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USDA Scrambles To Ease Concerns After Researchers Were Ordered To Stop Publishing Publicly Funded Science (popsci.com)
Layzej writes: Popular Science reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now barred from communicating with the public. [And early this morning, BuzzFeed revealed that] The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has banned scientists and other employees from sharing the results of its taxpayer-funded research with the broader public. From the report: "The memo outlining these new rules has not been made public, but the ban reportedly includes everything from summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets. Scientists are still able to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals, but they are unable to talk about that research without prior consent from their agency. This is not the first time that public science has been hamstrung by a gag order. To this day, the quantity of oil spewed into the ocean during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil spill remains something of a mystery. Many of the scientists who worked on the spill were hired by BP and barred from speaking on it. But gag orders -- while always troublesome -- have usually been limited to one specific issue. Right now, the EPA and USDA have been forbidden to speak about all of their scientific research. It means that many of the kinds of stories we now cover will never see the light of day." UPDATE 1/24/17: The USDA has disavowed the memo sent to employees at its Agricultural Research Service unit. USDA's deputy administrator, Michael Young, clarified that the gag order specifically applies to policy-related statements in press releases and interviews, which need to be vetted with the secretary of agriculture. He told The Washington Post that peer-reviewed scientific papers from the unit should not be blocked, nor should food safety announcements. The Washington Post notes that "the memo's shortness and terse language seems to have exacerbated the confusion: 'Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents. This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,' wrote ARS chief Sharon Drumm in an email to employees."
Starts to read Popular Science article... link in article has (Buzzfeed) after it.
At what point does someone sue over this first amendment violation? Although there are legitimate reasons for blocking the release of secrets, that isn't relevant to ARS research. I don't see any way that this can hold up.
There is no surprise here, it's difficult to deny scientific facts if your scientists are allowed to share actual facts.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Besides, if the President can't decide what's scientifically valid then he's just a figurehead! The sun rises in the West, PERIOD. If East and West got mixed up by Democrats, whose fault is that?
Smells like more of what I am starting to refer to as 'Trumped up news'.
Not that I support the man (or in fact could really care less directly about US politics), however it seems very important to quite a group of people to
make it look like the sky is falling right now. It is quite sad to see the side that believes they stand for fairness, doing the right thing, caring of others, etc
having to throw so much dirt so bitterly. Its like watching monkeys at the zoo fighting over scraps.
It is rapidly looking like the new left has taken up the playbook of the old right (and by old, I am starting to worry we are talking german mid 1930s..).
Is it really surprising to anyone that with a major change of control in the US, that departments want to keep a tighter rain on anything that could look like
policy statements for a while? Would seem to be pretty sensible really.
Of course what we get instead is reactionary and sensationalist headlines, without any form of fact checking, because that suits the worldview of the
people publishing. The death of actual journalism, let alone investigate journalism, has been sad to watch.
This is what Trump supporters actually believe.
And we won't be able to see ANYTHING going on. Sounds like a plan!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-years-of-deceit-20070628
No, this is not "fake news." It actually happened.
Even Buzzfeed mentions that the policy does not apply to peer-reviewed publications. But it's not clear what else is exempt, even with the follow-up clarifications from the USDA.
My take is that these agencies are trying to control their public messaging from a single source, and scrub anything that hints at policies from the Obama years. That's understandable, given the current White House administration's sensitivity to controlling communication. But it's still chilling nevertheless. What if researchers from these agencies speak at public conferences? Do they need pre-approval of their talks?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
OMG, Big news!
Wait, no it's not big news. Nevermind.
It's not just the USDA.
It's also the EPA and the Department of the Interior. Tweets containing non-controversial scientific facts were deleted this afternoon.
http://thehill.com/policy/ener...
http://www.miamiherald.com/new...
Don't be alarmed, it is for your own good. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Maybe there was, only it wasn't news since someone the media didn't like wasn't in power. Maybe presidents, and indeed political leaders have been doing much the same thing since time immemorial.
Fakes News from liberals or Alternative Facts from conservatives? Hard to tell them apart.
Our former government didn't have any problem at all with muzzling scientists, their organizations as well as defunding anybody who didn't step up to their pro-oil agenda.
