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Energy Department Refuses To Give Trump Team Names of People Who Worked On Climate Change (businessinsider.com)
The Department of Energy said Tuesday it will reject the request by President-elect Donald Trump's transition team to name staffers who worked on climate change programs. Energy spokesman Eben Burnhan-Snyder said the agency received "significant feedback" from workers regarding a questionnaire from the transition team that leaked last week. From a Reuters story, syndicated on BusinessInsider: The response from the Energy Department could signal a rocky transition for the president-elect's energy team and potential friction between the new leadership and the staffers who remain in place. The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters last week contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years. "Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of (the Energy Department) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people," Eben Burnham-Snyder, Energy Department spokesman said. "We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," he added. "We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team."
The management has to know this will get them sacked, and yet they still protected their team.
Good on them, and may they be showered by job offers once sacked.
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Good luck.... Refuse a lawful request from your new employer.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
This is what draining the swamp looks like. It's finding out who the cultists are and removing the hopelessly devout from roles where they influence anything, especially who gets government money simply because they are in the same cult.
If you call it a witch-hunt you are not far wrong, except in this case there really are plenty of wishes to find and dispose of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Come January 20th and the team stops being "transition team" and becomes "Executive Government". Though we'd rather not, we can wait 'till then...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Instead of just immediately refusing the request, has anyone bothered to ask the Trump Transition Team why they want the list? Everyone seems to think they want this so they can blacklist them. Maybe they want this so they can hire the proper people for certain cabinet positions. Especially to ask for the list this early in the game, it seems weird that it would be for a blacklist. Generally you would wait until you were in office to go after the opposition.
Gov: Whatcha huntin' Doc?
Trump: Ducks.
Gov: This is wabbit season.
Trump: Why. You. Little.... Grrrr (steam comes out of ears).
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Good. Let the dissent begin. Feel your hatred rise.
-Palpy
Given the cult-like atmosphere at the EPA and the frankly abusive behavior towards the citizens it supposedly exists to protect I think some reduction in useless bloat is warranted.
Oh, and since the science is settled abuot climate change, the EPA obviously doesn't need anybody to research it... right?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Let's shine the light of truth on the rats. Fire them all!
The energy department has forgotten the meaning of the word "oversight."
It's not like this information can't be compiled from public information.
And anyway, due to civil service rules they can't be fired.
I mean, what is the DoE afraid of?
Trump has openly and repeatedly stated that he thinks climate change isn't real, and that it's a conspiracy. On at least one occasion, he directly attributed this conspiracy to the Chinese government. There really aren't very many reasons someone who thinks those things would want this information.
I call it a witch hunt against scientists
Since when was her any science involved around climate change?
It became a political circus about ten years ago, science hasn't really entered into it since then - real scientists accept challenges to belief, real scientists publish data and results for others to replicate results. They do not change the data to fit theories they have...
There are no scientists to protect, sad to say.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nothing Trump has said makes anybody think they would want this list for anything good. Trump is an ignorant, egotistical fool. I'm not even sure he means well, I think he's doing the whole president thing solely for his ego. While the backlash that would occur should the electoral college not install Trump would be massive, I think they would be fully justified in not voting for him. This is exactly why the electoral college exists, but it's unfortunate that there are no good alternatives to Trump right now. At least the alternatives wouldn't be doing it for their ego, and wouldn't be completely ignorant about pretty much everything.
The Trump team forgot to tell the DOE that they want the names so Governor Ooops can put them on his Christmas card list.
Doesnt matter. He will be the boss in January...when he asks for those records and they try this they will face real problems. You can say whatever they want this is...but at the end of the day...he as president will have the list. And can choose to act as he wishes with it. I dont aee anyone trying to protect those scientist who dont agree with GW or Climate change or whatever they want to call it these days. Its the same hypocracey from the liberal left as always. This is what losing an election like this means...it means your time of screwing over the other side is up and now you best lube up yourself. Then it will sawp back and be same as always.
Sounds like Trump needs fire some people at the energy department
Fire them all, then.
What it doesn't mean is the laws of physics will magically change.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
and rejects this monstrosity. Not likely, but that's the reason they exist.
Fire all the politicians and hire a bunch of billionaires to lead the state departments.
What could possibly go wrong?
I'm no Trump supporter but at least don't be a coward. They can't even stand up for what they believe. I have to say that staff is pathetic. Now they come off looking like cowards who wont back their research up
Oh stop using common sense! You will just confuse quite a few people.
"There are 3 managers that I will fire when I become Energy Secretary: Jane, Rick and... [pause] ...oops!"
YOU'RE FIRED! let the tragic comedy commence!
I work in government IT. No one is worried about Trump. No one.
Especially the NSA. *wink* *wink*
Trump might actually submit a budget to the congress (as Obama has never done), and in this budget the funding for the DoE would be cut 75%. It's an executive agency, after all.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I wonder what the US situation with respect to international relationships will look like in 4 years time.
When I first heard that Trump had won, my first thought was, how much damage could he really do?
As I see what he is doing, it seems a lot. ;)
Take for example China. Most of the EU countries have already privately told China that they will follow the status quo regardless of that Trump does or says.
Most of the world is pretty angry about the anti-climate change stuff and there is already talk about locking the US out of the market.
