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[–] 241 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (8 children)

I wouldn't call this a meme. It is fucking horrible news though

Edit. It's half true, see comments below

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  • [–] 33 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    Idk. Is this even real? Is this a real thing that is happening? I guess it's a meme insofar as it's a very ridiculous, far-fetched, outrageous thing for the leader of a country to do. And yet, I genuinely don't know whether to think that it's true...

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  • [–] 36 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    He is moving the forest service HQ out of washington DC and shutting down research. Ive not heard that he's closing regional offices.

    Ive always felt like people think of the National Forests as National Parks or preserves, but theyre not. National Forests are mixed use allowing for recreation and industry.

    Moving the HQ to the west makes sense to me since that's where a bulk of the forestland is. And we know that stupid people dont like smart people and their ideas, so research was bound to get torpedoed by Trump.

    https://apnews.com/article/forest-service-relocation-dc-salt-lake-city-eca93fa055ffce3528f5e8c71160a135

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    He is also not eliminating research, a lot of research projects are closing but this seems to be more of a re-org.

    Some jobs will change and some employees will be asked to move to new locations, according to a March 31 email that Thomas M. Schultz, Jr., the Forest Service chief, sent to employees of the research and development section.

    “The consolidation of research stations does not mean a retreat from the agency’s research mission,” Mr. Schultz said in the email. “Forest Service R&D has produced world-class science for over a century, and that will continue. The consolidation is about organizing the research enterprise more efficiently, not diminishing it.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

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  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I don't think it is real. It seems to be the oversimplified and overexaggerated story of what is really happening. The guardian says that the US Forest Service will move headquarters from Washington DC to Salt Lake City:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/31/us-forest-service-washington-dc-salt-lake-city

    This seems to cause many of its research facilities to (temporarily?) close:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

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  • [+] 158 points 7 months ago (8 children)
  • [–] 71 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Nobody could possibly have seen that coming.

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  • [–] 68 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    There couldn’t have possibly been a detailed plan released by a conservative think tank that was actively involved in his election campaign.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    If democracy is by the people, of the people, for the people-- does that mean people are pedophiles?

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Unfortunately, it kinda low key does.

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  • [–] 6 points 7 months ago

    At least apologists, yeah. The amount of people who I've seen say "Yeah, the Epstein files are concerning, but..." has killed any hope I had that they might come around someday. Instead I'm all in for getting kids into politics early enough for them to form their own opinions instead of those of their parents.

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  • [–] 94 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Even if Trump hadn’t raped children, being the exact opposite of Teddy Roosevelt would make him among the worst American presidents.

    The child-raping thing makes it considerably worse btw.

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  • [–] 89 points 7 months ago* (3 children)

    It’s such a shame. The US had such an exemplary park system, and now I anticipate the days where they bulldoze Yellowstone for a community of golf course condos that advertise their hot spring spa.

    I hope the employees steal the data on the way out and give them to a university or some entity who can save them.

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  • [–] -4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    This isn’t the park service, but rather the forest service, and afaik the title is wrong: its not being shut down just restructured. National forest lands will stay national forest lands, parks will stay parks, and nobody is losing their jobs.

    But I might be misinformed, happy to be corrected.

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  • [–] 27 points 7 months ago

    They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone. And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees called “state directors,” embedded in state capitals alongside the very governors, legislators, and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers demanding that the Forest Service log more, protect less, and get out of the way.

    https://www.hatchmag.com/articles/trump-administration-orders-dismantling-us-forest-service/7716263

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  • [–] 73 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    This makes me rationally livid.

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  • [–] 29 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

    It makes my fucking blood boil and I don't even live in the USA. For all the problems your country has, the parks, the forestry, the public land and wild spaces are truly unique and precious assets, even looking at it in a global sense rather than a national one. Something worth defending tooth and nail. So of course Trump would want to destroy all of that, because if he didn't, you could still make the case that he hadn't really irredeemably and permanently ruined every single aspect of the country.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    As someone who has a degree in wildlife conservation and has always been my dream to work for the Forest Services and have a career protecting what is left of this nation's natural wonder.

    And they are doing this explicitly for the purposes of letting the logging and oil industry rape these natural wonders for fucking profit. For fake, imaginary fucking social value of which they already possess an obscene amount.

