There really doesn't seem to be much else we can do. Write your congressfolks - especially if you've got red congressfolk (if they're blue congressfolk they'll already want to make sure that NOAA survives). This is just one issue out of many that highlight the stakes involved.
>if they're blue congressfolk they'll already want to make sure that NOAA survives
Even the blues will want to know that their constituents are paying attention. Swing state blues especially tend to lose their spine without support from their base.
Call them anyway and tell them to replace Biden with someone that can actually make a coherent case against Trump. These backroom discussions are happening right now.
You'd first have to drop the pretence of neutrality that most voting advocacy efforts lead with. Only one party has a policy platform of gutting state and federal bodies that are thorns in their climate change denialism.
People who need encouragement to vote aren't going to do their own research and dont have the ability to analyze the repercussions of their vote. NOAA policy isn't going to be mentioned on the campaign trail.
> You'd first have to drop the pretence of neutrality that most voting advocacy efforts lead with.
I bet there are legal and practical requirements for that. For instance, a lack of a pretense of neutrality would probably undermine the voters' feeling that they're exercising their voice, and instead make many of them less likely to vote because feel like they're being used to serve someone else's goals.
> Only one party has a policy platform of gutting state and federal bodies that are thorns in their climate change denialism.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats have such a policy platform. The official 2024 Republican Party Platform [0] doesn't mention anything about gutting the NOAA.
Project 2025 isn't part of the Republican platform–it isn't an official Republican Party document. It is just a wishlist from a coalition of conservative thinktanks. While those thinktanks are Republican-aligned, it would be a mistake to think any given GOP politician (Trump included) necessarily agrees with any or all of their proposals (or is even aware of them), and their proposals have no official status in the Republican Party. From time to time, Democratic-aligned thinktanks and groups publish their own "wishlists", and those aren't official Democratic Party policies either.
> Republicans will immediately stabilize the Economy by slashing wasteful Government spending and promoting Economic Growth.
Just need to read between the lines. Project 2025 argues NOAA is wasteful and ineffective public spending. The party platform is to eliminate wasteful public spending. Hmm...I wonder what'll get cut...
It is incredible to see people argue policy documents pushed by most of the largest conservative think tanks will probably have no bearing on anything the GOP will do. As if the Heritage Foundation has little to no influence over the modern GOP. What a joker.
And especially when it comes with neutering NOAA, its like everyone just forgot they were pretty close to doing it a few years ago. And have tried it in the past as well. You're essentially arguing for people to not trust what their eyes are seeing. This isn't some random one-off policy document spun this year, this is stuff the GOP has been trying to do for twenty fucking years.
Various corps have been lobbying for the NOAA to stop providing weather info directly to the public, so that it can be more efficiently (read that as monetized) distributed.
Seems pretty evil, since the vast majority of sat based and radar based weather info, including an upgrade ever decade or so, is funded by the NOAA. Of course the corporations want that part to continue. The corps just want weather info from NOAA for free, then charge users money (or ads) to get it.
They put forward the legislation. It got called out for how obviously corrupt Santorum was being in that case (Santorm got $2k literally two days before he submitted it!). That bill is still there, waiting to be called up. There hasn't been a vote either way on it.
They tried appointing the Accuweather CEO, which they didn't call to a final vote (for unknown reasons). That Senate was pretty incompenent and barely able to function though and only had majority briefly, so its not really a surprise they didn't pass something they claimed to want to do. After two years the nomination was rescinded.
I'd put it at being too obviously corrupt and too incompetent instead of all talk on the subject.
And even if it is supposedly all talk, why would you vote for the guy who's talking about hurting you all the time? Hey this guy's been swinging a knife at me for a while now. He's probably not going to stab me though; I'll ask him to hang around.
Not “they”, he. Santorum’s bill had zero cosponsors. You are misrepresenting the policy proposal of a single GOP Senator as something that GOP Senate Caucus as a whole supported.
> That bill is still there, waiting to be called up. There hasn't been a vote either way on it.
That bill is almost 20 years old now, and Santorum is no longer a Senator. The bill is expired, no longer under consideration-they can’t call a vote on it.
If a Senator wanted to pursue this, they’d have to introduce a brand new bill in their own name. Sure, they could copy and paste the exact same text if they wanted, just change the 2005 to 2025 [0]. But officially, the Senate would consider it a new and separate bill, with a different bill number
But I’d be surprised if any of them will - Santorum’s bill was very unpopular with his colleagues, he couldn’t convince any of them to cosponsor it. I don’t think anything has changed
> And even if it is supposedly all talk, why would you vote for the guy who's talking about hurting you all the time? Hey this guy's been swinging a knife at me for a while now. He's probably not going to stab me though; I'll ask him to hang around.
I’m not an American so I’m not voting either way on this. But I have American friends/colleagues, who’ve expressed positive enough opinions of Trump, some of them may actually vote for him. (Not that their vote really counts, since I don’t believe any of them lives in a “swing state”.) And I can understand some of their logic. Trump has never said anything about abolishing the National Weather Service, he’s said he hasn’t even read Project 2025 and people believe him (you don’t need to be a Trump supporter to do so-does Trump have the attention span to read 900+ pages of thinktank blather?) Most Americans deciding whether or not to vote for him are thinking about other issues than this one.
[0] Actually probably not - they’d need to get the drafting lawyers to review it because 20 years of subsequent legislation may have introduced changes to the laws being amended, requiring updates to Santorum’s bill text to resolve conflicts - the legal equivalent of rebasing your Git branch
> he couldn’t convince any of them to cosponsor it. I don’t think anything has changed
You seriously don't think anything has changed in the GOP in 20 years?
And you're not arguing in bad faith?
> Trump has never said anything about abolishing the National Weather Service,
He already tried appointing the AccuWeather CEO for the job last time, who mostly wanted to privatize the NWS.
Maybe he hasn't directly said it, but he's actively moved to do it. Once again you're arguing people to just ignore the facts they can see with their own eyes.
And sure, maybe he hasn't read Project 2025. But the people writing it are the people he appointed last time and is likely to appoint again.
> You seriously don't think anything has changed in the GOP in 20 years?
Lots has changed-but about this topic? I don’t see evidence much has changed about this one. It remains, then as now, an idea some people in the GOP support, but they are still struggling to get everyone else on board.
> And you're not arguing in bad faith?
The HN guidelines say “Assume good faith”. [0] I don’t think your suggesting I’m “arguing in bad faith” is complying with that guideline.
> He already tried appointing the AccuWeather CEO for the job last time, who mostly wanted to privatize the NWS.
We don’t know why he nominated Myers. It isn’t necessarily because he personally supports this particular policy agenda. It could simply because some advisor talked the guy up to him. That advisor might have supported the agenda in question, but might have sold the candidate to Trump on other grounds.
And the fact that the Senate never called a confirmation vote on him implies that GOP Senators weren’t happy with the nomination behind the scenes. Which is evidence against your narrative that the GOP is 100% behind this agenda.
Furthermore, even if Myers had been confirmed, the NOAA Administrator doesn’t have the power to defund or abolish or privatize his own agency - only Congress can do that. So even if they’d won the battle to install Myers, it might not have actually done much to advance that policy agenda.
> Idon’t think your suggesting I’m “arguing in bad faith” is complying with that guideline.
> We don’t know why he nominated Myers
When you're making statements like nothing much has changed in the GOP's opinion of the NWS and climate change in 20 years and it's a giant mystery why Myers (who so often talked about this position) would get appointed really strains my ability to see it as arguing in good faith. You're arguing for me to ignore reality over and over and over.
> It could simply because some advisor talked the guy up to him.
You mean like the people behind Project 2025 which you act like would have zero influence in Trump's administration?
> Which is evidence against your narrative that the GOP is 100% behind this agenda.
Maybe not 100%, but once again one side is openly advocating for it and working towards it and the other side isn't. You're telling people to ignore reality. It's not a sure thing everything in Project 2025 will happen if Trump wins, but if you don't like any of it you probably shouldn't vote for the people who endorse it.
It's not a guaranteed thing the NWS will be privatized if the GOP win in November, sure. But voting GOP is to vote towards that end. With the NWS, with Social Security, abortion rights, contraceptive rights, gay marriage, and so much more.
You are missing a big factor in this - “neutering” the National Weather Service is not something corporate lobbyists agree on. Yes, commercial weather services would love it to happen, because it would force people to buy more of their products, thereby significantly increasing by their revenue-so of course their lobbyists will be urging for that “neutering” (or even abolition) to take place. But, on the other side, many industries (e.g. aviation, space, maritime, agriculture) are heavily reliant on weather forecasts, and are used to getting them free or cheaply from the government, and don’t want to start paying $$$ to commercial weather services for them - so their lobbyists are going to be urging the opposite. And these other industries have a lot more money and established influence than commercial weather services do, so their lobbyists will win
The Wikipedia article you cited [0] says:
> The bill attracted no cosponsors in the Senate and eventually died in committee
So Santorum couldn’t find a single other Republican Senator to openly support his bill. Why? He may have been in AccuWeather’s pocket, but the other GOP Senators were listening to other lobbyists telling them to do the opposite.
Also, I expect the Pentagon would have been complaining about it behind closed doors. Weather forecasting is very important in the military, and the military is used to getting it for free from NOAA. Forcing them to buy it from commercial weather services would be adding a new expense to the defense budget. Not that people in the Pentagon - and defense contractor lobbyists - are opposed to budget increases, but they’ve got other things they’d rather spend it on than giving bucketloads of DOD money to AccuWeather.
This is the thing about “Rein in Wasteful Federal Spending”-everyone in the GOP agrees with it in principle, but not necessarily on what spending is wasteful. There are other areas of spending where you are far more likely to get a GOP consensus to slash it (e.g. NEA, NEH, CPB, NPR)
Whereas, Project 2025 is just thinktank blather. Thinktanks can recommend doing anything they like, no guarantee it will happen. I doubt many GOP politicians bother to read the whole thing. Very likely, if anyone in a Trump II administration actually tries to implement the “privatize the National Weather Service” part, lobbyists from industries that would be disadvantaged by that will swoop in, and the whole thing will die. Just like it did in 2005.
NOAA spending on medium-to-long term climate modelling, as opposed to short-term weather observation and forecasting, is more likely to get cut - it has limited short-term commercial value, so not many corporate lobbyists to defend it. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but it is what it is. (I should point out I am just an outside observer of US politics, not a participant, from the opposite side of the planet.)
You keep acting like it's something that would never happen but just completely ignore the biggest policy groups in the GOP are very vocally pushing it and Trump tried appointing the AccuWeather CEO his first time around.
You're arguing it's something the GOP would just never think to do despite the fact they're very openly thinking and trying it.
Unless you're arguing the Heritage Foundation has little to no influence in the modern GOP...
How many GOP members running for office have denounced Project 2025? None? Hmm...
> You keep acting like it's something that would never happen but just completely ignore the biggest policy groups in the GOP are very vocally pushing it
No, I’m not claiming it will never happen. Nobody knows the future. I’m just saying I think you are significantly overestimating the probability of it happening. You cite the evidence which supports estimating that probability higher, but appear to be ignoring the lines of evidence that support a lower estimate instead
I think you also misunderstand something about Project 2025 - it is a kitchen sink. To get such a wide array of conservative groups to back it, the Heritage Foundation made sure there was “something for everyone”. Not all of its proposals are equally important - to Heritage, or to other groups signed on to it. This is far from the top of the conservative movement’s agenda-it is a secondary issue. And secondary issues are the most likely to get defeated by counter-lobbying - as has happened here before, and I can’t see why it won’t happen again
I note you haven’t actually disagreed with my counterargument that a lot of corporate lobbyists will be lobbying against this policy. I just feel like you are ignoring that because it doesn’t support your position
It's not a guaranteed thing, sure. But with one party it's like a 0.00000005% chance and the other it's like a 10% chance. Which one to pick knowing the stakes are high on this one...
Convince literally everyone you have ever spoken to, regardless of opinions or political affiliations, that they should vote.
A hundred million Americans have this insane idea that voting doesn't matter, or doesn't change things, or they don't like their options enough, as if that means somehow one of the two options won't end up in charge in a couple months.
The point of voting is not to get your personal favorite personality at the highest office. The point of voting is to take a poll that explicitly influences the direction your organization goes.
Advocate aggressively for things like ranked choice voting and voting holidays to ensure typically poor, underpriviledged people have no more excuses to not vote.
> A hundred million Americans have this insane idea that voting doesn't matter, or doesn't change things, or they don't like their options enough, as if that means somehow one of the two options won't end up in charge in a couple months.
Some people may think that first part is hyperbolic but it's really not far off from the real numbers. In 2020 we had a better than normal turnout with 2/3rds of the voting eligible public voting. Even with that, though, 80 million or so eligible voters didn't vote.
If one wants to live an honorable pleasant life, than honestly vote for your own interests.
It is wise to acknowledge people as they are, and not as one would like them to be... Note this perspective is not necessarily incompatible with Neutral Evil alignments. =)
They (DNC leadership) are already pushing him onto the ballot before the convention under the guise of meeting the Ohio ballot requirement, while ignoring that Ohio gave them an exception for the convention.
There is still concerted effort from both within[1] and outside the party[2] to push back against rushing the process. His fate is by no means guaranteed.
While there's almost certainly an element of "let's get this done and over with before the push to switch out Biden grows even larger," Jamie Harrison's explanation[0] would suggest that there's still a very real legal concern behind the push. Specifically, this little nugget[1] from the Ohio Constitution:
> [...]No law passed by the general assembly shall go into effect until ninety days after it shall have been filed by the governor in the office of the secretary of state, except as herein provided.[...]
So while Ohio eventually passed a law that would extend the deadline to avoid the original problem, because it wasn't done passed as an emergency law not subject to referendum[2] since that would have required a 2/3 majority, that law doesn't actually go into effect until 90 days after its passage.
In other words, the law changing the notification requirement from 90 days prior to a general election doesn't actually go into effect until 90 days after its passage...which is after the original notification deadline. It might seem like a technicality, but it all but guarantees the issue will have to be litigated and there's a significant possibility Democrats would lose the case in that case. Risking the possibility of Biden being left off the ballot as a result would be an absurd dereliction on the DNC's part.
The original post asked what can you do. Apart from hopelessness, you can put your body on the line. Hold a sign. Be present. Take up space. It's something.
Biden could be a literal corpse come election day and his cabinet/admin will still not paywall NOAA so why does that matter?
Both Trump and Biden are abysmal picks, for rather different reasons, but come November 9th, one of them will be chosen as the winner, because that's how the American electoral system is designed. If you don't like either of them, it doesn't matter. They still have explicit visions and plans for the future of the country, and surely you like one more than the other right?
People need to get this "perfect candidate is the enemy of the least-worst candidate" shit out of their head. The American political system was designed by a bunch of ethics and philosophy turbo nerds with an insanely optimistic view of how humans organize, a blatent neglect of already understood problems (refusing to create a term limit for the presidency even as Washington was trying to avoid being president for life, choosing to take no preventative action against the formation of political parties despite them obviously forming before the constitution was even finished, no formal system of succession, even though politicians were still dueling each other), and zero systems engineering or practical experience. It is flawed in all the ways you would expect a student project from first timers will be.
This stupid system is the one we are stuck with, and by design it can only be changed by participation, unless you are fine with murdering half your neighbors to enact a populist revolution and also convince everyone else to murder half their neighbors in your populist revolution.
Staying home isn't a protest. Not voting doesn't hurt anyone but yourself. Choose the direction you want the country to go in.
