In this engaging conversation, the hosts discuss the challenges and triumphs of working at the NIH with Chelsey's Aunt Vicky, particularly focusing on the journey of a woman who rose from an administrative assistant to a grant funding specialist. They explore themes of gender discrimination, the importance of science funding, and the impact of political changes on public health initiatives. The discussion also touches on personal stories, the challenges of navigating the workplace, and the significance of trust in science, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this conversation, the speakers discuss the challenges of navigating illness in a work culture that often prioritizes attendance over health. They reflect on the contributions of women in science, the historical lack of representation in education, and the importance of mentorship and leadership in scientific fields. The impact of political climate on scientific integrity and public health communication is also explored, particularly during the Trump era. The speakers emphasize the significance of funding in scientific research and share personal reflections on their careers, offering advice for future generations considering public service.

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July 2025: "Concentration Camps, Classroom Chaos, and Christian Nationalist Blueprints"

Welcome to your July solo news drop — where we pull back the curtain on what the GOP and Trump administration are doing while everyone’s distracted by sunglasses and soundbites. In this episode, we break down:

• Alligator Alcatraz – the Everglades-based migrant concentration camp that flooded on its second day open. No plumbing, no oversight, no humanity. With eyewitness accounts, whistleblower reports, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz demanding a federal investigation.
• School Funding Freeze – the Trump administration is illegally withholding $7 billion in education money already approved by Congress. We cover Rep. Terri Sewell’s July 11 letter, districts hit hardest (Alabama, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Missouri), and DeSantis’ Orwellian push to let political allies accredit colleges.
• Project 2025 – the Heritage Foundation’s fascist roadmap is no longer a warning—it’s a playbook in motion. From gutting the Department of Education to legalizing mass deportation and firing career scientists, we connect the dots from the headlines to the handbook.
• Measles Outbreak Cover-Up – how HHS is scrambling behind the scenes to keep a lid on rising measles cases, with vaccine distribution stalled and states reporting spikes in preventable illnesses.
• NIH and Science Under Attack – UMass Chan faces a $94M NIH funding shortfall. Research is halted, jobs slashed, and pediatric brain cancer trials frozen. The Trump budget calls scientists wasteful and dangerous — and it's costing lives and leadership.
• DeSantis’ Fake Accreditation Program – in his bid to MAGA-fy academia, the Florida governor wants political operatives to greenlight colleges. Because apparently facts now require loyalty oaths.

This episode isn’t about headlines — it’s about the hostile architecture being built underneath them. And if you're waiting for someone to sound the alarm, congratulations. You just pressed play.

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In this episode, Chelsey & Jenn discuss their personal updates, community engagement strategies, and the restructuring of their podcast to focus on fewer topics for deeper discussions. They highlight the contributions of women in science and politics, emphasizing the importance of representation and activism. The conversation also touches on current events, the political climate, and the historical significance of women's roles in shaping public health and policy. In this conversation, Chelsey Hockett and Jennifer Wisniewski discuss the alarming spread of misinformation in public health, particularly regarding vaccines and scientific integrity. They explore the consequences of recent cuts to health agencies and the impact on research, emphasizing the need for clarity and expertise in public health. The discussion also touches on the importance of community building and the future of public health amidst these challenges.

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In our premiere episode, we go back—way back—to the women who laid the emotional, intellectual, and literal groundwork for American democracy.
We’re talking Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Phillis Wheatley—three women who never got a seat at the table but still pulled up with receipts, rage, and revolutionary fire.

From letters to husbands to poems that challenged tyranny, these founding mothers were raising babies and raising hell. We explore what they might say about today’s school voucher battles, book bans, and ongoing fights for equality. Spoiler: they wouldn’t be quiet about it.

As suburban moms with a mic, we reflect on our own letters to America, the ways our lives echo theirs, and why joy is resistance in 2025.

What We Cover:

• “Remember the Ladies”: Abigail’s demand to be heard
• Mercy Otis Warren and the pen that mocked kings
• Phillis Wheatley’s poems of protest and power
• What Texas school voucher hearings have in common with revolutionary resistance
• What we would say if we could write our own Letter to America

Further Reading:

• Abigail Adams' letters: Massachusetts Historical Society
• Mercy Otis Warren bio: National Women’s History Museum
• Phillis Wheatley’s poetry: Poets.org
• Primary Source Material:
  Abigail Adams:
  • “Remember the Ladies” Letter (March 31, 1776)
    Massachusetts Historical Society
    🔗 https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17760331aa
• Mercy Otis Warren:
  • Biography (NWHM) – Overview of her political writings and role in the Revolution
    National Women’s History Museum
    🔗 https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mercy-otis-warren
  • Selected Works:
    Observations on the New Constitution (1788)
    The Group (1775) – Political satire play
    Full text collection:
    🔗 https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/warren/revolution/revolution.html
• Phillis Wheatley:
  • Poetry Collection: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)
    Available through Poets.org
    🔗 https://poets.org/poet/phillis-wheatley
  • Letter and Poem to George Washington (1775):
    Library of Congress
    🔗 https://www.loc.gov/resource/mgw4.028_0384_0385/?sp=1

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Episode Summary:
In this episode, Chelsey and Jenn dive deep into [insert theme—e.g., modern censorship, erasure of historical contributions, or attacks on working-class families], drawing powerful lines between past struggles and today’s political climate. They unpack recent news, connect the dots across state and federal actions, and spotlight voices being silenced—whether through defunding public institutions or rewriting the past.

From personal stories of motherhood and activism to brutal honesty about what it's like living in a red state under regressive leadership, this episode is a rally cry for everyday Americans who refuse to stay quiet. They also highlight [insert a few key moments: e.g., the Six Triple Eight, USPS attacks, or Trump-era fascism parallels] and call on listeners to show up, speak out, and stay grounded in truth.

Topics Covered:

• Local + national news updates
• Historical connections (e.g., WWII resistance, Black women's service, or free speech issues)
• Current legislative threats
• Emotional and political labor of motherhood in red America

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In Episode 6, “She Fought the Machine, Part 2,” Chelsey and Jenn reveal the untold stories of World War II’s home-front and battlefield heroines: the Navajo Code Talkers—boarding-school survivors whose language was weaponized to save lives; Betty Masket, an aeronautical engineer who inspected SB2C Helldivers then became a NIH lab chief; Betty McIntosh, an OSS propaganda operative who wielded black-leaflet campaigns and clandestine radio as weapons; the over-looked valor of Black units from the Tuskegee Airmen to the 6888th Postal Battalion; and the ongoing erasure of these legacies through modern policy moves—from federal website purges and trans-military bans to the end of affirmative action at service academies. Through these stories, they draw a straight line from cultural genocide and segregation to today’s systematic silencing of marginalized voices—and call on listeners to reclaim memory as resistance.

Sources to Check

• Linn, Brian McAllister. The Navajo Code Talkers. Bison Books, 2002.
• Adams, David W. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928. Univ. Press of Kansas, 1995.
• Haulman, Daniel L. “The Tuskegee Airmen’s Combat Record,” Air Force Historical Research Agency, 2019.
• Stanton, Shelby L. The Forgotten Six Triple Eight: The Incredible Story of the First All-Black Women’s Battalion in WWII. Sterling, 2020.
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. “Curtiss SB2C Helldiver,” si.edu.
• NPR, “Federal Agencies Scrub Websites of Women and BIPOC Service Member Profiles,” March 2025.

Supreme Court, Trump v. Pennsylvania (trans military ban), May 2025.

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In Episode 5, “She Fought the Machine, Part 1,” Chelsey and Jenn unpack how early-20th-century fascism weaponized gender—banning contraception, rewarding motherhood, and erasing women’s autonomy—then spotlight five trailblazers who refused to stay silent: Sophie Scholl, Nancy Wake, Noor Inayat Khan, Virginia Hall, and Hedy Lamarr. From leaflets smuggled past Gestapo checkpoints to groundbreaking frequency-hopping patents, these women show how truth, science, and sheer defiance became the first line of resistance—an inheritance we must claim again as modern-day “national renewal” efforts aim to scrub our history and silence dissent.

Key Sources

• Paxton, Robert O. The Anatomy of Fascism. Knopf, 2004.
• Pine, Lisa. “Nazi Family Policy.” Oxford Bibliographies, 1997.
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Noor Inayat Khan.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, ushmm.org.
• University of Munich White Rose Archive. Sophie Scholl trial transcripts, 1943.
• Lamarr, Hedy & Antheil, George. U.S. Patent 2,292,387, “Secret Communication System,” 1942.
• Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, project2025.org.
• Newsweek. “Trump Executive Order Targets Married Women’s Financial Autonomy,” April 2025.

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Finish the sentence. Send us your voice memo or tag us on social:

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In this episode, Chelsey and Jenn dig into the hidden (and not-so-hidden) economic policies that disproportionately hurt women—especially moms. From the resurgence of the pink tax to Trump’s executive orders that would classify women as “secondary wage earners,” we break down how systemic sexism is built into the financial policies being pushed by Project 2025. We expose the legislative playbook aiming to gut women’s healthcare, raise their taxes, and sabotage their independence—while claiming to fight for “traditional families.”

We connect the dots between tariffs that raise prices on everyday goods, childcare cuts, and the gender wage gap, and we ask the big question: who benefits when women are pushed back into the home?

Spoiler alert: it’s not working families.

1. Trump’s 2025 Executive Order to Redefine Women’s Financial Status

• Newsweek Report: Executive order would reclassify many married women as “secondary wage earners,” limiting access to tax benefits and ACA subsidies.

2. Project 2025’s Anti-Woman Agenda

• Heritage Foundation’s blueprint calls for gutting the Department of Education, revoking workplace gender protections, and rolling back the ACA.

3. Tariffs as a Gendered Burden

• Trump-era tariffs disproportionately raised prices on household goods and childcare essentials.
• Current GOP plans to expand tariffs would impact everyday purchases: diapers, hygiene products, school supplies, and food.

4. The Pink Tax

• Women still pay more for basic goods—shampoo, razors, even insurance.
• GOP tax plans ignore these gender-based price hikes and reduce benefits for working-class families.

5. Attacks on Women’s Healthcare Access

• ACA birth control protections under fire
• Maternal health funding slashed in House GOP budget proposals
• Trump policies and Project 2025 seek to privatize Medicaid, directly impacting pregnancy, postpartum, and preventative care

6. Red, White, and Fascist Framing

• Historical parallels to fascist regimes pushing women out of the workforce post-crisis (WWI, WWII, and now post-COVID)
• State control of women’s labor and fertility through financial pressure

Call to Action

• Write your reps: Demand they reject any attempt to reclassify women as “secondary earners” or gut ACA family provisions.
• Share your stories: If you’ve lost access to care, paid more because of the pink tax, or been priced out of work—email us or send a voice memo.
• Follow @MomsAgainstTheMachine for more resources, shareables, and breakdowns.

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Finish the sentence. Send us your voice memo or tag us on social:

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