Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW a lot of people didn't vote for this even if they voted for Trump and the GOP.
Then they should be telling him that. I'm hearing a deafening silence.
Have you seen some of these GOP town hall videos?
The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
121–130 of 340 posts
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, reform your Presidency to be a constitutional role only, with executive power devolved to the party or parties of your elected representatives that is able to show the head of state that they have the numbers to govern. E.g. like the President of Ireland, or the King of England (via the Governor General proxy) in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Also, the Electoral College is an archaic anachronism,…
What works for a country the size of a New York neighbourhood doesn't work for a country the size of a continent.
That’s odd, unlike the USA, Australia is in fact a country the size of a continent…
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's not forget that the house is artificially capped [1]. It should have a much larger membership. The senate already biases towards land over people. And more and more the house does as well. [1] https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/Th...
The Senate represents sovereign states.
yes it does. The house does not.
The senate was always set up to artificially prop up smaller (by population) states. The House was not. But we've artificially capped the House. Now they both favor lower population states.
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#124Practically speaking, when the majority of people who decided to vote voted for the person applying these policies, what mitigations are left? The courts are themselves slow and ultimately roll up to allies of the despot. People say that the midterms are crucial, but the midterms are only likely to be won if Democrats truly unify and apply winning strategies. Sadly the only winning strategies now seem to involve tell…
In all odds I think by the midterms we'll have seen: * A massive recession as a result of tariffs, job losses, pullback in federal spending (e.g,. on infrastructure), and general economic uncertainty. * A significant public health crisis (see measles in Texas for example) * Russia continuing to wage war on Ukraine, and possibly further conflicts around the world as the US withdraws from international peacekeeping.
Historically, authoritarian regimes have handled setbacks like these by scapegoating target minorities and other undesirables.
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alternatively: we need to rein in the powers of the presidency. Right now we've got a dynamic of "the president says what to do and the legislature obeys" (or, recently, "the president does stuff on his own"); we might be better off with "Congress decides what to do and the president makes it happen".
California has half the population of Germany and twice the GPD. We can't pretend the US is some dinky country in Europe that can be ruled the same way.
How long will California maintain GDP dominance when major parts of business are in the pocket of Trump? Won't they just pack up and leave, tanking Californias economy with it?
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I give it 50/50 they do that. Do they even need to, though? If the president cannot be prosecuted for any official acts, and has the power to pardon any subordinate for ignoring the law, and to fire (and then prosecute) anyone who insists on following the law, what does the law matter?
The mechanism seems to rest on the principle of separation of powers - Congress is empowered both to write the laws, and to remove presidents. That means that there can't be a major misalignment between Congress and the executive, because if Congress thinks the president is really out of line they can boot him. It is quite a sophisticated set-up, really. You'd think in principle that the courts would decide when the…
The problem is that, through the pardon power combined with immunity from prosecution, the president can shield the entire executive branch from any obligation to execute on the laws that congress writes. It effectively neuters congress and prevents it from making any permanently effective law. Enforcement is instead left to the whims of the current congress and president at any time (who could be highly partisan Democrats, Republicans, or anyone else). That is clearly not how the constitution is intended to work.
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many actions the administration has taken are illegal. Not sure if those related to NIH are, but if they’ve been firing people, odds are good, since they’ve been doing that wrong most of the time it seems like. Congress could change the laws, but they haven’t. Lots of this junk is simply against the law. The courts are moving relatively fast, as such things go, but it takes time. Congress is supposed to control spend…
We're well past the point where something being illegal or not matters whatsoever. I'm surprised federal court rulings are being listened to at all, really. I'm not sure why they are.
They really aren’t. Lots of contempt of court happening by the executive branch.
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
He campaigned on doing exactly these things
When did Trump pledge to destroy the NIH? He did also specficially disavow Project 2025 and is now enacting a whole bunch of it.
Remember when it came out that Project 2025 was going to be the playbook? And Trump disavowed it but all evidence pointed to the contrary? And our priors pointed to him not being inclined to tell the truth?
That's when we knew this would happen.
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the people who did vote for him explicitly voted for all the stuff he's doing right now. Nothing that he's currently doing is surprising , except maybe for the fact that a politician actually followed through on so many campaign promises.
I don’t recall “we’re gonna kill science research, cancer research, we’re gonna make a million poor children die of AIDS and tuberculosis” in any campaign ads.
His actions were outlined in Project 2025 throughout his candidacy. Surprised all it took was a simple statement of ignorance for people to completely dismiss what was plainly written what was going to happen (and currently is).
Re: The NIH is being slashed and burned, not "reformed"
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frankly, I am not at all convinced any further elections in the US will be free or fair given who is currently in power and what they've openly said about elections and what they want to do to them. The only real functional way forward at this point is some form of mass protest or resistance, which I see as unlikely to occur (and which I am not necessarily advocating for here on HN). Barring that, the reality is that…
> The only real functional way forward at this point is some form of mass protest or resistance, Maybe, just maybe, the opposition party could quit offering these shit sandwich candidates as an alternative? I can't believe there's no Democrat politicians out there who could've beat Trump handily. But the DNC seems totally disfunctional in picking candidates.
I think it's parliamentary syndrome. In Canada MPs aren't allowed to tweet anything at all until it's approved by the leaders office. Instead of unique individual persons representing constituents there's effectively 1 dictator with a hundred faces. Same issue for the democrats where everyone has to be sanded down to fit the mold.
Americans don't actually understand how the government works either. We pretend there's an election but in reality it's already happened. The majority of districts are 'safe' so whoever wins the primary in a safe district automatically wins the election. The person who wins the primary is almost always the person the party endorses. In practice the party endorsement is the election. The endorsement process is controlled by party insiders so the net effect is that they pick the government, not the voters.