Trump just fired the the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration and his deputy

[dixiegrrrrl]

as of noon January 20th, the NNSA won’t have appointed leadership – which means that, as of noon January 20th, NNSA will be hamstrung. The career civil servants and scientists (that is, people hired rather than appointed) will continue doing their job, but they won’t have an advocate to secure a budget from Congress and they won’t be able to tackle any new directives because:

the legislation authorizing the NNSA specifically prohibits non-NNSA officials from managing NNSA employees—agency staffers are only allowed to take orders from Klotz and Creedon or their (nonexistent) replacements.

Given Trump’s bombastic and erratic statements regarding the US nuclear arsenal, this situation should concern everyone.

It is not, as is so commonly said right now, normal.

http://www.kellyhills.com/blog/nnsa-and-the-art-of-reading-political-spin/#sthash.GylBWNsV.dpbs

[bdamomma]

1. oh crap,

so now what???? any oversight from anyone??? This should ring bells and whistles.

[TeamPooka]

2. and then Trump and Preibus will reduce those folk's salaries to a $1 a year

because Putin told him to do it.

[Cracklin Charlie]

3. What is wrong with this freak?

Does he not understand that he is a prime target now?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. That he hasn't a clue just how government works gets more and more obvious.

He thinks it's just like one of his businesses, that he can fire and hire people at will. He doesn't understand there's a process for most appointments, and that it really is a good idea to appoint or nominate people who actually know something about the agency or department they'll be running.

[greatauntoftriplets]

5. Oh ffs.

[braddy]

6. Klotz is still head of the NNSA, Trump asked him to stay, as Perry had told him (Klotz)he would.

[highplainsdem]

7. Link to Gizmodo story on this

http://gizmodo.com/at-the-last-minute-trump-asks-nuclear-safety-administr-1791440966

[LiberalLoner]

8. Yup. You are right.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. So it took a Senator to get meathead's attention

and even then they were lucky not to lose the guy, since they pulled that shit with the National Guard guy and he refused to accept their last minute attempts to backtrack their stupidity.
I had a lot of respect for that guy, for standing his ground after they fired him.

[ProudLib72]

10. True

but it is temporary, and they still lost a lot of people. This is something tRump might get around to when he isn't so busy with his own business interests. Until then, just hope no one decides it's a good time to nuke us or something goes wrong with our arsenal.

[bluedigger]

11. We've got our best people on it.

I think that's Rick Perry, actually.