Correction:
It's even stupider than that. He thinks this has improved his reputation when it's done the opposite
I've always found it weird that a group that is obsessed with taking supplements gets worried about the supplement being in water instead
I think there's a psychological element to it, of control.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Well, yes. Too much fluoride bad, too little fluoride bad.Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses - PMC
Recently, epidemiological studies have suggested that fluoride is a human developmental neurotoxicant that reduces measures of intelligence in children, placing it into the same category as toxic metals (lead, methylmercury, arsenic) and ...
It really is ego strokes, almost all of them claim that there remedy is some sort of secret that, until recently, only the elite could get but that now its finally being available to the one smart enough to take the opportunity.
Seems that Trump had pardoned white collar criminals who had been due to pay back $1 billion. This is including some who had not had their fines set, so would potentially have been more. That $1 billion is partly fines payable to the state, but also repayment to victims of scams.If you are for example, in finance, an innovativeTrump Admin Orders FBI to Deprioritize White Collar Crime, Shift Focus to Immigration: Report
The FBI has ordered its agents to scale back white-collar crime investigations and focus more on immigration enforcement, according to a report by Reuters.www.mediaite.com
grifterentrepreneur or catholic priests, now is the time to take your crime'ing to the next level.
Republicans believe that it is not the job of the government to protect poor people.If you are for example, in finance, an innovativeTrump Admin Orders FBI to Deprioritize White Collar Crime, Shift Focus to Immigration: Report
The FBI has ordered its agents to scale back white-collar crime investigations and focus more on immigration enforcement, according to a report by Reuters.grifterentrepreneur or catholic priests, now is the time to take your crime'ing to the next level.
oh almost missed the thread symbol indicating more words;Trump’s ‘fear factor’: Scientists go silent as funding cuts escalate
Many worry about retribution. But for others, speaking out is worth the risk
Kate Starbird has weathered right-wing attacks on her digital misinformation research for years.Jovelle Tamayo/The Washington Post via Getty Images
In February, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Rebekah Tromble launched a program to advise scientists and journalists targeted for intimidation and harassment. But she announced it quietly, fearing the very kind of attacks the initiative was meant to counter. “We were truly concerned that trying to draw too much attention to our work would jeopardize our funding,” says the George Washington University social scientist. “It’s a bit counterintuitive for a program that is actually trying to reach and help people.”
Tromble’s paradoxical situation is emblematic of the fear and self-censorship coursing through the nation’s scientific establishment today. As the Trump administration fires swaths of government researchers, cancels scientific grants, and targets leading universities with punishing funding freezes, scientists who might once have welcomed public attention for their work or spoken up on issues affecting their field are instead opting for silence.
“The lived experience of a scientist right now is terrifying,” said one prominent health researcher who asked not to be named out of concern their funding would be targeted. “We love getting our research in The New York Times and Science. You can imagine how much fear is involved if we are saying ‘no.’”
Interviews with science advocacy groups and scientists working in a range of disciplines confirm that what Jen Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, calls “the fear factor” is rampant. Scientists “have been made to feel like they cannot open their mouth for fear of losing whatever they have left,” she says.
Jones sees it as an escalation of tactics already on display before Trump returned to the White House. She points to billionaire Elon Musk, enlisted by Trump to lead a campaign to shrink federal spending, who used his massive following on his social media platform, X, to target midlevel government officials, including scientists who would normally go unnoticed. “Trump and Musk have spent years perfecting their campaign of fear and intimidation,” she says. Well before the election, Tromble conceived her program in response to that mounting threat.
Now, the rhetoric is coupled with control of the vast levers of government, which the new administration has swiftly used to cut funding for specific research projects and institutions. Since Trump’s inauguration, the two premier federal science funding agencies, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have together canceled more than 2000 grants totaling more than $1.5 billion.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Science in a statement that “the Trump administration is spending its first few months reviewing the previous administration’s projects, identifying waste, and realigning our research spending to match the American people’s priorities and continue our innovative dominance.” NSF declined to answer questions about whether agency officials have heard from scientists afraid of retribution, or whether they were concerned such fears might affect open discussions about research. NIH did not respond to a request for comment.
