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Trump's Considering Declaring A National Emergency. That's A Dumb Ploy, Particularly If He Wants A W

Cardinal said:
That was called "sarcasm."

Traditionally, simply watching a fictional movie in which the military seizes private land by force would have been enough to make conservatives construct walls around their homes in terror to keep the Federal government out. Today, however, conservatism has exploded, and I've seen a significant number of conservatives argue in favor of declaring a national emergency in order to start building a wall right now, which would necessitate the military seizing private property by force.

When a poll is finally completed, how much do you want to bet that support for doing this will be around 35-40%?
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That’s a familiar number...
 
American said:
Why are Schumer and Pelosi such liars about this wall business? Seriously they both voted for the exact same thing under Obama.
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Your post is what is known as a "lie," like everything else republicans say concerning the wall issue.
 
American said:
Speaking of border security, McConnell is taking the Democrats to the woodshed, as we speak, on the Senate floor. He's nailing them to the wall on their galactic hypocrisy about funding the wall, since they voted for funding a wall under Obama; and his own border chief supports a wall wholeheartedly! The Democrats are galactic flip-floppers, and many of their voters are the biggest dumbasses on the planet. They talk about common sense this or that on civil rights like gun control, but seem to demonstrate little of it where it matters most right now at the border, which is one of the primary duties of the federal government under the common defense and immigration clauses.
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McConnell is talking about the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Obama was in the Senate then (not President) and both Obama and Schumer voted for it. It authorized specific sections of border fence which DHS and CBP determined mainly to be effective near urban areas which are the places where border barrier integrated with other measures are most effective.

The Act was amended in 2007 as DHS was converting from a physical border barrier strategy to a virtual barrier using technology. So the language was changed to allow DHS to use technology based barrier as opposed to physical barrier. DHS had determined that for most of the Southern Barrier a technology based system was superior in that once you are out of the urban areas, physical barrier virtually regardless of what you build is only a delaying feature that does not delay incursions long enough to be effective. You can cut through it, climb over it or tunnel under it and we are not equipped to get those locations fast enough to stop them.

Close to 700 miles of physical barrier have been erected and where there is plate, it is mainly being upgraded to Bollard Fencing. In all cases where physical barrier is chosen CBP wants something they can see through to the other side. The upgrades are being funded through the original act. The upgrades are over budget. But what else is new. 299 miles of the 700 is vehicle barriers and there are about 350 miles of pedestrian fence. The eminent domain burden was minimal for that effort mainly cutting off access to wildlife preserves and such. That is not a great solution and it about exhausted the easiest means of eminent domain we had down there.

As has been pointed out before, until Trump makes an actual proposal for how much of what he wants built where, all of this including Trump's railing about a Wall is just gibberish without description, never mind description with specificity.

I would hasten to point out that McConnell pointing to Legislation that Obama and Schumer voted for 12 and 13 years ago is a bit rich. Republicans were budget hawks 12 and 13 years ago. They are as hard to find as hens teeth now.
 
roughdraft274 said:
Why didn't republicans pass wall funding with reconciliation as they did with tax cuts? They controlled all of congress. Blaming this on democrats is literally one of the dumbest arguments anyone could ever make.
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And as we can see, it works very well with most of Trump's base.

They don't seem to care about anything else.
 
JustHanging said:
And as we can see, it works very well with most of Trump's base.

They don't seem to care about anything else.
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I fully accept that Trump supporters by in large are a special kind of stupid, but this is also a problem with humans in general. Once we have picked a side we will stick with it come hell or high water. It's much easier than admitting you were wrong. You're political party becomes like a team. This is generally a problem in humans. It's a big problem in trump supporters. It's the same problem that makes catholic priests who normally would never do such a thing think it's a good idea to hide child abuse. Because it would be damaging to the brand or the team. Same with boyscouts. Don't want to hurt the brand. Politics is no different.

Trump supporters trusted the shady used car salesman and purchased the 98 pontiac grand am with bare tires on it's last leg because his sales pitch was exactly what they wanted to hear. They don't want to admit they were swindled and gullible. Some people voted for Trump because they just simply could not Hillary be president. And those people are different from the "Trump is going to make america great again!" types of idiots.
 
roughdraft274 said:
I fully accept that Trump supporters by in large are a special kind of stupid, but this is also a problem with humans in general. Once we have picked a side we will stick with it come hell or high water. It's much easier than admitting you were wrong. You're political party becomes like a team. This is generally a problem in humans. It's a big problem in trump supporters. It's the same problem that makes catholic priests who normally would never do such a thing think it's a good idea to hide child abuse. Because it would be damaging to the brand or the team. Same with boyscouts. Don't want to hurt the brand. Politics is no different.