Naturally this would have a huge impact on EU companies as well.
The more I see what this ass hat is doing though, the more I think this is really a turning point for the US and its decline in prominence from the world stage. I guess that is natural. Countries come and go, rise a fall. I do not imagine that will stop just because it is the present.
It is not just about climate change either. Heck, he is even gutting the FCC and forbidding them to protect consumers. Remember how the FCC made those carriers stop the millions in over billing? Those days are over.
The carriers, under Trump will literally be able to do what ever they want.
I have customers who cant wait for Trump because they think they can stop testing their devices for the US market and just sell it.
Still, I really do wish those of you in the US the best of luck. There is a good chance though that you fuckballs screwed us all. At least we dont have to worry about your F35 shooting down our planes though
America has learned nothing.
just trump trolling the media. he doesn't give a shit about any of this, it just makes good press and gives him a hard on to rile people up. he's a troll to the core.
common sense != naivity
The other side DESERVES to be screwed-up in perpetuity. Conservatism is a fucking disease that should be purged from the Earth. You don't have progress by holding things back.
Maybe the do want to or maybe they don't want to blacklist. Doesn't matter from my view. If requesting the names of authors for documents becomes a reason for a federal level agency to say no then you can be sure there is shenanigans going on within that department.
Global warming is NOT a hoax, it is a SCAM, to tax people and pocket the money and do absolutely nothing (which coincidentally is all that can be done) to prevent global warming.
Thus enter the global warming scammer protection program!
It's obvious. Trump wants the names of the people who work on climate change so he can tell them to stop changing the climate.
And this is why we need to abolish national parks and the EPA. You don't have progress by Conservation.
Bring back high flow showers and the incandescent bulb!
This is a typical intimidation tactic. Create a list, fire a few high profile folks on it, then get the rest to tow the line. This isn't about managing resources, this is about setting a new agenda.
I'm all for trimming the fat, but I think you do that by removing the incompetent at their jobs, not removing the capable people that just think differently than you. Sadly, I think the next administration will think like executives at a company and not as statesmen (statespeople) of a nation.
Sure, just like the scene from Mars Attacks where the Martians kept repeating "don't run, we are your friends" as they walked through the streets evaporating humans with their phasers.
nt
Silence!! Didn't you know the internet is now only used for bashing things that Trump might potentially do, while acting as if they both already happened and had horrible repercussions!?
That's how it is going to end.
Anyone who has worked for a company that undergoes management change or merger/buyout is familiar with this -- especially in R&D. It's commonplace to have to justify your job, and also commonplace to get a new boss that doesn't understand or agree with what you are doing. Your new boss may be an idiot and your work may be the holy grail. It doesn't matter. Best you can do is make a good argument as to why your work should continue or how it can be adapted. Meanwhile, start looking at career alternatives. Sorry snowflake, there is no tenure in the working world. And refusing to communicate with the new boss leaves the new boss no choice but to get rid of you.
The 6 meters of sea-level rise
Even the IPCC says it's between 60-150cm over the next 100 years.
Do you even know how large a centimeter is (not)?
That is a max of 1.5 meters - over a 100 year span! Do you seriously think coastal areas will not be able to deal with that incredibly slow rise? Do you not seriously think warming will be greatly abated as inevitable update of technologies like solar and nuclear power slows down warming, even over the next 50 years???
Again what really bugs be about you warming cultists is how much you think your unwavering opinions are based on science when most of it is based on utterly irrational groupthink, without any ability to predict anything that will occur.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can't win an election so cheat in every way possible, even if illegal, to go against the will of the voters.
Nice, now we get to see how liberalism REALLY works. Fuck the voters, if they voted right we wouldn't have to act like an asshole dictator, but since they did we will.
your post nicely demonstrates how common sense isn't.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This is what losing an election like this means...it means your time of screwing over the other side is up and now you best lube up yourself. Then it will sawp back and be same as always.
And this is what is wrong with America. So many people want to cheer and say "screw the other side" or "lube up" as you put it. Well, you realize the "other side" is a good 30-40% minimum of the population of America. You screw that many people over and what you are really doing is screwing the country over, yourself included. I mean hell, Americans didn't hate each other as much during the Civil War as they do now. We are on a downward path of animosity, fiery rhetoric, obstructionism, and retribution that would leave America in such a state that even Nero would put down his lyre. Make America great again? With the current state of our politics I'm not so sure we deserve to be great anymore.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
His appointment for the EPA is a Climate change denier and virtually all of his appointments have been people who want to dismantle and destroy the departments he is appointing them to.
His choices show what he is trying for. He is trying to dismantle and destroy as many government departments as possible.
Given his actions, what other reason would he have other than to get rid of all the actual intelligent and scientifically minded at the department? Anything else would directly contradict every policy, plan and pick he has done so far.
And maybe we wanted the list of top leaders in saddams party Iraq so we could help them with a smooth transition through counseling and education.
I highly doubt the trump transition team is asking for data of people working on things that he has described ad a conspiracy by china is an attempt to shore up weaknesses in the programs.
