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by contemporary343 4 hours ago
I think it's also a way to reduce funding to universities (which are politically disfavored), since other things like arbitrary reductions to indirect costs didn't work. It also defies both congressional will in the appropriations bill (which is directorate-specific) and of course the whole charter and mandate of NSF, from Vannevar Bush's original case for it.
1 comments
TimorousBestie 4 hours ago
Yeah, this is all well-attested.

It’s so weird. Presumably the conservatives still want the US to be a superpower, which presumably includes high-tech capabilities like global power projection, missile defense, and persistent space operations. At the same time they seemingly want a Cultural Revolution-like decimation of intellectuals.

I don’t see how they believe they can attain both objectives at once.

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solid_fuel 4 hours ago
> Presumably the conservatives still want the US to be a superpower,

I used to think that too, but it seems evident the current crop of conservatives is only interested in hurting people they don’t like and funneling money into the pockets of oligarchs. It’s pretty evident now that none of this is being done out of patriotism or a genuine desire to improve America.

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exe34 3 hours ago
> Presumably the conservatives still want the US to be a superpower

Why would you presume that? Isn't enough that they get rich and powerful as compared to others around them?

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SoftTalker 2 hours ago
There's at least a subset of them who do not. They want isolationism. Almost a juche sort of mentality. Stop propping up Europe/NATO. "No more foreign wars" was their rallying point. The Iran war really brought them to the surface, a lot of them were very unhappy with the Trump administration about that.
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magicalist 2 hours ago
> The Iran war really brought them to the surface, a lot of them were very unhappy with the Trump administration about that.

So, like...Thomas Massie and Rand Paul?

There were only four republicans in the House and four in the Senate to vote to limit war powers, and I don't think you could claim Murkowski or Collins are isolationists.

Or did you mean this subset was "very unhappy" in like a completely impotent and meaningless way, but they'll have been 100% against it six months or 2.5 or 4.5 years from now?

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TimorousBestie 2 hours ago
> Or did you mean this subset was "very unhappy" in like a completely impotent and meaningless way?

That’s how I understood it, yes. So unhappy that they’ll write him in for a third term.

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