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The New Dark Age

Trump plans on going after many museums, not just the Smithsonian. Trump’s brand of totalitarianism is largely cultural. If Trump could, and I do believe many of us realize this is indeed the case, he would control your thoughts. Only certain thoughts would be allowed in America. He took over Kennedy Center. Why? To control American culture. This is also why he thinks he can eliminate what he decides is “woke” ideology everywhere. Trump will decide how Americans think. Now, of course he won’t really be able to do that, but what we need to understand is that he will never stop trying to excercise total control over our culture, our arts, our minds, our thoughts. He’s trying to attain a degree of totalitarianism that is impossible. Cannot possibly work. But, guaranteed to tear the country apart.

Video:

www.pbs.org

Scholar says Trump's efforts to reframe U.S. history is 'reminiscent of McCarthyism'

President Trump described Smithsonian museums as “out of control” for emphasizing, in his view, “how bad slavery was.” It's part of a pattern by Trump in his second term to reframe historical narratives, in particular about racism and discrimination. Amna Nawaz spoke with historian Peniel Joseph...
www.pbs.org www.pbs.org



On his Truth Social platform Tuesday, President Trump called the Smithsonian Institution and other museums "the last remaining segment of 'WOKE.'" He added, "I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities."

The White House started an audit of the Smithsonian earlier this month. But what about other institutions? It is unclear what legal and financial pressures his administration might pursue in trying to align American museums to his vision.

The president's post on Truth Social was not clear: was he referring just to the Smithsonian museums, or to American museums more broadly?​

NPR asked the White House to clarify this issue. A White House official, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the specifics of the plan, responded in a statement: "President Trump will explore all options and avenues to get the Woke out of the Smithsonian and hold them accountable. He will start with the Smithsonian and then go from there."

The administration's review could include many institutions: the membership of the American Alliance of Museums includes around 22,000 institutions across the country — everything from the giant, internationally-known art museums, to historic houses, natural history museums, local historical societies and botanical gardens. Many address history, identity, the environment and other subjects that are politically polarized.

Trump expands 'woke' criticism from Smithsonian to other museums​

It is unclear what the timeline may be for these reviews, what the metrics might be for success and who would be doing the reviewing.

In a statement to NPR Wednesday, the president and CEO of the American Alliance of Museums, Marilyn Jackson, framed the issue as one of creative and scholarly independence. She wrote:

"The idea of extending federal reviews to the nation's 22,000 museums misunderstands how museums operate. The vast majority are independent nonprofits, guided by professional standards and community trust. Museums cannot and should not be subject to government review of their exhibitions. The integrity of museums depends on their independence, and that's what makes them so valuable to the public."
 
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I haven’t checked yet this morning., but I’m sure the “firing” of the CDC director by RFK Jr. is discussed elsewhere on the forum. Just posting a couple of things here as well, because it so illustrates how we are elevating human ignorance over scientific and medical science expertise. MAGA, and more specifically, Kennedy’s MAHA, is determined to destroy good fact-based science, seemingly in all its branches, not just medical science. But in medical science, Kennedy is pushing misinformation designed to kill Americans.

As ignorant as it gets:


View: https://x.com/acrossthemersey/status/1828602987918372973



The man is a total ignoramus, sick in the head, who has his grandchildren bath in polluted water, straps bear carcasses to the roof of his car, and poses the body in public parks, told the Senate confirmation clearing that he would leave vaccines be, making him a bald face lying sack of s***, and he really needs to go. He’s no better than a witch doctor, and not as accurate as one!



Resignations based on principle and conscience. MAHA is the WORST “health”(?”) Initiative in American history!! WTF is wrong with MAGA! As long as we’re being this incredibly stupid, as if the Age of Science never happened(!), as if we’re still living in the Middle Ages(let’s bring back leeches and bleeding sick people out!), might as well appoint a Flat Earth advocate as director of the National Science Foundation……

Highly educated professionals are resigning, RFK Jr.! You are a moron!



View: https://x.com/Smil3yAngel/status/1961038335536738459
 
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Making human ignorance America’s #1 health priority….The jaw dropping lunacy of hearing RFK Jr. talk about “gold standard science”. He is a proven enemy of science.

www.statnews.com

Health secretary RFK Jr. issues harsh critique of CDC after ouster of its director

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that the CDC suffers from political bias one day after he abruptly fired the agency's director.
www.statnews.com www.statnews.com

“There is really a deeply, deeply embedded — I would say malaise at the agency, and we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions for this agency to [return] to the gold standard science and what it was when we were growing up, which was the most respected health agency in the world.”
 

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement in response to Director Susan Monarez’s public statement regarding RFK Jr.’s attempts to weaponize public health and put the lives of the American people at risk and the abrupt resignation of senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“I had serious doubts about Director Monarez’s willingness to stand up against RFK Jr.’s personal mission to destroy public health in America—I’m glad to say that I was wrong.

“Susan Monarez’s willingness to stand up for science and protect the integrity of the CDC is commendable and deeply important—however, it only further underscores the reality at HHS: Director Monarez is not the problem, RFK Jr. is. If there are any adults left in the White House, it’s well past time they face reality and fire RFK Jr. He is a dangerous man who is determined to abuse his authority to act on truly terrifying conspiracy theories and disinformation—leaving us unprepared for the next deadly pandemic and snuffing out potential cures while he’s at it. He has already taken utterly reckless steps to dismantle our public health infrastructure, and he has even undermined President Trump’s own legacy of helping establish access to lifesaving vaccines through groundbreaking mRNA research.

“Further we should all be deeply disturbed by the resignation of highly qualified CDC officials whose work quite literally saves lives. It will be an extremely frightening world if the CDC is hollowed out and its ranks filled only by conspiracy theorists that RFK Jr. agrees with. RFK Jr. comes into conflict with every credible researcher, scientist, or doctor because he lives in his own unhinged world of anti-vaccine disinformation—our current trajectory is not tenable. We need serious people working at CDC and across HHS.

“We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired. I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to regret their vote to confirm RFK Jr. will join me in calling for his immediate termination from office.”
www.theatlantic.com

‘It Feels Like the CDC Is Over’

The CDC’s departing leaders discuss the agency’s future—or lack thereof.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is coming undone. The White House announced last night that it had ousted the agency’s newly sworn-in director, Susan Monarez, whose lawyers insist that she still has her job because only President Donald Trump himself can fire her. (Yes, it’s a mess.) Four top officials resigned yesterday. Two of them—Demetre Daskalakis, who was the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and Debra Houry, who was the chief medical officer—told me that the group quit together to signal that they believe science is being ignored and that public health is in danger.

The departures leave a leadership void that, according to current and former CDC officials, has demoralized the agency’s staff and will further undermine its ability to provide reliable guidance to Americans. As Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, who resigned from the agency in June as co-leader of a group that advises outside experts on COVID vaccines, told me, “It feels like the CDC is over.”

I spoke with Daskalakis this morning just before he and Houry were escorted from the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters. He told me that his decision to resign was prompted by a number of factors, including “the replacement of science with ideology” and “the sidelining of scientists so that their data cannot be seen.” He also fears that important information isn’t finding its way to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. According to Daskalakis, no one from his center had been allowed to brief Kennedy directly on any of the issues that it covers, including polio, measles, COVID-19, and various vaccines. “I’m not sure where he’s getting his information other than Substacks that are erroneous,” he said.

A spokesperson for Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment. In an interview with Fox & Friends this morning, Kennedy declined to comment on personnel matters. “CDC has problems,” he said, accusing the agency of spreading “misinformation” during the coronavirus pandemic. “We need to look at the priorities of the agency, if there’s really a deeply, deeply embedded—I would say—malaise at the agency, and we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions.”

THIS:

Yesterday’s attempt to remove Monarez as director was the last straw in the four officials’ decision to resign, Houry said. (Along with Houry and Daskalakis, the resignees include Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Jennifer Layden, who oversaw the agency’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.) Houry told me that officials across the CDC were excited for Monarez to take the helm when she was confirmed last month. At the time, Kennedy praised her as a “public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials” and a “longtime champion of MAHA values.” (She was apparently not the administration’s first choice for the position: Before nominating Monarez, the White House withdrew the nomination of David Weldon, a physician and former congressman, over concerns that his anti-vaccine views would undermine his Senate confirmation.) Then, just weeks later, Monarez was shown the door. “When we knew that her job was in jeopardy, that we weren’t going to have scientific leadership anymore, that was the final tipping point for us,” Houry told me. “We could not stay if there was not a scientific leader at CDC.”
 
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Has anyone kept number about highly educated people moving out from America to elsewhere? If so, is it how much higher than in more normal timelines?
 
Step-Back Lauri said:
Has anyone kept number about highly educated people moving out from America to elsewhere? If so, is it how much higher than in more normal timelines?
Click to expand...
There are major recruiting efforts from foreign nations seeking to attract American scientists. And many American scientists are at least contemplating relocating elsewhere.

www.csmonitor.com

The US used to be a haven for research. Now, scientists are packing their bags.

