DOE Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

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Transform or Terminate? Our options for failing Federal Agencies.

October 3, 2025/in Budget and Finance, Commentary, Elections, Hot Topics, Marxism, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Science, Social Issues, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by John Droz, Jr.

We MUST choose wisely!

Almost everyone complains about government — Local, State, & Federal. It’s right up there with finding fault with your spouse, being annoyed with your kids, bitching about the weather, etc., etc.

Today, let’s just focus on Federal Agencies (e.g., DOE, EPA, DHHS, DOEd).

Unfortunately, most people have lots of complaints about them — but they are short on quality solutions. As readers here are hopefully critical thinkers, we should be able to be more than whiners, and actually provide meaningful and practical solutions. Let’s go through the four important federal agencies I mentioned, and see what we get…

Department of Energy (DOE) —

Energy is an under-appreciated and enormously important part of our everyday life. Just have the power in your house go off for a day (or a week!) and you will quickly see how almost EVERYTHING we do involves some form of energy (e.g., electricity).

The fundamental problem with the DOE is that it has replaced real Science with political science. For decades, it has endorsed make-believe energy options like wind turbines. For example, here it still says that DOE’s objective is to “support wind energy as an abundant, readily accessible resource that fosters economic prosperity, societal well-being, and energy security.”

That is a political statement devoid of Science. It is unadulterated ignorance, as there is nothing about industrial wind energy that genuinely “fosters economic prosperity, societal well-being, and energy security.” Nothing!

With such profound departures from their mission statement and statutory obligations, does this mean we should Terminate the DOE?

I hear no serious person or organization saying that. Rather, they are saying let’s get a competent DOE Secretary (like Chris Wright) and have him do what it takes to get DOE onto the right track, as we need federal energy oversight.

So far, that is exactly what has happened: DOE is in the process of being substantially reformed, which includes making our energy policies much better. This is the direction that is in the best interest of America!

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) —

The EPA has only been around since 1970. (See some history here.) It has been primarily driven (controlled) by NGOs that are environmental advocates (e.g., the Sierra Club). Like the energy situation, if we are suddenly subjected to an environmental problem (e.g., our water supply becomes polluted), this can very quickly become a major concern.

The reality of life on Earth is that everything is “dirty” to some extent. Further, no one wants problematically polluted air, water, ground, etc. The core EPA questions are: 1) What parts of our world should the EPA be involved with? 2) At what level of pollution of these world components should the EPA get involved?, and 3) exactly what authority should the EPA have to fix things?

The problem here is that unelected NGOs have effectively turned the EPA into an alarmist, activist agency. Worse, their assurance that they only utilize “the best available science” is a joke.

A classic example is Climate Change. The EPA has aggressively targeted CO2, which is NOT a pollutant. (Note: anything in excess can cause a problem.) CO2 is a naturally occurring gas that is an essential part of the life process — from humans to plants.

As with DOE, the fundamental problem with the EPA has been that it has replaced real Science with political science. For decades, it has supported make-believe crusades like demonizing CO2. For example, the so-called Endangerment Finding is what they have used to justify trillions of dollars of rules and regulations on US citizens and businesses.

That is a political campaign devoid of real Science. It is unadulterated ignorance that is mostly about bringing America down.

With such profound departures and overreach from their mission statement and statutory obligations, should we Terminate the EPA?

I hear no serious person or organization saying that. Rather, they are saying let’s get a competent EPA Administrator (like Lee Zeldin) and have him do what it takes to get the EPA onto the right track, as we need competent federal oversight of the environment.

So far, that is exactly what has happened: the EPA is in the process of being substantially reformed, which includes making our environmental policies much better. This is the direction that is in the best interest of America!

Department of Human Health Services (DHHS) —

Clearly, our health is also an enormously important matter. Again, just like with energy, if we suddenly lose it (e.g., come down with a serious illness), all of a sudden, this will become our top priority.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but again, the fundamental problem with the DHHS has been that it has replaced real Science with political science. For decades, it has allowed self-serving parties (like Big Pharma) to dictate US healthcare policies.

For example, the COVID fiasco made it clear to anyone paying attention that CDC/FDA policies and enormous amounts of wasted money were more designed to profit pharmaceutical companies rather than improve the health of US citizens.

