People will die! Or so say Deborah Fuller and Patrick Mitchell at TechDirt: The White House’s Cuts To Scientific Research Will Cut Short American Lives.
Nearly every modern medical treatment can be traced to research funded by the National Institutes of Health: from over-the-counter and prescription medications that treat high cholesterol and pain to protection from infectious diseases such as polio and smallpox.
The remarkable successes of the decades-old partnership between biomedical research institutions and the federal government are so intertwined with daily life that it’s easy to take them for granted.
However, the scientific work driving these medical advances and breakthroughs is in jeopardy. Federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation are terminating hundreds of active research grants under the current administration’s direction. The administration has also proposed a dramatic reduction in federal support of the critical infrastructure that keeps labs open and running. Numerous scientists and health professionals have noted that changes will have far-reaching, harmful outcomes for the health and well-being of the American people.
Executive Summary: welcome to today's episode of…
Remy's classic video is from 2017.
The TechDirt article is reproduced from The Conversation, which discloses, unsurprisingly, that both Deborah and Patrick receive funding from NIH.
The pleading is abject. One section of the article is labeled "A cure for cancer", strongly intimating that NIH funding is just this far away from that goal. But alas: "Without sustained federal support for cancer research, progress toward curing cancer and reducing its death rate will stall."
Yup, keep the cash coming, taxpayers, or people will die!
Meanwhile in other NIH news, from Ana Hathaway at the College Fix: Professor gets another $200K for ‘transgender voice training’ app.
A University of Cincinnati professor has more money from the National Institutes of Health to create a transgender voice training app.
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders granted Professor Domen “Vesna” Novak $214,998 dollars for fiscal year 2025 to improve “the accessibility of transgender voice training with visual-acoustic feedback.”
It would be nice if advocates like Deborah and Patrick acknowledged that NIH funding includes a lot of low-priority stuff like this. Not just "curing cancer".
But as long as we're looking at special-interest pleading, here's something from an unexpected source, Brian T. Allen at National Review: Libraries Hit in Latest White House Order. (Gifted Link)
Every few months I write about the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a bit of a failure, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which does — or did — some very good things. I very rarely write about the Institute of Museum and Library Services ([IMLS]), since I’m on the non-fiduciary advisory board. Or was. Last week I was terminated, along with all 17 of my fellow members.
President Trump appointed me in 2021. I was told I was his final appointee before he exited, to paraphrase Shakespeare, chased by more than one bear. I think I was the only Republican anyone in the White House knew with a lively, deep interest in museums and libraries.
In a way, I’m mortified. Hired and fired by Trump? I’m there with Scaramucci, Amarosa, and the idiot Rex Tillerson. Consolation? I was canned the same day as Christine Grady, the top bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health and Mrs. Sleaze Quack Fauci. I’m happy to go if she goes, too, tit for tat, though at the IMLS I got $200 a year — a month’s electric bill in my wacky Vermont — while she hauled in $300,000 monitoring her husband’s loosey-goosey ethics. Plus, she’ll get millions in pension dough. All 18 IMLS board members got the axe the same day, I think the same minute. I went down with the ship.
Anyway, it's a bemused take on the efforts to "gut" IMLS (which I've written about before). See our Eye Candy du Jour above, and the word "Constitutional" therein. Does the Constitution say that one of the functions of the Federal Government is sending money to libraries? No? Sorry, gut away.
Brian notes that the "feds support nonprofit culture to the tune of billions each year in tax expenditures." True, sure, but at base that reflects private people and corporations voluntarily spending their own money. The Feds extracting involuntarily-extracted funds on local libraries? Nah.
Still, a good article. Not whiny at all. Check it out.
Also of note:
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But speaking of defunding stuff not mentioned in the Constitution… Jonathan Turley provides yet another reason to defund "public broadcasting": NPR Repeats False Claim That the Court Rejected Claims of Government Involvement in Censorship Efforts. And Jonathan recounts his own involvement with NPR interviewer Leila Fadel:
Leila Fadel and National Public Radio recently interviewed me on free speech. While the program ominously warned that “what you’re about to hear is hate speech” in playing extreme voices on the right, it did interview me and former Columbia University president Lee Bollinger from the free speech community. I wanted to address a statement made about the program that is not accurate but has been repeated like a mantra by many seeking to dismiss the censorship system under the Biden Administration. The claim is that the Supreme Court rejected the claim of coordination between the government and social media companies. That is entirely untrue, but you do not have to take my word for it. The Supreme Court expressly stated that it was not doing so last year.
