Melissa Tier

Please see my newest blog post with the New Jersey State Policy Lab! @njpolicylab.bsky.social

The message should not be that political violence is bad because it targeted a good guy who was “practicing politics the right way” (which Kirk definitely was not). Political violence is bad because it inherently corrodes the democratic polity, because it makes democracy impossible.

Read the "Katrina Declaration" letter here: www.standupforscience.net/fema-katrina...

A Hopeful Sign for FEMA’s Flagship Disaster Preparedness Program The future of a FEMA pre-disaster preparedness program, implemented during the first Trump administration, is anyone's guess.

Interesting update from @ucs.org:
"US District Judge Richard Stearn issued a preliminary injunction stopping FEMA from spending funds from the BRIC grant program for non-BRIC purposes. This appears to ensure funding will continue to be allocated to the BRIC program."

blog.ucs.org/shana-udvard...

Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here.

"Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray."

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...

Will the Democrats learn from Zohran Mamdani’s victory? | Bernie Sanders Too many Democratic party leaders would rather be the captains on a sinking Titanic than change course

"Mamdani’s victory was not about 'star power'. It was very much about people power, about revitalizing democracy and opening the door for ordinary people to gain control over the decisions that impact their lives."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Cities lose hope for restarting disaster projects killed by Trump The president canceled $4.5 billion in FEMA grants that helped communities prepare for rising disaster damage.

“It was just a terrible moment where you see a program that is absolutely not political and absolutely not wasteful getting cut,” [Scranton Mayor Paige] Cognetti said of BRIC, referring to Trump’s criticisms of the program.

www.eenews.net/articles/cit...

"To the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia is not a mistake. He is a liability, and he is a test. A test of their power to do this to anyone. A test of... if they can get you on a plane, they can hustle you beyond our laws and leave you in the grips of the kind of gulags they wish they had here."

"The emergency is here.

The crisis is now. It is not six months away. It is not another Supreme Court ruling away from happening. It’s happening now.

Perhaps not to you, not yet. But to others. Real people. We know their names. We know their stories."

This is what it means to work for your constituents. Proud of this fellow Swattie.

I sincerely hope Mr. Ábrego García is able to return home as soon as possible.

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.

The President has no authority on his own to nullify state laws. This Executive Order is toothless. Trump is directing the Department of Justice to attempt to intervene in the numerous lawsuits that are challenging the state efforts he doesn't like. It will be up to the state court judges who 🧵

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of fuckup imaginable. These people cannot keep America safe.

"The increasingly aggressive use of 'antisemitism' as a political instrument was never about Jewish safety. It has always been about power: consolidating a political order that merges religion, nationalism and authoritarianism under the veneer of minority protection."

AOC and Bernie in front of the rally crowd in Denver

Zoomed out crowd shot of 34,000 people in downtown Denver with Colorado mountains in the background

Tonight an unbelievable **34,000 people** gathered for our Denver rally to take on billionaires and win our country back.

This was the largest political gathering in Denver since Obama in 2008.

Also bigger than the 2024 DNC.

And the largest ever rally in Bernie’s career (and obviously, mine too).

Postdocs and PhD students hit hard by Trump’s crackdown on science As US federal grants remain frozen and budget cuts loom, anxiety and fear grip early-career researchers.

The Trump administration's efforts to slash research funding have US graduate students, postdocs and other early-career scientists fearing for their careers. Some might leave the country -- or abandon research altogether.

https://go.nature.com/43ao2zq

Dear OPM FOIA staff -

Remember to preserve all of these email responses, as we will be submitting FOIA requests for this consolidated compilation of information on what the entire federal government did last week.

Thx -

FOIA community

Remember, everything is part of the same story.

They need to destroy our democracy and crush dissent because letting billionaires take over the government in order to steal from us isn't popular and a functioning democracy wouldn't allow it.

Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager. Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments. Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST.

Here’s the email everyone is getting from OPM. Embarrassing stuff.

American presidents don’t even joke about this. Just because he’s petty doesn’t mean this isn’t dangerous.

Letter From a Federal Worker This is a heartbreaking letter that a federal worker has asked me to share with the public.

NEW: A letter from an anonymous federal worker. Please read and share: www.muellershewrote.com/p/letter-fro...

It’s not about “government efficiency.”

It’s about autocratic power.

"As every enterprise seeks efficiencies, the system loses its redundancy... When a system has lost its resilience, a small external shock can trigger cascading collapse."

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

I'm working on a couple of upcoming talks and can't get over how simply describing what is happening right now with attacks on the NSF, NIH, Diversity, etc. makes me sound like a raving lunatic.

They've launched an all-out assault on empirical reality.

A Brief Look at Environmental Justice Federal Policy in the U.S. By Melissa Tier   In the past few weeks, President Trump has followed through on his campaign promises to begin terminating climate, environmental justice, and equity-based federal funds and initiat...

The Trump admin has implemented a vast array of changes to existing #federal funds & #policy initiatives, which has underlined the importance of both understanding & documenting the environmental justice policies that were in development during the Biden admin:
policylab.rutgers.edu/a-brief-look...

"It is more important than ever to understand and document the nascent EJ policies that were in development during the Biden administration... Here we take a very brief look at the interaction between the history of EJ activism in the U.S. and the federal EJ policies that have just been halted."

A Brief Look at Environmental Justice Federal Policy in the U.S. By Melissa Tier   In the past few weeks, President Trump has followed through on his campaign promises to begin terminating climate, environmental justice, and equity-based federal funds and initiat...

Sharing my newest blog post in light of federal policy shifts on climate, environmental justice, and equity-based initiatives: policylab.rutgers.edu/a-brief-look...

"I think what we have to remind folks is our right to grieve, but then you have to turn that energy into something positive and something that will continue the [EJ] movement.

...find out what group is working in your community on an issue that you care about. Go to a public meeting."

"It is Musk who controls gov. operations and federal spending, and so it is Musk who is running the country. The constitutional order, now, is largely window dressing. The reality is that a foreign billionaire is running the state through a shadow government, and that his power has no formal check."