Unless you are saying "Maybe they want this so they can hire the proper people for certain cabinet positions" in the way of hiring people who will recognize the problem and eradicate anything or person who believes the china conspiracy.
so there.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
And yet 30% of America is 100% verifiable idiots. Trump is their leader of denying reality. Climate change isn't even the most obvious of his ridiculously retarded misconceptions, and they seem to be multiplying.
So yes, FUCK THOSE RETARDS, regardless of whether or not they are "my fellow" Americans.
Unfortunately, insubordination does not go too far.
No organization can survive insubordination. I think he will sack entire agency, and you cannot find a better reason. Fraction of the agency will survive and some key functions, and some survivors will be merged with other agencies (commerce, defense).
Instead of just immediately refusing the request, has anyone bothered to ask the Trump Transition Team why they want the list? Everyone seems to think they want this so they can blacklist them.
Right.
He actually wants to give them medals and a big bonus.
Trump: on January 20, demand a list of all the employees who did NOT work in any way on climate change. Fire everybody NOT listed, and fire everybody who refuses to make such a list. If nobody is listed, fire everybody. If the list is found not to be truthful, fire everybody.
They're fired!!
Everyone seems to think they want this so they can blacklist them. Maybe they want this so they can hire the proper people for certain cabinet positions.
Then why did he make a climate change denier the head of the EPA to start with?
Maybe they want this so they can hire the proper people for certain cabinet positions.
Exactly what cabinet position would need a low-level DoE employee/contractor who has attended a specific type of conference or meeting at some point in the last few years? The questions listed in the article only ask about very basic things about a very large number of people. That's scary. Any request from new leadership for a list of several thousand employees is scary; either those people are getting fired or everyone else is getting fired. And when you can link the request to a known policy position, it makes it easy to tell which is the case. At best, this falls into chilling effect territory where employees will have to wonder if attending the wrong meeting or working on a paper that reaches the wrong conclusion will land them on one of these lists. Even if nothing is done with these lists, their existence could influence the focus and quality of scientific research for years to come. And that alone is terrifying.
Or maybe he just wants to buy them all ice cream. That's plausible, right?
Maybe it was to spell their names on their participation trophy?
it you take over a business, one of the first thing you do is ask for an org chart. That way you know who is in charge and where the waste is. Let's say the company is spending a million dollar on travel expenses to a UN convention, the first question would be: so who is going that it costs us so much money, what did you learn and how did you turn that into progress, that is regardless of your personal opinion on whether the topic was legitimate.
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Have you considered that Trump's request may not have been a legal request, even when he is the sitting POTUS?
There are an incredible number of protections for civil servants, specifically to shelter government employees (both personally and professionally) from the whims of a changing administration.
Instead of just immediately refusing the request, has anyone bothered to ask the Trump Transition Team why they want the list?
What possible reason could the Trump Transition Team need a list of EVERY employee and contractor that has worked on climate change? If Trump had asked for 'key personnel with knowledge and expertise on climate change', it might be somewhat plausible that he was looking for someone to put in his team/cabinet... but his question definitely seemed more like a burn list or a do not promote list, especially given his stance on climate change.
They were just relocating them to a happy place.
I'm sure a rudimentary search of facebooks account could turn up just as much info as a correctly filled out questionnaire. I'm sure the FBI would get on board, as long as it was off the books of course. lol
The transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
...Americans didn't hate each other as much during the Civil War as they do now.
I think this is demonstrably not true.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Congress can pass laws that mandate the existence of agencies.
Although it is congress that determines funding this is a Republican congress. They have wanted to do away with clean energy initiatives for years. Trump might not exactly get his way but he will certainly enjoy nearly a free hand in pressuring any governmental department they don't like.
I forget what the issue was but I recall the Republican congress threatened to de-fund the GAO of all things and ended up successfully suppressing the analysis the GAO did that they didn't want the public to see. Expect many repetitions of that over the next two years while Trump and the House Republican's one up each other trying to pretend they are sticking up for the common man by cutting government waste.
As a Hillary voter I will say one thing for Trump. No other politician Hillary included could ever even suggest cutting the DoD budget. The closest we ever came to it was when Rumsfeld canceled the super-cannon thing. Since then any attempt to rein in military spending would be attacked as a "he/she doesn't support the troops" issue and Trump alone seems immune to that.
Ok, they *can*..but I do wonder of all these departments and agencies...how many were actually set up and mandated by law vs just being set forth as a decree from the Executive Branch, in order to help enforce the laws from congress....?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I agree, you should repeat that to all the conservatives who are still waiting for the return of non-competitive manufacturing and coal-mining jobs.
Would you be able to say no to a new CEO? I don't think so.
by refusing to cooperate with the incoming chief executive who was duly elected to be their leader, they are refusing to serve the people and are thus establishing a clear record that will help justify shutting them down. Nothing says "drain this particular swamp" more than "civil servants" who choose to serve themselves while showing total disdain for the public, and for the most basic rules of government and the peaceful transfer of power.
just how happy would you lefties have been had the Bush people rebelled against and plotted to fight and sabotage the then-incoming Obama administration?
Democrats, circa 2016, are going to go down in history under the titles "pathetic" and "hypocrite". To borrow from Hillary: these people are being "horrifying" and "anti-American"
This pathetic response appears every time the Democrats lose. When's the last time there were riots, protests in the streets, government agencies in rebellion, etc when the Republicans lost an election????? I've not seen it in my lifetime.
