[Goose]

Goose, what you are describing is not how our government should work or has worked. I sincerely doubt any previous administrations had army labs testing plant extracts on the advice of a presidents' rich donor/pillow salesman.

Dabigv13, take a step back and look at your statement. You are obviously influenced by the fact the suggestion came from "a presidents' rich donor/pillow salesman'. The people asked to look in to something like this don't know where the idea came from, and they mostly don't care. They just know they were supposed to look into it, and I assure you that under any administration, they would do so.

If an aide told an aide about it, it was probably squelched by a lawyer or other aide as unethical or illegal or absurd.

Please tell me what is illegal or unethical about looking at a possible drug to see if it is useful? It may be absurd, but I know for a fact that lots of things are sent to government labs to opine on that appear to be absurd. The functionaries don't usually make that choice. Consider the idea of using dolphins to locate mines. Sound absurd initially, but we do it.

Or if it reached the stage of the lab, the lab director would just say no, that makes no sense, we're not wasting our resources in a pandemic on testing snake oil.

No he wouldn't. He would have some low-level person in the lab write a report saying they looked at it and see no plausible means of action. Hopefully, that will bury it. If it doesn't bury it, they will probably actually look into it, even though it appears to be absurd. The fact this was being done by an Army lab indicates to me that it got dumped way down the priority list to people who had available time.

But because Trump has gutted any independence from executive branch agencies, nobody will say no. We will need a post-Nixon level refresh of our government institutions once Trump is gone. Hope there is time, considering recovering from the pandemic and recession will be obvious priorities.

Executive branch agencies aren't independent. They report to the POTUS. You don't just say no, unless it is illegal. Just like in you day job, you boss may sometimes tell you to do things that you think are stupid. You point that out to your boss, and if he says do it anyway, you either do it or you quit. In all organizations, there is a balance between the leaders and the led. Organizations like the FDA are given lots of latitude to police themselves, and no president would like to get "caught" meddling in the FDA's decision making process. However, the fact is the POTUS does have influence. Always has. Other organizations, like HHS, are more command driven. There is an agenda and you follow it.
Good presidents, like all good managers, try to hire good people whose judgement they trust. If a lab head reports back that an idea is absurd, the POTUS will say, OK, thanks for looking and move on. You give your subordinates parameters and trust them to execute within them. It has never been true that the departments in the executive branch just did what they thought was best for the country and who cares what our superiors think.
The problem isn't that the POTUS is the boss. The problem is that the boss is an idiot and tells people to do too many stupid things. Lots of them have quit. Most won't take the job from Trump. However, that isn't because the structure is broken. It is because the leader is broken.

[Goose]

Goose, what you are describing is not how our government should work or has worked. I sincerely doubt any previous administrations had army labs testing plant extracts on the advice of a presidents' rich donor/pillow salesman.

Dabigv13, take a step back and look at your statement. You are obviously influenced by the fact the suggestion came from "a presidents' rich donor/pillow salesman'. The people asked to look in to something like this don't know where the idea came from, and they mostly don't care. They just know they were supposed to look into it, and I assure you that under any administration, they would do so.

If an aide told an aide about it, it was probably squelched by a lawyer or other aide as unethical or illegal or absurd.

Please tell me what is illegal or unethical about looking at a possible drug to see if it is useful? It may be absurd, but I know for a fact that lots of things are sent to government labs to opine on that appear to be absurd. The functionaries don't usually make that choice. Consider the idea of using dolphins to locate mines. Sound absurd initially, but we do it.

Or if it reached the stage of the lab, the lab director would just say no, that makes no sense, we're not wasting our resources in a pandemic on testing snake oil.

No he wouldn't. He would have some low-level person in the lab write a report saying they looked at it and see no plausible means of action. Hopefully, that will bury it. If it doesn't bury it, they will probably actually look into it, even though it appears to be absurd. The fact this was being done by an Army lab indicates to me that it got dumped way down the priority list to people who had available time.

But because Trump has gutted any independence from executive branch agencies, nobody will say no. We will need a post-Nixon level refresh of our government institutions once Trump is gone. Hope there is time, considering recovering from the pandemic and recession will be obvious priorities.

Executive branch agencies aren't independent. They report to the POTUS. You don't just say no, unless it is illegal. Just like in you day job, you boss may sometimes tell you to do things that you think are stupid. You point that out to your boss, and if he says do it anyway, you either do it or you quit. In all organizations, there is a balance between the leaders and the led. Organizations like the FDA are given lots of latitude to police themselves, and no president would like to get "caught" meddling in the FDA's decision making process. However, the fact is the POTUS does have influence. Always has. Other organizations, like HHS, are more command driven. There is an agenda and you follow it.
Good presidents, like all good managers, try to hire good people whose judgement they trust. If a lab head reports back that an idea is absurd, the POTUS will say, OK, thanks for looking and move on. You give your subordinates parameters and trust them to execute within them. It has never been true that the departments in the executive branch just did what they thought was best for the country and who cares what our superiors think.
The problem isn't that the POTUS is the boss. The problem is that the boss is an idiot and tells people to do too many stupid things. Lots of them have quit. Most won't take the job from Trump. However, that isn't because the structure is broken. It is because the leader is broken.