Extreme Commanders

Simmsy wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 5:49 pm

Schumer postpones his book tour, fearing protests over the CR vote. I feel a little bad, but he needs to get the message.

Yeah, I never liked him much, but my take on him is increasingly lower over the last ten years.

This age thing---and to be factual--- white and male thing, is an unfortunate matter for both parties.

Despite the right being touted these days as the masters of social media and the Joe Rogan fan base and tech bro culture, it's still obviously dominated by old white males, and by a huge margin.

The left is more diverse but still suffers from a too limited range of representation. And specifically too many old guys.

Intelligent decent competent people exist within many demographics.

Broad demographic representation brings different useful perspectives to more effectively address all sorts of social challenges.

We need more cowbell.

Emir of Schmoe wrote: Sun Mar 09, 2025 7:40 am

You mention the CA regulation environment for building a new steel mill. Yeah, people don’t want their homes affected by having a steel mill in their backyard. It’s no surprise the current administration is eager to abandon EPA regulations that have been enacted to protect residents from the associated hazards of a new plant/mill in their neighborhood. Any area where a steel mill is to be built will have a laundry list of regulations they want followed to ensure their homes & neighborhoods are safe.

The US steel mini-mill response didn’t work. Consumers want cheap. Do they really care where it’s produced? Sure, some do. But people walk around with hats made in China, shirts made in Bangladesh, pants made in Eastern Europe & shoes made in Vietnam. Because of the cost.

I've cut a lot of this out. And you're right on a lot of it. The situation is complex and nobody knows exactly what's going to happen. At best people there is intelligent speculating. It has been along time since there's been a trade war at this scale and the world has changed a lot in the meant time. Even if Trump sticks with the tariffs, it will take time for companies to plan and build.

A couple of things from what I've left:
1. There's no doubt they are cutting the EPA because they see it as an obstacle to bringing industry back. However, some states already have pretty lax environmental regulations and without an EPA companies will be able to build in them.

2. I don't know why you say the mini-mill response failed. Nucor (who started the mini-mills) is today the biggest steel producer in the US. All the other big steel companies that they were initially competing with their mini-mills have gone out of business. If you go back to the 1990s when they started building mini-mills to produce large sheets of steel, their stock price has relatively easily out priced the S&P 500. They are the success of the US steel industry. And countries like China then copied and built mini-mills. Most mills being built any where today is a mini-mill and it is expected that going forward almost all steel will be recycled and can be processed via a mini-mill.

https://rollformingmagazine.com/mini-mi ... el-market/
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/met ... a-in-china

The mini-mill innovation to generate sheets of steel that used to have to built by the larger plants was a successful US innovation that has been copied around the world.

(I will point out that his is actually another issue with bringing the jobs back beyond the inability to bring back the jobs due to exports. The mini mills require fewer workers to generate the same amount of final product. Even if the US produced the same amount of steel products, it wouldn't employee the same number of workers.)

3. What the American consumer wants doesn't matter at this level if the electorate is willing to vote for people like Trump. That's the point of the tariffs. You might want your cheap whatever from where ever, but if support for the tariffs hold, it won't be cheap and you won't really want it or get it.

Election officials face limited options as federal security resources fall away

A nonprofit agency that suddenly lost some of the federal funds it used to provide crucial election security support to states gave more details about the effect of the cuts in an email sent to state government officials on Wednesday.

In a memo obtained by Votebeat, the Center for Internet Security said it is evaluating the impact of the funding cuts and will continue providing many services as it does so, though it didn’t address how long that would continue. Those services include help responding to cybersecurity incidents such as hacking and ransomware attempts, and coordinated sharing of data about threats that can help election officials assess whether something is an isolated event or part of a larger attack.

CIS promised regular updates as it works “to determine how best to support these critical services without federal funding.”

Several states have passed laws in recent years banning private funding or support for election offices, limiting their ability to seek outside help. The CIS memo appears to acknowledge that some state and local officials might need to withdraw from services because of those laws.

“It is recommended that elections organizations contact their local counsel for advice regarding acceptance of services that are not federally funded,” the organization wrote in the memo.

The cuts reflect a broader shift in priorities at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under the Trump administration, which says it is refocusing on “mission-critical areas” and cutting services it considers redundant. CISA is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Election officials are still evaluating what the changes will mean, said Amy Cohen, executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors.

CISA confirmed this week that it had cut $10 million in federal funding for activities under its cooperative agreement with the Center for Internet Security, citing a need to eliminate overlap and redirect resources. A spokesperson said some services — including stakeholder engagement, cyber threat intelligence, and cyber incident response — were deemed “duplicative” and no longer aligned with department priorities. A CISA spokesperson declined to comment further on how these programs were duplicative.

The cuts target two clearinghouses run by CIS: the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or MS-ISAC, and the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, EI-ISAC, which provide cybersecurity intelligence, monitoring, and coordination for state and local governments.

The MS-ISAC serves a broad range of government agencies, while EI-ISAC was created specifically to help election officials with targeted threat analysis, real-time alerts, and response support.

Click on the link for the full article

DC police let DOGE in against the wishes of USIP officials and then kicked those USIP officials out

Lin said that the U.S. Institute for Peace called the D.C. police on the Musk team members in an effort to stop them from trespassing because the institute has control of its own building and the land it sits on. But instead, the D.C. police allowed them to enter and kicked out the institute’s officials.

Before the D.C. police arrived, the Musk team had tried for hours to enter the building. They attempted to enter on Friday, but that effort was unsuccessful.