The US should not put up with any, even a temporary form of such censorship of the parts of the government that are doing scientific research and environmental stewardship. There should be another march in a week or two to support scientific freedom. Trump does not determine scientific truth, peer review and the scientific method does.
Harper even changed Government of Canada to the Harper Government too bizarre at the time even more bizarre looking back.
There was supposedly a secret portrait library of all portraits of Harper viewing by appointment only.
Very sad that's something we need to be screaming in the streets.
I think it's fair to point out that peer review doesn't determine scientific truth, because that would get the causal relation in reverse.
Consensus has little to do with objective truth, but it is a useful heuristic as you say.
These are some more well known cases. Having been there I'd say probably about 40% of peer reviewed material in chemistry and biology is seriously flawed.
We really have this problem where peer review is held up as a scientific standard. It shouldn't be. The scientific standards are independent replication and confirmation through prediction of a derivative result.
That is not to say all scientific peer review is flawed. If it appears in the journal organic syntheses I'll believe it, every time. (In order to get published an editor has to repeat the experiment in their lab, there are often liner notes)
I now live in a country that is much freer, but for the first time since 1938, no longer has an active US ambassador, with no replacement in sight, since President Trump fired all US ambassadors to foreign countries on the afternoon of his inauguration... [0]
[0] - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trum...
It may be fine that you don't understand or like the explanations, but saying "I really don't understand X" and then punishing anybody who tries to explain it isn't much of a way to have a reasonable public discourse. (This wasn't directed at you, just at the community at large. I've seen several of these comment questions and they never end well. Might be time for a politics pause for a day or two)
Discussion is good. Saying you don't understand because you don't agree with answers is like saying you don't understand why a homosexaul is homosexual.
Last time I checked, that's called "bigotry"
You can't make an assessment about whether you agree if you don't understand - the latter must must happen before the former can come to pass. It would either be the case that you don't understand because the explanation is complex or it contains logical fallacies...the latter applies to your statement above.
> is like saying you don't understand why a homosexaul is homosexual.
It's fine to say you don't understand why a homosexual is homosexual - however it's not fine to impose restrictions, punishment, violence or torment for what goes on between consenting adults. You're allowed to find it odd or not to your taste, but you're expected to live and let live.
> Last time I checked, that's called "bigotry"
Bigotry is intolerance stemming from a preconceived opinion that isn't based on reason or experience. And I'd agree that the liberal/progressive side can exhibit such intolerance - I've been on the receiving end despite considering myself progressive. But if we're going talk about the old classics like racism, homophobia, and sexism -- the conservative side knows the art better than any.
The fact that their solution to their own failure to get people in place is to make things worse by releasing a blanket gag order is another self-inflicted PR wound. If the "gag order" is in place after they have media people in place, or if it lasts more than a month or so, then I'd be worried.
It's also freezing the distribution of grants and any new business of EPA for a week, if not longer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...
This is while Trump attempts to appoint Scott Pruitt to the head of the EPA. He's a noted opponent of the EPA who frequently litigates against it on behalf of the fossil fuel lobby, denies man-made climate change, and would like to dismantle the agency's power altogether. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/politics/scott-pruitt-...
but is so far behind on staffing the posts at EPA
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmations_of_Barack_Obam...
To your latter point regarding the fired ambassadors, it's the most scandalous thing since 2008, when Obama did the exact same thing - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/12/obama-gives-poli...
A changing of the guard in these roles is (as the article I posted pointed out) the norm.
However, In the current case, no one knows who the replacement is, or when he/she will be taking on the role, thus leaving us officially without an ambassador for the foreseeable future, and also resulting in the longest gap in 70 odd years that we have not had an official ambassador.
A transition team who knows these things would have done that - the Trump team, though, since he was not actually expecting a transition, had no idea how to run one. And accepted all the resignations.
This is the same reason the commander of the D.C. National Guard was dismissed at noon on the same day.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
Unless I'm misremembering, that wasn't the case. Obama was appointing ambassadors regularly for a few months.
But wasn't it the Parks agency that tweeted about the crowd size, not the EPA?
And is the current administration simply going to shut down or fire everyone who shows any form of push back towards the regime? Isn't that what they do in places like, oh say, North Korea?
I can't think of many instances where Executive Branch employees used official outlets to undermine a sitting President's policies in the past. Can you?
Don't all new presidents appoint a fresh new batch of ambassadors ? I assumed it was always done that way ...
Are there cases of cross-presidency ambassadors ?
2. December 3, 2008. That's when that article was published about giving notice and starting to find replacements. Same as every other president does.
3. Serious question. Are you paid to do what you are doing right now? I have a really hard time understanding why you would post that link which is specifically framed to spread misinformation as it is about a completely different point in the presidency. Seriously, this is your country. Why would you intentionally attempt to misinform your fellow citizens?
