cbpolis.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Today (Feb 22) in 1943, three courageous young people in the group White Rose were executed for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets in Germany. Sophie Scholl: "The greatest damage is caused by the silent majority that just wants to survive, submit and go along with everything."

submitted 1 day ago • 10 comments

My weekly column and news roundup of our national crisis, written in the style of how the US media would—with more clear-eyed authority—cover these events if they were happening overseas: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/king-donal...

submitted 1 day ago • 18 comments

I've said often, based on history, that there's no reasonable expectation most people will be courageous in the face of fascism. Bravery is rare. It's valued for a reason: Most people aren't cut out for it, for reasons good and bad. But man, you'd still sorta hope the ABA woulda held the line.

submitted 1 day ago • 19 comments

A defining policy battle is about to come to a head in this country. The Republican budget will force everyone - especially Congress and the White House - to make plain whether they are prepared to harm the rest of us in order to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest.

submitted 2 days ago • 762 comments

The court continues to make clear in our case against the US government that defying the temporary restraining order on the foreign aid freeze is unlawful. Read more: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202... www.politico.com/news/2025/02... www.devex.com/news/court-e...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

JUST IN: A judge has enjoined President Trump's effort to block federal funds from going toward grant recipients who engage in DEI practices. The judge says the orgs are likely to succeed on claims that this is viewpoint discrimination, among other issues storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

submitted 1 day ago • 38 comments

I'm taking legal action to fight the Trump administration's efforts to gut the CFPB. The CFPB protects Americans and ensures companies are following our consumer protection laws. Eliminating it will hurt everyday people and benefit bad actors and billionaires like Elon Musk.

submitted 3 days ago • 15 comments

Today, my office is in court to keep up our efforts to stop Trump's National Institutes of Health funding cuts that will slow down lifesaving medical research. We're urging the court to continue to block these funding cuts as we keep fighting this reckless abuse of power.

submitted 2 days ago • 13 comments

We just won a court order stopping DOGE and unauthorized, unelected, and unvetted individuals like Elon Musk from accessing people's private data and blocking federal funds. We will keep fighting to protect all Americans from this administration’s destruction.

submitted 1 day ago • 187 comments

Just so everybody is clear on Republican priorities: We put up an amendment to make sure nobody making over $500 million gets a tax cut. Republicans voted against it.

submitted 2 days ago • 80 comments

Quite the gall to stand there and compare people sitting down at a town hall meeting to January 6th insurrectionists, too.

submitted 2 days ago • 29 comments

Nominations for the @springernature.com 2025 John #MaddoxPrize are open! Awarded in recognition of researchers who stand up and speak out for science despite challenges or hostility. Do you know someone who fits that description? nominate them here: nature.com/immersive/ma...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I have insomnia a lot lately so may as well share what’s literally keeping me up at night. It’s a long list but tonight it’s flu. Yes, H5N1, but also seasonal flu. Firing federal scientists brings a flu-filled future. Have you ever wondered how flu vaccine strains are chosen?

submitted 4 days ago • 16 comments

I want to amplify this. The most important problem for the health of American democracy is the weak state of the GOP (a “failed state” of party). A much much bigger problem than the state and strategies of the Democrats. It was bad in 2016 and it’s been going in the wrong direction since then.

submitted 3 days ago • 17 comments

@cygraham.bsky.social is on BlueSky too! See her description below!

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Oh, @nicolamlow.bsky.social is on BlueSky! 🎉 She's an epidemiologist with expertise in STIs, HIV, & vaccine preventable diseases, also with expertise in modeling and systematic reviews. And Deputy Editor of the @bmj.com journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. Glad you're here, Dr. Low!

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Reminding folks of the availability of this sexual and reproductive health starter pack: go.bsky.app/6WuJVjj

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

submitted 4 days ago • 844 comments

This new EO is a doozy, clearly written to test the constitutionality of independent agencies at the SCt. It purports to effectively bring all independent agencies - including the Fed Election Cmsn and the Fed (in part) under presidential control. Irreconcilable w/existing law full stop. /1

submitted 4 days ago • 23 comments

"This feels like the early days of the pandemic, except there's less I can do about it", a colleague told me yesterday. Yep. One thing you can do is outreach. My sense is that the majority of the country doesn't yet understand the scale or the stakes of what is happening. We have to tell them:

submitted 5 days ago • 13 comments

Firings are happening right now at the National Science Foundation. Essential staff are being cut. This isn’t about the budget. If it was, they’d be going after the military (17%) or state appropriations (38%). NSF is 0.7% of the federal budget. All federal employees make up only 4% of the budget.