One simple but powerful example is to examine the THOUSANDS of scientific studies that were done about proposed COVID-19 treatments. The clear results are that treatments endorsed by the FDA/CDC did poorly (e.g., Paxlovid, Remdesivir, etc.) while treatments opposed by the FDA/CDC did well (IVM, HCQ, etc .) That was a political campaign devoid of Science that likely resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

With such profound departures from their mission statements and statutory function, does this mean we should Terminate the DHHS?

I hear no serious person or organization saying that. Rather, they are saying let’s get a competent DHHS Secretary (like RFKjr) and have him do what it takes to get the DHHS onto the right track, as we need proper federal oversight of our failing healthcare system.

So far, that is exactly what has happened: DHHS is in the process of being substantially reformed, which includes making our healthcare policies much better. This is the direction that is in the best interest of America!

Department of Education (DOEd) —

Here is a brief history of DOEd, which (at 4000± employees) is the smallest of all federal agencies. For example, DHHS has about 100,000 employees.

Guess what? The fundamental problem with the DOEd has been that it has replaced real education Science with political science. For example, for decades, it has allowed self-serving parties like teachers’ unions (e.g., AFT) and the American Library Association (ALA) to dictate US K-12 education policies. This has been an unmitigated disaster.

Unfortunately, the DOEd has not focused on what it should be doing: providing constructive K-12 leadership to the States. The end result is that the fifty states are, by and large, wandering aimlessly like sheep in a large field, without any shepherd — while progressive wolves take them over.

For example, the COVID fiasco made it clear to anyone paying attention that the States and the unions were not focused on what was best for our children. This was the States’ doing, as the DOEd had nothing to do with this.

Another simple but powerful example is that forty-nine (49) States agreed to adopt most or all of the NGSS — which is a horrific set of K-12 Science standards (e.g., see here). The DOEd had nothing to do with this either!

With these and other widespread failures in our K-12 education system (e.g., inferior test results), should we terminate the DOEd?

Unlike with the other failing — but important — federal agencies, I do hear otherwise competent people and organizations advocating that. For some reason, they do not apply the same logic that applies to the other poorly performing federal agencies to the DOEd.

They should be saying let’s get a competent DOEd Secretary and have her do what it takes to get the DOEd onto the right track — as we need competent federal oversight of our devastated K-12 education system.

YES, that is the correct answer, and it’s all spelled out here.

So far, the focus has been to dismantle DOEd rather than to substantially reform it (i.e., to make our decrepit K-12 education system much better). This is NOT the direction that is in the best interest of America!

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Biden admin’s $2.2 billion for power grid ‘upgrade’ will fund empowerment of artificial intelligence for surveillance state

August 8, 2024/in Courts & Law, Election Fraud, Elections, Hot Topics, Must Read, National Security, News, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Leo Hohmann

This project sounds good on the surface but will do little to truly improve the reliability or security of the grid. It will supply AI with the power needed to surveil everyone 24/7.

The U.S. Department of Energy is allocating $2.2 billion in grants for upgrades of the power grid to make it more resilient to extreme weather events and accommodate more renewable energy.

Oilprice.com reports that the jolt of federal funding will add to private-sector financing to support eight grid upgrade projects across 18 states.

According to the Biden administration, the DOE funding is expected to support the construction of more than 600 miles of new transmission lines and the upgrade of about 400 miles of existing lines so that they can carry more current.

This has nothing to do with hardening the power grid in a way that could withstand an EMP attack by Russia or China.

Experts such as the late EMP Taskforce Director Dr. Peter Pry have been calling for this kind of upgrade for years (you can read about Dr. Pray’s warnings here from the Center for Security Policy).

Instead, what do we get? A so-called upgrade that will place more emphasis on more expensive and less reliable renewable energy, i.e. wind and solar.

This is a sham project that panders to climate alarmists instead of listening to national security realists in the vein of Dr. Pry.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement carried by Reuters:

“The first half of 2024 has already broken records for the hottest days in Earth’s history, and as extreme weather continues to hit every part of the country, we must act with urgency to strengthen our aging grid.”

U.S. utilities and regulators have raised significantly their forecasts of peak power demand in the coming decade, but that has almost nothing to do with climate change.

The real reason for needing upgraded capacity is the expected exponential growth in electricity demand stemming from the massive new data centers being built all over the country to support the growth of generative AI.

AI uses an incredible amount of electricity to collect, process and store information 24/7 in real time. These AI data centers also require a tremendous amount of water resources to keep the computers cooled.

