters oppose it. I find it rather concerning. Back in the day much was said about Bush's "historically low" approval ratings too. It was somewhat satisfying to see, but in the end it didn't really seem to matter much. He still got re-elected. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-starts-new-term-with-47-approval-jan-6-pardons-unpopular-reutersipsos-poll-2025-01-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-starts-new-term-with-...
      - 2y ago
- ivraatiems 2y ago
  Frankly, I am not at all convinced any further elections in the US will be free or fair given who is currently in power and what they've openly said about elections and what they want to do to them. The only real functional way forward at this point is some form of mass protest or resistance, which I see as unlikely to occur (and which I am not necessarily advocating for here on HN). Barring that, the reality is that scientific progress will move away from the US and towards our enemies, and we will just have to live with the consequences of the choices we made.
  - motorest 2y ago
    > Frankly, I am not at all convinced any further elections in the US will be free or fair given who is currently in power and what they've openly said about elections and what they want to do to them. The last one doesn't seem to have been as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_disrupt_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_di...
  - bbor 2y ago
    I appreciate the perspective, and I know it's trite, but it's important: how would you feel about a resident of 1933 Germany writing your comment? Some good people fled, true, but staying and complying because mass protest seems "unlikely" is almost definitely something posterity will frown upon -- not to mention the rest of the world. I think that's something that should give one pause. Remember, mass protest to (push congress to) oust an authoritarian executive has never happened before in the USA -- but we've also never had an authoritative executive to anywhere near this extent before.
    - btilly 2y ago
      FDR was more extreme than Trump so far. For instance consider banning private ownership of gold by executive order. Mind you, Trump could still declare himself dictator. But based on what's happened so far? FDR was more extreme.
      - 2y ago
- mikeyouse 2y ago
  Yeah there isn't much to do -- the midterms are the next best option. Nobody voted for this.. Trump won with a narrow plurality, not even a majority of the votes and denied all knowledge of the Project 2025 plan that's been in full effect since Jan 20th. Congress has completely abdicated their Constitutional mandate to control the purse and the executive branch is illegally impounding billions of dollars. It really is a constitutional crisis. The 'right' way to do this would be to draw up a budget (not a CR) that closes NIH and USAID and whatever else they're so desperate to destroy - but that would take 60 votes in the Senate and would subject them to months of terrible press while they negotiated it, so instead they're just ceding all authority to the President and Elon and letting them take a sledgehammer to our collective government. Sheer embarrassment.
- bbor 2y ago
  A) The answer is impeachment -- regardless of partisan policy discussions on what we should do with these agencies, there is a strong legal argument that overruling congress via impoundment and/or the actions discussed here violate the constitutions most basic precepts. Our founders, for better or worse, including one escape valve for such a situation: congress reasserting its power via impeachment. I know recent history makes it hard to imagine a successful impeachment+conviction when both chambers are controlled by the president's party, but that doesn't change anything; there is literally no other legal path to reigning in an authoritative executive, especially with the 2024 presidential immunity ruling. Party bonds are strong, but at a certain point, even the most loyal congressperson will start to resent being made into a rubber-stamp like the legislatures of Russia & Hungary have been. B) I really don't think the global scene backs up the idea that truth isn't effective -- there's lots of complex things going on, and some amount of emotional propaganda is always necessary, but we should never abandon the truth. Regardless of how effective it is in the short term, basing a political project on lies means it has no core, and can end up corrupted/way off track in short order.
  - torstenvl 2y ago
    > there is a strong legal argument that overruling congress via impoundment and/or the actions discussed here violate the constitutions most basic precepts No there isn't. The text of the Constitution says the opposite: it makes appropriation a necessary condition for expenditures, but omits any clause making it a sufficient one. And the only case law on this issue is Train v. New York, which assiduously avoids ruling on the separation of powers issue. So there is neither any basis in the Constitution itself nor any basis in case law for your contention.
    - bbor 2y ago
      What is the role of congress, if its enumerated powers do not imply that any of those things should actually happen...? Honest question. Are you honestly saying that there's an implied 100% veto available to the executive for anything done by congress?
      - deleted 2y ago
- motorest 2y ago
  > Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? As the article states, these actions are illegal and violate the US constitution. If "the people who decided to vote" expressed this decision, that decision would be implemented by an act of Congress to alter or eliminate these rules. Congress up until now passed no such law. Thus these changes bear no democratic or institutional support. If however you frame these series of events as an overthrow of the regime and the start of something entirely different then that's a different debate.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - noduerme 2y ago
    I read the parent as saying that a plurality of voters voted to circumvent the constitution and dismantle the republic, and therefore, a resulting despotism would just be democracy in action, so to speak. Caesar was elected consul. Hitler was elected chancellor. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Hamas in Gaza, came to power democratically on a platform of 'one election - which will be the last election'. Since the beginning of democracy, democracies have regularly voted themselves out of existence. It's a buggy feature. But democracy isn't the norm at all in history, and the likelihood here seems greater that America is regressing toward the mean than that it has something in its fiber capable of withstanding a hostìle takeover that no previous republic has had.
    - motorest 2y ago
      > I read the parent as saying that a plurality of voters voted to circumvent the constitution and dismantle the republic, and therefore, a resulting despotism would just be democracy in action, so to speak. From an outsider's point of view, that was not the people voted for. When repeatedly pressed on Project 2025, Trump distanced from it and reassured the American people those were just vicious rumors to denigrate him. The campaign was centered on how Biden was old and senile and responsible for every problem ranging from egg prices to Trump's retreat from Afghanistan. Trump's promises were that inflation would be eliminated, jobs would be created, and minority rights would cease to be a part of the US government agenda. What the Trump administration is implementing bears no resemblance to his program, and looks like a complete dismantlement of the United States of America, including a complete rejection of it's core values.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? If its just that, the other branches of government. Of course, Congress is not a remedy at the moment, though its conceivable they might move in response to popular pressure more easily than the White House. Failing that, history is full of examples of ad hoc remedies where a leader unmistakeably exercised authority in a way which upset people without any formal systemic remedy, some of which took the shape of legal process despite the absence of preexisting formal law, and some of which did not.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies Careful, you're spreading a little falsehood there, Trump got 49.81% which is not a majority. His first term was 46.09%. Every other winner of the past 6 Presidential elections got >50% except for him. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024
  - bryant 2y ago
    Yeah, I suppose I binned the "other" voters as no-votes, but thanks for pointing it out.
- sitkack 2y ago
  This attitude normalizes giving up, I sure hope that isn't your intention. The constitution is stronger than a narcissistic moron, these actions are illegal.
- dataflow 2y ago
  The only legal answer I'm aware of is the states setting up a Constitutional Convention. (Well, either that, or having the cabinet declare the president incapacitated.) Good luck getting the majority of the states or cabinet on board.
- afavour 2y ago
  I don't even know if I believe there's any chance of this myself but it's worth pointing out that Republicans currently have a House majority of... 2. It's unlikely but not inconceivable that a few house members could be persuaded to vote with Democrats to push back, simply because they're in a swing state and we keep seeing videos of very mad voters confronting their representatives. Anyone in a swing district interested in securing re-election should be considering it.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    What scares me is that even if a slim Pro-Sanity coalition exists in both houses, Trump can simply continue to violate the Constitution willy-nilly if a core of Republicans remain complicit and block removal from office. After all, we're not just talking about an illegal retroactive on-demand line-item veto here, but plenty of other data-points, like a President that has blanket-pardoned criminals who already violently attacked congress in his name. What's the plan for when the USPS suddenly has "breakdowns" or "misplaces" mail-in-ballots collected from certain districts? Or when IRS tax records from candidates are leaked to opposing conservative campaigns? Citizenships being "revoked" just enough to stop people from voting?
    - tastyfreeze 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Hah, is your Ministry of Truth so strong that you have already forgotten his past and contemporary crimes, so that the lack of new ones in the future renders him retroactively innocent? The man could keel over quite morally-blamelessly from a coronary tomorrow, and the record of words and deeds left behind would still be that of a crook, a corrupt politician, and a wannabe dictator. Mere inaction in a 78-year-old is not reform. If it were, A Christmas Carol would have been a much shorter story.
      - knowaveragejoe 2y ago
        "TDS" and "orange man bad" are thought terminating cliches at this point. Do try to understand that people's criticisms and concerns are not unfounded
- JoshTko 2y ago
  Midterms would be way to late
- Jimmc414 2y ago
  > Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? Support candidates that appeal to the electorate. Find common ground. Resist demonizing the opposition. Moderates shouldn’t have to choose between polarized extremes. If you are intellectually honest you may see the ripple effect created by unfairly shutting Bernie Sanders out of the democratic nomination in 2016 set the stage for this outcome .
  - afavour 2y ago
    While I agree about Bernie Sanders I really can't see the justification in describing Harris's candidacy as a "polarized extreme". Sanders is clearly more extreme than her. (I don't think he's extreme at all, just that he's further to the left)
    - Jimmc414 2y ago