submitted 5 days ago • 99 comments

Want to go visit the national parks this year? Sorry. The reservation system is shut down, EMT personnel are gone, so don't get hurt or lost. No one can clean the bathrooms or cabins, so they'll be closed. Rangers are fired. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

submitted 5 days ago • 846 comments

Did Musk fire hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees to increase "efficiency"? I don't think so. There is a better explanation: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

submitted 6 days ago • 55 comments

In 2020 they used the Big Lie (100s of misleading claims) of "voter fraud" to try to overturn an election. In 2024 they're using similar tactics to create/amplify misleading claims of "government waste and fraud" to justify dismantling huge sections of the U.S. government.

submitted 5 days ago • 21 comments

The flying public needs answers. How many FAA personnel were just fired? What positions? And why?

submitted 6 days ago • 2403 comments

State AGs are looking for federal workers who have just been illegally fired to stand as litigants in a new lawsuit trying to freeze further action by DOGE. DM me if that’s you and you’re interested and you’re live in one of the following states: NM, AZ, CA, CT, MD, MI, MN, NV, OR, WA, RI, or VT.

submitted 6 days ago • 47 comments

🚨Elon Musk’s DOGE operatives are attempting to access confidential tax information — tax returns, bank data, Social Security numbers — for millions of Americans. Illegal access can lead to jail time under federal law. @wyden.senate.gov and I are investigating and fighting back.

submitted 6 days ago • 661 comments

Here is a direct link to the exchange referenced in the thread below. www.youtube.com/live/s5Rsw0n...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Musk and his army of dipshits on Twitter keep pointing to Bill Clinton’s federal worker reduction in the 1990s to defend Trump. The difference? Congress passed a law that Clinton signed, he didn’t just get the nearest billionaire to illegally start dismantling the government based on his whims.

submitted 6 days ago • 160 comments

We are raising an alarm about the effect of USAID funding cuts on essential population and health data. ssrn.com/abstract=513... @pete-m-m.bsky.social @srhgroup-itm.bsky.social @bhensen.bsky.social @jilmolenaar.bsky.social @onykepe.bsky.social @cbpolis.bsky.social @manueladr.bsky.social ocial

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

This story has been updated as we get more info. FDA's device center, including staff working on AI-enabled devices, has been especially hit. Feel free to reach out to me on Signal at lizzylaw.53 if you have more information about FDA and HHS layoffs: www.statnews.com/2025/02/15/t...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

What’s with these accounts that have obviously bot-y bios & follow only female accounts of what seems to be mostly scientists and journalists? Look at Dr Mark Gibson (no spaces in BlueSky name) for an example of one that just followed me (and I blocked). Happens regularly, used to see same on X.

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

Garrett Graff is a former editor of Politico. Take note, scientists 🧪, he is deeply informed about politics. “American institutions [including science institutions] continue to underreact” to what is happening. Keeping our heads down won’t work. 1/

submitted 8 days ago • 5 comments

Thanks to all of the NIHers and their friends who reached out to me. I am still here (DM me or Signal jeremymberg.78) I still have a very incomplete picture but based on what I have been told, the damage to NIH and to many wonderful people who work(ed) there is/was impossible for me to imagine 1/n

submitted 7 days ago • 8 comments

American institutions—from the media to Congress—continue to underreact to the unraveling of our democracy. Overseas our media would not hesitate to call what we’re living through a full-blown autocratic coup. Here's my attempt at the story they should write: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/musk-trump...

submitted 8 days ago • 82 comments

Most people in the US have no idea about the attacks on federally funded science or our government institutions. Many (or most!) of your family, coworkers, neighbors, and friends have no idea. My own MAGA dad thinks DOGE is just identifying waste, and that nothing has been cut. We have to tell them.

submitted 8 days ago • 82 comments

Incompetence in Washington puts every American at risk, no matter how you voted. No one should be happy that the DOGE team - the same folks who randomly published classified U.S. security information online today - wants access to your bank account & Social Security numbers.

submitted 8 days ago • 2697 comments

As an EIS officer assigned to workplace safety in 2012-2014, my job was to make sure workers came home to their families safe and healthy every day. Poultry processors in SC. Factory workers in ND. Lifeguards in OH. Teachers in MI. We listened to their stories and worked to make their jobs safer.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Sending much love and solidarity to all the public health workers who have been inexplicably fired from government agencies today. The world is far less safe as a result.

submitted 9 days ago • 7 comments