This is part of the cost of living in the growing global AI-powered surveillance state. And it’s a cost almost nobody is talking about.

Not only will we lose all privacy. We will pay for our own enslavement in the form of higher taxes and utility bills.

An elderly British man was arrested recently in the city of Hampshire for a social media post mocking the transgender flag.

A viral video shows officers showing up at the man’s home to arrest him, with one officer telling him, “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested.”

And lest you think this was a one off, not part of a pattern, here’s a video of another British senior citizen being hauled off to jail for something he posted to Facebook that apparently hurt someone’s feelings.

Think this can never happen in America? I’m sure most Brits thought it could never happen there, either.

In fact, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted in the wide open that the U.S. government has a plan in place to use artificial intelligence to monitor and censor the free speech of everyday Americans. I reported on that in an article posted one month ago on July 2 in which you can read Blinken’s chilling comments. Or, watch him on video below (fast-forward to the 3-minute mark)

Blinken bluntly stated the federal government’s intention to use AI for ”media monitoring” and “using it to combat disinformation, one of the poisons of the international system today.”

All of these intrusions are going to be enabled by an “upgraded” power grid.

What’s the solution?

For starters, cancel or render inactive your accounts with Facebook, Instagram, Google-YouTube and most of the other big corporate social media accounts. All of the big corporate players in this space are cooperating with the government to censor and ultimately punish those who challenge the globalist narratives on everything from vaccines to wars, abortion and euthanasia, election integrity issues, immigration and border issues, and their sacred LGBTQ issues.
Moreover, we must get past our American propensity to always gravitate to the highest and newest technology. What’s fastest and most convenient is not always what’s safest and most conducive to a free society.
The more we can ditch the electronic monitoring devices such as Ring doorbell, baby monitors, Amazon Alexa, etc., the better off we will be. Even smart phones can pick up your conversations. Have you ever noticed how you receive ads about a given product or service soon after discussing those products with a friend or family member? AI will increase these capabilities exponentially.
Avoid smart meters and smart thermostats, smart appliances, smart cars and smart homes like the plague. They’re all spying on you!
Pay with cash whenever possible.
Buy actual physical books and don’t rely on electronic versions of anything. That includes the Bible. It may not remain available forever.

I’m sure there are other things we can do to protect ourselves from the influence and control of data-hungry artificial intelligence. Feel free to offer your suggestions in the comments below.

Please visit Leo’s Newsletter Substack.

Transforming Education Beyond Common Core: Arne Duncan’s “Classroom of the Future”

May 8, 2015/in Culture War, Education, Must Read, News, Policy, Regulation/by Dr. Mary Grabar

Last month, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan described his “vision for the classroom of the future” in what he hoped would be the first of many posts on the site called Bright (at medium.com), which is funded by the New Venture Fund, a non-profit that supports public interest projects in education, global issues, public health, and other issues.

The classroom of the future, wrote Duncan, would involve the “digital revolution,” as he presented reasons quasi-syllogistically: “In the United States, education is meant to be the great equalizer. Technology has the potential to bridge gaps for those who have the least. Simply put, technology can be a powerful tool for equality as well.”

Of course, many would differ with him about the major premise: that education is meant to be the great equalizer, at least in the way that Duncan and this administration think of it – as ending the achievement gap, with that duty falling to the federal government. Other departmental missives have promoted the same goals. Duncan has put pressure on states for “equitable funding” of school districts to overcome racial disparities, and has called for increased federal funding through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to overcome disparities of the “tax base” in communities.

Similarly, the Department recently cast the opting-out of Common Core tests as a lack of concern about “underserved populations,” recalling the comment made by Duncan in 2013 about Common Core opponents being “white suburban moms.”

The Department has been redefining education, emphasizing behavior and attitudes over academics, and even casting awareness about racial and ethnic identity as overlooked evidence of intelligence. Education is no longer about teachers imparting knowledge to their students. Linda Darling-Hammond, leader of Obama’s education transition team and developer of one of the two Common Core national assessments, has repeatedly disparaged traditional assessments that objectively test students’ knowledge as skill and drill. In this she follows progressive and radical educators who see their roles as developing agents of social change, agents who do not learn in the traditional Eurocentric linear and logical way, but emotively and tactilely.

