WTW17: Our First FOIA Results Are In!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 17. I'm in witness protection, so my voice is being modified. Thomas Smith, and that—well, that blew it. That blew the witness protection. No, Thomas Smith is pretty generic. I think I'll be fine. And that over there is Lydia Smith. How you doing?

0:00:55 Lydia: Yeah. Hi. My voice is not completely wrecked, so I'm better than you, I guess.

0:01:04 Thomas: Yeah. Excited for today's episode. You know, I don't even know if non-patrons know this. Do they do they know non-patrons uh reason than ever to have been a patron this whole time um hold on though I may be I am still very excited my enthusiasm is is nowhere near uh because as you may remember from such episodes as the whole James Webb thing there's Woke put out our first official FOIA request during that series and we actually got the results a chunk of time we won't talk about how long ago it was it's been a little while there's been other stuff going on it's almost two months ago actually so

0:01:11 Lydia: I don't think so. I -Y -K -YK.

0:01:38 Lydia: Yep.

0:01:48 Thomas: We've had these we've the foyer request you whatever result response I guess for two months yeah

0:01:48 Lydia: It's been a while. You know, that's the benefit of being a patron, right? They knew about it, about the time that we found out about it.

0:01:56 Thomas: They they got to be wondering why we haven't done this episode for even longer longer than the normies uh first off congratulations uh Lydia you were the one who uh did this request uh was interesting you I hope of many uh we do in the future assuming the stuff we're covering involves government I think have we sent another one in yeah

0:02:05 Lydia: True. Thank you.

0:02:19 Lydia: Yeah, I have one another out right now that, well, it's not an official FOIA. It's something that was already FOIAed but never published anywhere. I reached out to the organization that did the FOIA and I'm working on getting that. Related to our Title IX episode that we did a little bit ago. And Betsy DeVos.

0:02:36 Thomas: So in different area codes. But yeah, this is about the... Glad I can make you laugh. That's really not.

0:02:44 Lydia: That's really good. Whatever. I liked it.

0:02:50 Thomas: This is related to getting the, more to the bottom of the just absolutely horrendous, unjust process that was undertaken by NASA in the James Webb Telescope renaming controversy. Controversy uh we've renamed it to telescope well scope space telescope um should talk less because I sound like a frog um what did we try to get at when we were doing this what was our goal refresh everybody

0:03:13 Lydia: We have. Think what I'm actually going to do is take each FOIA request separately. So we'll talk about the one that we did that was kind of like a clean cut, you And then we'll get into the second one, which is far more extensive. And we have more exciting things to talk about there. But the first ones were related to the naming policy at NASA.

And in the episode that we did on that one, I think everyone will recall that I found the policy, NASA's policy for how they decide on names for their different missions and that it clearly was not followed. It wasn't acknowledged by Sean O'Keefe, the administrator at the time who decided on the name of the Jelloscope-Wellesley Space Telescope. There really wasn't any mention in media about that. There was that NASA followed their policies and procedures appropriately.

And the FOIA request that I sent related to that was wanting wanted to ask for ad hoc naming committee minutes, agendas, and any deliverables regarding the proposal and selection of the James Webb Space Telescope. There is supposed to be a naming committee, I wanted to see, you all the times that they met, what they talked about, who was part of it, anything that they put together.

I also wanted any emails to or from Sean O 'Keefe regarding the proposal and selection of the name for the telescope. And then I limited that date range search to approximately four years, 2000 to 2004. four. That was an interesting one because NASA's first response to me was, do you know what his

0:04:44 Lydia: Email was? And I was like, you need me to tell you what your former administrator, like your top dog.

0:04:44 Thomas: Yeah we're buds we're friends let me yeah let me check my address book

0:04:53 Lydia: You've only had so many administrators in your history, NASA.

0:04:53 Thomas: Yeah that must be a bullshit like thing I don't know right I mean that's got to be be like if you

0:04:59 Lydia: I think so. I, I think it's It's a tactic.

0:05:01 Thomas: Can't say the magic words of what his address is then we don't have to give you anything maybe yeah I

0:05:01 Lydia: Right. Worked for the state, You recently. And it was, if a request was worded in a particular way, it's not the agency's responsibility to interpret it for you as the requester, right? So I think this is kind of falling under the same thing, that if I said I didn't know, it would be a whole lot easier for them to say we can't find it because they don't have it at their fingertips kind of thing. I going to let that happen.

0:05:31 Lydia: So did a lot of Googling. And what I actually on was a congressional hearing back in... Sorry, 2007 regarding the inspector general for NASA, Cobb. I don't know if you have heard about him at all.

0:05:31 Thomas: Don't

0:05:50 Lydia: Robert Cobb was the inspector general for NASA for time. And so essentially what process looked like was, and this is just a very quick tangent that I speaks to Sean O 'Keefe's character, and that's why I'm talking about it. Sean O'Keefe was appointed administrator, he did not like the inspector general that was at NASA. And he went to George Bush and he said, I don't want her on this team. And no one really knows what happened exactly behind the scenes, but she was gone. All of a sudden, Robert Cobb was appointed inspector general

0:05:49 Thomas: Think so wow wait inspector

0:06:22 Lydia: Of NASA.

0:06:22 Thomas: General isn't that supposed to be like an independent thing oh wow so he was like look uh previous inspector had weapons of mass destruction on them so we bombed them, they're gone, no more of that person. Bush is like, "Like, I can't believe this keeps working. This, I can do whatever I want with this excuse."

0:06:26 Lydia: It wasn't. Right. Okay, so Robert Cobb, as I said, Inspector General, Bob Cobb.

0:06:43 Thomas: Bob Cobb? Isn't that from something? That's from something. Bob Cobbs.

0:06:47 Lydia: It? I don't know it.

0:06:48 Thomas: Okay, oh, look it up.

0:06:50 Lydia: So there was a congressional hearing because there were some significant concerns about Cobb's independence as an inspector general, this was during the Columbia disaster, which really could have used an independent inspector general because seven people died and didn't get an independent inspector General. And so Congress called him up because they really wanted to have him removed from his position. And this congressional hearing was chaired by Bill Nelson, our current NASA administrator, which is funny.

