Kristin Johnson

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades. For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community. “Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down operations after loss of federal funding:

[FREE] Printable Poster - No Kings, Yas Queens - RomantasyChris's Ko-fi Shop Printable "No Kings, Yas Queens" signs designed for Pride month, provided in printable PDF and PNG images, for Letter, Legal, and Poster sized paper. ...

A queer author, @romantasychris.bsky.social created a sign for this express purpose! ko-fi.com/s/d25c8eec8d [FREE] Printable Poster - No Kings, Yas Queens - RomantasyChris's Ko-fi Shop

It's hard to say this, but science (& research more generally) is just being **stopped** in the US right now. This is just one university, losing nearly a billion dollars in project funding pretty much overnight. That's people's jobs & the research that could save lives.

www.wsj.com/health/healt...

Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) on LinkedIn: #sustainabilityjobs #climatecareers #usdn 🌎🌿🔗 USDN’s Sustainability Job Board ⬇️ Links to job descriptions and applications below. Please share with your network! #SustainabilityJobs…

Here’s a list of climate/environment science and management jobs in local government. 🧪🌎

www.linkedin.com/posts/usdn_s...

A legal document titled "MEMORANDUM OPINION" from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in the case PFLAG, Inc., et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al. (Civil No. 25-337-BAH). The document discusses the court's ruling on the Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction (ECF 69), outlining the legal standard required for such relief, including likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm, balance of equities, and public interest. It references the prior granting of a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) on February 13, 2025, which enjoined the enforcement of specific Executive Orders prohibiting federal funding for gender-affirming medical care for transgender patients under 19. The document cites relevant case law and procedural background. The page header indicates it is Document 115, filed on March 4, 2025, and is page 1 of 66.

Huge news, a preliminary injunction was just granted in the PFLAG v Trump case enjoining the administration from enforcing the executive order ban on gender affirming care for trans youth.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Foreign Aid Terminations Endanger Millions at Home and Abroad | Friends Committee On National Legislation On February 26, the Trump administration announced that they were terminating thousands of foreign assistance grants and contracts. This move came just over a month after the administration issued a…

What do Trump's aid cuts mean?

"Millions of children who were fed in January will now go hungry. The sick who were receiving treatment will no longer. Peacebuilders and human rights defenders who sought the U.S. as a partner for their futures have been abandoned overnight."

18F, the federal government’s technology shop, was just demolished by Musk’s team. It was a cost-recoverable org, charging agencies for their expertise, using a consulting model. Its cost to government was negligible, its benefits huge. My team there once saved DoD $500 million.

A thread about 18F:

The administration got rid of 18F under the cover of night. People who own skyscrapers are afraid of 100 people who make websites.

Not because of the latest tech fad, but because we proved the government can be fixed, the government can be made better and the government can work for the people.

18F did two things, both for agencies that hired them to help with projects: it built software and it taught agencies how to hire & oversee vendors to build software. The former raised the bar by showing agencies what “good” looks like, the latter allowed those practices to expand sustainably.

18F 18F builds effective, user-centric digital services focused on the interaction between government & the people it serves. Provided by GSA. - 18F

For any devs wondering what 18F does (did), here’s its GitHub org page, with 1,210 repos. A few were mine! All the work they did for all their agency partners was open source. Public money should produce public software, for public inspection.

Those days are over, starting today.

18F is *precisely* what Musk and team claim should exist within government. But when his team found it, they destroyed it, because it is evidence that government works well (can’t have that!), and because like Zelensky, 18F didn’t bend the knee.

FAA Officials Ordered Staff to Find Funding for Elon Musk's Starlink After Trump and Musk gutted the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency directed staff to locate tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal.

new this morning from @andrewperez.bsky.social and me www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

NEW—Despite pressure, GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson says he will not relent on forcing steep Medicaid cuts. Medicaid pay for over 40% of all births in the US, and over 60% of all seniors in nursing homes. All to pay for multi-trillion $ tax cuts for billionaires.
www.politico.com/live-updates...

Exhibit 1 - 26 Feb 2025 OSD Policy – #63, Att. #1 in TALBOTT v. TRUMP (D.D.C., 1:25-cv-00240) – CourtListener.com NOTICE by TELITA CROSLAND, DEFENSE HEALTH AGENCY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PETER B. HEGSETH, MARK F. AVERILL, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY, TERENCE EMMERT, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE NAV...

Breaking: Trump's full trans military ban has just dropped. Quickly reading it, it appears to be a full separation from the military for all transgender military members, and states being trans is inconsistent with "honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity."

A sad day for this nation.

EPA moves to ditch finding that greenhouse gases cause harm The recommendation by Lee Zeldin, the agency's administrator, could upend existing and future regulations on climate change.

“The Environmental Protection Agency will move to reverse its 2009 declaration that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare”

Listen someone needs to tell Lee Zeldin that the cat’s outta the bag on this one.

Scoop: FDA vaccine meeting abruptly canceled. Meeting was to determine 2025-2026 influenza vaccine composition. Hi everyone,

What does this mean?

Jeremy Faust discussed this with panel member Paul Offit.

insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-fda-...

Trump administration to fire thousands at health agencies The Trump administration is set to eliminate thousands of federal health care jobs Friday, targeting employees across agencies who were hired in the past one to two years.

Exclusive scoop @statnews.com: Trump administration to fire 5,200 HHS employees this afternoon

www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/f...

Email sent to all CFPB staff this morning: "Please do not perform any work tasks."

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Federal judge blocks Elon Musk’s DOGE access to critical Treasury payment system | CNN Politics A federal judge, citing a risk of “irreparable harm,” early Saturday temporarily restricted Elon Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing a critical Treasury Department payment system.

A federal judge has restricted the Elon Musk-led government efficiency team from accessing a critical Treasury Department payment system. The order, issued early Saturday, halts access temporarily and demands the destruction of any downloaded information, saying there is risk of “irreparable harm.”

NIH funding and jobs by state, institution and year - for talking to your Reps
🧪
report.nih.gov/award/index....

🚨 Revised request for scientist friends who want to do something to help 🚨

Help me find scientific professional societies with significant numbers of US members so I can approach them about a sign-on letter.

What societies are you a member of? Send me names, links, etc.

DMs open.

🧪🌎🦑

they are mostly targeting black employees so this is quite literally just a repeat of woodrow wilson’s segregationist purge of the federal government

A memo listing all of the clubs eliminated by USMA.

The United States Military Academy has just eliminated all Cadet clubs and activities for POC. Most of these have existed for decades like the Society of Black Engineers. They were there when I was a Cadet in 1987. All of the religious ones remain. This isn’t DEI. It’s white Christian Nationalism.

Trump just said he’s calling for the full forcible transfer of all 1.8 million Gazans out of the strip and says “The US will take over the Gaza Strip”

State audit finds overall unnecessary spending under former UF President Ben Sasse - The Independent Florida Alligator A preliminary report from the Florida Auditor General found UF failed to prevent former President Ben Sasse from leveraging his executive privileges to inappropriately spend university funds.

minor in the scheme of things but wow who could have guessed that a guy who was one of the smarmiest and most sanctimonious people in the senate was also corrupt www.alligator.org/article/2025...

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on.”
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

Are the next 4 years really going to be logging on everyday to sentences like "a 19 year old doge intern called Big Balls has your social security number" because I'm already at capacity for this sort of thing