Will the wall ever be built?
There won’t be a government shutdown over the issue of funding the wall.
Did I think it would actually come to a shutdown? Probably not; the GOP has no stomach for it and Trump is savvy enough to know that voters generally don’t like shutdowns.
But he’d better have something more up his sleeve than this. Most of his supporters didn’t really expect Mexico to fund the wall; that seemed like some sort of braggadocio from Trump. But I think most Trump supporters did and still do expect him to build the wall, and if it doesn’t happen it will hurt his chances for re-election.
I don’t think that the wall will be built: the Ruling Class (DNCe and GOPe) want open borders. They will get their way. They aren’t called the “Ruling Class” by respecting democratic institutions.
Both what Trump voters want to happen, and what they want not to happen, in the context of The Wall, can be achieved as well or better, by other means. His supporters clearly know & know clearly what is the true Prize, and it’s not a civil engineering project.
E-Verify, eg … we know this has been purposefully deprecated to avoid its intended effects. Put it on a proper footing and it would turn off the magnet.
Exposing the essentials of political/ideological Globalism also does wonders. Yes Virginia, the aim is to undercut Sovereignty, including near-current efforts to slime ‘Nationalist’ or ‘Nationalism’. Despite that the only nascent global body is called the United NATIONS.
In applied engineering, Neo, very widely, you can make a race car Faster, you can make it more Durable, you can make it Cheaper. PICK ANY TWO.
In the context-of-interest here, you can have Sovereignty, you can have Democracy, you can have Globalism. PICK ANY TWO.
Globalism is a delusion, if for no further reasons than Russia and China … and there is a host of further counterindications.
Herein lies the key genius of Mr. Trump.
E-verify and having the Social Security administration report on stolen numbers would help a great deal.
But Trump did promise voters a physical barrier. I agree with Neo that Trump needs to have something up his sleeve. Probably he does.
Here’s USAToday’s list of adverse shutdown effects, published today. They are hardly earth-shaking.
I say shut her down!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/19/government-shutdown-what-and-wont-close/2349369002/
Trump may have been blowing smoke up our collective ass about the wall too, not just Mexico’s paying. I base that on some comments Gen Kelly made about Trump “evolving” in the issue.
Either way, at some point early in his presidency he decided to pull a con: declare victory by claiming the wall was built, being built, or some variation of this lie. He tried a similar move in regards to N.Korea and nukes…pretending his fake summit yielded real peace.
Only this time around, his base was having non of it. Brietbart embarrassed Spicer on the issue early on. Recently, Laura Ingraham was having none of it. His base really wants it. He knows that now and is in a pickle.
The wall has both functional and symbolic purpose. The president’s promise to stand for Americans’ civil rights is a principal reason he was favored over every other candidate of both parties. That said, there needs to be emigration reform to mitigate the direct, collateral, and persistent damage forced by immigration reform at both ends of the bridge and throughout. Also, Americans need to lose their Pro-Choice ethics, discover human rights, affirm the evolution of human life, and tear down the walls of Planned Parenthood et al.
If Trump fails to get the wall, which has become symbolic of getting control of our borders, it won’t matter if Trump isn’t reelected. For either way Trump will have proven to be a speed bump on the road toward “politics by other means”.
His base really wants it. He knows that now and is in a pickle.
Nice to see the left’s version.
The “Shutdown” will not be noticed if you don’t work for the feds. Obama tried to make it hurt by blocking roads to private businesses around national parks.
The Dims will fold but Trump still has a fight with the GOPe.
I am with GB, djt needs the wall to survive politically. Given the fact that DC will spend 3.7 T this fiscal year, spending 5 billion on border security is a rounding error. Securing our borders to the maximum extent possible is a matter of national security and cultural survival. Take the costs out of the military budget, enforce existing laws, fine harshly any who employ illegals, cut off all benefits to illegals, and punish any city or state which provides sanctuary to illegals by cutting off all federal funds.
