The federal government has an important role in the support and advancement of science. Science should be free of political influence. Decision making should not be based on partisanship.
Yet, as science professor John Richard Schrock shows, politics have often intruded on decisions about which policies to fund and what to make public. He cites bad decisions over the years under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
But nothing in the past equals the Trump administration’s open was against science. Trump has placed non-scientists into key roles, where they are able to suppress or manipulate scientific findings to satisfy his po,itical base. His much-ridiculed effort to compel the National Weather Service to defend his absurd claims about the likely path of a hurricane were a small example of his efforts to suppress science in the Environmental Protection Administration, the Agriculture Department, and other agencies. While the rest of the world worries about climate change, Trump insists that there is no threat and that what scientists call climate change is merely the weather, about which we can do nothing.
In addition to teaching science, teachers must teach the ethics of science, the importance of reaching conclusions based on evidence, and the necessity of excluding politics from the work of scientists.
Wheeler says “We are committed to the highest quality science”. BS. Making it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules is not quality science.
I don’t understand why everything Trump touches turns rotten. EVERYTHING!!! Don’t the wealthy want clean air and water?
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E.P.A. to Limit Science Used to Write Public Health Rules
Nov. 11, 2019
A new agency rule would restrict the science that can be used in drafting health regulations by requiring researchers to turn over confidential health data.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to significantly limit the scientific and medical research that the government can use to determine public health regulations, overriding protests from scientists and physicians who say the new rule would undermine the scientific underpinnings of government policymaking.
A new draft of the Environmental Protection Agency proposal, titled Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, would require that scientists disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, before the agency could consider an academic study’s conclusions. E.P.A. officials called the plan a step toward transparency and said the disclosure of raw data would allow conclusions to be verified independently.
“We are committed to the highest quality science,” Andrew Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, told a congressional committee in September. “Good science is science that can be replicated and independently validated, science that can hold up to scrutiny. That is why we’re moving forward to ensure that the science supporting agency decisions is transparent and available for evaluation by the public and stakeholders.”
The measure would make it more difficult to enact new clean air and water rules because many studies detailing the links between pollution and disease rely on personal health information gathered under confidentiality agreements. And, unlike a version of the proposal that surfaced in early 2018, this one could apply retroactively to public health regulations already in place…
Science should be able to stand on its own evidence free from outside influences. Science should be apolitical and have nothing to do with religious beliefs. We need independent scientists that use the scientific process to guide their conclusions. We should also guarantee that a certain amount of funding should be available to them to conduct independent research regardless of who is in the White House. Science should not be a political bargaining chip for politicians or corporations.
Well, Trump is …. STUPID. So he wants others to be dumber than he is.
I hope we survive his utter disregard for knowledge.
Here’s an example of STUPIDITY to the MAX.
TMT protestors are just like Trump.
TMT is NOT TOURISM and pollution.
Cost for law enforcement tops $10 million. Imagine how that money could have been spent … like for SCHOOLS.
https://www.maunakeaandtmt.org/facts-about-tmt/
https://www.westhawaiitoday.com/2019/08/13/opinion/my-turn-threats-effective-at-silencing-pro-tmt-hawaiians/
There are some who think TMT is the same as Standing Rock. Are they brain dead?
He is just a puppet. A very useful, high-visible puppet. The goal is to direct the public rage towards him and not towards puppeteers, and it works.
and often it is evident that he has no idea how the big money manipulation of him works
The US Department of Education apprenticeship site is really bad:
https://www.apprenticeship.gov/
The front page promises paid training in higher-wage jobs or skills but few of the “apprenticeships” listed when you do a search offer that at all.
It’s just garbage. it’s 90% low wage work that doesn’t require an apprenticeship at all.
It’s also packed with expensive training programs young people would have to pay tuition for- making the front page a pack of lies. They WON’T get paid while they learn and they WILL pay for the training.
A young person looking to enter a skilled trade would be actively misled by this “information” they’re offering. Steer clear. Bad advice. What a colossal waste of money and time. Couldn’t they find anyone in DC who actually knows something about apprenticeships? The only thing this program will do is discredit the whole idea.
We probably should have known it would be junk when they announced Ivanka Trump was running it. I just hope no 17 year olds get snookered into this scam.
That is actually the Department of Labor. The overwhelming majority of the success the front page lists are in Union/ employer sponsored programs. Programs in the Building Trades and in Manufacturing through the IAM and USW . They are government regulated to insure that they meet high standards for training and actually lead to employment at journeyman wages. Yet they are industry funded and cost the tax payer practically nothing.
Part of the reason that they are highly regulated are that prevailing wage laws in Government Contracts only allow employers to pay apprentice wages to apprentices in DOL certified programs.
Enter the Trump administration and for that matter the Republican party. The Labor Department is moving to a Industry Regulated Apprentice Program.(IRAP).
Translation the employer will designate what ever he wants as an apprenticeship with little to no regulation. No need to prove that there is a path to a Journeyman wage. At the end(or anytime ) of a given project that worker can be laid off and his apprenticeship effectively ended. It is a back door attack on Davis Bacon that will allow an employer to flood jobs with low wage apprentices.
