American Politics Thread VI: Can't We All Just Get Along?

[Kannap]

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Yikes

let me move out of North Carolina before we do this, I don't wanna get stuck in the hellhole that'll be the former southeastern United States.

[Major-Tom]

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Yikes

You have to imagine that these numbers don't genuinely reflect those who are truly "committed" to secession. I feel the numbers are inflated by respondents who feel more that secession is interesting as a concept rather than as a goal to commit to.

[Kowani]

California oil lobby wants to make the drought even worse

A prominent oil and gas lobbying group seeks to strip environmental protections from groundwater sources designated by the state for agricultural use and which may grow increasingly important to California’s water-scarce future, according to a memo obtained through a records request.

The proposal, which hasn’t been publicly announced, suggests removing protections for groundwater reserves underneath 1,500 square surface miles in western Kern County, where the upper groundwater zone alone can extend down thousands of feet. That region, near communities like McKittrick, Taft and Maricopa, is home to intensive oil drilling. Under the proposed change, companies could have an easier time maintaining petroleum-tainted water in existing open-air ponds, which contaminate groundwater reserves. (One barrel of produced oil results in 16 barrels of water tainted by petroleum.)

This method of disposal is so toxic that the water board updated its permitting process to be more stringent after environmentalists called attention to it. There are more than 900 active, inactive, or closed ponds in California, almost all in Kern County. Over 200 more are in the process of closing.

The proposal could have wider implications; if successful, experts say, it could strengthen the oil industry’s ability to lay claim to groundwater reserves that had previously been designated for farm irrigation or even drinking water.

Amid a worsening drought, it also highlights another California-specific way the oil industry impacts the climate (in addition to being the top stationary emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the state): polluting aquifers with potential future use. Much of the industry now disposes of wastewater by injecting it underground rather than storing it in ponds, but even this method has been shown to contaminate groundwater. Though they’re surrounded by oil wells, the groundwater reserves at issue are potentially tapped for agricultural operations in the region. The proposed de-designation could additionally impact sources of municipal drinking water, according to preliminary data collected in the memo, though they may not be in current use because of high levels of natural and human-induced contamination.

The memo was drafted by an environmental consulting group on behalf of the California Independent Petroleum Association, which represents around 500 oil operators in the state. The lobbying group spent more than $130,000 lobbying against regulations and climate resiliency and transition plans in the first three months of this year.

Asked about the plan, CIPA CEO Rock Zierman claimed that a majority of the groundwater wells his association is targeting are among those that federal and state agencies have determined do not contain sources of drinking water.

In addition, Zierman said that even if the plan were to be approved, operators would still need to get permits from the State Water Board to continue operating existing tainted water ponds.

Hollin Kretzmann, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was “deeply concerning” that the oil lobby was requesting the change in a water-scarce area since droughts are likely to worsen due to climate change.

“The industry’s claims that the water cannot be used for other uses is self-serving and highly dubious. Moreover, our water quality standards are outdated and need to be strengthened in light of the region’s water crisis — groundwater that they didn’t think to protect half a century ago will nonetheless be critical to California’s future,” Kretzmann said.

The memo is just the first step in a long approval process by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the State Water Quality Control Board and the Office of Administrative Law. But a recent court order directing the state board to verify groundwater usability may make it more difficult for opponents to dismiss the proposal.

The state water board didn’t respond to a list of questions, but in a conversation from March, executive officer Patrick Pulupa of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board expressed concern about wastewater in ponds migrating to the valley floor.

“Some of the old ponds are too close to usable water supplies,” Pulupa said, particularly those with agricultural uses. “That is equally concerning to the board” as impacts on drinking water.

The memo includes a map showing dozens of wells whose water has potential use for agriculture, and another map showing wells the state lists as sources of drinking water. The memo doesn’t appear to determine land ownership around the wells. The consulting firm that drafted it, Geosyntec, said the drinking water wells inside the study area were likely not in use, and questioned the usability of two dozen agricultural wells.

If the oil lobby is successful in de-designating these wells for drinking or agricultural use, it would likely make it much more difficult for landowners to sue companies that pollute water tables, says one expert with knowledge of the region.

Graham Fogg, a hydrologist at the University of California, Davis, who reviewed the memo for Capital & Main, said he didn’t see evidence that CIPA had comprehensively evaluated the groundwater sources.

“It’s true that in some areas down there, the groundwater quality is poor, but sometimes that’s just the shallow part,” said Fogg. “The groundwater system is really thick, so there may be a lot of wells that are relatively shallow that show bad water quality but that may only tell part of the story.”

Zierman said the memo was the first step in determining groundwater quality and not meant to be a final analysis.

CIPA is making the proposal as part of an amendment process to change part of the state’s Central Valley Salinity Alternatives for Long-Term Sustainability program. The water board initiated the program to manage rising levels of nitrates and salts in Central Valley freshwater supplies.

The lobbying group is attempting to take advantage of a December 2020 court order that required the state water board to re-examine water protections.

The Kern County Superior Court’s ’s order resulted from a court case involving Valley Water Management Company, which disposes of produced water on 163 acres near the majority-Latino community of Buttonwillow. The company is a member of CIPA.

In 2018, the regional water board ordered Valley Water Management Company to close two facilities or stop discharging wastewater after it found elevated oilfield contaminates in nearby groundwater supplies. In response, the company sued the water board, claiming that protections were too broad and thus unenforceable.

Judge David Lampe agreed that water regulators could maintain broad default protections for water sources but would also have to investigate and confirm whether they were suitable for drinking or agricultural use.

In addition to being a source of potential drinking or agricultural water, aquifers in the Tulare Lake Basin could also serve as long-term storage facilities for water supplies as the state faces more intense droughts in the future. Such reserves will likely grow increasingly important in California; the state water board currently oversees eight aquifer storage projects, many of which are pilot programs and mostly located around Sacramento.

“In the future, in terms of places to store water, and you can argue that water security is mostly about being able to store water for later, the Central Valley and other major aquifer systems are key for that,” said Fogg. “So as much as we can, we need to maintain our ability to use those aquifer systems for storage later.”

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

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Yikes

I can hear the sounds of rotation coming from the graves of Abraham Lincoln, William T, Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant.

[Kowani]

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Yikes

You have to imagine that these numbers don't genuinely reflect those who are truly "committed" to secession. I feel the numbers are inflated by respondents who feel more that secession is interesting as a concept rather than as a goal to commit to.

Indeed, the authors themselves say as much-but the numbers have still seen a massive increase over the past few years

As in our previous report, we caution that this survey item reflects initial reactions by respondents about an issue that they are very unlikely to have considered carefully. Secession is a genuinely radical proposition and expressions of support in a survey may map only loosely onto willingness to act toward that end. We include the question because it taps into respondents’ commitments to the American political system at the highest level and with reference to a concrete alternative (regional unions).

Support for secession under the specific hypothetical unions format is illustrated in the map below. As in the previous survey, levels of expressed support for secession are arrestingly high, with 37% of respondents overall indicating willingness to secede. Within each region, the dominant partisan group is most supportive of secession. Republicans are most secessionist in the South and Mountain regions whereas it is Democrats on the West Coast and in the Northeast. In the narrowly divided Heartland region, it is partisan independents who find the idea most attractive. These patterns are consistent from our January/February survey, but the changes since then are troubling. Our previous survey was fielded just weeks after the January 6 uprising. By this summer, we anticipated, political tempers may have cooled — not necessarily as a result of any great reconciliation but perhaps from sheer exhaustion after the relentless drama of Trump. For instance, the historian Heather Cox Richardson posited that sustained consideration of the Big Lie narrative would diminish political ardor among Trump supporters, which she related to waning popular support for secession in the Confederacy during the spring of 1861.

Yet rather than support for secession diminishing over the past six months, as we expected, it rose in every region and among nearly every partisan group. The jump is most dramatic where support was already highest (and has the greatest historical precedent) — among Republicans in the South, where secession support leapt from 50% in January/February to 66% in June. Support among Republicans in the Mountain region increased as well, by 7 points, from 36% to 43%. Among Democrats in the West, a near-majority of 47% (up 6 points) supports a schism, as do 39% (up 5 points) in Northeast. Support jumped 9 points among independents in the Heartland as well, reaching 43%. Even subordinate partisan groups appear to find secession more appealing now than they did last winter, though only increases for Democrats in the South, Heartland, and Mountain regions are statistically discernible at the 0.05 significance level. The broad and increasing willingness of respondents to embrace these alternatives is a cause for concern.

[Loeje]

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Yikes

Democrats, too? That's scary.

[Stellar Colonies]

Guess I have to take Calexit more seriously now, even if the numbers are inflated...I will miss the times that I spent mocking it as a sad joke.

[Foundhome Republic]

The problem with those secession movements is that it does not address the core issue that is dividing the country. It is not a North Vs. South issue like during the last illegal armed insurrection attempt. Currently, it is a rural vs. urban divide that is fueling tensions. This is shown in how Texas Democrats had to flee the state to preserve the rights of the urban populations being stripped of their voting rights by the Republican lead—and rural based—legislature. It is shown in how the rural Republican extremist/populists movement in Idaho is attempting to annex parts of Oregon and Washington, and leaving out the urban coastal regions.

[Thermodolia]

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Yikes

You have to imagine that these numbers don't genuinely reflect those who are truly "committed" to secession. I feel the numbers are inflated by respondents who feel more that secession is interesting as a concept rather than as a goal to commit to.

Ya in these situations you always have to ask how was the question worded. Because that alone can skew all sorts of data

[Saiwania]

I saw that China supposed owns $2 billion worth of agriculture in the US. This is a big problem that should be undone because its unacceptable. I'd be keen to see all of China's US holdings to be seized or forcibly sold off. China can have the $2 billion sent back to them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/1 ... ase-499893

[Thermodolia]

I saw that China supposed owns $2 billion worth of agriculture in the US. This is a big problem that should be undone because its unacceptable. I'd be keen to see all of China's US holdings to be seized or forcibly sold off. China can have the $2 billion sent back to them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/1 ... ase-499893

Nah we keep the $2 billion

[San Lumen]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... n-refugees

Biden authorizes up to $100M for Afghan refugees

[Kowani]

You have to imagine that these numbers don't genuinely reflect those who are truly "committed" to secession. I feel the numbers are inflated by respondents who feel more that secession is interesting as a concept rather than as a goal to commit to.

Ya in these situations you always have to ask how was the question worded. Because that alone can skew all sorts of data

we can check

As in last winter’s survey, we asked respondents the following:

“Would you support or oppose [your state] seceding from the United States to join a new union with [list of states in new union]?” 5

We constructed five prospective new unions and inserted the relevant states for respondents into the question wording above. For example, a participant from California in our survey would be asked about joining a new union along with Washington, Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska. These sets are provided below:

Pacific: California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska
Mountain: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico
South: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee
Heartland: Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska
Northeast: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia

[Kowani]

57,000 accounts exposed after Florida's unemployment website hacked

Over 57,000 unemployment accounts have been connected to a Florida Department of Economic Opportunity data breach.

According to the DEO, it learned of the breach with its online unemployment benefit system, called CONNECT, on July 16. “Information contained in the claimant account may have been accessed, including the following: social security number, driver’s license number, bank account numbers, claim information, and other personal details, such as address, phone number, and date of birth,” the department said in a release. “In addition, the malicious actors may have acquired the account PIN that claimants use to access their CONNECT account.” The DEO says a total of 57,920 claimant accounts were targeted sometime between April 27 and July 16 and may have been “accessed by an unauthorized party.”

In response, the department has done the following:

Locked accounts targeted by this activity
Improved PIN security controls
Enhanced network security controls
Notified impacted claimants
Notified the Department of Legal Affairs, Department of Management Services, including the Division of State Technology, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Reported impacted accounts to the three U.S. credit reporting agencies
Purchased a year’s subscription of identity protection services for affected claimants
Those affected by the breach are being asked to monitor their financial accounts and report any unauthorized activity. “Claimants may contact the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by calling 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338) or online at www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/. The Department is also recommending claimants to contact the three U.S. credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) to obtain a free credit report from each by calling 1-877-322-8228 or by logging onto www.annualcreditreport.com,” the DEO said in a release.

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I saw that China supposed owns $2 billion worth of agriculture in the US. This is a big problem that should be undone because its unacceptable. I'd be keen to see all of China's US holdings to be seized or forcibly sold off. China can have the $2 billion sent back to them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/1 ... ase-499893

Do you have any idea how big the United States' food surplus is?

[Kilobugya]

I saw that China supposed owns $2 billion worth of agriculture in the US. This is a big problem that should be undone because its unacceptable. I'd be keen to see all of China's US holdings to be seized or forcibly sold off. China can have the $2 billion sent back to them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/1 ... ase-499893

Simple solution : abolish private property of land, except in a few limited cases (such as a small-sized garden around people's primary residence or a small farm where only the land owners work). For all the rest, land should be owned collectively, either by a government (city, state, federal) or for agricultural land, as a cooperative owned by all the farmers working on it.

[Rusozak]

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Yikes

Time to resurrect William T. Sherman.

[Genivaria]

I saw that China supposed owns $2 billion worth of agriculture in the US. This is a big problem that should be undone because its unacceptable. I'd be keen to see all of China's US holdings to be seized or forcibly sold off. China can have the $2 billion sent back to them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/1 ... ase-499893

Simple solution : abolish private property of land, except in a few limited cases (such as a small-sized garden around people's primary residence or a small farm where only the land owners work). For all the rest, land should be owned collectively, either by a government (city, state, federal) or for agricultural land, as a cooperative owned by all the farmers working on it.

Compared to landlords and homeowners associations? Yes please this.
More the coops than the government though.

[Saiwania]

Do you have any idea how big the United States' food surplus is?

The US should aspire to have the cheapest and most abundant food supply in the world. The point is that I don't want China getting anything from the US. China is what I'd consider an enemy country and regime. It is bad enough that China became the manufacturer for most of the world for too long.