    I cannot describe my anger and loathing.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)

    Imagine what a tiny increment in their profit margins this will produce, what an infinitesimal impact it will have on the wealth, and standard of living of a handful of individuals. And for this they will fuck up an irreplaceable natural heritage which is there for the whole world. It shows that the value such people place on our coexistence with the natural world is zero or less. Maybe they hate it because they can't understand why normal people love it. Maybe it's just that they will feel richer, in a relative sense, when they have made us all poorer.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago*

    Trust, I am well aware. Part of a conservation degree is economics, because conservation directly has to argue in economic terms in order to persuade governments and stakeholders for support of passing legislation.

    Unfortunately, the powers that be seem to have stopped caring entirely, ceasing to even performatively care. They want it all and they don't wish to negotiate anymore.

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  • [–] 71 points 7 months ago

    Shout out to my wife's uncle, the nature photographer who loves hiking and nature and voted for this chode to stop the woke mind virus. How's that going bud?

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  • [–] 141 points 7 months ago (19 children)

    This is so outrageous that I find it hard to believe. The cost of the entire US Forest Service must be minuscule, especially if you compare it to cost of waging unnecessary, illegal, and unethical wars all over the planet.

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  • [–] 127 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I'm sure this isn't really about saving money. It's about destroying the US Forest Service. That's the direct goal.

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  • This is also the second time that he's tried this. The first time was during his previous term, and though he was forced to reopen everything by the courts, the fact that he sold some of the federal land to (I think) oil companies was never acted upon, despite it being illegal to sell public land to corporate interests.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah this is more of a re-org than an elimination. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

    Still seems like it might cause problems but it's not the catastrophic change some people are making it out to be. And the Forest Service isn't just a bunch of tree-hugging conservationists their mission is basically the sustainable exploitation of US forests. So for that reason they are very important to industry.

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  • [+] -31 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    It’s actually $9B a year…which I wouldn’t call “minuscule” like PBS was.

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  • [–] 21 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Wildland Fire Management and the Wildfire Adjustment

    The largest share of FS appropriations goes to the WFM account. The WFM appropriation funds preparedness, or fire prevention, detection, equipment and training; wildfire suppression; and salaries and expenses.

    Overall, in FY2025, 51% of the agency's discretionary appropriations, including supplemental appropriations, were provided for these two accounts (26% WFM, 25% wildfire adjustment).

    https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13101

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  • [–] 38 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    The point is Trump will never do anything that isn't for deeply personal reasons. And he would never do anything solely to save money on the budget, he doesn't care about that at all. So either he does this out of pure spite, because it is a "liberal" thing, or more likely he does it because he has been bribed by whatever industries are eager to turn all that forest into shortsighted profit.

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  • [–] 63 points 7 months ago (12 children)

    Well one thing these last years have taught me is that the US president has way too much power.

    It was never an issue before because presidents didn't test it, but this is insanity.

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  • [–] 35 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    To be fair, in many ways the president doesn't have the power. But Republicans in congress are complicit, so when he does incredibly illegal, batshit crazy stuff, none of the mechanisms to keep him in check function. Him being president is a big problem, but the real problem here is the complete abdication of responsibility by those meant to check him.

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Which is what shocked me. I can understand that there are a few foul eggs in politics and if they take the wheel shits going down.

    But since his second term literally nobody did stop any illegal shit from him.

    The whole system is corrupt and broken. Nobody dares to defy the president even if they are supposed to!

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

    What is happening with this administration is exposing the great flaw of electoralism that anarchists and other leftists have been warning about for nearly a century.

    That if we do not restructure our society, our politics and our culture leave us manipulatable to where these corrupt individuals could systematically consolidate power and out themselves or their allies into positions of power.

    This is the result of not a decade but over a century of political and systemic manipulation by the owning-class.

    Living in the US during this time has radicalized me so much against the system.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago

    I don't think it's so much "fear" of defying the president as it is they're getting what they want from him (white christo-fascism), and they're getting bribed by the same people. Most of the Dems are also dependant on the same interests as well (not necessarily the white Christian-nationalist stuff, but the same money). The concentration of wealth has put far too much power into too few hands. These same people are heavily influencing politics and public opinion worldwide. Idk, how we get out of this mess; have to bring the entire global economic system to its knees; forcibly redistribute their wealth or make it worthless I guess.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    To be fair, in many ways the president doesn’t have the power.

