Bulwark: ‘People Will Die’—RFK Jr. Guts America’s Health Bureaucracy
Stunned experts fear major damage to U.S. health, science, and expertise.
On Tuesday morning, the Department of Health and Human Services informed thousands of employees they were losing their jobs. The notices came by email and, in one sense, they were not a surprise. Last Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the layoffs were imminent, as part of a broader restructuring designed to shrink the department’s total workforce by 25 percent.
But it’s one thing to know those layoffs are coming, quite another to learn about the real people who will no longer have jobs, the real positions that will no longer exist, and the real divisions that will no longer operate as they did before.
The sheer breadth of the cuts is staggering: The layoffs affected agencies that exist to fight deadly pathogens, to protect the nation’s drug supply, to finance and carry out cutting-edge research—along with countless other divisions and offices that touch everything from rural health to early childhood care.
In a video last week, Kennedy said the changes would reduce redundancy and make the department more efficient. But that is hard to imagine happening given the depth of the workforce reduction, to say nothing of the sheer expertise the Trump administration has decided the federal government no longer needs.
“We’ve had a lot of devastating days, but this really is unfathomable,” Wendy Armstrong, director of infectious diseases at the University of Colorado, told me. “It’s astounding, it will affect patients with all kinds of different kinds of infections, and Americans will suffer, and people will die, and that’s a horrible thing to see coming.”
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Why we keep going
Today thousands of health workers at the CDC and FDA lost their jobs—effective immediately. Some found out when they tried to badge in, only to be denied entry. Twelve senior leaders were offered reassignment—with just 24 hours to decide. In other words, fired without being formally fired.
It’s cruel and unnecessary—and that’s the point. It’s also dangerous.
Health divisions are gone, and programs are gutted
- HIV prevention? Gone.
- Asthma and air quality team? Gone.
- Environmental hazard response? Gone.
- Gun violence prevention? Gutted.
- Communications? Gutted.
- Worker safety? Gone.
- Reproductive health? Gone.
- Birth defects? Gone.
- Disability health? Gone.
- TB prevention? Gone.
- Blood disorder programs? Gone.
- National survey on drug use and mental health? Gone.
- Lead poisoning prevention? Gone.
- Water safety? Gone.
- Tobacco control division? Gone.
And that’s just CDC. FDA has a list. Same with NIH. Check this crowdsourced document—because federal leadership has been silent. This isn’t the radical transparency.
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Wired: Doctor Behind Award-Winning Parkinson’s Research Among Scientists Purged From NIH
Radley Balko: Profiles in poltroonery: Senator Bill Cassidy
The Louisiana senator and physician could have stopped the world’s worst antivaxer from taking over the regulation of vaccines. He didn’t. And now we’re paying for it.
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Just to be clear: In Louisiana, the state where Bill Cassidy began the vaccination project he considers to be his most important contribution to public health, state employees are legally prohibited from recommending that parents vaccinate their children.
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NYTimes: Trump Administration Demands Additional Cuts at C.D.C.
In addition to reductions at agency personnel, federal regulators are demanding $2.9 billion in contract cancellations, The Times has learned.
Handbasket: Tracking the HHS April Fools’ Massacre
The Handbasket has created a document to capture the destruction.
Ars Technica: RFK Jr.‘s bloodbath at HHS: Blowback grows as losses become clearer
“Americans will be sicker and face increased health care costs.”
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 1, 2025
Today Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) made history.
For more than 25 hours he held the floor of the Senate, not reading from the phone book or children’s literature, as some of his predecessors have done, but delivering a coherent, powerful speech about the meaning of America and the ways in which the Trump regime is destroying our democracy.
On the same day that John Hudson of the Washington Post reported that members of Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including national security advisor Michael Waltz, have been skirting presidential records laws and exposing national security by using Gmail accounts to conduct government business, and the same day that mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services gutted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Booker launched a full-throated defense of the United States of America.
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On the floor of the Senate, Booker again invoked the late Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who had been one of the original Freedom Riders challenging racial segregation in 1961 and whose skull law enforcement officers fractured on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 as Lewis joined the marchers on their way to Montgomery to demand their voting rights be protected.Booker reminded listeners that Lewis was famous for telling people to “get in good trouble, necessary trouble. Help redeem the soul of America.” Booker said that in the years since Trump took office, he has been asking himself, “[H]ow am I living up to his words?”
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(more…)Jennifer Rubin: Pro-democracy momentum is real!
“Don’t let this be another day in America,” Senator Cory Booker insisted. Well, it wasn’t. Yesterday was a soaring day for the momentum of the Democratic party, culminating in an overwhelming win for Justice Susan Crawford in Wisconsin, thereby delivering a crucial and symbolic referendum on Elon Musk, President Trump, and anybody else who might believe that our democracy can be bought. So, what now?
Democrats would dearly love to repeat their success from 2017 through 2020. Step by step, in the wake of Donald Trump’s first presidential election, they strung together a series of mass events, legislative maneuvers, and electoral wins, culminating in a Democratic trifecta (White House, House, and Senate) victory in 2020. That experience contains five important lessons for their ability to mount a comeback leading up to and through the 2028 elections.
First, the movement in 2017 was a bottom-up affair.
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Second, increasing the number of Democrats vying for office raises the chances of interest and success in midterm elections.
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Third, autocrats who suffer early losses lose the aura of invincibility, undermine morale among supporters, and fuel more enthusiasm among opponents.
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Fourth, midterms and special elections matter.
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Fifth, it is a misnomer that the party out of power needs a “positive” message before the presidential race.
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Fast Company: Why Diversity, Equity, Inclusion principles matter to both employers and employees
Companies that abandon it risk being left behind.
