A Trump appointee did what?...and other stories

We're NOT Doomed" June 15, 2026

Science is in trouble.

I will never scare you on purpose, but right now, it’s okay if you’re a bit scared, cause there’s a call to action and it’s all hands on deck.

Russell Vought, one of the many authors of Project 2025 working in the Trump Administration, has proposed a new rule:

“Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance”

At this point, we all know that “regulation” is a dog whistle.

If this proposal goes into effect, the OMB can approve and cancel any grant for any reason.

Currently, and even more so in the before times, grant applications were peer reviewed. Experts in that field made the final decisions.

With this rule, that will no longer be the case.

Political appointees will be the ones making those calls. People who only care about pleasing Trump and have no experience in the given field at all.

To make matters worse, projects with approved grants cannot work with our adversaries or countries that work with our adversaries.

Science is collaborative, it has to be. There is no project in science or most other fields that can fit that criterion. So basically this would shut us off from the scientific world.

Secondly, and of course the most obvious — it targets grants that the administration considers “woke.” Yes, that is actually the language in the proposal:

Federal awards were often used during those years to promote a “woke” policy agenda that did not reflect the values of the vast majority of the American public.

What do they consider “woke”?

Well, based on what they’ve already shut down: research on Antisemitism and Islamophobia; the impact of data centers on populations; anything having to do with queer existence or the climate crisis; Black maternal health outcomes and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But there is some good news.

The public comment period is happening right now.

Stand Up For Science, an incredible organization you should get involved with, if you aren’t already, has a portal for public comment. Their goal is 10k comments before the OMB closes them on July 13.

It’s unclear whether the OMB will be logging public comments like they should, so SUFS will be tracking all comments made through their portal and will sue if they don’t see them officially logged by OMB. Meaning, only use their portal, don’t try to submit a comment on the OMB’s site.

Also, comments with the same wording will count collectively as one comment so this is not a moment to copy and paste. Luckily, SUFS also has guidance for how to write a good comment which you can also find in the portal. The main guidance is to just tell a personal story — why do you care?

Finally, if you run an organization, comment as the organization, because your comment will be weighted more heavily than an individual’s. But regardless of if you are commenting for yourself or an organization, just comment.

This proposal is all bad. There isn’t one single redeeming quality. But we have the power to bring a lot of sunlight onto this proposal, and the Trump Administration doesn’t like sunlight and usually backs off when there’s too much.

This is one of the times we will be able to see the impact of our voices, and is a reminder that they are our superpower.

We got a month, so use the Stand Up For Science Portal and get commenting!

Gainesville, Florida

Fri, May 8 - There are tire tracks in the brand new Gainsville City Hall Plaza. But don’t worry, that’s by design.

With taxpayer dollars from the Wild Spaces and Public Places Program, this plaza represents the diversity of Gainsville.

It includes a triangle of bricks from the rainbow crosswalk, that Florida’s Department of Transportation removed from in front of City Hall, in August of last year.

No one wanted to get rid of the rainbow crosswalk, but it was either that or Gainsville would lose all state and federal funding.

So, the City Commission voted unanimously in October to reuse the bricks in the plaza’s design. Commissioner Casey Willits explained that instead of throwing away “that piece of our history, we voted unanimously to incorporate those groups right into City Hall.”

This is a reminder of the power of voting, not just for city officials, but also for sales tax. This wouldn’t have been possible without those tax dollars.

And the refusal to respect the wishes of state and silence queer people gives me so much hope.

Rhode Island

Fri, June 5 - A Trump Appointee, Mary McElroy, yes you heard that right, has referred the DOJ for disciplinary proceedings over their conduct in the lawsuit against a subpoena from Rhode Island Hospital for the medical records of the minors in their gender affirming care unit.

I’ll also note, she was an Obama nominee, but Trump confirmed her in his first term.

This started when the DOJ went to a sympathetic Texas judge to issue subpoenas compelling hospitals to give them the private medical records of their minor gender affirming care patients.

A group of parents with patients at the Rhode Island Hospital sued and the case was heard by Judge McElroy, who said in her May 13 ruling that the “DOJ has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case.”

From their choices misrepresenting data to searching for a sympathetic judge, also known as “judge shopping.”

That Texas judge now has the hospital records for “safe keeping” while the case in the in courts.

Between that and how the DOJ acted in her courtroom McElroy had enough. And on June 5, McElroy issued a text order referring the DOJ to disciplinary. proceedings.

We will very likely not be privy to how that plays out. This is the second time the DOJ has been referred to these proceedings this month. The first being about an immigration case.

It’s encouraging to see judges using every tool available to them.

DC

Sun, June 7 - Regan Appointee, Royce Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction blocking 14 trans women from being moved to the men’s prison. I don’t know where cause all info about facilities has been redacted.

He agreed that the move would violate the plaintiffs’ eight amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment.

Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights said:

This decision reaffirms a bedrock constitutional principle: the government cannot knowingly place people in grave danger and simply look the other way.

Seeing a ruling like that, when the administration is actively trying to cause the most harm, gives me hope.

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I hope these stories bring you hope today.

I will say, finding them didn’t. I had another story from Colorado before the DC story, and scrapped it when I found out the info I had was out of date. Google is getting so much worse and I only found out the situation has changed because I follow The Advocate on Threads, so just a reminder to follow news orgs you can trust cause Google will not help you.

On that note, if you read this whole post, comment ⌨️ (a keyboard) cause this was a stark reminder that we have to always do our due diligence

Anyway, remember our voices are our superpower, but only when we use them!