And yet for 8 years you didn't have a problem with it while the democrats ram rodded legislation down our throats and did everything but turn the executive office into a dictatorship by radically increasing executive power -
NOW it's a problem?!
All of them were set up by law. Executive branch discretion doesn't go nearly as far as you are imagining. Among other things, Congress funds all of the departments.
This is easy-to-find stuff - for DOE, it's in the second graf of the history section on wikipedia:
On August 4, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed into law The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 (Pub.L. 95-91, 91 Stat. 565, enacted August 4, 1977), which created the Department of Energy.
Donald Turnip is a fucking asshole, and so is everybody that voted for the asshole.
The cabinet position is secretary of energy, the gap between cabinet and the engineers and scientists working on climate change redefine "above my pay grade." and Rick Perry, a bible literalist and former governor of an oil rich state, is his choice already and he wants to put the lights out on the DoE so some nefarious intent is the simplest explanation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Fourteenth Amendment made you a citizen of the United States first.
WTF? Have you sen the many positions filled and statements offered? You are not merely political, you are maniacal.
WTF? Have you seen the many positions filled and statements offered? You are not merely political, you are maniacal. Reduce taxes and regulations and many problems go away. The constitution warns us against government. Government and the employees are overwhelming and persistent at this time.
JJ
Psychologists call that "projection"
It is easy to advocate destruction of, say, the EPA, but once you are the chief of the EPA, then is is your organization, and there is a natural desire to defend your turf.
But if you're the head of the organization and the rest of the organization don't obey your orders, it's not "your" organization, is it?
And if you think the organization should be disbanded, or gutted and rebuilt in your image, this gives you just a DANDY excuse. It's "insubordination" (the bureaucratic equivalent of "mutiny") and cause for dismissal.
How convenient.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Just have the list conclude of every current and former employee/contractor of the agency. They all worked on it, peripherally or not.
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it's being brought up to refute the claim that DT has some sort of mandate from the masses.
How does it reduce his mandate if the vote difference is a few million one way or the other? It's essentially the same in a nation of hundreds of millions of potential voters, most of which chose not to vote.
No, the "against the will of the voters' is being trotted out as it is every time a democrat wins the "popular vote" (itself a lie because that number of votes is lower than the number of people who did not vote).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I am sure that Hillary Clinton will have her day one way or another. She will successfully run in 2020, she will win against Trump, and she will be a president. It is simply her turn and it will be historic justice. By 2020 all these scandals will be forgotten and people will be rushing to polls to vote against Trump. There is no more qualified and seasoned person to campaign.
Then why did he make a climate change denier the head of the EPA to start with?
Which imaginary person do you think is the designated EPA head in your imaginary world?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Trump is still just an owner of private enterprises with his name on them, some of them were illegal. If trump refuses to pass on his tax forms for the electors and senate to go over to check, as they have been able to do with every other president, then they are absolutely able to refuse Trump for the position because they can't check, and if Trump had nothing to hide, he would have nothing to fear, right?
So he must have something to fear.
And if someone finds out who is a foreign national, Trump can be blackmailed. Which is WHY they have to be able to check up on his finances AT THE VERY LEAST.
So, no, he isn't anything other than a business owner, and he has no right to demand his lists.
WHEN he gets the position, THEN they'd be refusing the president, but then again, that's 100% fine too: the senate and representatives both had members who ignored Obama's requests and kicked down his proposals. No problem then. No problem now.
Cancelled recount in Michigan because of the ENORMOUS amount of fraud in Detroit favouring HRC. They couldn't count 65% of precincts in Detriot because there was obvious fraud, helping HRC, in them that couldn't be fixed afterwards.
So don't tell me about popular vote when DNC is literally stuffing the ballot box counting HRC votes 2-6 times each in Detroit. Who wins the popular vote once you removed the fraud?
Michigan has been trying to implement voter ID for 10+ years and never could. It has now passed their legislature BECAUSE of the fraud found from Stein's recount helping HRC. Congratulations!
Ever notice the national map HRC only won in like 5 areas? I wonder what would happen if we checked for fraud in those. I looked in Oakland and many of their precincts reported 187% of the registered voters there voted. Yep, nearly everyone voted twice for HRC in some areas of California. DNC produced amazing amount of voter fraud and then claims they really won because of it.
I see how this works.
Khm, "unfit"? When I called Obama "unfit", you called me racist. If I called Hillary Clinton "unfit", you would've called me sexist.
You are calling Trump unfit — what do you call yourself? He won — fair and square. Suck it up, cupcakes...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Was this a joke? I can't tell if you're serious or not but it certainly isn't going to happen.
But come a few weeks, he will have that full power...and I'd guess pretty much anyone, even the whole department as an entity could be done away with pretty quickly?
Who in their right mind would want to disband the DoE? They have access to nukes, YOU can be the one to tell them they are all fired.....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
A bit late to the party but better late than never even though you backed into it through incredulity rather than intelligence, common sense, and an understanding of the last 100 or so years of world history,
But we're open minded sorts in the Trump world and accept your conversion.
