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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Edited by fredhot16 on Nov 9th 2020 at 2:39:40 AM
Trans rights are human rights. TV Tropes is not a place for bigotry, cruelty, or dickishness, no matter who or their position.The different angles on the photos make it very hard to tell what’s actually changed.
Trump is very much petty enough to trash the lawn to spite Biden, but I’d wait until we have more than one photo from Twitter (even if it is a journalist on Twitter, journalists often don’t behave well on Twitter) before making a guess as to what’s happening.
Edited by Silasw on Nov 9th 2020 at 10:45:12 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIn addition to Mike Esper being removed as defense secretary, the administration also removed the lead scientist of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Michael Kuperberg, on Friday evening.
The official, Michael Kuperberg, a climate scientist who had been executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) since July 2015, was told Friday evening to return to his previous position as a scientist at the Energy Department. He had been expected to stay on through the production of the fifth edition of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment.
The climate assessment examines the present-day harms that climate change is having on the United States and makes projections about future damage down to the local level from greenhouse-gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
The USGCRP is a program Congress created to help coordinate the climate science programs of 13 federal agencies. The program works to "advance understanding of the changing Earth system" and facilitates the production of the National Climate Assessment and other reports. Its reports also help inform the work of international organizations such as the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Kuperberg directed that office through the release of the fourth edition of the report, which detailed the potentially dire economic and health consequences for Americans should the country take little to no action to cut emissions and prepare for climate change’s effects, such as sea-level rise, droughts and hotter, longer-lasting heat waves.
Trump administration taps mainstream climate scientist to run key climate review
The report, produced by federal and outside scientists, angered the White House, since President Trump has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the climate threat and the scientific consensus that human activities are playing the dominant role in warming the planet.
Kuperberg’s removal was confirmed by a current federal official and a former White House official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the matter. It was also confirmed by Don Wuebbles, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois who was director of the Fourth National Climate Assessment and is a friend of Kuperberg’s.
"Mike called me on Saturday and said he was just notified that he was let go, that his detail was over and that he should go back to the Department of Energy," Wuebbles said.
The former White House official described Kuperberg as "shocked" by his removal. "He was extremely dedicated," the official said. “He did a very good job of figuring out how to walk that political line. He had no idea it was coming.”
Kuperberg did not reply to requests for comment.
His dismissal comes just as climate scientist Betsy Weatherhead takes over as the federal coordinator of the next assessment, which is just getting underway. Weatherhead will work with the USGCRP but be formally located within the U.S. Geological Survey. While the bulk of the work on the report will take place under Joe Biden’s administration, government officials are starting to select which scientists will participate in writing it now, with the first deadline for author nominations coming up on Saturday.
Removing Kuperberg could allow the White House to insert someone whose climate science views more closely align with Trump’s.
The USGCRP has traditionally stayed insulated from political influences, instead serving as a coordinating office and funding agency for carrying out the major report and providing other climate science information useful to the public and policymakers.
Kuperberg’s removal "seems quite consistent with decisions at NOAA and elsewhere," said Kathy Jacobs, who is director of the Center for Climate Adaptation Science and Solutions at the University of Arizona and ran the Third National Climate Assessment. "[It’s] a last-minute attempt to remove people who may not be perceived as supporting the president’s agenda."
The removal comes in the wake of the hiring of two recent high-level political officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), David Legates and Ryan Maue, who are on the record challenging the seriousness of climate change. Staff members at that top climate science agency have expressed concerns that those appointees could try to influence the next assessment as well, although neither has been tasked with a formal role in producing it.
It also occurs against the backdrop of the removal of several government officials at the White House’s request, including a senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the director of the National Nuclear Security Administration and Monday’s firing of Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper.
Wuebbles and Jacobs said they did not understand why the administration would dismiss Kuperberg now.
"I can only speculate they want to see if they can manipulate the Fifth National Climate Assessment before the next administration comes in," Wuebbles said. "Why they want to do that, I don’t understand."
Jacobs said any damage done by removing Kuperberg could be reversed by the Biden administration.
"I would be more concerned if Trump had won the election," she said. "If USGCRP is rudderless for a few months, I don’t consider that a devastating situation. The question is: What are they going to do in the interim?"
Brenda Ekwurzel, director of climate science for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Kuperberg’s removal at this time is "troubling."
"I think people underestimate how important USGCRP is," she said, emphasizing that it plays a role in coordinating reports for the international community, as well. "It does not send a good signal internationally," she said, especially considering the United States is set to rejoin the Paris climate accords under Biden.
So many times of telling people that youth are not the liberal bastions they keep assuming, after having to work with them and pick up experiance with that only to be shouted down by people not wanting to hear it.
Still depressing to actualy have a number on it though. :/
Trump's support isn't hillbillies.
Hillbillies, the real ones, are iffy on him. Believe me, I know them.
White suburbanites are Trump's base.
Mind you, I generally lump the people who think poor working rural whites are die hard racists with the same people that makes up Trumps base.
They're both bigots.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 9th 2020 at 3:36:01 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Are you referring to hillbillies, or rednecks? My best friend's family could be considered rednecks, but they did not vote for the Republicans. Then again the friend is the only person in his family to have actually gone to college and loves science, and his brother can be a bit of a conman himself sometimes and can spot another a mile away.
As a mathematician I'm always interested in these sorts of things but I'd also like to look at the data in specific ways that they probably don't have a large enough sample size for it to be meaningful. For example looking at the data, you have that young white voters voted for biden-trump 51%-45%. Young white women 55%-42% and young white men were 45%-51%. I often times like breakdowns of are they in college, grad school, where do they live, and I often times looking at all of them together. (I.e. a new york college graduate living in a city vs. kentucky college graduate living in the suburbs) They usually don't track them all together though probably because the sample size would turn those into Overly Narrow Superlative situations.
You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the midI think Trump's support among young white people particularly is due to a sort of youthful edginess and rebellion. Basically, young people like to rebel against authority and the codes of authority. In the case of white people, these codes often include, basically, political correctness.
I suspect it's common for white people to view rules about not saying things that are racist, etc, in a similar light to how one views rules about not drinking or not having sex. They're "lame" morals imposed on you by your teachers and parents, and rebelling against them is "cool".
Thus, Trump has considerable support among these sorts of people who support Trump because he was the biggest middle finger to what they consider "lame" rules made by killjoy moralists.
Leviticus 19:34Anecdotally from working with them it's not rebelion.
It's that they get most of the first time info on any subject from YouTube, where the alt right has a MUCH stronger presence them the left.
Even people receptive to liberal ideas like a trans student are getting a lot of there initial exposure to new political encounters from people like Steven Crowder... which drives them rightward since it makes them think that the left has gone too far, even though they are only being exposed to a caraculture of the left designed to be wrong.
It's why I am always so passionate that the left needs a better online presence.
TL:DR Youth are learning from Youtube, Youtube is dominated by the alt-right.
Edited by Imca on Nov 9th 2020 at 3:56:46 AM
No, but its something worth looking into, especialy when the numbers are backing up the fact that they are drifting more rightward then anticipated
Edit: Especially with how the almighty algorithm attempts to drag any one with even a remote interest in say videogames into the alt-right politisphere.
Edited by Imca on Nov 9th 2020 at 3:59:20 AM
Can we please not?
CIRCLE put together an interactive map showing what the U.S. would look like if only young people voted and the results are staggering: Biden would win 33 of 50 states.
Democrats haven't won white voters as a whole in decades, so I'd say these aren't bad numbers. Young voters aren't gonna bring some liberal utopia, but they clearly favor Democrats on the whole. It's up to the party to maintain that support, though.
Youth turnout was 49-52% from 2008-2016 in the Presidential elections too, so the more conservative estimates would be about the same, 56% would mean a big increase.
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That's asserting that they're A) more rightward than expected and B) the difference is "because You Tube".
Looking about data should come before hypothesising why and trying to take action that way. And that means more data collection.
I would agree that right-wing youtube channels are definitely one reason but it's hard to measure how much of an impact they have in comparison to everything else. A lot of these kids are probably raised by conservative whites and thusly inherit the terrible values of their parents.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Nov 9th 2020 at 9:14:03 AM

It's also junk food news. Frankly, it makes anti-Trumpers lool petty and vindictive without serving any useful purpose.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman