The Tashinator

Why Would Trump Dismantle This Tiny Little Agency That Does So Much Good? Judges are on the IMLS’ side. But the budget battle is still to come.

did some reporting on the impact of DOGE's cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the court cases that are preserving the agency (for now), Trump's threats to slash federal arts spending, and the importance of IMLS to libraries and schools everywhere: slate.com/life/2025/05...

President Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden President Donald Trump has abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.

This is an absolute disgrace.

apnews.com/article/dona...

✅ DEI Employer of the Day

Macy's

Stephen Miller's group filed a federal complaint against Macy’s in 2023 for 'illegal racial discrimination,' citing the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Macy's now: "We are embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion throughout our business strategy"

🧵The best thing USians can do is call our electeds, in partic Ds; say you support this ⬇️ from Sens Van Hollen, Durbin, Merkley, Sanders, Warren, & Welch, & call for urgency.

Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121
or
Senate.gov & House.gov to find direct numbers
or
find in-state offices on their websites

Van Hollen, Colleagues Call on GAO to Investigate U.S. Compliance with Laws Requiring the U.S. to Ensure Government Recipients of Foreign Aid Respect Human Rights, Facilitate Humanitarian Aid | U.S. S... U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter...

IF SENATOR
VAN HOLLEN
DURBIN
MERKLEY
SANDERS
WARREN or
WELCH
IS YOUR SENATOR
(hey Vermont you have both of your Senators on this!)

Pls, pls: Call & thank them. I'll be calling @durbin.senate.gov in the morning. I've called his office many times abt Is/Pal, often in tears. I'm grateful for this.
2/2

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

RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, a Surgeon General nominee who dropped out of residency, and now this. We’re in deep trouble.

A graphic showing that 50.6% of research projects with "LGBT" search terms have been cancelled. 45.8% of grants with "transgender" in the search terms have been cancelled. 45.5% of research grants with "vaccine hesitancy" have been cancelled. 3.4% grants with "HIV" or "AIDS" have been cancelled.

The US National Institutes of Health has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields

Read the full story: https://go.nature.com/3EuFRPV

Every so often in history, a deranged leader will turn against scientific inquiry. An abassid caliph did in the 9th Century, Portugal’s king Manuel chased out his finest scholars because they were Jewish, Hitler also expelled his Jewish scientists.

It has invariably been a terrible idea, but…

DOGE begins to freeze health-care payments for extra review DOGE is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal grants, requiring officials to manually review and approve payments that were previously routine.

DOGE is killing NIH. They froze the panels that determine funding. Then they froze funding announcements. Then they cancelled 100s of funded grants. Now they're freezing the remaining funded grants by making it impossible to actually access the funds
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Our county councilor has asked county agencies to maintain information about households suffering from the disappearance of a family member to ICE detention. So far, nearly all were detained while working, nearly all had work authorization, all have US-born children, and none have a criminal record.

Every person on Bluesky should know:
* Every post on Bluesky is PUBLIC forever
* Every post on Bluesky is archived by ICE, NSA, and many other agencies
* Even if you delete a post, it’s already been captured
* Judges don’t care if you were “kidding” or being ironic

www.404media.co/the-200-site...

Or listen as the case may be. 😂

Good lord. Once again Congress tries to gut DC infrastructure - the city in which they live and work for much of the year. The irony is uncanny. WTF? This govt is literally going to tank our whole region along with the country.

Ooh a must read!!

How Bangladesh rolled out the world’s largest off-grid solar programme Between 2003 and 2018, the country's Solar Home Systems programme reached 14% of the population, with 4.1 million systems installed.

An example of the future of electricity for much of the world is my news to me good news for Mar 12. #EarthOptimism #BeyondTheObituaries theprogressplaybook.com/2025/03/10/h...

Yeah we just decided to quiet quit it as we have almost no engagement.

Firings prompt concerns that science supporting Alaska seafood industry could be undermined • Alaska Beacon NOAA Fisheries has declined to release numbers on the scope of the cutback, which has left officials scrambling to track the force reductions.

Great article on the ongoing impacts of the Trump administration on fisheries in the NE Pacific, and the people whose livelihoods both support and depend on them. alaskabeacon.com/2025/03/10/f...

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...

NOAA firings in Seattle include orca-saving employee of the year Until Thursday afternoon, Hanna Miller focused on protecting whales from oil spills, ship strikes, and fishing gear. While on vacation in Hawaii, the federal biologist opened her work email on her per...

They literally fired the employee of the year. But it's about efficiency and waste, of course.

www.kuow.org/stories/noaa...

Skilled technologists are being forced out of government 18F and USDS are gutted by DOGE

New, from me: Musk is not just destroying core government functions, he is also destroying the tech capacity of government.
The people with serious tech skills who care about fixing govt have been fired. Both 18F and the US Digital Service are gone.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...

F.D.A. Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots The cancellation plays into fears among scientists who worry that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use his position as health secretary to sow doubts about vaccines.

First, they said postponed; now the meeting is canceled. That means no flu shots next year.

“'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"

Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...

it's fairly easy to remind someone making Stack's argument here that there are like 3-4x as many trans people in america today as there were jews in germany before WWII. getting tired from screaming that this is nazi stuff but this is so obviously nazi stuff!!!!

See it’s not just people who want to go to Canada. Even the lobsters don’t like it here. It’s too hot in here for real.

Trump administration terminates Maine Sea Grant

Seems like a great time indeed to just cut out Maine's Sea Grant program, right? www.nationalfisherman.com/northeast/tr...

A Study of Mint Plants. A Device to Stop Bleeding. This Is the Scientific Research Ted Cruz Calls “Woke.” The senator flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude meth...

ICYMI: Sen. Ted Cruz flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude method for identifying research he calls “woke.”

“We are all as scientists at the whim of a single individual. I’m getting lack of sleep trying to follow the news every night.”

If you are the kind of person who is reflexively angered at the sight of someone looting a $2,000 TV during a riot, well this plundering of the FAA amid fires across the federal government is Elon Musk walking out of the Best Buy with a $2.4 billion TV.

Here’s How Many Employees Each National Park Is Losing A nonprofit is tallying up how many NPS employees have been let go from each park. A key asset has been social media posts from terminated employees.

Tracking DOGE/Trump firings at National Parks: www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adve...

CDC Staff Prohibited From Co-Authoring Papers With World Health Organization Personnel It’s just the latest “Orwellian” crackdown on government scientists.

I don’t even know how this could be presented as being in service of anything other than hindering scientific progress.