I appreciate the opportunity afforded by NPR to present the views of many in the free speech community. In all fairness to Fadel, it is also important to acknowledge that NPR was quoting a widely repeated claim by law professors. However, it is important to set this record straight on the matter.
During the program, Fadel quotes me: “You had a level of cooperation, coordination between the government and these other entities, that the effect was that thousands were censored.”
Fadel immediately rebuts the claim:
FADEL: It’s a charge often made by Republicans and Trump allies. Last year, the Supreme Court rejected the claim that social media companies were pressured to take down posts about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
Nope. It's true that SCOTUS dismissed the lawsuit in question (Murthy v. Missouri). But the dismissal was on grounds of "standing", and the censorship issues were not considered, let alone "rejected".
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And now back to tariffs. Mark Helperin writes on Trump’s Provocation Principle. (Gifted Link)
With commendable exceptions such as restoring the border, supporting Israel, and campaigns against DEI, sexual madness, the Houthis, Randi Weingarten, and, perhaps, Iran’s nuclear potential, the infant Trump administration appears to have put things off balance merely for the love of it. Though the chaos seems to defy analysis, one element is frightfully common to current domestic, economic, and foreign policies: the consistent overestimation of powers necessary to accomplish aims. At home and abroad, President Trump has pitted his objectives against allies, enemies, rivals, and friends, not as a matter of miscalculation but, in the glaring absence of calculation, amid a tsunami of haphazard impulses.
In his attempt to break the excesses of the administrative state, Mr. Trump’s every action can be countermanded. More consequentially, given that the seat and beneficiary of the administrative state is the executive, once the wheel turns and a Democratic administration effortlessly reverses his flurry of executive orders, augmented executive power insulated from judicial restraint will resurrect and supercharge the permanent bureaucracy. Thus, unbeknownst to him, Mr. Trump is building, as he might say, an “incredibly beautiful” fortress—across the battlements of which Elizabeth Warren may someday stride.
Or, as Kevin D. Williamson might say: "Trump is lazy, narcissistic, and stupid."
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And, specifically… as Noah Smith points out: All the arguments for Trump's tariffs are wrong and bad.
Well, after a stock market crash, a bond market crash, and a blizzard of recession predictions, Donald Trump has paused some of his massive “Liberation Day” tariffs. But the reprieve is only partial and temporary. The very high tariff on China is still in place (and in fact has been increased). The 10% tariffs on all imports are still in effect. “Sectoral” tariffs on autos and other specific products are still there, and the tariffs that Trump had previously placed on Canada and Mexico are still there (though whether they’re cumulative with the new tariffs is still in question).
And on top of all that, the very high tariffs on other U.S. trading partners may return in three months’ time. Remember that Trump initially paused his tariffs on Canada and Mexico after the stock market fell, but eventually did implement them. So “Liberation Day” may simply return in July. So we’re still very much in the Big Tariff Era.
Noah has a list of arguments, knocking down every "wrong and bad" one.
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But maybe Jim Geraghty has a good one? Despite his apostasy noted a couple days ago, he tries to resurrect a silver lining in all the chaos: Now You See the Maximalist Trade War, Now You Don’t.
I was going to write that Americans completely get why we would impose tariffs on China; I’m generally a free trader, but I’m also a China hawk. And as we saw during the crackdown on Hong Kong, our extensive ties with China have brought Chinese values to American society rather than American values to Chinese society. (This is how we ended up with “Google Uighurs” signs being seized and removed at NBA games.) Beijing’s intentions are hostile, and it seeks to expand Chinese power and influence and minimize our power and influence in the Pacific.
When it comes to China, I think we need an economic “conscious uncoupling,” as Gwyneth Paltrow would put it. Xi Jinping, you need to understand that we’re opening up our relationship to other exporters — Vietnam, in particular. We’ve decided to see other Asian communists.
I think that's a pretty good argument, but maybe I'm just too amused with his "We’ve decided to see other Asian communists" line.
Anyway, go back to Noah's article above and read his refutation about China. I may be confused but you need not be.
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