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science
Sanders Calls Trump Anti-Science Agenda an 'Attack Against Anyone Who Has Ever Loved Someone With Cancer'
A Senate HELP Committee report found that there has been a $2.7 billion drop in National Institutes of Health research funding commitments in the first three months of 2025 compared to last year.
May 13, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump is conducting an "unprecedented and illegal" broadside against science and scientists that will have devastating consequences for regular Americans, according to a report released Tuesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont.
The report, which casts Trump's actions as a "war on science" that will lead to "preventable suffering" and "needless loss of life," was compiled by the minority staff with the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, where Sanders is the ranking member.
To compile the report, staff interviewed federal health workers, analyzed National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding data, reviewed self-reported data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and more.
The report concludes that Trump's moves against science will yield fewer breakthroughs for combating diseases, a less robust public health response to future infectious disease threats, and even less trust in public institutions.
In a statement on Tuesday, Sanders said that "Trump's war on science is an attack against anyone who has ever loved someone with cancer."
All told, according to the report, as of April 2025 the Trump administration has terminated at least $13.5 billion in health funding and has dismissed thousands of employees who support America's scientific infrastructure.
In what the report calls the "clearest sign" of the administration's effort to defund science, it states that NIH committed $2.7 billion less to research in the first three months of 2025 compared to the same time period last year, representing an effective 35% cut.
When the researchers behind the report conducted an analysis of National Cancer Institute grants, they found there has been a 31% decline in cancer research grant funding in the first three months of 2025, compared to the first three months of 2024.
The report also relays accounts from federal workers who highlight the Trump administration's efforts to impose control over "scientific speech."
For example, one HHS official said: "We get requests from the media to provide scientific expertise. Normally, [political appointees] would never get involved in this type of non-high-profile stuff but now they have to approve every single media request."
Also, "researchers across the federal science agencies report that certain scientific topics now trigger heightened scrutiny or political review before publication, presentation, or grant consideration," according to the report. The researchers also state that over 100 scientific meetings have been delayed or canceled.
The report also focuses on the impact of firings at HHS. The report states that at least 10,000 workers at HHS agencies have been terminated, on top of some 10,000 who have left voluntarily of been forced out by the Trump administration, citing public reports. This tally aligns with a tracker of federal personnel cuts maintained by The New York Times.
According to the report, federal employees believe that the loss of "public capacity" could mean more power for the private sector. One HHS official quoted in the report anonymously said: "I chose to go into federal service because I care about people. I want to be able to answer to the taxpayer, not the shareholder."
Speaking of overall cuts to HHS, "the agency in charge of the health and well-being of all Americans including tens of millions of seniors, children, and working families may be cut down to... less than one-sixth the size of UnitedHealth Group," according to the report.
The report states that these firings have lead to "chaos" across HHS, and that disruptions have been particularly acute at NIH.
"Initially, we had whole labs full of people that were fired. Complete chaos. Nobody had any idea if their tests were being run," said an anonymously quoted staffer at the NIH Clinical Center—the country's biggest hospital devoted solely to clinical research.
"Trump's war on science is not making America healthy again," Sanders said. "It is making Americans and people throughout the world sicker."
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The Only Demand Trump Needs to Hear: ‘You’re Fired!’
Given his wreckage of lives, livelihoods, health, safety, and freedom of speech here and abroad in just 100 days, Trump invites daily the unifying command arising out of his declaration of war against the American people.
May 03, 2025
Of all the epithets seething from the foul mouth of King Donald I (his preferred title)—“deranged,” “wacko,” “lunatic,” “crazy,” “crooked,” “loser,” “criminal,” “corrupt,” the most timely, functional one is his favorite: “YOU’RE FIRED.”
Launched from his TV program, The Apprentice, while a failed businessman, Trump, using the poisonous tusks of Elon Musk, has conveyed that exit phrase to hundreds of thousands of innocent public servants, performing crucial tasks, and their contractors since January 20, 2025.
Given his wreckage of lives, livelihoods, health, safety, and freedom of speech here and abroad in just 100 days, Trump invites daily the unifying command arising out of his declaration of war against the American people—red state and blue state—“YOU’RE FIRED!”