A recent survey of U.S. professors found that 75% were looking for work outside the country. The result is an exodus that has not been seen since European scientists sought refuge on U.S. shores during the World War II era.
www.csmonitor.com www.csmonitor.com

Boosting recruitment of American scientists:


www.theguardian.com

‘The American system is being destroyed’: academics on leaving US for ‘scientific asylum’ in France

Almost 300 researchers have applied for positions at Aix-Marseille University after Trump unleashed his attack on academia
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

No surprise to see academics who specialize in the study of fascism leaving:

www.vanityfair.com

The Fascism Expert at Yale Who’s Fleeing America

Philosophy professor Jason Stanley is leaving the US for Canada, “the Ukraine of North America,” because he believes Trump’s America is “pretty far along” in the grips of fascism.
www.vanityfair.com www.vanityfair.com
 
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Step-Back Lauri said:
Has anyone kept number about highly educated people moving out from America to elsewhere? If so, is it how much higher than in more normal timelines?
Click to expand...
A couple of more perspectives:

harveylawcorporation.com

Why More Americans Are Leaving the US: New Options Abroad

Understand why more Americans are packing up and leaving the US. It's not just talk anymore, the numbers back it up.
harveylawcorporation.com harveylawcorporation.com

theconversation.com

Despite claims they’d move overseas after the election, most Americans are staying put

Even if they don’t support the current administration, most Americans are not actually making plans to leave the country.
theconversation.com theconversation.com
 
RFK Jr. must be fired.

Dr. William Foege served as director of the C.D.C. from 1977-1983. Dr. William Roper served as director of the C.D.C. from 1990-1993. Dr. David Satcher served as director of the C.D.C. from 1993-1998. Dr. Jeffrey Koplan served as director of the C.D.C. from 1998-2002. Dr. Richard Besser served as acting director of the C.D.C. in 2009. Dr. Tom Frieden served as director of the C.D.C. from 2009-2017. Dr. Anne Schuchat served as acting director of the C.D.C. in 2017 and 2018. Dr. Rochelle Walensky served as director of the C.D.C. from 2021-2023. Dr. Mandy Cohen served as director of the C.D.C. from 2023-2025.

Together, they penned this guest essay in The NY Times, sounding the alarm on RFK JR’s effort to damage the health of Americans:


We have each had the honor and privilege of serving as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, either in a permanent or acting capacity, dating back to 1977. Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the C.D.C., the world’s pre-eminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations — every president from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump — alongside thousands of dedicated staff members who shared our commitment to saving lives and improving health.

What Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months — culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced.

Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven “treatments” while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America's health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost.

This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.

C.D.C. is an agency under Health and Human Services. During our respective C.D.C. tenures, we did not always agree with our leaders, but they never gave us reason to doubt that they would rely on data-driven insights for our protection, or that they would support public health workers. We need only look to Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump administration — which produced highly effective and safe vaccines that saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic — as a shining example of what H.H.S. can accomplish when health and science are at the forefront of its mission.

The current H.H.S. leadership, however, operates under a very different set of rules. When Secretary Kennedy administered the oath of office to Dr. Monarez on July 31, he called her “a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials.” But when she refused weeks later to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior C.D.C. staff members, he decided she was expendable.

These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a C.D.C. director. Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary’s demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities.

When the C.D.C. was created in 1946, the average life expectancy in the United States was around 66 years. Today, it is more than 78 years. While medical advances have helped, it is public health that has played the biggest role in improving both the length and quality of life in our nation. The C.D.C. has led efforts to eradicatesmallpox, increase access to lifesaving vaccinations and significantly reduce smoking rates. The agency is also on the front lines in communities across the country, delivering crucial but often less visible wins — such as containing an outbreak of H.I.V. cases in Scott County, Ind., or protecting residents in East Palestine, Ohio, from toxic chemical exposure.

The C.D.C. is not perfect. What institution is? But over its history, regardless of which party has controlled the White House or Congress, the agency has not wavered from its mission. To those on the C.D.C. staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it’s clear that the agency is hurting badly. The loss of Dr. Monarez and other top leaders will make it far more difficult for C.D.C. to do what it has done for about 80 years, to work around the clock to protect Americans from threats to their lives and health.

We have a message for the rest of the nation as well: This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American. Congress must exercise its oversight authority over H.H.S. State and local governments must fill funding gaps where they can.

Philanthropy and the private sector must step up their community investments. Medical groups must continue to stand up for science and truth. Physicians must continue to support their patients with sound guidance and empathy.

And each of us must do what public health does best, to look out for one another.
The men and women who have joined C.D.C. across generations have done so not for prestige or power, but because they believe deeply in the call to service. They deserve an H.H.S. secretary who stands up for health, supports science and has their back. So, too, does our country.


View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lxfPJrAqGuk
 
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I’ve never seen anything like the past two days of testimony by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. If he started foaming at the mouth, it would not have seemed out of place. That’s how deranged his appearance and behavior was. Trump later said he heard Kennedy had done a great job, but that he had not watched. He offered support for Kennedy. Yet, yesterday we clearly saw how Kennedy and MAHA are the height of anti-scientific lunacy.


View: https://x.com/TimHannan/status/1963628522343153683




View: https://x.com/calltoactivism/status/1963647337026253085
 
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