EDIT: I expect a response. You said Obama did the "exact same thing". Which is an outright falsehood and posted an link that is from a different period to intentionally misinform people. In some countries what you just did would be considered a crime.
To my surprise, jquery is pretty much correct about it being the same thing as Obama did. This[1] is the best summary of the situation I can find:
1) Obama (and all new incoming presidents before him) did ask for the resignations of all non-career, politically appointed ambassadors.
2) Obama (and Bush) did grant extensions to some ambassadors. However, this was a (very) small number. Exactly how many it applied to is unclear, but to quote the the article I linked above:
in the past two inter-party transitions (Clinton-Bush, Bush-Obama) only about 10 political ambassadors have gotten extensions.
Basically, I'd judge that the reporting of The Independent article linked above is misleadingly critical of Trump.
I also think that jquery's point below about Obama literally auctioned off the posts is incomplete. Most ambassadorships are given as rewards (by both US parties). Most countries do the same: ambassadorships to friendly countries are political rewards and the countries actually want someone who is close to the leader of the country they represent. I don't think the moral case against that is entirely clear, but I can see arguments both ways.
[1] https://diplopundit.net/2017/01/06/foreign-service-tradition...
So, yes, some posts may be left without an immediate replacement, but it's not cause for panic if the alternative is immediately filling the posts with unqualified campaign donors.
EDIT: These are undisputed facts in response to a hostile question accusing me of being a paid actor (ridiculous, my account is 8 years old) posting things that would be a "crime" in other countries. People down-voting this should check the irony considering they're upset at the President for censorship.
"For decades, the National Park Service provided official crowd estimates for gatherings on the National Mall but no longer does.
The policy changed after the Million Man March in 1995, a gathering of black men meant to show renewed commitment to family and solidarity. The park service estimated 400,000 people attended the march, making it one of the largest demonstrations in history in Washington.
But organizers believed they reached their goal of 1 million participants and threatened legal action. No lawsuit was filed, but the dispute was enough to get the park service out of the head-counting business."
Ref: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/21/national-park-service-t...
I, for one, am happy that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about being prosecuted for making HN comments.
Can we please not do this here?
Are you paid to do what you are doing right now?
The number of true believers in various viewpoints, willing to lie in order to sway the audience vastly overwhelms the amount any organization's payroll could handle.
jquery, as many conservative and liberal commenters before him, believes that a lie to persuade someone for his noble cause is justified by its outcome. I disagree with this tactic vehemently, but it is used by many earnest believers.
I think it prevents real change from happening. Questioning why things are they way they are. Should some of the fundamental just be changed/replaced? What country do we want to live in? Do we want people worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick or went to school? Do we want to worry about drinking lead poisoned water? etc etc.
Sorry, I went way off topic. Trump apparently also want to defund PBS/NPR. I see a clear pattern here. None of these ideas will save substantial money and will erode democracy. Who else is going to educate the busy citizen about world events? CNN/Fox?
Note that this is not a closed system where there is no private news/tv.
Also, look at DW (Deutsche Welle) and BBC. Whatever your opinion, these still provide much better information than whatever you can get in the US (well, you can actually get BBC/DW).
I would love to hear a better approach.
One thing I never do is to completely shut down the app and take it offline while I scour through the code to ensure everything is ok. Not unless there is a glaring problem or security hole that is already evident.
It is ironic that the person giving the orders to restrict his subordinates from tweeting can still continue tweeting his stream of consciousness stuff carte blanche...
Kind've, kind've not. If you're a government agency and you employ a new staffer outside of PR, you're not expecting them to tweet stream-of-consciousness. Trump, on the other hand, was largely elected because he did do this and it's expected of him.
Also I don't think it's particularly ironic that the President of the United States gets certain privileges which his subordinates don't.
The only reason that you'd do something this public is to make it a spectacle and give people the impression that you're doing important busy work at all levels; or to try to assert/show dominance.
With the aim of installing Orwellian-style thought control practices† at every level, affecting every last publicity statement, blog post, and tweet. You forgot that part.
† Based on what his press secretary (and other lackeys) attempted to have us believe about the size of the inaugural day crowds (and the millions of people who voted fraudulently in the past election) -- in addition to things Trump himself has said about climate change, and a whole bunch of other issues -- that's not hyperbole; that's quite literally what's happening.
Hell, twitter and facebook themselves have become quite orwelian lately, banning wrongthought.
social media policies is sci-fi way of saying "people saying things" though.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/20...
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-usda-idUSKBN1582...
http://observer.com/2016/09/wikileaks-guccifer-2-0-obama-sol...
Any organisation will want to control its message, and having your officials use a channel that's 140 characters maximum leads to only being able to talk about issues in the most flimsy of ways.
Personally, I think there should be less Twitter and more published in-depth reports.
What the EPA reports may be factual, but the presentation of facts, when they are spoken of, and how often, are all political practices.
