““This wasn’t merit-based,” asserts an NIH employee who received a termination notice on Saturday”
Interesting. My personal experience with government employees–at all levels–is that they favor an equity system rather than a meritocracy. COLA’s, time-in-grade raises and promotions, and etc.
I suppose it’s only fair that if you rise without regard to performance, that you fall the same way.
Federal employees don’t have a say in being in a merit-based system or equity system and it’s hard to get a promotion to the next GS level without good performance. A federal employee cannot obtain an in-grade-in-step raise that accounts for inflation in any way than through a COLA and in no way have the COLAs kept up with inflation. Since 2010, the buying power of the dollar has declined by 38.6% due to inflation, yet the GS COLAs amount to a 22.9% pay increase. Federal employees have had the buying power of their salaries cut by 15.7% since 2010. Yet, social security received a COLA of 36.8% over that same time. And people wonder why USFS staff cannot afford to rent or buy a house and it’s hard to fill positions with anyone qualified to do the work.
Hey Shaun, there are bad ones and good ones as with any group. This method doesn’t separate the wheat from the chaff. More curious to me is why they went with this performance clause in the termination.
Couldn’t they have let them go due to budgetary reasons (certainly that would be true for the FS) because they were in probationary status? Because it’s so easy to prove the performance issue is not true based on documentation. Something doesn’t add up to me.
The probationary staff I know who were let go last week had great performance reviews. They were mostly terms that worked hard doing something they love for years until they were taken on as permanents. If they want to move to a more merit-based system, then do that, but don’t pretend. We were also told early last week that we would not be losing our probationary staff with good performance, but they seem to have changed their minds by the end of the week.
Just reading the language that said those with probation status can only be fired “for cause” tells me why they using performance as an excuse, and that they could not be fired for budgetary reasons without RIF procedures (which are biased against new employees, so it might get to the same result).
RIFs (Reduction in Force) are always painful for those involved. But they are also extremely necessary to keep an organization trim and fit. While Biden and Trump 1.0 apparently did little trimming and Biden encouraged patronage employment, Obama and Clinton paid strong lip service to “trimming the fat.” Now that Trump 2.0 is moving vigorously to cut waste, opponents are crying foul rather than helping to make the process as successful as possible. Rational people will agree that the federal government has more employees than it can afford. Let’s help them do the best job possible to eliminate those who contribute little and keep those who do a lot.
We should not continue to employ Federal workers we cannot afford.
If you think that this is just a mean Donald Trump, please consider the other RIFs that are occurring in the business arena these days. The CEO of Southwest Airlines is laying off 15% of his workforce to improve the company. Intel has already laid off the same percentage of workers to forestall bankruptcy.
More importantly from my perspective as a physicist, we need to cut out all the non-science that is masquerading as legitimate science. Just call all the non-science for what it is: nonsense. Yes, I know it provides many great jobs, but it hurts the pursuit of truth.
What constitutes “nonsense.” That is easy to identify. It is published science that cannot be replicated. The editor of the British Medical Journal, Lancet, said that half of the papers he publishes cannot be replicated. That means they are wrong. In epidemiology, the percentage of nonsense reaches 90%, according to one leading expert. In climatology, it is probably closer to 100%, because virtually all papers that major journals print pay homage to political climate science.
Trump 2.0 is also stripping government grants of bloated overhead. Some overhead is essential to pay for such things as electricity, heat, and maintenance. But paying for a large staff of bureaucrats to manage the scientists and fill out government paperwork has a marginal benefit. Reducing overhead from a typical adder of 60% to 15% on contracts will severely reduce the non-productive part of scientific work. A much leaner funding of universities should encourage them to pursue the most important scientific questions rather than those that have the largest political content. Additional requirements that scientists must actually defend their work against critics and must stop fearmongering to solicit follow-on work, should move us still closer to the ideal. Every published paper should pass critical review rather than merely pal-review.
“Rational people will agree that the federal government has more employees than it can afford.” That’s a pretty absurd statement because it assumes that rational people necessarily want wealthy people to keep getting tax breaks. (Maybe that’s what’s broken.)
With huge deficits and a $36 Trillion Dollar debt, the United States is clearly printing money to employ a small army of bureaucrats it cannot afford. There are solutions to that, such as reducing staff, reducing contracting, cutting allowable overhead charges on government contracts, and increasing taxes. And that is just the beginning of the list of things that can be done to balance the budget. Happily, the new Trump administration is busy doing all of these, except raising taxes.
I think that most Americans would go about this problem as most CEOs do with their companies when employees salaries and other expenses exceed revenue. They cut back first. Intel did that last year. Southwest Airlines is in the process of cutting 15% of staff, not among pilots and stewardesses, but among management. That should suit your sense of justice. But it is really to retain those who are most crucial to the organization.
As to taxing the super wealthy more, even if you taxed them 100%, you would not make a dent in the deficit. The Middle Class pays most of the taxes in this country. And we are very happy to see the new administration not only cutting the fat but also uncovering $20 BILLION dollars stashed to fund “climate mitigation” at a front company that had an income of just $100 the previous year. That seems like fraud to me. I suspect that there is plenty more to be found.
Why don’t you take a look at these graphs and explain why it is that we can’t afford the same level of government employment that we’ve had for decades. Or can’t afford the lowest government employment as a share of total employment since 1939. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/
Uh, federal scientists in the RGE system are merit based. Your grade depends on your publication productivity and their impact as judged by periodic peer review panels. If you are not going 12-13-14-15 in 5-6 year increments, then you need to reevaluate what you are doing in life. And fed scientists can go BACK in grade.
Hiu Retired: Getting yourself published is certainly one way to measure “merit” — but getting a government “grade” for “peer review” analysis and supposed “impact” is exactly what ruined scientific inquiry in the government in my opinion. Look at all the government funded “peer reviewed” crap on the “climate crisis,” “carbon sequestration in a ‘dry’ forest,” or other manufactured topics based on modeling rather than experimentation or observation. It’s 90% junk of mostly political value has been my perception for many years. Compare to the work being done in the 1980s — or even the 1930s — for context. Now it’s “publish or perish” as a measure of “merit?” That’s not science, that’s High School grading. Use your system to see how Galileo, Einstein, or Morris would be “graded” by the government.
I started my career with ODFW in the 1980’s but went to the USFS during it’s Clinton transition where I was told by the R6 Co-op coordinator that I shouldn’t bother applying for a position “since I was white”. I left soon thereafter, but have continued to work with most, if not all, of the alphabet agencies for the rest of my career–on both sides of the table. My ranching side-bite just gives me the opportunity to experience a few more of them and with a slightly different flavor. But I’ve been sure to keep mental notes, if not actual news articles and emails, etc. of the growing dysfunction and disparity in the agencies. I think nearly four decades of association with dozens of federal agencies affords me sufficient background to express my “personal experience”; whether or not I possess the capacity to discern between “good and bad”, you’ll just have to trust.
That said, you’d have to work pretty hard to convince me that the federal system of upward mobility is based on merit, given not only what appears to be a pathological fascination with DEI and similar irrelevancy, but my own experiences and those of my friends and colleagues who are still toiling away in the belly of the beast. Additionally, I don’t think it would be that difficult to look at collective-bargaining contracts, or conduct some form of personnel audit, to identify trends towards equity and evenness and away from achievement (if one hasn’t already been conducted) and it seems silly to pretend that performance evaluations for protected employees are much more than pro forma affairs. Whether the employees themselves or the public employee unions advocate for that kind of system on their behalf, seems irrelevant to me since they are representative organizations after all.
My point was, and still is, that cream rises to the top and if the federal system of hiring and advancement was a true meritocracy then quite a few invaluable and indispensable individuals would have far more confidence in their survivability. Feeling insecure about your future may just belie that you actually know that individualism and excellence have been sacrificed for uniformity and conformity, whether you’ll admit it or not. Paraphrasing Rumier (sp?) “You can take the best people and put them in a bad system and the system will beat them every time”.
“Additionally, I don’t think it would be that difficult to look at collective-bargaining contracts, or conduct some form of personnel audit.”
DOGE could have done that. Instead they have done this to employees.
“Feeling insecure about your future may just belie that you actually know that individualism and excellence have been sacrificed for uniformity and conformity” (loyalty, that is).
“But the source said that most of those that were fired were paid for through funds raised by the Flathead National Forest fees, such as fees associated with timber sales, or outfitter and guides fees paid to the Forest. They were not taxpayer dollars.”
Also, here is where the new Secretary of Agriculture stands on this: “It’s unfortunate that the Biden administration hired thousands of people with no plan in place to pay them long term.”
Here is Senator Daines: “I’ll continue to work with USDA and the DOI to make sure we have personnel in place to protect our lands and our outdoor way of life.” Let’s watch how he does this.
I think we still need our spreadsheet of “where different fees charged by the FS go.”
And maybe the Secretary is right, whether it’s the Chief’s fault or not, some people were hired using IRA and BIL funds which were short-term.
Exactly Sharon, Jon points to a “wicked” talking point, from comments made by folks who don’t understand funding, or Trust Funds! Looking at Region 1 as a whole, they have a pretty small timber program, with lots of salvage from blowdown. I’m traveling right now and can’t see the individual Unit Cut and Sold, but these Trust Funds carry very specific uses (KV, BD, SSF), and they can’t generate more ch cash flow for folks. Also with Grainger Thye Funds – both special uses by proponent and government (Outfitter and Guide, etc.) not a lot of charging (legally, anyway) to much salaries. And, with the concept of “Base Time”, actual boots on the ground work is limited.
Absolutely! The Trump Organization needs to fire the scientists working for the public good so more microplastics, antibiotics and pesticides can be broadcast and introduced into the food supply and wild spaces so shareholders and guys like Gordie and Bob can enjoy the fruits of capitalism!
I see that you specialize in snarky comments about real scientists. Bob Zybach and I have PhDs in our respective fields (forest ecology and physics). That does not make us right, but it does give us some level of expertise.
Your comments, on the other hand, have no accuracy or accountability.
The “Trump Organization” is a real estate firm run by President Trump’s children. It does not employ any scientists that I am aware of. On the other hand, President Trump does run a large organization (the United States Government Executive Branch) that employs many scientists. Some have undoubtedly lost their jobs in the ongoing Reduction in Force (RIF).
Were they working on “microplastics, antibiotics and pesticides”? Perhaps they were working on climate nonsense or other efforts that destroy the environment to save it. Distributed energy schemes (wind and solar) here in Oregon are industrializing our last open spaces. And the many extra transmission lines are threatening our forests, even inside the city limits of Portland! All such efforts are not improving our climate.
Perhaps we need to eliminate all those federal scientists who owe their jobs to fearmongering? Promoting fear of climate to secure federal grants is criminal in my opinion.
Are you against “plastics, antibiotics and pesticides” because they underpin our capitalist way of life? Yes, they can become pollutants. But used and disposed of properly, they greatly add to our prosperity. You seem to forget that they add to all of our lives, including yours.
You seem to want us to return to an earlier time when we had no plastics and antibiotics. And perhaps you want us to use the old-style pesticides. Do you like Oregon strawberries? The main pesticide used on them 100 years ago was lead arsenate. Soils in Hood River County, Oregon are often labeled as “leaded” because of the use of this pesticide on our famous apples.
The main pesticide used to kill rats in the sewers of Paris was the highly toxic ‘Paris Green’ ((copper(II) acetate triarsenite or copper(II) acetoarsenite). It was also used as a pigment in paints.
The conclusion here is that we scientists know a little about the subjects you purport to champion. Yet you want to fire us for daring to challenge Marxist thinking.
This interested party has been covering Chinese company Syngenta since 2010 questioning whether an elected South Dakota attorney general was getting kickbacks to cover up the effects of pesticides like atrazine on fœtal development and infants born to mothers residing near corn and soybean fields even after the US Environmental Protection Agency warned of their use.
In 2011 plaintiffs in Kansas were dropped from a federal class action lawsuit that named Syngenta liable for a genetically modified (GM) corn seed scam but in 2017 a jury ultimately awarded affected farmers nearly $218 million in compensation. South Dakota’s GOP congressional delegation stumbles all over itself to protect donors like Syngenta from their accountability for the state’s impaired waters.
Monsanto, the company that owned a strain of Franken-maize, the only genetically modified product approved for cultivation in the European Union, tried to acquire rival Syngenta in 2015 but was absorbed itself by Bayer — another chemical company that buys Republican politicians and pollutes the waters of the United States.
