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The White House Now Has Zero Science Advisors (cbsnews.com)
DogDude shares an article from CBS News:
The science division of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy was unstaffed as of Friday as the three remaining employees departed this week, sources tell CBS News... On Friday afternoon, Eleanor Celeste, the assistant director for biomedical and forensic sciences at the OSTP, tweeted, "Science division out. Mic drop" before leaving the office for the last time...
Under Mr. Obama, the science division was staffed with nine employees who led the charge on policy issues such as STEM education, biotechnology and crisis response. It's possible that the White House will handle these issues through staff in other divisions within the OSTP.
Under Mr. Obama, the science division was staffed with nine employees who led the charge on policy issues such as STEM education, biotechnology and crisis response. It's possible that the White House will handle these issues through staff in other divisions within the OSTP.
A government of the idiots, by the idiots and for the idiots.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So, under Obama, they had 9 people working in this office, making $150,000 a year, doing... what exactly?
What were the great visionary policies for science coming out of the Obama White House?
What great technologies did the administration sponsor?
Maybe they advised the President well on internet and cybersecurity issues, to the benefit of the nation's retailers and online account holders?
No, the OSTP focused on education policy, advocated for more women in science, preached climate change, and worked for social justice. Their primary accomplishments were creating more boards and commissions and hiring more bureaucrats. They also wrote some boring non-technical non-policy papers. Oh, yes, they gave a number of empty speeches.
Futurists, with much better paychecks, at the taxpayers expense.
So, what loss is it to not have self-important 'advisers' and 'science experts' hanging around doing nothing useful? Abolish the office entirely, and return to they way it was in the 70s, before ignorant celebrity 'scientists' got government jobs.
I know that we would like to view every country on Earth as occupants of this cooperative spaceship that has to sustain humanity, and therefore in a sense it doesn't matter all that much that we get set back by one country slowing its science progress for a few years...
But in reality...
It's still a race for competitive advantage between countries, and seriously, the Chinese, Indians, Singaporeans, etc.etc are going to start eating our lunch, guys (even more than they are) -- and every move we make gets us forward or back a step in the race against them.
I think a lot of people don't want to admit this winner-takes-all reality... especially if they grow up in a highly liberal California environment where everyone is supposed to be nice to each other...
Thank you for giving the fool's opinion. Even fool's like yourself should be heard, so your foolishness can be seen.
For he certainly put them to good use.... What with the "Focus on Muslim Outreach" mandate Obama issued to NASA.
Look, Trump already has a scientist he can refer to if so be. His name is Ben Carson. And he is as good as anyone Obama had working for him.
Caution: Contents under pressure
And yet, when it comes to providing healthcare for all US citizens, it's "fuck them, why should I pay for other people's healthcare".
No, you aren't compassionate and generous.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
You mean the Republicans have the "fuck them" attitude. The Democrats finally bit the bullet and raised taxes to attempt to cover the proles. Now if they hadn't relied on the insurance companies, they'd have done much better.
You mean scientists at NASA, NOAA, EPA, DOE, etc. that the administration and their fellow travelers in Congress are ignoring? Them scientists?
We helped Europe deal with Nazi Germany
I'm not quite sure how fighting the Axis after being attacked by it counts as generous.
But anyway, the US has done many good, generous things, many neutral things and many rather awful, self-interested things.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"I'm not quite sure how fighting the Axis after being attacked by it counts as generous" - Well, before December 1941 the US with Franklin D. Roosevelt as President was doing quite a bit of prodding the Axis (rightly, in my British view), for example:
Escort Duties:
For more than a decade, I tried to serve the public good by working in the public sector. I finally got fed up with the shit pay, the shit I got when people found out I worked in the government (called a pig at the trough, incompetent, stupid, lazy, a drone, had my car vandalized multiple times, threaten with death on a weekly basis, and assaulted) and got a job in the private sector that pays one hell of a lot better.
The key here is that there is now a majority of people that think science and engineering are "just someone's opinion." That is true to a limited extent that it is indeed an opinion - but it's an opinion formed from training, intense study, experience, and perseverance. These opinions are not something someone pulls out of their ass.
