CURRENT EVENTS MARCH 30 - April 2

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“… HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the layoffs last week, acknowledging it would be a “painful period for HHS.”

Former HHS staffers, including those who were just laid off, took to social media to decry the layoffs and warned that the functions of HHS offices would suffer as a result.

Robert Califf, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said the agency was effectively “finished.”

“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed. I believe that history will see this a huge mistake,” Califf wrote on LinkedIn.

… Jennifer Hoenig, director of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), relayed that she and an entire team at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) had been terminated as part of the reorganization’s Reduction in Force (RIF).

“If you need data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health going forward #NSDUH, don’t,” Hoenig wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“This morning myself and the entire team of the Office of Population Surveys in SAMHSA, the team overseeing all of NSDUH, were RIF’d. My office, OPS, was staffed the by the brightest, most dedicated, and statistically savvy scientists who care deeply about improving the lives of Americans.”

“We are the only national survey focusing specifically on drug use and mental health. We had planned briefs coming up on illegally made fentanyl, mental health treatment access, and of course the 2024 NSDUH data release,” she added. “I don’t know who will continue on with this work, or if it will, as CBHSQ scientists were let go en masse.”“
 


“… The annual budget of IMLS amounts to less than $1 per person in the US. Overall, the agency awarded over $269.5 million to library and museum systems last year, according to its grants database. Much of that money is paid out as reimbursements over time, the current IMLS employee says, but now there is no one around to cut checks for funds that have already been allocated.

“The status of previously awarded grants is unclear. Without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated,” the American Federation of Government Employee Local 3403 union said in a statement.


About 65 percent of the funding had been allocated to different states, with each one scheduled to receive a minimum of roughly $1.2 million.

Recipients can use the money for statewide initiatives or pass it on to local museum and library institutions for expenses such as staff training and back-office software. California and Texas have received the highest allocated funding, at about $12.5 million and $15.7 million, respectively, according to IMLS data. Individual libraries and museums also receive grants directly from IMLS for specific projects.

An art museum in Idaho expected to put $10,350 toward supporting student field trips, according to the IMLS grant database. A North Carolina museum was allotted $23,500 for weaving and fiber art workshops for seniors. And an indigenous community in California expected to put $10,000 toward purchasing books and electronic resources.

In past years, other Native American tribes have received IMLS grants to purchase access to apps such as Hoopla and Libby, which provide free ebooks and audiobooks to library patrons.

Some funding from the IMLS also goes to academic projects, such as using virtual reality to preserve Native American cultural archives or studying how AI chatbots could improve access to university research. …”
 
nycfan said:


“… The annual budget of IMLS amounts to less than $1 per person in the US. Overall, the agency awarded over $269.5 million to library and museum systems last year, according to its grants database. Much of that money is paid out as reimbursements over time, the current IMLS employee says, but now there is no one around to cut checks for funds that have already been allocated.

“The status of previously awarded grants is unclear. Without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated,” the American Federation of Government Employee Local 3403 union said in a statement.


About 65 percent of the funding had been allocated to different states, with each one scheduled to receive a minimum of roughly $1.2 million.

Recipients can use the money for statewide initiatives or pass it on to local museum and library institutions for expenses such as staff training and back-office software. California and Texas have received the highest allocated funding, at about $12.5 million and $15.7 million, respectively, according to IMLS data. Individual libraries and museums also receive grants directly from IMLS for specific projects.

An art museum in Idaho expected to put $10,350 toward supporting student field trips, according to the IMLS grant database. A North Carolina museum was allotted $23,500 for weaving and fiber art workshops for seniors. And an indigenous community in California expected to put $10,000 toward purchasing books and electronic resources.

In past years, other Native American tribes have received IMLS grants to purchase access to apps such as Hoopla and Libby, which provide free ebooks and audiobooks to library patrons.

Some funding from the IMLS also goes to academic projects, such as using virtual reality to preserve Native American cultural archives or studying how AI chatbots could improve access to university research. …”
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I mean, that all sounds pretty shady and wasteful …
 
I feel for my people that have pre-adult kids. With the current trajectory, this country is going to suck within a few years, for all but a meager percentage. Theocratic and whitewashed education, economically and culturally isolated, constant concern for mounting endemic diseases, vilification of higher education, repressive hegemony from the white “normies”, zero reliable citizenship protections, unending bounds of state monitoring, about four billionaires to purchase goods from, child labor laws rolling back, further militarization of LEOs (and operating with complete impunity), and a complete inability to respond to any crisis.
 
nycfan said:
Robert Califf, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said the agency was effectively “finished.”

“The FDA as we’ve known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed. I believe that history will see this a huge mistake,” Califf wrote on LinkedIn.
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Some of us are soothsayers and we don’t need to wait for history. We knew it was a huge mistake before it fucking happened.
 
I appreciate all nycfan does here… but not sure we want to see a word like “massacre” used figuratively in the thread titles at a time when literal massacres are all too common.

I opened the thread at a quick glance and wondered if there was a shooter situation I hadn’t heard about, before I realized the wording and context. But maybe it’s just me.
 
duluoz said:
I appreciate all nycfan does here… but not sure we want to see a word like “massacre” used figuratively in the thread titles at a time when literal massacres are all too common.

I opened the thread at a quick glance and wondered if there was a shooter situation I hadn’t heard about, before I realized the wording and context. But maybe it’s just me.
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Made a point of calling it a “firing massacre” due to that but hear the point.
 


“… Multiple sources at the NIH, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, confirmed Tuesday afternoon that at least 10 principal investigators who were leading and directing medical research at the agency had been fired.

Among them is Dr. Richard Youle, a leading researcher in the field of neurodegenerative disorders previously awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his groundbreaking research identifying mechanisms behind Parkinson’s disease. ..”
 
maga functionally supports cancer, infectious disease, neurodegenerative disease, congenital abnormalities, debilitating childhood illness, etc. etc. They are quite literally dismantling our ability to experience less suffering and more full lives. Thanks magabots.
 
Healing said:
maga functionally supports cancer, infectious disease, neurodegenerative disease, congenital abnormalities, debilitating childhood illness, etc. etc. They are quite literally dismantling our ability to experience less suffering and more full lives. Thanks magabots.
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And yet MAGAs celebrate all this as yet another glorious victory in their war against experts, expertise, and the professional class "elites" that they despise so much. As usual, instead of trying to lift themselves up they're thrilled to think that they are bringing pain into these people's lives and maybe bringing some of them down to their level of misery. Now we can all be miserable together!
 
nycfan said:
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'Made-up emergency': Democrats try to block Trump tariffs on Canada​


abcnews.go.com

'Made-up emergency': Democrats try to block Trump tariffs on Canada

President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on the Senate to keep the United States' tariffs on Canada in place.
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com

“… Trump has derived his authority to impose tariffs by declaring a national emergency caused by the flow of fentanyl and undocumented migration from Canada, Mexico and China. But Democrats are now challenging that emergency status.

… Unlike most legislation in the Senate, this resolution will only need a simple majority of votes to pass, and it very likely may. Only a handful of Republicans would be needed to hit that threshold.

But there is nothing compelling the House, controlled by Republicans, to take up the legislation, and it's almost certain that House Speaker Mike Johnson would stay far away from the resolution. …”
 
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