Very disturbing to see an anti-science government, regardless of where it is.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
You can help mirror the climate data. Go to climatemirror.org and grab the torrents, the National Land Cover Database has been completely uploaded (11GB). There's also a mailing list for further info and future efforts.
Once information is fully controlled, police activity to enforce government policy can proceed unabated with little fear of meeting organized resistance. President Trump appears to have learned quite well from history.
Maybe you don't want to face the truth, but that leaked memo was real, true and even confirmed as a USDA memo. They confirmed it, when they attempted to walk it back as badly worded!
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday that an internal email sent to staff at its Agricultural Research Service unit this week calling for a suspension of “public-facing documents,” including news releases and photos, was flawed and that new guidance has been sent out to replace it."
So yeh, a real true memo, even confirmed by the department itself.
And again, Buzzfeed CNN etc. are shown to be true sources of true news. Wait till he lifts sanctions of Russia and releases a report claiming Nato hacked the US electin not Russia, and you'll deny he's a Putin puppet too.
It is legal to eliminate them.
fuck trump he is a god damn traitor
Looks like we're back to climate change to being a hoax created by the Chinese. The Real Estate salesman in the WH is the arbiter of scientific truth.
The Donald is doing a bang up job ... stopping Putin from releasing the golden shower video by being his bitch!!!
Dictators and communists usually want to block information. America is now in a state of emergency.
What I see shaping up is a crowding of the space so that you can't tell who is the reasonable or unreasonable voices.
Gosh.. An administration trying to control its messaging and making sure it's not undercut from Obama hires still within those departments. Shocking!
And about that National Park Service tweeter:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article128506319.html
The tweets have been deleted. Buzzfeed reported that the tweets “were posted by a former employee who was not currently authorized to use the park’s account. The park was not told to remove the tweets but chose to do so when they realized that their account had been compromised,” quoting a National Parks Service official.
The blackouts are merely to prevent lifelong government staffers from publishing on political policy issues until the presidents appointees are in office. Trump, due to politics, doesn't have his cabinet installed yet. While all those mention had the majority of appointees approved by this point, however that is a function of Senate over which Trump has little control.
Get ready America, Trumps going to run the US just like his idol Putin runs Russia.
What was the oldest Tweet in existence for that account before the deletion?
But here's an explanation: It is easier to delete everything and then put what you want there back later than to leave that stuff out there with something on it that will make your life more difficult.
Well obviously the cause of global warming is climatologists. So he's fixed the problem by silencing the climate scientists!
Ever had a bad hair day? Ever had your bad hair take over a country with the help of a foreign dictator?
I morally support your call for a second amendment solution. Please take Pence out too while you are at it.
Note I am not stating I will provide any material support.
You're an edgy fuck, aren't you.
Oh, BTW, you've been reported to the proper authorities.
as opposed to the rude authorities? hes gonna get impeached in a month with all this.
He was, after he received a megadose of gamma radiation while inspecting the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island. Don't make him angry . . . you wouldn't like him when he's angry.
Trump has said that you can only trust him for what he is going to do, essentially. It is the media that has been making it out to be that Trump believes that you should come to him or the government for any other facts.
"Alternative facts" is a terrible term, but given the Trump organization's ability to turn on a dime, I'm pretty sure it will last only as long as it's useful.
Hello, media! You've abandoned any semblance of impartiality, and that will hurt you badly during the Trump presidency. Just look at how much ink and screen time has been spent on inaugural crowd estimates!
As someone else said: my God, this is going to be fun. We get to troll the entire world.
So is language. Unrtst seems to think his quote is sufficient to answer that question in the affirmative. I disagree. Combine that with the fact that people can believe whatever they've been nudged into believing, who knows what the reality is.
Let me read the article to you:
--
A copy of the interim procedures memo, dated Jan. 23 and seen by Reuters, shows many of the steps reflect either the same or similar measures taken by the previous administration. Reuters also saw a memo, dated Jan. 22, 2009, that was sent to agency officials by former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
__
You libs have GOT to quit being so damn gullible about clickbait headlines - it makes you appear stupid, though you probably aren't actually stupid.
I've never given Che Guevara much credit as to what was a reasonable voice. Nor much credit to most people's notion of what's reasonable in general, but that's another matter.
I'm sorry, what's the confusion here? Trump said he wanted to cut the EPA. That is exactly like saying that he wants to eliminate the EPA. Do you not know what the word cut means?