Even more insidious is the attempt to skirt child labor laws in several states by sponsoring HS programs that provide child labor instead of schooling to students working during school hours at a local manufacturer. Stop while i puke. Since when did 18 become to old to train for a job that may not be there in a decade.
In the 1990s 80 % of employers provided some amount of training to their employees. The last time the labor department did that once a decade survey it was only 50% .
If you have a shortage of workers you pay to train workers. If you have a shortage of workers, wages rise as employers compete for skilled labor. Wages are very timid as compared to previous recoveries. They are rising most at the very bottom of the wage ladder. Much of that due to States raising the minimum wage. And employers competing for low skilled labor.
NYC has a shortage of skilled construction workers who are willing to work for 1/3 to 1/2 their union negotiated wage. !000s sit on the bench in the middle of a boom. The skills shortage is a convenient myth.
“Secretary Betsy DeVos
Apprenticeships give students a great opportunity to earn and learn while gaining necessary skills for in-demand jobs.”
Not on your website they don’t. It’s cheap junk that was thrown together to check a box. People shouldn’t rely on it as real information. Low quality that rips off vulnerable teenagers.
Stephen Miller’s promotion of white supremacist agenda: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails
TPM reported today that Giuliani’s indicted friends, Parnas and Fruman, received an award in 2018 from the American organization, Young Israel (100 orthodox synagogues). The article has photos showing the Trump associates with whom officials of Young Israel met publicly. The article’s focus is the pro-Trump super PAC linked to Parnas and Fruman’s legal charges.
In an article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in March of this year, the following quotes were attributed to people associated with Young Israel, “The Jewish people have never had such a great champion in the Whitehouse” (references Trump), “Democrats are destroying America” and, “political activism is part of our mission”.
A group of rabbis within Young Israel protested against some of the political positions taken by the group.
BLATANT LIES in our eyes.
The Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism (90% of American Jews) “generally oppose vouchers”. The two groups collectively posted a list of arguments against vouchers. The nation should be grateful for their pronouncement, “Public Schools are the Heart of American Identity”,
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in their “strong advocacy” for parental school choice undermine American values.
Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, are strong advocates for vouchers for their yeshivas, some of which do not teach a English, science, or other secular subjects.
The bishops are on the side of a history that impoverished the 99% and made them powerless. Thomas Jefferson described the threat. Orthodox Jews, evangelicals and Catholics who align with libertarians are on the dark side of humanity.
Trump, according to a posting from the WH, has signed a Whistleblower Protection Act.
That was passed in 1989. [Why would Trump want to protect whistleblowers?]
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From the WH: . So far, President Trump hasSigned the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act into law, which makes it easier to prevent scandal, fraud, and waste by bureaucrats
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, 5 U.S.C. 2302-, Pub.L. 101-12 as amended, is a United States federal law that protects federal whistleblowers who work for the government and report the possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law, rules, or regulations, or mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety.WikipediaLong title:An Act to amend title 5, United States Code, to strengthen the protections available to Federal employees against prohibited personnel practices, and for other purposes.Nicknames:Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989Enacted by:the 101st United States Congress
It’s more fundamental than a “war on science.” It’s a wholesale rejection of the scientific method. Period. Once one rejects or fails to understand the importance of the scientific method, it leads to a delegitimization of everything under the sun.
Right. In dictatorships, the ruler decides what is real, what is true. There are no facts, no science, just diktat.
A friend of mine in Florida talked with our common friend who lives in La Paz, Bolivia with her adult son and aged mother.
Evo Morales left on a plane to Mexico. The plane was NOT Mexican and he wasn’t asked to come. He filled the plane with cocaine.
Morales paid men from Venezuela and Cuba to come and destroy La Paz. These killers were shooting civilians and throwing sticks of dynamite into buildings to destroy them.
My friend in Bolivia kept the apartment lights off so they’d think nobody was home. They have food for 3-4 days.
People are terrified because they don’t know what these killers are planning to do next.
Morales didn’t get his fourth term and he left and made sure the city of La Paz was destroyed.
Dictators act like this when made to leave. He said he’d, “be back”.
What will Trump do if he isn’t re-elected or is impeached? How much further damage will he inflict on this country if he isn’t put in prison?
Trump’s man, Gov.Bevin, won’t accept his defeat at the ballot box. When a person wants to believe he’s been ordained by God to win and, the faithful who voted for him won’t tell him to get out- why would democracy survive?
This GOP support for Trump is sickening. This is from The Hill.
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Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) argued the case against Clinton was “cookie-cutter” compared to the current investigation.
“Bill Clinton admitted that he lied to the FBI,” Burr said. “His took five weeks and it didn’t meet the threshold of removal from office. I figured since the president hadn’t admitted to a crime, nor has the House process proven a crime, that it would probably take them some more time.”
But GOP senators — who view it as all but guaranteed that President Trump will not be convicted — balked at a long timeline, questioning why they would want to eat up extra weeks on a trial that seems prebaked.
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), asked about Burr’s prediction, said, “I don’t know who he was kidding, but no, it’s not going to take that long.”
“It doesn’t sound like there’s going to be much they’re going to give us, so I think a week is more than enough time to get all that adjudicated, get it out there and exposed, and be done with this,” Perdue added.