US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9648

On January 10 2018 00:54 Danglars wrote:

Uhh ... you aren’t getting rid of Trump for the next three years and quick look at Trump from the 1080s to today shows he’s unlikely to change. Focus on problems you can fix? Calling him mentally unfit and subject to removal hurts the legitimate opposition.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration would cut or delay funding for border surveillance, radar technology, patrol boats and customs agents in its upcoming spending plan to curb illegal immigration — all proven security measures that officials and experts have said are more effective than building a wall along the Mexican border.

President Trump has made the border wall a focus of his campaign against illegal immigration to stop drugs, terrorists and gangs like MS-13 from coming into the United States. Under spending plans submitted last week to Congress, the wall would cost $18 billion over the next 10 years, and be erected along nearly 900 miles of the southern border.

The wall also has become a bargaining chip in negotiations with Congress as lawmakers seek to prevent nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants from being deported.

But security experts said the president’s focus on a border wall ignores the constantly evolving nature of terrorism, immigration and drug trafficking.

“People that are dealing with this issue know that a third-century solution to a 21st-century problem is not going to fix this long-term,” said Representative Will Hurd, Republican of Texas and a former C.I.A. officer. Mr. Hurd, whose district includes more than 800 miles of border territory with Mexico, has pushed for more funding for sensors and other border security technologies.

Homeland Security officials have long and frequently described border security as a holistic system, made up not just of walls and fencing but also patrol routes, lighting, cameras, sensors and personnel.

David Bier, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute, said a border wall would do little to stop the drug trade. Most of the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines smuggled into the United States come through legal ports of entry rather than areas that would be stopped by a wall, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Nor would a wall stop illegal immigration, other experts said. Data from the Department of Homeland Security and research groups like the New York-based Center for Migration Studies show that most undocumented immigrants now simply overstay legally obtained short-term visas — and did not sneak across the border.

“So unless the wall is 35,000 feet high, it's not going to do much to stop those overstaying these visas,” said Robert Warren, a fellow at the Center for Migration Studies who has worked on immigration issues for Republican and Democratic presidents.

Additionally, Mr. Warren said, many people who have been stopped by the Border Patrol in recent years are seeking asylum — including some who simply walk up to agents and surrender.

Mr. Trump’s budget request for a wall represents more than half of the $33 billion spending blueprint for border security over the next decade. It either eliminates critical funding for border security programs or shifts money from them, threatening to leave gaping holes. A Government Accountability Office study released last February found that Customs and Border Protection has not shown how much fencing and walls bolster border security.

An internal budget guidance document for the 2019 fiscal year shows that the White House Office of Management and Budget asked officials at the Homeland Security Department to reduce or delay funding requests for additional border security technology and equipment. Instead, the document instructed, Homeland Security should dramatically increase funding for a wall on the Mexico border.

Homeland Security officials said the plans are subject to change. Still, the document underscores the priority that a border wall remains for Mr. Trump, who promised its construction during his presidential campaign. It also instructed the department to seek $1.6 billion in the upcoming fiscal year to build 74 miles of a border wall — about $700 million more than Homeland Security officials felt they needed to build that.

Parts of the document were viewed by The New York Times; the rest of it was based on reports by the Democratic staff of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

On January 09 2018 16:22 mozoku wrote:
Where did he say that a "blacks on drugs are worse than white on drugs" and what does "worse" even mean? How do you arrive at "racism" from strawmanning the guy's quote, and have it hinge on a (conveniently) horribly ambiguous word which you make no attempt to clarify?

I didn't watch the video, so maybe I missed something but the quote itself isn't unusually terrible by any objective standard. The outrage, video notwithstanding, appears to be purely a function of the racial context.

Compare this to the much more muted (i.e. none) outrage, back in the summer, when Nancy Pelosi labeled a free speech rally organized by a guy who is publicly on YouTube screaming "Fuck White Supremacists!" as a white supremacist rally. By the way, this rally ended up being cancelled by the organizer out of concerns of violence by counter-protesters (presumably spurred on by Pelosi).

Racism shouldn't be tolerated, but the aggressively "progressive" camp seems willing to push side all reasonableness in the name of this strange religion of zealous anti-racism.

On January 10 2018 02:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

What the guy said was obviously racist and ill-informed.

You really want to take a stand defending that twat?

On January 10 2018 02:55 Mohdoo wrote:


I get the feeling Mozoku still hasn't watched the video and is just assuming this is some kinda SJW stuff.

Q. So it has been publicly reported that the
18 initial engagement of September to October 2015 was
19 by someone with ties -- with Republican ties. Can
20 you confirm whether that is accurate or not?
21 MR. LEVY: We're not going to talk about the
22 identity of clients.

On January 10 2018 01:03 oBlade wrote:

I think Danglars and I would be nothing but happy for the forces that perpetually predict doom about the president to finally be right about something in the event he were impeached or resigned.

On January 10 2018 01:41 Doodsmack wrote:


It’s not at all unreasonable or illegitimate to claim that childlike petulance and narcissism meet the 25th amendment threshold. Trump is just that bad.

On January 10 2018 03:42 Uldridge wrote:
So when IS the 25th amendment justified when being invoked?

On January 10 2018 03:46 ticklishmusic wrote:


This was the obvious move in response to Grassley threatening to prosecute Steele, I think.

On January 10 2018 04:13 On_Slaught wrote:
Old (and i do mean old) Joe is apparently going to run for Senate in Arizona. I truly hope he gets the Republican nomination... feed the Dems another Senate seat please. Thanks.

On January 09 2018 15:54 mozoku wrote:

This + Show Spoiler + whole line of reasoning is idiotic and can be applied pretty much by anyone to anyone they disagree with.

On January 09 2018 16:22 mozoku wrote:

I didn't watch the video, so maybe I missed something but the quote itself isn't unusually terrible by any objective standard. The outrage, video notwithstanding, appears to be purely a function of the racial context.

On January 10 2018 04:43 brian wrote:

Just an unpleasant reminder that Sheriff Joe was elected SIX times in AZ. They like him.

On January 10 2018 04:49 ticklishmusic wrote:


It's a local election. And in the 2016 election, he got beat pretty convincingly.