0:07:18 Lydia: I sent you the link so we can go ahead and hear what some of the Congress folks have to say about Cobb.

0:07:17 Thomas: Interesting. Interesting, I'm seeing Bob Cobb was from Seinfeld, but I don't know, I feel like it was something else too, anyway, more that's what I'm working on, more on that later,

0:07:27 Lydia: Hmm.

0:07:31 Clip: Cobb remains in office. The findings of abuse of authority by the PCIE involve Mr. Cobb's abusive and degrading treatment of his staff, resulting in massive staff turnover and affecting productivity. Mr. Cobb referred to his professional staff as burons, Mr. Cobb shorthand for bureaucratic morons, and by other vulgar terms that I will not repeat here. Rather than dwell on the abusive atmosphere created by Mr. Cobb and its effect on productivity, I want to make sure that the second finding regarding the appearance of a lack of independence receives the attention that it requires. According to the official standards, inspectors general and their staff, and I quote, have a responsibility to maintain independence so that opinions, conclusions, and recommendations will be impartial and will be viewed as impartial by knowledgeable third parties. Mr. Cobb has utterly failed to do that.

The perception that Mr. Cobb lacked independence was set in motion during Mr. Cobb's hiring. Shortly after Sean O'Keefe moved from the Office of Management and Budget to NASA, Mr. O'Keefe, NASA's former administrator, decided that he didn't like the previous NASA inspector general. He went to the White House and demanded a new one. How Mr. Cobb was selected is not entirely clear, but what is clear is that Mr. O'Keefe personally chose his new inspector general and established a regime in which Mr. Cobb was part of Mr. O 'Keefe's team and not the independent inspector general required by law. As Mr. Cobb described it, Mr. O'Keefe reached a conclusion that I would be the perfect person to conduct the independent office of inspector general activities. Once at NASA, Mr. Cobb called Mr. O'Keefe his boss and said he was afraid he would be fired if he displeased Mr. O'Keefe. And

0:07:52 Thomas: Wow, wow

0:09:18 Clip: Why shouldn't he think that since Mr. O'Keefe had been able to fire the previous NASA inspector Inspector General and pick the new one.

0:09:18 Thomas: What the hell what,

0:09:25 Lydia: So apparently they played golf together, drank together, ate together, also with the general counsel for NASA, NASA, Pastoric, and they were referred to as the Holy Trinity by employees at NASA. Anything that NASA wanted to do, they had to go through the three of them specifically. So O'Keefe is a piece of shit and corrupt, in my opinion. Robert Cobb, despite that hearing, did not leave his position. He was not ousted. And then two years later, he ended up resigning, did not say why. And it was like a resurgence of people saying, like, please get rid of him. And Obama was in office at that point in time.

0:09:38 Thomas: Fuck off, yeah wow, that wasn't Bill Nelson was it, that guy talking, okay I was going to say I didn't think about it, I Love the idea that he's like yeah, in this horrible harassing environment, fucking fucking all this stuff I can't even mention. And, you know, that had an effect on productivity. It's like, all right. Yeah, also, fuck this guy.

0:10:11 Lydia: No, that wasn't Bill Nelson talking. Yeah.

0:10:24 Thomas: Like, I get that you're the government or something. You got to be, well, we're just here to talk about, you know, the budgetary concerns of this. It's, like, yeah, but also fuck that.

0:10:24 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mean, speaking of the budgetary concerns, that was also part of, you material that was brought up two years later, where the House Science Committee chairman, Bart Gordon, who's a Democrat out of Tennessee, said NASA cannot afford another four years with an ineffective inspector general. $17 billion that this guy is responsible for to make sure it's being spent appropriately. Federal audit at that Cobb had saved taxpayers only $0.36 for every dollar he spent on investigations. Other inspectors general was $9.49.

0:10:49 Thomas: Wow. Oh, wow. Wow.

0:11:06 Lydia: Yeah, so he's terrible and best friends with Sean O'Keefe. Sean O'Keefe knew all this was going on, warned an inspector general who was going to be a yes man. And that. And anyway, through that side whole quest, right, that I went on, I found his email address because there were emails part of the hearing exhibits.

0:11:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. The evidence? Oh, Wow. Tell me it was Sean O'Keefe at Hotmail dot okay.

0:11:23 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Apparently it's sean.okeefe at nasa.gov. Really, you know, hard thing to track back down, NASA. Not like you're a rocket scientist. So I found that there. I emailed them back and I said, hi, here's the email address for your administrator, your ex-administrator. And they came back and said, oh, sorry, no responsive records. The policy back when he left the agency was we destroyed history after 30 days. Think some some technological issues.

0:11:33 Thomas: Yeah. That's Yeah. And Incriminating evidence after one hour, well,

0:11:59 Lydia: But now they have a better system. So their retention policy is seven years. Also said there are no meeting materials related to a naming committee, which is what I expected because I don't think one ever existed. So this just sort of confirmed that Sean O'Keefe did his own back then.

0:12:11 Thomas: There was What do You mean, oh, Back Then you mean Like, oh, okay.

0:12:13 Lydia: Yeah, There so was no particular naming committee for the James Webb decision. There's a policy for it, but it was never done. Right. So I think it It just sort of confirms what we suspected. Sean O'Keefe, piece of shit, and decided to name it himself as far as all the evidence shows.

0:12:14 Thomas: Oh, I See, yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Even More So and Like, home, further, how much we should not care about this status quo, you Know, know, it's amazing, like, people will go defend to the death well some asshole who fucking sucked in 2000 whatever, named It after James Webb, so we have to, it's, that's the best thing in the world and we can't change it, otherwise the woke win, I guess. Yeah.

0:12:35 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yep, we can't have that. All right, so that's our first FOIA knocked out. Our second FOIA is fun. So this is related to a single email that you saw in the FOIA that came from Nature that was 394 pages long. Was from someone named Kristen Erickson. And 13th, 2021. Hi, Paul. Paul, I know you and I have not had a chance to chat about this in the two years since I asked, with Eric's blessing, Hakeem, to look into this matter. My two cents. Today's cancel culture should not sway the facts or evidence. There is no evidence. And then she links a Wikipedia article for evidence of absence. I don't know.

