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What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

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Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#681

Post by coliveira »

preisschild wrote: post #606
CalRobert wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar (moved to the EU 12 years ago) The best thing I can think of is to make the EU a strong, powerful, wealthy democracy that can defend itself from invasion and try to encourage other democracies around the world. Which means we have a lot of work ahead, to put it mildly.

For that to work, the individual governments need to give more of their responsibilities up to the EU level, which is unfortunately somewhat unpopular.

Unpopular because it is undemocratic. The EU is a bureaucracy that works against democracy. Its goal is to steal more and more power from national governments that are run by elected representatives towards a bureaucracy that decides their next actions in Davos.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#682

Post by tootie »

mc32 wrote: post #678
jmward01 wrote: post #490

This is a coup and we are calmly debating budgets. Debating the % of budget and how useful organization x is and if y will still get grant money, and, and, and... All of this is ignoring the big elephant in the room that there is one single person deciding everything that happens in government as if they were a king. The right thing to be debating is how we can stop this from continuing and how we can hold those resp…

Large organizations suffer from rot. They need periodic retrenchment -in the private sector there are economic pressures to re-organize; in the government the tendency is for greater taxation. Throwing out the baby along with the bath water is not the answer but neither is the status quo.

[flagged]

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#683

Post by tootie »

tmountain wrote: post #651
Propelloni wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a coup, because Trump is still in his lawful 2nd and final term. Until then let's call it Gleichschaltung [1], because that's what it is: bringing all aspects of society under totalitarian control. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung

It's an administrative coup, and it goes like this: 1) Remove all opposition for DOJ (already done) 2) Pass executive orders that should require congressional approval (doing) 3) Illegally seize control of the treasury (doing) 4) Broadly dismantle key government services (doing) 5) Watch politicians say, "you can't do that!" with no recourse (doing) Continually take control more and more broadly until you have absolu…

Also, ignore judges affirming you can't do that due to point 1. No one will enforce their judgements.

Next step is attacking enemies. They will start prosecuting political rivals.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#684

Post by zitsarethecure »

fgededigo wrote: post #521
pjc50 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is expendable if you kick in the door and fire everyone, like USAID. I think they're politically smart enough to not cut off the elderly voters, but who knows.

Unless you don't need any kind of voter anymore

Well I mean this is it isn't it? Any election that does not go their way will be called "stolen" and decertified and there is no one left to challenge that. I'd love to be shown how it could be otherwise, someone convince me, please.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#685

Post by AdamN »

lrem wrote: post #421
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of other benefits to the USA attracting high skill talent than just salary: * English language school system so your kids (if you have them) will speak a world language. * Racially and culturally diverse cultures, cuisines, and communities. * Exposure to goods from most of the world, even if marked up. * Availability of international franchises headquartered in other countries in major metros. * A stron…

Eh, that's not a unique set of strengths. In any European country I know about (at least a dozen) you can get all-English education from kindergarten to PhD. In some for free, in some that's paid, but probably not as expensive as in the US. Everything is really rather a matter of tradeoffs and bang-for-the buck rather than categorical differences. Some European passports offer more access, but without the downsides o…

I dunno - I'm in Berlin and my kids go to a private school for English education. I don't think somebody who couldn't afford it and wasn't a native English speaker would be getting English without parental effort before 4th grade.

Also in the area I'm in plenty of people don't speak English - I just went to an eye doctor and they didn't speak English although to be fair that's the first time it's happened to me in 2 years.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#686

Post by tootie »

xp84 wrote: post #503
jmward01 wrote: post #490

This is a coup and we are calmly debating budgets. Debating the % of budget and how useful organization x is and if y will still get grant money, and, and, and... All of this is ignoring the big elephant in the room that there is one single person deciding everything that happens in government as if they were a king. The right thing to be debating is how we can stop this from continuing and how we can hold those resp…

As far as I can tell, Trump is doing things he openly announced he would do for at least a year. So all of this is either a result of robust public support for his policies, or, (my preferred explanation) an even more robust public repudiation of the only alternative that was put forward by the other party, a candidate famous for dropping out before Iowa in 2020 but somehow was coronated the nominee without any voter…

This is flatly false. He is running the Project 2025 playbook which he expressly disavowed. It is also reasonable to assume he meant to propose a smaller budget, not supercede Congress.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#687

Post by drawkward »

yibg wrote: post #255
dan_can_code wrote: post #3

The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.