Here are the 74 questions with comments on each one of them. Whatever your feelings on this particular one, there are a lot of very good questions in there that the people deserve answers to. It is about time that someone started asking them.
Under Rick Perry as Energy Secretary, perhaps we will also see some meaningful reform of the DOE. There is barely anything energy related about the agency, and most of the useful pieces would fit well elsewhere.
So, for a moment lets pretend we don't care one way or another about climate change, what about air pollution? We've already seen what happens when there are no regulations on pollution, hell we tried to have an Olympics in a city with bad pollution. They literally shut down factories months before the games, and the city was still filled with polluted air. Is that what we want?
Instead of just immediately refusing the request, has anyone bothered to ask the Trump Transition Team why they want the list? Everyone seems to think they want this so they can blacklist them. Maybe they want this so they can hire the proper people for certain cabinet positions. Especially to ask for the list this early in the game, it seems weird that it would be for a blacklist. Generally you would wait until you were in office to go after the opposition.
Yes, and here's Trump's response:
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
8 loooooong years!
"Elections have consequences... We won!" - President Obama (get used to saying President Trump for the next 8 years)
Suck it up, buttercup! Find your safe space, this'll be a fun ride!
As will these employees soon find out. Everyone who defies or makes fun of Mr. Trump should be in prison. Because he is taking back control!
So you are saying i nailed it. Im not saying its right...im saying this is what our system has become...and it is just as much pne side as the other. In fact it is the fact that we have allowed only to parties to have any chance to win nationally. We get the government we deserve...and we dont deserve much.
Just as all empires fade...so will ours.
And you exhibit another part of the problem: if I offer any sort of criticism I must automatically support the "other side". In reality I've been against the increasing hostility and unwillingness to compromise for years. And then with this last election we got dangerously close to the spectre of arresting political opponents. Not a very good direction for a democracy to take.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Yeah, that's one of those posts where it's almost impossible to tell if it's sarcasm or an honestly-held opinion. It doesn't help that the rabid Hillary supporters really believe everything in that post, though they usually don't spell it all out in 5 succinct sentences like that. I believe it's probably sarcasm though, as evidenced by the "It is simply her turn" line. But again, true Hillary supporters really believe that crap: they'll tell you stuff like "she's worked so hard for the last XX years for the American people", implying that it really is "her turn".
But I wish I had. Watching frightened Progressives as they go through their lamentations has been fascinating.
I believe this kind of disagreement was all sorted out when Reagan fired all the air-traffic controllers. And I can't help but feel firing the entire Energy Department and shutting it down, without pensions, would be an entirely appropriate response. Then Trump can consider whether the country NEEDS an Energy Department REALLY, and staff it appropriately.
Blatant Insubordination is always good for cleaning out the dead wood. They don't stand a chance.
This is what will happen to every major government department and agency. Trump will be nominating the cabinet members which require confirmation by Congress. The rest are appointees. Of which there will be about 4,000 of them. This is what happens at every single change in political control. When the agency / department head is replaced that person will then build their team by replacing all their direct reports most of the time. Those people head various groups within the agency / department and will be also replacing their direct reports and building their teams. This goes on and on down the chain of command. It could take a couple years for all that to shake out. We are talking management and middle management positions. The workers pretty much stay the same. The employment protections apply to the worker bees not management. Now you may very well have some disgruntled worker bees but if they raise their profile too high they will be found out and removed one way or another. If that person cannot be fired, they may be transferred, demoted, removed from a position of power, or possibly promoted and given a lot of rope to then make a big enough mistake to be fired. This is exactly what happens at every major corporation when leadership changes. A new CEO, CFO, etc. comes on board and restructures their department moving people around replacing a number of them, etc. It happens all the time. Internal corporate political battles are common. Executives have contracts with golden parachutes and extensive benefits well above the average employee. If they get fired, they likely still get paid until the contract is up and still get large severance package. At the CEO level that could be millions of dollars. In government, you get fired you go find a job in the private sector as a government consultant, etc.
So to think that anyone working in these positions could stealthily run the previous administrations goals without getting caught is pretty silly. At most they need to keep their head down and not attract attention to themselves. If they try to do anything drastic they will get noticed and the hammer will fall. There are protections for them but they are not absolute.
This same thing occurred when Obama took office in 2008 and again in 2012. The same thing happened when Bill Clinton took over and GW Bush, etc., etc. This is how it works. So if they don't cooperate now, they will have no choice when the top brass is installed. Right now, they don't work for Donald Trump but it's only a matter of time. It's also not unusual for transition teams to conduct these early communications. It is a bit unnerving they wanted a list of climate change staffers but it really doesn't matter. The culture of these places is going to go under a rapid 180 degree phase change and there is nothing to stop it. That is what winning looks like.
First...what exactly does the "Department of Energy" do for us in the US?
I honestly don't know and will look it up, but if anyone can enlighten me, I'd be interested in a quick read.
