Executive Departments Part 2

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

We're also screwed because one of the articles I read yesterday (sorry, don't remember which) included the nauseating information that Scotty plans to run for Inhofe's senate seat in 2020, since Inhofe will be 85. The article also indicated that Scotty wants to use that as a springboard to the presidency. I'm not making this up. I implore the people of Oklahoma to keep Scotty there and don't inflict him on the country again in the future.

@Briefly, how is the Oklahoma media treating Pruitt's resignation? Is he the victim of a evil liberal plot, or are some of the people who knew he was dirty starting to talk openly about their experiences?

Thank you!

[Briefly]

5 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

@Briefly, how is the Oklahoma media treating Pruitt's resignation? Is he the victim of a evil liberal plot, or are some of the people who knew he was dirty starting to talk openly about their experiences?

Thank you!

He is returning to Tulsa to continue his good works.  That's how they are playing it.  It is really amazing how they think that people are going to believe that!  But that's what we heard this morning.

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, Briefly said:

He is returning to Tulsa to continue his good works.  That's how they are playing it.  It is really amazing how they think that people are going to believe that!  But that's what we heard this morning.

Sycophants gonna psycho 

[Howl]

 

On 7/5/2018 at 3:24 PM, onekidanddone said:

Wheels up Scotty. Wheels fuckng up. 

Just to drive a large spike through the heart of the whole Pruitt episode: 

And this Rick Wilson opinion treat landed today: Scott Pruitt Wasn’t Corrupt Enough for Trumpistan

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

These people are like some cartoon supervillains who are against birds because birds can fly

https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/1015953635258322944?s=19

[fraurosena]

If you thought Pruitt was the worst, think again. 

Trump’s new EPA pick likely ‘even better at’ destroying EPA than Pruitt

Quote

Trump's first EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, was horrible for the environment. But experts say Pruitt's current replacement, Andrew Wheeler, could be even worse.

Outgoing, outlandishly corrupt EPA chief Scott Pruitt is being replaced with Andrew Wheeler, who by all accounts is set to continue the Trump administration’s anti-environment mission as acting chief — and maybe even best Pruitt.

The EPA was founded with the mission of acting as a watchdog over industry to safeguard the environment.

But under Trump, the agency has worked at the behest of massive polluters to weaken regulation and decrease oversight.

Reporting on the multiple scandals involving Pruitt — including using staffers as his personal lackeys — eventually created enough negative headlines that Pruitt resigned.

But Wheeler’s pedigree as a pollution apologist sets him up to outdo even Pruitt.  Wheeler served as a lobbyist on behalf of the coal industry and pushed for loosened regulations for those companies. He was chief of staff to Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the most famous climate change denier in Congress.

The National Resources Defense Council blasted Wheeler’s rise.

In a statement, the environmental organization explained, “This veteran coal lobbyist has shown only disdain for the EPA’s vital mission to protect Americans’ health and our environment.”

Kristin Mink, the mother and teacher who publicly confronted Pruitt on his corruption days before his resignation, noted in an interview with Democracy Now that Wheeler’s role will allow the anti-environment cause to advance without attracting scrutiny like Pruitt.

She told the outlet that Pruitt “was appointed to dismantle the EPA from the inside,” and that Wheeler “is likely to be possibly even better at that, because Scott Pruitt was not well liked, and Andy Wheeler is. He’s a Washington insider. He knows a lot of people. He already has wielded a lot of influence there. He has friends.”

Trump infamously pushed the conspiracy theory that climate change is a Chinese hoax. With people like Pruitt it became clear that he would continue the Republican tradition of department heads tasked with dismantling the agencies they run.

Wheeler’s past shows someone just as willing as Pruitt to dismantle environmental protections for big business.

So far, he does not have the open corruption on the record that Pruitt did. But that simply gives him operating space to continue the Trump mission of making the planet less habitable.

 

[candygirl200413]

Forgive me if this was already shared! I wasn't sure which topic it would fit:

U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials

Quote

A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.

Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.

“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.

“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on best way to protect infant and young child health,” she said.

In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.

The State Department declined to respond to questions, saying it could not discuss private diplomatic conversations. The Department of Health and Human Services, the lead agency in the effort to modify the resolution, explained the decision to contest the resolution’s wording but said H.H.S. was not involved in threatening Ecuador.

“The resolution as originally drafted placed unnecessary hurdles for mothers seeking to provide nutrition to their children,” an H.H.S. spokesman said in an email. “We recognize not all women are able to breast-feed for a variety of reasons. These women should have the choice and access to alternatives for the health of their babies, and not be stigmatized for the ways in which they are able to do so.” The spokesman asked to remain anonymous in order to speak more freely.

Although lobbyists from the baby food industry attended the meetings in Geneva, health advocates said they saw no direct evidence that they played a role in Washington’s strong-arm tactics. The $70 billion industry, which is dominated by a handful of American and European companies, has seen sales flatten in wealthy countries in recent years, as more women embrace breast-feeding. Overall, global sales are expected to rise by 4 percent in 2018, according to Euromonitor, with most of that growth occurring in developing nations.

The intensity of the administration’s opposition to the breast-feeding resolution stunned public health officials and foreign diplomats, who described it as a marked contrast to the Obama administration, which largely supported W.H.O.’s longstanding policy of encouraging breast-feeding.

During the deliberations, some American delegates even suggested the United States might cut its contribution the W.H.O., several negotiators said. Washington is the single largest contributor to the health organization, providing $845 million, or roughly 15 percent of its budget, last year.

The confrontation was the latest example of the Trump administration siding with corporate interests on numerous public health and environmental issues.

In talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Americans have been pushing for language that would limit the ability of Canada, Mexico and the United States to put warning labels on junk food and sugary beverages, according to a draft of the proposal reviewed by The New York Times.

During the same Geneva meeting where the breast-feeding resolution was debated, the United States succeeded in removing statements supporting soda taxes from a document that advises countries grappling with soaring rates of obesity.

The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a W.H.O. effortaimed at helping poor countries obtain access to lifesaving medicines. Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.

The delegation’s actions in Geneva are in keeping with the tactics of an administration that has been upending alliances and long-established practices across a range of multilateral organizations, from the Paris climate accord to the Iran nuclear deal to Nafta.

Ilona Kickbusch, director of the Global Health Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said there was a growing fear that the Trump administration could cause lasting damage to international health institutions like the W.H.O. that have been vital in containing epidemics like Ebola and the rising death toll from diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the developing world.

“It’s making everyone very nervous, because if you can’t agree on health multilateralism, what kind of multilateralism can you agree on?” Ms. Kickbusch asked.

A Russian delegate said the decision to introduce the breast-feeding resolution was a matter of principle.

“We’re not trying to be a hero here, but we feel that it is wrong when a big country tries to push around some very small countries, especially on an issue that is really important for the rest of the world,” said the delegate, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said the United States did not directly pressure Moscow to back away from the measure. Nevertheless, the American delegation sought to wear down the other participants through procedural maneuvers in a series of meetings that stretched on for two days, an unexpectedly long period.

In the end, the United States was largely unsuccessful. The final resolution preserved most of the original wording, though American negotiators did get language removed that called on the W.H.O. to provide technical support to member states seeking to halt “inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children.”

The United States also insisted that the words “evidence-based” accompany references to long-established initiatives that promote breast-feeding, which critics described as a ploy that could be used to undermine programs that provide parents with feeding advice and support.

Elisabeth Sterken, director of the Infant Feeding Action Coalition in Canada, said four decades of research have established the importance of breast milk, which provides essential nutrients as well as hormones and antibodies that protect newborns against infectious disease.

A 2016 Lancet study found that universal breast-feeding would prevent 800,000 child deaths a year across the globe and yield $300 billion in savings from reduced health care costs and improved economic outcomes for those reared on breast milk.

