Trump Firing People Who Maintain America's Nukes. Is That Important?

This is clearly photoshopped, as bicycles were not even invented until after Einstein's death.

Donald Trump is doing such a great job of draining the swamp in Washington. Not only is he filling his cabinet with billionaires and generals -- ideally, there should be a few people who are both -- he's also doing everything he can to wipe every last vestige of the Obama administration from the government, even if it means we won't have actual ambassadors to a bunch of countries as of January 20, because they were appointed by Obama, and other countries are laughing at us because he was so weak. Now, thanks to Gizmodo, we know that Team Trump has also "instructed the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration and his deputy to clean out their desks when Trump takes office on January 20th," according to an official in the Department of Energy. It's not like we really need anyone running that agency anyway, since it's not involved in something important like drilling for oil, expelling illegal aliens, or yelling at celebrities. What the hell does the NNSA even do, anyway?

The NNSA is the $12 billion-a-year agency that “maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.” It’s unclear when the two officials will be replaced.

Oh, the nuclear weapons stockpile. Yeah, that's probably fine, those things just sit there until we need them, right? Besides, as Gizmodo acknowledges, it's not like the people at the top of the agency are actually out there maintaining the nukes; that's handled by lower-level folks who'll stay on anyway, unless they think climate change is real, or flee civilization altogether for wherever the fallout is least likely to reach. The top guy at the agency, Undersecretary for Nuclear Security Frank Klotz, and his deputy, Madelyn Creedon, have been given their walking papers, and at some point, we assume, Trump will find somebody to replace them and the Senate will eventually confirm those people, probably. Nobody has been named yet, and in previous administrations, it's not unusual for the previous administration's appointees to stay in place -- Barack Obama kept G.W. Bush's heads of the NNSA until Klotz and Creedon were confirmed in his second term.

Oh, and maybe some other people at the NNSA will be out, says Gizmodo's source:

“Secretarial and administration appointments that don’t require Senate confirmation, mostly performing policy, liaison, and strategic advisory capacities in support of the agency they’re at. They serve at the will of the head of their agency. Those people are, theoretically, also out on inauguration day unless otherwise directed, which hasn’t happened yet to my knowledge.”

The source later added, “I’m more and more coming around to the idea that we’re so very very fucked.”

Oh come on now. It's only the political leadership, and while this will be the first time in its 17 years of existence the NNSA won't have leaders, it's not like the weapons themselves will be abandoned, probably. It just won't have anyone running it, so the professionals can do what they think is needed. The agency's director only does stuff like asking Congress for a budget and stuff, so probably Congress will remember to allocate funds to maintain the nukes, we guess. Oh, yeah, there's that program to upgrade the arsenal that Obama started, and maybe a director for the agency could be important in making sure that happens, too, but meh, it'll probably get done eventually, don't you think? It's not like Trump wants to expand our nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes, after all.

Anyway, once Rick Perry is confirmed as secretary of Energy, we bet he can find some really capable heads of Texas chemical plants to fill the jobs, then just sit back and let them get to work. Or maybe the Russians can help us out.

[ Gizmodo ]