Saturday, December 22, 2018
Trump's $5 billion request would build just 100 miles of new wall, 115 miles of replacement barrier
[T]he $5 billion the House has approved for a border wall would be enough for about 215 miles of barrier. Less than half of that — about 100 miles, mostly in South Texas — would be frontier that doesn't already have a fence. The rest would go to replace older, less-effective fencing or to build secondary fencing. ...
Senior officials from the Homeland Security Department briefed journalists Friday afternoon on what the proposed $5 billion could accomplish. Their estimate of 215 miles' worth of new and replacement fencing works out to more than $23 million a mile, on average. That's far higher than the nearly 700 miles of barrier already in place along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Most of that was authorized under President George W. Bush, in the Secure Fences Act of 2006. The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2009 that put the initial cost per mile at $2.8 to $3.9 million. But that was in urban areas, where roads were already in place. Some of the replacement fencing installed during the Trump administration has cost about $8 million a mile. The more remote the area, the higher the cost. Homeland Security officials insisted that comparisons are inappropriate. "Every mile of border is different," said one official. "It depends on the terrain" and other factors.
Since Trump took office, Congress has approved $341 million for 40 miles of replacement fencing and new gates in San Diego, New Mexico and West Texas, plus gates in the Rio Grande Valley to close gaps between existing fence. Of that, 34 miles is complete.
Earlier this year, Congress provided an additional $1.375 billion for about 84 miles of new and replacement border barrier. That includes levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley, with construction expected to start in February, plus some new wall construction in that area of South Texas, along with replacement barrier in Arizona and California. ...
When Congress authorized wall funding earlier this year, it restricted construction to designs already in use.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Rush Limbaugh thanks Mark Meadows today when it was Meadows who helped stop the immigration showdown in October
Neither Meadows nor Limbaugh (Ted Cruz supporter) really want the wall.
And Trump obviously doesn't either, otherwise he wouldn't have treated the issue like he has, in sharp contrast to his campaign for president.
Here's the grifter today taking money from you suckers:
Nancy doesn’t even run the House yet, and she’s out there saying Trump couldn’t get the votes — and he did, and it was because of Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan and the Freedom Caucus. They did their special order earlier this week and they let the president that know they would have his back. It’d be easy for the president to think that he’s isolated, but it was I think a very important thing that they did to make it a point to go to the floor of the House and special orders to make sure that everybody knew — not just the president — that they, significant number of Republicans in the House, would have his back.
Justin Raimondo on General Mad Dog Mattis resignation: We got the leaker
And maybe his conduit, too.
Trump has no veto weapon in the criminal justice reform bill to get the border wall
The criminal justice reform bill passed the Senate 87-12 on Tuesday and the House 358-36 on Thursday and awaits the president's signature.
He could hold it hostage to get what he wants on the wall today even though he supports the bill, but Congress has the votes to override his veto, 66 in the Senate and 287 in the House.
Worse still, a government shutdown tonight would shut down Homeland Security and the State Department only, both of which are kind of critical to controlling immigration in any event, wall or no wall.
The president has yet to come anywhere near mastering the art of getting what he wants in DC.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Lame Duck House passes $5 billion border wall funding attached to spending bill 217-185
House passes spending bill with border wall money — setting up shutdown stalemate with Senate:
During a televised Oval Office fracas last week, Pelosi challenged Trump by saying he did not have the votes for wall money in the House. It turns out he did.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
WaPo in March: 7% of Obama 2012 voters stayed home in 2016 (4.4 million), 1.6 million of them black
WaPo spins this, chalking it up to 1) Russian voter suppression of stupid people (pretty damn condescending!); 2) Republicans (!) dredging up Hillary's own 1996 statement that blacks = super predators to suppress their vote (naw, she's not racist); 3) Obama wasn't on the ballot, suppressing the black vote!
But why blame blacks, WaPo? Kinda racist of you to put it all on them, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania. 2.8 million others stayed home, too, you know. Their votes count just as much as black votes, don't they? Don't they? Well let's hear it for the young, disaffected voters for Bernie in the primaries! They didn't show up either, apparently. Why? They also found Hillary quite revolting. Trump revolted them too, but that goes without saying. What matters is the Democrat candidate suppressed all these votes, but WaPo and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, just can't bring themselves to utter this truth.
Anyway, it's nice of WaPo, and The New York Times, finally getting around over a year and a half later to pointing out what we were pointing out only days after Election 2016:
Hillary sucked more than Trump did.
Exit polling suggests that black voters made up 12 percent of the electorate in 2016, down slightly from 2008 and 2012. Trump’s claim that many black voters stayed home ... is correct. ...
Eleven percent of black Obama 2012 voters stayed home. ...
In 2016, black turnout was down eight points from 2012, helping
contribute to that lower percentage that black voters made up of the
overall electorate. ...
About 5 million white Obama 2012 voters supported Trump; about 1.6 million black voters stayed home.
Stupid caller Michelle to Chris Plante still thinks Republicans retiring caused loss of the US House, to punish Trump supporters
There were fewer than ten seats retired by Republicans which flipped to the Democrats.
Politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the deal. If Trump couldn't pass his agenda with control of everything, he won't in this Lame Duck, and certainly not next year when Pelosi runs the show in the House.
Republicans are dead. Trump is dead. Justin Raimondo is dead. But only Justin Raimondo knows it.
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