Scientists are loath to carry out double-blind studies that would provide one group with breast milk and another with breast milk substitutes. “This kind of ‘evidence-based’ research would be ethically and morally unacceptable,” Ms. Sterken said.

Abbott Laboratories, the Chicago-based company that is one of the biggest players in the $70 billion baby food market, declined to comment.

Nestlé, the Switzerland-based food giant with significant operations in the United States, sought to distance itself from the threats against Ecuador and said the company would continue to support the international code on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, which calls on governments to regulate the inappropriate promotion of such products and to encourage breast-feeding.

In addition to the trade threats, Todd C. Chapman, the United States ambassador to Ecuador, suggested in meetings with officials in Quito, the Ecuadorean capital, that the Trump administration might also retaliate by withdrawing the military assistance it has been providing in northern Ecuador, a region wracked by violence spilling across the border from Colombia, according to an Ecuadorean government official who took part in the meeting.

The United States embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available for an interview.

“We were shocked because we didn’t understand how such a small matter like breast-feeding could provoke such a dramatic response,” said the Ecuadorean official, who asked not to be identified because she was afraid of losing her job.

16

We are truly such a world embrassement. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rats ate Ryan Zinke's ducklings. 

Seems appropriate.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Hey, @47of74, another one of Scotty's former employees is coming to serve Jodi Ernst: "Days after Scott Pruitt resigned, several top aides are also calling it quits at EPA"

Spoiler

Several top aides to former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt are leaving the agency, less than a week after Pruitt resigned his post amid a slew of inquiries into his spending and management practices.

The departures include Jahan Wilcox, who as Pruitt’s combative spokesman fiercely defended the embattled Cabinet member and found himself facing criticism for his sometimes antagonistic approach to reporters covering the EPA; Lincoln Ferguson, a longtime aide and confidant who worked for Pruitt in Oklahoma and was nearly always by his side during his travels; Hayley Ford, deputy White House liaison, and Kelsi Daniell, an EPA spokeswoman.

With the exception of Daniell, who had served notice before Pruitt resigned on Thursday, all of the appointees were close allies of the former administrator. Several of the aides had been seeking other work, according to several current EPA officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, given the upheaval the agency had been undergoing during Pruitt’s tenure.

“I thank all those who are moving on to new endeavors for their service to EPA,” the agency’s chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, said in a statement Tuesday.

Daniels is joining the staff of Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). One of Pruitt’s top spokeswomen, Liz Bowman, joined Ernst’s office a few months ago.

Most of Pruitt’s top confidants had stepped down earlier this year. Among them were the EPA’s director of scheduling and advance, Millan Hupp; the associate administrator for the Office of Policy, Samantha Dravis; Pruitt’s senior adviser, Sarah Greenwalt, and the head of his Superfund task force, Albert ‘Kell’ Kelly. As a result, Pruitt — who kept career agency employees at a distance — was largely isolated in his final weeks.

According to three administration officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter, White House and EPA staffers have engaged in discussions this week about what staffing changes might be appropriate after Pruitt’s resignation. But one official emphasized the White House had not specifically asked anyone to step down.

Some of the aides issued statements Tuesday reiterating their support for the policies Pruitt pursued in office.

“It’s been a privilege to advance President Trump’s agenda of environmental stewardship and regulatory reform,” said Wilcox, who will be working as a Republican campaign consultant. “Now it’s time to focus on helping Republicans in November.”

Ferguson, who noted he and his wife are expecting their first child, said he wished “Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler and the hard-working EPA staff the very best as they continue to better our nation’s environment.”

“It has been an honor and privilege to serve at EPA for the past year and a half,” he said. “While I am proud of the important work that was accomplished under Administrator Pruitt’s leadership, my wife and I look forward to returning home to welcome our first son in the great state of Oklahoma.”

Wheeler, who is planning to address EPA employees on Wednesday, has vowed to be more transparent than his predecessor was.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Could have happened to a nicer guy 

 

[AmazonGrace]

A stock market crash coming up in 3,2,1 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Because science is an abomination and must be eradicated.

 

[AmazonGrace]

If it's evil they're doing it

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump loyalists at VA shuffling, purging employees before new secretary takes over"

Spoiler

Ahead of Robert Wilkie’s likely confirmation to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, Trump loyalists at the agency are taking aggressive steps to purge or reassign staff perceived to be disloyal to President Trump and his agenda for veterans, according to multiple people familiar with the moves.

The transfers include more than a dozen career civil servants who have been moved from the leadership suite at VA headquarters and reassigned to lower-visibility roles. The employees served agency leaders, some dating back more than two decades, in crucial support roles that help a new secretary.

None say they were given reasons for their reassignments.

The moves are being carried out by a small cadre of political appointees led by Acting Secretary Peter O’Rourke who have consolidated power in the four months since they helped oust former Secretary David Shulkin.

The reshuffling marks a new stage in a long estrangement between civil servants and Trump loyalists at VA, where staff upheaval and sinking morale threatens to derail service to one of the president’s key constituencies, according to current and former employees.

Among those reassigned is an experienced scheduler who Wilkie told colleagues he wanted to work for him once he is confirmed by the Senate, according to former and current employees.

Other career senior executives with institutional knowledge of VA’s troubled benefits operation also have been sidelined, some to other cities, according to multiple people who asked not to be identified because of the issue’s sensitivity. A high-ranking executive appointed during the Obama administration to a six-year term quit last week after clashing with Trump aides. Even some Trump appointees have been pushed out for challenging the leadership group.

VA officials say the reassignments will help their efforts to improve the agency’s overall culture and performance. Still, it is highly unusual for a leader in an acting, caretaker role — which began for O’Rourke on May 30 — to make such dramatic changes before a permanent leader arrives.

“Under President Trump, VA won’t wait to take necessary action when it comes to improving the department and its service to Veterans,” spokesman Curt Cashour said in an email. Wilkie, according to Cashour and a spokeswoman for the nominee, has had no hand in the changes as he awaits Senate confirmation.

Current and former employees — and now alarmed members of Congress — call the reshuffling a loyalty purge that is targeting the alleged political sympathies of many career civil servants whose jobs are, by definition, nonpartisan.

“These are people who served multiple administrations,” said one employee who was moved, “but they only want them to serve the Trump administration. You can’t run a department like that.”

At a House hearing on Tuesday, a visibly irritated Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Conn.) pressed O’Rourke to explain why he has “removed, demoted or reassigned” a “significant number of career employees.”

O’Rourke called his actions “well-planned and designed moves” to improve “efficiency and effectiveness.” He acknowledged changes were not based on poor performance.

He said he is encouraging other VA leaders to follow suit.

Esty countered that she suspects “loyalty concerns”are behind the transfers.

“To be clearing out that many people during the time of an acting secretary is disturbing,” she said. “You’re going to lose institutional knowledge.”

Presidential loyalty also has been a factor in staff changes at other agencies. The State Department sidelined or pushed out dozens of career diplomats who questioned the agency’s diminished role in the Trump administration.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reassigned dozens of senior executives in two shuffles.Critics said the mass transfers amounted to retaliation against career staffers who spoke out against his policies, and Zinke himself said publicly he has “30 percent of the crew that’s not loyal to the flag.”

The VA moves come at an agency Trump has called a top priority. A bright spot early in the administration, in recent months it has lost dozens of senior leaders who were pushed out or quit in alarm at the chaos in a long bipartisan corner of the government.

O’Rourke, a Trump campaign staffer who served as VA’s chief of staff and led a new office designed to protect whistleblowers, was appointed acting secretary after Wilkie, who had served in the role after Shulkin’s firing and the failed nomination of White House physician Ronny L. Jackson, won the nod for permanent secretary. Wilkie returned to his job as head of military personnel at the Defense Department to await confirmation.

“Any decisions made following Mr. Wilkie’s departure as acting [secretary] were made by the current VA leadership and Mr. Wilkie was not aware, nor a part of those decisions,” Wilkie spokeswoman Carla Gleason said in an email.

A Navy and Air Force veteran, O’Rourke has shown a willingness to exert power in his caretaker role. With his framed photograph now hanging in VA headquarters, he consults regularly with Trump political appointees, excluding career senior leaders from some meetings.

He quickly drew criticism from both parties on Capitol Hill for an ongoing dispute with VA’s inspector general, who is seeking records for an investigation of the whistleblower office. The Senate intervened, voting unanimously in June to tell O’Rourke he does not have the right to block the watchdog’s efforts.

Mid-level employees who worked for years in VA’s seat of power supporting secretaries and their deputies found themselves called in by O’Rourke’s staff, where they were informed of their departures, according to multiple employees.

One was told she needed to find another job in the agency but not offered one.

Another, Debi Bevins, whose role as director of client relations ensures emails and phone calls to the secretary’s office receive responses, was moved to another department doing the same job — but she no longer has direct access to the secretary.

Tonia Bock, executive secretary to the agency, and her deputy, Jennifer Jessup, who had access to sensitive correspondence with Congress, were also moved.

A VA official said Bock’s office “had struggled with tracking and responding to congressional inquiries accurately and in a timely fashion.”

A well-regarded staff assistant hired during the Obama administration as a political appointee was fired. Some aides were reassigned from the office of Thomas Bowman, the agency’s second-in-command, who was pushed to retire in June after falling from favor at the end of Shulkin’s tenure.

The shake-up is now reaching another top Trump appointee, the assistant secretary for operations, security and preparedness who refused to sign a resignation letter O’Rourke’s team gave him after clashing with them and is now negotiating his departure.

Don Loren, a retired rear Navy admiral, had questioned the group’s management style. He also refused to suspend normal security protocol to allow O’Rourke’s wife to bypass building security at VA headquarters, according to someone with knowledge of the matter. He refused a request to move up O’Rourke in the line of succession behind the deputy secretary, this person said. Cashour denied these events took place.

He called Loren a “valuable member of our team” with “exemplary” job performance who is leaving because of changes to his current position, which is being downgraded to a director.

A senior VA official called Katherine Pham, the scheduler whom Wilkie liked, “a valued member of the VA team” who had sought a new position herself.

At the Veterans Benefits Administration, which has struggled for years to speed up its processing of disability claims, a new team of appointees in charge has transferred at least a half dozen senior career staffers to less prominent roles, some in other cities.

The culled leadership positions appear to be part of a restructuring designed to streamline the department, according to an internal memo obtained by disabledveterans.org.

The small Center for Women Veterans has been a flash point for loyalty questions. Director Kayla Williams quit last week to take another job after clashes with the Trump administration about making the agency’s mission statement more gender neutral.

“As both a veteran and the spouse of a 100 percent disabled combat wounded veteran, I was deeply committed to the VA mission of serving all veterans,” Williams said.

However, a civil servant on her staff, Danielle Corazza, was fired after sending a tweet from the center’s account that praised the large number of female veterans running for office this year. The tweet linked to an article showing most are Democrats.

VA officials said Corazza sent multiple tweets from the account that tracked other campaign successes of women veterans who are Democrats.

The senior VA official said the Center for Women Veterans “was recently involved in repeated, clear and unequivocal violations of the Hatch Act” and as a result the agency “is implementing staffing changes” there.

Corazza said she never received training in the law, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty. “My training was to post about female veterans, which I did,” she said.

Several high level White House staff also have been found in violation of the Hatch Act, although none appear to have been punished.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Cruella DeVil goes to a conference and lies about Nazis, Russia and the border policy. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Has Trump nominated anyone who is not a racist? 

 

[AmazonGrace]

The video receipts from Nielsen 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

I don't get it. How does more pollution serve anyone's best interests?