Boomers will recall that in 1977 the Mexican government was spraying paraquat on cannabis crops. Today, paraquat is marketed as Gramoxone, a Syngenta product linked to Parkinson’s disease after multiple studies determined agricultural workers exposed to the poison face much higher likelihood of nerve damage. In 2021 Earthjustice sued the EPA challenging its reapproval of paraquat and in 2024 California passed legislation that required the Department of Pesticide Regulation to reevaluate its use after some 350,000 pounds were applied in that state during 2023 alone.
Paraquat is also a hormone disruptor that inhibits the production of testosterone and can cause gender dysphoria and birth defects in developing fœtuses.
Carbaryl (1-naphthyl methylcarbamate) is a white crystalline solid commonly sold under the brand name Sevin®, a trademark of the Bayer Group. It kills beneficial insects like honeybees as well as crustaceans not to mention its havoc wreaked on fungal communities and amphibians. Sevin® is often produced using methyl isocyanate the chemical that Union Carbide used to kill thousands of people in Bhopal, India in 1984.
Collectivism is arguably the most important feature binding every surviving human culture on the Earth today yet modern purely socialistic societies have struggled with longevity. Why? Probably because US capitalists have warred against any and all efforts at pure socialism around the globe since it was defined in the modern sense even as those wars are bankrupting America today.
Although the term “socialist” wasn’t widely used until the nineteenth century it’s of little consequence as it has existed in its purest form for nearly all of human history.
Vietnam has emerged as one of the rare winners during recent years of de-globalization thanks to its thoughtful policy of “bamboo diplomacy”. The policy has enabled it to upgrade relations with the West while maintaining positive ties with its largest trading partner, China. Bamboo diplomacy is enshrined in Vietnam’s “Four No’s”: no military alliances, no picking sides in conflicts, no foreign military bases, and no use of force in international relations. Officials are open to doing business with anyone as long as they aren’t dragged into quarrels. [Amid U.S.-China Tensions, Vietnam’s Economy Is Rising]
Indigenous cultures lived in collectivist economies long before migrating to this hemisphere and capitalism has destroyed hope in Indian Country where throughout herstory family and community have been more important than money and consumerism for countless generations.
I can’t quite figure out if you are against all things modern, all things capitalist or all things scientific. Perhaps all three?
In any case, you are unlikely to find common ground with anyone, except the most strident Marxist. Most people like their conveniences, from electricity to computers, from automobiles to ample food and excellent medical care. We live in amazing times that I am sure you secretly appreciate too. Our environment is far cleaner and safer than it was in prior centuries and as a consequence, life expectancy is much improved.
What brought us out of the Dark Ages into the Enlightenment? Science and Capitalism.
Could we do better? Surely! Most newly elected Presidents have tried to address obvious problems like the enormous national debt and overgrown bureaucracy. Smaller problems, such as the banning of DDT, have been reversed to save a million people a year from malaria. Fanatics forced that ban, leading to 40 million unnecessary deaths. The scientific solution to problems with DDT was to use it sparingly as one pillar of vector control programs.
Marxist fanaticism is NOT the answer to any problem.
Hey, Gordie: be thankful you live in a blue state where the ground you live on was seized for you from aboriginal cultures by liberal democrat, President Thomas Jefferson through an executive order that even he believed was unconstitutional.
Thomas Jefferson was quirky, mired in the Enlightenment and sided with Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison establishing the principle of judicial review in the United States. Marbury affirmed that courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that contravene the U.S. Constitution. Jefferson would not plant tobacco because he believed it to be bound to the capitalism he abhorred and chose cannabis as his crop of choice for its utilitarian applications. Thomas Jefferson wrote that a standing army would lead to military adventurism, would ultimately turn on its own citizens and now the Trump Organization is doing just that.
If America has a bloated government it’s comprised of the mercenaries and soldiers of fortune who prop up Trump’s imperialism and xenophobia.
Hi Larry, you can criticized the Admins policies all you want.. but..
“If America has a bloated government it’s comprised of the mercenaries and soldiers of fortune who prop up Trump’s imperialism and xenophobia.” is over the line. I’m leaving the comment this time so you can see where the line is.
