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22nd April 2019, 12:08 PM | #1 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Federal response to hurricanes
But there have actually been serious hurricanes under Trump. And Trump's FEMA apparently handled them better than Bush's.
So that's contradictory evidence (and not speculative either) to the assertion that Trump is uniquely unprepared to handle catastrophes.
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 12:18 PM | #2 |
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Have you not noticed the entropy in Trump's administration? As we devolve from a competent president (Obama) to an incompetent (Trump) there is an inertia from the former competency that gradually deteriorates due to the current incompetency. If Katrina had happened in 2001 I expect the response from the Bush administration would have been much better. By 2005, however, the incompetency had eroded sufficiently to the point that it was a catastrophe.
Plus, I wouldn't call the response in Puerto Rico "competent"...and that was in Trump's first year.
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22nd April 2019, 12:37 PM | #3 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 12:44 PM | #4 |
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22nd April 2019, 12:47 PM | #5 |
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Makes me wonder how many positions in the US government are actually relevant to a catastrophe.
If a hurricane is making landfall, the Acting Assistant to the Regional Postmaster for the Dakotas can probably fill in for the Assistant to the Regional Postmaster for the Dakotas. On the other hand, it might be nice to have a Director of FEMA, an Assistant Director, or an Acting Director, at least. It's probably a good idea to have at least a quorum of the Joint Chiefs, or their deputies or acting chiefs at least, on hand at all times. Some kind of international crisis, you'll probably want a Secretary of State, or acting etc. at least. But probably don't really need a Special Cultural Attache for Transgender Rights in Developing Nations or whatever. Unless that's the actual catastrophe for some reason. In which case there's probably a lot of diplomats at State who can fill in. I'm having a hard time imagining a catastrophe that would demand the immediate filling of an empty federal judgeship. |
22nd April 2019, 12:51 PM | #6 |
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It's the local government's fault that Puerto Rico didn't get enough federal aid, unlike Texas and Florida (in the same hurricane season), which DID? Fascinating; tell me more.
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If your response is "so what", like "what do I care", why the hell are you even bothering to debate??? This merely reinforces my opinion you are just playing dumb to be contrary...You lose the debate and whine, "So what?" |
22nd April 2019, 12:53 PM | #7 |
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22nd April 2019, 01:04 PM | #8 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Right?
You're concerned about the nation facing an existential crisis with key positions unfilled. But you refuse to name any such critical positions that are currently unfilled. Can you at least name what you consider to be the most important unfilled position in the Executive branch right now? The one that you think exposes the nation to the most risk at the moment? |
22nd April 2019, 01:05 PM | #9 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 01:11 PM | #10 |
Illuminator
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22nd April 2019, 01:13 PM | #11 |
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22nd April 2019, 01:20 PM | #12 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 01:26 PM | #13 |
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Existential? Please quote me where I described the hypothetical crisis as "existential". That's your word, not mine, and as such I will ignore it beyond this comment.
Additionally, as I have already explained, the nature of the catastrophe determines the services necessary. If it's a measles outbreak (or something along those lines) the CDC would be important. Were it a nuclear power plant disaster, I would expect the Dept of Energy would be important (though I will admit I'm not sure about that, but then again, it's not my responsibility).
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22nd April 2019, 01:34 PM | #14 |
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22nd April 2019, 01:43 PM | #15 |
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The feds have allocated many billions of dollars for both Harvey and Maria. Why is the response window of the first 9 days the primary metric?
And one of the other metrics used in your story, the number of on-site federal personnel (19 PR vs 31k TX) is completely pointless without comparison of the populations they were serving. Puerto Rico has a population of about 3.3 million. Texas has a population of about 28 million, and while not all of them were hit by Harvey, more than 3.3 million of them were. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 02:17 PM | #16 |
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I didn't say it was, I was merely noting the disparity. And despite you're apparent reluctance to admit it, speed of response is important. How about this:
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From: https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/1/e001191 |
22nd April 2019, 02:35 PM | #17 |
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Oh. Are we blaming the local government for bad hurricane response? Good ol’ Katrina playbook defense in action.
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22nd April 2019, 02:37 PM | #18 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Here are the official figures:
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/UpdatedCostliest.pdf Harvey: $125 billion Maria: $90 billion
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 02:40 PM | #19 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 03:06 PM | #20 |
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Local governments have a responsibility, certainly. But they can get overwhelmed. Their systems may have limitations. Their rescue units can get destroyed/damaged/stuck. There's a host of things that can go wrong when you have only your local resources to work with.
That's why we have Federal systems to coordinate and control relief from the outside. But no. You have a President who claimed that Puerto Rico's electrical system was dead before the hurricane hit to excuse his inability to get things running again. (It had weaknesses, sure, but it was not 'dead'). I've been through this Katrina crap with SunMaster back in the day (remember him, constantly whined if Obama took a golf trip?). He tried the same tactic. Failed. |
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22nd April 2019, 03:11 PM | #21 |
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22nd April 2019, 03:13 PM | #22 |
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Oh, so Maria had 72% of the damage that Harvey had. Then why didn't they at least get 72% of the federal aid that Harvey had?