[Tarsonis]

I saw that China supposed owns $2 billion worth of agriculture in the US. This is a big problem that should be undone because its unacceptable. I'd be keen to see all of China's US holdings to be seized or forcibly sold off. China can have the $2 billion sent back to them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/1 ... ase-499893

Simple solution : abolish private property of land, except in a few limited cases (such as a small-sized garden around people's primary residence or a small farm where only the land owners work). For all the rest, land should be owned collectively, either by a government (city, state, federal) or for agricultural land, as a cooperative owned by all the farmers working on it.

nah

[Immortan Khan]

The problem with those secession movements is that it does not address the core issue that is dividing the country. It is not a North Vs. South issue like during the last illegal armed insurrection attempt. Currently, it is a rural vs. urban divide that is fueling tensions. This is shown in how Texas Democrats had to flee the state to preserve the rights of the urban populations being stripped of their voting rights by the Republican lead—and rural based—legislature. It is shown in how the rural Republican extremist/populists movement in Idaho is attempting to annex parts of Oregon and Washington, and leaving out the urban coastal regions.

Rural-urban this, Norf vs Souf that. These are the real American balkanization demarcation lines.

Couldn't find one for the NHL, most likely they'll be used as crack assault troops or undergo some sort of cossackization.

[Neanderthaland]

The problem with those secession movements is that it does not address the core issue that is dividing the country. It is not a North Vs. South issue like during the last illegal armed insurrection attempt. Currently, it is a rural vs. urban divide that is fueling tensions. This is shown in how Texas Democrats had to flee the state to preserve the rights of the urban populations being stripped of their voting rights by the Republican lead—and rural based—legislature. It is shown in how the rural Republican extremist/populists movement in Idaho is attempting to annex parts of Oregon and Washington, and leaving out the urban coastal regions.

Rural-urban this, Norf vs Souf that. These are the real American balkanization demarcation lines.

Couldn't find one for the NHL, most likely they'll be used as crack assault troops or undergo some sort of cossackization.

I'm tickled that the "Rockies" nation is almost entirely East of the Rockies.

[Kannap]

The problem with those secession movements is that it does not address the core issue that is dividing the country. It is not a North Vs. South issue like during the last illegal armed insurrection attempt. Currently, it is a rural vs. urban divide that is fueling tensions. This is shown in how Texas Democrats had to flee the state to preserve the rights of the urban populations being stripped of their voting rights by the Republican lead—and rural based—legislature. It is shown in how the rural Republican extremist/populists movement in Idaho is attempting to annex parts of Oregon and Washington, and leaving out the urban coastal regions.

Rural-urban this, Norf vs Souf that. These are the real American balkanization demarcation lines.

Couldn't find one for the NHL, most likely they'll be used as crack assault troops or undergo some sort of cossackization.

Need a balkanized republic for those who don't partake in team sports

[Punished UMN]

The problem with those secession movements is that it does not address the core issue that is dividing the country. It is not a North Vs. South issue like during the last illegal armed insurrection attempt. Currently, it is a rural vs. urban divide that is fueling tensions. This is shown in how Texas Democrats had to flee the state to preserve the rights of the urban populations being stripped of their voting rights by the Republican lead—and rural based—legislature. It is shown in how the rural Republican extremist/populists movement in Idaho is attempting to annex parts of Oregon and Washington, and leaving out the urban coastal regions.

Rural-urban this, Norf vs Souf that. These are the real American balkanization demarcation lines.

Couldn't find one for the NHL, most likely they'll be used as crack assault troops or undergo some sort of cossackization.

Generalfeldmarschall Acuna will lead his panzer spearhead into Florida to seize Florida and open the way for our Cuban and Venezuelan allies to ship arms into Braves country for the ultimate offensive against the meth-addicted Cardinal menace to seize Missouri lebensraum and the NLCS pin that was stolen from us in 2019.

[Immortan Khan]

Rural-urban this, Norf vs Souf that. These are the real American balkanization demarcation lines.

Couldn't find one for the NHL, most likely they'll be used as crack assault troops or undergo some sort of cossackization.

Need a balkanized republic for those who don't partake in team sports

I'm afraid they're to be sent to the mines and latifundas to support the war effort.

Rural-urban this, Norf vs Souf that. These are the real American balkanization demarcation lines.

Couldn't find one for the NHL, most likely they'll be used as crack assault troops or undergo some sort of cossackization.

Generalfeldmarschall Acuna will lead his panzer spearhead into Florida to seize Florida and open the way for our Cuban and Venezuelan allies to ship arms into Braves country for the ultimate offensive against the meth-addicted Cardinal menace to seize Missouri lebensraum and the NLCS pin that was stolen from us in 2019.

Mein Hauptgeschäftsführer...Acuna suffered an injury and his army has refused to move.