USDA Scrambles To Ease Concerns After Researchers Were Ordered To Stop Publishing Publicly Funded Science (popsci.com) 372
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."
Alternate-facts (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no surprise here, it's difficult to deny scientific facts if your scientists are allowed to share actual facts.
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Actual Wall Will Be Around Government (Score:2)
And we won't be able to see ANYTHING going on. Sounds like a plan!
Continuation of the Bush policy "Hear No Evil" (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/six-years-of-deceit-20070628 [rollingstone.com]
Re: Continuation of the Bush policy "Hear No Evil" (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't always the way Republicans have operated. Reagan would be ashamed of what the Republican Party has become. Reagan wasn't entirely convinced that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer, but he surrounded himself with competent advisors who understood the science. They advised Reagan that the costs of not acting were far greater than the costs of banning CFCs. The US implemented a cap-and-trade policy on CFCs and became the primary supporter of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer. Bush 41 continued to support Reagan's efforts to phase out CFCs and protect the ozone layer. Bush and Reagan weren't entirely convinced about the science, but they were wise to act and not risk the destruction of the ozone layer. Today's Republicans should follow the example of the Gipper, but the party has changed and no longer behaves rationally.
Re: Continuation of the Bush policy "Hear No Evil" (Score:4, Insightful)
You know we've come a long way when liberals are lauding Reagan and Bush for their even handedness.
Meanwhile conservatives still think Carter was "history's greatest monster"
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Meanwhile conservatives still think Carter was "history's greatest monster"
Are you kidding me? Jimmy Carter has demonstrated a lifelong commitment to global peace and charitable works, even if I personally disagreed with some of his post-Presidential actions and statements. Every conservative/Republican I know of, myself among them, thinks Carter is good person, but made a lousy President.
He's kind of the opposite of Bill Clinton, I suppose.
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His administration also cracked jokes about AIDS as it was killing tens of thousands of people, even ignoring the personal pleas of a dying family friend (Rock Hudson) in the process.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjmxmHpBj4E [youtube.com]
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Just business as usual, Boss.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/25/exxonmobil-climate-change-scientists-congress-george-w-bush [theguardian.com]
http://www.cfr.org/climate-change/political-interference-climate-change-science-under-bush-administration-december-2007/p15079 [cfr.org]
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17926941 [npr.org]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bush-appointee-at-nasa-resigns-over-censorship-6109603.html [independent.co.uk]
Totally normal. Everything is fine. (Score:5, Informative)
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... [thehill.com]
http://www.miamiherald.com/new... [miamiherald.com]
Don't be alarmed, it is for your own good. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
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You wanted government to be involved in everything everyone does. How's that working out for you?
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Trump has the only facts that matter. Listen and believe.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-... [vox.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/24/... [cnn.com]
Re:Totally normal. Everything is fine. (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
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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.
Welcome to Canada under Harper (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Yeah, government power is disturbing. Maybe there should be less government wielding less power?
Help mirror the climate data (Score:5, Informative)
You can help mirror the climate data. Go to climatemirror.org [climatemirror.org] and grab the torrents, the National Land Cover Database has been completely uploaded (11GB). There's also a mailing list [firemountain.net] for further info and future efforts.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Step one in seizing power, control information. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the president does not uphold the consitution (Score:2)
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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.
DANGER (Score:4)
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That kind of talk can get a fellow in trouble.
NOT talking will get us ALL in trouble.
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Except no one is blocked except politics-encumbered agencies. If you're not tax-funded, this doesn't apply.
You people want government involvement in everything. Congrats on that. How's that working out for you?
Re:DANGER (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's [wikipedia.org] a socialist hellhole where the government is involved in everything. It seems to be working out just fine. [wikipedia.org]
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This.
Before the Borders Close (Score:2)
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.
Is it just me (Score:2)
or does that "clarification" bear all the hallmarks of an ass-covering exercise ?
"Exacerbated the confusion"? (Score:3)
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.
Re:Popular Science reports... (Score:5, Funny)
The story is exaggerated. The science blackout is not permanent. The Trump administration just need a little time to get the alternative facts ready.
Re:Popular Science reports... (Score:4, Insightful)
" The Trump administration just need a little time to get the alternative facts ready."
The Ministry of Truth is responsible for those.
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While I checked for "funny" comments, I wasn't expecting to find any, and I don't think this insightful comment was modded correctly... Then again, we're in a post-truth #PresidentTweety world now, so maybe we're post-funny, too. What used to be parody is now just different facts.
You thought there was only ONE reality and one set of facts? You must be nuts!
Re:Popular Science reports... (Score:5, Informative)
And you would know because? (Score:2)
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Re:The article is not to be trusted (Score:4, Funny)
The article is not to be trusted.
You are fake news claiming fake news claiming fake news claiming fake news.
It's fake news claims all the way down.
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"U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to remove the climate change page from its website
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Re:And you would know because? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, well, Trump is not a strong president. You can see that in his constant references to himself as "smart" and going ballistic over every slight. He's a small-minded narcissist with the attention span of gnat.
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And small hands.
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Even if that was the original order, which we have no way of telling, it's entirely possible the person sending it was the typical oblivious bureaucrat that was only thinking about the sorts of documents that they deal with (policy and whatnot) rather than the sort that people outside the organization would care about. (research results)
Re:Popular Science reports... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Popular Science reports... (Score:4, Interesting)
Please explain how one publishes scientific information without publishing documents?
You hand it to a politician, who yellow lines the parts that do not align with party policy You remove the parts that are not true because the truth has been set by party policy, and if the politician ends up finding the now policy confirming paper acceptable, it gets published.
I have a strong suspicion that in science departments all over the country, that they are making backups to be hidden from the new age of alternative truth we have entered. Kind of like the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for science data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
Because this too shall pass. Ages of alternative facts come and go. Ages of politics determining the laws of physics will come and go. We don't hear much of Lysenkoism these days, though it was once official Soviet Union policy.
I suspect that at this time that physics will be ignored and all research into the greenhouse effect will be suppressed, that creationism will rear it's head again, and a lot of heath science will be suppressed as well.
And? Well these are the times we live in. Scientists are a different breed. An example is in WW2, oddly enough - in Leningrad - 12 scientists chose to slowly starve to death rather than eat the seeds of their seed bank. http://www.popsci.com/science/... [popsci.com]
All in all, if The new Politicians see fit to kill me for my views on physics, if the greenhouse effect and my support of it, or any of my other science views that have been banned by policy make me too dangerous to allow to live - then I shall die. Hopefully they are smart enough to know that suppression and killing tend to make truth stronger than policy. I have my grave doubts though.
Because all of this shall pass.
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You had me 'til you tried to play the race card.
Re:Popular Science reports... (Score:5, Informative)
It's fine. The coasts will always be fine. We have the strongest and most sustainable economies. It's not a coincidence that the counties that went Democrat make up 64 percent [washingtonpost.com] of the economy. Trump will cut a bunch of federal funding and programs that help poor people in the "taker" states that receive more federal money than they give (hint: almost all Republican), and Democratic states will replace the cut programs with their own at the state level. You guys wanted more power to the states, right? Now see how that works out for you.
Republicans are dividing the country without realizing that their part of the country is rapidly becoming irrelevant. There's also the fact that Democrats won every state but Kentucky in the under 30 vote so eventually all of you backwards idiots are going to just die out. Looking forward to that.
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I'm waiting for the coasts to start demanding the red interior start paying their own way. But then we'll all be paying dearly when the national debt balloons to Trumpian proportions. It will be the biggest, most lovely debt we've ever had.
