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benfranklinsaid.bsky.social
The Founders are appalled.
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#starwars #andor

BREAKING: Federal agents in plain clothes and unmarked cars tried to snatch 1st graders from LA elementary schools—told staff they had “parental consent.” They lied. When pressed, they HID THEIR IDS. DHS admits they sent them. This wasn’t a welfare check. It was a test run for a police state.

There's no justifying this. They want to hurt people. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

The disparity btwn what’s actually happening in Los Angeles and the way it’s being mischaracterized is one of the biggest stress tests of modern media in recent memory. Botted socials, AI, old clips, declining literacy—it’s like seeing a broken emergency response system hit by a storm.

Exactly. People want dignity, due process, & a chance at citizenship. We need immigration rules that work, but instead of a functioning system we get aggression, chaos, & lawless overreaction. Previous POTUS’s deported millions without sending in the Marines AND they expanded our healthcare coverage

When @dziblatt.bsky.social is quoting these lecture notes, you should be very worried

Fox News’ depiction of the LA protests is a grim fantasy — one that encourages Trump to realize his vision of U.S. troops crushing left-wing dissent.

yeah the big plus for guardsmen of presidents using Title 10 normally is that they get way better benefits. but they’ve decided to screw them out of it.

This is almost grown-in-a-lab bespoke levels of how to cause a major diplomatic crisis with several allies bsky.app/profile/john...

The king will grant favors to his courtiers...

Per my @wired.com colleague @davidgilbert.bsky.social's reporting, we are not gonna Chat GPT or Grok our way outta this one: www.wired.com/story/grok-c...

Trump, talking at Fort Bragg right now about Los Angeles, is doing something I'm not sure I've ever seen a president do: he's actively maligning people in Los Angeles — an American city — in front of U.S. troops. And the troops are applauding. As an Army brat myself, this strikes me as very new.

Hey @jaketapper.bsky.social, I’d like to report a “Bigger Than Watergate.”

The reason I say the US is entering a new dark ages is we’re seeing attacks not just on science, but on the very idea that scientific reasoning should be independent of political control.

Based on some quick math, this alone could fund the NSF Plant Genome Research Program for ~4 years; the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology, which was totally axed in the NSF budget request, for ~9 years; and ~ half the total NSF GRFP budget

Still sitting with the idea it was the US tech industry (erstwhile symbol of progress) through arrogant, ideological, genuinely stupid emissaries in DOGE + robber barons like Musk and Thiel who helped irreparably harm the US scientific enterprise and so future health, security, and prosperity gains

Incarceration rates— ⚖ Los Angeles: 309 per 100,000 people ⚖ South Dakota: 370 per 100,000 people Sources: brookingsregister.com/stories/stat... www.ppic.org/publication/...

"Nobody’s going to spit on our police officers," says Trump, who four months ago pardoned people who beat police officers with pipes, flagpoles, baseball bats and 2-by-4s at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Seems bad.

DOGE is a failure. Promoted by conspiracy theories, nonsense and incompetence, it ruined professionalism and capability and saved nothing. economist.com/united-state... from The Economist

As ICE officers conducted a series of raids targeting Latino communities in Los Angeles, reality star Phil “Dr. Phil” McGraw embedded with immigration officials. Later, Merit TV announced in a press release that its footage will be aired throughout a “2-Night Television Event."

It’s created demands that no government can fulfill, but they are acting as if they can anyway. We are gutting real capacity, and punishing real people, to meet the obligations of a fantasy that liars sold to rubes. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

"How to get people to stop worrying about things that aren't real" is arguably the biggest problem in politics.

Bellingcat CEO @eliothiggins.bsky.social:

Oh, and by the way, there's no massive fraud in Social Security either. There's just demographics.

Yep. Some scientists with communication skills need to pre-bunk this BS with Rogan and the other vectors of mass idiocy before this particular strain of toxic RFK stupidity launches

19 Nobel Prize winners (all extramural scientists) were first to sign the Bethesda Declaration expect many more scientists throughout our biomedical ecosystem to add their support

My latest column: Trump steps up his war on science www.latimes.com/business/sto...