Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
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pt007.bsky.social
Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
@pt007.bsky.social
Cancer & Developmental Biology, PhD👩‍🔬 🏳️‍🌈
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Organic Chemistry, MS
UCLA, Go Bruins 💙 💛
Chemistry, BS
UCSC, Go Slugs 💙💛
Encephalitis Warrior 🧠🔥
Politics
Southern Illinois
Pinned
A hard, necessary 💊 to swallow.
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Happy New Year. The president just threatened Operation Iranian Freedom.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Trump’s ‘Operation Iranian Freedom’
How many foreign wars does the “America First” president intend to start?
www.theatlantic.com
January 2, 2026 at 7:24 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
French Foreign Ministry: “The removal of Maduro from power and the violation of sovereignty constitute a serious act of aggression against the dignity of the Venezuelan people and their right to determine their own future.
January 3, 2026 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
It’s darkly humorous he can’t even muster the ability to give some lip service to democracy or allowing the Venezuelan people to choose their leader.
FOX & FRIENDS: What do you think is next for the Venezuelan people now that you have removed Maduro so he can face American justice?

TRUMP: Well, we're making that decision now. We can't take a chance on letting somebody else run it, just take over where he left off. So we're making that decision
January 3, 2026 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
January 3, 2026 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
It’s not about drugs. If it was, Trump wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month.

It’s about oil and regime change.

And they need a trial now to pretend that it isn’t. Especially to distract from his sinking under Epstein and skyrocketing healthcare costs.
January 3, 2026 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Trump and his cronies can try to dress this up, but it is an illegal act of war to replace Maduro and grab Venezuela's oil for his billionaire buddies.

Full statement below:
January 3, 2026 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Now that they’ve started a war I’ve completely forgotten that they’re pedophiles.
January 3, 2026 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
my plan to get this country back on track consists of one bullet point: i propose we stop pretending stupid people arent stupid just because theyre loud and theres a lot of them
January 3, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
You should be embarrassed to be a member of congress and issuing anything other than impeachment resolutions. You're in the model UN. They should give you legos and a propeller hat
January 3, 2026 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
“Trump had every reason to know before 2003 that Epstein was sexually mistreating Mar-a-Lago employees, some of whom were under the age of consent. The 2003 letter from the beautician created a problem for Trump. His break with Epstein was entirely opportunistic.”

www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Mar-a-Lago Was Key to Jeffrey Epstein’s Criminal Enterprise
New reporting shows that Trump’s split with his pedophile friend was opportunistic.
www.thenation.com
January 2, 2026 at 10:43 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Im seeing a lot of people default into Iraq mode about all of this, but it feels pretty different to me. There’s no popular support and it’s being done by a deeply unpopular President who didn’t even bother to make a case or a plan in a way that the New York Times is already condemning.
Opinion | Trump’s Attack on Venezuela Is Illegal and Unwise
www.nytimes.com
January 3, 2026 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
People are going to try and lure you into debates about whether Maduro was a good guy or not and the thing is, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of discussing whether violent kidnappings and extrajudicial murders by the US government are ok. No, they aren’t! End of convo.
January 3, 2026 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Grok can't apologize. Grok can, when prompted, generate a word sequence that is statistically similar to the colloquial phrases we think of as "apologies," but Grok cannot actually apologize because Grok isn't sentient. But we all have a lot of trouble with this because we assume sentience IS speech
January 2, 2026 at 3:24 AM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Saying ”Grok apologized” is like If I type “YOU’RE A BITCH” into Speak-And-Spell and tell you “Speak-An-Spell says you’re a bitch”
Parker's piece nails why this matters. "Tech companies... would rather not answer for their products’ failures. Every headline that says “Grok apologizes” or “Grok admits” or “Grok says” creates a world where the chatbot takes the fall while Musk and his executives face no scrutiny whatsoever."
I wrote about Grok's CSAM problem and how journalists keep fumbling the story

www.readtpa.com/p/grok-cant-...
January 2, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
The way the press is treating chatbots, like they have agency and they “know” things all of a sudden, crossed the line recently from dumb and obsequious to something else entirely. Treating them as alive and making conscious decisions is an almost religious belief. It won’t age well.
January 3, 2026 at 2:52 AM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Wall Street’s biggest banks made more money financing green projects than they did from working with fossil fuel companies for a fourth straight year, even as they faced ongoing pressure to pull back from the business
Banks Notch Higher Fees From Green Bonds Than Fossil Fuel Debt
Wall Street’s biggest banks made more money financing green projects than they did from working with fossil fuel companies for a fourth straight year, even as they faced ongoing pressure to pull back from the business.
bloom.bg
January 2, 2026 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
“I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump Administration,” the North Carolina Republican Party's communications director wrote in an email response to us. “I would strongly suggest dropping this story.”

We didn't. #ICYMI, read the story that he wanted dropped:
“Biblical Justice, Equal Justice, for All”: How North Carolina’s Chief Justice Transformed His State and America
Paul Newby, a born-again Christian, has turned his perch atop North Carolina’s Supreme Court into an instrument of political power. Over two decades, he’s driven changes that have reverberated well be...
www.propublica.org
January 2, 2026 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
Bari Weiss’s CBS News directly attacking academics, subject matter experts, in the promo for her new CBS Evening News.
January 2, 2026 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
January 2, 2026 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
What does it mean when your doctors keep insisting you redo the cognitive exam
January 2, 2026 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
America will regret snubbing Europe.

economist.com/europe/2025/...
Why America still needs Europe
Without European “followership”, America ceases to be a leader
economist.com
December 31, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
One of the most important pieces I've read this year. A lot of journalists tried to capture what it was like on the ground, as Chicagoans resisted an onslaught of federal agents attacking our neighbors, and @melissagiragrant.com pulled it off.
Inside Chicago’s Neighborhood ICE Resistance
Residents have organized a formidable network to protect immigrant communities from Trump’s brutal deportation program. Their efforts are making a genuine difference.
newrepublic.com
January 1, 2026 at 12:23 AM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
This should not be shrugged aside. They have stopped with the fake 22 million illegal immigrants things and are flat out saying we want to deport 10's of millions of citizens and legal residents from "third world countries" Basically they are advocating removing 1/3 of the population on a gov site.
December 31, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
DHS now says it's aiming for 100 million deportations. In an amazing coincidence, there are 104 million Black and Hispanic people living in the U.S. right now.
December 31, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Vanessa Enriquez-Rios
There is a certain kind of “contrarian thinker” who believes Germany ruling over a depopulated East was a desirable outcome because Stalin was bad.

These people should be locked in a room with a bunch of Poles to explain themselves.
January 1, 2026 at 5:38 PM