The Tashinator
@oceantash.bsky.social
Bryozoologist, marine invertebrate sample gazer, often found looking over the side of docks or reading with a cat or belly dancing with other brainy creative women. Mom of 2 amazing young adults. 🪸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🎥🧪
Reposted by The Tashinator
did some reporting on the impact of DOGE's cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the court cases that are preserving the agency (for now), Trump's threats to slash federal arts spending, and the importance of IMLS to libraries and schools everywhere: slate.com/life/2025/05...
Why Would Trump Dismantle This Tiny Little Agency That Does So Much Good?
Judges are on the IMLS’ side. But the budget battle is still to come.
slate.com
May 8, 2025 at 3:17 PM
did some reporting on the impact of DOGE's cuts to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the court cases that are preserving the agency (for now), Trump's threats to slash federal arts spending, and the importance of IMLS to libraries and schools everywhere: slate.com/life/2025/05...
Reposted by The Tashinator
Reposted by The Tashinator
✅ DEI Employer of the Day
Macy's
Stephen Miller's group filed a federal complaint against Macy’s in 2023 for 'illegal racial discrimination,' citing the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Macy's now: "We are embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion throughout our business strategy"
Macy's
Stephen Miller's group filed a federal complaint against Macy’s in 2023 for 'illegal racial discrimination,' citing the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Macy's now: "We are embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion throughout our business strategy"
May 8, 2025 at 1:49 PM
✅ DEI Employer of the Day
Macy's
Stephen Miller's group filed a federal complaint against Macy’s in 2023 for 'illegal racial discrimination,' citing the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Macy's now: "We are embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion throughout our business strategy"
Macy's
Stephen Miller's group filed a federal complaint against Macy’s in 2023 for 'illegal racial discrimination,' citing the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Macy's now: "We are embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion throughout our business strategy"
Reposted by The Tashinator
🧵The best thing USians can do is call our electeds, in partic Ds; say you support this ⬇️ from Sens Van Hollen, Durbin, Merkley, Sanders, Warren, & Welch, & call for urgency.
Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121
or
Senate.gov & House.gov to find direct numbers
or
find in-state offices on their websites
Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121
or
Senate.gov & House.gov to find direct numbers
or
find in-state offices on their websites
May 9, 2025 at 4:14 AM
🧵The best thing USians can do is call our electeds, in partic Ds; say you support this ⬇️ from Sens Van Hollen, Durbin, Merkley, Sanders, Warren, & Welch, & call for urgency.
Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121
or
Senate.gov & House.gov to find direct numbers
or
find in-state offices on their websites
Capitol switchboard 202-224-3121
or
Senate.gov & House.gov to find direct numbers
or
find in-state offices on their websites
Reposted by The Tashinator
IF SENATOR
VAN HOLLEN
DURBIN
MERKLEY
SANDERS
WARREN or
WELCH
IS YOUR SENATOR
(hey Vermont you have both of your Senators on this!)
Pls, pls: Call & thank them. I'll be calling @durbin.senate.gov in the morning. I've called his office many times abt Is/Pal, often in tears. I'm grateful for this.
2/2
VAN HOLLEN
DURBIN
MERKLEY
SANDERS
WARREN or
WELCH
IS YOUR SENATOR
(hey Vermont you have both of your Senators on this!)
Pls, pls: Call & thank them. I'll be calling @durbin.senate.gov in the morning. I've called his office many times abt Is/Pal, often in tears. I'm grateful for this.
2/2
Van Hollen, Colleagues Call on GAO to Investigate U.S. Compliance with Laws Requiring the U.S. to Ensure Government Recipients of Foreign Aid Respect Human Rights, Facilitate Humanitarian Aid | U.S. S...
U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter...
www.vanhollen.senate.gov
May 9, 2025 at 4:22 AM
IF SENATOR
VAN HOLLEN
DURBIN
MERKLEY
SANDERS
WARREN or
WELCH
IS YOUR SENATOR
(hey Vermont you have both of your Senators on this!)
Pls, pls: Call & thank them. I'll be calling @durbin.senate.gov in the morning. I've called his office many times abt Is/Pal, often in tears. I'm grateful for this.
2/2
VAN HOLLEN
DURBIN
MERKLEY
SANDERS
WARREN or
WELCH
IS YOUR SENATOR
(hey Vermont you have both of your Senators on this!)
Pls, pls: Call & thank them. I'll be calling @durbin.senate.gov in the morning. I've called his office many times abt Is/Pal, often in tears. I'm grateful for this.
2/2
Reposted by The Tashinator
RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, a Surgeon General nominee who dropped out of residency, and now this. We’re in deep trouble.
Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions
Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund
www.science.org
May 9, 2025 at 4:03 AM
RFK Jr., Dr. Oz, a Surgeon General nominee who dropped out of residency, and now this. We’re in deep trouble.
Reposted by The Tashinator
The US National Institutes of Health has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields
Read the full story: https://go.nature.com/3EuFRPV
Read the full story: https://go.nature.com/3EuFRPV
April 18, 2025 at 10:19 AM
The US National Institutes of Health has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields
Read the full story: https://go.nature.com/3EuFRPV
Read the full story: https://go.nature.com/3EuFRPV
Reposted by The Tashinator
Every so often in history, a deranged leader will turn against scientific inquiry. An abassid caliph did in the 9th Century, Portugal’s king Manuel chased out his finest scholars because they were Jewish, Hitler also expelled his Jewish scientists.
It has invariably been a terrible idea, but…
It has invariably been a terrible idea, but…
Slashing scientific research funding and threatening America's role as the home of cutting-edge discoveries is quite a bait and switch from "defund woke DEI"
Trump’s Science Cuts Will Be Felt for Generations
Mindless slashing at NSF won’t just harm the scientific enterprise today—it will damage discovery and innovation for years to come.
www.thebulwark.com
April 18, 2025 at 6:59 AM
Every so often in history, a deranged leader will turn against scientific inquiry. An abassid caliph did in the 9th Century, Portugal’s king Manuel chased out his finest scholars because they were Jewish, Hitler also expelled his Jewish scientists.
It has invariably been a terrible idea, but…
It has invariably been a terrible idea, but…
Reposted by The Tashinator
DOGE is killing NIH. They froze the panels that determine funding. Then they froze funding announcements. Then they cancelled 100s of funded grants. Now they're freezing the remaining funded grants by making it impossible to actually access the funds
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
DOGE begins to freeze health-care payments for extra review
DOGE is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal grants, requiring officials to manually review and approve payments that were previously routine.
www.washingtonpost.com
April 18, 2025 at 12:12 PM
DOGE is killing NIH. They froze the panels that determine funding. Then they froze funding announcements. Then they cancelled 100s of funded grants. Now they're freezing the remaining funded grants by making it impossible to actually access the funds
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Our county councilor has asked county agencies to maintain information about households suffering from the disappearance of a family member to ICE detention. So far, nearly all were detained while working, nearly all had work authorization, all have US-born children, and none have a criminal record.
April 18, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Our county councilor has asked county agencies to maintain information about households suffering from the disappearance of a family member to ICE detention. So far, nearly all were detained while working, nearly all had work authorization, all have US-born children, and none have a criminal record.
Reposted by The Tashinator
Every person on Bluesky should know:
* Every post on Bluesky is PUBLIC forever
* Every post on Bluesky is archived by ICE, NSA, and many other agencies
* Even if you delete a post, it’s already been captured
* Judges don’t care if you were “kidding” or being ironic
www.404media.co/the-200-site...
* Every post on Bluesky is PUBLIC forever
* Every post on Bluesky is archived by ICE, NSA, and many other agencies
* Even if you delete a post, it’s already been captured
* Judges don’t care if you were “kidding” or being ironic
www.404media.co/the-200-site...
