Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

It certainly looks possible:

The Trump administration is slashing long-standing areas of research funded by the National Institutes of Health, claiming they no longer align with the agency’s priorities.

The latest target?

Millions of dollars in NIH grants for studying vaccine hesitancy and how to improve immunization levels. It’s work that’s particularly relevant as a measles outbreak grips the Southwest amidst diminishing vaccination rates.

In recent weeks, scientists around the country have begun receiving letters stating their existing grants — money already awarded to them in a competitive process — were being cut.

At first, the cuts appeared to primarily target research on LGBTQ+ health and other areas that were deemed in conflict with President Trump’s executive orders on gender and “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Now, more than 40 grants related to vaccine hesitancy have been cancelled, and there are mounting concerns that research on mRNA vaccines could be on the chopping block next.

[…]

In what some at the agency view as an ominous sign, the NIH’s acting director Dr. Matthew Memoli also requested information last week about the funding that supports mRNA vaccine research, technology that underpins the COVID-19 shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, according to an email reviewed by NPR. A similar call for data preceded the termination of the other vaccine grants.

“NIH staff internally are very worried that the mRNA grants will follow the outcome of the vaccine hesitancy grants and be terminated,” according to one of the NIH employees who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. “There are widespread concerns that this will limit the ability to combat pandemics and halt promising lifesaving cancer treatments.”

NPR reviewed the NIH list of 130 of these awards issued by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, which funds the most mRNA research. This includes efforts to develop vaccines for a variety of diseases, including Lyme disease, dengue and a sometimes life-threatening gastrointestinal infection known as Clostridium difficile.

Other parts of the NIH like the National Cancer Institute also fund this work, because mRNA technology holds promise for targeted cancer treatment.

This could happen:

Researchers racing to develop bird flu vaccines for humans have turned to a cutting-edge technology that enabled the rapid development of lifesaving covid shots.

There’s a catch: The mRNA technology faces growing doubts among Republicans, including people around President Donald Trump.

Legislation aimed to ban or limit mRNA vaccines was introduced this year by GOP lawmakers in at least seven states. In some cases, the measures would hit doctors who give the injections with criminal penalties, fines, and possible revocation of their licenses.

Some congressional Republicans are also pressing regulators to revoke federal approval for mRNA-based covid shots, which President Donald Trump touted as one of the signature achievements of his first term.

The opposition comes at a critical juncture because vaccines using mRNA have applications well beyond avian flu and covid. They hold the promise of lifesaving breakthroughs to treat many diseases, from melanoma to HIV to Zika, according to clinical trials. The proposed bans could block access to these advances.

MRNA is found naturally in human cells. It is a molecule that carries genetic material and, in a vaccine, trains the body’s immune system to fight viruses, cancer cells, and other conditions. An advantage of mRNA technology is that it can be developed more quickly to target specific variants and is safer than developing a vaccine made from inactivated virus.

“Right now, if we had a bird flu pandemic, we would have a shortage of the vaccine we need,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. “The one thing that could save us is mRNA vaccine. The challenge would be if mRNA is banned. This is truly dangerous policy.”

I’m pretty sure we know what Bobby Jr will advise.

This comes from bs conspiracy theories that it was the COVID vaccine that killed everyone, not the virus itself. It’s completely ridiculous. But it has quite a bit of currency on the right.

mRNA shows great, great promise for treating a whole lot of diseases, most especially cancer. I won’t be surprised if they defund the research because they are very stupid people but it will be yet another crime against humanity if they do it.

Remember when Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025 and Trump’s director of OMD, said this?

“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought said in the videos obtained by ProPublica.“When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.” 

Add one more trauma to their troubles:

A month after losing her job at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Corinne Bazarnyj is still waiting to be approved for unemployment benefits.

The disabled veteran who started at the agency as a training specialist in November was caught up in the Trump administration’s mass culling of probationary workers, who typically have less than one or two years in their positions. Like many other probationary employees, Bazarnyj got a termination letter saying she’d been let go because of performance – even though she hadn’t been on the job long enough to have an evaluation – potentially making it harder for her to qualify for unemployment benefits.

“I was terminated based on performance, that is not true. So, I honestly don’t know if I’m going to get unemployment or not,” said Bazarnyj, who recently bought a house in Frederick, Maryland, to be closer to her job.

[…]

In addition to having to deal with performance being cited as the cause for their termination, some workers are still waiting for the employment documents they need from their agencies, which are in turmoil as the Trump administration seeks to rapidly downsize the federal workforce.

