Today, Russel Vought appeared in front of the House Budget Committee to defend the proposed cuts to the #NIH & others. He justifies cuts to cancer, Alzheimer’s research etc. & spreads lies about the origins of Covid.
FYI: The NIH budget is less than 1% of federal budget.
🧪via @pbsnews.org
Viktor Orban accomplished so much of what the Trump movement wants to accomplish here
he ruled for 16 years and rewrote the rules in his favor
and still, they threw him out
and you know what? they did it by voting
don’t let anyone tell you voting doesn’t matter
America's money goes to Hungary. To Argentina. To fund wars in Iran and invasions of Venezuela.
It goes to kill shipwrecked survivors. To ICE, who shoot US citizens and build concentration camps
Our money seems to fund death and destruction all across the globe
But it never goes to help Americans
Breaking: Trump orders the dismantling of the US Forest Service.
All regional offices are being shut down and the research program destroyed.
what are your thoughts on why russell vought seems intent on destroying scientific and medical research in this country?
Vought is not alone.
Some hold a grievance
joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/grievance-...
others have ideological opposition:
joshuasweitz.substack.com/p/not-all-wa...
and many view universities & civil servants as the enemy:
www.propublica.org/article/vide...
all of which comes w/consequences.
Really hoping my k99 resubmission reviewers pull their phones out to creep on me in May. Hoping they'd see the preprint I'm currently scrambling to put together right now 😭. So annoying March review delayed to May. Could've had opportunity to submit a "new" app in June before 4yr PD cap. Now I can't
The FDA's controversial vaccine chief, Dr. Vinay Prasad, is leaving the agency. It's the second time he has abruptly departed following decisions involving the review of vaccinations and specialty drugs. n.pr/4d6X6FQ
With this war on Iran costing $1B per day, we are now at 4$B, an amount that would fund 3,200 five year NIH biomedical research grants.
Incredibly proud to share our new preprint, lead by the Incomparable Rithika Sankar.
Here we temporally dissect the role of FACT in mES cells, finding that FACT loss drives progressive deterioration of chromatin architecture, leading to transcriptional collapse.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
It's all a part of OMB Director Russ Vought playbook.
He has called this apportionment process an “indispensable statutory tool” to force agencies to adhere to White House priorities — even arguing that the OMB can legally provide less funding than Congress explicitly appropriated.
Vought created lawlessness in every part of the Trump administration. This lawlessness harms all of us, because:
Big corporations are getting away with cheating consumers.
We are funding fewer cures for cancer with the same amount of money.
Our communities get less help to recover from disasters.
Russell Vought is lawlessly slashing all of these programs and so many more.
We are current and former federal workers from across the government. We have witnessed first-hand the harm Vought has inflicted on American communities.
Russell Vought is the central architect driving the destruction of your government. We are urging Congress to act now to protect the American people by impeaching and convicting Vought. We invite all Americans to join us by signing on to our letter to Congress.
actionnetwork.org/forms/civil-...
The University of Texas system has voted to limit 'controversial topics' in class. Where's the academic freedom?
"A faculty member is not going to be able do talk about current events without risking being fired. What kind of education is this?"
—Brian Evans, President of @texasaaup.bsky.social
This is the kind of thing white supremacists have been doing to Emmett Till’s memorial for decades.
It’s wild to see them do this to a white woman who the entire world saw extrajudicially murdered.
This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see.
His FCC refused to air my interview with Stephen Colbert.
Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas.
Will have an asterisk/indicator on my CV making it clear my degree was legitimate when I earned it. No alumni donations from me if this goes through. Horns down 😔
America's Richest People Are Not its Most Generous
Fascinating chart with one outlier: Warren Buffett.
At the low end, giving 0.06% of one's wealth is equivalent to:
Net worth -> Lifetime Giving
50K->$30
100K->$60
500K->$300
$1M->$600
Most folks give far more by % in a *single year*.
www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...
It really is amazing how much of political punditry, *especially* elite outfits in NYC and Washington, still embrace this bizarre idea that rural spaces represent the "Real America" while metropolitan areas, where most (presumably real) Americans actually live, should be held in contempt.
The Project 2025 author is using millions of dollars in USAID money for his own security detail.
It is estimated that 762,000 people have *already died* as a result of Elon Musk and Russell Vought’s obscene murder of USAID, including more than 500,000 children.
Vought is a mass murderer.
This video on the rise of Russ Vought is based on scores of interviews, thousands of pages of emails and dozens of hours of videos and recordings of private briefings given by Vought, most of which have not been previously reported.
When you get visited by three Puerto Rican ghosts
Oppenheimer was a no for me too. Nolan's budget was great to keep Kodak afloat 🤣 too bad I bet all that money went into making custom 70mm b&w film for the movie. Kodak makes regents now. Just got an ad for 1x PBS. Might have to try it or to keep them in business to keep making film for me lol.
Did he give the Grammy to Liam??
Trump’s “fraud crackdown” list is a political hit list. He targets his critics and attacks the watchdogs who actually root out waste. Meanwhile, he continues to pardon allies who stole millions from taxpayers. The real fraud is pretending Trump is helping the American people.
Thus, rather than require such adjudications, the Department is changing its regulations to provide the Board more flexibility in reviewing appeals. Instead, for appeals taken from decisions issued after this IF becomes effective, as explained in Section IV.A of this preamble, the default will be summary dismissal unless a majority of current Board members vote to consider the appeal on the merits. And such dismissals will occur quickly—within 15 days of filing the appeal—allowing aliens to seek Federal court review expeditiously, rather than potentially waiting for years for a Board decision that in the vast majority of cases would affirm the underlying Immigration Judge decision.
🚨HOLY CRAP. The Trump admin just took a SLEDGEHAMMER to due process, largely eliminating the Board of Immigration Appeals process and MANDATING DISMISSAL of ALL appeals (which cost $1,000 thanks to OBBBA) filed after tomorrow unless a majority of the BIA votes to hear the case.
Big Tech makes its money from surveillance ads that give your information away to shady data brokers. The government then buys up that data to track you. I have a bill to ban surveillance advertising and put a stop to your location data from being sold to anyone with a credit card.
I am. But there are three things at play here regarding ICE collecting private data. Quick rundown on the issue, why you should be paying attention, and what I'm doing about it:
