American Politics Thread V: We're Just Biden Our Time ...

[Rusozak]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Oh look, the anti-Twilight lady. Hey maybe she can deal with the real problem which isn't global warming or poverty, but vampires.

What gets me is that's not even the craziest thing a Trump endorsee believes.

[Kowani]

Biden admin to reinstate roadless rule for the Tongass National Forest

The Biden administration said Friday that it would “repeal or replace” a rule allowing roads and other types of development in more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, reviving 20-year-old protections President Donald Trump had stripped three months before leaving office.
The move was outlined in the administration’s new regulatory agenda. The notice from the White House said the change was consistent with President Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis.” The Agriculture Department expects to publish the proposed rule in August, the notice said. In an email, USDA communications director Matt Herrick said the department “recognizes the Trump administration’s decision on the Alaska roadless rule was controversial and did not align with the overwhelming majority of public opinion across the country and among Alaskans.”
“The majority of comments recognized the important role of the Tongass National Forest and roadless areas protections to tourism, fishing, recreation, indigenous cultures and the uniqueness of the temperate rainforest,” he said. “We recognize the vital role the Forest and its inventoried roadless areas play in communities, and in the economy and culture of Southeast Alaska, as well as for climate resilience.”
Coming shortly after officials suspended drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the step highlights how the state has become a climate and conservation battleground since Biden became president. With its vast natural resources and focus on extracting commodities such as oil, timber and metals, Alaska often finds itself at odds with Washington when Democrats control the White House.
Republicans pushed to open up remote and largely pristine areas in Alaska to drilling, mining and logging while Trump was in office, from its southeast edge to the western Arctic and the Bering Sea. Biden and his deputies have worked to freeze or unravel many of these policies during the past four and a half months. In April, it took the unusual step of postponing the effective date of public lands orders allowing mining on 11 million acres in Alaska for two years.
The two political parties have fought over the Tongass’s fate for two decades. Just before leaving office in 2001, President Bill Clinton finalized the “roadless rule,” which barred road construction in 58.5 million acres of national forest. President George W. Bush held a handful of timber sales in the Tongass before a federal judge reinstated the Clinton rule. Sonny Perdue, Trump’s agriculture secretary, sought to forge a compromise that would have protected most of the Tongass’s 9.3 million acres. But he was overruled by Trump, who decided to exempt the entire area after meeting privately with Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) aboard Air Force One during a stopover at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson. Environmentalists and many in Alaska’s recreation industry have argued that roadless protections are essential to protect the Tongass, which ranks as one of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforests. While parts of the forest were heavily logged in the 1960s and ’70s, its trees — many of which are hundreds of years old — absorb at least 8 percent of all the carbon stored in the entire Lower 48′s forests combined.
Trout Unlimited President Chris Wood, whose conservation group represents anglers across the country, said in a phone interview that a quarter of the salmon and steelhead that swim along the Pacific Coast spend time in the Tongass’s rivers and streams. “It’s a fish factory,” he said. But Alaska’s elected leaders have argued that the limits on roadbuilding impede not only logging but other industrial activities, including mining, that would bolster a region that’s been battered by the pandemic.
Alaska “will use every tool available to push back on the latest imposition,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a tweet. ”From tourism to timber, Alaska’s great Tongass National Forest holds much opportunity for Alaskans but the federal government wishes to see Alaskans suffer at the lack of jobs and prosperity.”
The Alaska Forest Association said in a statement that it opposes the Biden administration’s “one-size-fits-all announcement,” especially given the fact that development is restricted on 41 percent of the Tongass.
“Congress intended that remaining areas be used to support local employment,” the group said, “including year-round timber manufacturing jobs in a state where the federal government owns 98 percent of the land and the southeast Alaska economy has been catastrophically impacted in recent years.”
While the Forest Service temporarily halted roadbuilding activities in the Tongass by issuing a memo in February subjecting them to a special review, it will still take months for the new proposal to be finalized. And Alaska’s exemption from the roadless rule is now in litigation, so the courts could also intervene in the case.
Southeast Alaska Conservation Council Executive Director Meredith Trainor said that she hopes the administration moves quickly to cement the change.
“The Trump-era decision to exempt the Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule is one of the very worst pieces of forest policy we’ve seen in decades, and the sooner the Biden administration gets rid of the exemption and restores the national roadless rule, the better,” she said.

[Farnhamia]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

I see that Laura Ingraham has "publicly expressed interest" in running. Do you think she understands that she'll have to actually reside in Alaska in order to run?

[Salus Maior]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

I see that Laura Ingraham has "publicly expressed interest" in running. Do you think she understands that she'll have to actually reside in Alaska in order to run?

Eh, I wouldn't mind living in Alaska.

When climate change really hits the weather will be nicer there. And, you know, livable.

[Shrillland]

These intelligent kids, who were once energetic and motivated to learn, can't even cite the three branches of government or construct a coherent paragraph.

If you’re worried about a lack of focus on math and science education, why do you care about their ability to construct a paragraph or understand political structures? Denigrate the humanities and the arts, de-prioritize them in schools, and then mock people for not understanding them?

The dirty little secret that indoctrinated leftists don't understand is in a free society, labor gets paid it's marginal value, no more, no less. If a firm pays too much, it loses market share due to higher prices, if it pays too little, it loses valuable labor to competitors or the labor becomes it's competitor and undercuts it's previous employer.

Let’s bypass the debate about whether the US is actually a free market and whether any of this theoretical framework actually applies to real world cases: apply the concept of capital paying labor exactly its marginal value, and take it to its logical conclusion, the conclusion that the world appears to actually be progressing towards technologically. In a world where globalization and mechanization have revolutionized the economy, and where AI is becoming more and more advanced and capable of filling different roles, what does that mean for the vast majority of people? You can’t expect that everyone’s skills will make whatever labor they can perform economically valuable in a world where they have to compete against other people all around the world and against constantly-improving machines. You also can’t expect everyone to found their own business— unless you aspire to a world like Resilient Acceleration’s fascinating Factbook, where capital’s triumph over labor is so complete that the capitalist class can basically let the workers die off and go on to live in a techno-utopia of AI-produced abundance. Either you can have everyone be a business owner in the sense of everyone owning some machines and AI that produce wealth for them— which doesn’t strike me as terribly different from sci-fi utopian communism, except that the entire working class gets killed off along the way— or you’re in a world where businesses still need human workers, but thanks to technology can afford to pay them less and less and less (which is really just a stage on the way to the first thing). You talk about AI as a booming field in this very post without seeming to have thought through what the implications of that are for your beloved free market— the marginal cost of labor eventually basically going to zero.

Do you want to live in that world, in that “free society,” either as a worker who’s going to be exploited for the next few decades until it’s no longer economic to use your labor and then allowed to starve, or as a capitalist who weaponizes our greatest technological accomplishments to deny most of your own species an abundant future? Wanting to eventually live in a sci-fi utopia makes sense, but why would you choose to slog through the blood of billions to get there over paths that wouldn’t necessarily involve such horror?

Oh, cheer up. The plus side is that we get the Lifetime Employment Programme.

[Shrillland]

Also, Drama
Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska’s 2022 Republican primary against Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Well, it's technically a jungle primary nowadays, but true enough.

[North Washington Republic]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

He was fortunate to have walked out of there alive with how unbelievably psycho and unhinged many of Trump's fans have become.

[Tarsonis]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

if true I'd actually respect pence more

[North Washington Republic]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

He was fortunate to have walked out of there alive with how unbelievably psycho and unhinged many of Trump's fans have become.

Donald Trump should be charged with attempted murder of his own Vice President. He literally was tweeting shit like he didn’t have the courage to participate in his coup and while the MAGA terrorist mob was looking to hang him using their makeshift gallows.

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

if true I'd actually respect pence more

I have more respect for Pence than I do for Trump(which is no respect). I just don’t know why he thinks he has a chance for a future in Republican politics. The base view him as some sort of Judas, and for some that is in the quite literally sense because a decent % of them view Trump as the 2nd advent.

[Conservative Republic Of Huang]

The dirty little secret that indoctrinated leftists don't understand is in a free society, labor gets paid it's marginal value, no more, no less. If a firm pays too much, it loses market share due to higher prices, if it pays too little, it loses valuable labor to competitors or the labor becomes it's competitor and undercuts it's previous employer.

Find me one serious economist that does not believe in the supply and demand model of the labor market and thinks wages only ever change because of changes in productivity. This is the most economically illiterate statement I have ever seen. Wages are in no way only controlled by labor productivity.

[Picairn]

The dirty little secret that indoctrinated leftists don't understand is in a free society, labor gets paid it's marginal value, no more, no less. If a firm pays too much, it loses market share due to higher prices, if it pays too little, it loses valuable labor to competitors or the labor becomes it's competitor and undercuts it's previous employer.

Find me one serious economist that does not believe in the supply and demand model of the labor market and thinks wages only ever change because of changes in productivity. This is the most economically illiterate statement I have ever seen. Wages are in no way only controlled by labor productivity.

Propaganda has no love for facts. He'd rather spam this BS for pages than learning economics.

[Myrensis]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

He gambled badly thinking he could play both sides as VP: have the cult's support as Trump's right hand, while playing the 'sane man' for everyone else.

Evidently he figured that since he was obviously never going to have much power as VP to Trump, he couldn't end up in any compromising situation where he would have to choose. Oopsie.

[Rusozak]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

if true I'd actually respect pence more

I don't. He gambled with a ravenous mob lead by a sociopath and got bit when he tried to play both sides.

[North Washington Republic]

Pence met with jeers and called a "traitor" at Florida conservative conference

I wonder why MIke Pence thinks he has a future in Republican politics. The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Trump, and that they believe Mike Pence was complicit in it.

He gambled badly thinking he could play both sides as VP: have the cult's support as Trump's right hand, while playing the 'sane man' for everyone else.

Evidently he figured that since he was obviously never going to have much power as VP to Trump, he couldn't end up in any compromising situation where he would have to choose. Oopsie.

The thing is that the cult makes the majority of the GOP. He did the right(and constitutional) thing on January 6th. He has no chance in hell of getting nominated for any political office. For his own safety, he should retire and move to somewhere very remote. I’m being serious. Lots of dangerous people want Mike Pence dead. His life is at risk for the foreseeable future.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

if true I'd actually respect pence more

I don't. He gambled with a ravenous mob lead by a sociopath and got bit when he tried to play both sides.

Ain't it funny how all these people who were conservatives for decades got cancelled for not 100% supporting a guy who only became conservative when he realized there was a large pool of voters there who he could take advantage of.

[The Reformed American Republic]

I don't. He gambled with a ravenous mob lead by a sociopath and got bit when he tried to play both sides.

Ain't it funny how all these people who were conservatives for decades got cancelled for not 100% supporting a guy who only became conservative when he realized there was a large pool of voters there who he could take advantage of.

The GOP is hardly a coherent party, but rather undirected anger, some incoherent race baiting, partisan baiting, or whatever helps them at a particular moment, hatred of the Democrats, and some conspiracy theorizing.

A bit old, but accurate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjonGtr ... VQ&index=5

[Grave_n_idle]

I don't. He gambled with a ravenous mob lead by a sociopath and got bit when he tried to play both sides.

Ain't it funny how all these people who were conservatives for decades got cancelled for not 100% supporting a guy who only became conservative when he realized there was a large pool of voters there who he could take advantage of.

They choose to ignore Trump's origins. They ignore the fact that the GOP wasn't even his second political choice - he was publicly a Democrat until he started getting interested in presidential politics, and then he joined Perot's Reform Party. He was a political dumpster-fire then, too - he accused three of the other Reform Party candidates of being a communist, a neo-nazi and a Klansmen, and then quit the party because it was divided by 'infighting'.

[Southland]

Apparently Biden's new anti-terrorism initiative (indirectly?) classifies Antifa as "domestic violent extremists".

[Exalted Inquellian State]

Apparently Biden's new anti-terrorism initiative (indirectly?) classifies Antifa as "domestic violent extremists".

Good, I guess? I mean, the various antifa branches do seem to be affiliated with each other. There's nothing wrong with opposition to capitalism. When it gets violent, there's almost always a problem.

[Azalfia]

Re-reading the last few threads, to the point when the insurrection on the 6th was taking place actively, and seeing all of your live reactions, it made me remember the fear. I thought we'd have collapsed into a civil war. We didn't, but it really has challenged my views on authoritarianism.

[Shrillland]

Re-reading the last few threads, to the point when the insurrection on the 6th was taking place actively, and seeing all of your live reactions, it made me remember the fear. I thought we'd have collapsed into a civil war. We didn't, but it really has challenged my views on authoritarianism.

We still can. The beast is still here, it's just in the background waiting for another spark to flare back up.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Apparently Biden's new anti-terrorism initiative (indirectly?) classifies Antifa as "domestic violent extremists".

They are domestic violent extremists. Sure, they aren't as bad as say the right when it comes to violence right now, but Antifa isn't benign.

[Tarsonis]

I don't. He gambled with a ravenous mob lead by a sociopath and got bit when he tried to play both sides.

Ain't it funny how all these people who were conservatives for decades got cancelled for not 100% supporting a guy who only became conservative when he realized there was a large pool of voters there who he could take advantage of.

started way before Trump. The American Taliban Tea Party was the beginning of the downfall of the Republican Party.

[Azalfia]

Re-reading the last few threads, to the point when the insurrection on the 6th was taking place actively, and seeing all of your live reactions, it made me remember the fear. I thought we'd have collapsed into a civil war. We didn't, but it really has challenged my views on authoritarianism.

We still can. The beast is still here, it's just in the background waiting for another spark to flare back up.

Everyone here was in hysterics when I was reading it. Rojava thought the nation had fallen into civil war, some had just sat back and ate popcorn, some were vibrantly defending the insurrectionist..it was, quite something.