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>which only referred to the "ban" on sharing scientific data
Because that's the only thing coming out of those things that er... matters ? If they stop tweeting you may feel inconvenienced but you can't say you're being robbed. If they refuse to share with you, the results of science you paid for, that's a major civil rights issue.
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From TFA: "The original email, sent Jan. 23, said: "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." I believe this is what you're referring to.
Also from TFA:
USDA officials said that after the email was sent, acting USDA Deputy Secretary Michael L. Young sent out a three-page memo to USDA agency department heads and other key agency officials outli
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So then why was there no blackouts when Obama, Bush, Clinton, the other Bush, etc were elected and took over? And does the context of a president that repeatedly and blatantly lies have no relevance?
A lot of things Trump does are over blown in the media when taken individually, but in the context of all that he's done, it's clear that he's actively trying to promote a false narrative, one where he is the lone holder of any 'facts' and that anything that disagrees with his all-knowing decrees are 'fake news'. If he hadn't spent the last 18 months literally saying things on camera and then lying that it happen on camera a few weeks after, it might not be such a big deal.
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So then why was there no blackouts when Obama, Bush, Clinton, the other Bush, etc were elected and took over? And does the context of a president that repeatedly and blatantly lies have no relevance?
A lot of things Trump does are over blown in the media when taken individually, but in the context of all that he's done, it's clear that he's actively trying to promote a false narrative, one where he is the lone holder of any 'facts' and that anything that disagrees with his all-knowing decrees are 'fake news'. If he hadn't spent the last 18 months literally saying things on camera and then lying that it happen on camera a few weeks after, it might not be such a big deal.
Agreed. That trump is not just blatantly lying but doing his damnest to make it so truth itself can be crushed and that all reasonable voices to the otherwise are silenced is scary as hell. The man forced his press secretary to lie his arse off, then his chief stooge tried to explain it, as if she was being the reasonable one as alternative facts. We cannot. We must not normalize this blatant propaganda. We made fun of Bagdad Bob, well guess what, we just elected one. I'm reminded of the lyrics from a song from Evita.
"CHE What's new Buenos Aires? Your nation, which a few years ago had the second largest gold reserves in the world, is bankrupt! A country which grew up and grew rich on beef is rationing it! La Prensa, one of the few newspapers which dares to oppose Peronism, has been silenced, and so have all other reasonable voices! I'll tell you what's new Buenos Aires!"
We cannot let truth remain a casuality, for if that is the new status quo, we might as well call the experiment of America a failure, for a democratic republic cannot possibly choose decent leaders based on lies.
The other thing he did today was to start banning entry from certain Muslim countries, as if some magical process he comes up with is going to create the illusive terrorist detector radar. In some ways I half wonder if the lies were not a way to try to hide this kind of news in the noise. Terrorists will not destroy us as a country, but those like Trump might just manage it.
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, This is how it started in Russia. Many people seem confused as to why would they deny something as obvious as the size of the inauguration crowds for example that's easily proven false? Well, it has 3 important effects on american public discourse and media:
1. Establishing a norm with the press: they will be told things that are obviously wrong and they will have no opportunity to ask questions. That way, they will be grateful if they get anything more at any press conference.
2. Increasing the separation between Trump's base (1/3 of the population) from everybody else (the remaining 2/3). By being told something that is obviously wrong - that there is no evidence for and all evidence against, that anybody with eyes can see is wrong - they are forced to pick whether they are going to believe Trump or their lying eyes. The gamble here - likely to pay off - is that they will believe Trump. This means that they will regard media outlets that report the truth as "fake news" (because otherwise they'd be forced to confront their cognitive dissonance.)
3. Creating a sense of uncertainty about whether facts are knowable, among a certain chunk of the population (which is a taking a page from the Kremlin, for whom this is their preferred disinformation tactic). A third of the population will say "clearly the White House is lying," a third will say "if Trump says it, it must be true," and the remaining third will say "gosh, I guess this is unknowable." The idea isn't to convince these people of untrue things, it's to fatigue them, so that they will stay out of the political process entirely, regarding the truth as just too difficult to determine.
