One of the earliest attacks on DEI began at the NIH and it's still going

2/25/25 Note: I am not a journalist. I am a scientist in the United States. I have been following the chaos barreling down the NIH and federal employee pipeline for several weeks now. Although not all are federal employees, scientists around the country depend on NIH for funding and guidance on grant submissions. Most of us have been watching closely as fascism began to sweep through our lives in a way we couldn't ignore.

We were originally told there were vague orders about communications being halted and bizarre accusations made about DEI and investigations being needed to determine government waste. The vague changes were supposed to last until at least Febuary 1st or until Trump's pick to head HHS could be put in place.

After today there are only 3 days left in the month of February, Trump's pick to head HHS is in place and received no resistance from the Senate majority party that approved his fitness before a final Senate vote confirmed the nomination. Yet, despite getting their way, the future of science in the U.S. looks about as grim as it ever did. Despite a court order to unfreeze tax dollars that I actually end up paying back into my own salary, the Trump administration has decided to defy the court order and continue the freeze "pending DEI review."

Below is one of the first posts I wrote around 3 weeks about what I was able to piece together on my own because I couldn't find any journalists willing to do it for me.

I began writing as a way to express my frustration and anger, and to try and spread information to other people. However, for the last 3 weeks, even writing has often felt like I'm just screaming into the void. It wasn't that people weren't interested. The opposite actually. People were sharing and upvoting my posts, and I felt like maybe I was doing something that could help.

However, around 3 weeks ago, for the first time in my life, I started to experience what felt like platform wide censorship. It wasn't like I was attacking anyone or spouting opinions, I was only trying to spread information. I wrote about my first censorship experience, and then wrote this longer post on Reddit.

Here is the post I wrote and first published on Reddit around late January. I moved from Reddit completely over to Substack to avoid censorship, but it seems it was unavoidable there as well. My latest attempt brought me to Ghost.org. We'll see how it goes. Regardless, I will keep trying. These fascists are destroying my life. My hopes and my dreams. Whatever I can do to spread information they want to keep hidden I will be doing until I die or they are removed from power. Fascists will not compromise, they will take until there is nothing left.

As I mentioned in my first post, there have been so many rapid fire changes since the administration took over for this big budget block buster sequel.

