Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[zamyrabyrd]

People themselves are not always responsible for their silly thoughts. People are victims of surrounding influences and all people are not lucky to have good influences.

Indeed! The sum total of thoughts and desires put into our heads is called "conditioning" in Buddhism. The idea is to free ourselves of the baggage of prejudice, to get to the kernel of who we really are. Not easy, at all.

[Christo]

Indeed! The sum total of thoughts and desires put into our heads is called "conditioning" in Buddhism. The idea is to free ourselves of the baggage of prejudice, to get to the kernel of who we really are. Not easy, at all.

Our 12,5 years old son surpassed the American President in this respect at least three years ago. #proud

[SimonNZ]

Mayor of Texas Border Town: There Is No Crisis Here, Trump's Wall Is Pointless


Every congressperson along southern border opposes border wall funding


On the Border, Little Enthusiasm for a Wall: 'We Have Other Problems That Need Fixing'

[SimonNZ]

quoting in full:

Border wall speech: Trump is losing the macho game of staring himself down in the mirror

"The Oval Office is an iconic space in American political life. Televised addresses from the seat of presidential power have marked historic moments of national anxiety: JFK and the Cuban missile crisis, Ronald Reagan and the Challenger disaster, George H. W. Bush and the start of the Gulf War.

To that august list we can now add Donald Trump and the most pressing crisis facing this commander-in-chief: the disastrous damage already inflicted on his own ego by his dopey idea of a beautiful border wall.

This is a very real crisis inside one man's cranium and it's playing out in the living rooms of a weary nation. That crisis is called reality.

At every campaign stop in 2016, Trump promised to build a wall that Mexico would pay for. Soon it became clear that Mexico was laughing too loud to pay for anything. Somewhere along the way, the wall became a series of steel slats.

At this point, it's hard to know which one of his many delusions are winning the day. When Trump's lapdog Republicans controlled all of Washington, he couldn't get Congress to pay for his wall. Now the Democrats control half of Congress, he thinks he can force Congress to pay for his wall. His forcing mechanism is to shut down his own government, claim credit for the shutdown, and then blame everyone else.

Now he looks like a fool both before and after he loses this macho game of staring himself down in the mirror. A genius move nobody has ever dared consider. Until now.

These desperate times call for desperate measures. If reality won't bend to Trump, then Trump will have to bend reality.

Sitting behind the Resolute desk where he sometimes poses to sign blank pieces of paper, Trump reframed his indiscriminate crackdown on immigrants as "a growing humanitarian and security crisis." Summoning the shallow reserves of human empathy that lie buried deep within, he lamented how families were suffering at the border.

"The children are used as human pawns," he declared, noting that "women and children are the biggest victims, by far, of our broken system."

How true. They have been used as human pawns – by a president with an immoral and illegal policy to separate infants from parents, locking up children in detention camps, and caring so little for their wellbeing that several have died in the custody of the richest country on the planet. Not since Hannibal Lecter tried to charm Clarice have we witnessed such a chilling love of humanity.

To be fair, Trump isn't concerned with all Americans. He's especially troubled by the way immigrants are hurting our minorities. "Among those hardest hit are African-Americans and Hispanic Americans," said the man who thought there were some very fine people among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Far from reassuring a troubled nation, Trump did what he does best: he tried to scare the living daylights out of them. Especially the poor old scared folk who already watch Fox News. He said there are "vast quantities" of drugs coming over the Mexican border that would literally run into a brick wall if there was one. Or possibly a steel slat.

He didn't mention all the drugs smuggled in containers by land, sea and air, which get waved through customs.

But he did mention the murders and rapes, the hammer beatings and knife stabbings, and of course the beheadings and dismemberments. And no, he wasn't talking about his Saudi friends. He was talking about undocumented immigrants, who are in fact responsible for a lower crime rate than the general population.

For a reality TV star, Trump is a helplessly untrained beast in his natural environment. This was less of a fireside chat than a trial by fire and brimstone. He gulped at the words on the prompter like he was swallowing horse pills. He sniffed and snorted between sentences like he was mid-way through the punishing workout of an elite 239-pound athlete. He squinted at the camera as if it was hiding between steel slats, made in American steel mills.

Of course, this is no ordinary stage. Reagan was a camera-ready star but he never lived down his B-movie career in gems like Bedtime for Bonzo. Trump, on the other hand, will never live up to his primetime career as a businessman in The Apprentice.

According to our entrepreneur-in-chief, his beloved border wall will pay for itself many times over by stopping all those drugs. It will also be paid for many times over by tariffs on Mexican goods. In that case, we have a self-financing bridge in Brooklyn that the Trump organization might be interested in purchasing.

In one way, Trump is right. There is a national emergency threatening the peace and prosperity of its citizens. Americans desperately need a drastic intervention to wall off unprecedented and unwanted dangers to our law and order. But the solution is less of a construction than a prosecution.

There are concrete and steel-slatted structures that can deal with the nefarious actors who are undermining America's national identity in such profound ways. They may be a fifth century solution to containing threats to the public order, but they do succeed, no matter what the Democrats say. They're called prison cells and you can find several of Trump's one-time closest aides inside them now or soon.

It is beyond time to recognize that foreigners have infiltrated this country's borders, as malicious governments send us their very worst people. Unfortunately they are not crossing the southern border but rather taking flying caravans as they travel from Russia to meet with Trump's aides in various foreign capitals. Some have even tried to melt into the heartland as card-carrying members of the National Rifle Association. If we ever needed a space force, it's now. Failing that, the president could trust his own CIA and FBI again.

