Monumental Disaster at the Department of the Interior A

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Monumental Disaster at the Department of the Interior

A new report documents suppression of science, denial of climate change, the silencing and intimidation of staff

Go ahead righties, defend the indefensible.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observat...03621390=1

This is a tough time to be a federal scientist—or any civil servant in the federal government. The Trump administration is clamping down on science, denying dangerous climate change and hollowing out the workforces of the agencies charged with protecting American health, safety and natural resources.

At the Department of the Interior (DOI), with its mission to conserve and manage America’s natural and cultural resources, the Trump administration’s political appointees are stumbling over one another to earn accolades for disabling agency operations.

I should know; I was one of dozens of senior executives targeted by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for reassignment in a staff purge just six months into the new administration.

From that day onward, Zinke and his political staff have consistently sidelined scientists and experts while handing the agency’s keys over to oil, gas and mining interests.

The only saving grace is that Zinke and his colleagues are not very good at it, and in many cases the courts are stopping them in their tracks. The effects on science, scientists and the federal workforce, however, will be long-lasting.

In a new report, Science Under Siege at the Department of the Interior, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has documented some of the most egregious and anti-science policies and practices at the DOI under Secretary Zinke.

The report describes suppression of science, denial of climate change, the silencing and intimidation of agency staff, and attacks on science-based laws that help protect our nation’s world-class wildlife and habitats.

It is a damning report and required reading for anyone who values public lands, wildlife, cultural heritage, and health and safety.

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1. KGOP republicans are making war on American democracy & government

republicans hate America, and are working systematically and treasonously to undermine all that is good, honest, decent, moral, ethical, and honorable about this nation. The draft-dodging casino hustler they are so pathetically submissive to is leading them, and America, off a cliff and into the filthy, reeking garbage heap of history.

Sick

6. I grew up in an America...

that valued and revered its intellectual individuals across the spectrum of knowledge, but the willfully ignorant portion of our population decided that they should label that "intellectual elitism" to make themselves feel better about their ignorance.

There truly was a time when the people who weren't that smart were at least smart enough to know to leave the decision making to those who knew what they were talking about. This is true also of the privilege of voting.

I clearly remember more than one person saying to me years ago, "I didn't vote because I had not had the time to look into that particular candidate's background and stand on issues, so I'd rather not vote than to vote for someone I know nothing about."

In some ways I respected that. In fact, I've actually done that once or twice myself in my fifty years of voting. Once was when I had just moved to a new state and had no idea who the candidates for governor were or what their background was or their stand on the issues, so I declined to vote for governor that year.

18. Add the Department of the Interior to the Long List of Federal Agencies

That the Trump administration has hollowed out. Another key government agency that was hollowed out real early on in the Trump administration was the State Department. This really irked me to no end, since my dear departed father was a career ambassador and foreign service officer.

He was one of those language and regional experts who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations alike over his long career - and these are some of the most useful and helpful people that any government can employ.

When Trump's former Secretary of State and Putin buddy Rex Tillerson fired all those career diplomats, he was only doing what Putin wanted, to weaken US diplomacy, moral leadership and "soft power" throughout the world. Heck, even "Mad Dog" Mattis said that the better our diplomacy and soft power, the less ammo and hard power is needed by the Defense Department. My dad was definitely rolling over in his grave.

And now the hollowing out and bastardization of the DOI has entered the spotlight. Trump's crusade against science, and even against a sensible and decent environment and quality of life for the citizens of our country is probably rooted in two things: business ties to the fossil fuel industry and being beholden to them; and 2) his political wooing of the Christian Right, which is anti-science and denying climate change and global warming.

Heck - these rabid Jesus freaks sincerely believe that the sooner the planet is destroyed, the sooner Jesus will return. With Trump, there are two things that trump (pun intended) everything - money (fossil fuel interests) and politics (wooing the Christian Right and playing them for the suckers and hypocrites that they are).

It is very hard to understand, indeed mind-boggling at times, Trump's incredible rejection of and aversion to genuine knowledge and expertise of any kind - it's almost like he's strongly allergic to it. Is it just because he's a total narcissist as well as phenomenally ignorant himself, and surrounding himself with genuine experts would only put his own monumental stupidity into the spotlight by contrast and make him look bad?

In my mind, there seem to be three basic golden rules of governing effectively: 1) Put the country's interests ahead of your own. 2)The buck stops here - step up to the plate and take responsibility now! and 3) Follow the sage counsel of genuine experts and people in the know to supplement your own personal knowledge and experience where it is lacking. And Trump has failed miserably at all three.