Libby McClure

The US Attack on Iran May Have Damaged Disarmament Efforts More Than Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities Instead of eliminating Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon, the US attack may push Iran's leaders toward actually building one.

"Experts fear that the recent attacks by Israel and the United States may have driven Iranian leaders to conclude that Iran must acquire its own nuclear weapons to ensure its security."

It's such a privilege to get to work with smart, thoughtful people like @dkspaulding.bsky.social. Check out his report on plutonium pit production and support frontline communities resisting production of new pits!

Shout out to all of the faculty and students who made it through this semester in particular. What a time to be teaching and learning in spaces that are directly under attack from people who benefited from having access to the same resources themselves.

Well, my main thought is that it is too mid to be destroying labor and the earth for.

New NIH grant rules override the Civil Rights Act of 1964, barring recipients from DEI activities The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is rolling out rules that block new grants for any researcher or institution ad | The National Institutes of Health is rolling out rules that block new grants f...

This feels existential for US science:

To get any future medical research funding, an entire university would need to certify that it won't have programs doing DEIA work

(e.g. note-takers for blind students, veteran's support, women's resource groups, etc.)

No institution could *ever* comply.

A screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation reading: "can you write something about robert e. lee in the voice of washington post staff writer gillian brockell?" "Certainly! Here's an excerpt written in the voice of Gillian Brockell, a staff writer at The Washington Post, reflecting on Robert E. Lee's legacy: The Complicated Legacy of Robert E. Lee: A Figure Divided by History By Gillian Brockell When Robert E. Lee's name is invoked, it is often as a symbol of Southern pride military brilliance, or a tragic, doomed cause. But history has a way of shifting its lens, and in recent years, the image of Lee -- the Confederate general, the hero of lost causes -- has become increasingly more fraught. The man who stood as the face of a rebellion that tore the nation apart now stands at the center of an ongoing reckoning over the Confederacy's legacy, and our struggle to reconcile memory with reality."

When I left the Washington Post in 2023, my colleagues and I were worried AI would hoover up our work and enable "zombies" to churn out stories based on our reporting and writing styles.

Today WaPo announced a partnership with OpenAI. And here it is: Zombie Gillian Brockell. I DID NOT WRITE THIS.

Columbia Canceled My Course on Race and Media. I'm Going to Teach It Anyway. This is not a time for media literacy or historical knowledge to be held hostage by institutions bending the knee to authoritarianism.

Latest podcast is out: Get in everyone, we are going to Resistance Summer School!

Thank you to everyone who indicated they would like to take my course on Race, Media and International Affairs 101.

Please fill out this quick interest form to begin to sign up!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I wrote about this a bit in my last book but it really shakes me that a defining feature of this catastrophic era is that we just keep going to work. We work through pandemics, we work through natural disasters, we work through economic calamity, we work through coups, we work, we work, we work.

Justice for Downwinder Communities in Washington The Hanford nuclear site closed decades ago, but community members are still waiting for recognition of its costs to their health.

We have some great work being done here @ucsusa.bsky.social by Kendall Fellow @lmcclure.bsky.social (now faculty at UNC). Check out her work on community engaged research around the Hanford Facility, which remains one of the most contaminated and complex legacies of US nuclear weapons production.

This is Scott – a CDC researcher working to help screen coal miners for black lung.

His entire department was eliminated last week, leaving miners across the country at greater risk of sickness and death. I’m fighting back.

Something special that's come out of this work (a lot of which has been digging through boxes of archival documents in library basements) is coming across expert testimonies and notes from my late mentor, Steve Wing

Justice for Downwinder Communities in Washington The Hanford nuclear site closed decades ago, but community members are still waiting for recognition of its costs to their health.

I wrote about my work with @ucsusa.bsky.social and nuclear frontline communities around the Hanford facility in Washington. It's a collaboration aimed to bring justice for the harms of nuclear weapons production.

blog.ucs.org/elizabeth-mc...

You don’t have to love or even like people to work with them effectively. I don’t think there will be one effective strategy of resistance against Trump; I think there will be MANY. An overwhelming rainbow of pushback and outrage.

But again, I ain’t saying nothing. I’m minding my business.

Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993

I’m not going to tell people how to feel about protests… at least not today.

Instead, I’ll recommend Sarah Schulman’s book about ACT UP. It’s not just a history of the organization; she also talks strategy in a very practical way, especially regard coalitions.

‘A huge impact on worker safety’: Protection for miners, firefighters in jeopardy after CDC cuts | CNN Anyone in the US who’s depended on a respirator to provide protection against dust, smoke, mold or airborne viruses has likely relied on a small but mighty agency within the US Centers for Disease Con...