The original order was a memo not made public. We don't know what the original order was.
The Ministry of Truth before information can be disclosed. I say so in jest.
In this context, cut doesn't mean completely eliminate. Especially when he says "we can leave a little bit" a few sentences later. He's been very clear about this in other interviews. The EPA will continue to exist but it will have to accept some funding cuts and it will not be able change regulations so frequently.
Not one of the words out of Trump's mouth was the word cut. What he said was "We can leave a little bit..." of the EPA agency.
If you go to the barber and ask for a haircut, does he eliminate your head, or just cut a bit of hair off the top?
The media has also been doing a good job of discrediting itself so that a significant portion of the country might actually believe they should go directly to him for the facts.
The article is not to be trusted.
The interviewer clearly thought that he meant to eliminate it entirely, and then in response to being questioned on that he says "We can leave a little bit." That's a conciliatory statement. He's not hellbent on destroying every last shred of the EPA, but he stated a preference to do so.
Further: "leaving a little bit" does not make for an effective regulatory body. Even if there does remain a shred of EPA left after all of this is said and done, the original point of this thread, namely that this gag order is a genuine cause for concern, remains true.
Everyone is lying. Just not all about all the same things at all the same time. One of the potentially fun things in life is to find out which ones. Never trust a person who says they never lie.
So basically just a reset across the board, and not a scrub of just facts the administration doesn't like. Determining on how you like to interpret this it could be terrible, no problem at all, or something that could be either way and we should still wait and see when they make a change that actually matters.
People are acting like the US government has the only facts in existence and a wiping of the public facing data held by that government by order of the head of that government is an attack on fact itself.
Maybe it has something to do with partisans of the former administration being unable to simply DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS without smarmy anti-Trump shitposting?
3rd grade level "It's just facts, it's not a shitpost"....no, it's still a shitpost and its unprofessional.
Or did you think Trump wouldn't notice?
You want to "Resist Every Day"? Fine, that's your right. But you're not entitled to a public-paid job to push your politics.
-Styopa
You wanted government to be involved in everything everyone does. How's that working out for you?
It means "make the EPA smaller". The same way "Defense cuts" mean the Defense Department budget would be smaller, so they'd be able to do less.
It's completely obvious to everyone.
Trump has the only facts that matter. Listen and believe.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-...
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/24/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
The TrumpenFuhrer can do no wrong in some people's eyes.
They will excuse anything he says. Probably right up until the moment he closes the gates on the camps he's put you in. "Well at least they are made of American steel."
Can you give an example - one example - of this "shitposting" by workers at these agencies? Can you even point to anything remotely partisan in any of the tweets that were deleted?
You are welcome on my lawn.
God, it's not like "eliminate" means KILL. Stop being such a pussy. The constitution has a purpose in this context and it means REMOVE FROM OFFICE. Stop being such a chicken shit and stand up for the law of the land. I hate feeling like I can't talk about problems because of fear I'll be targeted. This isn't America anymore if you can't stand up for yourself and the documents of the founding fathers. No president will EVER take the constitution away from the people, no matter how hard they try.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Q: Who's going to protect the environment?
Clearly the interviewer believed that he meant to cut it entirely.
Clearly the interviewer was trolling.
Since the question is about the environment and his answer references the environment, it seems more like
he is saying "We can leave a little bit (of the environment), but you can't destroy businesses."
How about demonstrating this without known partisan liars as your sources
There is also a need to report on what is going on at NASA. Similar events
"Leave a little bit" sounds like gutting, not eliminating...thanks...I feel much better about it now...
Going directly to Trump is a great idea, as soon as he allows that communication to be 2-way, we are set... Or do you think that one-way communication from trump with no possibility to question him is a good idea?
CA will continue to have environmental protection, no matter what the federal government. We still have open borders, so if you need to escape US idiocy, we welcome you with open arms. The same goes for IL, NY, and a few other first world nation states. The rest of the country can go fuck yourselves.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Where the real world fears to tread.
Donald 'Big Brother' Trump will create a new form of Newspeak for consumption inside the USA.
Where the world outside is either full of radical muslims or does not exist.
