How can Congress limit the government’s power to use federal funding as a weapon? In a new essay, @jamalgreene.bsky.social argues that reform should begin with Title VI and Title IX, whose funding-enforcement mechanism can leave universities vulnerable to political coercion.

If you're an #NSF funded researcher and haven't written a response to the OMB proposed rule and contacted your Congressional delegation about it, you should know Russ Vought is coming for your field first, enshrining the chaos of DOGE as policy. Do both at fight2win.standupforscience.net

The credit rating agency issue with the OMB rule is all too obvious in hindsight, but worth taking time to spell out. Let’s talk a bit about the Moody’s warning (need an account to access). www.moodys.com/research/Pub... 🧵

This is both a) really bad and b) totally expected, especially given that a lot of their launch vehicles have a pattern of releasing a bunch of extra debris at the end.

My yapping somehow made it over to @federalnewsnetwork.com where I got to speak a bit about the @techpolicypress.bsky.social paper I wrote. This is an attempt to explain why a lot of good policy ideas never make it to the surface, and how process ownership translates into suboptimal outcomes.

Two points: 1. There are 101 mentions to 2 CFR 200 (i.e. relating to the new OMB rule) in this NSF proposed rule change 2. The 15% de minimis indirect cost rate is for institutions without negotiated rates. It is _not_ the same as the 15% cap for unis with a negotiated rate.

#NSF is replacing the PAPPG with "NSF Guidance on Financial Assistance" (GFA) ("Guffaw"?). A notice in the Federal Register seeks comments, due in 60 days. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

How can you have a notice and comment rulemaking—considering all options—but then issue a guidance that assumes that the final rulemaking is valid without change?

I got a chance to thank @merkley.senate.gov for his work on stopping Trump's illegal routing of the ocean monitoring system today. Honestly, such a treat. I love when our electeds Stand Up for Science and live their values.

🌊 "The US is no longer a reliable global partner in ocean observation." - Brad deYoung ➡️ You've heard about the OOI; now read about the other ocean-observing networks at risk. By me for @nature.com 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Oh my god he admit it Link: www.regulations.gov/document/NSF...

I am back on my bullshit

New piece from SUFS Director of Policy and Advocacy @colesci.bsky.social , who breaks down how the Office of Management and Budget has amassed extraordinary power over federal agencies, why that matters for American science, and what can be done about it. zurl.co/dm6w9

At the first #FAccT2026 keynote and really appreciate that the screen has the speaker, the slides, an ASL interpreter, and closed captioning. We've come a long way.

Egads. No one in this clip represents themselves well. What I can tell you is that the answer from Springmann about how NSF is learning how to do oversight over “Other Transactions Authority” is the kind of thing that’s almost certainly going to come back to bite the Foundation.

It was astounding. When @colesci.bsky.social and I were discussing, it was like "people are going to think this is sooooo radical" and then OMB did what they did...and now it feels substantially less radical.

Welcome to the resistance (checks notes) Moody's Ratings fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/fi/FINe...

This is a very good analysis of how the review process for grants actually works.

@elizabethginexi.bsky.social establishing the difference between the way that peer review processes happened prior to OMB-2026-0034 and where things currently are and where they are about to go.

This is basically consistent with why I don’t buy that OMB is a great scion of the unitary executive. In practice, the person running the government right now is Russell Vought. It’s not clear that the President has the foggiest clue about any of the things that are being done in his name.

Rebuilding a more just and publicly accountable future will require reckoning with the systems we created that produced the current chaos. “Sulla could do it, shall I not?” set the stage for Caesar’s dictatorship. It is a path we, as a country, must not repeat to save the republic.

Y'all should stay off the Nazi bar, but y'all also have to understand that there are VERY resurgent USAID conspiracy theories over there, including a claim that the shutdown of USAID (and not Treasury dumping billions to Argentina) is what led to a far right resurgence there.

“Scientists should stop trying to be neutral and instead embrace their values,”says a group of top climate scientists, including @katharinehayhoe.com. The neutrality myth is harming the reputation of science right when we need it most.” #ClimateCrisis Science isn’t neutral. It’s science.

An underlying logic of unitary executive theory is that the President is an all knowing figure who should be granted extraordinary power, rather than a flawed individual who should be constrained

Climate.us is officially live! After NOAA ended Climate.gov’s day-to-day operations in 2025, former team members built Climate.us to carry that work forward. Their explanations and graphics have always stood out to me as clear, accessible, and transparent. I’m really looking forward to this reboot.

This is going to be a spicy hot take: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (Maybe both the Starmer resignation in the UK and tonight’s elections should signal to politicians that they should focus on doing the things that their voters want them to be doing.)

seemingly underrated aspect of DSA's electoral successes against incumbent moderate and centrist democrats is simply that the latter got lazy

My book is coming out in October and will be available open access! However, for those who prefer physical copies, Barnes & Noble is currently running a preorder sale for members. Use code PREORDER25 to get 25% off the paperback! www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-referee...

Musk, as cartoon supervillian as ever a person has been, hates when people with relevant expertise in life saving get attention instead of him, and he killed USAID for it, a massacre with outsized harm that serves no master other than his ego internationalpolicy.org/publications...

SCOTUS going ahead and letting border officer vibes govern border policy

Scientific American is being sold to LabX Media, publisher of Discover: group.springernature.com/gp/group/med... They've fired me and other union staff, ahead of June 26 vote ratification. My rates are suddenly more reasonable, if you need editing or reporting - [email protected]

Iranian government doesn’t need to be credible to succeed, here. They just need to be able to suggest that our delegation (led by our Vice President) isn’t in order to diminish American power. There’s a reason we work on paper and not in hype.

NSF is updating their PAPPG, which is their guidebook for NSF grants. Given the accelerated timeline of the 2 CFR update and the fact that OMB has told multiple organizations, now, that they do not intend to extend, the appearance of implementing the new Rule before the regulation is finished.

This amount would fund the US National Science Foundation for a decade. 🧪

Way too early for declare anything about this trend but like, I can definitely say this is the most rational thing that’s happened in a bit.

A) This is bad B) I have my own significant concerns about X-Labs that track the content in this piece C) It’s a Jeff Mervis piece so expect some sloppiness D) That doesn’t necessarily mean the eventual outcome is going to be different than what Mervis describes, here

This is a) a very good take and b) a warning for a future Democratic administration. Also applies to recent developments in British science policy.

i'm not gonna stop my contractual HOTD-posting but incidentally the Prime Minister just resigned 🤡

Since June 1, @standupforscience.net activists have taken 26,064 (!!!!!) actions to fight back against the OMB rule. This includes comments, emailing comments to members of Congress, calling and emailing Congress Critters, and meeting with their members of Congress!

This is consistently one of the most useless (and often actively bad) policy interventions. Yet we keep doing it because it makes people feel like it's something they can control (hint: they cannot). Export controls like these are the heroin of the national security policy world.

Trying to save an R&D enterprise that produces outcomes like this is sometimes difficult, but necessary

Oh JFC now there's a FAR update I have to read, too. BRB.

I see a number of people commenting about exaggeration in terms of what the admin is doing to science, but consider this report, and the fact that NSF appears to have just stopped reporting or issuing awards. grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

Advertise your BlueSky account with a Simpson’s GIF

The year is 2045. Donald Trump Jr is on his fourth term as president. The United States has spent $50bn fixing the reflecting pool. We just surrendered what remains of Florida’s land mass to Cuba after spending trillions bribing every wind farm developer.

Periodic reminder that President Trump’s team negotiated the agreement that put the Taliban back in power, releasing 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison. Doesn’t justify the length, cost, or failures of the War on Terror, but watch him claim credit for “the process.” Hardly a passive observer.

Mages, post ‘em if you got ‘em (The geeky painter tag isn’t just a thing, this was 25 years ago)

AS I WAS SAYING

The worldwide CMS Collaboration is deeply saddened by the passing of Belgian theoretical physicist François Englert at the age of 93. Read more here: cms.cern/news/cms-col...