0:12:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:13 Thomas: It's Dumb and

0:13:34 Lydia: Proven attribution given to different secretary of state, not Webb. Good luck to you today and know that I am in your corner. And Paul responds, Paul Hurts. Kristen, this is an administrator's decision. He has decided. Redacted. .S. The administrator agrees that there is no evidence. The full text of his decision statement is, we have found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope. Problem for most of the astrophysics community is not the decision itself, but the lack of rationale to explain why this is the appropriate decision. For some people, the problem is the decision. The process. The decision was announced by sending that one sentence in an email to six reporters. That is hardly the kind of transparent process that gives the external community confidence.

0:14:13 Thomas: That's Paul, who was blindsided by that, like, again, just, just couldn't be more, you know, just like he's doing this, doing this stuff, doing this process.

0:14:21 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Larry David.

0:14:24 Thomas: And then, yeah. Your Enthusiasm. And then they're like, hey, yeah, the statement, no responses yet from the journalist. Paul's like, the what now? No what now from the what Now? They're like. Yeah, yeah! Yeah, we sent out this sentence to six journalists. He's like. Yeah. What was it? Oh, here it is. And he's just like, can't even believe what's happening. Like, and so

0:14:25 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Yeah. And he's pretty high up, too, in terms of hierarchy in the organization. Yeah, yeah,

0:14:44 Thomas: And they were doing, again, they're probably doing a shit job. Like, I'm not, I, I don't know how good of a job they would have done if this hadn't happened and they had allowed the historian and the, like, contract-in historian to do a thing. Who knows, like, maybe they would have come to a better result. I, I, I don't think it's impossible, because if you also remember, in the emails, there's that, like, consultant. It It seemed like it's, it's redacted who it is, but it seemed like the consultant came in and was like, all right, we had somebody give us some advice on how to handle this. And literally the was consultant like change the name, change the name now, change it now, change it right now, do it now right now.

0:14:57 Lydia: Mm -hmm, oh, right, Right. Yeah. Do not wait.

0:15:20 Thomas: Stop reading this, go do it. Now, like I'm not barely exaggerating because they're like, yeah, just get ahead of it. Be done with it because it's stupid. Like you don't, it doesn't matter. And makes me think if it hadn't been for this, these, what are clearly clearly anti-woke activists, Kristen, for sure. This Kristen person I noticed, uh, Kristen Erickson, who has no fucking connection to this at all. Like there's no reason she should have been involved. She's a busy body just like going around being like, oh, by the way, hashtag MAGA. Uh, don't, not really, but yeah, the woke agenda today in this day and age. So I think she's emailing everybody, getting her, getting on all this this stuff. And, um, like that Paul is, is like, yeah, okay. I get it. You she is Ginny Thomas. Did I make the comparison before?

0:15:49 Lydia: I don't think so.

0:16:05 Thomas: Because, reads like Ginny Thomas where even her personal email correspondences are like, and, and we all know that the woke left has gotten, you're talking in this like weird, you that's, that's like scripted almost. It's Like, is this really how you interact all the time? You're, "absence of evidence is not evidence." It's like, yeah man, I know, you don't need to link Wikipedia to the fallacy of evidence of It's like, fucking weird. And Paul's just like, yeah, all right, cool, dude. She's

0:16:17 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an administrator's decision. He's decided. Yeah this is a job.

0:16:34 Thomas: Like, I'm in your corner, and he's like, I'm not in a corner, I like I, yeah, Like, it, well, and also, he, I mean, I mean, I think he wanted, I don't know, he wasn't amazing or anything, but he definitely, Paul Hertz definitely wanted a better process than this. I'll give him credit for that.

0:16:50 Lydia: Yeah, And Kristen responds to that email with, "I think taking the high ground is the only option, otherwise some of the behaviors of the community prior to the analysis would come to light." There's so much more important work to do. Good luck today.

0:16:59 Thomas: Yeah. And I wondered what the fuck she meant by that.

0:17:04 Lydia: I know. I don't know. And unfortunately, I don'T know that we're going to get that answer particularly. I think we can probably, I DON'T know, surmise some things. Yeah.

0:17:14 Thomas: Speculate a little bit. Yeah.

0:17:16 Lydia: Yeah, that's all that we saw within the initial FOIA that Nature called forward. So we did an additional FOIA there wanting specifically more emails between Kristen Erickson and Hakeem, was material in other articles that Hakeem reported to her while he worked at NASA. So we wanted more information of, you know, what that relationship looked like, their relationship, relationship, and we said, for you, Webb the person, as well as the naming of the telescope, and we wanted emails to and from Kristen Erickson regarding James Webb the person and the naming of the telescope and any emails between other parties regarding Hakeem and the James Webb project. And the date range for this one, this is kind of where the biggest change was from Nature's FOIA, where we backed up to when Hakeim actually worked at NASA. So asked for everything from October 2016 through December 2021. Despite how broad my request was, we ended up getting very little back in terms of page count. Right, I still think there's some good things in there, and I do have additional questions at the end of it, which might result in NASA's second FOIA for me. Um.

0:18:28 Thomas: And we got no, oh no, we got like one email from actual Hakeem, right?

0:18:33 Lydia: And nothing from his time at NASA. Which

0:18:35 Thomas: Yeah, nothing, I was going to say, yeah, I do not get that. Do do we get an explanation for that?

0:18:36 Lydia: Is It's seven, it's Within seven years, so yeah. No. They just said, here's what you requested, and sent it to me, so I'm gonna be putting together a follow-up.