I guess not everyone is aware because it seems unexpected, but the DoE is a major funder of science in the US. They are in charge of the 10 United states national labs where a big portion of major US research projects reside. I just finished grad school in physics working at Brookhaven National Lab and a lot of science happens at these places in a wide range of fields. There are some US government employed scientists/researchers but there is also huge involvement from all manner of Universities across the the world. Go google the DoE office of science to learn more. They fund a lot of energy and nuclear focused research to be sure, but there is a lot of other fundamental science research as well. As you can see in their budget here (http://science.energy.gov/~/media/budget/pdf/sc-budget-request-to-congress/fy-2016/FY_2016_Office_of_Science-Overview.pdf), they have a 5 Billion dollar line item for "Science" in 2016.
This situation is a big deal because Trump's administration is basically approaching a central chunk of the US (and to some extent international) scientific community saying he want's a list of everyone who supports climate research. This is bad news if you support climate research and bad news if you support a free and independent scientific community.
Well, it's a peculiar request to make for anything but a witch hunt.
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Scott Pruitt
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The names, salaries, and positions of every single government employee should be online easy for anyone to look up. I thought this was already the case. I don't see how the DOE should be any different. I guess he could just shut it down.
So his opposition to some of the purely political "solutions" to climate change make him a climate change denier? His urge to see countries like China held to the same standard as, say, France or the US - that makes him a "denier?"
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I have the list!!:
Naughtius Maximus
Sillius Soddus
Biggus Dickus
Incontinentia Buttocks
.
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Anybody can work under ideal circumstances. -- Jeff K. (January 4, 2001)
If you weren't a Russian paid Astro turfer, then I would say you will see the results of your vote over the next couple years. I doubt you will believe the bad things are because you voted for trump though. Good luck. The "fly over" places are net recipients of taxes paid for by the coasts and cities. You'll need it.
He's not president yet. He can file a FOIA request and wait 6-10 years for a response like the rest of us.
Once he is President, he has to obey the laws. Just like Obama and other Presidents. Obama probably would have liked to fire a few dozen senate and congress critters, judges and others, but he can't. Because, contrary to Republican wailing, he was not a dictator. I hope to see the cries from the Republicans to limit executive power continue. Otherwise they are all hypocrites, whom their voters would never support. Right?
So his opposition to some of the purely political "solutions" to climate change make him a climate change denier? His urge to see countries like China held to the same standard as, say, France or the US - that makes him a "denier?"
No, the article he wrote for National Review in which he trotted out the old denialist tropes about scientific uncertainty shows he's a denialist:
That debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.
It must be wonderful to be able to set any arbitrary standard rather than "preponderance of evidence" for your preferred policy position -- in this case unanimity of all scientists in the world (apparently without regard to their particularly disciplinary qualifications going by past appeals of denialists to "scientific disagreement").
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Let's see... How is a decent 'transition' supposed to happen w/o knowing who to talk to? This happens with every president-elect and every department included in their transition team.
Knuckleheads.
Fake News.
He doesn't have to wait, he's requesting this during the transition process so that he can use his time in office more effectively. That's why they have a transition process.
As for firing people, that's not relevant. All he requested was information. You may think it's so that he can fire people, but that's pure conjecture. The requesting of the information is not illegal and since he's to be the country's lead executive, the agency should comply with the request.
Reality check. Some egoistic fuckwit corporate executive decided on some stupid stunt (an idiot silver spoon type, never having to take responsibility for their actions), decided to get a Trump pick to get that information and that fool complied without thinking. Now it looks really stupidly bad. Easy solution find the idiot who did it and get rid of them, with a public explanation. Now if it was Trump himself, well, this will have really, really bad outcomes for the rest of his administration. Trump really should consider the consequences to forcing a work to rule situation that would last his entire period in office. Work to rule can have really have really disruptive outcomes and are totally legal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
There certainly are records of who worked on what project, who traveled to what conferences, and who belongs to what professional society. You don't work at DoE without the government knowing that information, it's part of the job.
Ignoring this request is easy: "We'll be happy to perform this important data collection, we think the budget required for this effort is approximately $2.4 million. As soon as Congress appropriates that, we'll get right on it." Delay, re-direct, give the task to the biggest fuck-up in the department... this could never get done.
It's kind of mind boggling to me (as someone who worked as a government scientist) that the management would fight instead. You get constant calls for information reports and surveys as a federal employee. A good number of them are for nothing other than identifying political enemies of the current administration, the GAO, the EPA, some important Congressman, your Secretary... lots of people try this technique. Ignoring them carries far less risk than responding.
Keep your head down, and work on what you're paid for, and you'll stay out of trouble. As a civil servant, any attention is bad attention. I've seen someone get hit with a BS lab safety investigation based on an award talk he gave.
Fighting, on the other hand, is a sure fire way to lose your position and your project. There is nothing that management likes better than finding reasons to de-fund or transfer "troublemakers." Also, all government scientists are "troublemakers."
If it's every order, then yes, but if it's orders that lawyers have massive problems with then that's a pretty standard situation with newbie managers.
It was interesting watching a middle manager wander into a steelworks and try to throw his weight around when the line operator knew that not just the CEO but the board as well would be a bit pissed off if he followed orders and did something that would halt production for a month. Sometimes orders can't be obeyed for reasons of policy, charter, the law of the land or sheer impossibility. In the case of this EPA thing it's more "you are just being a prick, wasting everyone's time and looking for heads to kick - try again".