At the Washington Examiner — “The ‘wall’ is now ‘steel slats’ and Trump has screwed his supporters”:
Well, that happened quickly.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422197-gofundme-raises-more-than-1-million-for-trumps-border-wall
“As a veteran who has given so much, 3 limbs, I feel deeply invested to this nation to ensure future generations have everything we have today,” Kolfage wrote. He added that he is “working with a law firm on a legal document that will bind the government to using the funds for the border wall itself, nothing else.”
Good luck with that contract — no court would enforce it if the government embezzled the money the way they do with every other fund that’s “just for this one thing and nothing else.”
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/12/19/why-strong-borders-advocates-should-ignore-attempts-to-guilt-them-over-migrants/
“Without the nation-state, there can be no liberty. Empires – supranationalist entities – don’t confer it, and tribes can’t tolerate it. Neither is organized to protect liberty, and neither recognizes a charter to.
Borders are what make civic protections and quality of life possible. It is not compassionate to wish them away; it is profoundly wrong. And it is actively evil to guilt people over them, instead of reaching out to give actual aid and comfort to those in need.
So feel free to ignore the guilting lecture-fest. Just stop listening, and let it echo in a void until it fades away. … Political and civic life can use adjustment in a lot of places, but the solution for that is not knocking down borders. Knocking down borders doesn’t address that problem at all, plus it kills off the ability of other nations to help foster the needed adjustments.
All that said, be sure to ponder what good immigration policy will be for the USA – not as an emergency situation, but on ongoing principle. Immigration can demonstrably be a net positive (and I don’t mean just by focusing on “meritorious” immigration). I favor robust immigration myself. I love like my own life the fact – not theory, but fact – that anyone willing can truly assume the identity of “American.”
However, it is essential in this matter as well for thoughtful people to ignore attempts to guilt them. Requiring assimilation to our national civic culture is indispensable. It is right, righteous, and morally good to levy that requirement, especially in America where our civic culture is about liberty, opportunity, and tolerance. If you don’t believe in those things for other people, as well as yourself, you don’t belong here.
[time to deport some unAmericans born here]
No emergency that ever happens will have as its solution the weakening of national borders. The “need” to hand someone an open-ended veto over border enforcement is a political straw man. Don’t even listen to people trying to lay a load of guilt on you about that. Laying guilt on other people is never the solution to anything.”
MSM – all lies, all the time.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/12/19/msnbc-airs-video-of-border-patrol-dumping-water-left-for-migrants-as-proof-of-trumps-cruelty-one-problem/
“MSNBC Uses 2011 Video to Claim Trump Administration Denies Water to Illegal Aliens
—–
Who was the president of the USA in 2011??”
A secure border is what we need. There are several components of that.
1. No employment for illegal aliens – primarily through e-verify.
2. No overstaying of visas. FEDEX can track their packages. Visa holders can be tracked as well.
3. Anchor babies allow illegals to stay in the country indefinitely. End birth right citizenship.
4. Make it a crime to encourage illegal immigration. Prosecute organizations like Pueblas Sin Fronteras.
5. End chain migration.
6. Change the law for refugees. Never accept a refugee request except at proper border entry point. Do not allow an illegal entrant to request refugee status.
7. Stop catch and release. Any illegal immigrant apprehended crossing the border should be turned back immediately.
8. Fortify the border. Build a barrier (wall) where it makes sense. Use sensors and drones where it makes sense. Hire three times as many Border Patrol agents and stop illegals at the border not 100 miles inside the USA.
Implementing 1 through 6 will make the the barrier more effective and help the Border Patrol to do the job they are meant to do – prevent illegal border crossings.
I don’t care what the barrier looks like as long as it does the job. I don’t care what it costs. The U.S spends over $139 billion a year on illegals – healthcare, law enforcement, courts, education, welfare, etc. If a barrier reduces that by half, it would be a great investment.
In the last wo months over 100,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended near the southern border by the Border Patrol. They have been processed, given court dates, and released into the U.S. That’s a rate of 600,000 per year. Few of them will ever show up for their hearings. They are now here more or less permanently. The law has broken down and the country is being transformed. We need a secure border now and that includes a physical barrier or WALL.
J.J. on December 19, 2018 at 11:04 pm at 11:04 pm said:
A secure border is what we need. There are several components of that.
