Trump and Vought are now breaking both sides of spending law. They’re illegally not spending where the law requires them to spend, and they’re illegally spending where they don’t have the money to spend.
What we have is an appropriations king.
Spending “deals” are meaningless under that setup.
🧪Excited to co-present this @standupforscience.bsky.social event next week with UW's Dr. Ryan Kelly
We'll cover how to effectively engage in public comments, to help shape public policy at all levels, federal to local. Attend in person or virtually!
RSVP: act.standupforscience.net/events/power...
Fuck that noise.
Federal workers deserve our respect and pay.
And more than that: it's the law.
"Shall be paid...at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends"
31 U.S. Code § 1341 (c)(2): uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?p...
I got fed up with Vance’s lies, so I made a video addressing a few of them:
-Why are ED wait times long? (Hint: it’s not immigrants)
-Are “illegal aliens” getting health insurance through the government? (Not since 1996)
-What about emergency Medicaid? (This goes to hospitals, not patients)
Receipts for above:
U of Texas Board of Regents (gift NYT link): www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...
California governor: bsky.app/profile/gove...
The 10-page "compact" itself: www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/u...
“The University of Texas system is honored that our flagship — the University of Texas at Austin — has been named as one of only nine institutions in the U.S. selected by the Trump administration for potential funding advantages under its new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” Kevin P. Eltife, the chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents, said in a statement on Thursday. “We enthusiastically look forward to engaging with university officials and reviewing the compact immediately.”
Newsom
A tale of two states and Trump's shakedown of higher ed:
TEXAS: Oh goody, yes, we love to strip away academic freedoms to serve Trump's wishes.
CALIFORNIA: Eat shit. Any university who signs the letter will lose state funding.
The administration is gambling the idea that the public will buy the false claim that the cuts they are imposing are caused by the shutdown. This is simply not true, and if people start to understand that Vought is imposing needless pain, using the shutdown as an excuse to hurt public services and blue states, the Republican position looks a lot harder to defend. It is therefore substantively important that the media cover this point accurately.
Republicans had what was a strong shutdown position: We want to keep the govt open, Dems have demands.
They had traded this for Vought's position, which imo is much riskier, since it is based on an obvious lie about the need to make cuts.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/shutdown-h...
“American science, the gold-standard and world-leading science and innovation enterprise, is being destroyed….Congress has a rare moment of leverage to check Trump’s executive overreach and it must stand up and do so.”
- @markhisted.org, NIH neuroscientist
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Though many NSF employees are currently furloughed, Congress is not (where this call is going to next):
📣 Calling 2nd-year grad students and their mentors:
You just abruptly lost the ability to apply for the NSF grad research fellowship.
Join ~900 others (and growing!) in signing @omfishient.bsky.social's petition to reverse that.
[Or reshare this petition if you're not directly impacted]
📣 🧪 Update: #GRFP petition went to #NSF and OSTP (w/ the growing* comments list) yesterday.
We are now working to get these impacts in front of Congress, so PLEASE keep signing/sharing the petition!
*nearly 900!
@danielbolnick.bsky.social @joshuasweitz.bsky.social @jasonwilliamsny.bsky.social
One blatant violation of the Hatch Act after another:
Advice: download PDFs of any documents you might need from government websites. The NIFA website went offline during the government shutdown during my PhD
Brief Summary of significant agency activities that will continue during a lapse: National Science Foundation (NSF) will use available carryover balances to continue daily operations. Once those balances are exhausted, electronic systems for proposal preparation and submission will remain available for use during a lapse in appropriations, (i.e., Research.gov, and Grants.gov). The Awards Cash Management Service (ACM$) and the Invoice Processing Platform (IPP) will remain available for the submission and processing of valid payments for recipients and contractors. Recipients may continue performance under their NSF awards during a lapse in appropriations, to the extent funds are available, and the period of performance of the grant or cooperative agreement has not expired. In the event of a lapse, more detailed information on NSF operations for recipients, panelists, and employees will be posted at www.NSF.gov, and will be updated as necessary during a lapse. 2 Brief Summary of significant agency activities that will cease during a lapse: In general, no new grants, continuing grant increments, cooperative agreements, or contracts will be awarded. No new funding opportunities (program descriptions, announcements, solicitations or Dear Colleague Letters) will be issued. Responses to any inquiries received regarding upcoming deadlines will be deferred until normal operations resume. All panels (including virtual panels) scheduled to occur during a lapse in appropriations will be cancelled and will likely be rescheduled to a later date.
In that vein, NSF's shutdown plans just went public: nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/nsf-sh...
Already-funded projects can continue. And proposals can be submitted. But don't expect a response from a program officer during the shutdown.
Needed to take a bit of a social media break for personal reasons, but hopping back on say:
At awe of the civil servants at NSF, NIH, etc.
While Vought uses their jobs/livelihood as a political pawn re: shutdown, their first instinct has remained: how do I support the communities of scientists?
I might play this as my alarm every morning for the next month
New: More than two weeks after a court order ruled the Trump administration's termination of 1000+ grants illegal, Harvard's research funding is still frozen—with one exception. On Wednesday, NSF reinstated both Harvard's grants and access to funds. My reporting:
Exactly this
Here are the _public_ email addresses for the reporters and the standards editor listed on the WSJ site.
Standards editor:
David.marcelis@wsj.com
Journalists who wrote the article:
james.fanelli@wsj.com
sadie.gurman@wsj.com
Politely and peacefully demand a retraction and an apology.
If I don't see multiple ~media reporters~ columns about the extraordinarily irresponsible Wall Street Journal report from yesterday morning — and their extensive promotion of that inflammatory report — you all should just pack up and go home.
Appreciate the timeline cleanse 😂
FIGHT FOR SCIENCE RALLY ‼️🧬💪
⏰WHEN: Weds, Sept. 17th at 8am ET
📍WHERE: 1200 New York Ave NW, Washington DC
🔗📲JOIN US at the LINK in BIO, or in the REPLIES BELOW ⬇️
Statement from the plaintiffs:
“We are as united and committed as ever to ultimately winning this case and protecting these important NSF grants. The Trump-Vance administration acted unlawfully when it terminated these crucial grants."
And more broadly, fuck this lawless dangerous SCOTUS.
Like how SCOTUS gave the green light for racial profiling earlier this week.
From a chaired law professor at NYU:
So... where to go from here???
CONGRESS 👏 HAS 👏 POWER
Laws from Congress can help override this SCOTUS mess.
☎️ So tell your Senator to support Sen Baldwin's amendment to restore terminated NSF grants (or Durbin's for NIH)
🐘 *Especially* if you have a Repub Senator.
More context here:
U of California researchers brought yet a different case.
It's a bit more promising than the other two right now. But it's also being reconsidered now in light of SCOTUS ruling: www.courtlistener.com/docket/70763...
It's also specific to U of Cali (but offers a model for elsewhere)
This case was brought by @democracyforward.org and was the third such case about NSF grant terminations.
16 state AGs had filed a separate case but voluntarily dismissed it after the SCOTUS ruling for NIH (storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...).
The Court finds that it likely lacks jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ retrospective APA claims, so it must deny Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary relief as to those claims. In analyzing Plaintiffs’ remaining claims, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs have failed to show irreparable harm flowing from their prospective APA claims and have not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their constitutional claims. As a result, the Court will deny Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction without considering the other preliminary injunction factors
A tiny glimmer of hope: the opinion said the district court can still review claims about guidance for future proposals.
Just: no preliminary relief for now.