      I wouldn’t call Kamala extreme per se. The extreme position is the doubling down on positions that don’t resonate with the electorate and labeling the opposition racist or traitorous instead of working to find common ground. One example of an extreme position dichotomy would be the choice between an unnecessarily porous border without transparency and mass deportation when the people would likely all agree on a steady stream of legal citizenship applications coming through the front door. Another instance might be that Americans would likely be largely in favor of trans rights if they weren’t bundled with allowing professional male combat athletes to unfairly dominate female participants. I think Americans crave common sense and it is nowhere to be found.
      - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        > allowing professional male combat athletes to unfairly dominate female participants Had this actually happened somewhere, or is it just a hypothetical? Like trans women assaulting cis women en masse in women's restrooms.
        2y ago
- sundaeofshock 2y ago
  He did not get a majority of the. He 49.8% of cast. It’s and about 30% of eligible voters. He does not have a mandate to destroy the US.
- foota 2y ago
  In all odds I think by the midterms we'll have seen: * A massive recession as a result of tariffs, job losses, pullback in federal spending (e.g,. on infrastructure), and general economic uncertainty. * A significant public health crisis (see measles in Texas for example) * Russia continuing to wage war on Ukraine, and possibly further conflicts around the world as the US withdraws from international peacekeeping.
  - smogcutter 2y ago
    Historically, authoritarian regimes have handled setbacks like these by scapegoating target minorities and other undesirables.
- a-dub 2y ago
  encourage all the laid off federal employees to move to the three special election counties, flip the house next month, use the house majority to push back on the most absurd/draconian moves, push harder at the midterms and try again two years later. long term, figure out a better politically independent structure (perhaps similar to the fed) for important institutions.
- breadwinner 2y ago
  > when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies No candidate got a majority of votes. A majority means more than 50% of the votes. In this case, the leading candidate only received 49.5%, which is a plurality, not a majority. What is really happening is that Billionaires are taking advantage of less educated voters by convincing them to vote against their self-interests. They do so by shifting focus to the "values and cultural issues" of the moment. In the past, it was gay marriage and abortion; today, it's trans kids and DEI. Once these issues dominate the conversation, little attention is paid to the real priorities and actions of these Billionaires: cutting funds to Medicaid, food stamps and other welfare programs, cuts to health insurance subsidies, cuts to education, cuts to medical research funding, cuts to development assistance to the poorest in the world and so on, all to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. What is the solution? Democrats should shift towards the center on the "values and cultural issues" in order to neutralize the conservative advantage, then they will be able to do things that the middleclass (and lower) cares about, such as healthcare and health research, education, consumer protections and so on, and make the Billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. The debate can't be on "values and cultural issues", whatever they are, because that plays into Republican strengths.
  - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
    I can't see the Democrats "shifting to the center" on trans kids when that will lead to more suicides when kids can't get their gender affirming care. That seems bad in every way.
    - breadwinner 2y ago
      You have to be smart about it. Don't make it the debate topic. You know how Trump disclaimed any knowledge of Project 2025 and after he became president, started executing on its vision? That's how you downplay a topic even though it is important to you.
- chasing 2y ago
  He's not a king, he's a public servant with a certain defined set of powers. Doesn't matter how many people voted for him or why.
- hayst4ck 2y ago
  We are deeply undemocratic right now. I can consent to differences of opinion on tax policy or government subsidies, but I can't consent to open betrayal of allies. I can't consent to the deliberate traumatiztion of the people who run the government so that unaccountable authority can be wielded without any checks or balances. I can't submit to literal deaths of people who are dependent on public healthcare and their children being robbed of their mother prematurely. I can't submit to a regulatory environment that puts rich Americans above the law. I can't consent to extreme changes in foreign policy or economic intervention that makes it so that our businesses don't have a predictable environment to operate in and foreign countries have no reason to believe our words. Our own declaration of independence lists our founding principles and tells us what we already know is the answer: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. The only answer we have left is to withdrawal consent.
- gigatexal 2y ago
  My sentiments exactly. The level of despair I’m feeling is palpable. Especially when I think that to counter Trump it will take a unified Democratic Party with consistent messaging … (unlikely)
- watwut 2y ago
  elections do not and should not mean that winner gets to ignore existing laws. They should nor mean the winner must operate unopposed without checks and balances. Tight victory means even less in terms of the mandate.
- bigfatkitten 2y ago
  Courts can't just step in when Congress decides not to do its job. Someone needs to sue to bring a matter before the courts. And in a lot of these cases, there just isn't a party who has standing to do so outside of the narrow scope of say, employment law.
SubiculumCode 2y ago
This is not just about new grants. NIH R01 grants are 5 years long. Each year however, the PI must submit a progress report, after which NIH signs off for another year of funding. That isn't happening. Labs which had years of funding lined up are suddenly contemplating layoffs, ending research midway. It is devastating, stupid, and frankly, I am beyond angry. And I am also seeing the possibility that everything I've worked so hard to achieve over the last 20 years go to pieces. We will have no king here, and we need to start remembering that fast.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  Nothing will change as long as his approval rating remains this high and protests consist of people writing angry blogs and comments.
  - rezonant 2y ago
    What about his approval rating is high right now? Quite the opposite, in fact.
    - spiderfarmer 2y ago
      I read it’s still at 47.9%. The US is filled with terrible people who cheer him on.
spiderfarmer 2y ago
The country is gripped by a fever, with 47.9% of the population basking in the heat. These individuals are indifferent to anything that doesn’t directly impact them. In fact, they quietly relish others’ complaints, seeing them as a sign that they’re somehow gaining the upper hand.
- esalman 2y ago
  47.9% of those who voted, not the total population. I am not a US citizen myself and I did not vote, for example.
  - spiderfarmer 2y ago
    It’s the most recent approval rating, sadly.
    - esalman 2y ago
      Understood. Honestly it makes sense. He promised his base something and he delivered in his first term, and he is going about it the same way this term. His base has good reasons to approve.
- justinator 2y ago
  You're not wrong -- you're absolutely correct. The problem is that these changes will start impacting the supporters of the victors as well, it's just that the Administration will blame some other entity. We've seen the playbook before. Not that I want anyone to lose their benefits, but perhaps there will be a sea change when people start losing their Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, Veteran benefits, just being able to forecast the weather reasonably well, flu vaccines, safe and competent air traffic control -- oh what else is on the chopping block...
  - jval43 2y ago
    This time around the changes might actually take effect quickly enough for people to feel them during the current administration. Compared to the previous playbook of making changes and then blaming the effects on the next administration. While taking credit for everything good kicking in from the previous administration of course.
0xy 2y ago
[flagged]
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  Citations needed. All the citations please.
  - brink 2y ago
    This is well known and established as fact. Go look it up.
    - EdwardDiego 2y ago
      Which part?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - conception 2y ago
    The citations I can find are on how NIH research got a vaccine! Sorry!
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    The director of the NIH testified to Congress that they funded gain of function research in Wuhan: https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-nih-repeatedly-refutes-ecohealth-alliance-president-dr-peter-daszaks-testimony-tabak-testimony-reveals-federal-grant-procedures-in-need-of-serious-reform/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-nih-repe... The OIG also made clear the NIH and EcoHealth did not have proper oversight: https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2023/the-national-institutes-of-health-and-ecohealth-alliance-did-not-effectively-monitor-awards-and-subawards-resulting-in-missed-opportunities-to-oversee-research-and-other-deficiencies/ https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2023/the-national-institutes... Edit: I missed the bit about the funding being specific to COVID 19. The CIA endorsed the lab leak hypothesis with low confidence, but I'm not sure that there's hard evidence that this particular funding corresponds directly with a particular strain that is believed to be what became COVID. If it was, I doubt any evidence that would prove it still exists.
a-dub 2y ago
if they were honestly trying to improve things, the cuts would be phased in over a few funding cycles at a minimum. it's hard to see surprise cuts as anything more than willful vandalism and a gift to global competitors. time to donate time and money to their opposition. one month in and they've already proven themselves a failure.
- motorest 2y ago
  > it's hard to see surprise cuts as anything more than willful vandalism and a gift to global competitors. From an outsider's point of view, anything that the Trump administration is doing sounds an awful lot like the total destruction of the United States government, and consequently the country. Let's put it this way: there have been military coups that did a far better job at preserving state institutions, even after purging the regime. The Trump administration clearly has a different goal in mind, from internal government structure to international relations and even alliances.
  - kleton 2y ago
    > preserving state institutions As Obama said, elections have consequences. Do you think there should be a permanent bureaucracy that is totally unaffected by elections? Or put it this way, hypothetically if James Bowman takes power for the next 8 years, and the other side has had 12 years to implement and entrench their institutions, are you really going to object to your side reversing it when the pendulum swings back your way?
    - motorest 2y ago
      > Do you think there should be a permanent bureaucracy that is totally unaffected by elections? I don't think you have a good grasp on what is happening, both in form and extent. You're making it sound like the Trump administration is refreshing bureaucrats, where in reality it's completely dismantling the whole federal state while imposing a totalitarian agenda. It's destroying public health services, education services, security services, even R&D. To top things off, the Trump administration caused irreversible damage to decades-old alliances, if they aren't destroyed already, which where at the core of US's global hegemony. You're talking about bureaucracy as if the only impact this has is some pencil pushers losing a job. It's not. It's the death by suicide of the United States as an ideal, and a global leader. The Trump admin leaves behind a huge power vacuum that will inevitably be filled by another party, and odds are it ain't pushing freedom nor peace.
rqtwteye 2y ago
I work at a medical device company and I have heard that the people at the FDA we used to deal with are gone. the whole department. This is just nuts. I am totally in support of looking into efficiencies but the way they are going about it is totally destructive. Trump will be most impactful president in a long time. Domestically and internationally. They are tearing down everything we relied on for decades.
- morkalork 2y ago
  When covid shutdowns killed the hospitality industry, the workers found new careers and when things opened up again there was a huge labour shortage. Even in couple years if things are restored, who will want to return when they know the next government could just come in and pull another hatchet job.
  - IAmGraydon 2y ago
    >Even in couple years if things are restored, who will want to return when they know the next government could just come in and pull another hatchet job. I'm pretty sure they're counting on that, which is why they're doing this in the most disrespectful way possible.
billfor 2y ago
[flagged]
sterlind 2y ago
PubMed is sporadically down, by the way, along with the rest of https://nlm.nih.gov https://nlm.nih.gov. I'm not sure if DOGE decided to pull the plug on it, or if there's an outage. I wonder if there's any SREs left to respond to the page.
lostmsu 2y ago
Can somebody help me understand: say I have a research grant and my cap on how much university can take for its operations is 15%. Does it mean that from my 85% I can not buy/rent necessary equipment/facilities previously provided by university anymore?
- orforforof 2y ago
  I can think of two factors. First, some direct costs could be prohibited. But more importantly, to make this work universities would need to restructure to make all of their services fee-based, and researchers would need to allocate these fees item by item in their proposals. Which seems doable, but is no way to run an efficient operation. Even if the bottom line looked the same, the value to NIH and taxpayers would be far worse due to the inefficiency.
  - scarab92 2y ago
    More likely, overpriced institutions like Harvard will cease to be competitive for grants, and those which offer better value for money will be better placed to submit competitive grant proposals.
    - throwyouaway 2y ago
      Im sure there is fat to be cut but the indirect model eliminates the need to spend so much effort accounting for the 5 minutes this grad student used this piece of shared equipment, 20 minutes that post doc used this equipment. Have you ever had to account for number of sheets of paper printed on a shared printer? Total waste of time when considering the cost of accounting and time of these expensive workers. Indirects are an imperfect solution to a real efficiency problem. I really think the solution is to identify “abusers of the commons”and hold them accountable
    - justin66 2y ago
      Harvard can pay for the indirect costs at issue with a fraction of the money its $53B endowment earns.
- 2y ago
jmyeet 2y ago
There's a lot that can be said about this like how we got here, what's really going on and what we do about it but honestly, it's all pretty pointless. Nothing is going to change. We had 60 years of near-total Democratic control of Congress until, in the 1990s, the Democrats abandoned New Deal policies in favor of neoliberalism. Even this was a culmination of what began decades earlier, specifically that real wages stagnated and the wealth and income gaps grew starting around 1971 [1]. On the other side we have the Republican Project, a 50+ year effort to take over the government and reshape America as a Christian theocracy. Why? White supremacy, never getting over the end of chattel slavery, manifest destiny, all that. And it all started with the end of segregation and the effort to fight that using the issue of abortion as a weapon. We have a Supreme Court that will go down in history as with the likes of Dred Scott. Citizens United, Dobbs, the historical tradition test, major questions doctrine and of course completely inventing presidential immunity out of thin air. But it's not just them. It's every layer of the courts thanks to pushing "originalist" propaganda (which was invented in the 1980s). Certain judges completely slow-walked prosecutions to benefit Trump directly. And brazenly. Thanks to the takeover of states in 2010 in particular, districts are gerrymandered to hell to the point where, for example, Republicans managed a supermajority in Wisconsin despite getting 38% of the vote. But what makes this fatal is there is absolutely no opposition to any of it. The Democratic Party are complicit in all of it. They are controlled opposition. They are more concerned with lining up their post-political lobbying and consulting careers than effecting any real change or opposition. In fact, the biggest threat to the Democratic Party isn't fascism, it's progressives. If the DNC opposed Trump half as well as they opposed Bernie Sanders, we'd be living in a very different world. In the last election, Kamala Harris offered absolutely nothing to voters. Every policy was vetted by her brother to make sure Wall Street approved. Kamala Harris would rather lose an election to Trump tha adopt any progressive policies, desppite progressive policies doing incredibly well in ballot iniatives (eg minimum wage increase passed in Missouri, a deep red state). The Democratic establishment will tell you progressive ideas aren't popular despite electroal evidence to the contrary, namely Obama's 2008 campaign, which was an electoral blowout. Sadly, Obama quickly abandoned any such policies. None of what is happening now is intended to make anything more efficient. It's just destruction of the state that regulates and occasionaally holds billionaires accountable. Food, drugs, health, housing, education... everything is going to get worse. And it's nothing to do with the deficit either. The budget blueprint has $2 trillion in cuts and (drum roll please) $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. These people and the voters idolize (even fetishize) a very narrow window in history: the 1950s. Yet they never look at the policies that were in effect at that time, specifically much higher taxes. Plus, all these middle class families had underpaid help thanks to segregation and other forms of institutionalized racism. And on the foreign policy front, the administration is destroying the instruments of its own soft power (eg USAID). They keep telling us "China is the enemy" while creating a massive power vacuum China will happily fill. At least in China you have better infrastructure, public transit, high speed rail, affordable health care and better access to education. [1]: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
DiscourseFan 2y ago
When some other state-power, perhaps the Chinese, starts sucking up American intellectual capital, then the US will collapse. So long as the US still offers the highest standard of living for high-wage workers, there won't be any sort of collapse. Grants from the NIH will presumably move to the private sector. Is this a good thing? Perhaps not, but in the eyes of our new overlords the lifeblood of the economy is not public investment but in the collaborative spaces of creative minds working in diverse fields, as demonstrated, for them, by the productivity of big tech. And for individuals like Musk, this is limited by public institutions and can only be most fully explored via private investment.
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  Companies don't like to do basic research..It doesn't pay off for decades
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  How does this square the circle of basic research that has no clear, or at least easy, commercialization potential?
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    I'm sure that Magritte painting that sold for so much money not so long ago did not have the same "commercialization potential" when it was produced.
- scarab92 2y ago
  The clickbait article title is completely unsupported by the actual content of the article. The NIH isn't being slashed and burned. It's simply redirecting more of it's funding to actual grant recipients, to do actual research, rather than allowing NIH funding to be siphoned off by the universities for largely unrelated purposes. Harvard siphoned off a whopping 69% of the grant amount, and it's not going to funding equipment or similar, those expenses also comes out of the remaining 31%. If people actually cared about increasing the overall NIH research output, they should be supportive of these changes.
ETH_start 2y ago
[flagged]
- defrost 2y ago
  > I read the paper, Link? Are you perhaps refering to a Letter to Science titled Protect US racial affinity groups published 27 Feb 2025? - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq4733 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq4733 > These kinds of experiences have completely shattered any credibility that mainstream scientific establishment has for me. Is it true that a letter to a magazine has shattered the credibility of papers such as TIGR-Tas: A family of modular RNA-guided DNA-targeting systems in prokaryotes and their viruses for you? That seems ... oddly fragile.
- knowaveragejoe 2y ago
  Setting aside how completely made up this sounds, how could that possibly be what "shattered" credibility in mainstream science for you?
  - ETH_start 2y ago
    That ideology is being masqueraded science. That these individuals are abusing their scientific authority in such a flagrant way. Eliminating taxpayer-funded DEI programs is not "white supremacist ideology". And even if you believe it is, and that the SCOTUS — which ruled that DEI admission requirements at Ivy League universities discriminated against Asian applicants — is part of this white supremacist conspiracy, you should not be making that case in a scientific journal as if your scientific expertise has anything to do with that opinion. It reminds me of when 1,000 "medical professionals" wrote an open letter saying that protests against lockdowns were a public health threat, but that protests promoting the BLM narrative were not: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette... “However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators’ ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders.” It sounds like right-wing hyperbole until you actually read their own words.
LinuxBender 2y ago
The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed" I know I will get beat up for this comment but someone has to say it. I believe this direction is well deserved. Clearly they were given far too much trust and were operating as a rogue organization for far too long. Developing bio-weapons and dual use medicines on college campuses and then moving them to China once called out by Obama is cavalier, aggressive, dangerous, wanton disregard for life and absolute folly. And that's just what we know about. They can not take their own work seriously. To be clear I am not opposed to developing bio-weapons and dual use medicines rather I just want the people making these things to put a tremendous amount of safeguards friction and security around them. Move all the weapon development to highly secured military installations that are far away from everyone and require extensive scans before boarding a jet required to travel to that location and that is just to start their assignment. Once there they will have no privacy and will not leave until their work is completed and fully vetted.