Is it important for the EPA to tweet daily "hey guys, you know climate change is caused by humans?". No, we know it is and don't deny it is. What's controversial is: how do we reign in the problem, what are we willing to give up to do so, and how do we coordinate with our allies and competitors ?
The EPA's tweets may not be helpful in getting Chinese support, or encouraging a positive practical debate on how 3rd world nations can both improve their economies with limited technology and still be part of the climate change solution----or even if such a thing is necessary in the short term.
> Emails sent to EPA staff and reviewed by The Associated Press also detailed specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency's social media accounts.
[1] https://www.apnews.com/5ada25fc57b44a0989e681d6dc2a3daf/Trum...
This article just says, that buzzfeed says, that goverment employees can't post on Twitter and Facebook claiming their personal opinion is policy. Unless I misread something, let me know if I did, or if this article is just wrong.
Edit: Other sources indicate other kinds of communications are stopped also, it seems that it could be totally nefarious or just part of some kind of re-organization. Are scientific papers block or not? Everything seems confused, but the general tone seems to be hugely negative, what do know for certain?
I'm no fan of Trump but this behavior by the left is absolutely idiotic.
I really don't like the latter, but at least you can argue it (e.g. pulling out of TPP is a perfectly reasonable position to take).
The former is just... ugh. Huge numbers of unfilled positions, firing all the ambassadors with no replacements, completely unqualified cabinet nominees (DeVos, Carson, Perry).
* Minarcho-capitalist, "Snow Crash"-style. Absolutely minimal government, only contracts and property titles being enforced. On everything else, you're free-to-starve.
* Religious dominionism, Mike Pence style. "Electrocute the gay away". Scary and weird. Kinda like a Middle Eastern country.
* So-called "right-wing populism", aka fascism. Trump's typical style. Very nationalistic, often claiming to adopt left-wing economic policies like industrial management and regional equalization while actually installing policies more similar to the minarcho-capitalists, but with more corruption. Dog-whistles to religion but no real religiosity. Military parades in the streets, Orwellian blatant lies, etc. Cult of leadership.
We should expect to see more of this, there is no one to moderate his behavior that I can see at this point.
You have to look at it from the Trump teams point of view. They honestly don't see that the 'free speech' argument holds water. They see it as abuse of a public position to spread falsehoods.
Basically EPA employees in the Trump Team's view are perpetuating climate alarmism ( again in the TT view ).
So they are stopping that.
Just flip it around just for a second. I'll choose an equivalent that would cause liberals to shut down the twitter of an official.
Imagine a Department of Health official was tweeting photos of aborted foetuses and keeping a tally "350 aborted this month. #whatawaste".
There would be calls to stop that official speaking out.
Climate change on the other hand, isn't controversial in reality. It's been made controversial because some people have an interesting way of deciding what is true or false.
There seems to be a certain mindset that treats wishful thinking as equivalent in power to empirical evidence. So they start with what they want to be true, and work backwards from there. For example: "It's inconvenient for my business interests if climate change is true. Therefore it must be false."
Some people even work themselves all the way to: "... and therefore climate change is a conspiracy invented by jealous scientists to screw over successful capitalists like me".
doesnt make it better though, does it ?
That reasoning is flawed, as true facts exists and there are ways to get to that facts like the scientific method. And morality exists, not every action is just relative.
The last part is that oil industry has paid big to silence science about climate change. "Conflict of interest" is another big point against Trump teams "point of view".
The hypocrisy is dumbfounding
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703/...
1:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-epa-first-40-...
It's not helpful to try and explain that away.
So the EPA came into formation not exactly for the purpose to stop pollution, but to decide just how much is allowable.
Im pro environment but Im not naive to think you can separate corrupt politics from this.
>For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry. President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
The focus isn't on what the EPA does or doesn't do, but on what the administration is trying to do, whether that actually matches up with how business is usually done in the organisation, and how this looks to the rest of America.
[0] http://gizmodo.com/national-park-service-banned-from-tweetin...
Here's the Gigapixel during Trump's inauguration speech: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inaugu...
Paul Ryan said today that there was no evidence of wide-spread voter fraud. Since the President still keeps telling obvious lies about the subject, was that a "political statement" on Ryan's part?
It's not appropriate for the official social media account of a government agency to tweet political content that criticizes the current President. That's going too far, and I'm not surprised at all that they were told to shut it.
That's why YC added the Hide button. With one click, you can simply hide posts that don't interest you.
"Congress shall make no law regarding..."
I guess Executive Orders can bypass all of that.
For example, your strict reading would suggest that the states could make a law restricting freedom of speech (&c). But the Supreme Court ruled in 1925 that the First Amendment precludes such actions by the states:
The first amendment applies to law governing speech.
Weird that it's EPA-only, though.
For that matter, many employers can do that. I can say whatever I please, but not with my company name on it.
I say "amost" because the Supreme Court has a part to play, but it's in a bad shape right now (highly polarized, split 50-50, with an opening for just about any old stooge to be helicoptered in).