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And that, of course, justifies why Puerto Rico received so much less federal aid proportionally. But sure, the difference in recovery just couldn't possibly have anything to do with the disparity in federal aid. Must. Find. A. Scapegoat. Other. Than. Trump. |
22nd April 2019, 03:14 PM | #23 |
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Its ridiculous to compare disasters. Costs and damages differ. Infrastructure and communities differ. Geographies differ.
Is it possible or likely that a poor community will have a more difficult time responding to a disaster? Hell yeah. But so what? You do what needs to be done. |
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22nd April 2019, 03:18 PM | #24 |
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Standard trumpkin behaviour. 99% of replies to Trump criticism seem to start with "but what about...". If you can't defend Trump, try to deflect. Change the topic. Insult. Anything but actually having to address the criticism. Trump clearly isn't meant to be challenged or criticised to these people.
Annoying as all heck when the more... edgy Palestine supporters or alternative health people did it ("butbutisrael!!2" and "butbutbigpharma!!1"), but Trump cultists take it to a whole new level. Edit: my little brother, whom I strongly suspect was/is narcissistic, was actually like this when I was growing up. Anger outbursts, deflection, insults, smug remarks, flouncing out of the room, denial, playing dumb, whataboutisms, anything, no matter how silly, childish, or disproportionate, but taking responsibility for his actions or mistakes, no matter how serious or tiny and inconsequential. It was insufferable. It's almost fascinating to see not just a man (Trump) acting like this, but to see it carry over to (seemingly) virtually all of his defenders as well. I anticipate psychologists and sociologists will study the Trump cult for decades to come. |
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22nd April 2019, 03:19 PM | #25 |
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Just to emphasize: these are the estimated dollar costs of the damage, not the Federal aid in response.
To me that these are very real people, American citizens, in both cases who have undergone a tremendous blow to their health, safety, and very lives. We, as represented through the resources of our Federal government, morally owe them comparable help to restore their lives. The prior limitations of infrastructure inherent to the poverty of Puerto Rico, or their local government, or the difficulties of operating in an island environment do not change that. The fact that it is more difficult and expensive to restore power to Puerto Rico does not abrogate the need to do so. Upgrading the Puerto Rico infrastructure in doing so is a plus. |
22nd April 2019, 03:25 PM | #26 |
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It's like responding to a medical emergency. If someone has a heart attack, you dispatch an ambulance, you do the recucitation, you get him to the hospital, you give him the care and rehabilitiation he needs to recover. You don't neglect him for then to say "durr, if he didn't want a heart attack he shouldn't have eaten so much junk food, hurr".
I know this, you know this, the Trump cultists know this. Yet when you for some reason want to defend someone who can't be defended, whataboutism and childishness is pretty much all you have. |
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"He's like a drunk being given a sobriety test by the police after being pulled over. Just as a drunk can't walk a straight line, Trump can't think in a straight line. He's all over the place."--Stacyhs "If you are still hung up on that whole words-have-meaning thing, then 2020 is going to be a long year for you." --Ladewig |
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22nd April 2019, 03:58 PM | #27 |
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What you can't do is say we spent 50 million on this category 4 hurricane and 70 million on this other cat 4 hurricane so we're not going to spend more than 70 million on the next one.
There are NO APPLES to APPLES comparisons. None. Puerto Rico is father away and it's harder to respond to. Lineman can't get in their boom trucks and drive there. It's an island and its mountainous and the people are poorer and they have a different native language. It's going to be harder and more expensive. But they ARE AMERICANS. So GOD DAMN IT, Treat them like they are! |
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22nd April 2019, 04:01 PM | #28 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 04:16 PM | #29 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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22nd April 2019, 04:37 PM | #30 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 05:40 PM | #31 |
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Here's a graph of total aid 180 days after landfall:
Harvey: FEMA Money 1.5 Billion; In Survivor's Pockets 13 Billion Total: 14.5 Billion Maria: FEMA Money 1.15 Billion; In Survivor's Pockets 2.35 Billion Total: 3.5 Billion Using these numbers Puerto Rico received a little more than 24% of the federal aid that Texas did. That's in the first 180 days, so admittedly it may not be total federal aid, but while perhaps an excuse could be made for such a disparity after only 9 days, I fail to see any such excuse justifying such a disparity after 180 days. Graph: https://gh.bmj.com/content/bmjgh/4/1...1/F1.large.jpg From: https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/1/e001191 Note on terms:
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22nd April 2019, 05:45 PM | #32 |
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22nd April 2019, 06:12 PM | #33 |
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The 'let's blame the local government' bit also irks me. You can have the best government with the best systems and they will still get overwhelmed. North Jersey was one of the richest regions of the USA but when Sandy hit they needed outside help.
Now the recovery after Sandy had faults but was relatively smooth. Mostly because the outside help was actually properly used to help and not hinder (such as with Katrina) and they did anticipate the need for supplies and crew (which was a failure at PR). But no, the Trumpian types actually had fits that FEMA was prepping properly for Sandy. Rather than face up to their own failures they try to dump everything on the local government than admit that their last two Presidents have massive issues with toadies and incompetence. |
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22nd April 2019, 06:18 PM | #34 |
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22nd April 2019, 07:00 PM | #35 |
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First, it's still not close to the total federal spending. Second, unless you know exactly how those funds are distributed, I doubt you know what any difference in time scales means.
And third, after 180 days, we're not really in a catastrophe anymore, are we? The arguments used to criticize federal aid distribution in the wake of Maria vs. Harvey (such as political favoritism for Texas over Puerto Rico) aren't really relevant to the claim that Trump is unprepared to deal with a catastrophe. ETA: There's actually another huge contributor to the disparity which has nothing to do with Trump: very few people in Puerto Rico had flood insurance. A lot more people i Texas did. And those "in pocket" numbers include payouts from the National Flood Insurance. You can't get a payout if you didn't have insurance. Trump isn't responsible for that. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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22nd April 2019, 08:28 PM | #36 |
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If you have a cite that disagrees with mine, then by all means, post it.
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22nd April 2019, 08:59 PM | #37 |
Penultimate Amazing
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It is obvious that you are just making up excuses then just creating new excuses from thin air as your prior ones are disproven with the actual facts. And even contradicting your own positions when you first argue that the facts/data initially provided were not relevant because they were for time periods too soon after the hurricanes and then immediately turn around and argue that the long term figures presented in response to your own criticism are irrelevant because they extend to times after the immediate catastrophes. Perhaps you enjoy the spirit of the debate but this just undercuts anyone's inclination to believe any of your posts, including those that may be better based in facts and legitimacy
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23rd April 2019, 08:27 AM | #38 |
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23rd April 2019, 08:29 AM | #39 |
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Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
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23rd April 2019, 09:31 AM | #40 |
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Herman Cain served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City for seven years, including two years as chairman of the Omaha Branch, two years as deputy chairman of the board, and two years as chairman. I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be competent to do more of the same.
Anyway, this seems to be a vague concern, rather than a specific one. You're not pointing to any one unfilled or badly-filled position and saying, "this poses a special risk to the nation". You're saying simply that Trump could be doing it horribly wrong, but we won't find out until it actually happens. Whatever "it" is. Which we also won't know until "it" actually happens. Meanwhile, every time "it" has happened so far, catastrophe has not emerged. I used "existential crisis" to be clear about the degree of seriousness and concern I thought we were talking about. That's what "catastrophe" connotes, for me. If we're widening the definition to include bad policy, politically contentious policy, and bombastic tweets, then sure. For millions of Americans, everything Trump has done so far has been catastrophic. But then the issue becomes a lot less serious, and a lot less concerning. I was really hoping we could avoid boiling this down to partisan differences, but it seems like here we are. I'll try one more time. The original claim (at the point I came into the conversation) was whether Trump has put the nation at risk of catastrophe by failing to fill one or more key positions in the Executive branch. I figure we can assess the risk by examining the positions in question. Maybe it's not as bad as we think. Failing to fill the position of Secretary of State is probably pretty risky. Failing to fill a federal judgeship is probably less risky. But without specific positions to consider, there's no specific risks to assess. Just vague handwaving about imminent catastrophe. On the one hand, it's much easier to pitch the idea of grave danger, if you don't have to be specific about the danger. On the other hand, it's a lot harder to sell the idea of grave danger if your pitch doesn't actually include any specific dangers. Take Herman Cain, for example. He's had more experience with Federal Reserve boards than Barack Obama had with the Presidency when he took office. Are you aware of any catastrophes that befell the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City during Cain's seven years on the board there? Did he embezzle funds? Bankrupt the institution? Devalue the currency? Whatever it is that a Fed Reserve board member can do to cause a catastrophe? Anything like that? Did you even know he'd been a Fed board member before, when you first heard that Trump nominated him? I ask for specifics, and the closest you come is Herman Cain, who has experience with the job, and no history of catastrophe at the job that you can cite. You also come close with the Department of Energy. Do you know who the current DOE secretary and deputy secretary are? How would you rate their catastrophic risk, compared to previous DOE secretaries? Even if you just want to make general claims of incompetence across the board, those claims still have to be underpinned by evidence: Actual specific examples of incompetence. And since we're talking about catastrophes, it can't just be run of the mill "not very good at their jobs". And obviously it can't be partisan policy disagreements. We're talking about the risk of catastrophic incompetence in key positions in the Executive branch. Like... Federal Reserve Board memberships? |
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