The List

[canpakes]

… A bit more on why Trump’s recent authoritarian moves in California and Washington DC are problematic for American democracy:

For the state of California, President Donald Trump’s deployment of Marines and National Guard in response to protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles was an illegal “military crusade” based on Trump’s desire to push his political agenda and silence dissent. For the Trump administration, it’s about the protection of federal law enforcement officers against a “rebellion.” 

For a judge who weighed both of those arguments this week in San Francisco, it is up to him to decide what the limits are on presidential power, at a time when that president’s thirst for militarizing cities is growing and Justice Department lawyers argue that states have no choice on the matter.
…
The case centered on Trump’s move to deploy 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles this summer, over the objection of the state officials who would normally have jurisdiction. Trump claimed they were needed due to supposed rioting, an echo of the claim he would use again the same day in a different venue when the trial started: On Monday, Trump formally announced that he was deploying 800 National Guard troops into Washington, D.C. and threatened that more cities could soon find themselves under a federal takeover including New York City, Baltimore, Chicago and Oakland.
The combination of the trial in California and the troops mobilized to D.C. gives a new urgency to the issue before Breyer. When urging the judge to issue a preliminary injunction, or a stop, to Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles and declare that he violated the law, California Deputy Attorney General Meghan Strong encapsulated the stakes that are now involved for every American. 
“The federal government wants a display of military force so great that any lawful opposition to their agenda is effectively silenced,” she said. 

What Hangs In The Balance

Newsom never wanted federalized troops trawling Los Angeles. Immigration enforcement, he said in June, was something California was “no stranger to” and no federal assistance was required. The same went for quelling pockets of civil unrest that sprang up in response to staged immigration raids, including those at MacArthur Park — a public park, not federal property — where nearly 100 troops equipped with Humvees and other “shows of force” appeared but ultimately came up empty-handed.

Trump’s memo calling up the Guard and Marines claimed that the protests in Los Angeles “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” which allowed him to invoke a statute known as Section 12406. The obscure federal code states that if there is a rebellion or “danger of a rebellion” against the government, and it cannot be resolved through regular order, then the president has the right to “call into Federal Service” any amount of National Guard he deems appropriate. 

Rebellion” is not legally defined, but even if it were, the state of California says it wouldn’t matter in this instance because the protests in Los Angeles never came close to truly overwhelming local, state or federal law enforcement. And once troops were on the ground, the state says, the Trump administration made direct and active use of the military to execute the laws, something that is verboten under the Posse Comitatus Act. 

The Trump administration insists those troops were only there in an indirect capacity and were providing “protection” and support to federal agents under what Defense Department memos deemed “constitutional exceptions” to the 1878 law. And what’s more, the Justice Department claims that because the Posse Comitatus Act is a criminal statute, and Newsom brought a civil lawsuit to stop the administration, Breyer lacks the jurisdiction to place any injunction on the president. 

When Breyer heard this in court, it appeared to stop him cold. He posed a hypothetical to DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton: If, Breyer said, Trump had violated the Posse Comitatus Act, what then?

“What then is the remedy? You say there is no civil remedy. Are you saying the president could be prosecuted by the Department of Justice for a criminal act? And you say that in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. Isn’t he immune?” Breyer asked, referencing the 2024 Supreme Court ruling which declared the president has legal immunity for anything related to his “official” acts. 

While Hamilton agreed that prosecution would certainly “implicate immunity issues,” the point was that, in the view of the U.S. government, no matter the defendant, there was no remedy available. 

Breyer seemed deeply skeptical. “So that’s it? It’s too bad, so sad, it’s over?” he asked. “And that’s the end of the case, even though it’s a violation, allegedly, of the Posse Comitatus Act?” 

This line of argument didn’t surprise lawyers for California, who left the judge with a stark assessment of a problem that has the potential to overflow beyond the borders of one state. 

“It lacks basic common sense to assert that a state that is being occupied by a standing army within the state’s borders has no legal recourse to challenge the unlawful conduct of these troops. That defies the basic principles of federalism and it ignores Congress’ clear intent when enacting the Posse Comitatus Act,” Strong argued.  

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/Trump-ad ... ENEWS00001

[Gunnar]

It seems like day-by-day Trump and his Department of Justice is gravitating more and more towards the position that anything the President decides to do, regardless of what is established or prohibited by law, or even The Constitution itself, is, by definition, lawful, legal and unimpeachable. What a sad state of affairs! Even some of the conservative majority in the Supreme Court seems more and more inclined towards that position. What's even worse, Trump seems to be determined to ignore and show the middle finger to any Supreme Court judgment against him, as he already has on at least one occasion. Can there be any further doubt that he indeed aspires to becoming, if he has not already effectively become, an unprincipled, authoritarian dictator?

