Trump silences government scientists with gag orders
theverge.com
theverge.com
This is an administration that seems intent on openly lying to the public on even the tiniest of issues like inauguration crowd size, and large ones like accusations of voter fraud. An administration set on quashing any dissent and against the idea of a free and independent press. (See constant attempts to http://delegitimize/ the press and media, plans to defund public broadcasting, threats to open libel laws against the press)
And an administration that pushes aside and denounces experts in their fields for industry hacks and politicians with no knowledge and experience, or gigantic conflicts of interest - see Betsy Devos, Scott Pruitt, Rick Perry, see also claiming climate change is a hoax, wanting to appoint anti-vaxxers to lead a vaccine safety commission.
Trump voters, are you not the least bit concerned? I keep expecting some movement on the right to keep leadership accountable, but instead Republican politicians are falling in line hoping to gain some power in the new order.
and,
"ARS spokesman Christopher Bentley said the ban would not include scientific publications released through peer-reviewed professional journals."[0]
[0]:https://www.apnews.com/5ada25fc57b44a0989e681d6dc2a3daf/Trum...
We'll see if it's actually lifted by then, as we've already seen a lot of misdirection and outright lies from the Trump team.
Also from the article:
"The Trump administration has also ordered what it called a temporary suspension of all new business activities at the department, including issuing task orders or work assignments to EPA contractors. The orders were expected to have a significant and immediate impact on EPA activities nationwide."
"Officials at state and local agencies that rely on EPA for funding said they were left in the dark, saying they had received no information from EPA about the freeze."
Why do they need to quash the speech and operations of employees during the transition, other than to have a chilling effect in the department?
Unless you're already appointing leadership like Scott Pruitt, who is actively hostile to the organization's goals and intent on dismantling it from the inside.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/can-t...
Before the inauguration the transition team sent surveys to the Department of Energy and other agencies seemingly meant to ferret out anyone working on climate science. Trump received a lot of criticism for this. A media blackout would be a good time for him to clean house of anyone who disagrees.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-administration/20...
Wasn't the National Park Twitter feed trashing Trump and his policies?[1]. Randomly tweeting that the old Whitehouse webpages got deleted, even though that's pretty typical for a new administration.
Why wouldn't you put a stop to that?
What would happen if a company got a new CEO and some random employee started bashing them via the company Twitter account?
Was it the most appropriate thing to do on an agency twitter account? Maybe not.
But that tweet has nothing to do with the EPA or Department of Ag, and intentionally hampering their business and operations. There are other motivations at play here.
That's not even getting into the ridiculous crowd size discussion and "alternative facts" that were being pushed.
I'm genuinely afraid of how Trump and his team are so thin-skinned to a tweet or criticism, considering the real challenges and attacks the office has and will need to face.
That said, if some gov't agency started Tweeting negative things about the Obama administration after his inauguration, would any talk about a "chilling effect" if he told them to stop? I'm not his biggest fan, but I wouldn't fault him for that.
The job of the National Parks service is pretty clear. Tweeting their political opinions using their employer's account are not one of them.
[0] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-admi...
The way the whole climate data and models have been vastly misrepresented (look for "estimated data") has been far over the top. The EPA has been far over the top as has been the BLM.
Will have to keep an eye on the Trump campaign. There are things that he is doing well (like massively cutting federal employees, gutting a TON of executive actions, hopefully returning power to the states, etc). The conservative media is probably going to be more reliable since they're trying to see how much he's going to keep to policies he advertised.
http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/2013-2014/the-silence-of-th...
Thankfully it was reversed after Trudeau became PM.
For a look at a few other things under Harper which it seems may be copied by Trump, see http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/adam-kingsmith/canada-freedom-o...
Lots more where that came from.
I'm now living in Sydney, Aus, and to be honest, it isn't considerably different here. Last week a planned protest of the "Lockout Laws" (which has very strict limits on when venues can serve alcohol and allow patrons to enter) was denied because the the organizers did not provide police with "had failed to show mass evacuation and crowd dispersal plans." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-20/sydney-lockout-laws-co...
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/312797-hous...