Christina Brown

It’s so important for people to realize that authoritarianism in America will look like this, not like a police state with martial law and people disappearing into prisons. It will be a dispirited opposition that people are afraid of supporting, bc otherwise they’ll get in trouble.

Chaos, harassment, and unpaid bills: Inside Elon Musk's war on USAID “We’ve given up everything to serve our country overseas, and we’re being maligned by the richest asshole in the world.”

For some of the most comprehensive USAID reporting yet, @timothypmurphy.bsky.social & I spoke to ~12 USAID workers about how Musk & Trump have screwed over FSOs, interrupted life-saving projects, & shattered the foundations of the entire humanitarian aid industry. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Opinion | It’s America That Suffers When We Cut Foreign Aid (Gift Article) U.S.A.I.D. keeps children alive and us safe.

So what has the Trump/Musk push on USAID achieved so far? I reached out to contacts, and here's the state of play: Children dying. Hospitals closing. Ebola at risk of spreading. US food aid rotting. Moms at risk in childbirth. China gaining soft power. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/o...

Opinion | It’s America That Suffers When We Cut Foreign Aid (Gift Article) U.S.A.I.D. keeps children alive and us safe.

Readers have asked what they can do at a personal level, and that's important because the assault on USAID may be a prelude to an attack on Medicaid here in the US. So I recommend some advocacy steps and great nonprofits to support: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/o...

looking to chat with anyone at or adjacent to USAID about what's going on with DOGE there. you can message me on signal at timothypmurphy.41.

Opinion | The World’s Richest Men Take On the World’s Poorest Children (Gift Article) I’ve seen U.S.A.I.D. operate around the world, and it’s not woke — it’s lifesaving.

Yes, USAID could use reform, but this is demolition. Trump braids together cruelty, ignorance and shortsightedness, and calls it policy, as the world's richest men go after the worlds poorest children. My column: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/o...

showed up to work ten minutes early to call my state assemblymember, state senator, US congressman, and US senators, you should do the same

Re. Rahm Emanuel’s “is this the hill you want to die on”: yes. Yes it is. The US government can stop tiny babies dying horrible deaths AND counter China for not very much money - yes, this is a hill worth dying on.

One of my party facts is that according to polls, Americans believe foreign aid is about 25% of the federal budget and on average that it *should* be about 10%.

The actual number is less than 1%.

Foreign aid has long been a boogey man of the right, so it's not surprising they're vilifying it now.

list of banned keywords

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

Scenes from a protest outside of USAID today.

Shutting down USAID is not about efficiency—it’s about undermining America’s global leadership. USAID counters extremism, fights diseases, and creates more markets for U.S. exports. This is reckless and dangerous.

USAID employees overseas are no longer able to access their government security app, which gives them this error code (images provided to me by USAID worker)

Just spitballing, but things that could happen today:
*Court injunction protecting USAID
*Dems demand hearings on Musk's role
*Someone introduce articles of impeachment
*Dem officeholders go to USAID offices with USAID workers
*Refuse to conduct any more Senate confirmations until this is resolved

People have gathered outside USAID HQ for press event with Democratic Congressmen Beyer, Raskin, Connolly and Olzewski and Senator Van Hollen where they're addressing the building's mysterious shutdown today in the midst of the Trump admin dismantling the agency.

(Photos shared with me)

THE ASK This week, between Monday and the vote on Vought, we're asking people from all over the country to plan a visit to Senate State Offices to demand Democrats fight and to hold Republicans accountable for their complicity. DEMOCRATS MUST USE EVERY PROCEDURAL TOOL TO SHUT DOWN TRUMP'S AGENDA Yes, we need Democrats to vote no on Vought's nomination, but no is not enough. Democrats have the power to grind Senate business to a halt and force Republicans to feel the political cost of backing Trump's extremist agenda. Here's how: 1. Deny a Quorum: If Republicans don't have 51 votes in the chamber, Democrats can walk out and shut down Senate business entirely. 2. Block Unanimous Consent: Object to every procedural shortcut, forcing Republicans to take the longest possible route for every step of the confirmation process. 3. Max Out Debate Time: Use all 30 hours of debate on Vought to expose Project 2025, Musk's Treasury takeover, and the funding freeze. 4. Delay and Disrupt: Force roll-call votes, quorum calls, and procedural delays to slow everything down. 5. Blanket Opposition: Democrats cannot continue to vote for Trump's other nominees, helping to install more MAGA loyalists into powerful positions in the federal government while this power grab continues. No Business as Usual: This is a constitutional crisis. Democrats must abandon the old rules and fight with everything they have. Bottom line: Senate Democrats must block, delay, and obstruct every step of this process-no cooperation, no easy votes, no fast-tracking Trump's takeover. To learn more about how Senate Democrats can shut down Trump's agenda with procedural hardball, check out our explainer here.