I know its a scam, since those who push it the most live lives of outrageous carbon consumption. Al Gore spends more on electricity in a month in his mansion than most workers make in a year. Leo DiCaprio jets around ... in a private jet.
Rest assured the Chinese are not going to sign on. Beijing remains as polluted as ever, if anything its getting worse. Global Warming is merely a scam to push high American labor out and substitute dirt cheap Chinese, or Vietnamese, or what have you.
I hope Trump fires a whole lot of executives, and transfers those who participated in this massive scam designed to benefit "green" billionaire insiders like Tom Steyer to say, the Alaska office. Hey, global warming makes it filled with palm trees right? Maybe some of these crony government workers conspiring with insiders would enjoy working in ... Cleveland. Or Gary Indiana.
Trump won. Obama spent eight years weaponizing the federal government to go after bakers who don't bake gays wedding cakes (but not the Muslim ones) and other enemies of humanity. Now payback? It should be fun.
If anyone here REALLY believed in Global Warming they'd push for nuclear war on say, Africans to wipe them out before they modernize and adopt carbon rich lifestyles the way they themselves do; like using computers run by in the end, carbon. They'd push for nuclear power, what's a few Chernobyls compared to Global Warming? And a brutal, global dicatorship killing off about 3/4 of the human race, particularly in the Third World, to save the Polar Bears or something.
Instead Global Warming is an empty virtue signaling, fueled by the gullible lacking any real traditional religion and seeking something to fill the spiritual emptiness. And put on steroids by EPA money to only those who don't "DENY" (like Christ's divinity) Global Warming and defunding those heretics who don't believe. All in cahoots with people like Steyer.
WTF? Have you sen the many positions filled and statements offered? You are not merely political, you are maniacal.
Exactly the opposite. I'm mostly apolitical. I didn't vote for Trump or Hillary. I think they are both crooks as well as secretly (not really that secret though) friends. I will say, though I haven't really paid much attention, it does seem like he is appointing people to run departments that they personally dislike. Before he started doing it I never would have thought about appointing people who dislike a particular department to run it. In hindsight, I think it's kind of brilliant. If you really want to end and/or clean up a department appointing an outsider opposed to the very existence of that department makes them very motivated to find places to cut where ever they can.
And that wouldn't bother me a bit except you TARDS will take down the rest of the world as you slide into oblivion.
Dipsticks.
With the current state of our politics I'm not so sure we deserve to be great anymore.
Newsflash: You never did.
Greatness isn't deserved, it just happens, often as an accident of history. In the case of the USA, because Europe tore itself apart in two wars that a) destroyed its industrial base b) either killed or drove away a lot of its most capable scientists and engineers, many to the USA and c) make the transition from colonial empires times to modern times more rough, so places like the British Empire simply disintegrated and still haven't recovered.
The USA is the big winner of WW2 and was coasting on that for a long time, but that time is coming to an end. Now you are having the tough transition period. Tech and media kept you up after the industrial base went away to China, but now that is failing, too. There's great tech coming out of Europe and Asia now, and Hollywood is losing its grip on the media/culture market because they are greedy fuckers and only re-re-re-hash the same old ideas. Meanwhile China and India are creating their own movie industries, and even the believed-to-be-almost-dead european cinema is picking up again. Heck, there are really good SciFi movies coming out of Russia right now.
Trump is calling back to a time with ignorance to history. The circumstances that made America great have changed.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
What's wrong with saying we will not report on lawful private behavior under any circumstance?
Pardon me, Trump voters. Perhaps you should Google what the DoE does before you post your, "it's so good to her rid of these bloated agencies epitomizing executive overreach" comment. Newsflash, created by Congress and really important in the modern world.
The Trump team could probably find most of these names through private investigators, open source intelligence and information brokers (i.e. Lexus Nexus) for a budget of less than 50 thousand US dollars. What's stopping them from doing this, other than trying to get the info for free?
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He was a birther at one point too. He's a bit of a shock jock, but waffles quickly when its time to be serious. Relax, enjoy the show.
Yes, it's a conspiracy invented by the Chinese to punish America... which is why the Chinese are the biggest investor in clean energy technology and infrastructure on the planet now... because... er.... anyone?
The org chart just shows you who reports to whom. It doesn't say anything about waste at all. To assume that more workers = waste can only come about from your personal opinion, so your argument kind of doesn't make any sense...
I saddens me to see how many people here on /. have fallen for the B.S. that is Human Caused Climate Change. Calling people deniers does not help your case. There is no such thing as a consensus in Science. Things either are or aren't. Besides that Consensus of scientists which keeps getting quoted was cherry picked and massaged almost as much as the data the HOAXers keep lying about. As far as rooting out the idiots in Energy Dept. IT NEEDS DOING.
Replacing that many people will turn out to be problematic - even if you're just replacing the management.
Employees
12,944 federal (2014)
93,094 contract (2008)
https://www.eff.org/issues/tra...
Congress AND the president can apparently create agencies. An example of an agency being created is the DEA in 1973.
Sorry, meant to reply to the AC above you
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
There's a bad history associated with presidential lists of people. People have every reason to be suspicious about the reason for compiling a list with no obvious practical purpose.
You're right. Maybe it has an innocuous purpose. If so the Trump transition team should have no problem explaining the purpose for the list if people request it ...... and they've ignored the request. Huh. I wonder if that's cause for concern?
