# Heh. I called it. I knew that conservatives would try to prosecute climate change activists **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [March 13, 2025, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517 "2025-03-13T06:20:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/1 "2025-03-13T06:20:30Z")
I guess it is nothing to crow about. I cynically started a IMHO post back in 2016 aimed at conservatives whether we should fire climate scientists for incompetence (for being wrong about climate change) or whether we should prosecute them for fraud (as they must know that climate change is fake and are taking tax-payer dollars). While the poll is long gone, you can see the thread [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-should-we-prosecute-climate-scientists-for-fraud/774457). Anyway, it looks like [the Trump administration is moving to charge climate change groups for “conspiracy to defraud the United States."](https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations) I knew it would come to this. It is the logical conclusion to their denouncement and denial of science. I put this in the pit because fuck these assholes. I hope they rot in hell. Edited to correct stupid mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/2 "2025-03-13T08:09:18Z")
Why is this a surprise. They’re still clamoring to prosecute (or worse yet, execute without trail) Doctor Anthony Fauci, an actual hero of our time. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/3 "2025-03-13T13:50:35Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > Anyway, it looks like [the Trump administration is moving to charge climate change groups for “conspiracy to defraud the United States."](https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations) I knew it would come to this. It is the logical conclusion to their denouncement and denial of science. Oh, they aren’t going to stop with this. To the extent that we are already not doing anything effective about climate change other than crafting ‘narratives’ about how great we are doing with renewables, they are actually trying to shut down not just climate monitoring but [surveillance for extreme weather events and public outreach](https://www.weather.gov/tbw/GovtShutdown). > [@Monty](#): > > They’re still clamoring to prosecute (or worse yet, execute without trail) Doctor Anthony Fauci, an actual hero of our time. From a post I wrote nearly five years ago now: > [@Sell me on: Bill Gates as a COVID-19 "expert"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sell-me-on-bill-gates-as-a-covid-19-expert/852948/2): > > There are, of course, professions actually working in the field of public health and infectious disease research whose knowledge and experience far eclipses dilettantes such as Gates, but despite the recent meteoric celebrity of Dr. Anthony Fauci, as of six months ago you’d be hard pressed to find one person in a hundred who had actually heard of him despite the fact that **he’s been the Captain America of the infectious disease world for thirty-odd years and has been involved in addressing nearly every disease epidemic in the Western Hemisphere, not only directing NIAID but working in the field with patients, publishing papers, and co-editing a widely read series of handbooks on the topics of allergies and infectious disease.** Tony Fauci has been pursued and threatened for promoting medical science in the public interest because there are people who just don’t want to hear anything that contradicts their parochial world view. I can’t even imagine what it is like to have a forty-odd year career devoted to public service only to have a venal kook like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. be appointed Secretary of HHS and systematically dismantle basic public health systems like childhood vaccination and pathogen surveillance. We are really going down a path of superstition and persecution of anyone do defies this regressive doctrine. Margaret Atwood intended _The Handmaid’s Tale_ to be a somewhat hyperbolic allegory, not a futurist prediction of the United States, but here we are, I guess. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/4 "2025-03-13T15:25:13Z")
Oh, it’s not a surprise to me, but if you go through that thread I linked to there was a lot of pearl clutching by SDMB conservatives saying it would never happen. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/5 "2025-03-13T16:07:23Z")
Habitat for Humanity. They’re going after Habitat. Welp. If there was any doubt left, they are truly the party of evil. Can’t have poor people living in actual homes, or have another president’s legacy outshine the Tangerine Traitor’s. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/6 "2025-03-13T16:15:46Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > Habitat for Humanity. They’re going after Habitat. The organization is closely associated with Jimmy Carter, who received a lot of praise for his humanitarian work around the time of his funeral. Trump has to destroy his legacy. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/7 "2025-03-13T16:20:57Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > While the poll is long gone, you can see the thread [here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-should-we-prosecute-climate-scientists-for-fraud/774457). Well, that thread was quite a blast from the past with not just a few statements that did not, to put it mildly, age well, and a not inconspicuous level of crazy like the poster [proclaiming his love for Donald Trump and proposing to move the majority of the US Naval forces into the South China Sea to intimidate China to “stop stealing our jobs” that we offshored to them for the cheap labor costs and not having to adhere to environmental protections](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-should-we-prosecute-climate-scientists-for-fraud/774457/29). Whatever happened to that guy? Stranger ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/8 "2025-03-13T16:25:31Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Trump has to destroy his legacy. A legacy is going to be destroyed but it isn’t going to be Carter’s. Habitat can be rebuilt but trump will forever be enshrined in the history books as the worst President by far America has ever had (and that is saying something). ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/9 "2025-03-13T16:28:02Z")
> [@BippityBoppityBoo](#): > > Habitat can be rebuilt but trump will forever be enshrined in the history books as the worst President by far America has ever had Depends on who’s writing the history books. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/10 "2025-03-13T16:38:37Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Why is this a surprise. They’re still clamoring to prosecute (or worse yet, execute without trail) Doctor Anthony Fauci, an actual hero of our time. Because the insurrectionists, oops 1/6ers, are the true heros ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/11 "2025-03-13T16:45:54Z")
Shit. My sister works for a climate change advocacy group. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/12 "2025-03-13T16:46:27Z")
The future is a boot crushing the face of humanity forever. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/13 "2025-03-13T16:57:28Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > not inconspicuous level of crazy I didn’t realize **septimus** was _that_ much of a fanatic. There’s one poster I don’t miss. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/14 "2025-03-13T17:31:08Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I didn’t realize **septimus** was _that_ much of a fanatic. I recall now that he got pissed at me because [I responded to his notion of a “time-reversed star”](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/entaglement-at-the-speed-of-light-or-is-immediately-a-relative-term/548595/35) by saying that it was nonsense, and while I certainly could have been nicer about it, he proceeded to follow me around from post to post for several weeks trying desperately to debunk me, and then somehow managed to get my email address and started bombing me with anonymized emails that were some combination of threat, conspiracy theory, and gibberish. So, he was mad as a fucking hatter long before he became a Trumpster. > [@DocCathode](#): > > The future is a boot crushing the face of humanity forever. We had a pretty good run, managed to discover a few useful things and invent some clever gadgets, and even made it as far as exploring our local neighborhood with [the brave little probes that could](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-voyager-1-and-voyager-2-now/). If we can just not manage to nuke the entire surface of the planet and push evolution back to the barely multicellular stage maybe the future cephalopod civilization won’t regard us as a total failure even though we were highly limited with only our two marginally functional grasping appendices and primitive centralized cognitive structure. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/15 "2025-03-13T17:39:38Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > maybe the future cephalopod civilization won’t regard us as a total failure Who’da guessed that mammalian hyper-intelligence combined with a heightened, but faulty, agency detection would turn out to be an evolutionary dead end? But here we fucking are. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/16 "2025-03-13T17:42:10Z")
I’ve been thinking of another quote often lately. The following is not meant as humor, but offered in genuine sorrow “For one brief shining moment there was Camelot.” ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/17 "2025-03-13T17:43:21Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > “For one brief shining moment there was Camelot.” [“It’s only a model.”](https://youtu.be/m3dZl3yfGpc?si=mJNFAoZygsvnK5DG) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/18 "2025-03-13T17:45:53Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > So, he was mad as a fucking hatter long before he became a Trumpster. I knew he was an unstable asshole, I just didn’t know he was MAGA. Not _shocked_, it just wasn’t on my radar. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/19 "2025-03-13T17:48:39Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > “For one brief shining moment there was Camelot.” ‘Hey! I haven’t even been given a real chance to start on it’s destruction!’ ~ Robert Francis “Mordred” Kennedy Jr. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517/20 "2025-03-13T18:45:43Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Whatever happened to that guy? He’s been deviated. 😉 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heh-i-called-it-i-knew-that-conservatives-would-try-to-prosecute-climate-change-activists/1015517.md?page=2)