We Are Witnessing the Suicide of a Superpower | Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain | The White House Gutted Science Funding. Now It Wants to ‘Correct’ Research., and more

‘We Are Witnessing a Full-Scale Assault on Science in the U.S’. That Will Be RFK, Jr.’s Legacy  (Geoffrey Kabat, Genetic Literacy Project)
The unfolding tragedy is that Kennedy, with no pushback from Republicans in Congress, is gutting the infrastructure of science and biomedicine. Ironically, he is appealing to the segment of the population that is most wary of science and, yet, who stands to suffer the most in the ravaged landscape.
We are witnessing a full-scale assault on science and the advancements of biomedical research since the Second World War that has made the United States a global leader. Far from “Making America Healthy Again,” over the next three-and-a-half years, we are likely to see a decline in our research productivity and progress against chronic diseases. As a result of this purge, the American primacy in science and medicine will be weakened, with consequences for the health of its people, for the economy, and for our security for decades to come.

From the Front Lines at Harvard: Battling Trump’s Attack on Science  (Donald Ingber, The Scientist)
The survival of science and academic freedom in this country requires that we stand up and fight for the truth with all we have.

Mark Z. Jacobson Responds to EPA War on Science  (Steve Hanley, Clean Technica)
Recently, Lee Zeldin, the current president’s handpicked leader of the EPA, announced the agency would take decisive action to dismantle what he called the “climate change religion.” What particularly sticks in Zeldin’s craw is the determination by the EPA in 2009 that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health. Known as the Endangerment Finding, it became the basis for many of the EPA’s policies put in place thereafter. 
Zeldin claims that those who embrace that finding are acting with a form of religious zeal that clouds their judgement. But worst of all, it increases costs for business — especially fossil fuel companies — and that is anathema to the cadre of true believers who have hijacked the US government.
All this weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth is hard to understand. When scientists discovered a link between asbestos and lung disease, the US took swift action to ban it. When scientists discovered a link between Freon and the hole in the ozone layer, the world quickly (well, fairly quickly) developed new products that were less destructive. But when scientists discovered that greenhouse gas pollution endangered human health, the response was to demonize the scientists and claim they were all part of a demonic cult committed to destroying civilization as we know it.

JD Vance Wanted to ‘Aggressively Attack’ American Universities. His Wish Has Been Trump’s Command.  (Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times)
Gregory Conti, a political scientist at Princeton, is not a left-wing academic. He is a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and the editor at large of Compact, a heterodox online magazine that leans to the right.
In the case of Trump v. Harvard, Conti believes that the university “is close to being an appendage of the Democratic Party.” Harvard and units within it, Conti wrote in Compact, have

issued numerous public statements during the Great Awokening that aligned the organization with left-wing causes (a practice which Harvard has since ended). Self-censorship is generally prevalent on campuses across the nation, but is much higher among conservatives, who rightly sense that the university is largely hostile to their views.

Despite Conti’s indisputably conservative credentials, he has come to believe that the Trump administration’s approach to higher education — and toward Harvard in particular — not only violates due process but threatens to destroy the reputation of the United States as an international center of learning.
“It now looks like the administration has decided,” Conti wrote in a more recent essay in Compact, “A Dangerous Turn in Trump’s War on Universities,” “that it will simply bludgeon Harvard, inflicting a lot of senseless damage until the latter makes a ‘deal’ of some sort.”

U.S. Scientists Warn That Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain  (Kate Zernike, New York Times)
As the United States cuts budgets and restricts immigration, China and Europe are offering researchers money and stability.