Owen Cortner

The Federal Farm Policy Trap: Why Some Farmers Are Stuck Raising Crops That No Longer Thrive • Michigan Advance This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. R...

The Federal Farm Policy Trap: Why Some Farmers Are Stuck Raising Crops That No Longer Thrive michiganadvance.com/2025/09/09/t...

A primer on the Federal Reserve's independence : Planet Money President Donald Trump has been loudly critical of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for years now. Since January, the President has accused him of playing politics by keeping interest rates high. T...

Now’s a good time to share one of several recent @planetmoney.bsky.social episodes about the importance of Federal Reserve independence from partisan electoral politics.
www.npr.org/2025/04/23/1...

Auditors can’t save carbon offsets The theory behind carbon offset projects is appealing: Instead of an organization cutting its own emissions, it can fund lower-cost carbon-reducing projects elsewhere to “offset” its emissions. The re...

Who will audit the auditors?

This article showcases the really depressing reality about carbon offset markets. We either need to find ways to truly fix this or move on to other approaches.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧪 Really important thread. If you want to help save science funding in America, please call your senators & tell them!!!

#ScienceMatters

Scientists warn US will lose a generation of talent because of Trump cuts Political interference and chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants at the National Science Foundation are producing ‘devastating consequences’

The foundation of science and engineering in America is being eroded, badly.

This does NOT save us money, and it certainly doesn't make us “great again”. It hands the leadership of 21st century to China, on a silver platter.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Trash policy being pushed to privatize Western public lands w/o helping housing crisis. Call Western governors & Dept. of Interior. #sprawl cbdnet.info/portal/apps/...

#NoKings since 1776 🇺🇸

A G.O.P. Plan to Sell Public Land Is Back. This Time, It’s Millions of Acres.

"The proposal would require the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to identify and sell between 2.2 million and 3.3 million acres of public lands across 11 Western states to build housing."

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/12/c...

I'm late to the party but this is very good and worth your time.

Trump’s new ‘gold standard’ rule will destroy American science as we know it | Colette Delawalla The new executive order allows political appointees to undermine research they oppose, paving the way to state-controlled science

🔥 New article, led by our founder:

Trump’s Fool’s Gold Science EO lets political appointees loyal to him label research they don’t like as misconduct — and punish scientists who don’t fall in line with his agenda.

The time to take action is NOW. (1/2)➡️

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This was 1986. Now the news reporters can’t pronounce regular adult vocabulary and Gen Z parents find reading to their kids “boring”.

Staying with the Trouble (Is Not Necessarily About Geography) I've always been annoyed by those people who, when they didn't like the outcome of a presidential election, announced they were moving to Canada. Those declarations seemed to be about comfortable peop...

“Optional suffering is often confused with solidarity; it's not, and taking care of yourself so you can take care of the larger realms is foundational to being a sustained and sustainable activist.” - Rebecca Solnit www.meditationsinanemergency.com/staying-with...

(Mis)defining fascism in the United States For context, the creator I'm responding to in this video was one of the “political influencers” invited to the White House to promote the Trump administration's views on, well, most things.

Primer: theopenbookshelf.substack.com/p/misdefinin...

Republicans Advance Bill That Hikes Taxes For Working People And Cuts Taxes For Billionaires

The unavoidable truth is that Republicans’ core priority with this legislation was to benefit the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and that is exactly what their bill does.
beyer.house.gov/news/documen...
7/7

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund

Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

UNM post-docs forewarn threats to research at Stand Up for Science event • Source New Mexico New Mexico Stand Up for Science tabled at the University of New Mexico, to organize against federal defunding of science research.

NM Stand Up for Science organizers canvassed UNM's campus on the last day of classes for the spring semester, hoping to engage undergraduate and graduate students in organizing against federal cuts against research.

Emily Feiner was forcibly removed from GOP Rep. Mike Lawler's town hall after she asked her so-called "moderate" congressman to stand up to Donald Trump's authoritarian power grab.

There's a great pushback happening across the entire country — even in Republican held districts.

While you highlight it, please note is the product of local journalism, which has been carrying a lot of the burden in an environment where national outlets simply can't cover everything everywhere all at once. Support your local journalists!

