EPA Offering Free Counseling To Employees Traumatized By Trump Presidency

[timosman]

http://www.dailywire.com/news/12884/epa-offering-free-counseling-employees-traumatized-hank-berrien


JANUARY 27, 2017

The precious environmental snowflakes at the Environmental Protection Agency are melting down due to Donald Trump’s ascendancy, and a picture taken from inside the agency reveals how the EPA is desperately trying to ice the employees before they turn into simple puddles on the floor:

825071427460141056

Yup, you saw that clearly. The EPA is helping its employees “deal with change.”

One suspects that the EPA is not referring to the problems of too many nickels and dimes in the employees’ pockets.

Nope. That sign may have been posted after the former head of President Donald Trump's transition team at the EPA, Myron Ebell, told AP on Thursday that Trump will likely cut significant numbers of jobs at the EPA. Ebell stated, "Let's aim for half and see how it works out, and then maybe we'll want to go further,” adding, "President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA, or 'leave a little bit. I think the administration is likely to start proposing cuts to the 15,000 staff, because the fact is that a huge amount of the work of the EPA is actually done by state agencies. It's not clear why so many employees are needed at the federal level."

Ebell also asserted that it was reasonable to expect Trump to cut roughly $1 billion from the EPA's roughly $8 billion annual budget.

Former Republican EPA Administrator William K. Reilly tried to calm the waters roiled by Ebell, countering, "I would tell the EPA staff that, in my experience, transition teams often have zero influence. They shouldn't be taken that seriously. They're just ideologues. They don't work for and are not even known to the incoming cabinet."

But as the poet John Donne might have warned the EPA employees, “Never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

[phill4paul]

"Dealing with Change." LMAO. Instead of "Hope and Change" it's "Nope and Spare Change." Hahahaha! That's some "Change I can believe in."

[RJB]

Have they offered counselors to help Americans traumatized by changes in government (specifically EPA) mandates that put Americans out of work?

[Brian4Liberty]

http://www.home-remedies-for-you.com/remedy/Hysteria.html


Hysteria is a mental disorder arising from intense anxiety. It is characterized by a lack of control over acts and emotions, and by sudden seizures of unconsciousness with emotional outbursts. It is often the result of repressed conflicts within the person. This disease appears in both sexes, but it is far more common in young women between fourteen and twenty five years of age. One of the primary reasons cited for women in this age group experiencing traces of hysteria is the fact that their bodies undergo rapid changes during the child bearing period, causing a number of hormonal imbalances that set off these instances of hysteria. When someone is experiencing a bout of hysteria, it is necessary that people around do not panic, and remain calm themselves. A person who gets hysterical would usually cause others to panic, further worsening the situation. Outbursts of hysteria are not uncommon, but it is necessary to identify the stimulant that is causing the hysteria before attempting to assist the person to overcome his or her fears.

[Suzanimal]

They were nutters before Trump became president.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?454681-EPA-Cleaning-Our-Environment-Fouling-Its-Own-Hallways-with-Feces&highlight=epa+feces

[Superfluous Man]

Now this is a time when an executive order shutting that down would be appropriate.

[euphemia]

Employees would be better served with seminars on resume development and career change.

[AZJoe]

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p480x480/16386965_383979078624111_6402434480879814917_n.jpg ?oh=c0648369e1e2dfe1d1923e4bda9401ae&oe=59414F07

[Anti Federalist]

Fuck you EPA and everybody there.

Go find real work, maggots.


Cash For Not Clunkers

http://ericpetersautos.com/2017/02/02/cash-not-clunkers/

By eric -
February 2, 2017

You’ve heard the saying that history repeats . . . as farce? Well, here we are. Not quite ten years after the government paid people to throw away perfectly good used cars to “stimulate” demand for new ones – the despicable Cash for Clunkers program – the government is doing the same thing again.

Only this time, the cars are not “clunkers” and the government is forcing VW to pay people to throw them away.

Almost 600,000 of them.

These cars are not high-miles and worn out, on their last legs. Many are only a year or two old. Nothing is wrong with any of them – other than their having been deemed “out of compliance” with Byzantine EPA emissions tests.

But only sometimes – and only slightly.

The cars were programmed to pass the EPA certification tests – required before they could legally be sold. They passed the tests, which incidentally is the same criteria Uncle insist on when it comes to the “education” of “the children” in government schools. Pass the tests (SOLs) and you pass on to the next grade. Kids are “taught” to pass the tests.

Uncle smiles.

But in VW’s case, it was later discovered that the programming was set up to run the engine differently – that is, better from the standpoint of the people buying and driving the cars – when out on the road and not connected to the EPA’s emissions test dynamometers. Under certain operating conditions – wide open throttle, for one – the calibrations were set to produce maximum performance.

Or, under other conditions, maximum miles-per-gallon.

Diesel-powered VWs like the Jetta and Passat TDI routinely delivered better-than-advertised (by EPA) mileage, out in real-world driving. I can vouch for this personally, having test driven every TDI-powered VW sold over the past 10 years. They all used less fuel – delivered higher mileage – than EPA said they would. Interesting. Less fuel used equals less exhaust gas produced equals lower emissions overall.

(I owned one. Routinely got over the estimated mileage ratings, mid to high 40s, sometime over 50. The non Uncle Sucker-Fucked models in the rest of the world get 70+ AF)

VW never gets credit for that.

Crickets. Including from the mother-loving “environmental community.”

Which makes my teeth hurt because if you do the arithmetic, the more-efficient-than-advertised VW diesels reduced the aggregate of harmful emissions yugely vs. the fractional per car increase in tailpipe emissions generated by the “cheating” software.

Whole number differences, mind.

Now add to the tabulations the 562,000 high-efficiency cars slated for destruction. They will be replaced by gas-burning cars that use 20-30 percent more fuel to travel the same distance.

(In my case, over twice as much. Went o Jeep Grand Cherokee that gets 21 mpg if I'm lucky. - AF)

More whole number increases in the “harmful” exhaust byproducts EPA apparatchiks insist they are protecting us from.

It’s shameful.

But – once again – “demand” will be “stimulated” by this gratuitous destruction of value. The 562,000 owners of the targeted-for-termination TDI VWs will need a new car to replace the one bought back and thrown away.

Some may buy/lease another VW, which will give the appearance of increasing VW’s sales; some – soured on VW – will buy a new car from someone else. It will “stimulate” new car sales generally, a kind of four-wheeled take on the Potempkin Village concept. Create a facade, make things look good.

Just don’t look behind the facade.

Because here’s the thing: You can’t just write off the value of 562,000 cars and call it even. That value becomes a net loss – in this case, a sinkhole that may eventually swallow VW whole.

Here are some numbers for you:

The original Cash for Clunkers program destroyed a mere $3 billion in value – the sum spent to crush all those perfectly good used cars so as to get people to buy a new car. VW – which hasn’t got the power to tax people or to print money – is looking at “investing” $10 billion to buy back and destroy those 562,000 cars Uncle is feigning upset over.

And yes, feigning.

People think government bureaucrats are stupid – and there is some truth to this. They are morally obtuse, certainly.

But they are also sharky and vengeful when it comes to protecting their prerogatives (as they see them) and they know perfectly well what is at stake here. They are aware that if the people ever figured out the truth – that we are at angels dancing on the head of a pin time, as far as meaningfully harmful vehicle exhaust emissions are concerned – they would drag them from their cubicles and do not-pleasant things to them.

So, the feigned outrage.

It is not about public health and harmful emissions. It is about the potential harm to the EPA and other such if the people ever figure out that the whole thing is a gigantic make-work project, paid for by them. So that EPA appartchiks can live in $600,000 McMansions just outside the Beltway and very probably drive cars that belch out far more in the way of toxic gasses than any TDI VW ever did.

VW’s mistake was not “cheating” the tests.

It was rolling over like a cur dog, presenting its belly – and hoping its master wouldn’t kick it in the soft parts.

[Anti Federalist]

http://ericpetersautos.com/2017/02/01/dead-pool-2018/


*Volkswagen –

A year ago, VW was Autobahn cruising at 140-plus, one of the most successful brands in the world – not just the United States. One year hence and VW is in serious trouble as a result not so much of having “cheated” Uncle and getting caught doing so – but because the company did a Greaseman-style writhing on the floor mea culpa. Apologizing for its sins, like the once-famous radio shock jock did all those years ago. Some of you may remember – and recall what became of the Greaseman.

The same kind of fate may befall VW.

It would have been a lot less expensive – and far more dignified – to fight Uncle. And, much more important, explain to the public what it did and why. That – yes – it “cheated” federal exhaust emissions tests by programming the cars so that when tested, their exhaust was within the parameters set forth by the increasingly demented EPA’s standards but on occasion, slightly higher out in the real world. Slightly as in fractionally (less than 1 percent, literally) higher out in the real world, under certain conditions, such as wide-open throttle. Which happens even less than fractionally as most of the time, most driving is not wide-open throttle driving.

In any case, there has been no harm done – except to the easily bruised egos of government bureaucrats, who have gone after the company with a disproportionate, Inspector Javert-like rabidity. In order to make a very public point about what happens to those who dare to “cheat” the government.

VW has been verboten from selling any diesel-powered cars – which by itself might have been enough to permanently cripple the company. Then on top of that there is the cost of forced buybacks (half a million cars) fines and litigation – estimated liabilities in excess of $50 billion (not million) dollars.

Plus the taint.

Because VW did not defend itself – did not explain to buyers the truth about this debacle – the average person probably thinks VW stinks (literally and figuratively) and won’t consider buying one.

It took GM decades to recover from a much less devastating diesel debacle (some of you may recall).

VW may not. $50 billion is still a lot of money, even inflation adjusted.

In a small town in West Virginia, an aging and penniless Greaseman is probably watching all this go down and mumbling, I could have told them so.

[oyarde]

Abolish the EPA , Now .

[UWDude]

free, huh?

[TommyJeff]

Now this is a time when an executive order shutting that down would be appropriate.

+1

[angelatc]

"free"

[CaptainAmerica]

I hope everyone of them get terminated from the job,and that the EPA is reduced to a team of furniture liquidators