The current administration was elected by the sorts of people that deny scientific opinion because it conflicts with their world view. The sorts of folks that think welfare is for the lazy the drug addicted, and cheats. Of course the white house science department has no employees. The people that elected this administration do not value science, compassion, empathy, or Christian Values, despite many of them calling themselves Christians. They are not Christians. At best they mistake their fear and anger for piety, their selfishness, lack of compassion and imagination as "being strong". These attitudes serve no one but the top 1%. The key here is that if you read this, you will never be one of the top 1%.
"The world isn't fair" is an excuse I hear a lot, which is true, life frequently isn't fair. Evil prospers when good men do nothing. There's nothing like doing nothing to ensure that life will remain unfair, and uncaring.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Wasting time introducing internet kooks to facts is an endless wast of time, but just FYI, "Hillary-care" as it was called, was not exactly single payer. That is part of the reason why the Sanders wing of the Democratic party wasn't all that enchanted with her in 2016.
It did have the vast majority of Democrats behind it, and Republicans were absolutely terrified that it would prove to the public that the government can solve problems that private markets can't find profit in solving.
WW2 when the US government was NOT coming to Great Britain's aid until after Perl Harbour happened in December 1941 some 2 years after the start of WW2. Churchill had to pay the US to get the US to send supplies across the Atlantic whilst the German's sunk many of the convoys via their U-boats.
The Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 was the British Royal Air Force up against the German Air Force. Britain had a small number of air crews from other European and Commonwealth countries such as Poland, Canada and India. The US government was absent from the fight citing that it was a European war.
I agree that after WW2 there was the US Marshall plan in 1948 to help rebuild Western Europe however, the European governments had to pay back the US over decades. In addition, the US motives included pushing back communism to Eastern Europe.
Please try to get your facts right.
No. It's been undermined before it even passed by worthless, fucking greedy, self serving, anti-American, anti-Christian republicans. Pull your head out of your ass and check out reality for once in your life.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
So what you're saying is, you're too fucking stupid to understand what "insurance" is. I honestly can't tell if you're just a fucking liar, or actually as completely fucking stupid as your posts make you out to be.
Insurance is for catastrophic unforeseen events. Obamacare is pre-paid health care. You don't use car insurance to fill your gas tank, change the oil, or get a new tire. Why the hell do you need medical insurance for a routine predictable medical event?
The constitution also states we should only have a standing army during an invasion or insurrection.... but never lasting more than 2 years. It says nothing about an Air Force. It does say a standing Navy, but not a separate Marine Corp. So what you're saying is, we need to disband the entire Army (they've been active more than 2 years now), remove all our military members from all other countries, eliminate all of our Air Force, and move the Marines back into the Navy's chain of command.
OR, are you saying, you don't even know what's in the Constitution, but you just have to bring it up to try to use it's authority to make your ignorance seem useful?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
But we didn't "provide healthcare", we simply required people to buy health insurance at higher premiums and with higher deductibles than before. Thanks for putting the insurance companies in our pockets, guys! And Obamacare is crumbling, most of the "exchanges" will be defunct by next year if it is left just as the Democrats (it was passed by a partisan super-majority) and Obama intended. Except for the bit where they expected a Democrat to be in the White House to declare it defunct so they could replace it with something worse.
My health insurance, with the same provider providing the same level of coverage, cost 1/3 of what it did before the ACA went into effect.
To eliminate the deficit, every taxpayer will have to pay an additional $15,000 per year. Ready to do that? Or we could have Government scale back its spending... If you look at Hauser's Law, you'll see that for all the massive swings in the marginal tax rates over the last 70 years, the actual tax receipts are amazingly stable.
The reality is, if the Federal Government simply pegged the annual increases in its budget to no more than inflation plus population growth, in about 50 years our debt would be retired. The GDP - and thus, based on Hauser's Law, the share of GDP that the Federal Government receives as taxes - grows faster than inflation plus population growth. Peg growth - limit spending - and not a single tax needs to be raised. IF tax rates are adjusted, they should be done with an eye towards growing the GDP at a faster rate as that will increase the funds delivered to the Federal Government.
Imagine - slash no programs, and peg spending GROWTH (yes, growth - not cuts) to a rational level related to the consumption of services (inflation - cost of delivery - plus population growth - number of consumers). Democrats SHOULD be happy, they get to keep all their spending. And we implement no new taxes or any tax increases. Republicans SHOULD be happy, there is no new taxes. But sadly, neither side will want it because they lose their leverage...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!