Replacing our traditional ways of learning, through reading, writing, and study—contemplative and solitary activities—are the communal and hands-on activities promoted in Common Core and now digital learning. Both Common Core and digital learning serve to obscure a large part of the reason for the achievement gap: reading ability. Students who are poor readers lag in other subjects. To cover up this inability, Common Core emphasizes “speaking and listening skills,” (with points given for behavior and attitudes, such as the ability to work with “diverse” groups) and group work, where lagging students are coached along by others as they do “close readings” of short passages. This ensures that all students have mastered the same (minimal) level of knowledge. Similarly, games offer an opportunity to hide differences in ability. Information is delivered through images and sound, not words on a page, and at a pace that the student directs. Duncan writes that technology is “helping teachers to use their time and talents more effectively to personalize learning for students — tailoring the pace, approach, and context of the learning experience to students’ individual needs and interests.”

Additionally, technology alters the relationship between teachers and students, leveling the relationship even further than the currently fashionable one of teacher as “facilitator.” The student presumably gains the information on his own and applies that knowledge to “real-world” problems. Duncan writes:

Until recently, the main function of public education has been to convey knowledge in one direction, from teachers to students. But with the growth of the Internet and mobile technology, our relationship to knowledge has fundamentally changed. To succeed in today’s world, our students need to be adept at not only recalling information, but using their knowledge to conceive, create, and employ solutions to real-world problems.

Duncan then employs the much-used strategy of reductively stereotyping traditional education, as he writes, “Students aren’t vessels to be filled with facts. And educators aren’t simply transmitters of information.”

In this schema, little attention is paid to “recalling information”—or the acquirement of knowledge. Emphasis is placed on the ability to – through the wonders of technology – find information. (Of course with little concern about the ability to discern among the sources of information.)

In Duncan’s estimation, technology is the great liberator, unleashing children’s creativity and natural ability to solve problems. It’s the ultimate instantiation of the progressive idea that students simply “discover” knowledge through their own creativity and curiosity – a theory which has time and again been disproven by the data, as Jeanne Chall and her student Sandra Stotsky have shown.

Aside from the logical impossibility of doing “real-world” problem-solving outside the real world, i.e., in a classroom and with children, such a focus away from objective measurements to hypothetical problems and solutions is another way to ensure equality of outcomes.

For those teachers who agree to promote such pedagogies, the Department of Education has many awards and ambassadorships to bestow.

EDITORS NOTE: The next installment will discuss the latest effort by the Department to promote digital learning, as described enthusiastically by a teacher and a U.S. Department of Education “Teaching Ambassador Fellow.”

Second Florida hotel cancels anti-Common Core conference

June 21, 2013/in Education, Featured, News, Policy/by Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)

Laura Zorc, SE State Coordinator for Florida Parents Against Common Core, in an email states that the Rosen Hotel, Orlando has cancelled the contract for an anti-Common Core conference. This comes on the heels of the Ritz Carlton/Marriott cancellation.

Billy Hallowell from TheBlaze reported on June 19th, “The Common Core State Standards Initiative has created a fair bit of angst among critics who view it as a poor — or even dangerous — plan to amend the nation’s educational schema. Considering this dynamic, it’s no surprise that some concerned Florida parents are planning to protest a national Common Core conference that is slated to be hosted later this month by The Center for College & Career Readiness.”

“But when FreedomWorks, a non-profit organization, agreed to help these parents by providing a grassroots training to accompany their protest, the conservative organization charges that a hotel abruptly canceled its reservations. The hotel, the Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes, however, is denying these claims, stating that the anti-Common Core initiative’s goals had nothing at all to do with the decision — and that the decision was based on crowd-control concerns,” writes Hallowell.

Whitney Neal, director of grassroots initiatives at FreedomWorks, told TheBlaze that the Ritz, a hotel nearby the venue that is hosting the national Common Core conference (the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes Resort and Spa), cancelled the conservative group’s reservations — and after the group had already paid for and booked the space.”

Both the anti-Common Core training and protest of the National Conference on College and Career Readiness and Common Core State Standards will take place on June 28-29, 2013 as planned according to Zore.

Zore states in an email to supporters, “[This] Protest is a legal protest Thank you to a commissioner from Orange county. We have insurance, permit, and police depart has been notified. The Ritz cannot stop us from being on public property. Since we are in the spotlight now we really need all the parents we can get to come out for this 2 hour protest [against] this National CC conference.”