Indivisible is urging people to visit their senators' local offices between now and Thursday to demand that they use every tool—including denying a quorum and blocking unanimous consent—to fight the confirmation of Project 2025 architect Russell Vought for head of OMB docs.google.com/document/d/1...

1. Catholic Relief Services crs.org
2. Mercy Corps mercycorps.org
3. Gavi Alliance gavi.org
4. Save the Children www.savethechildren.org

The attack on USAID is catastrophic for so many who depend on these services for life-saving healthcare and life-changing education. Call your representative immediately (usaidstopwork.com/individuals) and donate to NGOs supported by USAID:

😫 oh no it was just up this morning

It is extremely important to communicate to your elected leaders that this issue matters to you. Foreign aid does not have as clear a "constituency," so if you care about this issue, you need to speak up. 9/9

USAIDStopWork

So what can you do?

1. Sign this petition usaidstopwork.com
2. Call your representative (especially if you live in a Republican district/state). There is a script on the website.
3. Follow reddit.com/r/Internatio... and reddit.com/r/fednews/ for updates 8/

But instead of discussing how this money is actually used, they are literally preventing this information from getting out. The rest of the USAID website is working except the page on "Dollars to Results" (results.usaid.gov/results), which currently has this message. 7/

This is an incredible NGO I spent years fundraising for. They helped develop a shot that prevents the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to their newborns. It costs just $8. This is what your taxpayer money is going to. Literally saving the lives of newborns. 6/

The "$50 million to Gaza for condoms" story is completely fabricated. There is $0 dollars for condoms going to Gaza. However, there IS a program in Gaza province, Mozambique run by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. 5/

Foreign aid saves us enormous sums of money by helping prevent these tragedies while giving back to those significantly less fortunate.

And the Trump administration knows this. That is why they have to lie about what USAID really does. 4/

The war in Afghanistan cost EACH American about $6,000 total. The cost of the COVID-19 pandemic is still being felt but is likely in the $10,000's per American. 3/

While I believe we have a moral imperative to help those less fortunate, even if you just consider the benefits directly to Americans, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Foreign aid is extremely important in deterring terrorism, conflict and disease outbreaks. 2/

Trump and
@marcorubio
's actions to destroy the US foreign aid system is catastrophic, cruel and hurts Americans and those abroad.

Foreign aid is a minuscule part of the federal budget. Each American pays about $120/year. The returns are enormous. Here's why: 1/

Screen shot of title page from NBER website. When Given Discretion Teachers Did Not Shirk: Evidence from Remedial Education in Secondary Schools Sabrin A. Beg, Anne E. Fitzpatrick, Jason T. Kerwin, Adrienne Lucas & Khandker Wahedur Rahman Working Paper 33242 DOI 10.3386/w33242 Issue Date December 2024 Public-sector organizations face a tradeoff: allowing workers discretion at the point of service to adapt to local needs, versus rigid harmonization to ensure uniform service delivery. We examine this tradeoff in the context of secondary schools in Odisha, India, where the centrally set curriculum is nearly 4 grades above the learning levels of the mean student. We conduct a randomized intervention that assigned schools to either a rigid or a flexible version of a remedial learning intervention that displaced the curriculum. We compare learning outcomes and teaching quality to the status quo. Both interventions increased learning by 0.11SD, about 60 percent of a year of learning, with gains throughout the learning distribution. We find no crowd-out of grade-level mastery, and no change in the likelihood of earning passing Board Marks one year later. Discretion did not lower the quality of implementation or induce shirking. Allowing teachers flexibility to adjust classroom content to student needs was beneficial and had limited downsides.

New @nberpubs.bsky.social working paper: "When Given Discretion Teachers Did Not Shirk: Evidence from Remedial Education in Secondary Schools" with #SabrinBeg @annefitz13.bsky.social @jkerwin.bsky.social @kwrahman.com

Title summarizes it. We elaborate in the paper: www.nber.org/papers/w33242

Her findings show the importance of studying how workers make labor supply decisions. Crafting effective policy requires understanding what workers want and how they are constrained in their choices. 11/11