This is laying important groundwork for the months ahead. If Trump's White House is willing to lie about something as obviously, unquestionably fake as the crowds at the inauguration, just imagine what else they'll lie about. In particular, things that the public cannot possibly verify the truth of. This allows them to eventually say anything to the public, and this should be worrisome to Americans regardless of who you voted because this is how totalitarian states get started.
He's setting up his Pravda and being quite upfront about it.
He's still making the claim that 3 million 'fake voters' voted for Hillary to lose him the popular vote. There's no evidence for this, none whatsoever, anywhere. Yet the defense given reads like this: [cnn.com]:
So to him. He only knows. Truth is what he believes it to be. Where have I read this before?
-1984
I'm not american, but all I can say to Americans is: don't fall for this. Don't let the man divide you even further against yourself and monopolize the truth. You've seen how well that has gone in Russia, a
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Che Guevara was a serial killer. A really creepy, scary individual.
There is a reason they drummed him out of Cuba after the revolution. They could only take things so far. Even Castro had limits.
Re:Truth a casualty (Score:4, Informative)
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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.
The Dubya Bush administration was under close watch from environmentalists. There used to be a bushgreenwatch.org site.
http://web.archive.org/web/200... [archive.org]
I believe it was the revelation of Frank Luntz's memo advising on changing the language used to address concerns about global warming ,er, climate change
Re:Trusting soul (Score:5, Insightful)
If declaring your inauguration day a "national day of patriotic devotion" was not seriously out of the ordinary then the US would have had one of those for 300 years.
Could you GET a more Banana Republic move ? All he is missing is the Khaki-Uniform with the dozens of medals and the beret. He already has the cigars.
Re:Obama did the same, the article says (Score:5, Informative)
You mean "part of the article". Because it goes on to say: [reuters.com]
Per usual, Trump supporter misrepresents an article. Film at 11.
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When was the previous admin instructed to remove the climate change [reuters.com] page from its website?
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It's a logical fallacy that all liberals don't care about the truth and why
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Do you have any verifiable evidence for this? When was the previous admin instructed to remove the climate change [reuters.com] page from its website?
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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?
Yes. Typically when a new president takes office there are some minor changes to EPA rules. Nothing like this. Couple that with Trump's stated goal of eliminating the EPA entirely and this does look like real cause for concern.
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:5, Informative)
Couple that with Trump's stated goal of eliminating the EPA entirely
Can you provide a quote for that?
Q: Would you cut departments?
TRUMP: Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations.
Q: Who's going to protect the environment?
TRUMP: We'll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy businesses.
Source: Fox News Sunday 2015 Coverage of 2016 presidential hopefuls , Oct 18, 2015
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Re:Stated goal (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Q: Who's going to protect the environment?
Clearly the interviewer believed that he meant to cut it entirely.
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Leaving a little bit of the EPA agency is like holding elections in China: A token to say we do have them without really giving a shit.
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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.
Re: Trumped up.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Move to China and choke on the smog and die of poison in the food.
I like my clean America
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:5, Informative)
That, and save billions. For example, the EPA air rules [epi.org] cost $11.3 billion, saved $55–146 billion annually, including 6,800 to 17,000 lives. From 1990 to 2020, that's an expected $65 billion spent to save $2 trillion [epa.gov].
The White House's Office of Management and Budget found that the annual benefits of major federal rules over a decade ranged between $193 billion to $800 billion, with costs of only $57 billion to $84 billion (EPA air regulations were the greatest source of these benefits). Google cache link [googleusercontent.com], because Trump deleted the original.
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:4, Informative)
Found the archived [archives.gov] OMB report.
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"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"
Kindly explain why the tweets from Badlands National Parks' account were deleted.
All tweets were scientific facts and didn't specifically mention climate change.
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Germany, mid 1930s, right-wing... Deutsche Zentrumspartei? It has center in the name, which makes it far right by the standards of the time and place. I'm not positive, but I think that this was the only part that wasn't hard-left that had any influence to speak of in that era. Well, unless your political chart looks like this one [twimg.com].
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What's wrong? This is simply government-directed communication on science issues. Didn't you want government involved in everything? Seriously, what could go wrong?
If something could go wrong, does that mean we should rethink having the government so involved?
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and by old, I am starting to worry we are talking german mid 1930s.
Oh please, no more comparisons to Hitler. If you think someone/somegroup is bad, find another bad person to compare them to (which shouldn't be hard if you have any knowledge of history).
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I give it about six months before he does something that steps on your toes and makes you one of those people. Trump is a bit of a blunt instrument as seen with this and the hiring freeze (does that freeze include cronies of his appointments to go on their personal staff? No? I thought not).
Re:Trumped up.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a defining attribute of the authoritarian that they will, soon enough, try to define reality itself by their words. Literature is filled with authors reminding us of just how common this is. In Orwell's 1984 Winston Smith remarks that "Freedom is being able to say that 2 and 2 make 4" and, later, as he is being tortured the party officer declares that "2 and 2 is 5 if we say it is". A not dissimilar scene in Star Trek The Next Generation had Picard being tortured by Cardassian Madred, who would, constantly, show him 4 blinking lights and insist that Picard say there are 5, promising to end his torture when Picard denies reality. At the end of the episode, as the rescued Picard stumbles away, he cannot help but turn back toward his torturer and defiantly declare: "There are 4 lights!".
So this is the context in which we should see Donald Trump starting his term with flagrantly lying about a number everybody can see is wrong - insisting that the populace accept the truth to be, whatever he desires it to be.
This is not just a dishonest politician lying - this is a politician who has declared war on truth itself, and there is no more authoritarian thing than that. This is what dictatorship looks like.
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Exactly this.
What Orwell called blackwhite.
Re: Trumped up.. (Score:3)
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.
Maybe this is the norm in other countries but isn't in the US for quite some decades. Politicians have been quite civilized in leaving publicly funded research out of politics. Very few such agencies cared about administration change beyond the variations in upcoming budgets (multi year budgets are also not messed with after approval by prior congresses; unlike in other fields).
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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.
Re: The media (Score:2)
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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.
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How so?
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Sort of like Carly Fiorina this week when she called Trump brilliant. A few months ago, she wanted him to resign. However, if it's a government job for Carly, she'll say anything.
NOT Fake News (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:NOT Fake News (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think we need to see.
Every time there's an administration change, particular with a party change, there's a limbo period where positions of the department are undefined. My brother-in-law was a fisheries scientist and he met with Congressmen after Bush came in in 2000; except for the barest facts he wasn't able to offer them any opinions or interpretations of fact because what the facts meant hadn't been determined by the administration.
This in itself wasn't sinister. But what was dangerous was an attit
Re:NOT Fake News (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not everything is, but not everything that doesn't rate as a planet killing catastrophe is good either.
Re:NOT Fake News (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh go pound sand, Anonymous COWARD. We went through the anti-facts, don't bother with data stylings of The Harper Conservatives in Canada and we're still undoing the damage more than a year after he was shown the door. This sounds like it's going to be considerably worse than what Steve-O could get away with up here.
On the plus side, Canada will probably be able to reverse that STEM brain drain to the US at last. So we got that going for us.
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"chilling"
God I hate you fucking liberal pukes. Everything isn't the god-damned end of the world, FFS.
Exaggerate much? Who said "chilling" means the end of the world? It could just mean a shit-storm that will affect a generation or two.
Trying to control the narrative of scientists for political purposes is not a good thing. [wikipedia.org]
*Confirmed* USDA memo! (Score:2, Interesting)
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
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That's the best a