It's been chaos, and while most people are assuming it is all part of the shock and awe tactics the Heritage Foundation has had a half a century to plan, I am not sure if that's entirely correct. Don't get me wrong, I think that was certainly the goal of the foundation. The messaging from media is that "resistance is futile, wokeness is over, this is what the common people and especially the youth want. If that doesn't compute to you, it's probably just because you're out of touch." But the message telling you, that it's you who's out of touch with the common man, is being carried out by formerly prestigious and trusted media sources now being micromanaged by oligarchs. Every headline and article is presented in the most defeatist tone possible, and any glimmers of hope are buried under all the chaos. It's signaling to you that regardless of what happens next they've already won. In this post, I'd like to discuss why I believe they haven't won yet and how we can resist. With the exception of one author from the Washington Post, and the article from Politico which actually published Hannibal Ware's response letter, the news coverage over the weekend that followed the late Friday night firings last week was as doom and gloom as ever. I can say this confidently because as soon as I read Ware's letters, I was doom scrolling away looking for the glimmers that should have been there. Ware's response letter, if it was mentioned at all in any of the articles discussing the firings, was usually tucked away and presented almost as an afterthought instead of a critical piece of information in understanding the context of the full story. This man wrote a letter basically saying, "actually none of us are fired, and here's the law proving why not." Instead of reporting Ware's response as headline news and the first act of government resistance against Trump's second administration, news articles reported it as though he'd left a message but the White House hadn't bothered to responded to his request for comments. Keep in mind that these firings occured on the heels of the sweeping NIH changes targeting DEI practices. Claiming the need for an immediate investigation and report into these practices, the new administration barged in like they were shaking down a corner store, freezing funding and halting on-going experiments and grant reviews. If you've been following the Federal government insanity, the NIH was actually the first government agency that I am aware of, to receive a spending freeze notification. The mandatory investigation of DEI practices was announced first followed by a very vague but abrupt budget freeze announcement scheduled until at least Febuary 1st. Nobody could really provide any other details. So, just prior to the IG firings, researchers responsible for some of the most important biomedical breakthroughs in recent history began reporting via social media, that they could not even get spending approvals for basic purchases such as gloves. This sudden interruption to ongoing research undoubtedly resulted in a huge waste of tax payer dollars due to experiments being halted in progress and resultant lost materials, but the reason given for these actions was the alleged need to investigate how tax payer money was being spent on DEI practices by the NIH. Somehow an investigation to make sure tax dollars weren't being wasted on DEI practices or being given to scientists who supported those practices, justified wasting what has to amount to a huge sum of taxpayer money. So, when we flashforward to the Friday firings of the nonpartisan individuals whose positions exist to create accountability for how tax payer money is being spent, things already looked pretty bleak. While there had been plenty of headlines about the research funding scare (especially during a time when headlines are also reporting on the risk of Bird Flu outbreaks), they were never presented in a way that seemed to accurately reflect the situation. No one seemed to be questioning if the American people would really support flushing their tax dollars down the drain, so long as it was in order to investigate how DEI in science could have potentially also wasted tax payer money? Although, going by the narrative of the media, I have a feeling they would have just regurgitated the old standby "wokeness is dead, and you're just out of touch with what the people want!" As if that question could only be asked by someone living in a bubble and complete denial of the reality of the rest of the country. Then late on a Friday night, the same administration that was so worried about wasted tax dollars due to DEI practices, illegally attempted to fire 14 of the people that can actually investigate if tax dollars are being wasted. But the media either doesn't realize this connection, or they just don't care because it's not a priority for the narrative they need to push. In fact it seems to actually contradict it. Why would the everyday common man want less accountability for where his money is going? On that Saturday, a well respected editor from the Washington Post became the only reporter willing to call the act blatantly illegal, while other journalists all kept presenting the story as if the employees were legitimately and officially fired. Was it illegal, who's to say? It did violate the law, but politicians like Lyndsey Graham seem to believe it's Trump's kingdom to do as he pleases. Please keep in mind the question was never can Trump be prosecuted for this, because we all know the answer to this is no. The question was can we all just acknowledge reality and truth, who's to say? Senior Democratic members of the House of Representatives also released a signed statement of their own condemning the President for his ILLEGAL act, but oddly this letter also gets no attention from the media. If this was all occuring during the days of pre-oligarchy journalism take over, coverage of this story would have been very different. 2017 journalists would have been fighting to interview Ware as soon as Politico published his letter. Nobody would have been questioning if the firing was illegal, and the letter from Democrats would have been quoted on TV all weekend. Monday morning, America would have been paying attention on the edge of their seat to see how Trump responded to Ware daring to use the law to challenge him. The narrative was, "Well he has immunity. He can do whatever he wants." It should have been, "Well he has immunity, but the inspectors general also have the law on their side, so what is he going to do about it if they won't leave?" This is such an important question, but not a single reporter seemed to care about the answer when Monday morning rolled around. Instead of reporters showing up to Ware's office, he came to them, and even during the interview, the narrative became, "Can we get your perspective on being fired by President Trump?" Not, attempted firing, it was almost like they were delivering the news to him personally. Not, "He's trying to fire you, how do you feel about that?" It was "You are fired. How does that feel?" It may seem like semantics, and that none of this matters, but I promise it does. It ties back in to how the narratives are actually being shaped and presented to the American people. They are taking away any other option than what they are willing to give you if you are relying on them to keep you informed. People will eventually believe what you tell them if they hear it enough times. It's an authoritarian control tactic. It's why someone recently thought they could give a Nazi salute on stage during a presidential inauguration, twice, and then try to gaslight people into thinking they were just blowing things out of proportion. Narrative control is one of the most powerful tools possible, and unfortunately one of the easiest to buy