Blog notes; MAGA kills and corrupts the carcass of federal science funding

1. I posted my 2nd essay over at the Looking at today's world blog. A strange name for a politics blog, but whatever. I am trying to change my style to more based on what appeals to people on the political right, e.g., emotion, intuition, identity . I'm still having a very hard time breaking away from facts and sound reasoning, but at least I don't even mention djt or MAGA in the post (might mention it in my comments). That ought to neutralize a fair amount of identity threat. It is taking a heck of a lot of time. Not surprisingly, I am flat-out disbelieved by many people there. But I'm at least still being treated reasonably well. So, the experiment will continue.

2. I keep finding errors in Pxy's outputs. I've now added a 3rd set of instructions in an ongoing attempt to stop Pxy errors in citing quotes that simply do not exist in linked sources. Very frustrating. My basic instruction set for Pxy to follow is huge, now running at 593 words. 😱 

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Reporting by various sources indicates that djt has imposed a requirement that all federal research funding must be first reviewed and approved by what will most likely be a loyal, clueless, corrupt MAGA thug. Now, it will probably be corrupt non-experts analyzing research funding not for science and social merit, but instead for political correctness and benefits to djt himself, the reviewer themself or his/their friends. In essence, our entire federal research enterprise has been politicized and made kleptocratic. Merit and social benefit are no longer important criteria for funding. 

This imperative came from an Aug. 7, 2025 EO (executive order), IMPROVING OVERSIGHT OF FEDERAL GRANTMAKING. Here, "improving oversight" means weaponizing and corrupting the entire federal research enterprise.

The EO starts with a bang:

Section 1. Purpose. Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests. This often does not happen. Federal grants have funded drag shows in Ecuador, trained doctoral candidates in critical race theory, and developed transgender-sexual-education programs.

Right off the bat, everyone knows exactly where this is heading. The private sector is salivating at all the free research it is going to get at our expense. Us taxpayers:

The EO directs every federal agency to route new and existing discretionary research grants through a senior political appointee, i.e., corrupt MAGA thug, who must determine whether each award advances the President’s policy priorities. Until each agency puts its review structure in place, it may issue no new funding announcements. The order also instructs agencies to revise terms so that grants can be cancelled for convenience whenever they no longer advance agency priorities. Multiple science and university groups describe the measure as an unprecedented politicization of grant decisions and have already filed lawsuits seeking to block implementation.

I asked Pxy to estimate the likelihood that the people djt put in place to review research grants will be corrupt and unqualified. 

The pattern evidence strongly suggests that concerns about politically motivated, corrupt potentially unqualified grant reviewers are reasonable and evidence-based projections rather than mere partisan attacks. The EO's explicit language about political priorities and the administration's documented disregard for traditional expertise standards support this conclusion.

Confidence in this overall assessment: 0.8

Dang, I put the likelihood at ~0.95, i.e., 95% likelihood. Guess I'm just a crackpot alarmist. 

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