The person you're responding to is pointing to a common corruption in politics, where politicians can receive money (read:bribes) and then shape their political messaging because of it, usually without much actual difficulty or official scrutiny. They're not saying that the exclusions are actually valuable to the general public.

Nope! If you make $5M in one single year, that's enough to retire immediately with a monthly income greater than $5251 already. They don't need the bonus.

Yeah, but that's only because everyone in Maine keeps getting killed by Stephen King monsters, and those are tracked as accidental deaths.

And do what, exactly? Provide the exact excuse the federal government is posturing for, allowing them to justify the actions that our various local/state governments are fighting to show aren't real? Should we start an insurrection, so that Trump can start gunning down citizens with impunity and incite even more dramatic acts of violence from his base?

Truly, what do you think Portlanders, as individuals or small groups, could be doing that would meaningfully prevent the administration from enacting their agenda? Portland isn't on fire. Trump says it is. Should they burn it down to prove him wrong?

I don't think they meant geographic size. In terms of population they're around 9th, in terms of GDP more like 25th. They're not Malta obviously, but they don't really stack up against the big traditionally heavyweight countries by most metrics.

None. All 4 Democrats on the committee voted in favor. It wasn't a floor vote, it was an amendment to a crypto bill in committee.

His main priority is establishing that the US elections are a sham being manipulated by the Left, so that his administration can step in and take appropriate measures to ensure the security of future elections as things go forward towards the midterms.

Well... as the article pretty explicitly mentions, they would normally have staged resources at a nearer location so that their response could be more rapid, but Noem's new rules hampered them by being overly burdensome. And Texan crews were already operating.

This doesn't invalidate your point, but DF is still under active development. The game has been worked on consistently since the early aughts.

Hey! Be reasonable. We're the leaders in lots of things! Obesity, maternal mortality relative to our medical technology, incarceration rates, destitution from medical expenses, incompetent and corrupt rapist executives... All sorts of things!

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

It's not though, it's a very direct exposure to other viewpoints. Those who can't reflect on the consequences weren't going to be convinced by you talking at them in any case.

Pretty sure it's Make America Horrible Again