What’s more, many state unemployment offices say they are strapped for staff and resources to handle the influx in claims, which will slow down the processing of applications. Meanwhile, the number of applications being filed is expected to soar in coming weeks and months as federal agencies conduct widespread layoffs as part of a reduction in force, or RIF.

They really want to make them suffer. That was the plan and that’s what they’re doing. And somehow they thought that would make the workers look like the villains.

Nope. We know who the villains are:

The media may not have noticed that Trump is crazy but the American people are:

Seven weeks after President Donald Trump began his second term in the Oval Office, 42 percent of voters approve of the way he is handling his job, while 53 percent disapprove and 6 percent did not offer an opinion, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

In Quinnipiac University’s February 19 poll, 45 percent approved, while 49 percent disapproved and 6 percent did not offer an opinion and in Quinnipiac University’s January 29 poll, 46 percent approved, while 43 percent disapproved and 11 percent did not offer an opinion.

Voters were asked about Trump’s handling of several issues:

• trade with China: 46 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove, with 10 percent not offering an opinion;
• immigration issues: 46 percent approve, 49 percent disapprove, with 5 percent not offering an opinion;
• foreign policy: 42 percent approve, 53 percent disapprove, with 5 percent not offering an opinion;
• the military: 41 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove, with 11 percent not offering an opinion;
• the economy: 41 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, with 5 percent not offering an opinion;
• the federal workforce: 40 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove, with 5 percent not offering an opinion;
• the Russia – Ukraine war: 38 percent approve, 55 percent disapprove, with 7 percent not offering an opinion;
• the Israel – Hamas conflict: 37 percent approve, 49 percent disapprove, with 14 percent not offering an opinion;
• trade with Mexico: 37 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove, with 7 percent not offering an opinion;
• trade with Canada: 36 percent approve, 58 percent disapprove, with 5 percent not offering an opinion.

He’s particularly losing ground on the economy:

Twenty-three percent of voters describe the state of the nation’s economy these days as either excellent (1 percent) or good (22 percent), and 76 percent describe it as either not so good (45 percent) or poor (31 percent).

This is a change from Quinnipiac University’s December 2024 poll when 34 percent described it as either excellent (3 percent) or good (31 percent) and 64 percent described it as either not so good (31 percent) or poor (33 percent).

There is an increase in the number of voters saying the economy is the most urgent issue facing the country today. Given a list of nine issues and asked which is the most urgent one facing the country today, the economy (30 percent) tops the list, followed by preserving democracy in the United States (25 percent), with immigration also in double digits (12 percent).

In January 24% said the economy was the most urgent with democracy at 20% and Immigration at 18%

There’s 60% disapproval for Musk and DOGE although a huge majority of Republicans (77%) love them. 54% overall think he’s hurting the economy. Vance (41%) Rubio (39%) and Kennedy(38%) are all underwater.

Everyone hates Congress, as usual, with roughly the same number (65%) saying that both Democrats and Republicans put party over country.

If the government shuts down 32% will blame the Democrats, 31% will blame Republicans and 22% will blame Trump. (Just wait until Trump starts talking…)

84% of people are following the Russia-Ukraine war and 58% disapprove of the way Trump acted in that Oval office meeting.

RUSSIA – UKRAINE WAR

Eighty-four percent of voters say they are following news about the Russia – Ukraine war either very closely (39 percent) or somewhat closely (45 percent), while 16 percent say they are following it not too closely.

Fifty-eight percent of voters disapprove of the way President Trump handled the recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, while 35 percent approve. (77% of Republicans approved.)

62% think supporting Ukraine is in the national interest and 65% think Ukraine comes closer to sharing American values than Russia. About the same number think Trump isn’t tough enough on Russia and 50% think he’s too tough on Ukraine. (That’s low, only because 60%

A big 7% have a positive opinion of Vladimir Putin. 43% have a favorable opinion of Zelensky and 33% disapprove.

About Canada:

More than half of voters (55 percent) think President Trump is too tough on Canada, while 31 percent think his attitude towards Canada is about right, and 6 percent think he is not tough enough on Canada.

31% of Americans are assholes.

There’s more at the link. It’s clear that people are waking up and he’s sinking in the polls but not nearly enough. But at least he’s not gaining.

“I’m going to say this at the risk of my job. What President Trump is doing is insane. It is absolutely insane.”