211 points by SubiculumCode 2y ago

Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? The courts are themselves slow and ultimately roll up to allies of the despot. People say that the midterms are crucial, but the midterms are only likely to be won if Democrats truly unify and apply winning strategies. Sadly the only winning strategies now seem to involve telling stories, not necessarily the truth. And all of that essentially admits that the next two years are forfeit anyway.

taeric 2y ago
Strictly, sevearal things. First, plurality. Second, they voted for Congress, as well. Where are they? Third, they trust in the entire system, even if their trust has been manipulated by some agents. That is why we are supposed to have checks and balances.
- lazide 2y ago
  The same people voted the folks into Congress too.
  - slater 2y ago
    One can only hope for a blue tsunami for the midterms, though I'm not getting my hopes up.
    - jfengel 2y ago
      I can't imagine why 2026 should be any different than 2024. He's doing exactly what he promised. Those who voted for him will still be in favor, at least compared to the alternative. Voters who stayed home will still see no difference between the parties.
      - lazide 2y ago
        Yup. No one can claim ignorance the second time.
      - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        As a wise man once said "it's the economy stupid." If their actions tank the economy, which seems a distinct possibility, things could change drastically.
        lazide 2y ago
        Only if they don’t find a suitable scapegoat in time. I still hear people blaming Biden.
        giardini 2y ago
        As they should! Everything you see around you was provided by Biden. Trump is only starting to make changes.
        lazide 2y ago
        I’m pretty sure Biden had as little to do with gas (or Egg) prices as Trump has.
        amanaplanacanal 2y ago
        The President tends to get the praise or blame, no matter who actually did things. The Federal Reserve controls the money supply, and probably has more to do with inflation than anybody else.
        giardini 2y ago
        Biden was producing lots of gas in the later part of his term!8-))
        giardini 2y ago
        Cherry-picking!
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      Only possible if they reinvent themselves and dump as many 20/80 issues as possible.
  - analog31 2y ago
    Democrats need a super-majority to swing either the House or Senate.
  - dangus 2y ago
    Sure, but the whole idea of representative democracy (a Republic[1]) is supposed to be that Congress and other elected members of government are supposed to be immune from the trappings of mob rule. In other words, the excuse you are making is that people voted for the government to start doing borderline illegal or at the very least highly misguided and self-destrctive things that are against the interest of their constituents, and that because the people want those dumbass destructive things the government should comply with those wishes. That logic only goes so far when we consider the context of the very same government that also denies the people things that are far more popular. For example, 62% of Americans are in favor of universal healthcare, but we aren't getting that. 82% of Americans are in favor of paid maternity leave. And yet, our lawmakers have not delivered to the American people those demands. But here we all are implying that 51% of the country deciding they want to dismantle the US executive branch is enough public support to just go ahead and do so with impunity. The 2024 Trump presidency is, believe it or not, already a historically unpopular administration by the objective polling numbers. Why should they get to dismantle the government with such a weak mandate? Frankly, it's bullshit. [1] This is coincidentally the excuse that every Republican I've ever met including my Fox News Dad makes for the electoral college and gerrymandered congressional districts amplifying rural MAGA votes so that states with majority Democrat constituents are ruled by Republican statehouses and so that Trump and Bush got to win presidential elections without winning the popular vote.
    - lazide 2y ago
      “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” - H.L. Mencken Elections matter. Don’t think I’m a Trump Fan. I’ve been warning about this exact thing since before the first election. But people had to go and stick the butter knife in the wall socket anyway, and they clearly need to learn the hard way what happens. What do you expect? A coup? I’m sure you know as well as anyone how that would go right now. Too few people are willing to believe what is actually happening right in front of them. And frankly, wouldn’t that just be being the enemy?
  - jghn 2y ago
    Let's not forget that the house is artificially capped [1]. It should have a much larger membership. The senate already biases towards land over people. And more and more the house does as well. [1] https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/ https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/Th...
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      The Senate represents sovereign states.
      - jghn 2y ago
        yes it does. The house does not. The senate was always set up to artificially prop up smaller (by population) states. The House was not. But we've artificially capped the House. Now they both favor lower population states.
        lazide 2y ago
        Those states would never have signed onto the constitution without the senate. It’s not ‘artificial’. It’s a core part of why the USA came to be.
        throwaway48476 2y ago
        Articles of confederation. This is also why the southern states were called the confederacy.
        jghn 2y ago
        Why do you seem to believe anything I'm talking about involves the Senate mattering? I've discussed how the House had its membership artificially capped roughly 150 years into this country's history
        lazide 2y ago
llm_trw 2y ago
Decentralise government so a single election doesn't destroy everything. In short: states rights.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Interesting to see this come up so often I. the context of the Democratic party. It sure seems like our two parties have flipped again.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    It's not terribly interesting. There have always been two strains of thought for the Democrats in the US. Once has been that we must move the whole country in the right direction kicking and screaming - this has been the ideology that has been in ascendency since Kennedy. The other that we must be allowed to be as progressive as possible without interference from the Federal government. That's not been in vouge since the end of the new deal. I'm completely in the second camp and would move back to the US if it were possible to get it adopted at the national level.
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  Or, reform your Presidency to be a constitutional role only, with executive power devolved to the party or parties of your elected representatives that is able to show the head of state that they have the numbers to govern. E.g. like the President of Ireland, or the King of England (via the Governor General proxy) in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Also, the Electoral College is an archaic anachronism, and may I recommend a system of proportional representation? Devolution to "states rights" is exactly that, a devolution.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    What works for a country the size of a New York neighbourhood doesn't work for a country the size of a continent.
    - 2y ago
alabastervlog 2y ago
Many actions the administration has taken are illegal. Not sure if those related to NIH are, but if they’ve been firing people, odds are good, since they’ve been doing that wrong most of the time it seems like. Congress could change the laws, but they haven’t. Lots of this junk is simply against the law. The courts are moving relatively fast, as such things go, but it takes time. Congress is supposed to control spending and taxation. The administration is claiming a ton of powers related, especially, to spending. Various actions they’ve taken certainly violate the constitution and laws that exist to ensure Congress’ budget isn’t simply ignored by a president. This is another matter for the courts… unless the Supreme Court decides to rule that the radical and unprecedented far-right “unitary executive” interpretation is correct, in which case we’ve just entered a new and far worse era of American government, and it’s all “legal”. I give it 50/50 they do that.
- ivraatiems 2y ago
  We're well past the point where something being illegal or not matters whatsoever. I'm surprised federal court rulings are being listened to at all, really. I'm not sure why they are.
  - selectodude 2y ago
    They really aren’t. Lots of contempt of court happening by the executive branch.
- closewith 2y ago
  Are you sure that the rule of law in the US is strong enough to avert a dictatorship?
  - jachee 2y ago
    If the military upholds their oath to the Constitution, we should never have a dictatorship.
    - btilly 2y ago
jghn 2y ago
> when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person You're not wrong. However the portrayal of a mandate is a bit of a media fiction. He didn't have notably more votes than any other recent president.
- dralley 2y ago
  In fact, he had less margin than any election since 2000. Even Hillary in 2016 had a larger popular vote margin of victory than Trump 2024 despite having lost the electoral college.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    So, Trump in 2016, not 2024, was actually the lowest (negative, in fact) margin for a winning candidate since 2000 (and was actually lower—more negative—than 2000’s also-negative margin.)
  - jghn 2y ago
    Indeed. And yet with certain previous presidents we've been told that because the margin of victory is so slim, they're already a lame duck. But here, it's a mandate.
  - SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    You seem to be fixated on a vote system that we do not use.
    - jghn 2y ago
      Despite what people say, land does vote. And you're right: land voted for Trump. But that's not what's being discussed in this subthread. The media portray Trump as having a popular vote mandate. That's not true
- analog31 2y ago
  Also, the House can't claim a public mandate due to gerrymandering.
- 2y ago
EdwardDiego 2y ago
True that. But I don't recall Trump campaigning on this policy. In fact he's putting into play Project 2025, the thing that he explicitly disclaimed knowledge of prior to the elections. It's a sad sign of the state of US politics that this, which would cause outrage in the past, barely merits a mention amidst all the other rage bait things he's doing. His barmy executive orders, DOGE, that disgraceful display with Zelenskyy reminds me of the Wizard of Oz trying to distract people from the man behind the curtain.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  Trump really is 1984 writ large. > In fact he's putting into play Project 2025, the thing that he explicitly disclaimed knowledge of prior to the elections. He did explicitly disclaim knowledge and awareness. And he explicitly, previously, called them out as some "good people who have some very strong ideas that would be very good for the country". What is amazing, sadly, is just how little this impacts or affects him.
tw04 2y ago
> Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? Impeachment. In a functioning government. Because the elected person campaigned on not doing any of these things.