Although fields such as climate science and public health faced political attacks before this year, U.S. scientists of many stripes now feel at heightened risk, says Janice Lachance, CEO of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), which has nearly 60,000 members working in earth and space science. Some researchers have asked the organization to scrub their names from its public list of committee volunteers because of concern that being identified for their work might make them vulnerable to retribution. Others have demurred when AGU officials asked to share their stories of funding cuts with congressional staff trying to document impacts on active research projects.
Even scientists accustomed to controversy and the public spotlight acknowledge the fear factor. The threats are “so vast and capricious,” says Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University epidemiologist and veteran of political struggles around AIDS research going back to the 1980s. “As I’m sitting here talking to you, I realize it’s not without its risks.”
Gonsalves was one of nearly 900 Yale faculty who signed an April letter calling on the university to resist any threats to academic freedom. He says many scientists worry their institutions won’t support them if they speak out. “They are very worried about whether their colleagues, universities, institutions have their back.” Lachance agrees, noting, “Scientists are seeing some major institutions—some very powerful private sector entities—proceeding with caution.”
Several senior scientists who asked not to be named said that even if they could weather any damage, they keep quiet because they worry about the impact of a lost grant on Ph.D. students, laboratory staff, and others. “It’s all the people who depend on you,” said a health science professor who asked not to be named.
There are signs that scientists are starting to feel emboldened. Gonsalves points to Harvard University’s resistance to demands from the Trump administration as a watershed moment. In April, Harvard President Alan Garber sent a letter to administration officials vigorously rejecting a list of demands for federal oversight of university operations. Harvard has since sued to overturn a federal funding freeze on more than $2.2 billion in research grants imposed by the administration—which in turn cut off all future grant funding to the university.
At 62, Gonsalves says he has concluded that any price he pays for speaking out is outweighed by the toll the current administration is taking on the future of scientists and research in the United States. “It’s the next generation we have to protect and care about,” he says. “That’s what keeps me going.”
Scientists might also be realizing that there’s little safety in silence, says Kate Starbird, a University of Washington computer scientist who for years has been targeted by right-wing activists and some Republican members of Congress for her work on digital misinformation. At a recent conference on computer-human interaction hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery, she met scientists whose NSF grants had been canceled even though their research had no obvious connection to conservative hot-button issues. “I just don’t know [that] there’s a lot of wisdom in keeping our heads down anymore,” says Starbird, who has been outspoken for years. “I never had the option of keeping my head down.”
Tromble decided to be more vocal as well after NSF canceled funding for the final year of a 3-year, $5 million grant to study online harassment of experts and design a system to help people who are targeted. “The big risk for us was losing the funding, and now we’ve lost the funding,” Tromble says of her earlier decision to keep a low profile. She is now discussing her research more openly and working to raise philanthropic money to help maintain Expert Voices Together, the program launched in February.
Starbird hopes others will feel emboldened. She fears the scientific community is in danger of missing the chance to shape public perceptions about what the new administration is doing to U.S. research—and she’s taking lessons from her own experience. After the 2020 presidential election, she and fellow researchers were accused of conspiring to censor right-wing claims that the election was stolen from Trump. At first, they decided to ignore the false charges—a missed chance to push back against them before they metastasized, she says. Four years later, she says, “I think we are at risk of missing the golden window.”
Where were you when Newsom screwed over tons of people?
Where were you when the last administration did the same thing?
the violent western colonial project continues unimpeded
Razed in last few weeksGazans Once Escaped To Rafah. Now Israel Is Razing It.
May 15, 2025
Last year, a million Palestinians fled to Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, to escape the brunt of Israel’s bombardment in its war against Hamas. When Israeli forces later invaded Rafah itself, they flattened areas along the border with Egypt, but many neighborhoods were largely spared the worst of the war.
That is no longer the case.
The Israeli military has destroyed extensive parts of Rafah since it ended a cease-fire in March after talks with Hamas collapsed. In early May, after much of the destruction was already complete, Israel announced it would soon launch an “intensive” escalation of its campaign in Gaza. Over the previous two nights, strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian officials said. On Tuesday, the Israeli military targeted Muhammad Sinwar, a top Hamas leader in Gaza, near a hospital in Khan Younis.
Satellite images analyzed by The New York Times show that the Israeli military has flattened large areas in and around the city of Rafah and built new military infrastructure in the last two months.
