Politico: "Science funding agency threatened with mass layoffs"

Via Politico, this news: 

One of the United States’ leading funders of science and engineering research is planning to lay off between a quarter and a half of its staff in the next two months, a top National Science Foundation official said Tuesday.

The comments by Assistant Director Susan Margulies came at an all-hands meeting of the NSF’s Engineering Directorate, according to two program managers who attended.

Marguiles, NSF and the White House didn’t respond to detailed questions about the layoffs and their potential implications.

“A large-scale reduction, in response to the President’s workforce executive orders, is already happening,” a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management said in an email. “The government is restructuring, and unfortunately, many employees will later realize they missed a valuable, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the deferred resignation offer.”

I don't have much to say about this other than the obvious: this is bad, real bad. Derek has a pretty comprehensive post that is, like so much these days, overtaken by events with this latest. Nevertheless, the last lines are good and important: 

We are in a Constitutional crisis whether we like it or not, the worst of my own lifetime by far, and the more voices that are raised against it all, the better. That's what we can do for now. If it gets worse, it gets worse, and we'll revisit the topic, God help us.

But most of all, don't give in to cynicism or apathy. That's what the people promulgating these horrible policies want - a bored, indifferent public who figures that who cares, nothing matters any more, it's gonna happen no matter what. But it doesn't have to. Never forget that: it doesn't have to happen.

Best wishes to the scientists and engineers of the NSF, and to all of us.