CNBC’s Steve Liesman goes off on Trump’s reckless trade wars. pic.twitter.com/mldxXYjln3

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 12, 2025

At least some people are taking the fact that Trump is losing his mind seriously:

He was even worse today with the NATO Secretary. It’s getting very bad.

Trump: "I invaded Los Angeles and we opened up the water and the water is now flowing down. They have so much water they don't know what to do … we broke in to do it." pic.twitter.com/p2A8Yql9VN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2025

I know you know this but I might as well post it anyway:

“The Army Corps of Engineers colonel responsible for releasing water from two California reservoirs at President Donald Trump’s direction in January knew that it was unlikely to reach the southern part of the state as Trump had promised, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post.”

“A memo written four days after the release, obtained by The Post through a public records request, shows how federal officials rushed ahead with the plan to release irrigation water despite objections from the state’s elected officials and some local farmers.” “Col. Chad W. Caldwell, commander of the Army Corps’ Sacramento district, wrote that the water that poured out of Lake Kaweah and Success Lake ‘could not be delivered to Southern California directly.'” “the episode, a week and a half into Trump’s second term, drew criticism from farmers and officials from both parties in the Central Valley.”

“Many were alarmed when they found out.” “For the farmers in the Central Valley, it was not irrigation season, and this was their precious summer supply.” “Caldwell soon heard from elected officials and others in the Central Valley, including Republican Reps. Vince Fong and David G. Valadao, ‘to ask why the water was being released as it was typical to reserve as much water as possible for the summer growing season.'” “The Army Corps turned off the spigot Feb. 2 after letting out 2.511 billion gallons, according to Caldwell.”

He went on:

Trump: "They have a lot of water going down throughout California all coming out from the Pacific Northwest. Even some from Canada. Thank you Canada very much. Next thing you know they'll want to turn the water off." pic.twitter.com/xbeFOG021h

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2025

I don’t think I need to explain. I guess he really believes this.

He has the nuclear codes.

A little presidential lunacy to start your day:

(None of those things are true. None of them.)

There is no champagne business in the United States

We have “Stupid President” and he is ripping us off.

If you think he’s all there you’re kidding yourself:

Trump: "To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. We don't need anything they have. As a state it would be one of the great states. This would be the most incredible country visually. If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it." pic.twitter.com/oxzF3jzLOC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2025

The NY Times Patrick Healy asked Michelle Goldberg to discuss an issue or person or moment that she believes defines “how Trump has used power during his first 50 days.” Her answer left me shaken:

Michelle Goldberg: Sure. There’s a few, but one that stands out for me is the gutting of U.S.A.I.D., because it’s illegal and because it’s so flagrantly immoral and utterly self-destructive.

During the first Trump term, I would sometimes have to catch myself because even though I thought and think that Trump is uniquely despicable and dangerous, the fact remains that if you just want to look at the number of lives lost and global damage done, George W. Bush really outstripped him. Trump is maybe a worse person, but the damage that he did in his first term was much more contained.

I think that in the second Trump term he’s changed that very quickly. Not just by taking America’s soft power and setting it on fire in all sorts of ways, but really making these abrupt decisions that are going to kill hundreds of thousands and maybe more than a million people and he’s doing it in this incredibly arbitrary, careless way.

And I just want to say something really quick before we get to Frank: I have a 12-year-old son who, as he learns more about various kinds of dark chapters in American history, can get really down on this country. So I often find myself in the strange position of trying to talk up American greatness because I don’t want him to feel despair about the country that he’s growing up in. It’s occurred to me that every single thing that I have pointed out to him as a sign of American greatness or goodness, whether that be foreign aid, whether that be our support for Ukraine, our success in welcoming immigrants and refugees, or scientific pre-eminence, everything that I thought was best about America, Trump has either destroyed or tried to destroy in less than two months.

I don’t know what to say to kids about all this. But I despair for them.

Out-gunned and out-invested by the right

Direct your attention to a Sunday post by strategist Rachel Bitecofer, “Here’s Why Democrats Can’t Meet This Moment.”

Bitecofer’s post concerns the 2024 book by Tina Nguyen, now with The Verge. Formerly with Puck/Politico/Vanity Fair, Nguyen was also formerly and briefly “employed” by The Daily Caller (more on that in a moment). Her memoir, “The MAGA Diaries,” details her upbringing as a young libertarian and Claremonster (a student at Claremont McKenna College where John Eastman is or was on the faculty) and her eventual escape from conservative politics. Subtitle: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right Wing & How I Got Out.

