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Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

thehill.com

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Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#101

Post by kafkaesq »

jquery wrote: post #97
kafkaesq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such public…

Fact-check: There is at least one study that support the President's beliefs on millions of people voting illegally. - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414... There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study, but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position. The inauguration was the most-watched in history (person + tv + live-streaming), yet the "reality" I'm seei…

There is at least one study that support the President's beliefs on millions of people voting illegally. ... There is a Harvard rebuttal to that study...

This rebuttal, you mean?

"This paper documents how low-level measurement error for survey questions generally agreed to be highly reliable can lead to large prediction errors in large sample surveys, such as the CCES. The example for this analysis is Richman, Chattha, and Earnest (2014), which presents a biased estimate of the rate at which non-citizens voted in recent elections. The results, we show, are completely accounted for by very low frequency measurement error; further, the likely percent of non-citizen voters in recent US elections is zero."

...but that doesn't change the fact there is a study supporting the President's position.

Do you realize what you're saying, here? "The study has since been revealed to have been basically bullshit. But that doesn't change the fact it supports the President's position."

It depends on the reality you're already pre-disposed to believe.

If you're already that relativist about about basic events in recent history that were attended by hundreds of thousands in person -- and witnessed on television many many hundreds of millions, worldwide -- as to basically say, "How can ya really know? It all depends on what you're pre-disposed to believe" -- then I'm afraid there's not much I can do for you, pal.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#102

Post by garrettgrimsley »

whyileft wrote: post #96
jquery wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, Obama didn't do the "exact same thing." He literally auctioned off the posts, giving the ambassadorships to campaign contributors and bundlers ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-ambassador-nom... ). It's easy to find replacements if you don't care about qualifications and just reward your donor list, I guess. One of the ambassadors was so bad, staffers working for her requested transfers to…

You did not answer my question. I expect an answer. Why would you intentionally attempt to misinform your fellow citizens?

Making negative assumptions about the intentions of the poster is not conducive to civil discourse.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#103

Post by mcphage »

xname2 wrote: post #85
mcphage wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Showing the number of people who attended the inauguration is a criticism, all of a sudden? That's some seriously thin skin.

Compare to the former president? Are you even serious?

Fewer people attended the inauguration. I'm sorry that bothers you so much, but it's the truth. If your solution to someone sharing the truth is to make them shut up, then you got some serious issues.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#104

Post by mistersquid »

ColanR wrote: post #79
kafkaesq wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different than every Presidential transition of power, how? It's the aims of the control, and the utter brazenness with which the new administration attempts to manipulate facts and reality in general that are different. There's never been an administration (well, maybe in the 19th century; but I mean, not since the dawn of modern journalistic reporting) that blatantly and transparently lied about such public…

Don't forget that he's press secretary for the one guy who actually made accurate polling assessments prior to the election. If your source on disproving the "millions of illegal votes" is one of the same sources that thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide, then you have nothing to say. I'm not going to say I agree there were illegal votes, but I am holding out for better evidence.

Predicting election outcomes based on polling (including exit polls) is very different than alleging massive voter fraud.

In the case of Clinton losing the election, the predictions which were based on statistical evidence did not match the actual outcome. Even so, an unlikely outcome is understood as a possibility within the domain of predictive statistical modeling and the wholesale dismissal of the utility of statistical modeling is anti-science at best.

On the other hand, asserting voter fraud without providing a single shred of evidence (regardless of claims to have said evidence) is quite different from evidence-based statistical modeling. So people who "thought Hillary was going to win in a landslide" could actually have quite a bit to say about alleging voter fraud without producing evidence. For example, such people could say that Clinton won the popular vote by a margin of nearly 3 million votes.

To turn your statement on its head, it is in fact the people who allege voter fraud without evidence who have nothing to say.

EDIT: spelling, reduce number of single-sentence paragraphs

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#105

Post by refurb »

guelo wrote: post #51
rokosbasilisk wrote: post #37

Just to add a reality check, the epa isnt some noble organization , they are highly political and often incompentent. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/08/10/431223703/...

That chemical spill was a disaster caused by an accident when the EPA was trying to manage the wastewater from a gold mine. The wastewater was created by unregulated gold mining in the 20s. Trump wants to return us to those days when industry was unregulated and created the pollution that has taken decades to clean.

That mine spill was a major cock-up by the EPA. They even admitted it was. They were warned it could happen.

It's not helpful to try and explain that away.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#106

Post by [deleted] »

garrettgrimsley wrote: post #102
whyileft wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did not answer my question. I expect an answer. Why would you intentionally attempt to misinform your fellow citizens?

Making negative assumptions about the intentions of the poster is not conducive to civil discourse.

[deleted]

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#107

Post by px1999 »

barney54 wrote: post #15
cyberferret wrote: post #6

I am looking for reasonable explanations for this, but keep coming up blank. I grew up in a country where this sort of censorship and fact hiding was the norm, and hated it. 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 inaugu…

Here's an explanation--the new management of the agencies want to review the social media policies.

I've worked in government (thankfully not US federal) and when departments review their specific operations/policies, they rarely grind to a halt, it's business as usual while things get evaluated/decided and policies built behind the scenes.

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.

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#108

Post by [deleted] »

badsock wrote: post #98
jquery wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, Obama didn't do the "exact same thing." He literally auctioned off the posts, giving the ambassadorships to campaign contributors and bundlers ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-ambassador-nom... ). It's easy to find replacements if you don't care about qualifications and just reward your donor list, I guess. One of the ambassadors was so bad, staffers working for her requested transfers to…

You were incorrect and you admitted it, which is good, but then you immediately move the goalposts and then use that to pretend that you were justified in your original assertation. That's a shady rhetorical technique, and I suspect you're arguing in bad faith. That's worth some downvotes.

[deleted]

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#109

Post by 3131s »

badsock wrote: post #98
jquery wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, Obama didn't do the "exact same thing." He literally auctioned off the posts, giving the ambassadorships to campaign contributors and bundlers ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-ambassador-nom... ). It's easy to find replacements if you don't care about qualifications and just reward your donor list, I guess. One of the ambassadors was so bad, staffers working for her requested transfers to…

You were incorrect and you admitted it, which is good, but then you immediately move the goalposts and then use that to pretend that you were justified in your original assertation. That's a shady rhetorical technique, and I suspect you're arguing in bad faith. That's worth some downvotes.

Wait, were they incorrect?

My interpretation was that GP meant that Obama did the same thing (firing existing politically appointed ambassadors) and then in addition filled the positions with people who had donated to his campaign (hence not the "exact same thing", but worse).

I really don't know the facts here, but my cursory reading of the Wapo article does seem to suggest that Obama did essentially the same thing in 2008. Or am I missing something?

Re: Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates

#110

Post by fixxer »

cyberferret wrote: post #6

I am looking for reasonable explanations for this, but keep coming up blank. I grew up in a country where this sort of censorship and fact hiding was the norm, and hated it. 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 inaugu…

Meh. This is pretty common in the private sector in various forms, either explicit or implicit. I wouldn't call this censorship. They can still, I presume, communicate their concerns with oversight groups.
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