Roughly half the voting population wants a king. It's not just rolling over, this is welcomed with open arms. I try to understand how the "other side" is thinking about this. Disagreements on policy aside, why would "freedom loving Americans" want a king that can rule unilaterally? Not trying to start a flame war or pose a gotcha question, I'm genuinely curious. What am I missing?

Because, for many, Christianity|Whiteness|Capitalism|Patriarchy|* is a more sacred and immediate value than Democracy. (You are beginning to see this on the left, albeit with different values, with the inteolerant woke, and those who demand you vote "blue no matter who".)

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#688

Post by microtonal »

3D30497420 wrote: post #532
brylie wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an expat in the EU, I have a surreal sense of being a bystander at an ongoing emergency scene. I don’t want to be yet another gawker as this situation is unfolding but am struggling to come up with actions that are within my power to take as a form of protest, resistance, or solidarity. What are some practical actions that we can take to resist these sweeping changes?

Hope the US gets bad enough that people in the EU notice and decide they don't want to go down the same route? Honestly though, I'm in the same situation and I don't know. I did just start paid subscriptions to several media outlets that have been doing good reporting on the situation (Guardian, Verge). I unsubscribed to the Washington Post after they pulled their Harris endorsement (which was appalling), but their c…

Hope the US gets bad enough that people in the EU notice and decide they don't want to go down the same route?

Yeah, same. Since the Brexit a lot of populist parties in the EU don't want to leave the EU anymore (only reform it). Let's hope that this is another warning that the destructive populist path doesn't lead anywhere good.

(And I hope that the UK will join the EU again, they are close friends.)

I did just start paid subscriptions to several media outlets that have been doing good reporting on the situation (Guardian, Verge).

Yeah, independent, non-clickbait news is very important in these times. We recently renewed our newspaper subscription for three years.

When you are in the EU (or really anywhere non-US anyway), it's probably a good moment to start moving your data out of the US and away from US companies. So far Trump has done exactly what he promised, so a large trade war or, even worse, a war over Greenland is possible. Since pretty much anything is fair game now, blackmailing the EU using its dependency on US tech companies is not far-fetched anymore.

Get your data out and reduce your dependency on US tech.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#689

Post by microtonal »

preisschild wrote: post #606
CalRobert wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar (moved to the EU 12 years ago) The best thing I can think of is to make the EU a strong, powerful, wealthy democracy that can defend itself from invasion and try to encourage other democracies around the world. Which means we have a lot of work ahead, to put it mildly.

For that to work, the individual governments need to give more of their responsibilities up to the EU level, which is unfortunately somewhat unpopular.

Still, so far every recent crisis has made the EU stronger. When it comes to democracy, I would place my bets on the EU, even if it has its faults.

Re: What's happening inside the NIH and NSF

#690

Post by paulproteus »

zpeti wrote: post #631
JW_00000 wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about democracy is, every person is going to sometimes wildly disagree with what the elected officials do. Declaring it a 'coup' is as silly as [...] The reason people are calling this a coup is not (only) because they disagree with what Trump/Musk are doing, but because their actions are illegal. A president is still expected to follow the rule of law and respect separation of powers. If there are no mor…

Who says they are illegal? Can you cite some sources please? Like actual legal experts, not the guardian. As far as I know, the chevron deference ruling makes it easily arguable that these agencies don't necessarily have any legal standing anyway. The 8 month buyout was completely legal, Clinton did the same. I actually find it highly unlikely any of this is illegal, it's just completely unbearable to anyone who is p…

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-legal-challenges...

Seven restraining orders. Seems like lots is not legal.

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