““This wasn’t merit-based,” asserts an NIH employee who received a termination notice on Saturday”
Interesting. My personal experience with government employees–at all levels–is that they favor an equity system rather than a meritocracy. COLA’s, time-in-grade raises and promotions, and etc.
I suppose it’s only fair that if you rise without regard to performance, that you fall the same way.
Federal employees don’t have a say in being in a merit-based system or equity system and it’s hard to get a promotion to the next GS level without good performance. A federal employee cannot obtain an in-grade-in-step raise that accounts for inflation in any way than through a COLA and in no way have the COLAs kept up with inflation. Since 2010, the buying power of the dollar has declined by 38.6% due to inflation, yet the GS COLAs amount to a 22.9% pay increase. Federal employees have had the buying power of their salaries cut by 15.7% since 2010. Yet, social security received a COLA of 36.8% over that same time. And people wonder why USFS staff cannot afford to rent or buy a house and it’s hard to fill positions with anyone qualified to do the work.
Hey Shaun, there are bad ones and good ones as with any group. This method doesn’t separate the wheat from the chaff. More curious to me is why they went with this performance clause in the termination.
Couldn’t they have let them go due to budgetary reasons (certainly that would be true for the FS) because they were in probationary status? Because it’s so easy to prove the performance issue is not true based on documentation. Something doesn’t add up to me.
The probationary staff I know who were let go last week had great performance reviews. They were mostly terms that worked hard doing something they love for years until they were taken on as permanents. If they want to move to a more merit-based system, then do that, but don’t pretend. We were also told early last week that we would not be losing our probationary staff with good performance, but they seem to have changed their minds by the end of the week.
Just reading the language that said those with probation status can only be fired “for cause” tells me why they using performance as an excuse, and that they could not be fired for budgetary reasons without RIF procedures (which are biased against new employees, so it might get to the same result).
RIFs (Reduction in Force) are always painful for those involved. But they are also extremely necessary to keep an organization trim and fit. While Biden and Trump 1.0 apparently did little trimming and Biden encouraged patronage employment, Obama and Clinton paid strong lip service to “trimming the fat.” Now that Trump 2.0 is moving vigorously to cut waste, opponents are crying foul rather than helping to make the process as successful as possible. Rational people will agree that the federal government has more employees than it can afford. Let’s help them do the best job possible to eliminate those who contribute little and keep those who do a lot.
We should not continue to employ Federal workers we cannot afford.
If you think that this is just a mean Donald Trump, please consider the other RIFs that are occurring in the business arena these days. The CEO of Southwest Airlines is laying off 15% of his workforce to improve the company. Intel has already laid off the same percentage of workers to forestall bankruptcy.
More importantly from my perspective as a physicist, we need to cut out all the non-science that is masquerading as legitimate science. Just call all the non-science for what it is: nonsense. Yes, I know it provides many great jobs, but it hurts the pursuit of truth.
What constitutes “nonsense.” That is easy to identify. It is published science that cannot be replicated. The editor of the British Medical Journal, Lancet, said that half of the papers he publishes cannot be replicated. That means they are wrong. In epidemiology, the percentage of nonsense reaches 90%, according to one leading expert. In climatology, it is probably closer to 100%, because virtually all papers that major journals print pay homage to political climate science.
Trump 2.0 is also stripping government grants of bloated overhead. Some overhead is essential to pay for such things as electricity, heat, and maintenance. But paying for a large staff of bureaucrats to manage the scientists and fill out government paperwork has a marginal benefit. Reducing overhead from a typical adder of 60% to 15% on contracts will severely reduce the non-productive part of scientific work. A much leaner funding of universities should encourage them to pursue the most important scientific questions rather than those that have the largest political content. Additional requirements that scientists must actually defend their work against critics and must stop fearmongering to solicit follow-on work, should move us still closer to the ideal. Every published paper should pass critical review rather than merely pal-review.
The system is broken. Let’s fix it.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD
Corbett, Oregon USA
“Rational people will agree that the federal government has more employees than it can afford.” That’s a pretty absurd statement because it assumes that rational people necessarily want wealthy people to keep getting tax breaks. (Maybe that’s what’s broken.)
Dear Jon,
With huge deficits and a $36 Trillion Dollar debt, the United States is clearly printing money to employ a small army of bureaucrats it cannot afford. There are solutions to that, such as reducing staff, reducing contracting, cutting allowable overhead charges on government contracts, and increasing taxes. And that is just the beginning of the list of things that can be done to balance the budget. Happily, the new Trump administration is busy doing all of these, except raising taxes.