[canpakes]

It seems like day-by-day Trump and his Department of Justice is gravitating more and more towards the position that anything the President decides to do, regardless of what is established or prohibited by law, or even The Constitution itself, is, by definition, lawful, legal and unimpeachable.

… and that any opposition to their actions constitutes ’rebellion’.

[canpakes]

.
Trumpflation is on the rise.

Tariffs and deportations seen as contributors to rising prices and fewer immigrant workers

Experts say higher wholesale vegetable costs and an economic slowdown in Texas could be signs that Trump's immigration policies are hurting industries.

Aug. 16, 2025, 5:30 AM EDT

After projections that President Donald Trump’s mass deportations would negatively impact the American economy, the nation is seeing a jump in wholesale vegetable prices and slowdowns in industries that rely on immigrant workers.
Economic measures that are trickling out are leading some to point to the administration’s immigration crackdown, along with tariffs, as at least partly responsible for the slump in some economic sectors and for rising prices.

The latest comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reported Thursday a whopping 38.9% increase in wholesale dry and fresh vegetable prices from June to July, the biggest since March 2022.

Phil Kafarakis, president of IMFA The Food Away From Home Association, which represents food producers, suppliers, services and industries outside of grocery stores, said the warning signs should be taken seriously.

Because of deportation efforts, “you are now going to be left with not enough laborers in the fields to pick up and collect product as its coming to harvest,” he said, adding that it is contributing to the current “horribly, incredibly impactful” effect of tariffs.

Combined with drought, excessive flooding and wildfires, the deportations are coming to bear and will become a bigger problem in the late summer and early fall harvests, he said.

“I don’t think people realize” there will be a surge in vegetable costs in restaurants, at grocery stores and other places, Kafarakis said.

While the administration has not yet hit the deportation levels Trump promised in his campaign, the number of people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June was its highest monthly arrests in at least five years.

This week, the Dallas Federal Reserve issued a report stating Texas’ economy has softened amid uncertainty. Business owners told the Dallas Federal Reserve that uncertainty about tariffs and immigration policy were posing investment and hiring challenges.

“Immigration enforcement actions are also affecting the ability of some firms to recruit and retain workers,” the agency stated in its report.

The federal bank surveys Texas businesses regularly. In its July survey, the inability to hire qualified workers because they lacked permits or legal status “was the most widespread impact noted among firms experiencing workforce disruption," the reserve bank said.

The report quoted a machine manufacturer who said in response to survey questions, “Foreign-born laborers get the job done. We need them, we use them, and we like them.”

Immigrant workers are a big part of Texas' workforce. In an April report, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank said the share of Texas firms reporting on its survey that they rely on workers who moved to Texas from a different country increased from 15% in 2023 to 25% in 2024.

"The increase has been across all sectors, with about one-third of manufacturing respondents relying on immigrant workers," the bank stated then.
In a report released Thursday by the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, the authors noted that the cycling of immigrant workers in and out of the country has stopped, mostly because of border restrictions reducing the inflow of immigrants.

“The country is losing workers without them being replaced, with adverse economic consequences,” the report by Robert Lynch, Michael Ettlinger and Emma Sifre states. Lynch is an economics professor at Washington College. Ettlinger is a founding director of University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy, and Sifre is a data analyst with the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Lynch said that the number of workers in agriculture and related industries increased from March to July in 2023 and in 2024. But employment in the industries those same months this year dropped by 155,000 workers, down 6.5%.

In construction, the 10 states with the highest concentrations of unauthorized workers saw employment drop .1% from June 2024 to June 2025, while other states saw it increase 1.9%, according to the report. Additionally, the growth in the states not in the top 10 was lower than a year ago, down from 2.3% growth.

About 7% of the leisure and hospitality workers are undocumented and are mostly focused in restaurant and hotel sectors, Lynch said. States with higher concentrations of unauthorized workers are experiencing slower growth in this area, he said.

Food service employment grew .2% in high immigrant states over the past year compared to 1.5% in other states, the report states.

“A loss of a significant portion of this workforce is likely to be particularly damaging as there were nearly 1 million unfilled jobs in leisure and hospitality in as recently as April of this year,” Lynch said.