0.5 Miles - Rafah - Taha Hussein St. - FEB. 1 - GAZA STRIP - Detail - EGYPT - Source: Satellite images via Planet Labs
0.5 Miles - Rafah - Taha Hussein St. - MAY 11 - GAZA STRIP - Detail - EGYPT - Source: Satellite images via Planet Labs
0.5 Miles - Rafah - Razed before the cease-fire - Taha Hussein St. - Razed after the cease-fire - Newly built - road - GAZA STRIP - Source: Satellite images via Planet Labs
Before the cease-fire in January, Israel had demolished areas of Rafah along Gaza’s borders. But in areas of Rafah away from the borders, many buildings were still standing, though damaged.
The recent destruction is much more far-reaching, flattening mosques, schools, greenhouses and even greenery.
In early April, after the fighting resumed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel’s goal was to cut Rafah off from the rest of Gaza. Now, the images show that the Israeli military has completed a ring of destruction around the city.
Israeli leaders say capturing more territory inside Gaza will pressure Hamas to surrender and release the remaining hostages that the group has held since it led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel’s defense minister vowed that Israeli forces would “clear out” the areas and “prevent any threat,” including in Rafah.
Israeli security officials have previously said that tunnels between Egypt and Gaza have allowed Hamas to stock up on weaponry and other supplies.
In response to a question from The Times about the Israeli military’s operations in Rafah, the military said that it was part of an effort to secure operational control and conduct counterterrorism operations.
“We will replicate the model implemented in Rafah in other areas of the Strip as well,” said Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesperson, in a press briefing last week.
Demolishing Block by Block
Here is what the operation looks like on the ground: Four excavators could be seen in a video verified by The Times tearing down a row of buildings in Rafah’s Shaboura neighborhood in April. The video, first shared on an Israeli Telegram channel, was taken from an armored vehicle.
(a video from telegram I can't get link to without downloading app it appears, easier to watch in article)
Ali Abu Express via Telegram
Satellite imagery shows that hundreds of buildings were destroyed in this neighborhood during the month of April, including on the block where the video was filmed.
BEFORE THE WAR - BEFORE THE CEASE-FIRE - MAY 3 - Approximate - location of video - footage - Source: Satellite images via Planet Labs
Earlier this month, the Israeli security cabinet approved a new plan to call up tens of thousands of additional soldiers, to seize and hold territory in the embattled enclave, and to forcibly displace Palestinians to the south. But the satellite imagery shows the areas of the south where buildings are still standing are getting smaller and smaller.
Another video shows four buildings destroyed in a controlled demolition. The video, uploaded on an Israeli soldier’s Instagram account and shared by the Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi on his X account, was filmed in northern Rafah, where much of the destruction has taken place. Satellite image shows that the demolition took place sometime in April.
(same video issue as above)
Younis Tirawi via X
New Construction
Israeli forces are not just clearing land. They are building on it.
One new road already stretches more than three miles from the Israeli border across Rafah into agricultural areas. It is protected by berms, trenches and several military outposts.
And other construction is moving at a rapid clip, the satellite images show.
Several new military outposts, often graded, paved and surrounded by defensive walls, have been built across southern Gaza in the past month. Soldiers have also commandeered buildings to use as bases, such as an under-construction hospital.
0.5 Miles - GAZA STRIP - Graded area - Newly built roads - Detail - Graded area - Hospital under construction before war used as staging ground “Morag corridor” - Tal al Sultan - Rafah - EGYPT - Source: Satellite image via Planet Labs
Israel calls the road it has constructed from the Israeli border the “Morag Corridor,” which Mr. Netanyahu said last month was intended to cut Rafah off from the rest of the enclave. The name is a reference to a Jewish settlement that existed in the area until Israel withdrew its soldiers and civilians from Gaza two decades ago.
What the construction might mean for the long term is uncertain. Some Israeli officials have agitated for Israel to rebuild Jewish settlements in the enclave, but Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed the prospect for now.
Mr. Netanyahu said last week, after much of the construction and razing in Rafah was already in progress, that Israel was “on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza.”
Are they private or state funded? If the latter, that's probably an unconstitutional 1A violation. If the former, they're allowed to set whatever standards they want so there's probably no legal recourse aside from making it a big enough PR disaster that they do a 180 on it.
Where were you when colleges wouldn't let students come to classes that they paid for?
