This article from the Post is just one jaw-dropper after another. Musk met yesterday with Republican senators and then the House GOP caucus. Notionally it’s about communication. The folks on the Hill are getting a bit unhappy there’s a “lack of communication” about DOGE plans to shut down departments and unilaterally rewrite the federal budget. The Republicans want more details about what Musk’s doing, which — setting aside the infinite absurdities of this moment — would seem reasonable enough. They’re Congress after all. They’re literally in charge of this stuff. Read this graf …

Musk told a group of Republican senators in a closed-door lunch that he wanted to set up a direct line for them when they have questions, allowing them to get a near-instant response to their concerns, senators said. Some senators were given Musk’s phone number during Wednesday’s meeting, and the entrepreneur said he would “create a system where members of Congress can call some central group” to get problematic cuts reversed quickly, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said.

There’s a budget, appropriated money that defines what the government does and provides the money to do it. But Musk, absent any visibility even for much of the executive branch, is simply changing everything. But wait … he’s going to set up a system where Republican members of Congress can call and ask to “get problematic cuts reversed quick.”

What the fuck?

I may do a longer, maybe several longer versions of this post. But I think it’s important to state categorically and clearly: DOGE and Donald Trump are trying to shut down advanced medical research, especially cancer research, in the United States. Just that. That seems like a big statement. But it’s accurate. I communicate every day with people at NIH and its various centers. I’m not basing this on their personal responses to a harrowing and disorienting situation, though that is very important in itself. I am reacting to the broader picture built up by the facts emerging from these individual conversations, combined with other reporting and actions throughout the federal government. Reporting is inevitably focused on canceled grants, dismissed researchers, bans on certain forms of communication, on and off-again bans on travel, grant review processes halted.

The White House is, at least according to Bloomberg, well on its way to creating a sovereign wealth fund, despite having no authority to create one and no legal source of money to fund it. But now they’ve hired a guy to run it, Michael Grimes. And small world, he’s Elon’s banker.

DC Circuit rules that Trump administration can remove Hampton Dellinger while the case about whether he ultimately can be removed continues.

Dellinger is the head (or was) of the Office of Special Counsel that found that a bunch of Trump/DOGE firings had been unlawful. (This is tied to a series of posts I’ve done about rulings against DOGE firings.) OSC was then backed up by the Merit Systems Protection Board. Trump has been trying to fire basically everyone involved at both entities. And he’s been losing those cases. But this is obviously a win for the White House, though how much I’m not quite sure yet.

Will try to provide more context later. For now, see this update from the Post.

Here’s one of the more entertaining memos I’ve read recently coming out of the DOGE-tossed federal bureaucracy. This one’s from NIH, dated today and from the NIH Office of Defensive Counterintelligence and Personnel Security (ODCPS). And the gist is management is saying that while we’re busy making your lives hell, banning travel, communication and research reviews, defunding your projects and firing you one by one to drag out the torture, we need you to be extra vigilant because apparently foreign governments are trying to recruit you guys because you’re so upset.

I’m taking a bit of liberty with the language but not much.

The National Cancer Institute will be a no-show this year at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research, per an internal guidance memo dated March 4th, 2025 written by Kimberly Blair of the NCI Office of Communications.

Democrats need to be on the ground in states like Iowa, supporting local Democrats who can start building the case now against Sen. Joni Ernst (R) and other pro-Trump politicians, whoever ends up winning the right to challenge her as the Democratic nominee. I’m not saying Ernst will lose. It will be a very difficult race. Iowa has rapidly gone from a textbook swing state to a reliably red one in presidential elections. But people forget how rapidly things can change in a political climate in which visible, core political decisions by elected officials have tangible and deep impacts on ordinary people’s lives. People forget what happened between 2004 and 2006. They forget what happened between 2008 and 2010, though I think the first is the more relevant analog. There’s 2018 too. But I think we’ll find 2018 isn’t that true an analog.