Alison Miller
dacryon.bsky.social
Alison Miller
@dacryon.bsky.social
PhD student & Park Fellow @ UNC | I study how social media influencers shape trust in democratic institutions.

MPH (Bloomberg Fellow) @ Johns Hopkins | MA @ NYU | BA x 2 @ NCSU. 🌝
Reposted by Alison Miller
I am begging the national media to start taking this seriously.

Stop buying the claims that the framing of "temporary" or "pause."

They are altering the review processes of federally funded scientific research from merit-based peer review processes to political screening by ideologues.
NEW — OMB temporarily pauses all agency grants and loans programs.

Per copy of memo: "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."
January 28, 2025 at 1:46 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
genuinely despicable
"Tillis personally assured Danielle Hegseth in a call on Jan. 19 that if she signed [her sworn] statement...it would carry weight & potentially move 3 votes—his own, along with Collins & Murkowski...Tillis [was] the 50th senator to vote 'yes' on Hegseth" www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
January 27, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
This is a violation of the constitution.

Congress determines how to spend money. The executive must spend it.
NEW — OMB temporarily pauses all agency grants and loans programs.

Per copy of memo: "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."
January 27, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
New OPM memo on Schedule F: very broad categorizations of who can be reclassified from career civil service to political appointee.
Also: Ignoring the Biden rule limiting Schedule F. The President does not have to follow the APA when it comes to rulemaking on personnel.
www.opm.gov/policy-data-...
January 27, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
I kept this screenshot assuming someday we might be asked to forget.
January 24, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
love to live at a time where being a total degenerate earns you praise for your good character
January 25, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
They're trying to put me out of business
January 25, 2025 at 2:41 AM
“You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government,” Trump said.
January 24, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) has provided real-time data and analysis about disease outbreaks and emerging health threats without a break every week since 1960.

Until today.
January 23, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
The price of eggs in the US is spiking, mostly due to #H5N1 bird flu. Solving the problem requires urgent, important communications from the CDC & FDA* and rapid development of research by the NIH**

* Currently paused by Executive Order
** Grant reviews now all canceled
www.kcur.org/news/2025-01...
Egg prices are soaring again. Here’s why and what to expect
Bird flu has killed millions of hens in recent weeks, shrinking the supply of eggs and hiking up prices at grocery stores.
www.kcur.org
January 23, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
Analyzing tropes and teaching the public to recognize to them is such an important project.
Tropes, such as "Hidden Motives", are recurring narrative elements used to evoke familiar patterns in communication

Our #COLING paper uncovers that tropes are used in 37% of the social posts debating immigration and vaccination
📄 coling-2025-proceedings.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/main/pdf/202...
👇
January 23, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
Am so over contrarian scolds who offer no solutions who want us to see what we believe rather than believe what we see.
"The rebuke of the ruling class" says a person of the ruling class about someone ruling the ruling class
January 24, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
The joke is on us.
January 23, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
THE REASON THAT FEMA EXISTS IS BECAUSE STATES COULD NOT DEAL WITH LARGE SCALE DISASTERS BY THEMSELVES *IN THE 1970S.*

Now the disasters are bigger, there are homeland security threats, and this guy wants to roll us back 50 years.
Trump: "FEMA is gonna be a whole big discussion very shortly, because I'd rather see the states takes care of their own problems."
January 23, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
Yep: I have a paper coming out soon that argues (in passing) that state capacity takes a long time to build, but is fragile to shocks because it relies so much on norms. Once norms are no longer credible, you either replace them with a more formalized system (not great either) or wait 50 years.
I think it would take a whole trifecta effort to pull it off. Get Congress to pass some laws to make it hard to do what Trump's doing a second time. Otherwise competent civil servants aren't going to risk their necks by coming back.
January 23, 2025 at 4:53 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
The Washington Post editorial this morning essentially equating Biden's questionable pardons with Trump's outrageous Jan. 6 pardons was unconscionable. The newspaper I've been part of for 48 years has utterly lost its soul.
January 23, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
The assault on NIH is a test for how the national media covers the Trump admin: Trump is shutting down medical research!

That is easy to communicate. Will they treat it as a 5 alarm fire in a way that forces the government to respond, or will they downplay & caveat it?
January 23, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
The most incredible false equivalence.
January 23, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Reposted by Alison Miller
"I wish the media was more interested in public administration"
a cartoon hand reaching out towards a purple object
ALT: a cartoon hand reaching out towards a purple object
media.tenor.com
January 22, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
They could simply have ignored this - the Bishop's comments have no impact. But there political movement depends upon having enemies to attack, no matter how marginal the person or ridiculous the attack.
Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: "It was supposed to be a unifying and bipartisan church service ... everybody there was shocked and mortified by the disturbing comments from this bishop who chose to weaponize the pulpit ... she spewed lies."
January 22, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Alison Miller
Welcome to the "do your own research" era
New: Trump officials have paused all external communications at health agencies like CDC, FDA, NIH.

No health alerts and the famed MMWRs; no updates to key websites or social media posts.

And no indication how long the pause will last.

With @rachelroubein.bsky.social + Lena Sun.
Trump officials pause health agencies’ communications, citing review
The agencies are charged with making decisions that touch the lives of every American and are the source of crucial information to health-care providers.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 22, 2025 at 1:30 AM