I think that most Americans would go about this problem as most CEOs do with their companies when employees salaries and other expenses exceed revenue. They cut back first. Intel did that last year. Southwest Airlines is in the process of cutting 15% of staff, not among pilots and stewardesses, but among management. That should suit your sense of justice. But it is really to retain those who are most crucial to the organization.
As to taxing the super wealthy more, even if you taxed them 100%, you would not make a dent in the deficit. The Middle Class pays most of the taxes in this country. And we are very happy to see the new administration not only cutting the fat but also uncovering $20 BILLION dollars stashed to fund “climate mitigation” at a front company that had an income of just $100 the previous year. That seems like fraud to me. I suspect that there is plenty more to be found.
We have to clean house first.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD
Corbett, Oregon USA
Why don’t you take a look at these graphs and explain why it is that we can’t afford the same level of government employment that we’ve had for decades. Or can’t afford the lowest government employment as a share of total employment since 1939.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/
I think it depends on where you start the graph.. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/employment-in-government-rose-by-709000-in-2023.htm
Yes, I chose to look at the longer term than just the last decade. That’s really my question – what’s different in the last decade from longer ago.
Uh, federal scientists in the RGE system are merit based. Your grade depends on your publication productivity and their impact as judged by periodic peer review panels. If you are not going 12-13-14-15 in 5-6 year increments, then you need to reevaluate what you are doing in life. And fed scientists can go BACK in grade.
Hiu Retired: Getting yourself published is certainly one way to measure “merit” — but getting a government “grade” for “peer review” analysis and supposed “impact” is exactly what ruined scientific inquiry in the government in my opinion. Look at all the government funded “peer reviewed” crap on the “climate crisis,” “carbon sequestration in a ‘dry’ forest,” or other manufactured topics based on modeling rather than experimentation or observation. It’s 90% junk of mostly political value has been my perception for many years. Compare to the work being done in the 1980s — or even the 1930s — for context. Now it’s “publish or perish” as a measure of “merit?” That’s not science, that’s High School grading. Use your system to see how Galileo, Einstein, or Morris would be “graded” by the government.
I started my career with ODFW in the 1980’s but went to the USFS during it’s Clinton transition where I was told by the R6 Co-op coordinator that I shouldn’t bother applying for a position “since I was white”. I left soon thereafter, but have continued to work with most, if not all, of the alphabet agencies for the rest of my career–on both sides of the table. My ranching side-bite just gives me the opportunity to experience a few more of them and with a slightly different flavor. But I’ve been sure to keep mental notes, if not actual news articles and emails, etc. of the growing dysfunction and disparity in the agencies. I think nearly four decades of association with dozens of federal agencies affords me sufficient background to express my “personal experience”; whether or not I possess the capacity to discern between “good and bad”, you’ll just have to trust.
That said, you’d have to work pretty hard to convince me that the federal system of upward mobility is based on merit, given not only what appears to be a pathological fascination with DEI and similar irrelevancy, but my own experiences and those of my friends and colleagues who are still toiling away in the belly of the beast. Additionally, I don’t think it would be that difficult to look at collective-bargaining contracts, or conduct some form of personnel audit, to identify trends towards equity and evenness and away from achievement (if one hasn’t already been conducted) and it seems silly to pretend that performance evaluations for protected employees are much more than pro forma affairs. Whether the employees themselves or the public employee unions advocate for that kind of system on their behalf, seems irrelevant to me since they are representative organizations after all.
My point was, and still is, that cream rises to the top and if the federal system of hiring and advancement was a true meritocracy then quite a few invaluable and indispensable individuals would have far more confidence in their survivability. Feeling insecure about your future may just belie that you actually know that individualism and excellence have been sacrificed for uniformity and conformity, whether you’ll admit it or not. Paraphrasing Rumier (sp?) “You can take the best people and put them in a bad system and the system will beat them every time”.
“Additionally, I don’t think it would be that difficult to look at collective-bargaining contracts, or conduct some form of personnel audit.”
DOGE could have done that. Instead they have done this to employees.