Trump, a corporation masquerading as a Human, must be unmasked by the following bill of particulars:
Because you’re first “presentation of self” on January 20 was to declare that you are the law and that no constitution, statute, or regulation was going to stop your issuance of scores of illegal Executive Order Dictates, “YOU’RE FIRED!” The Constitution does NOT provide for either a Monarch or a Dictator!
Because on and after January 20, 2025, you launched a major PURGE of lawfully acting civil servants, including 17 inspectors general mandated to root out criminal and fraudulent activities, and top officials in the Pentagon, Intelligence, and Regulatory agencies without reason and notice, replacing them with sycophants, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you are daily CENSORING and IMPERILING people, protected by our First Amendment, with police state kidnappings, illegal imprisonment in foreign and domestic jails, threats, harassment, bigotry, and outright criminal extortions for unlawful demands, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you have repeatedly violated congressional mandates, including the power of the purse and health and safety standards, and because you have illegally seized basic congressional authority under the Constitution, having defied over 125 congressional subpoenas in your first term, destroying our federal checks and balances, “YOU’RE FIRED!” (See, Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All by Mark Green and me, published in 2020).
Because you are rampantly and unlawfully dismantling or closing down virtually all the long-established regulatory and scientific research, protections of the health, safety, and economic well-being of the American people, families, and children, within the areas of consumer, worker, environmental, and community necessities—many life-saving, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you favor even greater power of large corporations to receive bloated contracts, subsidies, and giveaways; with impunity defraud the government, as with Medicare and Medicaid and military contracts; take over more of the public lands; and see scores of existing federal enforcement cases against them halted or dismissed, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you have destroyed more of the working civil service than all previous presidents combined, you have left the American people more defenseless against pandemics, climate violence, air and water pollution, hunger, infectious diseases, and corporate crimes, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you are demanding Congress pass more tax cuts and tax escapes for the very under-taxed super-wealthy, like you and your family members, and giant corporations, and because you have turned the White House into a self-enrichment business for you and your cronies, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because you have extended your cruel and vicious destructions against innocents abroad receiving life-saving medicine, food, and medical supplies from the U.S. Agency for International Development that you unlawfully have closed down, millions of poor people are in jeopardy and many thousands already dying and starving. You are told about these tragedies you have caused but could care less. Your zigzagging on massive tariffs destabilizing U.S. businesses and their workers is leading more of your supporters to question your competence and wrongheaded policies. Because regarding the Israeli genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and casualties mounting in the West Bank, you have backed your master Netanyahu even more than Bibi-Biden, greenlighting breaking the truce, resuming mass murder and starvation, pushing for expulsion of the entire surviving population, and approving annexation of the West Bank, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because every day you lie, and make false statements as a routine deceptive practice (over 35,000 lies and false statements listed by The Washington Post during your first term), you are creating harmful, false scenarios. Together with Musk enriching his corporate positions in Washington, you lie about each day’s realities such as the price of eggs being down 85%, our country now having a trade surplus, and your approval rating in polls “in the 60s and 70s,” “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Because your erratic, wild, and no-holds-barred fascist dictatorial corporate state “first” behavior proceeds from a dangerously unstable personality, driven by your insatiable vengeance as a megalomaniacal power freak, ignorant of or oblivious to circumstances and consequences, your continued wreckage in all directions is certain to worsen and shatter our Republic and its constitutional processes, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Expanding numbers of Americans from all backgrounds who see the deadly months ahead of Dangerous Donald need to sum up their demands in the siren call “YOU’RE FIRED!” Just as was done to President Richard Nixon for far less serious transgressions in 1974.
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Social Justice and Eclipse: Predicting and Preparing For Change
It is best to approach social justice the same way the world prepares for an eclipse—with foresight, community, and coordination.
Apr 23, 2025
Millions of people across the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico recently witnessed a total solar eclipse—a rare and breathtaking alignment of the Earth, moon, and sun. Scientists had predicted its precise timing and path years in advance, with detailed maps showing where the event would be most visible.
Across the U.S., communities prepared—gathering in fields, schools, and rooftops with protective glasses and cameras in hand. They trusted science. They trusted preparation. They showed up.
In the same week one year later, over 600,000 people across all 50 states signed up to protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his ongoing threat to democracy for the Hands Off Protests in 1,300 locations. These protests were not spontaneous—they were planned, anticipated, and powerfully aligned. Total estimates for the day’s peaceful protests are 3 million people.
It is not always possible to predict the exact moment of breakthrough, but one can prepare for the shift through mutual aid, political education, youth leadership, and conflict transformation training.
If it is possible to chart the movement of celestial bodies with such precision, then it is also possible to chart the social conditions that produce change. Responses to the conditions that cause criminality, injustice, or violence can also be charted and faced.
A crime can unfold in seconds, but its consequences—especially in marginalized communities—can last a lifetime. The root conditions that set the stage—poverty, childhood trauma, environmental injustice, disinvestment in education, and systemic racism—are all in place and can be addressed.
Knowing the precursors of injustice, it is prudent not to sit still and wait for tragedy before taking action. It is best to approach social justice the same way the world prepares for an eclipse—with foresight, community, and coordination.
Research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirms that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)—like neglect, abuse, or household dysfunction—can have long-term impacts on health, behavior, and justice involvement. Communities with higher poverty rates have higher crime rates, not because of moral failure, but due to decades of disinvestment and inequality.
As someone who has spent decades working for criminal and social justice reform in communities and far beyond, I see that systems and practices can indeed seed meaningful social change.
The Theory of Change is a framework that maps how and why desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It’s not magic. It’s modeling. And when used correctly, it helps communities anticipate outcomes and align resources toward justice.
Like eclipse chasers who travel to be in the “path of totality,” social justice organizers prepare to be where the change is coming. They build coalitions, train communities, and develop infrastructure so that when the time is right, they do not to miss the moment to act.
At this time in history when daily political efforts are aimed at reversing timeworn, proven paths to social justice, such as defunding financial assistance to federal programs, universities, associations, and individuals based on principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is urgent to prepare and put into place ways to counter the effects.
This preparation involves policymakers, funders, nonprofits, communities, advocates, individuals, families, institutions, and faith-based organizations to work toward the goal of social change of equity, fairness, access, and justice.
You cannot stare directly at an eclipse without special tools. Similarly, you often can’t see the slow build of a movement until it’s in full swing. Yet humans can sense change—like animals do before an eclipse, like trees that darken and cool in response to a shadow overhead.
Similarly, social change is intangible yet deeply felt. It is not always possible to predict the exact moment of breakthrough, but one can prepare for the shift through mutual aid, political education, youth leadership, and conflict transformation training.
Preparation now is crucial. Facing funding cuts nationally to vital services, rollbacks of civil rights protections, and an increasing normalization of political violence, it is urgent to create needed structures that assess possibilities in order to anticipate and respond proactively.
Throughout history, research shows that Black women have sensed these shifts and led people and communities through them—not just during well-known moments—but in everyday resistance throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
For example, Rosa Parks didn’t just refuse to give up her seat one time; she was a seasoned organizer and a supporter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or the SNCC Legacy Project. Shirley Chisholm wasn’t just the first Black woman to run for president—she helped reframe what political leadership looks like.
Barbara Jordan called out President Richard Nixon with such clarity it redefined accountability in American politics. Tennis icon Serena Williams crip-walked across a tennis court and reclaimed joy on a global stage. First Lady Michelle Obama wore sleeveless dresses and shattered expectations of what dignity and leadership looked like in a Black woman’s body.
A 2021 Texas A&M University study reports, “Black women, through their inclusive, community-based activist endeavors, continue to carve out fugitive spaces and counterpublics where counternarratives are actively generated to fight for a more equitable and inclusive democracy that serves all.”
As a Black woman, I see that Black women are the eclipse, the unexpected alignment. They have known through history how to bring light through the dark.
Social change can happen in quiet corners—in small towns, church basements, classrooms, or in the act of mentoring one young person. It doesn’t have to be a massive protest or a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It can be both.
But when those moments do arrive—like the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the LGBTQ+ rights movement—they are rarely surprises. They are the result of decades of work, layered with setbacks and strategy.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But that arc doesn’t bend on its own. It requires intention and action.
It is time not just to watch the changes happening, but to prepare and to make change, witnessing the outcomes together.
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