[AnimalMuppet]

They've been trying for 20 years? Not very effectively, then.

In particular, haven't they owned both houses of Congress and the presidency in that time?

So either they're all talk (on this subject), or they're incompetent at doing what they want.

[vel0city]

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 After two years the nomination was rescinded.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.

[skissane]

> They put forward the legislation.

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

[vel0city]

> 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.

[skissane]

> 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.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[vel0city]

> 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.