0:18:42 Thomas: Hmm. So that means it doesn't exist. I don't think there's any reason, you know, unless there's a misunderstanding, which just goes to show that he wasn't at all emailing about, like, it's like, possible somehow all of this was, you in meetings and not in writing, but just seems weird. We already know Hakeem Olashay is completely full of shit with his story. Like it's just, there are a thousand reasons already, but there are no emails that back up his version of the story whatsoever. Indeed, there's no emails at all from his time at NASA about this. What do we know about like when, I guess what I was trying to get at with you to do this FOIA, I FOIA requested you to doing this FOIA request. I, what I want to get at was, can we determine the origination of Hakeem Olashay's investigation

0:18:58 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yes. We can. Um. Right, so the first email we get is from July 30th, 2020. That's nearly a year after Hakeem was done at NASA. He left in August 2019. This is from Kristen Erickson to Eric P. Smith, CC of Gregory Robinson. Hakeem had reached out to her, to Kristen, on July 28th, 2021, and says, "Hello, Greg and Kristen, to catch you both up on the details of the Web story. I have attached a document I wrote that lays out the facts regarding the allegations against him.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. All the best, Hakeem." So Kristen forwarded that over to Eric Smith, included Gregory Robinson in the CC line, and said, "Hi, Eric, as FYI, Greg asked for this recently. You will recall that fateful meeting we had in your office that kicked off Hakeim's quest." Is the product, much a testimonial to the importance of the process of scientific citation and research as the findings, IMHO, in my humble opinion.

Up to Greg and Hakeem on next steps, but wanted you to also have, Kristen. So really interesting to me that material, it's that Hakeim wrote after he had left NASA, confirms here that that it was a meeting in an office that they had that kicked off Hakeem's quest. Um, the other piece that I think is interesting, it's nicht published anywhere, this is his draft that he's put together. Um, then the "up to Greg and Hakeim on next steps" is

0:19:39 Thomas: Really? Okay, yeah. Yeah.

0:21:04 Lydia: Also strange. So Gregory Robinson, uh, Gregory was the director of the James Webb Space Telescope program. Yeah.

0:21:05 Thomas: What's his title? Okay. So I mean, I think that is, at least Hakeim did say, like, "Oh, I marched into his office right when I got to NASA," which obviously isn't true because, because he got there when He started, yeah, 2016. And I, you him, do you know about this? He said, oh my God, no, you Know. But like, can you remind us Kristen Erickson's actual title?

0:21:18 Lydia: 2016. Yes.

0:21:28 Lydia: Uh, is the director of science engagement and partnerships, so

0:21:33 Thomas: Yeah, there is no fucking reason she's involved. This is the weirdest thing,

0:21:36 Lydia: So so oversees science mission directorate, citizen science, and strategic communication efforts. The goal is to share science across the broadest spectrum of audiences. So she helps put together, like, the science lives that they do. She'll go and speak at different places there. Don't know why she is involved here.

0:21:52 Thomas: Because She's Ginny Thomas. Look, you could make an argument, oh, but science communication, so this relates to whatever. Yeah, but my proof of why she isn't actually the person who should have been involved at all is she wasn't involved in any of the stuff that actually happened. Like when the decision happened, when the thing was announced, there were all these other PR people. Yeah, she wasnít even read into it. Sheís just like, ìOh, Iím a Ginny Thomas who wants toÖî ìOoh, Iím married to Clarence Thomas Olashay.î Oh my God, no, sorry, I shouldnít go there. But this was weird stuff going on. She just like was an activist on this issue. You and again you will recall that fateful meeting we had in your office, so that means Kristen Erickson again met with the director of, you, the project of James Webb, and Hakeem Olashai, and

0:22:08 Lydia: Yeah. She's never in the CC line. Yeah, Mm hmm.

0:22:45 Thomas: What's Hakeem's title at NASA? Oh.

0:22:47 Lydia: Hakeem reported to her. So that's my understanding.

0:22:50 Thomas: He did? Oh. That is interesting. Okay.

0:22:53 Lydia: Yeah. Science education manager. He worked in the education sphere at NASA.

0:22:54 Thomas: Really. So I didn't realize that she was his supervisor. I guess that makes it make a little little more sense. So they are probably like, have you seen these woke activists, blah blah blah, and she's Ginny Thomas so she's like, can't believe it, let's go talk to the program director, Gregory, essentially, uh, they just, you take it upon themselves. I just can't help but continue to remind people that NASA has a historian.

0:23:20 Lydia: Yeah.

0:23:20 Thomas: Like, They have a person who actually would have maybe been better to handle this, who they, they eventually go to after Hakeem does this whole thing. This seems to me that, you know, it seems like a, it's a, I don't know, it seems, it just seems to make sense to be this like quest that Kristen Erickson and Hakeim Olashie went on because it doesn't make any sense that they would be in charge of any of this.

0:23:21 Lydia: Mm hmm. Yeah Yeah. So simultaneous to her email to Eric, to let him on Hakeem's draft, she also emailed Greg Robinson about 30 minutes later and said, Hi, Greg. When you return and have a chance to read this, I hope you will agree that it is an important piece of research and worthy of not only publication, but more. I don't know what else the more is. Yeah.

0:23:59 Thomas: Framing I don't know, yeah.

0:24:00 Lydia: In advance of our discussions, I can envision a NASA Science Live with you, Hakeem, and perhaps Kartik as a moderator to discuss this topic, show evidence, and also importance of the scientific process in refuting. Think it is important for three reasons. One, it's the right thing to do. Two, you are in JW launch countdown. And three, show how NASA addresses fiction versus fact. I probably don't need to remind you also that Webb is a hero of mine as well as the NASA administrator. Smiley face.

0:24:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:31 Lydia: NASA Science Live never happened.

0:24:32 Thomas: Well yeah, and and sort of like I speculated with some of that redacted stuff, that it seemed like they were trying to do something like that, some sort of like, you, with, and that was all redacted, you'll remember, uh, I specitated that, so that might be kind of where that came from.

0:24:45 Lydia: Yeah, maybe.

0:24:48 Thomas: I

0:24:49 Lydia: But I they also have had, those you they're society roundtables. I don't know exactly what they're called. They would have like like you said, summits. But the NASA Science Live is in under that education wing where they talk about different topics of like how become an intern at NASA. And then they did, the you first images from James Webb came. Let's talk about it and things like that. So it's a little more for the broader public and information to them. Yeah, never happened.

Then Eric Smith responds and says, thanks, Kristen. This was an interesting read and a very nice example of someone taking the time to do things right. I noticed that Hakeem didn't take credit for all his hard work by putting his name on the piece. Is that because the timing and vehicle for dissemination are still TBD? Again, this is Thursday, July 30th, 2020. responds, correct. All the work is his and he deserves full credit. It really became quite the journey for him.

