Life in Post Democracy Era: The Trump 2/Elon Dictatatorship

[PeterMP]

I’d be curious if this is just accounting. I mean, if you have allowable indirect costs that are higher than the threshold, can’t you find a mechanism to make them direct?

Not given how things currently work. Right now, they way it works most grants don't allow you to fund non-science workers. The people that administer the grants and run different things associated with doing things like keeping track of the budget can't be paid off a grant in most cases. Any time I want to buy something, there is a staff person that does it. They keep track of prices to find the cheapest vendor, keep track of the budget, how much money I have in different accounts, and makes sure the right "account" gets charged, etc. But that person's salary can't get paid through the direct costs of a grant. They get paid mostly from our dept. budget where my dept. gets 40% of the indirect costs that my institution gets. If they do this, people like that are going to lose their jobs, the work will have to be taken over by people doing science and so less science at least superficially.

Then in many cases the money has been going to support work not supported by a grant. Where I work the department supports a robust undergraduate summer research experience. This includes buying supplies for people that don't have grants and paying students. Much of that money comes from our general dept. budget which is partly from indirect costs from grants. There were already e-mails sent out today to schedule a meeting about do we want to support the normal number of undergrads or are we going to put a cap in place for summer 2025 (those fundings were supposed to be announced in 2 weeks so we need to meet next week now to see what we're going to do). Funding undergraduate research experiences in terms of a grant is generally not a good use of money because they just aren't productive enough because they don't know what they are doing. I'll have undergrads do research for a summer that are supported by the dept, but I'd never take an undergrad just for a summer and pay that person off a grant.

At some level, the Trump people probably do have a point. 60%+ to some of institutions probably isn't good and isn't fair at some level. I'm not at the level to know how those "negotiations" work to know where those numbers come from. I also suspect that Harvard isn't really going to be hurt. They can probably make up most of the difference from their endowment. Who is going to get hurt is a lot of smaller and mid-level places that weren't getting 60+%, but are getting 40-50% and maybe for each science dept a few people have grants and indirect costs were being used to cover costs associated with other people doing research. Which I suspect are a lot of state institutions.

If they'd have capped it at 40-50%, I wouldn't have posted. I'm sure Harvard, Hopkins, etc, would still be screaming, but assuming you don't drop the NIH budget, I think that could actually be good. It would mean more grants which would hopefully mean more people getting grants.

What will happen long term will very much depend on what they do with the NIH budget. If they actually keep it where it is, then I suspect in a few years a new normal will be adjusted to. If they cut it to 15% and keep the NIH budget the same so that more grants are awarded, longer term there will be some adjustment, but it won't be awful. I don't think you'll ever be able to support the administrative staff that we have at 15% so it will be scientists spending more time doing administrative tasks. Many people currently doing the administrative work are going to lose their jobs. People that don't have grants will very much be shut out of doing research, but at least ideally, more people should be able to get grants. Things that aren't overly helpful with immediate research productivity (e.g. undergrad research) will take a hit unless they especially up the amount of money they are putting to those types of grants. Basic science is going to take a hit unless they especially ear mark some of the money that was going to indirect costs to basic science (where the NIH has leaned more and more towards translational research and so many people doing basic science don't have grants). I get 10% of my indirect costs. I essentially run a project that is fundable by the NIH, and then use that 10% and some money from my dept. budget to do things that the NIH won't fund. If they cut it to 15%, that will end, and the number of undergrads that I have do research will drop.

[Corcaigh]

My understating is that foundations such as Gates, Ford etc. that fund university work have indirect caps at 15% (or lower) while Federally funded grants reimburse at a (much) higher indirect rate. May be apples and oranges, of course.

[PeterMP]

ting is that foundations such as Gates, Ford etc. that fund university work have indirect caps at 15% (or lower) while Federally funded grants reimburse at a (much) higher indirect rate. May be apples and oranges,

Yes. Generally, government funds via indirect costs are used to support staff that then help with non-government grants in terms of administrative functions. This is where you end up with different accounts. I've had an NIH grant and an American Cancer Society (ACS) grant at the same time. The same budget person (who is really a university employee) helped manage the budget for both of them and doing things like ordering. However, if all we had was the 10% or so the ACS allowed for indirect costs, the person could have never been hired.