- rezonant 2y ago
  He campaigned on doing exactly these things
  - afavour 2y ago
    When did Trump pledge to destroy the NIH? He did also specficially disavow Project 2025 and is now enacting a whole bunch of it.
    - bagels 2y ago
      When he brought the person who wrote the forward to Project 2025 on as VP? How about when he nominated Russell Vought as Director of OMB in 2020?
      - mullingitover 2y ago
        Irrelevant. He disavowed it. He might be a well known liar, and people might’ve been stupid to believe him when he disavowed Project 2025, but his campaign did not promise to enact these policies.
    - shakna 2y ago
      He said he wouldn't in statements, however every single one of his proposed budgets included cuts that would do so. https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/donald-trumps-2024-campaign-promises-heres-his-vis/ https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/sep/30/donald-trumps...
      - afavour 2y ago
bongodongobob 2y ago
[flagged]
- PKop 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - EdwardDiego 2y ago
    They're not advocating for violence, they're answering the question of "what's left?" And, given the American justification of the right to bear arms, such a response is coded into American culture's DNA. Unless all the 2FA proponents were lying about needing those guns to prevent tyranny?
    - PKop 2y ago
      Bullshit. They are pathologizing the democratic result of the last election as well as promoting extremist rhetoric that ignores the fact people can vote if they don't agree, but it is not acceptable to claim a president and his administration can't operate within Constitutional rights to run the executive branch else "violence" is necessary and justified. No, the 2nd amendment does not codify terrorism because your side lost a vote that will be run again in four years.
      - bongodongobob 2y ago
        This government doesn't represent any sane informed person with a rudimentary understanding of even just the last 50 years of geopolitics. The system is clearly broken. First past the post voting is mathematically stupid. When the system no longer serves the people, violence has been the solution for the entire history of humanity. You know who doesn't like violence and prefers sign holding? The people with the boot on your throat. In 4 years, we will be given another "choice" handed to us by the business class that serves their interests, if we're lucky. We are going down a very dangerous road, and it's not one that can be fixed by drafting a nice bill or focusing on local politics.
nielsbot 2y ago
FWIW a lot of people didn't vote for this even if they voted for Trump and the GOP.
- andrewflnr 2y ago
  That would be a cowardly excuse if anyone used it. It was clear enough what Trump is.
- MVissers 2y ago
  I mean, if you re-elect the guy that tried to forcibly stay in power last time, I'm not sure what else to say... Zero sympathy for Americans that voted for this and the ones that stayed home. I feel bad for the ones that voted Kamala and for the West.
  - motorest 2y ago
    > I mean, if you re-elect the guy that tried to forcibly stay in power last time, I'm not sure what else to say... You're arguing what you think would happen if Trump was elected. OP is saying something different. He's saying the among the people who voted for Trump, some believed something else would happen and they might feel defrauded.
- jghn 2y ago
  No, they did. Absolutely nothing about what's happening is a surprise. Anyone claiming otherwise is either lying or so uneducated that they shouldn't be voting.
  - nielsbot 2y ago
    There are plenty of examples of people who wanted to vote conservative but "didn't have time to do the research" and now they're about to be caught up in the billionaire looting of the government. Low information voters, people busy with their jobs, lots of ads and propaganda.. and voila. That said, both the Dems and the GOP are there doing the bidding of lobbyists and the wealthy... if we had an actual populist party in the US we wouldn't have ended up here. At least, not so quickly.
D13Fd 2y ago
It’s not clear what good the midterms can do. It appears likely that the Supreme Court will hold that the president has the power to make these cuts regardless of any laws passed by congress. And even if he didn’t have that power already, he cannot be prosecuted for any official act, and he can pardon his subordinates at will. Beyond that, any action taken by congress is going to be reliant on individuals in the executive branch to execute, and the president can fire them at will until he finds someone who declines to follow the law. The only thing Congress could do is impeach the president and remove him from office, but that seems unlikely when roughly half the country is ecstatic about what he is doing.
- jmcgough 2y ago
  > roughly half the country is ecstatic about what he is doing A number of his actions are wildly unpopular. The Jan 6th Pardons, and his pro-Putin agenda. His polling is historically poor for a month into a president's term, and there are large protests around the country. In another month, his polling will be completely underwater.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Realistically, that won’t matter. He can’t be reelected, so he’s free to do as he likes, irrespective of public opinion.
  - arp242 2y ago
    "Only" 58% oppose the pardons according to [1]. I mean, it's a majority, but it's not what I'd call "wildly unpopular". It was always going to be opposed by a vast majority of Democrat voters, so relatively few Republican voters oppose it. I find it rather concerning. Back in the day much was said about Bush's "historically low" approval ratings too. It was somewhat satisfying to see, but in the end it didn't really seem to matter much. He still got re-elected. [1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-starts-new-term-with-47-approval-jan-6-pardons-unpopular-reutersipsos-poll-2025-01-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-starts-new-term-with-...
    - 2y ago
ivraatiems 2y ago
Frankly, I am not at all convinced any further elections in the US will be free or fair given who is currently in power and what they've openly said about elections and what they want to do to them. The only real functional way forward at this point is some form of mass protest or resistance, which I see as unlikely to occur (and which I am not necessarily advocating for here on HN). Barring that, the reality is that scientific progress will move away from the US and towards our enemies, and we will just have to live with the consequences of the choices we made.
- motorest 2y ago
  > Frankly, I am not at all convinced any further elections in the US will be free or fair given who is currently in power and what they've openly said about elections and what they want to do to them. The last one doesn't seem to have been as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_disrupt_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_di...
- bbor 2y ago
  I appreciate the perspective, and I know it's trite, but it's important: how would you feel about a resident of 1933 Germany writing your comment? Some good people fled, true, but staying and complying because mass protest seems "unlikely" is almost definitely something posterity will frown upon -- not to mention the rest of the world. I think that's something that should give one pause. Remember, mass protest to (push congress to) oust an authoritarian executive has never happened before in the USA -- but we've also never had an authoritative executive to anywhere near this extent before.
  - btilly 2y ago
    FDR was more extreme than Trump so far. For instance consider banning private ownership of gold by executive order. Mind you, Trump could still declare himself dictator. But based on what's happened so far? FDR was more extreme.
    - 2y ago
mikeyouse 2y ago
Yeah there isn't much to do -- the midterms are the next best option. Nobody voted for this.. Trump won with a narrow plurality, not even a majority of the votes and denied all knowledge of the Project 2025 plan that's been in full effect since Jan 20th. Congress has completely abdicated their Constitutional mandate to control the purse and the executive branch is illegally impounding billions of dollars. It really is a constitutional crisis. The 'right' way to do this would be to draw up a budget (not a CR) that closes NIH and USAID and whatever else they're so desperate to destroy - but that would take 60 votes in the Senate and would subject them to months of terrible press while they negotiated it, so instead they're just ceding all authority to the President and Elon and letting them take a sledgehammer to our collective government. Sheer embarrassment.
bbor 2y ago
A) The answer is impeachment -- regardless of partisan policy discussions on what we should do with these agencies, there is a strong legal argument that overruling congress via impoundment and/or the actions discussed here violate the constitutions most basic precepts. Our founders, for better or worse, including one escape valve for such a situation: congress reasserting its power via impeachment. I know recent history makes it hard to imagine a successful impeachment+conviction when both chambers are controlled by the president's party, but that doesn't change anything; there is literally no other legal path to reigning in an authoritative executive, especially with the 2024 presidential immunity ruling. Party bonds are strong, but at a certain point, even the most loyal congressperson will start to resent being made into a rubber-stamp like the legislatures of Russia & Hungary have been. B) I really don't think the global scene backs up the idea that truth isn't effective -- there's lots of complex things going on, and some amount of emotional propaganda is always necessary, but we should never abandon the truth. Regardless of how effective it is in the short term, basing a political project on lies means it has no core, and can end up corrupted/way off track in short order.
- torstenvl 2y ago
  > there is a strong legal argument that overruling congress via impoundment and/or the actions discussed here violate the constitutions most basic precepts No there isn't. The text of the Constitution says the opposite: it makes appropriation a necessary condition for expenditures, but omits any clause making it a sufficient one. And the only case law on this issue is Train v. New York, which assiduously avoids ruling on the separation of powers issue. So there is neither any basis in the Constitution itself nor any basis in case law for your contention.
  - bbor 2y ago
    What is the role of congress, if its enumerated powers do not imply that any of those things should actually happen...? Honest question. Are you honestly saying that there's an implied 100% veto available to the executive for anything done by congress?
    - deleted 2y ago
motorest 2y ago
> Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? As the article states, these actions are illegal and violate the US constitution. If "the people who decided to vote" expressed this decision, that decision would be implemented by an act of Congress to alter or eliminate these rules. Congress up until now passed no such law. Thus these changes bear no democratic or institutional support. If however you frame these series of events as an overthrow of the regime and the start of something entirely different then that's a different debate.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- noduerme 2y ago