* *
Almost all of your proposals have either been introduced as legislation or actually passed (wall building was approved but never adequately funded or implemented many years ago).
That almost none of them are being implemented proves pretty clearly that we have faulty border security because that’s what Congress as a whole wants us to have.
I predict that PDT will do a “pocket veto” of the funding bill. A pocket veto is an indirect veto of a legislative bill by the president or a governor by retaining the bill unsigned until it is too late for it to be dealt with during the legislative session.
Thus, PDT cannot be accused of “vetoing” the bill. He has only failed to sign it during the legislative session. Congress can always be called back into session to pass an acceptable bill.
Merry Christmas to Congress.
Bob, Trump is doing one better – outright veto.
Maybe the GOP should be listening to him directly instead of to whatever his “aides signal” — there is certainly precedent for him doing something totally different from what his staff (or #Resisters posing as staff) think he is going to do, or more likely, what they think he should do.
And if Congress would pass a budget under proper order, they wouldn’t be doing this every 3 or 6 months.
However, shutting down the government really never accomplishes anything, and costs extra money even if you don’t go on an Obama tirade.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/422311-trump-tells-gop-he-wont-sign-stopgap-threatening-shutdown
“But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated after the meeting that wall funding would be included in order to secure Trump’s support.
“We protect nations all over the world, but Democrats are unwilling to protect our nation. We urgently need funding for border security and that includes a wall,” she said.
Trump’s abrupt decision to oppose the legislation capped days of uncertainty about where he stood on the spending debate.
White House aides had signaled publicly and privately that Trump was prepared to drop his demand for $5 billion in wall funding, even though the president never announced whether he would support such a plan.
Conservative lawmakers and right-wing pundits have pressured Trump to veto a the spending deal, arguing the lack of border wall money would anger his base.
GOP senators, however, were exasperated at the president’s decision to reject the agreement they had passed just one day earlier.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said many members have returned to their home states for the holidays so there may not be enough Republicans remaining in Washington to pass another spending bill with border-wall funding.
“You’re ruining my life,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said when told by reporters of Trump’s decision.”
* * *
To Sen Collins: tough.
Nobody is making you be a Senator.
You have ruined lots of people’s lives by playing Democrat-lite when the GOP tries to get conservative things done.
The “shutdown” is going to be unnoticeable outside Washington. Obama tried to inflict pain by putting fences around open air monuments and shutting down access to private business near national parks.
Trump really needs to do this or no one, including his voters, will ever take anything he says seriously again.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/422387-house-passes-stopgap-bill-with-5b-in-wall-funding
Now they have to get the Senate to agree; it must take 60 votes, although the Hill never actually mentions a number.
Not if the Senate GOP stays opposed to it.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/422402-schumer-house-passed-border-wall-bill-dead-in-the-senate
“He said that once the Senate defeats the House-passed measure on Friday, House Republican leaders should immediately schedule a vote on a clean temporary funding measure, without border wall funding, that passed the upper chamber without opposition on Friday.
“Leader Pelosi and I and probably Sen. McConnell would hope that the House would then consider passing the bipartisan, unanimously-passed bill [sent down by] Senate,” Schumer said, referring to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).”
How unanimous was it? It’s hard to tell with a voice vote; why won’t GOP Senators let their votes be known?
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/19/mcconnell-to-introduce-short-term-funding-bill-to-avert-shutdown-1068976
“The legislation was passed by voice vote and will keep the government open until Feb. 8, provided the House will pass it. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the Senate will remain in session on Thursday pending House action on the spending bill; on Wednesday evening conservatives in the House urged the rejection of the legislation because it shorts the border wall.”
There is the usual Politico spin with loaded adjectives and their own judgment about the wisdom – or not – of funding and shut-downs, but I don’t suppose there is any reason to doubt their bare facts.
“the spending bill passed without any dissent by voice vote. The quick vote was evidence that few in the Senate wanted to fight about the border wall late into the holiday season with the president sending mixed messages about what he would sign and if he was still “proud” to shut the government down.”
The Hill article I quoted above notes that the mixed messages were from aides, not the President.