if you have the money. If we had been pushing the narrative that the inspectors general were not legally fired, and it was actually outrageous to even suggest they were, it may have made some of the people that were enforcing the decisions being passed down to them to stop and really think about what they were doing. "He's got Presidential immunity, he can do whatever he wants." True, but immunity doesn't trickle down. Trump did not even send the email firing the inspectors. It was sent on his behalf by a senior White House official. Guess what? The official does not have Presidential immunity. Carrying out a crime because the president said so, does not protect you from consequences. I'm hoping to go further into this point as well as presidential pardons in another blog post, but I bring this up here because the media is failing to do so. On Wednesday, a Reuters headline stated that the "USDA inspector general escorted out of her office for defying White House." It's an interesting choice of words. They really should have said she was escorted out for either "defying Trump" or "defying illegal White House decision." Again, it may seem like semantics, but we really need to think about the chain of command and all of the people that had to be contacted in order for her to be escorted out of the building that day. If at any point any one of those people had thought back about a news story they had heard or read, and said, "Wait, the law is actually on her side. Technically I'm being asked to do something illegal on behalf of the President." They might have refused to carry out the order. Frankly, I am appalled no reports or politicians have even brought this up for debate. If we want to save democracy or at least impede it's destruction, we will have to take a stand. The President and the White House cannot carry out these orders on their own. They are relying on federal employees to blindly follow orders and carry them out for them. If you are not willing to refuse orders that seem to be given with the intent to destroy the branch of government that enforces the laws that are being broken, then you must accept you are willing to be complicit if it falls. This is true regardless of if you actually escorted her from the building or just passed the order down to the line to someone else. I can't even begin to express how disappointed I was to catch Jon Stewart's take on the inspectors general firings. Basically asking what do those guys even do, and indicating that the media coverage of it was, if anything, actually overblown. I get he's "just a comedian," but I can say without a doubt, I probably never would have taken an interest in current events if not for three key people. A former History teacher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. All three taught me to spot false, absurd and dangerous political rhetoric, and to question, if it is being presented in a way that seems to ignore the whole story, why? It's actually a skill I've found to be quite handy, especially now. Given examples such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Stewart knows that the "just a comedian" excuse is a weak one. Sometimes people depend on you to be more than just one thing, and I hope he can be one of the few journalists still willing to speak up when the narrative doesn't match the reality. Now is not the time to check out. It's more important than ever to help people be vigilant and pay attention. If you didn't see Jim Acosta announce on air that he was leaving CNN you should watch it, and ask yourself if you can really think any of this is just overblown. I understand this all may sound a bit contrived, but this is just week two, and there's so much more that has happened over the last few days that I'm not even covering in this post. I'm not a journalist or a politician, but I've decided to write my thoughts here instead of just ranting them on Reddit because I feel that right now many of the journalists and politicians I have trusted are letting me down and helping to bury the truth within the narrative.I can't sit back anymore and pretend that it's all going to be ok, and democracy will prevail unless we fight for it. Also, given how much chaos we are being bombarded with on a daily basis, whether it's part of an intentional plan, a distraction, or just an unintentional consequence, it is causing people to miss some key pieces of information. Separately, I can see how this all seems overblown, but when you start looking at how things fit together it is very concerning. I want to end this post by including some information that was released this past Monday, but seems to have slipped under most people's radar. It's especially concerning to me in relation to the other topics I covered. After firing the inspectors general late Friday night, one of the first things Trump announced on Monday morning was his intention to reinstate 8,000 members who were dismissed from the military for refusing the COVID vaccine and give them each three years of back pay. We just learned this week about more federal spending freezes including for our own Army. Where in the hell is the money to give three years of back pay coming from? So just putting this all together, so far under the new administration: 1. DEI inititives are being used as an excuse for the need to intervene and investigate how our tax dollars are potentially being wasted, but the interventions themselves are leading to tax waste. 2. The people that ensure accountability for how our tax dollars are spent are being illegally removed from their positions, and they're relying on federal employees to enforce these removals. With these people gone, there is no oversight left for government spending. 3. Spending freezes are being broadly issued across federal departments, but for some reason Trump has decided now is the time to give 8,000 dismissed soldiers 3 years of back pay. Why now? 4. Where is the money being offered coming from? Also, where is the money being offered to buy out federal employees coming from? The people that could give us those answers are the same ones he's trying to get rid of. Why? I'm including a list of references for the news points mentioned above, and I'll try to keep posting as often as I can. I'm working on getting Substack set up to accept donations, hopefully soon. I want to keep everything free and accessile to anyone, but if you can afford to help me keep things going, please do donate. Please also remember this isn't normal. This is so ridiculously far from normal, but to quote Jim Acosta, "Don't give into the fear. Don't give into the lies." I called this administration a big budget blockbuster sequel for a reason. They poured a lot of money into this. The narrative of resistance being futile is intentional. They want us to feel like it's too late and we're already in a 1984 dystopian reality, to keep us afraid. As of now it's just theatre. As long as we have federal laws, and we keep fighting to preserve those laws, there's a good chance we will win. The law is still on our side, and I hope everyone regardless of political party will really question who has the most to gain if common people lose the federal laws that exist to keep us protected from exploitation, harassment, and discrimination? Use your fear to stay vigilant and your anger productively. Resist or Serve. https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-musk-aides-lock-government-200344003.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/25/trump-firing-14-inspectors-general-illegal/ https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/25/donald-trump-inspectors-general-firing-00200611 https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5108499-trump-reinstatement-service-members-covid-vaccine/ Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.