Just build that wall around DC (with him inside it), throw away the keys to the gates and let the world get on with life.
or does that "clarification" bear all the hallmarks of an ass-covering exercise ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
This appears to be yet more MSM hyperventilation, this time HuffPo & PopSci in league w/ Buzzfeed. Last time it was CNN & MSNBC in league w/ Buzzfeed, so this appears to be the printed media wing of the Alt-Left Brigade... last time it was the hot mic talking heads cable news wing. Note the common thread: Buzzfeed. Mystery solved. These Keystone Cops clowns generate noise, not signal; heat, not light; and political strife, not common consensus.
To wit:
1. This is a temporary freeze on dolling out new taxpayer cash (grants & contracts) during the administration transition period.
2. This is a temporary freeze on spewing official agency propaganda by extremists w/in the agencies who may resent their funds being cut.
E.g., EPA spox admits: “This may be a little wider than some previous administrations, but it’s very similar to what others have done,”
Existing grants, on-going work and publications and conferences will proceed as normal.
Policy statements and other non-scientific/factual commentary is merely suspended until new official spokespersons are appointed.
Read the core articles from credible sources before you pile on w/ paranoid disinformation, please— viz., https://www.propublica.org/art...
Given the 11th hour sabotage salvos launched by Obama in his last weeks as POTUS, any rational person could sympathize w/ a “stand down” order from the new, in-coming administration to prevent far-left partisan policy loyalists from muddying the waters until the new Presidential cabinet members can take office and plot a course.
And don't pretend to try to paint me as a Trump fanatic: I'm a vehement independent and proud of it. I'm equally suspicious of any and all national parties: RNC, DNC, CNN, MSN, ABC, FOX, etc. The only political unit I trust is WTC (We the People), and even then things run off the rails from time to time. Such is the human condition. We are all mired in muck. Even Pope Francis says so. ;-)
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Damn. I never thought there would be a day where I would say seriousl that we have always been at war with Eurasia.... The next 4 years will be ... Interresting.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
@Anonymous Coward: "The blackouts are merely to prevent lifelong government staffers from publishing on political policy issues .."
Do you have any verifiable evidence for this? When was the previous admin instructed to remove the climate change page from its website?
@IHTFISP: "This is a temporary freeze on spewing official agency propaganda by extremists w/in the agencies who may resent their funds being cut. .. Given the 11th hour sabotage salvos launched by Obama in his last weeks as POTUS, any rational person could sympathize w/ a “stand down” order from the new, in-coming administration to prevent far-left partisan policy loyalists from muddying the waters until the new Presidential cabinet members can take office and plot a course."
:)
That's the best alt- drumpf redneck gibberish I've seen yet
Trump administration tells EPA to cut climate page from website: sources
Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents. This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content.
It is easy to get confused by that writing if, you know, understand English.
How so?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He eliminates my hair. Unless of course you ask for a headcut at a barber's, but I guess he'd probably ask you if you're serious.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you think that the hack the political satsuma put in office will OK what is inconvenient? FFS, man, when china has been doing this since the communist take-over, since North Korea became a dictatorship, you've been 100% against this sort of bollocks and KNEW that this was a bad thing.
Fuck, you complain and bitch about "politicised science" all the fucking time.
But when Trumpie-tiny-hands does it in your political favour, you suddenly don't see the frigging problem. And we all know why.
Reality is anti-Trump. He's pushing the standard alt-right view that his lies should be considered valid opinions. His opinion is that more people came to his inauguration, and that's as valid as any fact and should be reported such.
When some government agency published facts that contradict him, those have equal weight to mere opinions and government workers shouldn't express opinions.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I am the News now. Begin the era of Alternative Facts.
When trump is anti-science scientists are by default anti-trump.
Get the fuck used to it, kid.
uhhh...you do realize trump is the one who made it impossible for a scientist to do their job without anti-trump shitposting right?
Yes, before someone in any institution starts shooting their mouth off to the press their supervisors should know. Why? Because the _agency_ not the individual making the remarks (communicating with the public === speaking to the media) will bear the brunt of whatever the outcome of the interview is. The 'ban' isn't a ban per se, it's a requirement to properly advise the organization of the person's intent to tacitly speak on behalf of the organization. Nothing wrong with that and those who don't want to follow the process are just lazy.
Besides, the scientists can still publish so what's the problem?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Is it just the media? The government itself is establishing a Ministry of Truth type of system. And that was put together by Obama, but it's scary nonetheless.