Nobody actually goes to those events. It is just a burning man for climate geeks. They go, party and copulate to make more liberal loons.
So, the next administration can save money by not funding the trips anymore.
You really don't understand what the electoral college is. Please stop making a fool of yourself.
If your org chart is top heavy or vertical layers of managers (lots of upper and middle management) you can quickly conclude that things have to be shaken up. It also helps to see who to call in case of a problem. I've seen organizations where there were more managers than workers, in those cases you can easily snip out entire layers without affecting actual productivity.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Viola, end of the problem - saving tax payers money and getting rid of the "dead-wood"....
What's wrong with saying we will not report on lawful private behavior under any circumstance?
It's not private behaviour if your employer is paying for you to do the work or attend the conference. If it's for budget purposes maybe a better request would have been for the Trump Team to request a summary of number of attendees, cost, etc... but it still seems like a reasonable request to want to know who is doing what in a organization that you are responsible for. Even if he disagrees with what that organization is doing, he is still the one ultimately tasked with managing it.
First they came for the climate change scientists.
And I stood the hell up with them because that sort of bullshit shouldn't be tolerated.
he didn't ask for an org chart.
he asked "who in your mail room has worked on or handled postcards?"
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
When has Trump displayed evidence that he /ever/ considers the consequences before doing something?
Comedic. I'll give you that.
Anyway seriously, what legitimate reason could they possibly have? The transition team doesn't believe climate change is real, they are going to offer everyone who worked on it cabinet positions? That makes no sense.
If Trump asks every muslim to put their name on a list .. given the anti muslim rhetoric .. would you believe the rational approach for a muslim is to act as if the reason behind it is that he wants to give them free candy? Sometimes you do have to assume at least bad, if not the worst, until told or proven otherwise.
....as I guess Trump would say, you're fired!
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
The EPA is an executive arm of the U.S. government, and answers directly to the President, and through the President, to the people who elected him. The fact that Trump won't be the president for another month or so is, IMHO, a pretty damned thin branch to stand on. I suspect that more than anything else, the EPA chief is simply burnishing his left-wing street cred before being unceremoniously kicked into the street.
The EPA has been fundamentally altered from a more-or-less effective agency into the regulatory arm of the PC army, and they went along with this. They are about to find out why that wasn't such a good idea. I was a civil servant for 25 years, and the government I served at least pretended to try an get the science right. the Obama administration made it clear that the highest priority of ALL executive offices was to further the left-wing tree-hugging 'climate change' (the title adopted after 'global warming' didn't work out) agenda, and to hell with the facts or the preferences of the ones being governed. In case you guys hadn't noticed, it is not the government's job to save the world - it is to execute the will of the people. We are a nation - not a religious jihad. Trump was elected because Obama pissed too many people off, and Hillary thought she could just ignore activities that would have (and has, repeatedly) put others in jail.
Let me repeat this, in case you are hard of hearing. The job of the U.S. government is to execute the will of the people of the United States of America. It's job is NOT to save the world, combat 'climate change', save mud puddles from harm, protect trans-gender adolescents from the trauma of going to a bathroom that is not their personal preference, or to actively promote hatred of police. The U.S. government is supposed to do our bidding, not the other way around. It is childish and stupid beyond belief that a cabinet-level department chief thinks that his/her personal opinion is more important than the fact that he/she draws a paycheck from the citizenry, and that same citizenry has just elected a leader, and that leader has made a request of the person that draws that paycheck. I would be OK with the EPA chief submitting his/her resignation, but NOT with a refusal to obey an order from the commander-in-chief based on a comical technicality.
Low energy. Bigly. Believe me.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Good thing it's a whole team of people and not just one guy like everybody seems to pretend.
Why your post hasn't been modded up but cayenne's drek has is definitely groupthink.
It isn't personal. There are plenty of people who wield it because that was a real thing that happened. There were over 6 million of those hammer forged. They will not lay and rust.
There will be a witch hunt. The lucky ones will be just fired. Most of the rest will be blacklisted. A few will be jailed.
Or, he'll just release their names so the Trumpettes can hunt them down and kill them.
I forget if the film had a nice ending. The real ending was that every single man in the slave rebellion was crucified (some crucified then set on fire while still alive, to provide light for the crucifixion night shift). The women had it easier - they were just sold as sex slaves. At a tidy profit.
Just ask yourself - what would Donald Smallhands do?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Good try... but I think it is you .... who are the false flag Russian paid astro turfer... Anonymous Coward....
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
Trump is going to do what he promised and that is consolidate and cut the fat. I support this direction.
...Americans didn't hate each other as much during the Civil War as they do now.
I think this is demonstrably not true.
The question of whether or not states -can- secede was settled by the Civil War. That route is not open anymore.
Doesn't mean we're not as divided now as we were then.
Not that I really believe that the nation IS as divided, but 150 years later there are more measures to bind the nation together, and the federal government is far stronger now than it was then.
Ok, points taken. Yeah, there are always divisions, even amongst homogeneous populations. With the recent election, some relieve valves were released. Pressure building with others.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Ah, thanks. I was wondering how to respond to that.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain