NOAA staff warned in Sept. 1 directive against contradicting Trump

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post


Andrew Freedman, Colby Itkowitz, Jason Samenow 6 hrs ago

Nearly a week before the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly backed President Trump over its own scientists, a top NOAA official warned its staff against contradicting the president.



© Evan Vucci/AP President Trump on Sept. 4 shows a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama.

In an agencywide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service personnel, hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” staff was told to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.”

They were also told not to “provide any opinion,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Washington Post.

A NOAA meteorologist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said the note, understood internally to be referring to Trump, came after the National Weather Service office in Birmingham contradicted Trump by tweeting Alabama would “NOT see any impacts from the hurricane.”

The Birmingham office sent the tweet after receiving a flurry of phone calls from concerned residents following Trump’s message.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/noaa-staff-warned-in-sept-1-directive-against-contradicting-trump/ar-AAGXulF?li=BBnb7Kz

[Ramsey Barner]

1. Conflicts, much?

Acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs was involved in drawing up the statement as was the NOAA director of public affairs, who has experience in emergency management and worked on the president’s campaign.

"Dr. Neil Jacobs, Chief Atmospheric Scientist for Panasonic Weather Solutions has also advocated for a greater role for private weather data. His company sells their data and model outputs to NOAA as input to weather forecasts."
[link:https://blog.ucsusa.org/andrew-rosenberg/conflicts-of-interest-noaas-nominees-accuweather-ceo-barry-myers-and-dr-neil-jacobs-of-panasonic|


"Julie Kay Roberts was formerly a member of the Donald Trump 2016 campaign and Inaugural Committee."
[link:https://crooksandliars.com/2019/09/wonder-why-noaa-was-so-quick-lie-trump|

[riversedge]

2. OMG!! NOAA is afraid of Trump!! damn damn

[YOHABLO]

10. No, they're afraid they'll get fired.

[Maxheader]

3. Response from tubbys base..?

The president is a businessman, not a weather man..

And they won't even get the dysfunction of that remark....

[Lonestarblue]

4. OMG! Sixteen more months of this nonsense!

Trump has done so much damage in two years, and he still has several months to do more. The entire federal government will need a thorough house cleaning to get rid of the incompetents he has appointed. What’s really disgusting, though, is that not only will people need to be removed but federal government data will need to be scrubbed of the deliberate contamination by deleting accurate information and replacing it with their alternative facts. I’m sure the data on climate change for these four years will be total fiction, and they may have erased data that can’t be restored.

Given what we’ve seen the last several weeks with the military and now NOAA, the infestation from the White House is extensive.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. The hope is

like we had heard Obama admin folks had done - notably the Russia/intelligence info, would be to archive what they had before his term was up and hold it in safekeeping in multiple locations (or so it was reported).

As a note, the Obama WH statements/info that had originally been on whitehouse.gov, had been archived to here - https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ (am guessing this is an official National Archives site since it has a ".gov" address). But in a similar fashion. I expect some of the NWS folks may be archiving their own stuff like mad so that hopefully it can be reproduced in the future after scrubbing the stench out of the place.

[Paladin]

5. Absolutely shameful.

That NOAA administrator/trump orderly needs to lose her job, tomorrow morning latest.

[rickyhall]

7. Salute the Dick-tater! NOT...

[Eugene]

8. As everyone knows, the Dear Leader is the republic's greatest diplomat, its greatest philosopher

and its greatest scientist. And pretty soon, there will be reeducation camps for those who believe otherwise.

[KewlKat]

9. He's also the world's greatest malignant narcissist

[duforsure]

11. Wouldn't that be a federal crime

By threatening people in the government to lie or accept lies for official weather forecasts? Intentionally putting out misleading information about a national emergency with a doctored weather forecast, or abuse of power to prevent NOAA from saying anything about a false promotion on one should be illegal and a pattern never allowed from any president. If nothing is done he'll just escalates this pattern.