On Elon Musk and RFKjr's devastation of NIOSH:
"It’s a small thing, but it’s massive in terms of its impact and its importance,” said John McDonough, professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “And they’ve just wiped it off the face of the Earth.” @megtirrell.bsky.social

The Griffin List A list of 60,273 North Carolina voters – these are registered voters who showed ID to early vote in the November 2024 election – whose votes Jefferson Griffin wants to not be counted. ...

Hello! We are a scrappy three-year-old civics blog based in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

We just updated
thegriffinlist.com, which contains detailed instructions for 65,000 NC voters whose votes might be thrown out in the state Supreme Court race. Please share!

The Griffin List A list of 60,273 North Carolina voters – these are registered voters who showed ID to early vote in the November 2024 election – whose votes Jefferson Griffin wants to not be counted. ...

If you voted for Allison Riggs in the 2024 NC election check here to see if your ballot is being challenged. If so, then you have 15 business days from whenever they mail the notices to cure your ballot, but best to check now & cure yours as soon as possible, even if this ruling might get overturned

TONIGHT!

🔴 Register now: bit.ly/42hRlPK

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was eliminated yesterday. 900 employees are out of work. NIOSH funds all of the workplace safety and health research in the United States. The entire field of workplace safety and health may be gone.

Last Friday, 1,000 more NIH biomedical research projects were defunded with no notice

Here’s a word cloud of canceled grants, based on their titles

The criminalization of miscarriages hits close to home for me.

Pregnancy loss is so so common, and yet we're not allowed space to process these losses.

Surveillance is not care. Criminalization is not care.

"You may be thinking that one day can't make a difference. "but it could be one day or day one." @adriennemareebrown.

Coretta Scott King reminds us that "freedom must be won with every generation." #economicboycott ✊🏽

yes, boycotting today and yesterday and tomorrow. also this.

If You’re Pregnant, Here’s What You Should Know About the Medical Procedures That Could Save Your Life Women experiencing pregnancy loss in states with abortion bans told us they wished they had known what to expect and how to advocate for themselves. We created this guide for anyone who finds…

People experiencing pregnancy loss in states with abortion bans told us they wished they had known what to expect and how to advocate for themselves.

We created this guide for anyone who finds themselves in the same position.

Why Federal Radiation Regulations Can No Longer Ignore Women and Girls UCS interviewed the co-authors of a UN report on how certain groups are harmed by radiation more than others.

Important new piece from my colleague Dr. Chanese Forté, who interviews Dr. Amanda Nichols & Mary Olson on why federal radiation regulations can no longer ignore women & girls. TL/DR: Women & girls are more radiosensitive - more likely to face harm from radiation: blog.ucsusa.org/chanese-fort...

hello cis friends
this is what people mean by trans genocide

if a type of person does not officially exist, then any harm against them cannot be measured or reported

this headline change isn't even being caused by an executive order

it's simply the NYT editors deciding we don't deserve to exist

Insufficient sample size or insufficient attention to marginalized populations? A practical guide to moving observational research forward Naomi Harada Thyden; Insufficient sample size or insufficient attention to marginalized populations? A practical guide to moving observational research for

Are you interested in analyzing small samples from marginalized communities and aren't sure how?

My new commentary in AJE's collection on Methods in Social Epidemiology lays out rec's for researchers, public health practitioners, and data owners.

DM your email address if you need access.

You can pry my antidepressants from my cold, dead hands A new executive order announced an "assessment" for the use of these meds in children. Adults aren't far behind.

New from me —

“What it comes down to is the removal of choice, especially when it comes to established health care. People should not have to suffer the anguish of being denied life-saving drugs because a couple of guys have decided to apply conspiracy theories instead of established science.”

Section 3(g) of the Gender Identity Order is admittedly slightly vaguer than Section 4 of the Healthcare Order in that it only proscribes the use of "[fJederal [grant] funds [to] promote gender_ idcology." The Gender Identity Order, appears, however, to deny the existence of transgender persons altogether. See Gender Identity Order $ 1 (describing the purpose of the order as "defend[ing] women's rights and protect[ing] freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically 40 Case 8:25-cv-00337-BAH Document 62 Filed 02/14/25 Page 41 of 53 male"); id. $ 2 ("It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.") The Court cannot fathom discrimination more direct than the plain pronouncement of a policy resting on the premise that the group to which the policy is directed does not exist. Thus, Section 3(g) of the Gender Identity Order can only be read as doing exactly what Section-4 of the Healthcare Order does cease funding institutions, including medical institutions, that provide gender affirming medical care to patients under the age of nineteen. Thus, as with Section 4 of Healthcare Order, Kadel mandates a similar finding of discrimination as to Section 3(g) of the Gender Identity Order.

From a federal court decision blocking Trump's anti-trans healthcare order: "The Court cannot fathom discrimination more direct than the plain pronouncement of a policy resting on the premise that the group to which the policy is directed does not exist."