Bitecofer recounts from the book how Nguyen, an aspirng journalist, realized she’d been groomed instead as a propagandist:

Then she got what felt like a the break of a lifetime for an aspiring conservative “journalist”: a job at The Daily Caller working with a pre-Fox News Tucker Carlson.

A few months into that job, where she was hired to cover the tech beat, it began to dawn on her that things at The Daily Caller were not what they appeared to be. The moment of realization hit when a co-worker asked her to lunch and she responded she was waiting for edits from her editor, John Henke: a man her co-worker had never heard of.

That got Nguyen asking herself, if the Daily Caller isn’t paying me, who is?

Turns out her real boss was a Republican communications firm and what they wanted from her wasn’t reporting, they wanted her to write hit pieces on their political and corporate enemies.

Before she could resign, Nguyen got fired as “not a good fit.”

Those who have read closely know that the left and Democrats are in an asymmetrical political battle with a network of right-wing think tanks and media outlets supported by conservative billionaires who, unlike moneymen on the left, think like longterm investors. The biggest lefty funders get behind the latest shiny object that promises a quick win.

The left doesn’t build the kind of infrastructure the right has spent the last half century building. The right mentors promising conservative college kids like Nguyen, sends them to training camps, connect them to conservative networks, and gets them placement at media outlets until they appear, as if fully formed, on your TV screens or in your news feeds.

It wasn’t until she left that world and joined Vanity Fair that Nguyen realized that “there is no such thing as the professional left.” Bitecofer summarizes:

She was pitched a story about a program Dems launched in 2005 to supposedly build the bench (a problem, by the way, we still have today despite at least 5 groups I can think of working on it for two decades) which was pitched to her as “revolutionary, unique, and new.”

The Republicans had The Heritage Leadership Institute so the idea of an organization to build the bench did not sound “revolutionary, unique, or new” to Nguyen. Her first thought was, “I thought the Democrats had the same resources my old team did?”

SPOILER ALERT: We don’t.

The Heritage Leadership Institute’s Young Leaders program has graduates like Josh Hawley, who they basically grew in a lab.

I finished Nguyen’s audiobook in the car yesterday. Nguyen’s bigger shock was finding out years later that the Claremont mentor who helped her get The Daily Caller gig belonged to a secret network screening for young white nationalists, grooming them in mentoring networks, and working to place them at outlets where they could sublty advance white nationalist ideology. Nguyen told the Columbia Journalism Review that “in no universe” would the Caller “have ever explicitly courted white nationalists when I was there.” Yet her WTF moment was realizing that she herself had been nurtured by that system.

Bitecofer concludes that the right out-invests the left and it shows:

So, if you want to understand why Democrats seem inept right now its because we have no brain trust. We have no small room of very smart people with a shit ton of money and authority strategizing on to how fund, build, and run the infrastructure we need to compete with the propaganda machine Republicans have spent decades financing and perfecting.

Instead we have a series of barely connected party organizations, tons of 501c3s, and SuperPACs like Future Forward, who managed to waste nearly a billion dollars on positive ads on Harris that allowed 60% of swing voters to have positive memories of Trump’s first term.

And many of them duplicate each others’ work while struggling to find funding.

These are things most of us already know. But reading Nguyen’s first-hand account as a product of the conservative farm system carries more punch.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions

Travel my way, take the highway that is best 

Donald Trump brought two of his friends (at least in puppet form) to an anti-DOGE rally organized by the North Carolina Democratic Party across from the North Carolina State Legislative Building on Wednesday. Perhaps 400-500 people filled Bicentennial Plaza to protest Elon Musk’s and Donald Trump’s chainsaw approach to (ostensibly) making government more “efficient.”

Raleigh News & Observer:

“Stop the GOP Coup.” “America Has No King.” “DOGE Musk Go.”

Hundreds wielded signs with messages like these in Raleigh’s Bicentennial Plaza on Wednesday, protesting the Trump administration’s Elon Musk-led cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

Hosted by North Carolina Democrats, the protest kicked off around noon with a speech from NC Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton. She spoke in support of federal workers and defended programs like Medicaid and Social Security.

Hampton Dellinger returned to North Carolina to speak at the rally. Dellinger, former head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, was preparing to restore fired federal workers to their jobs before Trump fired him. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld his firing on Monday.

