Top climate scientist fired at NOAA.

[JohnnyRingo]

Few know in this era of fire hose news that Trump signed a new executive order this month. In it he allows himself to fire anyone who appears less than loyal to him without giving reason. Before this, one would have to exercise incompetence or worse to get the ax. This leaves open the ability for Trump to request a loyalty oath for influential federal positions. XO #13957

Well, it didn't take long for the first public servant to be shown the door for not kowtowing to the utter majesty of the king's new clothes.

As Election Nears, Trump Makes a Final Push Against Climate Science

The administration is imposing new limits on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that would undercut action against global warming.

The chief of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fired the agency’s acting chief scientist after the latter asked Donald Trump’s appointees to acknowledge NOAA’s scientific integrity policy, The New York Times reports. Craig McLean, the acting chief scientist at NOAA, sent an email last month to several new employees at NOAA who had been installed by the Trump administration requesting their acknowledgement of the agency’s rules that prohibit changing research and data to fit a political agenda.

Dr. Erik Noble, the newly appointed NOAA chief of staff and a former White House policy adviser, wrote back, “Respectfully, by what authority are you sending this to me?” McLean said that his job as acting chief scientist entailed maintaining ethics across NOAA. Noble responded the next day, “You no longer serve as the acting chief scientist for NOAA. Thank you for your service.” In McLean’s stead, Noble hired Ryan Maue, a former researcher for a libertarian think tank. Maue has previously said scientists have made overly dire predictions about climate change. Trump’s administration has attempted to manipulate NOAA throughout his term.

More here at NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/climate/trump-election-climate-noaa.html

[luv2fly]

1. It's a badge of honor to be fired by the Orange Anus

Should Joe win, the best of these folks would likely be rehired I suspect.

[lapfog_1]

2. so many first things to do

someone needs to make a big giant "undo" list...

pack the courts... all of them - district, circuit, supreme

fire all the trumpers in the gov.

undo all executive orders

rehire all the people wrongly fired

change the rules in the Senate so the new minority party has no role

[BKDem]

3. Petty little schmuck.

It’s going to take gears to clean up after him.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. NYT: NOAA's acting chief scientist was removed after he sent some new political appointees ...

NYT: NOAA's acting chief scientist was removed after he sent some new political appointees a message that asked them to acknowledge the agency's scientific integrity policy, which prohibits manipulating research or presenting ideologically driven findings.

Link to tweet

[LastDemocratInSC]

5. Reincarnation of the Soviet Union.

[jeffreyi]

6. Good god. This is a big deal.

Is this really a consequence of that EO, or? That position would probably be SES, they pretty much serve at the pleasure of, no?

[JohnnyRingo]

8. There are two types of public servant.

Those in the cabinet are excepted service and can be let go at any time for any reason. Employees like this scientist are competitive service hired on a merit based system and must show incompetence or ineptitude to be fired. Further, Trump's XO stops union organization, because of course it does.

Members of the competitive service are hired according to a neutral, merit-based selection process and have protections against at-will removal by their supervisors. Members of the excepted service, on the other hand, are hired by agencies to fill certain positions for which candidates cannot be appropriately assessed through the merit-based selection process and do not share in the competitive service's at-will removal protections.

Opponents of the order, including American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley, argued that the order would politicize a large portion of the civil service. “This executive order strips due process rights and protections from perhaps hundreds of thousands of federal employees and will enable political appointees and other officials to hire and fire these workers at will,” said Kelley in a statement

Here is the pdf of the order:
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-23780.pdf

[WhiteTara]

7. Dadgum Joe should use this to rid our government

of trumpers and then reinstate the civil service status. We could get rid of *cos lingering staffers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. "How dare you tell department members what department policy is??? You're fired."

This is so much fucking bullshit, it's incredible.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. Trump wears his stupidity as a badge of honor