This person is a university employee that is largely paid for the by department largely via money the university is kicking back to the dept. from indirect costs from grants. With 5 people with federal grants given our indirect costs rate, we can afford to pay what the university is requiring us to pay of that person's salary. This person then helps manage budgets for everybody that has any grant. They help people that don't have a grant that are writing a grant prepare their budget. They help me prepare my budget for my grant renewal, which isn't something that can be paid for by the direct costs of my current grant. They generally help the dept function.

If the NIH cuts the indirect costs rate to 15%, there won't be enough to pay that person. Even if cutting the indirect costs allows somebody else to get a grant, 6 people with grants at 15% won't match what we get now. That person will lose their job and realistically, their work will be shifted to people that doing science. Realistically, without that person, individual researchers are going to have to be much more involved in keeping their budget, ordering, preparing their budgets for grants, etc. If you have 6 people with grants, the result might be as much research getting done or even more, but the distribution of the work will have to change.

You also see this with respect to more science related functions. We have a vet on staff because some people do animal research and federal guidelines require that if you have animal research there has to be vet involved. That vet is a full time university employee but is partly paid via grant indirect costs. If you have an ACS grant, the 10% indirect costs from that grant isn't going to support hiring a vet. But the NIH's much higher rate and a couple of people's indirect costs pooled allows for hiring a vet. That vet then supports everybody doing animal research, even if you don't have a grant.

It is possible to hire a vet part time. What might happen is we'll fire our full time vet and the people that have grants will be responsible for hiring a part time vet as they need given their grant and federal guidelines. But that's going to be more work for those people and then hurt people that don't have a grant because they aren't going to be able to do any animal research. And I don't think 10% from the ACS will be enough to support a vet part time, so I think if that's your only funding you'll still be locked out of doing animal research. And that's where this sort of thing can really matter. You have people doing cancer research through funding from the ACS that can afford to do that partly because the university has employees they are paying from indirect costs from federal grants that are helping support that work.

The 10% from the ACS won't let somebody hire a vet part time, they don't have any more money, all they know how to do really is animal research. No matter how good their idea is, writing an ACS grant is waste of that person's time. And currently, a lot of times now what happens is people write smaller grants to something like the ACS and then use that to build to an NIH grant.

I'm not somebody yelling this is going to be a disaster, if they maintain the NIH budget, but it is going to be an adjustment and hurt people that don't have grants currently and don't have great institutional support now. I think long term who is going to benefit is actually the bigger schools. Mid to smaller level state schools I suspect are going to get hurt. I don't do animal research. But for somebody that does becoming responsible for hiring a vet part time that will do what is needed to support federal guidelines for animal work is going to be dumping a lot more work on that researcher (vs. having an institutional full time vet that the institution can afford because indirect costs).

(My understanding is currently the ~30% of NIH grant funds are going out as indirect costs. If they take the attitude that by cutting the rate to 15% they've saved 15% and correspondingly cut the NIH budget, that would be pretty disastrous and an indication they don't understand how things work. A lot of that 30% is indirectly going to support research and science education. The university is kicking a good bit of their indirect costs back to my dept. and to me and then we aren't using any money to support things like DEI causes. The vast majority of that money is going to support science and science education even if it does so indirectly by supporting administrative functions (e.g. managing budgets)).

**EDIT**
And just to be specific, the accounting with grants gets odd. Where I work the rate for indirect costs is 49%. But it is 49% on salaries and fringe benefits. It doesn't apply at all to supplies, etc. I'm guess the same is true at Harvard. So when people say that the NIH is paying 69% overhead on grants to Harvard, that isn't actually the case I'm guessing they are paying 69% overhead on some portion of the grant. Overall, the number is being reported at ~30%. I don't think you get to 30% if they are really paying Harvard and some of these other places >60%. If they cut the indirect costs rate to 15%, but apply to the whole grant that changes what I've written above because we'll probably pull in about the same for indirect costs. Nobody seems to think that's what they are talking about doing.

[China]

EPA environmental justice staff ousted amid ongoing industrial ag complaints

President Donald Trump has significantly reduced staffing within a civil rights office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency currently investigating dozens of complaints, including two involving the placement of industrial swine and poultry operations in predominantly nonwhite communities.

The EPA has placed 168 employees on leave within the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights to comply with Trump’s executive order ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the EPA said in a statement to Investigate Midwest.

An office employee, who spoke to Investigate Midwest on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the administration and EPA leadership, said the decision was announced at an all-staff meeting Wednesday afternoon.

“This administration will set environmental justice efforts back substantially,” the employee said.

The Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights is responsible for investigating complaints of discrimination based on age, race, gender and other protected statuses under civil rights laws as it relates to environmental and public health harms.

EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said the agency is working diligently to implement the new executive orders and memos.

“Career staff made determinations on which Office of Environmental Justice employees had statutory duties or core mission functions. As such, 168 staffers were placed on administrative leave as their function did not relate to the agency’s statutory duties or grant work. EPA is in the process of evaluating new structure and organization to ensure we are meeting our mission of protecting human health and the environment for all Americans,” Vaseliou said in a statement.

Jen Duggan, executive director of the environmental watchdog organization Environmental Integrity Project, said in a statement that the administration’s chaotic attack on EPA and the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights will expose Americans across the country to more deadly pollution.

Click on the link for the full article

[Clay2Ali]

This is the real reason for the BS that Trump put out:
Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service has been denied a license in South Africa because it doesn’t meet affirmative action criteria.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke with Donald Trump’s “influential” billionaire adviser Elon Musk a day after the new U.S. president promised to cut funding for South Africa over a land expropriation law, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson said Wednesday.

Ramaphosa’s conversation with Musk was “logical,” spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said, because the South African-born Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur has held previous investment-related discussions with Ramaphosa and is a Trump ally.

After Trump’s funding threat, South African president phones influential billionaire Musk
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/afte ... naire-musk

They don't really care about white South Africans. Starlink allows the U.S. to know what traffic comes out of S.A.

[China]

Trump would be ‘very happy’ to send U.S. citizens to El Salvador’s prisons. It’s ‘incredibly illegal’

Donald Trump said he would be “fine” and “very happy” with the removal of incarcerated American citizens to El Salvador’s jails. Elon Musk called it a “great idea.”

It’s also illegal and an unconstitutional assault on human rights, according to immigration law experts and constitutional scholars.

The Trump administration is reviewing a proposal from El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to imprison Americans in the Central American country’s jails, “even though they’re U.S. citizens or legal residents,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“Bukele is undoubtedly trolling, but to emphasize again: this is so incredibly illegal that there's not even a hint of a possible way to do it under any circumstances whatsoever,” according to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council think tank.

“It violates international law and the U.S. constitution. Period. End of story,” he wrote.

Click on the link for the full article

[Brave]

So this is where we're headed...

[China]

I don't necessarily disagree with abolishing the penny, I just doubt that the way Trump is doing it is the best way. You need to give companies time to adjust their pricing so that pennies aren't needed in day-to-day transactions.

Trump Orders Treasury Secretary to Stop Minting Pennies

President Trump said on Sunday night that he had ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.

“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social. He characterized the production of pennies, which “literally cost us more than 2 cents” each, as wasteful.

[Brave]

[China]

The American Inquisition Cometh

Don Trump, current temporary occupant of the elective office of President of the United States, has issued an Executive Order to ferret out “antichristianity” from the federal government. Now cynics might perceive an odd karmic resonance from the “communist witch hunts” of Senator Joe McCarthy though the grotesque, twisted soul of Roy Cohn to his acolyte Don Trump, but nothing could be further from the truth. Be assured: there is no “antichrist” in this “antichristianity” purge. The choice of words is just a coincidence.

The order, issued Thursday, February 7, 2025, establishes a task force called the “Task Force to End the War on Christians,” and will include members of Trump’s cabinet and agencies. The task force will review all departments to “identify and eliminate anti-Christian policies, practices, or conduct.” It will also seek to find gaps in laws and enforcement contributing to such conduct, and recommend further action if necessary. The task force will be required to submit an annual report on its progress, and a final report when it concludes.

We and the Task Force need some guidance on how to decide what/who is “antichristian.” Prior similar efforts in history have had bad results.

After Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 312, Christians, having been severely persecuted under previous emperors, the new religion now felt capable of commencing its own program of persecution, confiscating property and killing “heretics.”

The “Spanish Inquisition” operating in Spain and in all Spanish viceroyalties and territories was equally horrific. According to some modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed, approximately 2.7 percent of all cases.

There are numerous records of the opinion of ordinary Spaniards of the time that, “the Inquisition was devised simply to rob people.”

“They were burnt only for the money they had,” a resident of Cuenca averred. “They burn only the well-off”, said another. (This may be why the Spanish Inquisition targeted Jews.) In 1504 an accused stated, “only the rich were burnt.”

Click on the link for the rest