Next extended drought or flood you get, make sure you thank the antiquated fuel companies that got you there.
this the same idiot who because the literal words "I would ban muslims" never came out of his mouth, merely and agreement with a statement from someone else, he therefore never said it and wont do it.
to this idiot this: "I will cut the EPA"
is different from this: "Q: What will you cut?, A: The EPA".
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Reading into die Fuhrer's (he's had a sex change) words is a fools errand. They are mere wisps of notions that were fizzing in his brain at the time. He has to have someone read back what he said to see what he believes on any one day.
I, for one, welcome the new government overlords.
You can watch the video of Trump actually saying these things.
Unless of course you are referring to Trump as the partisan liar. I can't tell from your post.
You are welcome on my lawn.
USDA has been political forever. They don't seem to be able to actually follow the science.
Just look at all the different food guidelines they've put out over the years. The 1992 "Food Pyramid" was known to cause obesity and type-2 diabetes. THEY WERE TOLD THIS. The original food pyramid had vegetables as the base, but the processed-food-industry complained and it was changed.
The USDA may be the single most harmful US govt organization.
According to the NIH - 2/3rd of Americans are overweight. 1/3 of Americans are obese. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/heal...
Why do you think that happened? Because they trained everyone in govt mandated "health" classes to learn it. Evil.
No president will EVER take the constitution away from the people, no matter how hard they try
You're so naive, it's cute.
That's the great thing about representative government - you do have the possibility to question him through your duly elected Congressional delegation. And, as it turns out, the Congress has the ability to put the President's balls in a fiscal vise should he start doing things that the nation doesn't like.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Can you give an example - one example - of this "shitposting" by workers at these agencies? Can you even point to anything remotely partisan in any of the tweets that were deleted?
WaPo had an article on the rogue re-tweeting at the National Park Service (part of the Department of the Interior).
Ref: The National Park Service’s Twitter Has Gone Rogue.
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Uhm, except that the inconvenient truth is that it actually happened, sadly:
The National Park Service’s Twitter Has Gone Rogue
Now will the moderators kindly mod this up as `Informative' for providing specific evidence of the point I was raising, or are you folks on a kick to mod as `FlameBait' any posts that don't meet your standards for ideological purity? *wink* To me at least, dismissing someone's post as “alt-drumpf redneck gibberish” is clearly uber-troll flame baiting, bordering on racist, elitist hate speech, no?
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And how was that re-tweeting "shitposting" or partisan?
The National Park Service retweeted a photo of the inauguration and a past inauguration. Both showed hundreds of thousands of attendees. Are facts, or comparisons of facts, now considered partisan?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Moreover, the hyperbole by HuffPo, PopSci, Buzzfeed and others has now been walked back by actual journalists at WaPo & Reuters:
WashPo: Interior Department reactivates Twitter accounts after shutdown following inauguration
Reuters: USDA disavows gag-order emailed to scientific research unit
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To this day, the quantity of oil spewed into the ocean during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil spill remains something of a mystery. Many of the scientists who worked on the spill were hired by BP and barred from speaking on it.
I'll take, Who the Fuck was President in 2010 for 200 Alex!
Walk with Music;
Data from projects funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, an organization formed to fund spill-related research and funded by, in part, the fines levied against BP is hosted here.
http://data.gulfresearchinitiative.org
And, finally, this from WaPo:
USDA scrambles to ease concerns after researchers were ordered to stop publishing news releases
There, so have I redeemed myself sufficiently by backing up my accusations that this was exaggerated reporting, or are you unpersuaded by facts?
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Is anyone going to remind the President that the taxpayers OWN that data since we paid for the research? As such it's not something that should be subject to the whims of government as to what gets released and what doesn't.
And how was that re-tweeting "shitposting" or partisan?
The National Park Service retweeted a photo of the inauguration and a past inauguration. Both showed hundreds of thousands of attendees. Are facts, or comparisons of facts, now considered partisan?
Comparing apples to oranges is not valid data analysis: different weather, different security, different radical protest violence backdrop, different time of day, different TV & streaming audience, etc.
As for how the re-tweeting was “shitposting” or partisan, I refer you to the Miami Herald article that an anonymous poster linked above: https://science.slashdot.org/c...
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We PAID all this money for some very swanky political ranting and propaganda.
We have a right to it !!
Belief in global warming will sag below 42% if we can't whip people into shape!
And how were the EPA and USDA employees "shitposting"?
And are we really going to pretend that Donald Trump accusing someone of "shitposting" is not hilarious?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Please stick to your alt-truth websites - alt-truth for the alt-right. Go back to breitbart, there's nothing for you here at Slashdot.
Stating scientific facts is never "smarmy anti-${President} shitposting". Or shitposting. That you think it is is frightening.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Would you say that the tweeter was "just stating facts?"
Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself.
I am not a number. I am a FREE MAN!
You... are number 832646.
Nope. The White House website has now scrubbed all mentions of climate change and the history of civil rights.
You are welcome on my lawn.
1. Find a statute that requires an agency to publish certain information.
2. Find an executive order that forbids the agency from publishing that information.
3. Sue the executive. (Or, perhaps, prosecute the executive if there is a provision making such interference criminal.)
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
You really have no clue what is clear and what is not, do you?
You're assuming you are the one within reason.
He lied about that too.
What do get when combining those government organizations? Heavily guarded green houses growing an alarming number of cherry blossoms in the agricultural areas.
That is for each of us to figure out for ourselves. But that is not to say we are not to compare notes. The benefit of the current situation is that people are coming around to the fact that they might actually have to do some research to figure out who that is.
I knew Evita was a play. I did not know that Che didn't mean to be referrential to Guevara.
The same way "Defense cuts" mean the Defense Department budget would be smaller
No.
What was asked was, "Would you cut departments?"
Answering in the affirmative regarding the defense department would mean, "Yes, I would cut the defense department", which is very different than "defense cuts".
I do think it's obvious that he rarely speak or writes clearly. In this case, I think what he meant was that he is currently angry with something or someone EPA related, and he intended to do something to them that may be anywhere between fairly significant cuts and complete elimination of the department, but his opinion on the matter had already shifted within 2 back to back phrases, so it's anybodies guess what he'll do today.
I meant without singling out just the facts they don't like, they are going after everything, so it isn't just those. It would be really odd if they got rid of just stuff they were okay with leaving the stuff they didn't like.
No, they're only going after the stuff they don't like. The DoD public-facing website has been left alone.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but the DoD official twitter account has been throwing some serious shade on Trump, too. They tweeted this article:
https://twitter.com/DeptofDefe...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I find your demands for evidence to be highly partisan! What about my feelings you insensitive clod? How I feel about a subject is just as valid as your facts. I think maybe I will throw you in the gulag until you understand that.
That's: no public founded news. Only private founded. Better: Only corporate founded. Surely it's better, affordable and uninterested source of thrust. :-(((
Moreover, because they make citizens aware of what people paid for? Pure madness: They could get to think for themselves
One example? Sure:
I think the posting of the pictures of the mall with the smaller Trump crowds by the Dept of the Interior is a perfect example of a fact-based shitpost.
Trump was full of crap. His crowds were smaller. No question. ...so really, Trump's crowds were very comparable to those of previous Republicans, and in fact comparable to 5/7 of previous inaugurations of ANY party.
Then again, the comparison was to 2009's inauguration, why? Because 2009 was a RECORD SETTING crowd?
according to politifact:
Barack Obama, 2013: 1 million
Barack Obama, 2009: 1.8 million (generally considered a record for people on the National Mall)
George W. Bush, 2005: 400,000
George W. Bush, 2001: 300,000
Bill Clinton, 1997: 250,000
Bill Clinton, 1993: 800,000
George H.W. Bush, 1989: 300,000
So, yes: it was factually true. Posting it in the midst of the controversy *verged* on being a shitpost anyway. Specifically comparing it not to the previous inaugural (but instead to the single highest count of people ever seen on the mall by nearly a factor of 80%), or mentioning that it was comparable to any other Republican president, THOSE are the facts that made it clearly a shitpost, *intended* to embarrass.
And where I work, if I posted something deliberately meant to embarrass my CEO, I'd get my ass fired. Most people in normal jobs would.
-Styopa
I'll bet if you think about it, there is a difference between the CEO of your company and the president of the United States.
One of them is supposed to be a public servant. The other is paid by the taxpayers.
Let's say your job is to assemble the annual report for your company. Let's say your company lost $5million last year, and your CEO came and said, "Don't put anything out there that would embarrass me, so change the report to say that we actually made $50million last year." Do you do change the report?