Trump supporters trusted the shady used car salesman and purchased the 98 pontiac grand am with bare tires on it's last leg because his sales pitch was exactly what they wanted to hear. They don't want to admit they were swindled and gullible. Some people voted for Trump because they just simply could not Hillary be president. And those people are different from the "Trump is going to make america great again!" types of idiots.
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That was my mother. She hated Hillary so much that she registered to vote for the first time in her life - at 70 years old - to vote for Trump. Just to keep Hillary out of office. She is now extremely sorry she did it. She said she wished she'd never voted at all. I agree with her. I wish she'd never voted at all. Low information voters, such as my mother, are how we got here. Low information, and an unreasonable hate towards HRC.
 
Mycroft said:
I like this comment responding to Shapiro's opinion article:
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Well, naturally you like that comment. It's partisan hackery writ stupid.
 
jnug said:
McConnell is talking about the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Obama was in the Senate then (not President) and both Obama and Schumer voted for it. It authorized specific sections of border fence which DHS and CBP determined mainly to be effective near urban areas which are the places where border barrier integrated with other measures are most effective.

The Act was amended in 2007 as DHS was converting from a physical border barrier strategy to a virtual barrier using technology. So the language was changed to allow DHS to use technology based barrier as opposed to physical barrier. DHS had determined that for most of the Southern Barrier a technology based system was superior in that once you are out of the urban areas, physical barrier virtually regardless of what you build is only a delaying feature that does not delay incursions long enough to be effective. You can cut through it, climb over it or tunnel under it and we are not equipped to get those locations fast enough to stop them.

Close to 700 miles of physical barrier have been erected and where there is plate, it is mainly being upgraded to Bollard Fencing. In all cases where physical barrier is chosen CBP wants something they can see through to the other side. The upgrades are being funded through the original act. The upgrades are over budget. But what else is new. 299 miles of the 700 is vehicle barriers and there are about 350 miles of pedestrian fence. The eminent domain burden was minimal for that effort mainly cutting off access to wildlife preserves and such. That is not a great solution and it about exhausted the easiest means of eminent domain we had down there.

As has been pointed out before, until Trump makes an actual proposal for how much of what he wants built where, all of this including Trump's railing about a Wall is just gibberish without description, never mind description with specificity.

I would hasten to point out that McConnell pointing to Legislation that Obama and Schumer voted for 12 and 13 years ago is a bit rich. Republicans were budget hawks 12 and 13 years ago. They are as hard to find as hens teeth now.
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How is a technology based solution alone superior. So you have cameras and sensors, people are still moving and getting over the border. They do it everyday right now even with drones and whatnot. Even with all the tech approved ten years ago, they are POURING in. Obama's border boss and Trump's border boss both say a barrier is necessary.
 
American said:
Why are Schumer and Pelosi such liars about this wall business? Seriously they both voted for the exact same thing under Obama.
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Do you have a source for this?
 
American said:
How is a technology based solution alone superior. So you have cameras and sensors, people are still moving and getting over the border. They do it everyday right now even with drones and whatnot. Even with all the tech approved ten years ago, they are POURING in. Obama's border boss and Trump's border boss both say a barrier is necessary.
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For some parts of the border and in fact most parts of the border a technology based solution is superior. Its not just cameras and sensors. its cameras, sensors and drones plus.

In the first place, the Federal Government is not a bottomless pit of money. If Donald wanted more money for departments to fool around with he should not have taken the nominal Corp tax rate all the way down to a nominal 21% from 35%. Taking it to 26% would have given us everything we could have gotten out of a corporate tax break and the difference would have fed another $600B into the treasury. Frankly, I wanted that $600B put with the ridiculously small $200B Trump had committed to Infrastructure as $800B would at least have been a decent match to state and local contributions to Infrastructure improvements. But even if not used for Infrastructure at least the cupboard would not be bare. Every dept in Government with the exception of Defense is on an austerity budget. The entire CBP budget for FY18 is $16B. That is up from the sequestration years caused by the GOP's intransigence and unwillingness to work with Obama on ANYTHING including simply passing a budget for the last three years of his term. But while the GOP does not like to talk about it, sequestration was a killer for all agencies of the government.

