On the fascist regime’s third day, they came for your health information. Do not think it will be restored, at least in full, until after the fascists are defeated. Do not think that the government will be permitted to conduct health research unfettered by ideologically white nationalist and anti-science oversight until after the fascists are defeated.

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings including grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.

The moves have generated extensive confusion and uncertainty at the nation’s largest research agency, which has become a target for Trump’s political allies. “The impact of the collective executive orders and directives appears devastating,” one senior NIH employee says.

Today, for example, officials halted midstream a training workshop for junior scientists, called off a workshop on adolescent learning minutes before it was to begin, and canceled meetings of two advisory councils. Panels that were scheduled to review grant proposals also received eleventh-hour word that they wouldn’t be meeting.

“This kind of disruption could have long ripple effects,” says Jane Liebschutz, an opioid addiction researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who posted on Bluesky about the canceled study sections. “Even short delays will put the United States behind in research.” She and colleagues are feeling “a lot of uncertainty, fear, and panic,” Liebschutz says.

The hiring freeze is governmentwide, whereas a pause on communications and travel appears to be limited to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s parent agency. Such pauses are not unprecedented when a new administration comes in. But some NIH staff suggested these measures, which include pulling job ads and rescinding offers, are more extreme than any previously.

The purge at the Justice Department extends all the way to the very bottom:

The Justice Department has abruptly rescinded job offers made to dozens of recent law school graduates who were to be placed in entry-level positions in its antitrust, criminal, civil rights, immigration and national security divisions, and at the F.B.I., according to people familiar with the situation.

The offers were made through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, which has functioned without controversy — or much notice — under presidents of both parties for decades. The program is the latest target of Trump political appointees intent on reversing even the most workaday decisions made by their predecessors.

Participants in the program, one of the oldest career development initiatives in the federal government, received their acceptance letters in November and December for career-track jobs set to last 24 to 36 months.

Many were informed in the last few days that the offers had been terminated, setting off a scramble to find new employment.

Fascist purges are under way in all federal government agencies and also the National Security Council.

National security adviser Michael Waltz has authorized a “full review” of dozens of career officials who staff the White House on issues including Iranian and North Korean nuclear proliferation, cyberespionage, and Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to his spokesman…

…The officials, known as aides or detailees, were told Wednesday in a brief call conducted by Waltz’s chief of staff, Brian McCormack, that they were to leave the building immediately. They were given instructions to return only if asked by their supervisors — senior directors appointed by the Trump administration…

…The decision by Waltz came so abruptly that it impeded the ability of some career officials to physically leave the White House complex because their badges no longer worked, said one U.S. official. The awkward impasse required the Secret Service to manually drop the gates for those with deactivated badges.

The fascists are so eager to be rid of foreign policy experts that they’re willing to operate without people protecting us from cyberattacks and nuclear proliferation. Turnover at the NSC at the outset of a new administration is normal and anticipated, but not at this scale and not like this.

Also, in a miniature version of the Night of the Long Knives, former Trump administration foreign policy leaders Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook and John Bolton were stripped of their Secret Service protection. Hook was also removed as a trustee of the Wilson Center for Scholars. This isn’t because they’re suddenly safe from Iran’s desire for revenge for the assassination of Iran Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020. It’s because Trump thinks they should die for lack of loyalty.

This is just the beginning. It will get worse every day that at the fascists are in power.