The numbers of foreign-born workers in the country fell from 33.3 million in January to about 32.1 million in July, a loss of about 1.2 million workers, according to analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers by the National Foundation for American Policy, a trade and immigration research group.

Stuart Anderson, the foundation's executive director, said thus far there has not been a corresponding increase in U.S. workers’ labor participation.

“The reason why you see slowdowns is because when employers can’t find enough workers, they are going to invest less,” he said.

Antonio De Loera-Brust, United Farm Workers spokesman, questioned whether there are truly labor shortages in agriculture.

He said workers are frightened and acknowledged raids have occurred in some fields and agricultural related worksites.

But “a lot of workers I talk to are desperate for work. There’s not enough work,” De Loera-Brust said. Hours are being cut and workers are being told to do in six hours what they used to do in eight, he said.

“We are dead set against deportations,” he said, referring to UFW.

He said that what appears to be happening is that growers are using the disruptions of immigration raids on their businesses “as their latest argument for why Congress should give them their long-standing priority, which is to bring more guest workers and pay them less.”

Trump has been under pressure from businesses that rely on immigrant workers, particularly the agricultural industry, to ensure they have a secure and reliable workforce.

Trump has shifted his plans on how to respond. Initially he paused arrests of workers in the agriculture and hospitality industry, then he restarted the raids, and later he said he was considering creating temporary passes for certain workers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tr ... rcna225295

[canpakes]

.
Well, it might not have been on ‘the list’ in the OP, but everyone pretty much saw this one coming …

Angry Trump Accidentally Blurts Out Unnerving New Plot to Rig Midterms
Greg Sargent
Mon, August 18, 2025 at 8:52 AM MDT

President Donald Trump raged at Democrats Monday for supposedly cheating in elections in a long and unhinged Truth Social rant—and buried in his tirade is a clear indication of how he hopes to corrupt the 2026 midterm elections at a time when his agenda is nose-diving in polls.

In his screed, Trump rehashed his familiar lies about how mail balloting is riddled with fraud, and promised to lead a new “movement” to abolish it.

But then he added this:

“WE WILL BEGIN THIS EFFORT, WHICH WILL BE STRONGLY OPPOSED BY THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY CHEAT AT LEVELS NEVER SEEN BEFORE, by signing an EXECUTIVE ORDER to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections. Remember, the States are merely an “agent” for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes.”

Trump already unveiled a similar executive order in March designed to change election rules. It would have barred states from accepting ballots mailed on time but that arrive after Election Day and forced state officials to require documented proof of citizenship for everyone who registers to vote in federal elections.

Such changes would have disenfranchised large numbers of voters. Two federal judges blocked it this spring after a coalition of states sued, the plaintiffs successfully arguing that it usurped their authority to set election rules. The administration is appealing.

Trump appears prepared to have a second run at such an executive order. But what’s critical about Monday’s post is he connected this scheme directly to the midterms, inadvertently revealing the real aim behind it.

Trump’s new rant says he’s going to “lead a movement to get rid of” mail balloting, then later says this “movement” will begin with his new executive order—a strong indication he will try to ban vote-by-mail by executive order.

Voting rights advocates have long expected him to attempt something like this, perhaps by arguing that vote-by-mail is a threat to national security. That’s because Trump’s argument for his previous executive order failed in the courts after judges affirmed that the Constitution authorizes states to set the “time, place and manner” of elections.

Now Trump might try something new. “It sounds like he will try to ban all mail-in balloting through executive order, and he’s going to have to find some other rationale for such a sweeping presidential action,” said Pooja Chaudhuri, a lawyer at Democracy Defenders Fund, which represented other clients challenging the March executive order.

For instance, Trump might argue that “mail-in ballots are so fraudulent that they undermine the institutions of this country,” Chaudhuri continued, and that “the president must get involved. This would represent an enormous abuse of power.”

There is overwhelming evidence that any fraud in mail balloting is limited to nonexistent. Indeed, it’s now beyond obvious that the pretext is the thing to watch. Trump is manufacturing a fake justification for nixing vote-by-mail because he believes (probably wrongly, but never mind that) doing so will help Republicans in the midterms. That he openly linked his announcement to the 2026 elections shows he isn’t even bothering to hide the scam any longer.

“If they are going to try to stand for election integrity, it hurts them to point out that this is directly related to the 2026 elections,” said Greta Bedekovics, associate director of democracy at the Center for American Progress. “It exposes that this is not about election integrity and national security, it’s about election rigging.”