    Yeah. Want a minimum wage increase, legal cannabis, childcare, family leave, protecting Roe, protecting democracy itself, pursuing justice for January 6 or Epstein's victims, and the president is conveniently powerless.

    Want to ignore the law to sell weapons for genocide and the president is fucking omnipotent.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    He is de facto incredibly powerful, but he is de jure not. He's only capable of doing those things because the checks and balances failed through the coordinated efforts of hundreds of Republican congressmen. Every heinous act that goes unchecked bears the implicit seal of approval of the entire Republican party. He could do many of the things you claim he's powerless to do, too, but he doesn't want to, and all the mechanisms meant to force him to have failed.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    That's definitely true, but I'd still say the president shouldn't even have the power to issue such decrees. Many of these things wouldn't even happen if the president would first have to convince the legislative body (even if controlled by his own party) to write a law. Reverting an already issued decree is harder than saying no beforehand, and politically much more delicate.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    The decrees are basically glorified memos. They hold little to no legal weight in and of themselves, except that they direct the agencies that work under the president's control, so it's less legally binding document and more written order from your boss. The problem is that he writes ones directing them to do illegal shit, and they just do it because they know Trump and the rest of the Republicans spent decades packing the courts to protect them when this day came, and if they packed the courts, they're sure as hell not gonna ruin all that work by properly using their congressional powers.

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  • [+] 52 points 7 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 27 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    You don't have to be good at anything to destroy things, which is why it's all they brag about.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago

    It's like whoever is directing his actions just wants to twist the knife a bit. But there are so many evil fucks to choose from that it doesn't really narrow it down. Could be a Putin "fuck the americans" thing, could be a Miller "fuck everybody" thing, who knows.

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  • [–] 50 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    one man should not be allowed to hand America's assets to his cronies and sidekicks

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  • [–] 32 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    The Confederates Republicans have spent decades laying the groundwork for this. Every GOP member “elected” or appointed to any role has helped pave the way.

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  • [–] 40 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    I FUCKING HATE THIS COUNTRY.

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    I don’t hate this country. Just a few select individuals with too much power and money.

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  • [–] 26 points 7 months ago (6 children)

    Nah, Trump and the Oligarchy aren't something happening to America, they're a consequence of America

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Let this empire burn and 50+ flags fly freely. May these profligates see their wealth evaporate and never be returned for contempt of their weakness, corruption, and stupidity should ensure their inevitable and violent deaths.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Let this empire burn and 50+ flags fly freely

    Later, in the smoldering ruins:

    "I meant 🌹 🌺 ❤️ Balkanization🌈 🎂 🦄, not 🔫 💥 🔥 Balkanization 💀 🪦 💣!"

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    I think both are true. When the media is controlled and the populace is spoon fed bullshit for a long enough period of time, people who lack critical thinking skills eat it up and vote against their own self interests. People are also very unlikely to take responsibility for their own actions and find it much easier to blame others for their own shortcomings, which leads to tribalism and racism among other things. The other major issue is the giant wealth disparity causing a huge imbalance of power and influence. Couple that with the inability to have politicians not beholden to that power and money (citizens united) and you have the perfect storm of bullshit and corruption.

    I really think the quote from Agent K in MIB really sums it up.

    A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.

    Don’t get me wrong, there are people who are just trolls and assholes who are beyond saving. But I continue to believe they are exceptions rather than the norm.

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  • [–] 36 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Was this a condition of the Iranian ceasefire?

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  • [–] 35 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    But why destroy the research?

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  • [–] 33 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Damn, it's crazy that we let one guy decide these things. Seems like the kind of thing that should be determined by a large legislative body that holds the power over our nation's budget and the ability to write laws. Weird we don't have one of those.

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  • [–] 32 points 7 months ago

    Yeah great, let’s put the logging industry in charge of the forests. Who cares about research projects when you’re going to cut down all the fucking trees anyway.

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  • [–] 29 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I should not need to have new reasons for hating this scumbag. But fuck is dismantling the park system even profitable? Fuck is the point here?

    Fdr, like all of american presidents was no saint and maybe arguably a fucking atrocity. But dam the park system he helped give to us americans, its so good what the fuck. Why fuck it up?

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  • [–] 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Oil prospecting

    Industrial agriculture (especially cattle farms)

    Lumber trade

    Suburban developments

    Military bases

    Espionage training

    Weapons testing

    Retail chains

    Data centers

    And the list goes on and on...

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