  I read the parent as saying that a plurality of voters voted to circumvent the constitution and dismantle the republic, and therefore, a resulting despotism would just be democracy in action, so to speak. Caesar was elected consul. Hitler was elected chancellor. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and Hamas in Gaza, came to power democratically on a platform of 'one election - which will be the last election'. Since the beginning of democracy, democracies have regularly voted themselves out of existence. It's a buggy feature. But democracy isn't the norm at all in history, and the likelihood here seems greater that America is regressing toward the mean than that it has something in its fiber capable of withstanding a hostìle takeover that no previous republic has had.
  - motorest 2y ago
    > I read the parent as saying that a plurality of voters voted to circumvent the constitution and dismantle the republic, and therefore, a resulting despotism would just be democracy in action, so to speak. From an outsider's point of view, that was not the people voted for. When repeatedly pressed on Project 2025, Trump distanced from it and reassured the American people those were just vicious rumors to denigrate him. The campaign was centered on how Biden was old and senile and responsible for every problem ranging from egg prices to Trump's retreat from Afghanistan. Trump's promises were that inflation would be eliminated, jobs would be created, and minority rights would cease to be a part of the US government agenda. What the Trump administration is implementing bears no resemblance to his program, and looks like a complete dismantlement of the United States of America, including a complete rejection of it's core values.
dragonwriter 2y ago
> Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? If its just that, the other branches of government. Of course, Congress is not a remedy at the moment, though its conceivable they might move in response to popular pressure more easily than the White House. Failing that, history is full of examples of ad hoc remedies where a leader unmistakeably exercised authority in a way which upset people without any formal systemic remedy, some of which took the shape of legal process despite the absence of preexisting formal law, and some of which did not.
Terr_ 2y ago
> the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies Careful, you're spreading a little falsehood there, Trump got 49.81% which is not a majority. His first term was 46.09%. Every other winner of the past 6 Presidential elections got >50% except for him. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024
- bryant 2y ago
  Yeah, I suppose I binned the "other" voters as no-votes, but thanks for pointing it out.
sitkack 2y ago
This attitude normalizes giving up, I sure hope that isn't your intention. The constitution is stronger than a narcissistic moron, these actions are illegal.
dataflow 2y ago
The only legal answer I'm aware of is the states setting up a Constitutional Convention. (Well, either that, or having the cabinet declare the president incapacitated.) Good luck getting the majority of the states or cabinet on board.
afavour 2y ago
I don't even know if I believe there's any chance of this myself but it's worth pointing out that Republicans currently have a House majority of... 2. It's unlikely but not inconceivable that a few house members could be persuaded to vote with Democrats to push back, simply because they're in a swing state and we keep seeing videos of very mad voters confronting their representatives. Anyone in a swing district interested in securing re-election should be considering it.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  What scares me is that even if a slim Pro-Sanity coalition exists in both houses, Trump can simply continue to violate the Constitution willy-nilly if a core of Republicans remain complicit and block removal from office. After all, we're not just talking about an illegal retroactive on-demand line-item veto here, but plenty of other data-points, like a President that has blanket-pardoned criminals who already violently attacked congress in his name. What's the plan for when the USPS suddenly has "breakdowns" or "misplaces" mail-in-ballots collected from certain districts? Or when IRS tax records from candidates are leaked to opposing conservative campaigns? Citizenships being "revoked" just enough to stop people from voting?
  - tastyfreeze 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Hah, is your Ministry of Truth so strong that you have already forgotten his past and contemporary crimes, so that the lack of new ones in the future renders him retroactively innocent? The man could keel over quite morally-blamelessly from a coronary tomorrow, and the record of words and deeds left behind would still be that of a crook, a corrupt politician, and a wannabe dictator. Mere inaction in a 78-year-old is not reform. If it were, A Christmas Carol would have been a much shorter story.
    - knowaveragejoe 2y ago
      "TDS" and "orange man bad" are thought terminating cliches at this point. Do try to understand that people's criticisms and concerns are not unfounded
JoshTko 2y ago
Midterms would be way to late
Jimmc414 2y ago
> Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? Support candidates that appeal to the electorate. Find common ground. Resist demonizing the opposition. Moderates shouldn’t have to choose between polarized extremes. If you are intellectually honest you may see the ripple effect created by unfairly shutting Bernie Sanders out of the democratic nomination in 2016 set the stage for this outcome .
- afavour 2y ago
  While I agree about Bernie Sanders I really can't see the justification in describing Harris's candidacy as a "polarized extreme". Sanders is clearly more extreme than her. (I don't think he's extreme at all, just that he's further to the left)
  - Jimmc414 2y ago
    I wouldn’t call Kamala extreme per se. The extreme position is the doubling down on positions that don’t resonate with the electorate and labeling the opposition racist or traitorous instead of working to find common ground. One example of an extreme position dichotomy would be the choice between an unnecessarily porous border without transparency and mass deportation when the people would likely all agree on a steady stream of legal citizenship applications coming through the front door. Another instance might be that Americans would likely be largely in favor of trans rights if they weren’t bundled with allowing professional male combat athletes to unfairly dominate female participants. I think Americans crave common sense and it is nowhere to be found.
    - amanaplanacanal 2y ago
      > allowing professional male combat athletes to unfairly dominate female participants Had this actually happened somewhere, or is it just a hypothetical? Like trans women assaulting cis women en masse in women's restrooms.
      - 2y ago
sundaeofshock 2y ago
He did not get a majority of the. He 49.8% of cast. It’s and about 30% of eligible voters. He does not have a mandate to destroy the US.
foota 2y ago
In all odds I think by the midterms we'll have seen: * A massive recession as a result of tariffs, job losses, pullback in federal spending (e.g,. on infrastructure), and general economic uncertainty. * A significant public health crisis (see measles in Texas for example) * Russia continuing to wage war on Ukraine, and possibly further conflicts around the world as the US withdraws from international peacekeeping.
- smogcutter 2y ago
  Historically, authoritarian regimes have handled setbacks like these by scapegoating target minorities and other undesirables.
a-dub 2y ago
encourage all the laid off federal employees to move to the three special election counties, flip the house next month, use the house majority to push back on the most absurd/draconian moves, push harder at the midterms and try again two years later. long term, figure out a better politically independent structure (perhaps similar to the fed) for important institutions.
breadwinner 2y ago
> when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies No candidate got a majority of votes. A majority means more than 50% of the votes. In this case, the leading candidate only received 49.5%, which is a plurality, not a majority. What is really happening is that Billionaires are taking advantage of less educated voters by convincing them to vote against their self-interests. They do so by shifting focus to the "values and cultural issues" of the moment. In the past, it was gay marriage and abortion; today, it's trans kids and DEI. Once these issues dominate the conversation, little attention is paid to the real priorities and actions of these Billionaires: cutting funds to Medicaid, food stamps and other welfare programs, cuts to health insurance subsidies, cuts to education, cuts to medical research funding, cuts to development assistance to the poorest in the world and so on, all to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. What is the solution? Democrats should shift towards the center on the "values and cultural issues" in order to neutralize the conservative advantage, then they will be able to do things that the middleclass (and lower) cares about, such as healthcare and health research, education, consumer protections and so on, and make the Billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. The debate can't be on "values and cultural issues", whatever they are, because that plays into Republican strengths.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  I can't see the Democrats "shifting to the center" on trans kids when that will lead to more suicides when kids can't get their gender affirming care. That seems bad in every way.
  - breadwinner 2y ago
    You have to be smart about it. Don't make it the debate topic. You know how Trump disclaimed any knowledge of Project 2025 and after he became president, started executing on its vision? That's how you downplay a topic even though it is important to you.
chasing 2y ago
He's not a king, he's a public servant with a certain defined set of powers. Doesn't matter how many people voted for him or why.
hayst4ck 2y ago
We are deeply undemocratic right now. I can consent to differences of opinion on tax policy or government subsidies, but I can't consent to open betrayal of allies. I can't consent to the deliberate traumatiztion of the people who run the government so that unaccountable authority can be wielded without any checks or balances. I can't submit to literal deaths of people who are dependent on public healthcare and their children being robbed of their mother prematurely. I can't submit to a regulatory environment that puts rich Americans above the law. I can't consent to extreme changes in foreign policy or economic intervention that makes it so that our businesses don't have a predictable environment to operate in and foreign countries have no reason to believe our words. Our own declaration of independence lists our founding principles and tells us what we already know is the answer: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. The only answer we have left is to withdrawal consent.
gigatexal 2y ago
My sentiments exactly. The level of despair I’m feeling is palpable. Especially when I think that to counter Trump it will take a unified Democratic Party with consistent messaging … (unlikely)
watwut 2y ago
elections do not and should not mean that winner gets to ignore existing laws. They should nor mean the winner must operate unopposed without checks and balances. Tight victory means even less in terms of the mandate.
bigfatkitten 2y ago
Courts can't just step in when Congress decides not to do its job. Someone needs to sue to bring a matter before the courts. And in a lot of these cases, there just isn't a party who has standing to do so outside of the narrow scope of say, employment law.

