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Showing Original Post only (View all)Trumps Witch Hunts Are Having a Huge Chilling Effect [View all]
Trumps Witch Hunts Are Having a Huge Chilling EffectHis intimidation of journalists, civil servants, and businesses is already doing incalculable harm to the public interest.
BY BRIAN BEUTLER December 14, 2016
The questionnaire President-elect Donald Trumps transition team sent to the Department of Energy arrived with little fanfare (neither Al Gore nor Kanye West were dispatched as couriers), but it was delivered with the expectation that word of its contents would filter down to employees at every level of the agency. Among other unusual inquiries, it included a request for the names of officials and contractors who helped the government forge a global deal to combat climate change and worked on related efforts to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
On Tuesday, the Department responded to Trump with a bold-lettered refusal: We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team.
The solace to dedicated civil servants will last for another 37 days. After that, its anyones guess how aggressively Trumps administration will seek to dismiss or marginalize government employees and contractors who study and implement environmental policy. But even if a great purge isnt upon us, a great chill almost certainly is.
The effect has already seeped outside the federal government, into the broader community of climate scientists who may not collect salaries directly from the federal government but depend on the federal government for research funding and crucial data. These scientists, according to The Washington Post, have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.
This kind of defensive paranoia is the visible reflection of the invisible but extensive chilling effect the incoming administration is likely having across many realms of public service and life. It is happening already, weeks before he officially assumes the presidency. And the most frustrating part is that well never know how far it ultimately reaches.
https://newrepublic.com/article/139335/trumps-witch-hunts-huge-chilling-effect
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And his brown shirts are intimidating professors and academics, and destroying property.
Initech
Dec 2016
#1
I wonder if any of Trumps Brownshirt wannabes realize that Hitler had his Brownshirts executed
world wide wally
Dec 2016
#11
Then he's keeping the wrong company but I'm sure he wouldn't let his voters into Trump Tower anyway
world wide wally
Dec 2016
#21