Forking Off

Elizabeth Ginexi served as a scientific program official at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 22 years. During that time, she stewarded taxpayer investments in biomedical and behavioral research. An applied social psychologist by training, Liz's work spanned historic public health initiatives, from building the scientific framework for FDA tobacco regulations to developing non-pharmacological pain treatments for veterans.
When the administration began dismantling NIH, Liz took an early retirement rather than comply with antiscientific directives. She's since become a fierce advocate for the Addiction Science Defense Network and scientists everywhere. She's put her analytic talents to work on Substack by writing about the internal collapse of the world's premier biomedical research agency.

Highlights & Topics:
Liz's Story: Hear Liz’s firsthand account of the coordinated communication freezes, grant cancellations, and assault on career scientists.
Near-Term Risk: How the loss of nearly 5,000 NIH employees and the slashing of funding opportunities will gut an industry that generates billions for the U.S. economy.
Long-Term Threat: Why the true cost of abandoning biomedical research won’t be visible until future generations lack critical treatments and cures.
Call for Advocacy: Why scientists must embrace activism, and how the public and private sectors can step in to sustain U.S. innovation.

Additional Resources:
Stand Up for Science: Stand Up For Science is a political activism organization dedicated to defending and advancing America’s scientific ecosystem, a cornerstone of democracy, freedom, and progress.
Union of Concerned Scientists: The Union of Concerned Scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

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The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals providing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the FBI, the DOJ, the NIH, the United States, or any past or current employers.

Alec Chapa found his ideal role as a conciliator with DOJ's Community Relations Service (CRS). From a young age, Alec was interested in bringing people together to talk through conflict. He was fascinated by Gandhi's strategy of civil disobedience. In 2016, he participated in a private mentorship with Philosopharian in Astoria, Oregon, where he learned about empowering individuals and communities through philosophy. After running his own dispute resolution consulting business for several years, Alec found his dream job with CRS in 2024.
When the second Trump administration began, Alec saw CRS sidelined and felt that he and his colleagues were being forced out of their jobs. When the second deferred resignation offer was presented in April 2025, Alec accepted it because he could not afford the risk of staying. After leaving CRS, Alec continued his life's work of helping groups work together more collaboratively, transparently, and effectively. He launched HousingShield, a new housing dispute resolution program, through his company Mosaic Collaborative Consulting.
In this episode, we speak with Alec about the void left by the decimation of Community Relations Service and what we can do in its absence. We also provide listeners with actionable advice on how to engage local leaders, preserve digital evidence, and prepare for future reconciliation efforts.
Highlights & Topics:
Tracking the Exodus: Philip introduces Separation Anxiety, our new data project exploring separations across federal agencies between January 2025 and January 2026.
The Legacy and Loss of CRS: A look back at CRS's history of averting violence after Bloody Sunday in Selma in 1965 contrasted against it's loss in 2025 and what that means for cities like Minneapolis.
Whistleblower Complaints: Discussion of a recent whistleblower complaint by a former senior CRS official alleging the DOJ misled a federal court regarding the dismantling of the agency.
Congressional Pushback: Highlighting Representative Jamie Raskin's letter emphasizing that CRS was built for moments of crisis and could have surged mediators to Minneapolis.
Weaponizing 2339a: Concerns over the administration's willingness to pursue 2339a "material support to terrorism" cases against activists and non-profits rather than coming to the table for mediation.
Revenge vs. Reconciliation: An argument for removing "retribution" from the journalistic lexicon when describing the administration's actions, identifying it instead as political revenge while advocating for true, measured reconciliation in the future.
Historical Activism: Drawing parallels between modern social media and the historic information-sharing tactics of Martin Luther and Alexander Hamilton.
Local Engagement & Documenting Injustice: A call to action urging listeners to engage with state and local officials, while also emphasize the importance of actively documenting injustice wherever it is found.

Learn more about this episode on our ⁠website⁠.
If you enjoy Forking Off with us, consider supporting us on ⁠⁠Ko-fi⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠follow us⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals providing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the FBI, the DOJ, the United States, or any past or current employers.

Dan Tully left the U.S. Department of Commerce in protest of the administration's destructive foreign policy approach. Dan's background as a Judge Advocate in the Army Reserve gave him experience advising on counter-Chinese influence efforts in the Indo-Pacific. While Dan was building an anti-corruption program for Ukraine's Ministry of Reconstruction, the administration abandoned critical partnerships, echoed Kremlin talking points, and berated Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House.
Dan is now running for the U.S. House of Representatives in Chicago, Illinois, where he hopes to implement his Trump Accountability Plan and restore the rule of law by wielding Congress's power of inherent contempt and puncturing sovereign immunity for federal agents acting outside the scope of the law.
As we approach the midterm elections, the election conspiracies of 2020 and 2024 are making a comeback alongside threats of voter suppression and intimidation from the White House and MAGA-sphere. In this episode, we cut through the noise of election conspiracies. We discuss how same-day voter registration led to false claims of "more votes than voters" during the 2024 elections. We also explain how a voter fraud prevention tool led to false claims of one state having "more registered voters than voting-age population."
We round out our examination of election fraud conspiracies by explaining why the Election Truth Alliance's conspiracy theories masked as statistical analysis did not prove voter fraud in the 2024 presidential race. We discuss how misinterpreting academic research and ignoring important methodological distinctions to justify demands for hand counts doesn't begin to address the actual threats voters could face at the polls in 2026, such as the weaponization of federal law enforcement as recently seen in Fulton County, Georgia.
As the executive branch tramples constitutional boundaries in an effort to centralize power, we discuss the constitutional remedies available to Congress, the States, and the People, as well as legislative proposals that would further strengthen checks on executive power, including the Bivens Act, the Universal Constitutional Remedies Act, and inherent contempt.
Finally, we discuss historical precedents that allowed the States to regulate federal law enforcement activity within their borders. We highlight how first principles such as federalism and separation of powers create a system of governance designed to protect the rights of the people. We recently saw this system in action when the Supreme Court ruled on Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump in a 6-3 decision to reject the President's unilateral imposition of tariffs, which are reserved for the contemplative processes of the legislature.
Read about Dan's platform on his website or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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If you enjoy Forking Off with us, consider supporting us on ⁠Ko-fi⁠, and ⁠follow us⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠, ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠, ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals providing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the FBI, the DOJ, the Department of Commerce, the Army Reserve, the United States, or any past or current employers.