March 16, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Every person on Bluesky should know:
* Every post on Bluesky is PUBLIC forever
* Every post on Bluesky is archived by ICE, NSA, and many other agencies
* Even if you delete a post, it’s already been captured
* Judges don’t care if you were “kidding” or being ironic
www.404media.co/the-200-site...
* Every post on Bluesky is PUBLIC forever
* Every post on Bluesky is archived by ICE, NSA, and many other agencies
* Even if you delete a post, it’s already been captured
* Judges don’t care if you were “kidding” or being ironic
www.404media.co/the-200-site...
Good lord. Once again Congress tries to gut DC infrastructure - the city in which they live and work for much of the year. The irony is uncanny. WTF? This govt is literally going to tank our whole region along with the country.
Please please if you have DC friends and family and you live somewhere with Senators, call them now and tell them not to vote for this budget. These are my local tax dollars for my roads and schools and I can’t do anything about it. Please help us.
It is honestly wild to me that Republicans cooked up a bill that would prohibit D.C. from spending more than $1 billion of its own budget, devastating our city services out of pure spite, *and Senate Democrats might actually vote for it.* Utterly appalling. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
March 13, 2025 at 2:31 AM
Good lord. Once again Congress tries to gut DC infrastructure - the city in which they live and work for much of the year. The irony is uncanny. WTF? This govt is literally going to tank our whole region along with the country.
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An example of the future of electricity for much of the world is my news to me good news for Mar 12. #EarthOptimism #BeyondTheObituaries theprogressplaybook.com/2025/03/10/h...
How Bangladesh rolled out the world’s largest off-grid solar programme
Between 2003 and 2018, the country's Solar Home Systems programme reached 14% of the population, with 4.1 million systems installed.
theprogressplaybook.com
March 12, 2025 at 11:58 PM
An example of the future of electricity for much of the world is my news to me good news for Mar 12. #EarthOptimism #BeyondTheObituaries theprogressplaybook.com/2025/03/10/h...
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Great article on the ongoing impacts of the Trump administration on fisheries in the NE Pacific, and the people whose livelihoods both support and depend on them. alaskabeacon.com/2025/03/10/f...
Firings prompt concerns that science supporting Alaska seafood industry could be undermined • Alaska Beacon
NOAA Fisheries has declined to release numbers on the scope of the cutback, which has left officials scrambling to track the force reductions.
alaskabeacon.com
March 12, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Great article on the ongoing impacts of the Trump administration on fisheries in the NE Pacific, and the people whose livelihoods both support and depend on them. alaskabeacon.com/2025/03/10/f...
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It's hard to say this, but science (& research more generally) is just being **stopped** in the US right now. This is just one university, losing nearly a billion dollars in project funding pretty much overnight. That's people's jobs & the research that could save lives.
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
March 12, 2025 at 10:52 AM
It's hard to say this, but science (& research more generally) is just being **stopped** in the US right now. This is just one university, losing nearly a billion dollars in project funding pretty much overnight. That's people's jobs & the research that could save lives.
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
www.wsj.com/health/healt...
Reposted by The Tashinator
They literally fired the employee of the year. But it's about efficiency and waste, of course.
www.kuow.org/stories/noaa...
www.kuow.org/stories/noaa...
NOAA firings in Seattle include orca-saving employee of the year
Until Thursday afternoon, Hanna Miller focused on protecting whales from oil spills, ship strikes, and fishing gear. While on vacation in Hawaii, the federal biologist opened her work email on her per...
www.kuow.org
March 1, 2025 at 4:56 PM
They literally fired the employee of the year. But it's about efficiency and waste, of course.
www.kuow.org/stories/noaa...
www.kuow.org/stories/noaa...
Reposted by The Tashinator
New, from me: Musk is not just destroying core government functions, he is also destroying the tech capacity of government.
The people with serious tech skills who care about fixing govt have been fired. Both 18F and the US Digital Service are gone.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...
The people with serious tech skills who care about fixing govt have been fired. Both 18F and the US Digital Service are gone.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...