NSF Grant Termination Information Collection Form Please use this form to submit information identifying specific NSF grants that have been cancelled for any reason after January 20, 2025. We are tracking these grants to increase transparency, organize affected PIs, and facilitate responses, including via litigation. Please share the form as widely as possible with your networks. We are actively building a pipeline to organize these terminations and will soon have a tracker akin to our NIH grant tracker at https://airtable.com/appjhyo9NTvJLocRy/shrNto1NNp9eJlgpA WE WILL NOT DISCLOSE THE IDENTITY OF ANYONE WHO USES THIS FORM TO PROVIDE INFORMATION. We will keep your identity confidential. These resources are maintained by Noam Ross of rOpenSci and Scott Delaney of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, with input and support from additional volunteers. For any questions, please contact Scott Delaney on Signal (sdelaney.84). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!

🚨Report your NSF grant terminations! 🚨

We are starting to collect information on NSF grant terminations to create a shared resource as we have for NIH. The more information we collect, the more we can organize, advocate, and fight back! Please share widely!

airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

If you're an NSF grantee who receives notice of cancellation per today's announcement, please get in touch here or via Signal mzahneis.09.

Stanford president and provost back Harvard in funding fight The president and provost said Harvard’s rejection of government demands was “rooted in the American tradition of liberty.”

Good job, Stanford admin. More of this.

“America’s univs are a source of great national strength, creating knowledge and driving innovation and economic growth,” they also wrote. “This strength has been built on government investment but not government control.“

stanforddaily.com/2025/04/15/l...

Cordelia Bähr: The 100 Most Influential People of 2025 Find out why Cordelia Bähr is on this year’s list

If climate justice had a formula, it could be:

one tenacious lawyer + 2,500 determined senior women = a ruling that reinvents climate accountability

With science, law, and relentless determination, Cordelia Bähr didn’t just fight for justice—she redefined it.

Read more:

If you'd like to lead a passionate, talented staff to support land stewardship in the American West, this is for you. quiviracoalition.org/executive-di... #job #opportunity #agriculture #environment

Furious Trump Cancels ‘Atlantic’ Subscription After 48 Years WASHINGTON—In protest of the publication’s coverage of the Signal breach, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he had canceled his subscription to The Atlantic after 48 years as a loyal read...

“Their long-form journalism has stayed on point for years, long after most publications abandoned anything longer than 1,000 words, so it’s a real shame. It’s Mother Jones for me from now on. That, or I try n+1. I’ve been hearing...good things about it from Hegseth.” theonion.com/furious-trum...

Large increases in public R&D investment are needed to avoid declines of US agricultural productivity | PNAS Increasing agricultural productivity is a gradual process with significant time lags between research and development (R&D) investment and the resu...

1/ We have a paper out in @pnas.org with @yurouhe.bsky.social, Bob Chambers (Maryland) & David Lobell (Stanford FSE) where we quantify the public R&D investment required to offset the emerging climate-induced slowdown of US agricultural productivity.

paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... (open)

Scientists shielding farming from climate change need more public funding. But they're getting less Public funding for agricultural research in the U.S. has been declining for the last two decades, a process Trump has rapidly accelerated by freezing or pausing support for a variety of research progr...

The US needs more publicly funded agriculture research & development to offset the effects of climate change. But instead the US has been investing less.

Cutting agriculture R&D spending will dampen productivity at home & abroad while raising food prices.

New paper by @arielob.bsky.social et al.

Call Congress to fight Trump's anti-library agenda. Show up for our libraries. ALA American Library Association.

Congress is back in Washington this week. That means they need to hear from library advocates like YOU who care about federal funding for libraries.

Use our easy tool and script to call your members of Congress and tell them to protect library funding: bit.ly/CallCongressForLibraries

If there were an agency dedicated to finding corruption, fraud and waste in the federal government, it would start right here.

ALA response to White House assault on IMLS To dismiss the mission of an agency that advances opportunity and learning is to dismiss the aspirations and everyday needs of millions of Americans. And those who will feel that loss most keenly live in rural communities.  As seedbeds of literacy and innovation, our nation’s 125,000 public, school, academic and special libraries deserve more, not less support. Libraries translate 0.003% of the federal budget into programs and services used by more than 1.2 billion people every year. Show Up for Our Libraries, ALA American Library Association, #ForOurLibraries

President Trump's executive order to eliminate the Institute of Museum & Library Services would have disastrous effects for communities nationwide. We call on all Americans who value reading & learning to reach out to their elected leaders.

Read ALA's full response: www.ala.org/news/2025/03...

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

theonion.com/chuck-schume...