Some of the reasons we are concerned (a list)

Just an ongoing and incomplete list of our reasons for concern:

• Cuts in USAID could create an untreatable TB bug that would spread and sicken countless people in the US and abroad. Source (one of many similar reports)

• Habitat for Humanity has been an inspiring nonprofit committed to the idea that everyone, everywhere should have a healthy, affordable place to call home. Why is the FBI trying to criminalize them for accepting federal funds to support this work? Source

• Federal cuts to NIH and universities has interrupted and halted important research that could save lives now and in the future. Source and Source and Source (among many similar reports)

• The attacks on universities is identical to what authoritarian countries like Hungary have done to stifle democracy, kill free speech, promote disinformation, and to secure power and profit for a few people to the detriment of everyone else. Source 

• Federal cuts to USDA mean that our schools can no longer purchase food from nearby farms, and our farmers are no longer paid to provide fresh food to food banks that feed our people while hunger is rising. Source and Source

• Here are the estimates of the casualties of cuts to USAID: "1 million children will not be treated for severe acute malnutrition. Up to 166,000 people will die from malaria. New cases of tuberculosis will go up by 30%. Two hundred thousand more children will be paralyzed by polio over the next decade." Source  And 1,650,000 could die within a year without aid for HIV prevention and treatment, an estimated 500,000 could die within a year without American funding for vaccines, an estimated 550,000 could die within a year without American funding for food aid, an estimated 290,000 could die within a year without American funding for malaria prevention, an estimated 310,000 could die without US funding for TB prevention. Source  And also this New Yorker interview: Source 

*Note, if someone responds to these numbers saying those aren't all Americans and we need to focus on Americans, ask them if the money that is being cut will go to support Americans at risk of malnutrition, malaria, TB, or polio? Share your concern that diseases don't stop at borders--it is true that many of us care about other people whether they are US citizens or not, but USAID has also been a cost effective program that saves our taxpayers money in the long run through proactive prevention rather than crisis responses here at home. Keep in mind this sobering review of how lack of prevention led to so many deaths during Covid: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/trump-coronavirus-deaths-timeline.html

• Farmers have always faced unique challenges due to the unpredictability of weather, not to mention variable costs and demands. The unpredictability of the tariffs, the cuts to the USDA and USAID, the ending of research grants, all are taking a toll on the farms that we all depend on for our food sources. Rising prices were bad enough: what do we do if we have nothing to eat because most farms cannot survive? Source

• Living in a rural area means we may have worse internet access if the Commerce department shifts funding from fiber internet to Starlink, a risk reported by the BEAD director Evan Feinman, who has left the Commerce Department in protest. Source

• Deporting anyone without due process means that anyone could be taken, whether we are U.S. citizens or legal residents or not. We are made less safe if the administration succeeds in this deportation of the alleged Venezeulan prison gang members (are they? they could all be falsely accused and now our tax dollars are paying for them to be imprisoned without any guarantee of basic human rights in El Salvador. They could be US citizens--deporting without due process has harmed legal citizens in the past). Source And another helpful overview with links. And helpful discussion of the Alien Enemies Act from Brennan Center here. A helpful overview by Joyce Vance 

• The case of Mahmoud Khalil is a direct assault on our right to free speech and assembly. He is a legal resident who is being threatened with deportation not because he committed a crime but because the administration doesn't like what he said. Also alarming is the fact that he was taken from New York to be held in detention in Louisiana--a costly, wasteful, unnecessary move that appears to be a way to terrorize him before he had a chance to defend himself in the courts--a punishment based on suspicion, not any court ruling. This is how things work in countries like Russia and Hungary, not in healthy democracies. The free and open exchange of information is essential to our survival--chilling free speech, punishing people for not agreeing with whoever is in charge? That is far more dangerous to us than anything one person might say. Source Source and Source 

• Cuts to NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) will reduce our ability to receive life-saving weather warnings in a timely way. All private weather-reporting apps and businesses rely on NOAA for information--there is no private substitute for it. This endangers us all in a time of more frequent extreme weather events. Source

• Threatening the media undermines our access to information as well. It has reached a point where our journalists have to seek other options to share factual reports on what is happening, and take lessons from journalists in other countries who have already experienced government suppression of journalists. The first amendment must exist for all journalists, not just for those who praise powerful politicians and billionaires. A few sources to consider on this topic: Source and Source and Source and Source 

• We are concerned that suspending Voice of America and other agencies under the U.S. Agency for Global Media gives comfort to our enemies, who gain power when they can spread propaganda without any countering sources of information previously provided by these services. Source

• We are concerned that the actions taken to "end DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion)" are resulting in our government directly discriminating against women, people of color, people with disabilities, and people within the LGBTQ+ community. Source and Source and Source and Source and Source and Source

• Our ability to vote in North Carolina is at risk if defeated candidate Jefferson Griffin's succeeds in his attempt to pick and choose voters likely to have voted against him and claim their vote should be discarded, a plan that does not treat all voters equally. It is unsettling that he feels comfortable making this case, which disrespects our laws and our voters, because his goal is to serve as a NC Supreme Court Justice. !!! It is deeply unsettling that the NC Court of Appeals and NC Supreme Court have agreed to consider these cases at all--they should have been dismissed immediately, instead of draining resources. Source and Source 

• Appointing a prominent opponent of vaccines as the Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services accelerates an already alarming pattern in which vaccine use declines and previously-contained illnesses such as measles or polio begin to rise. Deaths by flu are rising, yet this administration is postponing plans to address it. Source and Source

• Americans contribute directly to Social Security as a guaranteed source of retirement funding, a lifeline for many that they earned and that benefits our country as a whole. We are concerned that DOGE and similar efforts are designed to make Social Security fail, part of a plan to try to convince Americans that they would be better off investing in private retirement plans that have no guarantees instead of this guaranteed, time-tested system that works for everyone including the most vulnerable who would not ever succeed in finding a replacement in private options. Source and Source

• We aren't alone in being astonished that the following people engaged in a group thread discussing sensitive information using the private app Signal on their phones: Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, Scott Bessent, Pete Hegseth, and John Ratcliffe, among others, all of whom had every reason to understand that this kind of discussion should never take place in such a manner because it was vulnerable to hacking. The mistake of including a reporter on the thread only underscores the problem--this was not a secure channel, this was reckless and careless and dangerous. We were already concerned that our personal data has been vulnerable to such hacking due to the recklessness of the unvetted youths of DOGE; now we must worry about every member of our military and any covert operatives because their safety appears to be of no concern to those in charge of their fates.

• We are concerned about legislation designed to discriminate against people simply because they were born in another country, running counter to constitutional protections. These attacks on constitutional rights do not make anyone safer--anyone who commits a crime, regardless of immigration status, is already subject to the laws against those crimes and hearing and weighing evidence is necessary to ensure that the correct person has been identified and that the sentencing is fair and appropriate (also known as due process). Such legislation also increases the costs and burdens on our local law enforcement and legal resources, all to target people who are not harming anyone, and leaving us fewer resources to address legitimate concerns. Three such bills have been proposed to the legislature: HB 86, HB 261, and HB 318. Find out more at this link from El Pueblo.

• Corruption in government harms us all. See a list we have begun to try to track the corruption at the state and federal level.

• Worth a look: McSweeney's documented the violations that took place in the first Trump administration. Check it out here: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-atrocities-1-1-056