A Wall is an inefficient, ineffective waste of money we don't have. CBP does not want ANY, repeat ANY solid construction wall anywhere because they can't see through it. That automatically makes the cost of each foot of physical barrier 3x what it would have been for the sorts of wall heights Donald has been tossing around.

We need more technology at ports of entry because over 90% of all the illegal drugs comes through ports of entry, not across the border. We have 328 ports of entry. That bill will likely require upwards of $12B over 10 years just for the 74 Ports of Entry that CBP thinks are at most risk for drug smuggling. Doubling that gets to you about 200 of the 328 POE's.

Then we need a major upgrade for the Coast Guard which at present can only act on 25% of the actionable drug intelligence they have. They need more of just about everything to make their efforts truly meaningful. So you are going to rob money needed for POE Technology and the CG for a Wall that only has a chance of seeing less than 10% of drug traffic and will only actually stop a fraction of that.

As for the Southern border itself and aliens crossing, physical barrier works best in Southwestern urban areas where CBP can quickly get to aliens crossing which is why we have it where we have it now. The argument for physical barrier based on how it functions as part of an integrated system now is a specious argument. It works where it works now because it was placed where it would work best! Do we really think that DHS just plunked it down randomly?

Across much of the Southern border CBP just can't get there fast enough to make a physical barrier practical. It just does not slow those crossing down enough. We are far better off being able to track them from the point they enter to the point where CBP can get to them. The point CBP gets to them just needs to be ahead of them getting to a large enough urban center to disappear into it. Thats it. It resolves both the interdiction and the humanitarian problem of aliens dying in the desert at the same time.

On top of that, as soon as aliens start sawing holes in new barrier, you barrier fans are going to raise holy hell because CBP is not closing the holes fast enough!

There is another 114 miles of physical barrier that can be built and is likely to be built from existing authorized physical barrier designs, probably Bollard which will take us up to about 750 miles of some combination of vehicle and pedestrian barrier.

Add to those issues the issues and cost of using eminent domain to take property and leaving acres and acres of no mans land between the actual border and the physical barrier in suburban areas. I am sorry to say that it is just a bad idea that I do not even think Donald believes in. Donald does not want a Wall. Donald wants a Wall Fight.
 
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jnug said:
For some parts of the border and in fact most parts of the border a technology based solution is superior. Its not just cameras and sensors. its cameras, sensors and drones plus.

In the first place, the Federal Government is not a bottomless pit of money. If Donald wanted more money for departments to fool around with he should not have taken the nominal Corp tax rate all the way down to a nominal 21% from 35%. Taking it to 26% would have given us everything we could have gotten out of a corporate tax break and the difference would have fed another $600B into the treasury. Frankly, I wanted that $600B put with the ridiculously small $200B Trump had committed to Infrastructure as $800B would at least have been a decent match to state and local contributions to Infrastructure improvements. But even if not used for Infrastructure at least the cupboard would not be bare. Every dept in Government with the exception of Defense is on an austerity budget. The entire CBP budget for FY18 is $16B. That is up from the sequestration years caused by the GOP's intransigence and unwillingness to work with Obama on ANYTHING including simply passing a budget for the last three years of his term. But while the GOP does not like to talk about it, sequestration was a killer for all agencies of the government.

A Wall is an inefficient, ineffective waste of money we don't have. CBP does not want ANY, repeat ANY solid construction wall anywhere because they can't see through it. That automatically makes the cost of each foot of physical barrier 3x what it would have been for the sorts of wall heights Donald has been tossing around.

We need more technology at ports of entry because over 90% of all the illegal drugs comes through ports of entry, not across the border. We have 328 ports of entry. That bill will likely require upwards of $12B over 10 years just for the 74 Ports of Entry that CBP thinks are at most risk for drug smuggling. Doubling that gets to you about 200 of the 328 POE's.

Then we need a major upgrade for the Coast Guard which at present can only act on 25% of the actionable drug intelligence they have. They need more of just about everything to make their efforts truly meaningful. So you are going to rob money needed for POE Technology and the CG for a Wall that only has a chance of seeing less than 10% of drug traffic and will only actually stop a fraction of that.

As for the Southern border itself and aliens crossing, physical barrier works best in Southwestern urban areas where CBP can quickly get to aliens crossing which is why we have it where we have it now. The argument for physical barrier based on how it functions as part of an integrated system now is a specious argument. It works where it works now because it was placed where it would work best! Do we really think that DHS just plunked it down randomly?

