The Darker Side of the Spectrum – Volume XIII
While the country fixates on who shot Charlie Kirk – and conservative pundits rush to blame “the left” despite no confirmed motive – something far more consequential is quietly unfolding behind the scenes.
Disability rights are being gutted.
Essential educational supports are being erased.
And the people most affected – non-speaking autistics, deafblind children, and special ed teachers – are nowhere near the headlines.
Meanwhile, the same voices now demanding accountability for Kirk’s shooter were silent just weeks ago when real policy decisions began shredding the scaffolding that helps disabled students survive and thrive.
This is your recap.
$11 Million in Special Education and Deafblind Services – Gone
“Make no mistake, losing these funds will directly impact our ability to serve some of our most vulnerable kids.”
— Wisconsin Superintendent Jill Underly
In early September, the U.S. Department of Education abruptly terminated nearly $11 million in IDEA Part D grants – midway through a five-year funding cycle.
Programs impacted include:
- The Wisconsin Deafblind Technical Assistance Project (serving students with vision and hearing loss, 85% of whom have four or more co-occurring disabilities)
- The State Personnel Development Grant (supporting teacher induction, recruitment, and retention in special education)
Other affected states include Washington, Oregon, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
No warning. No public input. Just gone.
The administration’s official explanation? The programs “reflect the prior administration’s priorities.”
Translation: supporting deafblind kids and special ed teachers isn’t a priority anymore.
Autism and Environmental Research – Silenced
While RFK Jr. publicly claims to be hunting for the root causes of autism, his department has been quietly defunding or cutting more than 50 federally supported research projects focused on environmental risk factors.
This includes:
- Studies on chemical exposure during pregnancy and infancy
- Longitudinal research on air pollution, pesticides, and parental occupational hazards
- Investigations into how marginalized communities face higher risk due to compounding environmental injustice
Entire divisions have been shut down. Scientists displaced. Papers near publication shelved. And yet, public-facing narratives continue to center vaccines and Tylenol while the real science gets starved.
The Henry Ford “Study” That Wasn’t
During a Senate hearing, RFK-aligned attorney Aaron Siri unveiled an analysis from Henry Ford Health that appeared to show vaccinated children were significantly more likely to experience chronic illnesses.
Except:
- The study is unpublished
- Henry Ford Health itself has disavowed the conclusions
- Experts across the spectrum have noted severe methodological flaws, including detection bias and unadjusted confounders
Yet this “study” is now being cited across anti-vaccine media as the smoking gun.
This isn’t science. It’s propaganda dressed in data.
RFK Jr.’s Autism Registry, CDC Purge, and the CHD Echo Chamber
Let’s not forget the broader pattern:
- RFK Jr. proposed an autism registry – a deeply concerning database with no privacy framework
- He fired all 17 members of the CDC vaccine safety advisory committee
- He replaced them with well-documented anti-vaccine activists, including one who called the term “anti-vaxxer” “high praise”
- His organization, Children’s Health Defense, is promoting fear-based narratives about aluminum, acetaminophen, and childhood vaccines
This isn’t about health freedom. It’s about hollowing out public trust in science while redirecting attention away from policies that actively harm disabled children.
These Cuts Are National, Not Just Partisan
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about targeting only blue states or Democratic strongholds.
Yet, many of the hardest-hit states – Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts – have Democratic governors and voted against Trump in 2024.
But this isn’t just political payback. It’s a systemic rollback of disability supports.
Children in every corner of the country – red and blue, rural and urban – depend on these programs. And they’re being cut off, quietly, while the country argues about Charlie Kirk and performs performative outrage on cable news.
The Real Emergency Isn’t on the News
While the cameras fixate on outrage cycles, these are the realities being erased:
- Deafblind students losing access to the tools they need to communicate
- Special education teachers burning out with no support pipeline
- Families of non-speaking autistic children watching their last slivers of federal support vanish
- Lifesaving research being dismantled while misinformation is promoted in its place
This isn’t an oversight.
It’s a deliberate de-prioritization of disabled lives.
And it’s happening right now.
We See It. And We Will Keep Naming It.
You won’t find this on Fox News. Or CNN. Or MSNBC.
But you will find it here.
Because someone has to tell the truth about what’s being stolen from our most vulnerable children.
This is the darker side of the spectrum.
And we’re not done exposing it.