“We need to let Republicans know how much the cuts are actually hurting North Carolina. That’s the point of what we’re doing today. And yes, it’s specifically targeted at Republicans because my legislative colleagues need to be talking to Senator Tillis, Senator Budd, their Republican colleagues in Congress and saying, Congress, do your job, take care of our people, take care of our state,” said Sen. Graig Meyer, a Democrat who represents Orange, Caswell, and Person counties.

Debbie from Greenville told WRAL she worries about children not being fed, “I’m concerned about children not being covered under Medicaid if that gets canceled.” Other programs targeted by DOGE impact her life:

“Today it’s the Department of Education,” Debbie said. “Next week, it might be Social Security. It might be Medicare. I’m on Medicare … I’m concerned.”

On Tuesday, Department of Education leaders announced plans to lay off more than 1,300 of its employees as part of an effort to halve the organization’s staff — a prelude to President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the agency.

ABC11 Raleigh:

Our friend Lauren Windsor of The Undercurrent brought the puppets.

As a practical matter, I-40 begins in Wilmington, runs the length of North Carolina, and extends west to Barstow, California, joining the legendary Route 66 in Oklahoma City. I’ve driven most of its 2,556.61 miles and drove 500 round-trip in North Carolina on Wednesday. One wonders how long it will be before DOGE will decide that federal highway funds that support placing rest areas about every 50 miles represent waste, fraud and abuse.

If the poors can eat cake, they can pee into empty bottles.

* * * * *

Have you fought the coup today?
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions

Come on down to the White House Tesla Auto Mall! pic.twitter.com/DjVZY0R8wL

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) March 12, 2025

Coincidentally:

Elon Musk has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

It is unheard-of for a White House staffer, even one with part-time status, to make such large political contributions to support the agenda of the boss. But there has never been someone in the direct employ of an administration like Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, who is leading Mr. Trump’s aggressive effort to shrink the federal government, the Department of Government Efficiency.

In case you forgot:

Elon Musk says he’ll recuse himself if there’s a conflict of interest—because nothing says accountability like self-policing, especially when his financial disclosures won’t even be available to the public. pic.twitter.com/uVE7ajIEyM

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 19, 2025

In fairness, Musk doesn’t really have conflicts of interest. It’s just outright corruption. He and Trump never promised they wouldn’t steal the country blind.

Musk is Trump’s albatross:

Trump has spent his first months back in office seeking to sharply cut spending and reduce the federal workforce. The public’s views of that effort and Elon Musk, to whom Trump has given a prominent role, are largely negative.

Just 35% of Americans express a positive view of Musk, with 53% rating him negatively and 11% offering no opinion – making him both better known and more substantially unpopular than Vice President JD Vance (whom 33% of Americans rate favorably and 44% unfavorably, with 23% having no opinion.) Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say that Musk has neither the right experience nor the right judgment to make changes to the way the government works. There is uneasiness about Musk even among some of the president’s supporters: 28% of those who see Trump’s changes to the government as necessary doubt the tech billionaire has the judgment to carry them out.

A 55% majority of Americans say that the Trump administration’s changes to the federal government are being made largely to advance his agenda, with 45% calling the changes necessary to ensure the government functions properly.

Asked to weigh whether they’re more concerned about the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal government going too far or not far enough, 62% of Americans say they’re more worried about the former and fear important programs being shut down. The other 37% say they’re more worried about the cuts not going far enough in eliminating fraud and waste in the federal government. Nine in 10 Democrats and 69% of independents say they’re more concerned about losing important federal programs, while 73% of Republicans say they’re more concerned that fraud and waste will remain an issue in the government.

We’re currently watching the saga of the Continuing Resolution to keep the government open until September unfold in the Senate. The Democrats can filibuster this one but it’s unclear if they are going to be willing to do it. (I know….)

I believe they should filibuster with one demand: Trump must get rid of Musk and DOGE. Nothing less. If he does that they will vote for the CR. I don’t expect he will do it but after a period of him defending his “right”to have a billionaire slashing the government and angering the people even more, the Democrats could finally agree to break the filibuster making it clear that Trump is willing to put his billionaire boyfriend ahead of the American people.

There is such a thing as “losing well” and I think those numbers above show that the public is not happy with Trump’s buddy destroying the federal government. They should use the meager leverage they have to highlight that to the whole country and push Trump’s approval ratings even lower.