Across much of the Southern border CBP just can't get there fast enough to make a physical barrier practical. It just does not slow those crossing down enough. We are far better off being able to track them from the point they enter to the point where CBP can get to them. The point CBP gets to them just needs to be ahead of them getting to a large enough urban center to disappear into it. Thats it. It resolves both the interdiction and the humanitarian problem of aliens dying in the desert at the same time.

On top of that, as soon as aliens start sawing holes in new barrier, you barrier fans are going to raise holy hell because CBP is not closing the holes fast enough!

There is another 114 miles of physical barrier that can be built and is likely to be built from existing authorized physical barrier designs, probably Bollard which will take us up to about 750 miles of some combination of vehicle and pedestrian barrier.

Add to those issues the issues and cost of using eminent domain to take property and leaving acres and acres of no mans land between the actual border and the physical barrier in suburban areas. I am sorry to say that it is just a bad idea that I do not even think Donald believes in. Donald does not want a Wall. Donald wants a Wall Fight.
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They're not looking at a solid wall anymore. They have been test prototypes. Your playing word games. Where did you get this stuff, Democratic Underground? We have plenty of money for foreign aid that the Dems don't mind spending, just please! :roll:
 
American said:
They're not looking at a solid wall anymore. They have been test prototypes. Your playing word games. Where did you get this stuff, Democratic Underground? We have plenty of money for foreign aid that the Dems don't mind spending, just please! :roll:
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Really, Trump literally said just this morning that solid construction barrier was still an option. Again, he simply has never defined for anybody at any time how much of whatever he wants to build and where he wants to build it. This THING exists between his ears and nowhere else.

Have you actually looked at our foreign aid budget? Have you looked at it for South and Central America specifically? I will grant that I do not like the amount of money we spend a zillion miles away when we compare it to what we spend for foreign aid in our own back yard.
 
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jnug said:
Really, Trump literally said just this morning that solid construction barrier was still an option. Again, he simply has never defined for anybody at any time how much of whatever he wants to build and where he wants to build it. This THING exists between his ears and nowhere else.

Have you actually looked at our foreign aid budget? Have you looked at it for South and Central America specifically? I will grant that I do not like the amount of money we spend a zillion miles away when we compare it to what we spend for foreign aid in our own back yard.
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I think he'll listen to the DHS on the type of fence. No one really knows which one they'll pick. Anyone who writes an article with certainty is full of ****.
 
American said:
I think he'll listen to the DHS on the type of fence. No one really knows which one they'll pick. Anyone who writes an article with certainty is full of ****.
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And there is the rub. DHS suggesting what it is they would want to make it from would only be one piece of a proposal to the Congress for Appropriations. Until they do that, until the Administration makes that proposal, this is all Trumpian hot air. It has always been Trumpian hot air. Trump has never made any effort to engage the Congress for Appropriations for new physical barrier funding, not now and not ever to this point.
 
 
 
Stealers Wheel said:
B-bu-but Obama!

It never gets old, does it?

Trump is saying "give me $5 billion or else!" That's exactly what the FF were concerned about.
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I'm sure you spoke up then about it, right? Right?
 
Captain Adverse said:
No they could not. Not without constant use of the Nuclear Option (overriding the cloture rule via simple majority vote) which would have allowed the Democrats unfettered license to do the same when they regained control.

It takes 60 votes in the Senate to pass a Bill because that's how many it takes to vote cloture* and end debate.

* https://www.thoughtco.com/the-definition-of-cloture-3367943

So far the Republicans have limited use to things like Kavanaugh's SCOTUS appointment vote in the Senate.

But constant use by whichever Party had the Senate majority would give them an ability to disregard efforts at bi-partisan cooperation.

This is why back when the Republican's controlled both Houses of Congress, things passed in the House of Reps. did not get past the Senate.

Personally, I think anyone who supports letting either party run roughshod over the cloture rule would have been short-sighted, as it only allows the other Party the license to do the same if and when take they over.
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Reconciliation can be used on any funding or tax bills. That's how republicans passed tax cuts, including altering the individual mandate for obamacare, with less than 60 votes.

It is very common and used by both parties. You cant pass new laws like obamacare or immigration reform but simple funding or tax changes you most certainly can and they do it all the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)

So that ends that argument. They could have done it. They didn't. It's only an issue now because Trump wants to pick a fight. He can go **** himself.
 
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