SubiculumCode 2y ago

This is not just about new grants. NIH R01 grants are 5 years long. Each year however, the PI must submit a progress report, after which NIH signs off for another year of funding. That isn't happening. Labs which had years of funding lined up are suddenly contemplating layoffs, ending research midway. It is devastating, stupid, and frankly, I am beyond angry. And I am also seeing the possibility that everything I've worked so hard to achieve over the last 20 years go to pieces. We will have no king here, and we need to start remembering that fast.

spiderfarmer 2y ago
Nothing will change as long as his approval rating remains this high and protests consist of people writing angry blogs and comments.
- rezonant 2y ago
  What about his approval rating is high right now? Quite the opposite, in fact.
  - spiderfarmer 2y ago
    I read it’s still at 47.9%. The US is filled with terrible people who cheer him on.

spiderfarmer 2y ago

The country is gripped by a fever, with 47.9% of the population basking in the heat. These individuals are indifferent to anything that doesn’t directly impact them. In fact, they quietly relish others’ complaints, seeing them as a sign that they’re somehow gaining the upper hand.

esalman 2y ago
47.9% of those who voted, not the total population. I am not a US citizen myself and I did not vote, for example.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  It’s the most recent approval rating, sadly.
  - esalman 2y ago
    Understood. Honestly it makes sense. He promised his base something and he delivered in his first term, and he is going about it the same way this term. His base has good reasons to approve.
justinator 2y ago
You're not wrong -- you're absolutely correct. The problem is that these changes will start impacting the supporters of the victors as well, it's just that the Administration will blame some other entity. We've seen the playbook before. Not that I want anyone to lose their benefits, but perhaps there will be a sea change when people start losing their Medicaid, SNAP, Social Security, Veteran benefits, just being able to forecast the weather reasonably well, flu vaccines, safe and competent air traffic control -- oh what else is on the chopping block...
- jval43 2y ago
  This time around the changes might actually take effect quickly enough for people to feel them during the current administration. Compared to the previous playbook of making changes and then blaming the effects on the next administration. While taking credit for everything good kicking in from the previous administration of course.

0xy 2y ago

[flagged]

EdwardDiego 2y ago
Citations needed. All the citations please.
- brink 2y ago
  This is well known and established as fact. Go look it up.
  - EdwardDiego 2y ago
    Which part?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- conception 2y ago
  The citations I can find are on how NIH research got a vaccine! Sorry!
- zdragnar 2y ago
  The director of the NIH testified to Congress that they funded gain of function research in Wuhan: https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-nih-repeatedly-refutes-ecohealth-alliance-president-dr-peter-daszaks-testimony-tabak-testimony-reveals-federal-grant-procedures-in-need-of-serious-reform/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-nih-repe... The OIG also made clear the NIH and EcoHealth did not have proper oversight: https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2023/the-national-institutes-of-health-and-ecohealth-alliance-did-not-effectively-monitor-awards-and-subawards-resulting-in-missed-opportunities-to-oversee-research-and-other-deficiencies/ https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2023/the-national-institutes... Edit: I missed the bit about the funding being specific to COVID 19. The CIA endorsed the lab leak hypothesis with low confidence, but I'm not sure that there's hard evidence that this particular funding corresponds directly with a particular strain that is believed to be what became COVID. If it was, I doubt any evidence that would prove it still exists.

a-dub 2y ago

if they were honestly trying to improve things, the cuts would be phased in over a few funding cycles at a minimum. it's hard to see surprise cuts as anything more than willful vandalism and a gift to global competitors. time to donate time and money to their opposition. one month in and they've already proven themselves a failure.

motorest 2y ago
> it's hard to see surprise cuts as anything more than willful vandalism and a gift to global competitors. From an outsider's point of view, anything that the Trump administration is doing sounds an awful lot like the total destruction of the United States government, and consequently the country. Let's put it this way: there have been military coups that did a far better job at preserving state institutions, even after purging the regime. The Trump administration clearly has a different goal in mind, from internal government structure to international relations and even alliances.
- kleton 2y ago
  > preserving state institutions As Obama said, elections have consequences. Do you think there should be a permanent bureaucracy that is totally unaffected by elections? Or put it this way, hypothetically if James Bowman takes power for the next 8 years, and the other side has had 12 years to implement and entrench their institutions, are you really going to object to your side reversing it when the pendulum swings back your way?
  - motorest 2y ago
    > Do you think there should be a permanent bureaucracy that is totally unaffected by elections? I don't think you have a good grasp on what is happening, both in form and extent. You're making it sound like the Trump administration is refreshing bureaucrats, where in reality it's completely dismantling the whole federal state while imposing a totalitarian agenda. It's destroying public health services, education services, security services, even R&D. To top things off, the Trump administration caused irreversible damage to decades-old alliances, if they aren't destroyed already, which where at the core of US's global hegemony. You're talking about bureaucracy as if the only impact this has is some pencil pushers losing a job. It's not. It's the death by suicide of the United States as an ideal, and a global leader. The Trump admin leaves behind a huge power vacuum that will inevitably be filled by another party, and odds are it ain't pushing freedom nor peace.

rqtwteye 2y ago

I work at a medical device company and I have heard that the people at the FDA we used to deal with are gone. the whole department. This is just nuts. I am totally in support of looking into efficiencies but the way they are going about it is totally destructive. Trump will be most impactful president in a long time. Domestically and internationally. They are tearing down everything we relied on for decades.

