Guest “Heck yeah, I voted for this! And it’s better than I expected!” by David Middleton
ScienceInsider Science and Policy
Trump Tracker
Latest on firings: ““It’s bad, but I’m not gonna lay down and roll over.”
13 Feb 2025 By Science News StaffAre you a federal scientist who took the recent buyout or have been fired? Contact us. Other story tips welcome.
Latest story: “If you are going to fire us, let us know.”–National Science Foundation union
17 Feb 2025, 2:50 PM ET
NSF union asks for information on pending dismissals
In anticipation of mass firings this week, the union representing more than 1000 employees at the National Science Foundation (NSF) today asked the agency to explain how it is implementing the Trump’s administration order to shrink the federal workforce by dismissing those designated as probationary employees.
“Put us out of our agony,” says one NSF employee who received the 17 February letter sent by Local 3403 of the American Federation of Government Employees to NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “If you are going to fire us, let us know.”
The letter, shared with Science, asks Panchanathan for the criteria the agency used to draw up a pool of those eligible to be fired under a 20 January memo from the White House Office of Personnel Management.
[…]
AAAS of A
There’s a single criterion for firing “probationary employees”…
If you’re a probationary employee, you can be fired “at any point during the probationary period.” That’s how probationary employment works. If your job has been eliminated, you are no longer “the right person for the job.”
Now, let’s get back to the “Trump Tracker”…
14 Feb 2025, 6:30 PM ET
At Interior Department, layoffs shock new scientists hoping for a secure career of service
As the Trump administration unleashed a wave of firing today across U.S. research agencies, targeting mainly probationary workers, ScienceInsider spoke with two scientists at agencies in the U.S. Department of the Interior who are losing their jobs. A postdoc who started a position at the U.S. Geological Survey last year got a call from their center director today, telling them that they would be laid off by the end of the day. “He broke the news and wanted to do it himself,” they say. The ecologist says it was a shock, but not completely unexpected. They also consider themselves relatively lucky, because their spouse is employed and they didn’t have to relocate for their postdoc. “I’m aware of some others who moved cross-country and started positions only to have just gotten the news. … It’s really hard.”
AAAS of A
One would think that the folks at the American Association for the Advancement of Science of America would be able to grasp the phrase “probationary workers.” And why the hell is the U.S. Geological Survey employing PhD ECOLOGISTS? Let’s ask Google AI:
Why were hundreds of millions of TAXPYERS’ dollars being spent on “education research”?
14 Feb 2025, 2:30 PM ET
Halted contracts threaten education research
Researchers warn that the sudden cancellation this week of hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts to collect information on the state of U.S. education will blind the government to important trends from preschool to college and beyond.
AAAS of A
Hundreds of “hundreds of millions of dollars of government contracts to collect information on the state of U.S. education”? Seriously? We we know all we need to know about the “the state of U.S. education.” It’s barely average in science and math.
5200
Estimated number of probationary workers at NIH, CDC, FDA and other Health and Human Services agencies who were scheduled to receive termination notices from the Trump administration.
AAAS of A
Repeat after me: “probationary workers.”
13 Feb 2025, 9:30 AM ET
Scientists want to kick Musk out of Royal Society
Billionaire Elon Musk has been a lightning rod for criticism in the United States for anti-DEI posts on his social media platform X and his DOGE work for President Donald Trump, which may end up gutting U.S. science agencies and has disrupted foreign aid for global clinical research. But his actions also aren’t playing well across the pond.
[…]
AAAS of A
Right…
The folks who want to protect every DEI PhD’s access to taxpayers’ money want to kick Elon Musk out of the Royal Society… Irony can be so ironic!
Why is the American Association for the Advancement of Science of America so obsessed with down-sizing the Federal government?
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a science advocacy organization based in the United States and the largest general science association in the world. It is publisher of the journal Science.
AAAS has been accused of promoting a broadly left-leaning policy agenda and associating with front groups for the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Many of its leaders have also been criticized for supporting environmentalist policies and promoting global population control measures.
In the modern era, the AAAS has become more involved in promoting left-wing “science-activism,” ideological activism performed in the guise of promoting science. Its involvement in the “March for Science,” which was organized in opposition to the election and policies of President Donald Trump.1
[…]
Funding
The AAAS had expenditures of $101.3 million in 2015, revenues exceeding $103 million, and assets of $156.6 million.36
[…]
The federal government is the largest identifiable source of funding for AAAS. Between 2008 and 2017, federal funding to AAAS averaged over $3.3 million annually. Data from the website USA Spending (managed by the Office of Management and Budget) shows AAAS received $27.9 million in 451 contracts between 2004 and March 2018. Of this sum, the largest contracts were given to AAAS by the Department of Health and Human Services (largely from a subsidiary agency, the National Institutes of Health) and the Department of Homeland Security. AAAS received another $41.5 million in 25 grants between 2011 and December 2017, of which an overwhelming majority ($35.5 million) came from the National Science Foundation. 38
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