“Feeling insecure about your future may just belie that you actually know that individualism and excellence have been sacrificed for uniformity and conformity” (loyalty, that is).
But Jon, getting rid of people because of their status doesn’t say anything about their conformity or uniformity..
I was referring here to the more general attack on the “disloyal” “deep state.”
Here’s a story about the Flathead NF: https://hungryhorsenews.com/news/2025/feb/20/doge_cuts/
“But the source said that most of those that were fired were paid for through funds raised by the Flathead National Forest fees, such as fees associated with timber sales, or outfitter and guides fees paid to the Forest. They were not taxpayer dollars.”
Also, here is where the new Secretary of Agriculture stands on this: “It’s unfortunate that the Biden administration hired thousands of people with no plan in place to pay them long term.”
Here is Senator Daines: “I’ll continue to work with USDA and the DOI to make sure we have personnel in place to protect our lands and our outdoor way of life.” Let’s watch how he does this.
I think we still need our spreadsheet of “where different fees charged by the FS go.”
And maybe the Secretary is right, whether it’s the Chief’s fault or not, some people were hired using IRA and BIL funds which were short-term.
Exactly Sharon, Jon points to a “wicked” talking point, from comments made by folks who don’t understand funding, or Trust Funds! Looking at Region 1 as a whole, they have a pretty small timber program, with lots of salvage from blowdown. I’m traveling right now and can’t see the individual Unit Cut and Sold, but these Trust Funds carry very specific uses (KV, BD, SSF), and they can’t generate more ch cash flow for folks. Also with Grainger Thye Funds – both special uses by proponent and government (Outfitter and Guide, etc.) not a lot of charging (legally, anyway) to much salaries. And, with the concept of “Base Time”, actual boots on the ground work is limited.
Absolutely! The Trump Organization needs to fire the scientists working for the public good so more microplastics, antibiotics and pesticides can be broadcast and introduced into the food supply and wild spaces so shareholders and guys like Gordie and Bob can enjoy the fruits of capitalism!
Dear Larry,
I see that you specialize in snarky comments about real scientists. Bob Zybach and I have PhDs in our respective fields (forest ecology and physics). That does not make us right, but it does give us some level of expertise.
Your comments, on the other hand, have no accuracy or accountability.
The “Trump Organization” is a real estate firm run by President Trump’s children. It does not employ any scientists that I am aware of. On the other hand, President Trump does run a large organization (the United States Government Executive Branch) that employs many scientists. Some have undoubtedly lost their jobs in the ongoing Reduction in Force (RIF).
Were they working on “microplastics, antibiotics and pesticides”? Perhaps they were working on climate nonsense or other efforts that destroy the environment to save it. Distributed energy schemes (wind and solar) here in Oregon are industrializing our last open spaces. And the many extra transmission lines are threatening our forests, even inside the city limits of Portland! All such efforts are not improving our climate.
Perhaps we need to eliminate all those federal scientists who owe their jobs to fearmongering? Promoting fear of climate to secure federal grants is criminal in my opinion.
Are you against “plastics, antibiotics and pesticides” because they underpin our capitalist way of life? Yes, they can become pollutants. But used and disposed of properly, they greatly add to our prosperity. You seem to forget that they add to all of our lives, including yours.
You seem to want us to return to an earlier time when we had no plastics and antibiotics. And perhaps you want us to use the old-style pesticides. Do you like Oregon strawberries? The main pesticide used on them 100 years ago was lead arsenate. Soils in Hood River County, Oregon are often labeled as “leaded” because of the use of this pesticide on our famous apples.
The main pesticide used to kill rats in the sewers of Paris was the highly toxic ‘Paris Green’ ((copper(II) acetate triarsenite or copper(II) acetoarsenite). It was also used as a pigment in paints.
The conclusion here is that we scientists know a little about the subjects you purport to champion. Yet you want to fire us for daring to challenge Marxist thinking.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD
Corbett, Oregon USA
Holy cow, Gordie: how you do go on.
This interested party has been covering Chinese company Syngenta since 2010 questioning whether an elected South Dakota attorney general was getting kickbacks to cover up the effects of pesticides like atrazine on fœtal development and infants born to mothers residing near corn and soybean fields even after the US Environmental Protection Agency warned of their use.