You will recall we didn't quite know how, in quotes, real the allegations were. Once he delved into the facts and found, quote, the other undersecretary of state, it was not unlike a scientist finding their aha moment. That is why I think there are really two stories here, the scientific process and the refuting of the slander. Under.

0:26:02 Thomas: Just, it's, look, once again reminding people that the other undersecretary of state was directly reporting to James Webb. It's incredible.

0:26:13 Lydia: The aha moment. Also, I thought was really funny.

0:26:16 Thomas: It's just, yeah.

0:26:17 Lydia: Just silly. It just silly. So months pass. And now we're at November 30, 2020. And this is an an email originating from the Office of Communications Public Affairs Officer Felicia Cho, and she reaches out to Mamta Nagarajah, the Deputy Division Director for NASA Science Engagement. She says, "Hi, Mamta. A while back, Hakeem had written a rebuttal on accusations of Webb, the namesake, being a bigot. We are looking to see if there is a way to verify this research and get this story out without it directly coming from NASA. Do you know if there are plans of this being published widely by Hakeem or some other outside person? Did your team have thoughts on how to push this out more widely?"

0:26:17 Thomas: Yeah. And we don't get a response from Montel, though. I don't know if that's because it's not. It should have been within the scope of our thing, right?

0:27:03 Lydia: Yeah. I mean, there's, I think, a reason why she reached out to her deputy division director for NASA science engagement.

0:27:11 Thomas: But guess who's CC'd? Kristen Erickson.

0:27:13 Lydia: Erickson CC'd.

0:27:14 Thomas: She responds.

0:27:15 Lydia: She says, good afternoon. I spoke to Hakeem. He still plans to publish and is in the process. He not only refuted but validated Webb as a champion. FYI, HakeEM was just elected as president National Society of Black Physicists. We'll let all know when HakeEm gets published, Kristen. So they're best friends is what was not addressed in that email.

0:27:35 Thomas: Well, she was CC'd.

0:27:36 Lydia: She was CC'd. Yeah. But I I mean, there are plenty of other people CC'd and no one else chimed in. Greg then a couple months later it's every couple of months this sort of kind of comes from the ground um February 10th 2021 uh emails Greg and Eric and says hi Eric and Greg you're probably aware this has been released and links to Hakim's Medium article so is half a year after she sent them the draft. So it's been about six months. Eric responds, Hi, Kristen. Yes, we've seen this and reactions to it. I'm talking with various historians and libraries to collect additional data. Thanks for sending this along. Then Kristen responds, Are you still glad we did this?

0:27:36 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to figure that out. I didn't know what the fuck.

0:28:20 Lydia: I don't know. It's like weird coded. I don'T KNOW. It'S WEIRD.

0:28:23 Thomas: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

0:28:26 Lydia: Eric responds, getting closer to the truth is always the best path, even if it is not always comfortable. Things that I wanted to share here that, know, this is February 2021. So in Brian Odom, the historian's report, he says he didn't start until March of 2021 working on his project, right? Because he had to wait for the direction from It had to be assigned to him. He couldn't just say, I want to do this special project like Hakeem got to do that has nothing to do with his job. He says, in early March 2021, I began a historical investigation into the career of James Webb. Formal effort was ordered by Bill Nelson in late spring 2021. And Bill Nelson wasn't appointed as administrator until May 3rd, 2021. So we had an acting Ness administrator from January 20th, 2021, after Joe Biden took office until then. And then prior to him under Trump was Jim Bridenstine from April 23rd, 2018 through January 20th, 2021, which is interesting. Climate change denying Jim Brindenstine.

0:29:27 Thomas: Yeah. But annoys me is that Bill Nelson sucks too. Why is he administrator under Biden? I don't get it.

0:29:33 Lydia: Well, because he I mean, he hated Cobb in that congressional hearing. That's points.

0:29:37 Thomas: Yeah. Look, we all hated Cobb. Doesn't guarantee you. That's It's a baseline.

0:29:43 Lydia: But Bill Nelson at least has the space background like So he's he's not Sean O 'Keefe. The February ones were interesting. So it was surrounding Hakeem's publication. Then it's quiet for a few more months. And June 29th, 2021, Kristen Erickson starts another email thread. And is to Eric with a cc to Greg every time. She, is status colon James Webb, not a racist.

0:29:46 Thomas: Yeah. -hmm. Yeah. Oh, boy. Subject.

0:30:16 Lydia: Yeah. This is going to pop up in a FOIA request.

0:30:18 Thomas: Status. James Webb, not a racist. Oh, my God. What a fucking boomer.

0:30:26 Lydia: Totally, um, this sent, you know, first thing in the morning kind of thing, and so she says, "Hi, Eric, I was watching The Lavender Scare last night on PBS, and it reminded me to ask you, what is the status of your investigation regarding James Webb? As FYI, what is unsettling is several times when I have spoken with the web project folks on other topics, they talk about renaming."

0:30:47 Thomas: Yeah. Here's, let me translate. Kristen Erickson is like, I don't understand. I spoke to the manager about this, and yet people are still not instantly on my side. What is happening here? This email, uh, was wondering when we get to it. This, this email contains my favorite fucking sentence. This is the boomer, white, white boomeriest fucking sentence of all time. Please continue.

0:30:52 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Evidence been found and I am a memo behind? I don't know why she would need to know.

0:31:09 Thomas: Has evidence been found and I, yeah, like, are you in charge? Are we reporting to you? It's

0:31:15 Lydia: Yeah. If no evidence has been found, my strong recommendation is to publicly, in quotes, reclaim the name, sooner rather than later, since the rumor churn is happening. Nature abhors a vacuum.

0:31:30 Thomas: So fucking stupid. I, okay, pin

0:31:34 Lydia: I also respect that by reclaiming the name, the agency is exposed to other naming issues. This administrator must decide. He cannot have mission equity and Stennis at the same time. I sure hope someone is truth speaking to power respectfully.

0:31:45 Thomas: In that and and then my favorite sentence. I sure hope someone is speaking truth to power. It is the most boomer fucking, uh, of a phrase. She means, I hope someone is speaking true to power. Like, I'm trying to think of a good analogy. It's like, it's Star Wars, if she's like, I sure hope, like, of, you know, Darth Vader's advisors is telling, "Hey, the rebels fucking suck."