Skilled technologists are being forced out of government
18F and USDS are gutted by DOGE
donmoynihan.substack.com
March 2, 2025 at 1:01 AM
New, from me: Musk is not just destroying core government functions, he is also destroying the tech capacity of government.
The people with serious tech skills who care about fixing govt have been fired. Both 18F and the US Digital Service are gone.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...
The people with serious tech skills who care about fixing govt have been fired. Both 18F and the US Digital Service are gone.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/skilled-te...
Reposted by The Tashinator
First, they said postponed; now the meeting is canceled. That means no flu shots next year.
“'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"
Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...
“'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"
Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...
F.D.A. Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots
The cancellation plays into fears among scientists who worry that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will use his position as health secretary to sow doubts about vaccines.
www.nytimes.com
February 27, 2025 at 8:14 PM
First, they said postponed; now the meeting is canceled. That means no flu shots next year.
“'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"
Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...
“'It’s a six-month production cycle,' Dr. Offit said. 'So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.'"
Fundamentally, that's a form of mass murder.
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/u...
Reposted by The Tashinator
it's fairly easy to remind someone making Stack's argument here that there are like 3-4x as many trans people in america today as there were jews in germany before WWII. getting tired from screaming that this is nazi stuff but this is so obviously nazi stuff!!!!
March 2, 2025 at 1:42 PM
it's fairly easy to remind someone making Stack's argument here that there are like 3-4x as many trans people in america today as there were jews in germany before WWII. getting tired from screaming that this is nazi stuff but this is so obviously nazi stuff!!!!
See it’s not just people who want to go to Canada. Even the lobsters don’t like it here. It’s too hot in here for real.
March 2, 2025 at 4:16 PM
See it’s not just people who want to go to Canada. Even the lobsters don’t like it here. It’s too hot in here for real.
Reposted by The Tashinator
Seems like a great time indeed to just cut out Maine's Sea Grant program, right? www.nationalfisherman.com/northeast/tr...
Trump administration terminates Maine Sea Grant
www.nationalfisherman.com
March 2, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Seems like a great time indeed to just cut out Maine's Sea Grant program, right? www.nationalfisherman.com/northeast/tr...
Reposted by The Tashinator
ICYMI: Sen. Ted Cruz flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude method for identifying research he calls “woke.”
A Study of Mint Plants. A Device to Stop Bleeding. This Is the Scientific Research Ted Cruz Calls “Woke.”
The senator flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude meth...
www.propublica.org
March 1, 2025 at 9:25 PM
ICYMI: Sen. Ted Cruz flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude method for identifying research he calls “woke.”
Reposted by The Tashinator
“We are all as scientists at the whim of a single individual. I’m getting lack of sleep trying to follow the news every night.”
Researchers are concerned about whether the US National Institutes of Health will continue to fund international projects
https://go.nature.com/4khRwSh
https://go.nature.com/4khRwSh
NIH turmoil sparks anxiety over future of its global grants
Nature - Researchers are concerned about whether the US National Institutes of Health will continue to fund international projects.
go.nature.com
March 2, 2025 at 2:24 PM
“We are all as scientists at the whim of a single individual. I’m getting lack of sleep trying to follow the news every night.”
Reposted by The Tashinator
If you are the kind of person who is reflexively angered at the sight of someone looting a $2,000 TV during a riot, well this plundering of the FAA amid fires across the federal government is Elon Musk walking out of the Best Buy with a $2.4 billion TV.
new this morning from @andrewperez.bsky.social and me www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
FAA Officials Ordered Staff to Find Funding for Elon Musk's Starlink
After Trump and Musk gutted the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency directed staff to locate tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal.
www.rollingstone.com
March 2, 2025 at 2:11 PM
If you are the kind of person who is reflexively angered at the sight of someone looting a $2,000 TV during a riot, well this plundering of the FAA amid fires across the federal government is Elon Musk walking out of the Best Buy with a $2.4 billion TV.