…- Results in greater creativity and innovation
- Boosts connection and collaboration
- Increases the organization’s ability to attract and retain top talent
- Improves job satisfaction and well-being
- Enhances the organizational brand and reputation
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(more…)Texas Tribune: A Texas school leader says material about diversity in state-approved textbooks violated the law.
The decision to strip chapters from books that had already won the approval of the state’s Republican-controlled board of education represents an escalation in how local school boards run by ideological conservatives influence what children learn.
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Liz Dye: Elon Musk is the autopen
And Trump is incompetent.
“I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it,” President Trump told reporters on March 22. In the span of a week, the president “forgot” that he invoked the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport hundreds of people to a Salvadoran gulag.“Other people handled it, but Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted them out and we go along with that,” he mumbled vaguely.
The media framed the debacle as a clever effort to “downplay his involvement” in the ugly episode, rather than evidence that the president is totally checked out and letting other people run the government.
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(more…)Dan Pfeiffer: Wisconsin Democrats Send a Message to Elon Musk – and the World
Grassroots activists in Wisconsin just beat Elon Musk and his millions
Last night, Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel in the crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court race. This is a huge — and needed — win. All credit goes to Crawford, Ben Wikler, and engaged Wisconsinites. It’s remarkable that they got up off the ground, dusted themselves off, and went back to work only a few months after the devastating election loss in November. They are true warriors for democracy. This is also a huge defeat for the Wisconsin Republicans, Donald Trump, and especially Elon Musk, who spent well north of $20 million supporting Schimel.
(more…)Daily Beast: Musk Dramatically Changes His Tune on Wisconsin Race After Stinging Defeat
NOT THAT IMPORTANT GUYS
Musk had previously said the Wisconsin Supreme Court race could “determine the fate of Western civilization.”
(more…)Daily Beast: Republicans Dodge a Bullet With Florida Special Election Win
DIE ANOTHER DAY
Randy Fine won Mike Waltz’s old seat in a surprisingly close race that attracted President Donald Trump’s attention.Thom Hartmann: Elon Musk’s Wisconsin Invasion: Democracy’s Turning Point or the Next Step Toward Autocracy?
A new Gilded Age has arrived — but will Americans fight back like they did in 1899, or are we doomed to follow Russia’s descent into billionaire rule?
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NPR: What kind of support is the U.S. offering in the wake of the Myanmar quake?
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She further noted that “a USAID team of humanitarian experts based in the region are traveling to Burma [a former name for Myanmar] now to identify the people’s most pressing needs, including emergency shelter, food, medical needs and access to water.” The team would consist of three individuals, she said.By comparison, 225 USAID workers from around the world traveled to Turkey to respond to the earthquake there two years ago.
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Ossiana Tepfenhart: We’re Not Taking The “Deportations” Seriously Enough
Hint: no one is coming to save us.
Can we just talk about what’s going on right now in the United States? By now, I think that everyone has started to hear about the deportations being done by ICE. If you haven’t, I’ll give you a run-by…
(more…)Judd Legum: Choosing lawlessness
(more…)TNR podcast: Trump’s Arrests Take Dark, Unnerving Turn, and MAGA Rage Boils Over
As JD Vance and press secretary Karoline Leavitt angrily defend the removal of a Maryland man to a Salvadoran prison in “error,” a shrewd immigration observer says we’re now in alarmingly lawless territory.
(more…)TNR: Forget Expensive Eggs. Here’s the “Bigger Picture” of Trump’s Misrule.
Bulwark: How ICE Tried—and Failed—to Send a Torture Victim to Mexico
An asylum seeker from Colombia had a court order preventing her deportation. Immigration agents didn’t seem to care.
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Sarah Jones: Tennessee Troopers Carry Brave 80 Year-Old Woman Out of Hearing For Protesting
80-year-old Lynne McFarland stood up for the rights of undocumented immigrants, refusing to leave a meeting over a controversial bill and so THP Troopers carried her out and arrested her.
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FPWellman: Is it indifference, incompetence, or idiocy?
The way Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump handled our missing soldiers tells a story
We lost four good men
During a training exercise in Lithuania last week the crew of an M88A2 Hercules Armored Recovery Vehicle appear to have lost their way and drove onto a frozen bog in the dark that gave way and sank their vehicle upside down. They were missing for nearly a week. Shockingly, during that time, while a frantic search ensued, we hardly heard anything from the Secretary of Defense or Commander-in-Chief.
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Politico: Waltz’s team set up at least 20 Signal group chats for crises across the world
It’s a more extensive use of the app than previously reported and sheds new light on how commonly the Trump administration’s national security team relies on Signal.
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TNR: Only One Thing Explains Trump’s Tariff Madness
Don’t fall for the “coherence fallacy.” The president believes (mistakenly) that he’s figured out how to get rid of the progressive income tax.
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Wired: Federal Judge Allows DOGE to Take Over $500 Million Office Building for Free
It’s the culmination of a weeks-long standoff between Elon Musk’s DOGE team and the United States Institute of Peace.
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George Foote, longtime outside general counsel to USIP, says he found that reasoning perplexing. “That’s like letting a burglar break into your house, steal your TV, and have the court say well, there’s no TV to adjudicate, so I can’t do anything about it,” he claims.
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(Reddit): By Trump’s Order, DEI Words Like “Women” Will Get Science Grant Applications Flagged
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Hamish McKenzie: From the temple to the garden
Participating in the birth of a new media system
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LifeHacker: How to Lock Down Your Phone When Crossing the U.S. Border
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Decoding Fox News: Fox News – Signalgate? But Her Emails!
A condensed overview of 23 hours of Fox News for the week ending 3/30/25