In 2011 plaintiffs in Kansas were dropped from a federal class action lawsuit that named Syngenta liable for a genetically modified (GM) corn seed scam but in 2017 a jury ultimately awarded affected farmers nearly $218 million in compensation. South Dakota’s GOP congressional delegation stumbles all over itself to protect donors like Syngenta from their accountability for the state’s impaired waters.
Monsanto, the company that owned a strain of Franken-maize, the only genetically modified product approved for cultivation in the European Union, tried to acquire rival Syngenta in 2015 but was absorbed itself by Bayer — another chemical company that buys Republican politicians and pollutes the waters of the United States.
Boomers will recall that in 1977 the Mexican government was spraying paraquat on cannabis crops. Today, paraquat is marketed as Gramoxone, a Syngenta product linked to Parkinson’s disease after multiple studies determined agricultural workers exposed to the poison face much higher likelihood of nerve damage. In 2021 Earthjustice sued the EPA challenging its reapproval of paraquat and in 2024 California passed legislation that required the Department of Pesticide Regulation to reevaluate its use after some 350,000 pounds were applied in that state during 2023 alone.
Paraquat is also a hormone disruptor that inhibits the production of testosterone and can cause gender dysphoria and birth defects in developing fœtuses.
Carbaryl (1-naphthyl methylcarbamate) is a white crystalline solid commonly sold under the brand name Sevin®, a trademark of the Bayer Group. It kills beneficial insects like honeybees as well as crustaceans not to mention its havoc wreaked on fungal communities and amphibians. Sevin® is often produced using methyl isocyanate the chemical that Union Carbide used to kill thousands of people in Bhopal, India in 1984.
Collectivism is arguably the most important feature binding every surviving human culture on the Earth today yet modern purely socialistic societies have struggled with longevity. Why? Probably because US capitalists have warred against any and all efforts at pure socialism around the globe since it was defined in the modern sense even as those wars are bankrupting America today.
Although the term “socialist” wasn’t widely used until the nineteenth century it’s of little consequence as it has existed in its purest form for nearly all of human history.
Indigenous cultures lived in collectivist economies long before migrating to this hemisphere and capitalism has destroyed hope in Indian Country where throughout herstory family and community have been more important than money and consumerism for countless generations.
Dear Larry,
I can’t quite figure out if you are against all things modern, all things capitalist or all things scientific. Perhaps all three?
In any case, you are unlikely to find common ground with anyone, except the most strident Marxist. Most people like their conveniences, from electricity to computers, from automobiles to ample food and excellent medical care. We live in amazing times that I am sure you secretly appreciate too. Our environment is far cleaner and safer than it was in prior centuries and as a consequence, life expectancy is much improved.
What brought us out of the Dark Ages into the Enlightenment? Science and Capitalism.
Could we do better? Surely! Most newly elected Presidents have tried to address obvious problems like the enormous national debt and overgrown bureaucracy. Smaller problems, such as the banning of DDT, have been reversed to save a million people a year from malaria. Fanatics forced that ban, leading to 40 million unnecessary deaths. The scientific solution to problems with DDT was to use it sparingly as one pillar of vector control programs.
Marxist fanaticism is NOT the answer to any problem.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD
Corbett, Oregon USA
Hey, Gordie: be thankful you live in a blue state where the ground you live on was seized for you from aboriginal cultures by liberal democrat, President Thomas Jefferson through an executive order that even he believed was unconstitutional.
Thomas Jefferson was quirky, mired in the Enlightenment and sided with Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison establishing the principle of judicial review in the United States. Marbury affirmed that courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that contravene the U.S. Constitution. Jefferson would not plant tobacco because he believed it to be bound to the capitalism he abhorred and chose cannabis as his crop of choice for its utilitarian applications. Thomas Jefferson wrote that a standing army would lead to military adventurism, would ultimately turn on its own citizens and now the Trump Organization is doing just that.
If America has a bloated government it’s comprised of the mercenaries and soldiers of fortune who prop up Trump’s imperialism and xenophobia.
Hi Larry, you can criticized the Admins policies all you want.. but..
“If America has a bloated government it’s comprised of the mercenaries and soldiers of fortune who prop up Trump’s imperialism and xenophobia.” is over the line. I’m leaving the comment this time so you can see where the line is.