President Trump ordered federal employees to return to the office, repeatedly saying they couldn't be productive from home.

But Trump has signed executive orders and a memorandum from his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, according to an NBC News tracker.

In other words, he's worked from home.

We want to send a message to the world: what has happened today is an absolute disgrace. It is completely un-American.

This energy. 👇🏻

8. It is difficult to overstate what a catastrophe this will be for the US research and education systems, particular in biomedical fields.

It is deliberate and wanton devastation entirely out of scale with any concern about DEI activities on campuses.

The goal is destroy US universities.

7. This order did not come out of nowhere. It was a core component of Lindsey Burke's Dept. of Education chapter in the Project 2025 report.

(Private foundations typically pay 10-15% overhead rates, and the logic of this comparison is made explicit in today's Supplemental Guidance from NIH.)

6. The policy does not just affect funding going forward. All existing NIH grants will have their indirect rates cut to 15% as of today, the date of issuance.

For a large university, this creates a sudden and catastrophic shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars against already budgeted funds.

5. Other schools may have even higher overhead rates. Harvard's is around 69%.

This new order slashes that percentage to a maximum of 15%. This means cutting one of the most important sources of university funding nationwide by 75% or more.

Universities cannot function with this scale of cut.

4. These F&A costs, colloquially known as "overhead", are typically north of 50%. At the UW, for example, the overhead rate is 55%. That means that if I get federal grant for $1,000,000 of direct research funding, the university receives an additional $550,000 to cover operating expenses and such.

3. To this end, they support the institutions where grantees work by paying facilities and administration (F&A) costs to research institutions such as universities. These costs above and beyond the direct amount of the grant are essential to fund university infrastructure and personnel.

2. While NSF and NIH indeed have a mission to fund specific research innovations via grantmaking, they do a lot more than that.

Their principal role is support a scientific ecosystem in the United States, that includes everything from education and training to infrastructure and communication.

Goodman, the witness from White Coat Waste project says NIH wastes $20 billion a year. In actuality, each dollar of NIH funding generates ~$2.50 of economic activity www.nih.gov/about-nih/wh...

Amid today’s massive NIH cuts to universities, please know that my research colleagues:

- Develop new cancer treatments for kids
- Are curing sickle cell disease
- Build new tech to help premature babies survive
- Prevent teens from dying of drug overdose
- And more

#NIH #MedSky #research #science

Sounds like you've been reading Nathan Tankus...? He points out that the constitution and Court injunctions are not self-enforcing. In simple terms, it comes down to who controls the purse.

This is why they broke the treasury first. Because if they can pause payments according to these “orders” then the regulations don’t matter.

bsky.app/profile/arch...

Excellent 🧵 on this evening's NIH announcement of a dramatic reduction in indirect rates for research institutions, which amounts to a generational restructuring of the US research and development ecosystem. These cuts are effective immediately, not just for new grants but for existing ones.

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...