0:31:55 Lydia: Going to go march. Yeah.

0:32:15 Lydia: Yeah.

0:32:15 Thomas: Like I, I hope someone's speaking truth to power. She's like, speaking truth of power means like telling them the things they don't want to hear. This is like speaking truth. The power is the truth is like, they need to hear it. This, the power is fucking the status quo and needs to hear the actual truth of what's going on. Not, I hope someone is telling the person in charge that everything they think is already right. And that's truth to power. Like, I can't even describe how funny this is in my mind. I hope Someone Is Speaking Truth to Power. Just means it literally. Like is someone telling the

0:32:16 Lydia: So weird.

0:32:57 Thomas: Things I think is truth to the person who is in power? Not It's just the perfect mal, yeah, it'S not quite a malapropism or whatever, but it's like, Like it, it's like a literal use of something that's not really a literal phrase, you know?

0:33:02 Lydia: And not like the societal systemic. Yeah.

0:33:13 Lydia: Yeah.

0:33:13 Thomas: And it's, God, it'S so her. She's just absolutely that person. God.

0:33:18 Lydia: Right. Right. So then Eric responds. I almost feel bad for Eric At this point. He's like, "OK, hi, Kristen. NASA senior management is fully aware of concerns raised regarding the mission's name and the astronomy community petition about the topic and are working with historians on the matter. We have not moved beyond this holding statement stage, to my knowledge. I worked with historians to provide information to management on the topic. It's on the ninth floor, and that's all I know. I was hoping there would have been decision by now." Again, June 29, 2021, responds, "Thank you for the quick response, Eric. As you might remember, Jim Webb is a hero of mine." Yeah, we know, you talked about it like six months ago in your other email. "And I hope that he and the program does not get swept away in the cancel culture." The cancel culture.

0:33:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:07 Lydia: That said, if there is historic evidence of racist or homophobic behaviors, I certainly accept the agency actions dot dot dot. It's great.

0:34:16 Thomas: Love this because the, like she forgot even what the problem was. Because the subject is status. James Webb, not a racist. It wasn't accused of racism. Why would that be the, It have been like James Webb complicit in Lavender Scare, you know, like, it's, oh my God, hmm, oh

0:34:23 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, James Weber raises. Um this wasn't in the the that we got but it's from the other FOIA it's not related to Kristen Erickson but it'S an Eric Smith tie -in um that happened a couple months after this so So again, of June 29th, 2021, Eric Smith says NASA senior management's fully aware of the concerns. It's on the ninth floor. Wish they would have made a decision by this point. We're just at the holding statement in the nature FOIA. You go to September 29th. Twenty twenty one. So a couple months later, what we get is. Is Witts from Nature emailed Brian Brian Odem forwarded it to Karen Fox, who's the senior communications official.

0:35:12 Thomas: God, these ones. So refresher on this one. A lot of these were Brian Odom, again, not a hero, but he's the historian, and he's starting literally the day that the decision is made. Was supposed to be the first day of that contract historian even getting access to start the research, search. And so, you know, say what you want about them, they're like, let's do this, you actual, maybe let's try to do it right. Hopefully, we don't know what for sure what it would have been, but they're starting a process of actually doing some investigating, and they find out, like, okay, decision made, game over.

And I love it because the, this communications, the people even totally understand how fucking stupid this is, because they're like, yeah, um, just forward all requests you get to me. So people, people are asking Brian Odom, like, hey, what the fuck, you were supposed to do a report, is that canceled or did you finish or what? And he doesn't even respond. He's like, "OK, I'll just forward these to you." And the person even says, "Yeah, I don't want your name on like" they recognize how shitty this is. And they're like, yeah. Just send them to me because I don't want you to muddy your hands with this like bullshit that we've pulled.

0:35:13 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:36:20 Lydia: But for someone who's in communications, I don't think she does a very good job here. So she responds to Alex at Nature at 4 .20 p .m. She says, Brian Alex. Brian forwarding me your email to answer your question about the study of the web name. Yes, it's concluded. We've done as much as we can do at this point and have exhausted our research efforts, Karen.

0:36:36 Thomas: Yep. Yep. I pointed that out.

0:36:41 Lydia: Right. And then at 5:18 p.m., less than an hour later, she re -responds and says, FYI, this is the new response. This is to Brian. Just so you have it. It's still fairly short, but wanted you to be aware before I sent. And I'm going to BCC you, not CC you, actually. I don't want to put you in the position, like what you said. I don't wanna put you the position of seeming to be fully complicit in this response. Yeah. Or to get a reply all with more questions.

And so the original statement, she says, was, we found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the JWST. Question, have we concluded our investigation? Yes, we've done as much as we can do at this point and have exhausted our research efforts. Those efforts have not uncovered evidence warranting a name change. Question, do you have a report you're going to release? No, we don't have anything to report because we haven't found anything. And then the next day, September 30th, this is a thread between Brian Odom and the external historian and Eric Smith, who was serving as program director for James Webb. Smith says, hi, Brian.

The NASA administrator sent the following statement earlier this week to several reporters who has asked about the web name issue in the past. We have found no evidence at this time that warrants changing the name of the James Webb Space Telescope. It's starting to get out today through other media after I was asked about this at an astronomers meeting yesterday. I think the research is still important and the statement keeps the door open for that. So they're trying to massage that statement a little bit, even after their senior communications person the day before was very, you

0:36:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:03 Thomas: Complicit.

0:37:17 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:38:12 Lydia: Lined about what was going on. External historian, I believe, responds and says, Hi, Eric and Brian. I saw the statement this week and read the NPR story. The archives are supposed to reopen October 8th if all goes well. They haven't rescheduled my appointments, though. I'm going to try to find an end around to get to some of the records if possible. Blah, blah, blah. I can't say that I'm happy about the way things were stated in the N PR story. Then Eric Smith responds. Hi. Yes, Yes, the NPR story did make it seem like we've done all the looking we can when, in fact, we've only just been able to access already publicly available material.

0:38:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Read this at the time.

0:38:45 Lydia: Yeah. And so I think it's just it's it's

0:38:45 Thomas: Yeah. Amazing. That spin is like, well, here's what happened. The investigator was on their way to drive to the museum and their tire was flat. And so they're like, oh, well I can't go. And then she's like, welp, we've done all we can in the investigation. And what? We didn't find anything. Anything, there's no evidence, we did all we can, we've, we've exhausted our means of investigation and we didn't find anything. It's like, that's a pretty misleading way of saying we haven't even fucking started.

0:39:14 Lydia: Yeah.

0:39:14 Thomas: Because there were, like, when you say we've gone as far as we can go, as far as we go is I'm stuck in my garage because my tire is flat. But we've gotten as far as we're going, you know, what we didn't find anything, so there's a report. I can give you a report on my tire or my garage, but that's it. If you don't want those, then no report. Mm.

0:39:21 Lydia: Right. Yeah. Didn't find anything because we didn't look. Then two weeks later, of course, is Kristen Erickson's email to Paul Hertz that we read earlier, the one that was originally made available. Know, just her bringing it up again. So then, sort of, the state that we were at with the Kristen Erickson emails, some other quick notes I do want to say about her. She's been at NASA a very long time, and you know, she's probably like late 50s, early 60s based off of her college graduation date. She got her bachelor's in business administration from Texas in 1985. Then, and research. She started working back at NASA at least 1994, perhaps longer. She was the director of the business office for the space shuttle program and has been with NASA ever since. Received her master of public administration from Harvard in 1999 while she was working at NASA. So I think she's like NASA through and through. But yeah, the cancel culture, you know, just some of the phrases are

0:39:38 Thomas: -hmm yeah no

0:40:25 Lydia: Interesting. The only other piece that I want to say, which is an aside just man, just reading through it, you you know, having worked for the government, granted, not as large of an agency as NASA, but having worked through the government.

0:40:39 Thomas: You probably, probably work for a bigger, uh,

0:40:41 Lydia: I mean, yeah, we did have a lot of staff. Lot of people worked at our department, but I reading through it. So challenging because it's like I understand some of the the that in where feel like they can't make decisions. And then you get a random person like Kristen Erickson, who is, you know, she's the reply all person basically.

0:41:04 Thomas: She's, it's, she's the person you want t have imposter syndrome, but no. No, she doesn't. She has everybody else's an imposter syndrome.

0:41:09 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, so that it was just like really frustrating to read because it's like, oh, I feel like I know people like this, you know all up and down that spectrum anyway.

0:41:20 Thomas: Know I had made a quip, so I actually had to check. Not that this is where you most recently worked, but CDCR, definitely three times the employees of NASA because of all the peace officers. Budget -wise, half the budget of NASA. So one of our 50 states, the budget for prisons is half of what NASA is. That's depressing. Anyway, just this, I just had to check real quick. Yeah.

0:41:26 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah Yeah.

0:41:43 Lydia: That's so crazy. The other thing that I want to do is, you know, I had mentioned this in a previous episode, but again, contrasting Kristen Erickson's approach with James Webb Space Telescope to Jane Rigby, who who was Senior Project Scientist for James Webb Space Telescope. The naming controversy was of like at its peak a bit, she did tweet about it and said, said as a private citizen, a transformative telescope should have a name that stands for discovery and inclusion. And, folks you in there say, you sometimes I think about the rock and the hard place you're caught between and my heart hurts. Then, man, then you scroll down to some of these. I mean, Twitter is a mess, but is incredible. I mean, there are some people who are saying the time to complain about it was 10 years ago, or should I say 20? Anyway, now it's just nagging.

0:42:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:37 Lydia: A name for a bunch of mirrors. Why do you care? It doesn't affect you.

0:42:40 Thomas: It's the same gaslighting bullshit. These classic, when you're on the status quo side, these are the bullshit tactics you get, to why do you care so much about this? Why do you care so much about it? It was one asshole in the Bush administration who named it, for why do you care? Well, right back at you. Just rename it,

0:42:43 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Change the name would be to imply Webb was guilty until proven innocent. We can't jump on every bandwagon for every person accused of wrongdoing in an age where those accusations are used as an easy means to an end. Okay.

0:43:09 Thomas: Yeah The the woke, Woke agenda is, we, even though this one person is totally innocent who we didn't even hadn't heard of, we want a different person's name on there. And you do rename it, that means he's guilty. Not just funny because, like, know the fuck James Webb was. Was the idea that James Webb was of part this secret woke agenda? It's like, first they come for your James Webbs that you didn't know exist. And yeah, rename it doesn't mean that you're guilty until proven innocent. I've already said too much about this, but the burden for should you get a fucking one -of -a -kind massive science operation, biggest in the world, named after you, is not the same standard as did OJ commit murder. That's

0:43:31 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:53 Lydia: Think if you were if you are responding to the scientist for James Webb Space Telescope, an astronomer, your response would be, what is wrong with the current name? Just enjoy the pictures.

0:44:08 Lydia: Yeah. Anyway, it's just so frustrating. Incredible person who is working on the project, you there. I know Lucienne Walkwitz resigned, but Jane Rigby is still there, and there are probably a lot of other people who have had to make that decision to resign or to stay.

0:44:26 Thomas: Well, so Jane Rigby is actually in NASA, right? Yeah. Cause so Lucienne Walkowicz was on the like advisory committee a little bit different, but yeah. Um, there's only one more email that we didn't cover basically. Think everything else is a repeat, I believe. Leave. But this is February 18th, 2021 from Kristen Erickson. I just love this. It's not important, but it's just funny. Subject, Ken Sembach's wife is a historian.

0:44:29 Lydia: Yeah, oh, right, right. Resigned from the committee. Yeah.

0:44:52 Lydia: Oh yeah.

0:44:54 Thomas: Hi, Eric. If you're still looking for historians to look into Hakeem's paper, just found out Ken's wife is a historical historian. And there's no reply that we see. It just the perfect, again, Again, it's this exact person's mindset. Like, you, she's emailing the person in charge of like, there is a NASA historian. There is a NASA historian. He he's either going to do it and he's going to enlist the help of another historian. I think he's got it. He doesn't need to know, like, your mom's friend is a historian. Like, it doesn't, it is so fucking Kristen Erickson. Like, this is classic Kristen Errickson behavior.

0:45:03 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:45:16 Lydia: Class Kristen.

0:45:28 Thomas: Ken's wife. Oh, good. Oh, because we couldn't find one. And so we needed to know if anyone's wife was a historian. Does she do history related at all to this in any way? No idea. It doesn't say. It doesn't say like if she specializes in fucking the Cold War or the, you know, any of the era that like, no, just she's a historian, God, what a, it's a perfect example of this person, but, did you actually, I looked her up a little, but I didn't find much.

0:45:33 Lydia: Yeah yeah.

0:45:49 Lydia: Can tell you about Ken's wife too. Yeah oh yeah there's not much Dr. Marguerite Hoyt but is a professor at Catholic University of America so there you go. Who knows?

0:46:01 Thomas: Who knows? I mean, that might mean nothing or it means exactly what we all think it means. Right. So you might think we're done with this. You might wish we're down with this now. This was this was awesome to get an actual update. I think we learned a lot. There anything that you think we need to FOIA again or do we I mean, we still I still don't feel 100%, but yeah, great.

0:46:04 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, I Exactly. I am to push for more Hakeem emails from when he actually worked there. I'm going to try and some more information because I don't feel like my second request was was what I was really hoping for in full anyway, more digging there. Also really want to look into the former NASA administrator while Hakeem was there, Jim Bridenstine, because he also could have been part of this conversation. I mean, he's, you know, anti-LGBTQ.

0:46:52 Lydia: I am curious about him. So, I might do some more digging related to him. And then if any listeners want to write in with suggestions, if anything has really crossed your mind of connections, I am happy to take that.

0:47:03 Thomas: Hey, we're all ears. Yeah, I will

0:47:05 Lydia: Maybe

0:47:05 Thomas: Say just a very generality. I know specifics, not about any specific episodes of any kind, because for real, we'll protect confidentiality 100%. I have heard from multiple people involved in things we've done, we've covered on the show, to put it in the vaguest of terms. And if that's you, reach out. We will 1,000% protect confidentiality, a million percent. Like I would never, this is, I'm mentioning in the vaguest sense, uh, somewhere in our episodes, someone related to something has contacted me and that's all I'll say. So Um, if there's anybody who thinks like they might have something they could tell us, but they, you know, oh, they don't want to put their name to it or whatever. We will a million percent respect all confidentiality, uh anything like that. If you have anything you think would help or any experience

0:47:15 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, you

0:47:54 Thomas: Or anything to tell us let us know. No. All

0:47:56 Lydia: Can either email Thomas at thomasatseriouspod.com or myself, Lydia at seriouspod.com. And we're happy to look into any ideas you might have, any leads you might have. But that's sort of where I'm at right now with this FOIA request and eager to get my next one.

0:48:12 Thomas: Right. We if the next one doesn't have anything, you important, we probably won't take the space of doing another time.

0:48:17 Lydia: Yeah, I'll just maybe release it.

0:48:18 Thomas: But if it yeah, if it has any. Yeah. Like post it.

0:48:19 Lydia: Like, Yeah. Exactly.

0:48:22 Thomas: We could post this on Patreon. Let's post our actual results on Patreon, the emails just for fun. There's something we need to leave you with, everyone. And by leave you With, I mean, this is a to be continued. You might've thought we were done, but no, maybe you caught it. Maybe Maybe There was a Weird Sentence You Heard That You're Like, I Don't Know What That Means. Quite and I both had the same reaction when When Kristen Erickson, boomer fucking Kristen Errickson, Jenny Thomas says, I also respect, and I don't know if she meant respect. I think she meant expect maybe. I also suspect that by reclaiming the name, the agency is exposed to other naming issues because that's what she wants to do. So why would she say respect?

0:48:27 Lydia: Yeah. Yep.

0:49:01 Lydia: Think she does mean respect. I Think she's saying she understands it's a complicated decision Oh,

0:49:06 Thomas: No, but that make sense. It would be the opposite. It if you if change the name then you're exposed to like, oh, now they had that victory. That's why I'm confused, I also respect that by reclaiming the name, the agency is exposed to other naming issues. Um, maybe I, I see what you're saying. So maybe she things, she says are so fucking backwards.

0:49:13 Lydia: I see. Okay. All right. Who knows?

0:49:26 Thomas: That, yeah, anyway, this administrator must decide, uh, this is the sentence, he cannot have mission equity and Stennis at the same time, and we're like, what is Stennis? Yeah.

0:49:37 Lydia: What's Dennis?

0:49:38 Thomas: And so I looked it up and, oh my fucking god, the next episode on where there's woke, hashtag rename Stennis Center, and I promise you that Lydia doesn't know what, what's in for this, this is another surprise one for Lydia, um, is there's, this is, oh boy, this is one of those research things where this is only, give me one episode, I promise, but it is, uh, worthwhile. While it is like, just wait until you hear this fucking thing. So to be continued, there turns out there was a name all along that was way fucking worse than James Webb, which is the Stennis Center. Um, so hopefully my voice will be a little better by the time I record this entire thing about hashtag rename Stennis Center. Can't wait. Well done, Lydia, on the FOIA request. That was fun.

0:49:46 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, thank

0:50:21 Thomas: That's a big milestone. And In the meantime, please, please pledge at patreon.com/wherethereswoke. have we done our bonus? Have we teased it yet?

0:50:21 Lydia: You. Thank you.

0:50:30 Thomas: Holy shit. I don't even even think I don't even think we've teased our bonus for this month we have none other than Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance on to uh to help critique uh maybe learn a bit from the comedy stylings of one Rob Schneider uh yeah that's right we watched Rob Schneider's new comedy special so you don't have to and uh believe me yeah you don't have to, don't, nobody ever should have to. Do This was a ton of fun, that's this month's special, it'll be going up somewhat soon, uh, really excited to see you all then, until next time.

0:50:30 Lydia: No, no one knows anything. Holy crap.

0:50:42 Lydia: Oh, my God. And you're not going to want to.