It’s no accident that this comes even as Trump is expanding the use of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and other cities, based—again—on a manufactured pretext, this time about crime. At bottom, Trump’s rant clearly signals his intent to use presidential power in every conceivable way he can to swing the midterm elections against Democrats. This could include ramped-up military maneuvers in Democratic strongholds or in swing areas—whether to intimate voters or to fabricate a crisis atmosphere meant to help Republicans—as well as whatever limits on voting he can impose, all justified with pretexts that he invents out of nothing.

We all need to be ready for this. Fortuitously, Trump has told us himself exactly what he intends to do.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ang ... 39264.html

[Doctor Steuss]

It's sure a good thing people voted for Trump so there wouldn't be any communism. Lol!

President Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to own a piece of Intel, less than two weeks after demanding the Silicon Valley pioneer dump the CEO that was hired to turn around the slumping chipmaker.

Trump Wants Government To Own Means of Production

What exactly is left amongst the feigned reasons to vote for Trump? It seems that about all that he's actually followed through on is the racism.

[canpakes]

Outer Space must be made a safe space for MAGA, with Trump demanding that multimillion-dollar satellites be routed to crash back to Earth if any part of their function could be used to support climate change research. Even if those satellites help farmers in unexpected ways.

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose

AUGUST 4, 20255:30 AM ET

The Trump administration has asked NASA employees to draw up plans to end at least two major satellite missions, according to current and former NASA staffers. If the plans are carried out, one of the missions would be permanently terminated, because the satellite would burn up in the atmosphere.

The data the two missions collect is widely used, including by scientists, oil and gas companies and farmers who need detailed information about carbon dioxide and crop health. They are the only two federal satellite missions that were designed and built specifically to monitor planet-warming greenhouse gases.

It is unclear why the Trump administration seeks to end the missions. The equipment in space is state of the art and is expected to function for many more years, according to scientists who worked on the missions. An official review by NASA in 2023 found that "the data are of exceptionally high quality" and recommended continuing the mission for at least three years.

Both missions, known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, measure carbon dioxide and plant growth around the globe. They use identical measurement devices, but one device is attached to a stand-alone satellite while the other is attached to the International Space Station. The standalone satellite would burn up in the atmosphere if NASA pursued plans to terminate the mission.

NASA employees who work on the two missions are making what the agency calls Phase F plans for both carbon-monitoring missions, according to David Crisp, a longtime NASA scientist who designed the instruments and managed the missions until he retired in 2022. Phase F plans lay out options for terminating NASA missions.

Crisp says NASA employees making those termination plans have reached out to him for his technical expertise. "What I have heard is direct communications from people who were making those plans, who weren't allowed to tell me that that's what they were told to do. But they were allowed to ask me questions," Crisp says. "They were asking me very sharp questions. The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan."

Three other academic scientists who use data from the missions confirmed that they, too, have been contacted with questions related to mission termination. All three asked for anonymity because they are concerned that speaking about the mission termination plans publicly could endanger the jobs of the NASA employees who contacted them.

Two current NASA employees also confirmed that NASA mission leaders were told to make termination plans for projects that would lose funding under President Trump's proposed budget for the next fiscal year, or FY 2026, which begins Oct. 1. The employees asked to remain anonymous, because they were told they would be fired if they revealed the request.

More at: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/04/nx-s1-54 ... threatened

[canpakes]

Another example of the Trump Administration’s preference for suppressing data and science that doesn’t conform to what it wants to believe:

DOE Boss Says Trump Admin May Alter Past National Climate Assessments

Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright said officials are reviewing previously published National Climate Assessments and may update them. Earlier this year, the Trump administration fired more than 400 scientists working on the next federal climate report and removed the website that housed the previous ones.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said this week the Trump administration plans to review and potentially alter the nation’s climate science reports.

In a Tuesday appearance on CNN’s The Source, Wright told CNN host Kaitlan Collins the National Climate Assessments have been removed from government websites “because we’re reviewing them.”

“We will come out with updated reports on those and with comments on those,” Wright said.

The National Climate Assessments are mandated by Congress and have been released five times since 2000. The federal reports, prepared by hundreds of volunteer scientists, are subject to extensive peer review and provide detail on how climate change is affecting each region of the United States so far, plus the latest scientific forecasts."

https://www.sej.org/headlines/doe-boss- ... ssessments

[canpakes]

Yet another case of the Trump Administration demonstrating its inability to cope with any opinion different from their own.

FEMA employees put on leave after criticizing Trump administration in open letter
About 180 current and former FEMA staffers sent a letter on Monday to members of Congress and other officials protesting the agency's leadership and direction.

August 26 at 9:21 PM 2025
By Brianna Sacks

The Trump administration placed some Federal Emergency Management Agency employees on leave Tuesday after they signed an open letter of dissent about the agency's leadership, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

About 180 current and former FEMA staffers sent a letter on Monday to members of Congress and other officials, arguing the current leaders' inexperience and approach harms FEMA's mission and could result in a disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina.

By Tuesday evening, FEMA's office of the administrator had sent several people letters informing them that effectively immediately, they were on an administrative leave, operating "in a non-duty status while continuing to receive pay and benefits."

FEMA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last month, the administration put nearly 140 EPA employees on leave after they sent their own letter of dissent.

In their letter, FEMA employees warned that the Trump administration is sending the agency back to a pre-Katrina era, pointing to several concerns including the lack of Senate-confirmed and qualified emergency manger at FEMA's helm; the slashing of mitigation, disaster recovery, training and community programs; and restrictive new policies that curb agency officials' autonomy.

The letter also demanded that federal lawmakers defend FEMA from
Department of Homeland Security interference, protect the agency's employees from "politically motivated firings," conduct more oversight, and ultimately take FEMA out of DHS and establish it as an independent Cabinet-level agency in the executive branch.

At least two FEMA staff members who had been part of the federal response to July's Texas flooding disaster have now been placed on leave, according to an agency employee and another person familiar with the situation.

One employee who manages cases for all disasters, including Texas helped orchestrate the letter. She had spoken to The Post on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution about the difficult decision to sign her full name on the letter. She has now been placed on leave and pulled off her disaster casework.

"The fact that 180 people signed onto the letter, with a supermajority of them still working in the building, and dozens of those people wanted to attach their real names signifies the severity of the problem," Jeremy Edwards, a former press secretary for FEMA who signed the letter, said in an interview. "They are that scared of us being so inadequately unprepared. It speaks a lot to the situation right now.”

The open show of resistance from FEMA employees was the latest example of federal workers speaking out against the Trump administration's actions and policies, in many cases putting their jobs at risk. Called the "Bethesda Declaration" movement, after the Maryland city where the National Institutes of Health is headquartered, it began in June when NIH employees issued a letter modeled after Director Jay Bhattacharya's dissent against the government's covid policies in 2020. Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Science Foundation followed suit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... on-letter/

[canpakes]

Trump is ready to throw the healthcare of millions of Americans under the bus as long as his pandering to anti-vax conspiracists will keep them in his circle of support.

Attempt to oust CDC director sparks key resignations by agency officials

Susan Monarez, who clashed with the U.S. health secretary over vaccine policy, refuses to step down

28 AUG 2025 5:40 PM ET
PHIE JACOBS

While still reeling from a deadly shooting earlier this month at its campus in Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was thrown into further chaos yesterday by the apparent firing of its director and related resignations of multiple top agency officials. After just a few weeks on the job, infectious disease researcher Susan Monarez reportedly clashed with Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his demands to change federal vaccine policies. When she refused a request to resign, Kennedy fired Monarez, although her lawyers have challenged his authority, saying only the president has the power to terminate the CDC director—a position that now requires Senate confirmation.

This afternoon, CDC employees lined up outside the agency’s headquarters in support of departing senior officials, clapping as several left and holding signs with messages such as “Save the CDC” and “Courage. Integrity. Heroes.” Former CDC officials are aghast at the events disrupting the $9 billion public health agency.

“For 80 years, CDC has been a beacon of health protection for the United States and the world,” Tom Frieden, an infectious disease and public health physician who served as director of the agency from 2009 to 2017, said in a statement. “That beacon is now in grave danger of being extinguished, endangering all of our health.” The situation is “tragic,” adds physician-epidemiologist Anne Schuchat, who was a CDC deputy director until 2021. “There’s something very wrong at HHS,” she tells Science.

This latest turmoil follows mass firings at CDC by HHS and a 2026 budget proposal from President Donald Trump that would slash its funding by 50%. (A Senate funding committee later rejected the plan but did approve a $70 million cut.) In June, Kennedy abruptly dismissed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises CDC on what vaccines people in the U.S. should take and when. He later named eight replacement members, several of whom have expressed antivaccine sentiments and appear to have little experience with vaccine science.

