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Trump fires NSF's oversight board

science.org

241–250 of 383 posts

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#241

Trump is a disruptor. I am interested to see how this plays out and whether he replaces anyone. One thing I've learned since COVID is, unfortunately, to be more skeptical of medical authorities. We were lied to in so many ways and all the while forced to "trust the science" and so called experts. But they were caught either wrong or lying way too many times. So I am not going to assume outright all the people he fire…

all he builds are monuments to himself. The line about cancer gets trotted out often, is he doing anything to cure cancer? All I see is corruption, but sure must be the detractors who are deranged - that is why you can point to all the good he has done right? I mean I bet his plan is similar to his healthcare plan, or his plans for trade, or his plans for peace.

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#242
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I choose to be honest and see the response I am getting. Being called a troll. Is it really surprising that I can relate?

No, not surprising. But some of your statements are hard to square with the current circumstances, so help us understand where you're coming from: > When he says "I will end the war in three days", I think he genuinely believes it. So I think he is genuine. This is what Putin said about his "Special military operation" that has stretched on for 4 years now. Hostomel turned into an irreversible, taxing conflict on the…

Largely agreed but if one expects any sort of escalation with China that actually makes this (and Ukraine) quite useful by providing real world data about the recent technological changes to war as well as serving as a minor stress test for the military's organizational structures. To be clear I don't mean to imply that as being even remotely reasonable as justification.

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#243
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, I choose to be honest and see the response I am getting. Being called a troll. Is it really surprising that I can relate?

No, not surprising. But some of your statements are hard to square with the current circumstances, so help us understand where you're coming from: > When he says "I will end the war in three days", I think he genuinely believes it. So I think he is genuine. This is what Putin said about his "Special military operation" that has stretched on for 4 years now. Hostomel turned into an irreversible, taxing conflict on the…

>I'd have to hear how you think this type of strategy benefits America

The only answer I have is the one that Trump keep on repeating, about how Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.

> JCPOA agreement

If I am the POTUS and is really concerned about what happens to US after my term, I would be very concerned about what happens when the term of the agreement expires. This fits with Trump has been saying. That he became the POTUS because he found those that came before him not doing a good job. So it follows that he might think his successors also would not do a good job. So when he says he want a permanent solution to Iran's nuclear threat, I think that is why.

This is what I said before. If you take what Trump says and do, in different contexts, it matches. I mean, he has an underlying philosophy and world view that he has built up, and is not derived from the thoughts and philosophy of others. This is another reason why I like him, but causes a huge majority of intellectuals to hate him. Because most of the intellectuals derive or outsource their view and thinking to other thought leaders...

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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We're just telling you what the President says! It's his explicit position, which he repeats constantly, that everyone in the government should be personally loyal to him and never do anything he doesn't want them to do. If you'd prefer for his side not to be full of toadies, you'll have to take it up with him; he's making a conscious decision to do things that way.

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Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#245

What are the equivalent institutions in China? Do they do open houses?

I disagree with this move, but the people who lost these positions were in temporary advisory roles. This isn’t a career job for them. The article says 8 members are replaced every 2 years and the terms are 6 years long. Between 1/4 or 1/2 of them would have been replaced during this presidency, and whoever gets placed now will start to be replaced by the next administration. As for China: They’re not known for havin…

> As for China: They’re not known for having independent advisory

They’re not. But I’m currently pessimistic about America’s ability to maintain technological leadership beyond the early 2030s and I’d like to see what the alternatives are. (I’ve been impressed by what India is doing, both in research and commercialization, as I have with Ukraine. I’ve been impressed by EU research.)

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're just telling you what the President says! It's his explicit position, which he repeats constantly, that everyone in the government should be personally loyal to him and never do anything he doesn't want them to do. If you'd prefer for his side not to be full of toadies, you'll have to take it up with him; he's making a conscious decision to do things that way.

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> Executive branch shouldn't be beholden to the Executive?

No. It should be beholden to the law. And sometimes the law creates independent agencies because that’s the only way to administer a complex, free society.

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#247
post #218

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You like him because you think he believes the bullshit he says? That just means he's an idiot. Also notice he has appointed probably the most incompetent cabinet in history. He doesn't want competence, he wants bootlickers.

Also, he is prohibited by the Constitution from running again.

With any luck, a whole bunch of them are going to end up in prison before this is all over.

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joke isn’t funny anymore

No, and it's just not a joke anymore.

Sorry to agree.

This decapitation of education, military, cyber-defense, public news, the arts, disaster preparedness, climate science ... the list goes on ... is so systematic that it can only be described as a fifth column effort to destroy the U.S. from inside, which Putin can't do from outside.

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#249
post #160

An expected part of Project 2025[1]. The end goal is to install Trump allies as heads of every agency that matters to their agenda, and to shut down all agencies that don't. This way by end of 2028 there is nobody left in government who can speak out against what they're going to do next. If you have not read Project 2025 in a while, I encourage you to revisit it[2]. In summary it's a point-by-point plan to take over…

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The current administration has openly admitted multiple times that they want to completely eliminate anyone from government who isn't "one of their people". Their current efforts, both the ones in Project 2025 (ex. reclassifying career civil servants so they can replace them all with partisan hacks) and those without (voter ID laws, gerrymandering, replacing the Fed chairman), are specifically designed to create a 1-party state.

I'll grant you, Clinton single-handedly passed more Conservative reforms than any Republican president ever has.

Re: Trump fires NSF's oversight board

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was helping some people working on their phase I SBIR throughout the first year of Trump, and they often didn't know who to report to, as the firings were so relentless and pointless and completely disorganized. They got the highest possible rating upon completion, but have not been able to apply for Phase 2, so the project is effectively dead as they pursued other opportunities. It's hard to imaging a more wastefu…

Im not getting how trump can fire anyone? Does he have the authority to do that?

The US government is not currently in a state of following the law or constitution. People get fired, and if authority was not there, a lawsuit 9-18 months later might rectify it, and in the meantime the fired employee has moved on. DOGE cuts were extreme, capricious, and the only rhyme or reason was to try to hyperpoliticize the science to meet what people were guessing that Trump would want. On the grant side, they cut grants in an explictly racist way, according to a Reagan-appointed Republican judge that ruled aganist them way back in June of 2025; what was the remedy? Merely to reinstate the grants.

Who is going to stop a lawless Trump administration? Eventually the courts, at least at the lower levers. The Supreme Court is hyper political and continue making politically-driven rewriting of law, at least as much as the public lets them. Congress has completely abdicated their constitutionally mandated roles, such as being in charge of taxation and tariffs. The government has been completely taken over by a single party, and that party is burning the Constitution and its principles.

As for another example of gross mismanagment, of many many many more I could go on about, the National Cancer Institute's review board was completely disbanded, and put under the National Science Foundation where reviewers have less cancer experience, for example. To a pointy-haired-boss, that might sound like a cost savings measure but it's still the same cost, you just have less experienced people doing reviews.

All this is happening and getting reported on, but it doesn't get attention because every day is pure chaos filled with outrageous violations of what used to be normal activity in the government. And its all covered up by the most popular mainstream news sources, and there's a large body of the US population that has been completely brainwashed and literally refuses to accept any criticism of the Trump administration, outright rejected facts because it hurts their feelings.

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