When facts embarrass a dictator, facts will become illegal. Trying to make people believe that they can no longer believe what's true is the hallmark of totalitarianism. How easily Trump supporters have become comfortable with real tyranny.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hey Pope, were you not cheerleading the fuck outta t-dawg on the massive Inaugurational post we had? I'm pretty sure you were. Have thouest changed thy mind? Art thouest feeling buyer's remorse? Please, dear Pope, give us a sermon again on making America great again!
I'm glad you've came back to the Democrat side and saw the error of your ways but I'm afraid we don't want you back. See, you guys pissed and moaned about wanting a full wave, heated and cooled, waterbed even though we told you a million fucking times that it would toss your ass in the floor over the littlest disturbances, and that it would leak all over the place destroying your home's very foundation, and that other people could indirectly do you harm by freely jumping on the bed whenever they wanted, or that it would scald you by day and freeze your ass by night, oh no no no no. You wouldn't listen then so we aren't listening now. You dug into the darkest depths of humanity this election cycle to get "your man" put in charge. No, fuckers, you wanted this bed. You got this bed, now you're gonna fucking lay in it. You're gonna lay in that bastard and cry your greedy, selfish eyes out while that orangutan molests you in the darkness. You xtians are all about punishment and suffering so you understand it has to be this way otherwise you'll never learn your lesson. You deserve it really, god will surely agree. Now I am a liberal but not a treehuggin peta liberal. I'm from down South and this place is conservative as fuck. No matter how hard you try, you get a little of that shit in ya. So I'm a moderate liberal almost libertarian really. So being the liberal I am but with that hint of Southern "Told ya fucking so", I will eventually help you throw that bed out on the fucking curb where it belongs, but not before you get a good dose of the hate medicine you've been spewing around here for years. You conservatives hate that shit more than anything so you'll remember.
OK, that has GOT to be some fake ass shill news if I've ever heard it! Canada is perfect! It is the bastion of enlightenment in the Americas. You guys built a privacy fence of shrubbery (Robert the Shrubber APPROVES) for god's sake! How much more "nicely" can you tell someone to fuck off? No, guy, no way. I know you're full of shit because my government tells people to get the fuck outta here and go move there since it's so fucking perfect. Don't you be trying to scare us away. We already know how to cross a border thanks to our buddies from down south. We also picked up how to trim a mean hedge from em and you got like 6000 miles of bushes to keep beautiful. You ever thought our bitching about the Mexicans was bad? Oh you ain't seen shit until a bunch of honkeys roll into your hood!
Remember that /. article a few weeks ago about scientists archiving all their data cause they were scared this would happen? All the trumpettes got on here and shouted at us that we were a bunch of whiny bitches, we were "drama queens", sore losers, CRAZY, and every other manner of vileness they could puke onto the keyboard. I dunno which end of that you fell on but I just wanna say to the haters; TOLD YA FUCKING SO! You said this would never happen and yet here we are.
Not socialist!!!! From your own link:
"Venezuela (Listeni/vnzwel/ VEN--ZWAYL-; Spanish: [beneswela]), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Spanish: República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a federal republic located on the northern coast of South America."
It's a REPUBLIC! Ya know, like us without the constitution. Alt fact? Real deal? YOU DECIDE!
Oh bullshit.
It would be one thing if I was told to produce a report and then told to lie. Of course. That's a different context and a frankly bad analogy.
It would be another thing ENTIRELY if I started voluntarily posting embarrassing information contradictory to my CEOs pronouncements.
And yes, the president is 'a public servant' - he's not a 'servant' to his *employees*.
-Styopa
You have GOT to be kidding!!!
If this isn't a move towards Orwell's 1984 society, then how would you define it?
Fellow Americans: The time is NOW to stand up for the right's intended by our founding Fathers, and DEMAND FULL transparency on ALL issues affecting us as the FREE citizens of this country!
It is time to bring the Constitution into this modern age.
It is time to OUTLAW ANY fake news or deceptive speech. Freedom of speech does NOT mean Freedom to Deceive and Lie - especially for political reasons.
Whistle-blowing needs to be classified as FREE SPEECH, and NOT encumbered by bullshit laws to suppress truths that citizens must have to make informed decisions at the polls!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.