The Wall

[thethe]

Not sure how many ways to explain this. Less illegal immigration equals less money for mexico.

[57Brave]

Volunteers cleaning bathrooms at national parks is not sustainable,
Volunteers doing wolf location in Yellowstone is not sustainable

[57Brave]

Knowing there are many many other things to do with $5.6B --- but couldn't it be used for hiring clerks to process and locate refugees ?
Sure an influx of refugees is a problem --- is the only way to solve the problem demonize the refugees and create more barriers ?

Refugees do not choose to be refugees
.................................................. ..............

I really hope that now that Trump has taken migration policy completely to the side of idiocy we can start to move the pendulum back toward a reasonable policy involving ALL of North America

Do we still have diplomatic relations with Honduras or Guatemala?
What can be done to ease tensions inside of those countries?
What oter pressures can we impose on Guatemala / Honduras
...

- even as a metaphor a concrete wall is laughable.
and untenable

[cajunrevenge]

Still loving the slowdown. Not gonna shed any tears for government employees. Lets keep the government slowed down until 2020!

[57Brave]

Why ?

I enjoy national parks and see advantage to collectively researching disease.

[cajunrevenge]

collateral damage.

[57Brave]

that is a very childish sentiment.

with 300M people of all shapes sizes colors and viewpoints there is no better way of organizing advancing or even surviving as a society.
I see national parks and national support of art as essential as air traffic control and federally funded scientific research.

Let me repeat the old saw. " everyone is a Libertarian until their house is 10' underwater "

[57Brave]

https://www.motherjones.com/politics...ment-shutdown/


The 792,000-acre Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, which had originally been kept open, was closed Wednesday amid ongoing sanitation concerns and “illegal activity” on the premises, the Park Service announced. “The park is being forced to take this action for health and safety concerns as vault toilets reach capacity,” an NPS statement noted. “In addition to human waste in public areas, driving off road and other infractions that damage the resource are becoming a problem.”

[57Brave]

.@SpeakerPelosi:

"This is not a wall between Mexico and the United States

that the president is creating here. It’s a wall between

reality and his constituents.

He doesn't want them to know what he's doing

to Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security in his budget proposal."

[57Brave]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/...cy-pelosi.html

Please read the comments on Warren.



Pelosi is the most seasoned and arguably the most impressive leader that the Democrats currently have, the party’s presidential aspirants included. When she talks about the wall being fundamentally immoral and un-American, as she did upon reassuming the Speakership this week, she is drawing a line she won’t cross. Strictly as a political matter, she’s holding too many cards to back down. Trump’s exuberant embrace of ownership of the shutdown in last month’s Oval Office meeting is self-incriminating video he can’t claw back. The record of the Senate Republicans’ pre-holiday vote to fund the government and avert a shutdown can’t be erased just because Mitch McConnell, deferring to Trump, now refuses to bring the exact same legislation back to the floor. And the pain a prolonged shutdown will inflict will metastasize, inflicting political pain on the GOP’s narrow Senate majority as well.

Trump says that most federal employees directly affected by the shutdown are Democrats. Even if that could be proved, it’s irrelevant. Not having a clue about how government works, the president doesn’t seem to realize that the shutdown will reach deeply into the private sector. Four out of ten people working for the federal government are contractors, according to a 2017 analysis cited by the Washington Post. Small vendors who provide everything from cafeteria workers in government facilities to IT services to government offices will suffer. The absence of federal employees in Washington who approve paperwork essential to the smooth running of big and small business alike will disrupt households in all 50 states. They will call their senators. Something will have to give.

What will? The two senators who are already talking about defecting, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine, have little choice but to do so: They are the two GOP incumbents up for reelection in 2020 in states won by Hillary Clinton. (Though the posturing Collins can never be trusted to put country above party, in this instance she can be counted on to put her own political future above party.) Martha McSally, appointed to her seat in purple-ish Arizona and also up in 2020, may be another gettable Republican vote. There are other potential wild cards, including Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and the retiring Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. But there’s also a scenario where the impulsive Trump gets bored or distracted and moves on to other battles of a more existential urgency. The investigations being conducted by Robert Mueller, the Southern District of New York, and the new Democratic House have not taken a break for the shutdown. Whatever new results they bring will command his attention with or without any House move toward impeachment.

When Trump capitulates on the shutdown, he’ll say he’s “won” no matter what the particulars are. He’s already been readying that plan, at various times declaring that the wall is already nearing completion, or redefining the word “wall” as “steel slats” or “barrier” or whatever. (As Pelosi has joked, it will soon be a “beaded curtain.”) He knows that his base will buy any victory he claims, and it’s likely that the hard-liners at Fox News, including Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, will get with the program as well when there’s no other way out

[57Brave]

Chris Murphy
‏Verified account @ChrisMurphyCT
8h8 hours ago

This is SO confusing.

