Entire staff at federal agency that funds libraries and museums put on leave | Hacker News Reader

Entire staff at federal agency that funds libraries and museums put on leave

npr.org

106 pointsTeever36 comments

US is saving money from funds that is used for education and science, instead of war. they're spending a lot of money for Israel and its war in Gaza. No one questions that money. it is insane

Every empire has fallen the same way - spending money on wars and games.

Israel and its *genocide in Gaza, according to Amnesty International[1]. Let's call it like it is, so that the funding may be stopped sooner rather than later.

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...

edit: To those who disagree, do feel free to explain why. Being against genocide is apolitical, for any reasonable definition of the word. I promise you cannot guess at my voting patterns from this opinion of mine.

Israel has been genociding for decades, and saying it never changed anything. I don't see why it would suddenly happen now.

How close are they to succeding? What was the population when they started and how much has it been reduced?

But wars don't cost anything because Europe will pay.

The US isn't saving money on this. The IRS is predicting $500 billion shortfall in revenue from layoffs in tax enforcement alone.

https://fortune.com/2025/03/24/irs-tax-revenue-500-billion-c...

Knowledge is power. Take away peoples knowledge and they have no power.

They should make "the right bear books" an amendment.

Nothing new, been that way for a long time. There is plenty of money for killing people, none for keeping people alive.

Kinda interesting to watch. US is actively choosing the "anti-literacy" path forward, compared to all the other big guys in the game. Is there any other proper reason other than potentially bumping up the birth rates? It's not 1900s anymore, where the sheer manpower wins big wars anymore, as manufacturing, science and tech can sway it one way or another. I just don't get the endgame.

Neo-feudalism. It's like original feudalism, but with the internet.

There is no reason to think there is an endgame, everything is reactionary and shortsighted.

The party that claims to support the constitution seems to not support the constitution. They also seem to not support education, health and sciences.

Talk about going back decades.

Anti literacy, anti science, anti humanity.

Insanity.

That agency was created by an act of congress. These people hate America and our constitution.

Meanwhile Trump's golfing so far this term has cost the country more than $26 million dollars (on his own golf courses).

If DOGE was serious about saving money there's some excess spending they could get rid of.

I guess nowadays we just reach for chainsaws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Johst

Who needs culture when you can buy guns...

It's the last place you will ever see MAGA/Trump Supporters.

Today, I received an email from Brandon Gill about his mission to defund NPR, a radical left-leaning outlet poisoning America's minds. There were some additional things in that email that made no difference in Americans' lives.

JC, it's a radio station that Republicans don't even listen to. It's like he thinks 50% of Americans don't deserve any representation. I'm not even a Democrat, and I find it insane. I can only imagine it is an attempt to deflect attention away from his constituents' real issues. Show them something shiny, and maybe they will forget what matters.

The Republican folks in Congress are pathetic. They're a bunch of freaks.

Disclaimer: Republican turned Independent.

All this is illegal:

The Impoundment Control Act

The Administrative Procedure Act

The Civil Service Reform Act

The Museum and Library Services Act

The Appointments clause of Article II of the Constitution

The Take Care clauses of Article II of the Constitution.

Executive orders are not laws and cannot override laws.

This should not have been flagged.

Jesus. I remember libertarians saying “I want to get rid of X and Y, but obviously not libraries.”

In other words we are now living in the most extremist libertarian fantasy.

At least the most extreme libertarian fantasy is "you can do whatever you want, but I won't pay."

The direction the US is heading is "you can't do anything you want, but you will pay."

> In other words we are now living in the most extremist libertarian fantasy.

This might not be so much an "extremist libertarian fantasy" but more of an "anti-woke" thing. I live in a swing district and the local library presents as quite progressive in their selections, and so do the local museums (land acknowledgements, etc.), so I'm not surprised they would draw fire in this environment.

Yeah that is probably more accurate. It’s not like this is a principled attack on cost centers. They are going after liberal institutions.

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