Allan Dinkoff didn't plan to bear witness to the destruction of the civil service when he enrolled in the International Center of Photography's documentary photography program, but he couldn't ignore the story of civil servants targeted by the second Trump administration. Allan spent the last year interviewing and photographing over 65 civil servants across at least 19 federal agencies who left their jobs because of the administration.
Through his project, Targeted: Portraits of Civil Servants Under Trump, Allan challenges the administration's claim that civil servants are just "collateral damage" caused by a need for efficiency. He tells stories of the resilience he witnessed while interviewing a cross-section of America, and how many of the employees pivoted to new roles. In the wake of Reductions-in-Force at the Department of Health and Human Services, Allan highlights the rapid response effort of wellfed to create a support network for fired feds, and the startup micro-bakery Gingersnap Jess Cookies.
Allan's work didn't stop in DC though. He also traveled to Poland to interview former USAID employees who funded their own travel there to assist Ukrainian refugees. More recently, Allan made his way to sunny Los Angeles and sat down with Forking Off hosts Jill and Philip Fields for an in-person interview.
Through our discussion, we explored the idea of what it has meant to be an American for the last 250 years and the existential threat authoritarianism imposes on that idea. Allan also delves deeper into our stories by asking some of the questions we never would have thought to ask each other.
Check out Allan's portfolio on his website, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

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The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals providing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the FBI, the DOJ, the United States, or any past or current employers.

What the fork!? It's only been a year? This feels more like a post-mortem on the American Experiment than a year-end review. Yes, we're celebrating the fact that we survived an entire year of the second Trump administration's assault on democracy, but we're also bracing for the next three.
Last year, we watched as USAID was decimated; domestic terrorists were pardoned; and truth was flipped on its head. This year, we're getting civically fit while embracing the reality that nobody is coming to save us. It's time to wake up, shake off our bias, weigh the facts, challenge authority, resist conformity, and demand accountability. It's time to go forth and do great things.
We're not just doing pep talks though. We're sharing tools that everyone can use to navigate this new information environment and build more resilient institutions. Let's start by putting a label on what's really been happening to American society for the last year. The term that came to define Germany in the 1930s, Gleichshaltung loosely translates to synchronization or coordination, but the English language does little to capture it's ambition. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels' vision was synchronization "to the point where the whole nation will think in unison and there will be only one public opinion."
It sounds alarmist to describe 2025 with such similarity to German Nazification, but the parallels are undeniable. The reservation comes from the first bias we must address, if we wish to remain a free society.
Normalcy bias is often described as a cognitive bias that manifests as a tendency to underestimate the possibility of disaster, believing life will continue as normal, even in the face of overwhelming threats.
Let's say it together. The threat is overwhelming.
So, who's going to stop it?
This leads us to our next bias. The Bystander Effect is a type of cognitive dissonance resulting from the diffusion of responsibility, wherein the more people who are present for an emergency the less likely any one is to intervene. We are seeing this play out across the globe.
It's happening on the individual level when law enforcement officers ignore their duty to intervene in the presence of ICE's unchecked abuse of power. It's also happening at the global scale as governments struggle to address the rapid normative shift.
Where do we start?
The key to challenging the normalization of deviance is learning to spot deception. Even bad lies can greatly disrupt social norms. Identifying techniques to spot deception can make it easier to move forward with confidence. Let's look at a few.
MOM: Does the individual have the Motive, Opportunity, and Means to deceive?
POP: Is the deception consistent with Past Opposition Practices?
MOSES: Is there a concern over the Manipulability of Sources?
EVE: What can we learn from the Evaluation of Evidence?
When we're told to believe a thing to be true while only being allowed a small subset of facts provided by an administration with a history of deceit, we must proceed with caution.
If we can't rely on past sources of information, how can we build resilient institutions?
We start by approaching the challenge from a different perspective called outside-in thinking.
In addition to sharing the stories of those most closely affected by the administration's assault, we'll also be sharing more tips and practical examples of how we can all build resilience in the coming year.

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The views expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals providing them and do not necessarily represent the views of the FBI, the DOJ, the United States, or any past or current employers.