The wall's already built?

Or do you still need $5B for the wall?

Is Mexico still paying for it?

Oh, so they'll pay LATER, you say?

But you're building it anyway, even if you don't get $5B?

So wait...why is the government shut down?

dammit!

[57Brave]

https://twitter.com/jackiekcalmes/st...92713771847680

FUN FACT:

Fully 820 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile US-Mexico border -- 41% --

is represented by a Republican, Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who opposes

a wall and was just reelected in a tough race in which he emphasized that position.

[57Brave]

“How do we get him to continue to talk about immigration?” Sam Nunberg, one of Mr. Trump’s early political advisers, recalled telling Roger J. Stone Jr., another adviser. “We’re going to get him to talk about he’s going to build a wall.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/u...rder-wall.html

.......................
What is most troubling is people voted for Trump based on "the wall"
and even if it wasn't, you weren't concerned that he was serious ?

if you threw away your vote and voted for either candidate that had no shot---- a wall ?
You were willing to take a chance with a guy that wanted a wall
wow




Somewhere Peter Sellers is having a good laugh

[goldfly]

Not sure how many ways to explain this. Less illegal immigration equals less money for mexico.

why should i be hoping for a poorer southern neighbor?

the more prosperous they are, the less likely they are to migrate here etc

seems in everyones interest to have a stable and prosperous nation to our south like it is to our north


you're literately arguing to try to not let people feed their children and you dare speak of being pro life etc (at least on your political platform, honestly can't remember if you yourself claim that) as well. gtfoh

[Runnin]

Not sure how many ways to explain this. Less illegal immigration equals less money for mexico.

A few more miles of fencing will not stop people overstaying their visas, the main cause of illegal immigration.

[thethe]

why should i be hoping for a poorer southern neighbor?

the more prosperous they are, the less likely they are to migrate here etc

seems in everyones interest to have a stable and prosperous nation to our south like it is to our north


you're literately arguing to try to not let people feed their children and you dare speak of being pro life etc (at least on your political platform, honestly can't remember if you yourself claim that) as well. gtfoh

It isn't our responsibility to fix the world. Just like it isn't in the middle easy its the same way in Mexico and South America. It is not our fault their governments are corrupt.

My hope is that we have more populists leaders like Obrador and Bolsonaro that are actually going to put their people first that will strengthen this region. But as it stands right now the region south of the US is too unstable to have an unchecked border. THe wall will work just like its worked for thousands of years across human history. The left is nervous because it will work.

[thethe]

A few more miles of fencing will not stop people overstaying their visas, the main cause of illegal immigration.

We can handle more than one issue at a time. The main issue in our country is the rise of narcotics and crime. The majority of this is coming through the southern border. The Wall will be a tremendous step to stop this.

[Julio3000]

You know that the majority of drugs are smuggled through lawful ports of entry, right?

[thethe]

You know that the majority of drugs are smuggled through lawful ports of entry, right?

Can you provide your source on this because that is not what I am reading

[Julio3000]

This is just a quick pull from Tucson.com, but you can easily find the primary source material, which comes from CBP and the DEA, if you like:

“While Trump proposes building a wall to stop drugs from crossing the border and hiring thousands more Border Patrol agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics obtained by the Arizona Daily Star through a public-records request suggest the rhetoric coming from the White House reflects a misunderstanding of how and where hard drugs cross the border.

CBP statistics show 81 percent of the 265,500 pounds of hard drugs caught at the U.S.-Mexico border from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2016 were stopped by customs officers at ports of entry, rather than by Border Patrol agents working in the desert and wilderness between ports.

Hard drugs normally are not driven on remote roads or hauled in backpacks through the desert, where they would be stopped by Border Patrol agents or come up against a border wall, although court records show agents catch hard drugs at highway checkpoints, such as the 5 pounds of heroin hidden in a man’s pants March 28 at the Interstate 19 checkpoint.

A far more common scenario in federal court cases in Tucson involves stashing hard drugs in vehicle dashboards or strapping them under clothes and trying to smuggle them through ports of entry staffed by customs officers.

Customs officers stopped 86 percent of the heroin caught borderwide from 2012 to 2016, CBP records show. Borderwide seizures of heroin by customs officers rose from 2,480 pounds in fiscal year 2012 to 3,280 pounds in fiscal year 2016, while Border Patrol seizures rose from 400 pounds to 560 pounds.“

Cocaine mostly comes in by air or sea. Opioids are more likely to come from Asia than transshipment through Mexico, and what does come through Mexico mostly comes through POE. Meth usually comes straight through POE. A border wall addresses none of this.