And on 8 August, a gunman who blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his health problems fired hundreds of rounds at the agency’s headquarters, shattering windows and killing a police officer. In a note to CDC employees following the attack, Monarez directly called out the dangers of misinformation.

Monarez, who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology, was not Trump’s first pick to lead CDC. He initially nominated David Weldon, a physician and former congressman whose skeptical views on vaccines alarmed scientists. The administration pulled Weldon’s nomination just hours before he was set to appear at a Senate confirmation hearing. Many in the public health community were hopeful about Monarez’s nomination, although some questioned whether she would stand up to political interference.

This week’s standoff between Monarez and Kennedy stems from tensions over the latter’s desire to impose new restrictions on U.S. vaccines, including COVID-19 shots. The Food and Drug Administration, also under HHS, this week limited who is eligible for the updated COVID-19 vaccines and, according to The Washington Post, Kennedy wanted CDC’s public support for the changes. The Washington Post, STAT, and others reported that Monarez was fired when she reportedly refused to follow orders to dismiss top CDC officials or support ACIP recommendations. “I knew there was friction, but I am stunned,” said one senior agency scientist, who called Monarez’s removal “devastating.”

“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” HHS announced Wednesday evening in a post on X. “We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people.”

Hours later, however, lawyers representing Monarez released a statement accusing Kennedy of “weaponizing public health for political gain” and asserting that Monarez had neither resigned nor been fired. “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated public health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell wrote. “For that, she has been targeted.”

Later that evening, White House staff formally notified Monarez that she had been fired—a notification her lawyers have rejected as “legally deficient.” According to reporting by The Washington Post, the White House has named Jim O’Neill—currently deputy secretary of HHS—as acting director of CDC.

Four other prominent CDC officials have resigned: physician-epidemiologist Jennifer Layden, director of the agency’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology; Daniel Jernigan, an epidemiologist who served as director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Demetre Daskalakis, a physician who served as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD); and physician Debra Houry, chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at CDC. “These are ethical, serious, highly capable public servants,” Schuchat says.

CDC employees are “very discouraged” by the departures, says Anna Yousaf, a physician and researcher at NCIRD. “Vaccine policy is being completely undermined by people who neither know or care what harms they are unleashing,” she adds, emphasizing that she is speaking only for herself and not the agency. “People are feeling that this is the beginning of the end for evidence-based vaccine recommendations from CDC.”

Several of those who resigned detailed their reasoning in emails or social media posts. “For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” Houry wrote in an email explaining her decision. She called out proposed budget cuts and reorganization plans at CDC, as well as the rise of vaccine misinformation. “I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency. This is a heartbreaking decision that I make with a heavy heart.”

Daskalakis also penned a lengthy resignation letter: “Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.”

Jernigan told The Washington Post that his decision to resign came after he was forced to work with David Geier, a proponent of the long-discredited claim that vaccines cause autism, who was recently hired by HHS.

Senator Bill Cassidy (R–LA), posted on X yesterday that “These high profile departures will require oversight by the HELP Committee.” The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which Cassidy chairs, oversees HHS and its underlying agencies. Cassidy, a physician and advocate of vaccination, grilled Kennedy during his nomination hearing, asking Kennedy whether he would “commit that you will revise any CDC recommendations only based on peer review, consensus-based, widely accepted science?” Kennedy responded: “Absolutely senator. I’m not going to go into HHS and impose my preordained opinions on anybody. … I’m going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that’s evidence based.”

Cassidy then provided a crucial vote in favor of Kennedy’s nomination. Today, he called for postponing the next ACIP meeting where recommendations would have been made for the new COVID-19 vaccine shots.

Some lawmakers are demanding more. Senator Patty Murray (D–Washington), former chair of HELP, yesterday called for Kennedy’s firing. “We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired. I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to regret their vote to confirm RFK Jr. will join me in calling for his immediate termination from office.”

Today, in response to questions from reporters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monarez was fired because she was “not aligned” with the president’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, adding that a new nominee for CDC director would be announced “very soon.”

Kennedy, who appeared today on the Fox News show Fox & Friends, declined to comment on Monarez’s removal. He sharply criticized CDC, saying there is deeply embedded “malaise at the agency.”

With reporting by Jeffrey Brainard and Meredith Wadman.

https://www.science.org/content/article ... -officials

.
The dismantling of the CDC’s scientific knowledge base in favor of hiring opportunists and ideologues has been swift: