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crankysocrates.bsky.social
@crankysocrates.bsky.social
Editor, miniatures painter, ttrpg gamer, cat lover, leftist, humanist, LGBTQ+ ally, don't know when to keep my mouth shut. Will do almost anything for Reeses Cups. Well reasoned statements are my own.
Reposted
End childhood vaccines + villainize infant formula + stop SIDS prevention programs + dismantle maternal health programs = booming business for tiny coffin makers.
RFK Jr: "All of the ingenuity of corporate America has not produced an infant formula that is superior in nutrition and all the qualities that we want to the infant formula that God made, which is the infant formula in a mother's breast."
December 8, 2025 at 11:53 PM
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Filtration + ventilation!

Air filters: I prefer “modified CR box with PC fan” type. Quiet, effective, inexpensive & easy to build and to replace filters.
* In Canada: aidankepo.wixsite.com/northboxsyst...
* Similar in the US is “Luggable” housefresh.com/best-air-pur...

1/
December 7, 2025 at 4:33 PM
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Seems fine, mild even?
December 6, 2025 at 10:40 PM
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Before universal newborn vaccination for Hep B, only about 1/2 of newborns who contracted Hep B got it from the birthing parent. The new ACIP recommendations will needlessly expose those infants for 2 months, and 90% of those who get Hep B will be at risk for liver cancer and cirrhosis. MAHA ftw
December 7, 2025 at 1:47 AM
I just want to cry.
This afternoon, I was in a meeting with Jay Bhattacharya, and I can confirm this is *exactly* what he both wants and will be doing.

THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.
I missed this from a couple of weeks ago, but if you're an NIH-funded investigator, please read.

Peer review will exist to make things look legitimate, but can, and will, be over-ruled. Funding decisions, ultimately, will be done by political appointees.

grants.nih.gov/news-events/...
December 6, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reposted
Jay Bhattacharya is advocating a eugenicist public health policy.
🎁🔗
"In the event of a sudden pandemic, what should we do? Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, offered a remarkably blunt answer: nothing."

#AMR 📈
#H5N1 📈
#COVID 📈
#misinformation 📈
#PublicHealth 📉
___________________
= MAHA

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/o...
Opinion | We Can’t Diet and Exercise Our Way Out of the Next Pandemic
www.nytimes.com
December 6, 2025 at 8:57 PM
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According to this Supreme Court:

❌ Using race conscious admissions in college to give minorities a fair shot

✅ Using race to profile people on the street to detain for immigration sweeps

✅ Using race to disenfranchise minorities in elecciones

The only consistency is white supremacy.
December 5, 2025 at 12:37 AM
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Every time ACIP meets, Bill Cassidy (R, Coward City) makes pathetic mewling sounds about how bad the committee is.

It is Bill Cassidy’s fault that ACIP is no longer a legitimate scientific body.

Sir, you are a fucking U.S. Senator. Impeach RFK Jr or STFU.
December 5, 2025 at 12:06 AM
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NEW: Federal agents wearing tactical gear and wielding assault rifles busted into an apartment in Jackson Heights Thursday morning as a helicopter hovered overhead, according to eyewitnesses and video obtained by THE CITY.

buff.ly/hbjzh2q
Feds Bust into Jackson Heights Apartment Building In Pre-Dawn Raid
Dozens of agents wielding assault rifles took two middle-aged, Spanish-speaking people away in cuffs early Thursday morning as a helicopter hovered overhead.
www.thecity.nyc
December 4, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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Everyone in Chicago needs to read this AND TAKE ACTION. Everyone else should read this and ask what's happening where you are with your public library systems.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has proposed disastrous cuts to our city's libraries while setting aside $5M for a ShotSpotter replacement. As library associate Sara Heymann told me, “Libraries embody everything we need to fight back against fascism.” My piece on what’s at stake and how to fight back:
You Can’t Fight Fascism While Defunding Libraries
“Libraries embody everything that we need right now to fight back against fascism," says Sara Heymann.
organizingmythoughts.org
December 3, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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If new proposals detailed in an FDA memo are put into place, experts told me it would mean the end of annual flu shots. And end of most vaccines for pregnant people. And maybe the end of updates to pneumonia vaccines. And more.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...
FDA official proposes ‘impossible’ standards for vaccine testing that could curtail access to immunizations
www.cidrap.umn.edu
December 3, 2025 at 1:43 PM
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Under Trump, the NIH is giving fewer grants to fewer scientists. The grants awarded are smaller and scientists have less time to spend them.

Projects in cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorder, and more are going unfunded.

“Make America Healthy Again.”
The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine
A quiet policy change means the government is making fewer bets on long-term science.
www.nytimes.com
December 2, 2025 at 10:01 PM
I'm sure this decision won't cause any problems. Ugh.

CU to pay $10 million to settle lawsuit over COVID vaccine mandate share.google/9IEagXM1f1kA...
CU to pay $10 million to settle lawsuit by former medical school employees who refused COVID vaccine
The plaintiffs had religious objections to the vaccine, but CU determined their objections weren’t legitimate and fired them, according to the Thomas More Society.
share.google
December 2, 2025 at 9:16 PM
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There's a pretty great Tumblr post about this:
November 26, 2025 at 2:53 AM
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Academics should really start thinking about whether it makes sense to continue operating in states where a girl can turn in a physics paper that just says, “Jesus never talked about atoms,” and you’ll be fired for giving her an appropriate grade.
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
December 1, 2025 at 12:16 AM
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A further way to spin this whole travesty is to point to it as evidence of how manufactured every battle in the culture war against universities is, have don’t with it, and never pay these clowns attention again every time they pretend to have had their speech curtailed.
Condolences to the students at OU who *were* working hard, doing the course work and earning good grades long before the administration there decreed that you only need to say "as the Bible teaches" and be done with it.

I'm sorry your university hates you and hope you can transfer somewhere good.
If I was working at OU, I would just start handing out 100's to every student and stop writing comments.
November 30, 2025 at 11:27 PM
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OU administration would never--never--stand with its instructors.

I have never met a bunch more in complete lockstep with the reactionary Christian right and more eager to do the bidding of orgs like TPUSA and Fox News.
Administration should be standing with the instructor.

This goes beyond cowardice.
OU has put the professor here on administrative leave:
November 30, 2025 at 11:42 PM
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In the right’s telling, the origins of "gender ideology" are varied: It is false consciousness, a leftist lie, a plot by globalist elites, a spiritual affront to the Lord—or all of these things combined.

The reality? It's hateful rhetoric designed to wipe out transness itself.
How the right uses "gender ideology" to blame trans people for everything
MAGA learned from global autocrats the language needed to push fear.
www.motherjones.com
November 30, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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I know a lot of footage and commentary is swirling about today but it’s important to convey that the people who gathered outside that ICE garage in lower Manhattan were *so* ten toes down focused.

This person who gets maced and just calmly flips the bird & keeps going is *quintessential.*
November 29, 2025 at 9:24 PM
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Still haven't read the full agreement because I deserve nice things occasionally. But there's really a need for a propublica-type investigation into the social network of these boards, presidents, & donors with the admin. At the same time, exploring the similarities and differences across deals.
I would love to see detailed reporting about how these deals come together. This one looks like an inside job even more than Columbia’s.
I’ll look at it in more depth later but Northwestern’s agreement seems more campus-specific than previous deals and imposes restrictions on campus conduct beyond what others ave agreed to. Northwestern seems to have surrendered autonomy to a shocking extent. www.northwestern.edu/president/do...
November 29, 2025 at 4:59 PM
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600 ICE agents were supposed to be deployed to Canal Street. Hundreds of New Yorkers gathered instead.

Quick summary by me:
November 29, 2025 at 6:55 PM
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"Western civilization," the font, the 11 stars - 11 states in the confederacy, for the record.

Why is this never news? Why are we letting our government agencies do this sort of thing while the news agencies report on hallucinated trade deals and act like everything is normal
November 29, 2025 at 5:20 PM
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New resource⚡️ Block it! Don’t Build It. Don’t Fill It. Don’t Fuel It.

A mini-toolkit to take action to slow down and disrupt the government’s kidnapping, detention, and deportation machine.

Info on strategies/tactics, ways to take action, and more:
www.interruptingcriminalization.com/block-it
November 21, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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"Academic freedom is being eroded internally by university administrators as well as externally by politicians." -USC @aaup.org president Laura Isabel Serna in the LA Times

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

archive link: archive.ph/TxBWo
Contributor: Fearing Trump, universities themselves restrict academic freedom
Some institutions may have avoided the ire of the federal government by preemptively undermining research and teaching.
www.latimes.com
November 28, 2025 at 9:50 PM
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Extortion worked. Northwestern had not been able to draw down money on grants since April. Hemorrhaging money.

But the likely long-term consequences for NU and other schools is clear.

New mascot to replace the Wildcat: A tame cat with two broken kneecaps.

Mew…
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university

Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 2:11 AM