Federal judges have rejected their #research on #autism & #vaccines as too unreliable to stand up in court.

David Geier’s new #US govt role has stunned #PublicHealth experts, who had already expressed concerns about #RFKJr’s decisions to cancel a long-held #vaccine meeting & to cut grants focused on understanding vaccine hesitancy.

Since #ElonMusk’s so-called #DOGE took over important govt #technology teams within the #GSA & what was formally known as the #USDS, around 200 technologists have either resigned or been fired, jeopardizing around a decade’s worth of work dedicated to everything from #PublicHealth to #passport applications.

Those changes represent a significant loss at an agency that was already struggling w/personnel shortages as it tried to help communities recover from catastrophic #storms & #wildfires in #NorthCarolina & #LosAngeles, among other missions.

Soon after his return to the WH, #Trump mused about formally disbanding #FEMA. The departures suggest that the agency is already being thinned out.

In addition to those #water #conservation programs, the #InflationReductionAct set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for projects aimed at keeping #ColoradoRiver tributaries #clean & #healthy. Conservation groups, small nonprofits, Native American tribes, & local governments were assigned federal money for a bevy of projects that included #Wildfire prevention & #HabitatRestoration.

That is no small feat, as leaders of the states that use #ColoradoRiver #water are caught in a #legal standoff about how to share it going forward.…

"Having this appropriated funding suddenly taken away undoes years & years of very careful collaboration among the #states in the #ColoradoRiverBasin," Castle said, "& threatens the #sustainability of the entire system."

The 2022 #InflationReductionAct allowed President #Biden to designate $4B for #ColoradoRiver programs, including big sums for programs that pay #farmers, #cities & #NativeAmerican [#IndigenousPeople] tribes to #conserve Colorado River #water &, instead, leave it in those #reservoirs. The payments are compensation for money they can't make by using water to grow crops or for other uses.

The #ColoradoRiver is shrinking due to #ClimateChange, which means the nation's 2 largest #reservoirs, #LakeMead & #LakePowell, created by #dams, have reached record low levels in recent years amid a #megadrought spanning >2 decades. If #water levels fall much lower, they could lose the ability to generate #hydropower within the massive dams that hold them back, or even lose the ability to pass water downstream.

#Republicans in the #Senate have essentially delayed any decision on those thorny details, focusing instead on delivering an early win to #Trump in the form of money for his hard-line anti-#immigration agenda. They said they would address questions of spending & tax cuts later in a separate bill.

Their plan, which #GOP leaders hope to put to a vote as early as next week, loads vast #TaxCuts for corporations & the wealthy & #policy changes into one huge package & calls for slashing govt programs [including #Medicare/#Medicaid] deeply to finance it all. But it faces a perilous road through the closely divided #House, where #Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.

How will they pay for it? That’s a question for another day. What about the huge #TaxCuts they & Trump have promised for corporations & the wealthy? We’ll figure that out later, #Senate #Republicans say.

Over in the #House, Republicans have been agonizing to come up w/at least $2T in spending cuts to pay for Trump’s fiscal agenda & placate their most conservative members.

“Your elected representatives” [or, you know, whatever, some greedy #billionaires who for the time being share your interests] “have heard you & now the *terrible* bill is dead,” #ElonMusk boasted on #X, the #SocialMedia site he owns [& thru which he spreads #propaganda] after he spent the day blasting the #legislation. “The *voice of the people*” [aka some rich fucks] “has triumphed!”

The rebuke, which built steadily through the day & culminated w/a long written *statement* from #Trump in the late afternoon, has forced #MikeJohnson back to the drawing board on a plan to prevent a Christmastime #GovernmentShutdown — & maintain the support of his chaotic conference to be reelected as #speaker early next year [].