morkalork 2y ago
When covid shutdowns killed the hospitality industry, the workers found new careers and when things opened up again there was a huge labour shortage. Even in couple years if things are restored, who will want to return when they know the next government could just come in and pull another hatchet job.
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  >Even in couple years if things are restored, who will want to return when they know the next government could just come in and pull another hatchet job. I'm pretty sure they're counting on that, which is why they're doing this in the most disrespectful way possible.

billfor 2y ago

[flagged]

sterlind 2y ago

PubMed is sporadically down, by the way, along with the rest of https://nlm.nih.gov https://nlm.nih.gov. I'm not sure if DOGE decided to pull the plug on it, or if there's an outage. I wonder if there's any SREs left to respond to the page.

lostmsu 2y ago

Can somebody help me understand: say I have a research grant and my cap on how much university can take for its operations is 15%. Does it mean that from my 85% I can not buy/rent necessary equipment/facilities previously provided by university anymore?

orforforof 2y ago
I can think of two factors. First, some direct costs could be prohibited. But more importantly, to make this work universities would need to restructure to make all of their services fee-based, and researchers would need to allocate these fees item by item in their proposals. Which seems doable, but is no way to run an efficient operation. Even if the bottom line looked the same, the value to NIH and taxpayers would be far worse due to the inefficiency.
- scarab92 2y ago
  More likely, overpriced institutions like Harvard will cease to be competitive for grants, and those which offer better value for money will be better placed to submit competitive grant proposals.
  - throwyouaway 2y ago
    Im sure there is fat to be cut but the indirect model eliminates the need to spend so much effort accounting for the 5 minutes this grad student used this piece of shared equipment, 20 minutes that post doc used this equipment. Have you ever had to account for number of sheets of paper printed on a shared printer? Total waste of time when considering the cost of accounting and time of these expensive workers. Indirects are an imperfect solution to a real efficiency problem. I really think the solution is to identify “abusers of the commons”and hold them accountable
  - justin66 2y ago
    Harvard can pay for the indirect costs at issue with a fraction of the money its $53B endowment earns.
2y ago

jmyeet 2y ago

There's a lot that can be said about this like how we got here, what's really going on and what we do about it but honestly, it's all pretty pointless. Nothing is going to change. We had 60 years of near-total Democratic control of Congress until, in the 1990s, the Democrats abandoned New Deal policies in favor of neoliberalism. Even this was a culmination of what began decades earlier, specifically that real wages stagnated and the wealth and income gaps grew starting around 1971 [1]. On the other side we have the Republican Project, a 50+ year effort to take over the government and reshape America as a Christian theocracy. Why? White supremacy, never getting over the end of chattel slavery, manifest destiny, all that. And it all started with the end of segregation and the effort to fight that using the issue of abortion as a weapon. We have a Supreme Court that will go down in history as with the likes of Dred Scott. Citizens United, Dobbs, the historical tradition test, major questions doctrine and of course completely inventing presidential immunity out of thin air. But it's not just them. It's every layer of the courts thanks to pushing "originalist" propaganda (which was invented in the 1980s). Certain judges completely slow-walked prosecutions to benefit Trump directly. And brazenly. Thanks to the takeover of states in 2010 in particular, districts are gerrymandered to hell to the point where, for example, Republicans managed a supermajority in Wisconsin despite getting 38% of the vote. But what makes this fatal is there is absolutely no opposition to any of it. The Democratic Party are complicit in all of it. They are controlled opposition. They are more concerned with lining up their post-political lobbying and consulting careers than effecting any real change or opposition. In fact, the biggest threat to the Democratic Party isn't fascism, it's progressives. If the DNC opposed Trump half as well as they opposed Bernie Sanders, we'd be living in a very different world. In the last election, Kamala Harris offered absolutely nothing to voters. Every policy was vetted by her brother to make sure Wall Street approved. Kamala Harris would rather lose an election to Trump tha adopt any progressive policies, desppite progressive policies doing incredibly well in ballot iniatives (eg minimum wage increase passed in Missouri, a deep red state). The Democratic establishment will tell you progressive ideas aren't popular despite electroal evidence to the contrary, namely Obama's 2008 campaign, which was an electoral blowout. Sadly, Obama quickly abandoned any such policies. None of what is happening now is intended to make anything more efficient. It's just destruction of the state that regulates and occasionaally holds billionaires accountable. Food, drugs, health, housing, education... everything is going to get worse. And it's nothing to do with the deficit either. The budget blueprint has $2 trillion in cuts and (drum roll please) $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. These people and the voters idolize (even fetishize) a very narrow window in history: the 1950s. Yet they never look at the policies that were in effect at that time, specifically much higher taxes. Plus, all these middle class families had underpaid help thanks to segregation and other forms of institutionalized racism. And on the foreign policy front, the administration is destroying the instruments of its own soft power (eg USAID). They keep telling us "China is the enemy" while creating a massive power vacuum China will happily fill. At least in China you have better infrastructure, public transit, high speed rail, affordable health care and better access to education. [1]: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

DiscourseFan 2y ago

When some other state-power, perhaps the Chinese, starts sucking up American intellectual capital, then the US will collapse. So long as the US still offers the highest standard of living for high-wage workers, there won't be any sort of collapse. Grants from the NIH will presumably move to the private sector. Is this a good thing? Perhaps not, but in the eyes of our new overlords the lifeblood of the economy is not public investment but in the collaborative spaces of creative minds working in diverse fields, as demonstrated, for them, by the productivity of big tech. And for individuals like Musk, this is limited by public institutions and can only be most fully explored via private investment.

SubiculumCode 2y ago
Companies don't like to do basic research..It doesn't pay off for decades
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
How does this square the circle of basic research that has no clear, or at least easy, commercialization potential?
- DiscourseFan 2y ago
  I'm sure that Magritte painting that sold for so much money not so long ago did not have the same "commercialization potential" when it was produced.
scarab92 2y ago
The clickbait article title is completely unsupported by the actual content of the article. The NIH isn't being slashed and burned. It's simply redirecting more of it's funding to actual grant recipients, to do actual research, rather than allowing NIH funding to be siphoned off by the universities for largely unrelated purposes. Harvard siphoned off a whopping 69% of the grant amount, and it's not going to funding equipment or similar, those expenses also comes out of the remaining 31%. If people actually cared about increasing the overall NIH research output, they should be supportive of these changes.

ETH_start 2y ago

[flagged]

defrost 2y ago
> I read the paper, Link? Are you perhaps refering to a Letter to Science titled Protect US racial affinity groups published 27 Feb 2025? - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq4733 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq4733 > These kinds of experiences have completely shattered any credibility that mainstream scientific establishment has for me. Is it true that a letter to a magazine has shattered the credibility of papers such as TIGR-Tas: A family of modular RNA-guided DNA-targeting systems in prokaryotes and their viruses for you? That seems ... oddly fragile.
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
Setting aside how completely made up this sounds, how could that possibly be what "shattered" credibility in mainstream science for you?
- ETH_start 2y ago
  That ideology is being masqueraded science. That these individuals are abusing their scientific authority in such a flagrant way. Eliminating taxpayer-funded DEI programs is not "white supremacist ideology". And even if you believe it is, and that the SCOTUS — which ruled that DEI admission requirements at Ivy League universities discriminated against Asian applicants — is part of this white supremacist conspiracy, you should not be making that case in a scientific journal as if your scientific expertise has anything to do with that opinion. It reminds me of when 1,000 "medical professionals" wrote an open letter saying that protests against lockdowns were a public health threat, but that protests promoting the BLM narrative were not: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-lette... “However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States. We can show that support by facilitating safest protesting practices without detracting from demonstrators’ ability to gather and demand change. This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders.” It sounds like right-wing hyperbole until you actually read their own words.

LinuxBender 2y ago

The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed" I know I will get beat up for this comment but someone has to say it. I believe this direction is well deserved. Clearly they were given far too much trust and were operating as a rogue organization for far too long. Developing bio-weapons and dual use medicines on college campuses and then moving them to China once called out by Obama is cavalier, aggressive, dangerous, wanton disregard for life and absolute folly. And that's just what we know about. They can not take their own work seriously. To be clear I am not opposed to developing bio-weapons and dual use medicines rather I just want the people making these things to put a tremendous amount of safeguards friction and security around them. Move all the weapon development to highly secured military installations that are far away from everyone and require extensive scans before boarding a jet required to travel to that location and that is just to start their assignment. Once there they will have no privacy and will not leave until their work is completed and fully vetted.