Trump goes to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to round up a posse to take on the immigrants just as some of his formerly loyal deputies start to get scared off by common sense and the looming 2020 elections.

This is no joke. In the blathering words of the great bumbler himself, this is "a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul." If they re-open the government and start paying people like the airport security officers, they could do no end of harm. We're talking about Trump's reputation here, not some trivial abstraction.

"When I took the oath of office, I swore to protect our country," Trump concluded. "And that is what I will always do, so help me God." While you're at it, dear Lord, please help the children at the border. They're human pawns, you know.

[zamyrabyrd]

quoting in full:
Border wall speech: Trump is losing the macho game of staring himself down in the mirror

So why bother? This screed is about as devoid of facts and as vapid as the Bobbsey Twins, Schumer and Pelosi, crafting out of thin air a counter argument. You all still miss the point: legal immigration is OK, but drug runners and criminals are not welcome. 

Furthermore, having a wall will discourage those simple people from making rash decisions to drag heir kids over 2000 miles of desert. Obviously, they don't know geography, haven't the faintest idea about the logistics of such a trek but are actually being used by the unscrupulous as human sheilds.

Lastly, one murder by unvetted migrants is ONE TOO MANY. We don't need to get used to terrorism as being a fact or condition of life as Sadig Khan proclaimed.

[Christo]

You can just feel the hate on this board.  Resentment, anger and hate abounds.  Sadly.

Sad but true. The undocumented, brave woman that he makes clean his toilet, is his superior in all relevant aspects of life and would be a better president; no lies & hatred:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/us/trump-bedminster-golf-undocumented-workers.html

[SimonNZ]

Donald Trump's Border Speech Gets A Savage Instant Fact-Check On Fox News

"Critics immediately panned President Donald Trump's prime-time speech pushing for a U.S.-Mexico border wall for its numerous lies and misrepresentations, even on the president's favorite network.

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith challenged many of Trump's claims by using the government's own numbers.

After Trump said that "innocent people" are being "horribly victimized" by immigrants who commit crimes, Smith quickly added perspective.

"The government's statistics show that there is less violent crime by the undocumented immigrant population than by the general population," he said.

Trump also argued for his wall by saying that immigrants carry illegal drugs across the border, but Smith pointed out that a wall wouldn't make much difference there.

"Government statistics show much of the heroin actually comes not over the unguarded border but through ports of call," he said.

[SimonNZ]

You all still miss the point: legal immigration is OK, but drug runners and criminals are not welcome. 

No: the caravan hordes you're so paranoid about are presenting themselves at checkpoints and trying to become legal immigrants through refugee status. And, yet again: most of the drugs are coming trough the existing checkpoints.

The stupid wall doesn't address either issue.

Also, it might be worth reading this sentence again: "When Trump's lapdog Republicans controlled all of Washington, he couldn't get Congress to pay for his wall. Now the Democrats control half of Congress, he thinks he can force Congress to pay for his wall. "

[Christo]

If you look for a more fair & balanced review of Trump's Oval Office Rant, GOP political strategist Rick Wilson won't disappoint:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-delivers-a-wet-fart-oval-office-address?ref=home

[Karl Henning]

Donald Trump's Border Speech Gets A Savage Instant Fact-Check On Fox News

"Critics immediately panned President Donald Trump's prime-time speech pushing for a U.S.-Mexico border wall for its numerous lies and misrepresentations, even on the president's favorite network.

Fox News anchor Shepard Smith challenged many of Trump's claims by using the government's own numbers.

After Trump said that "innocent people" are being "horribly victimized" by immigrants who commit crimes, Smith quickly added perspective.

"The government's statistics show that there is less violent crime by the undocumented immigrant population than by the general population," he said.

Trump also argued for his wall by saying that immigrants carry illegal drugs across the border, but Smith pointed out that a wall wouldn't make much difference there.

"Government statistics show much of the heroin actually comes not over the unguarded border but through ports of call," he said.

When Fox News fact-checks El Tupé...

The only thing surprising about President Trump's address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night was how totally unnecessary and un-newsworthy it was. Trump did not declare he was reopening the government. He did not issue an "emergency" declaration. He did not even offer any new arguments for a border wall that voters say they don't want for a crisis that doesn't exist. Instead, he delivered a weak, unconvincing promise to sit down with Democrats. Never has he looked so helpless and small.

In short, the president snookered the networks into giving him free time to commune with his base. They should not make that mistake again.

[Wendell_E]

Rosenstein expected to depart DOJ in coming weeks if new attorney general confirmed

Crap! Another excellent reason not to confirm Barr.

[drogulus]

     Thousands of terrorist drug dealers disguised as women with small children are creating a crisis at the border by presenting themselves at legal entry points, where kindly border agents obstruct them in violation of the law.

     We have a problem, not a crisis, one we permanently have. A few years ago unaccompanied males seeking jobs tried to evade the border patrol that was trying to catch them. Today we have families that are prevented from exercising their legal right to apply for asylum, so they cross the border where they can present themselves to the border patrol. They are running towards, not away from American officials. They are trying to comply with asylum law. This is just about a dictionary definition of "Catch 22".

     Trump & Co. are not only lying liars telling lies, the lies they tell are about an obsolete paradigm. There are still economic "running away" migrants, but the asylum seeking "running towards" migrants are the ones Trump says are generating a crisis. The only crisis anyone can see is Trump, who turns routine governance into kakistocratic turmoil.

[drogulus]

     I was watching Kellyanne Conway on Fox trying to explain how one can mistakenly turn 6 possible terrorists into 4,000. Then it hit me that for the rest of her life she will be Kellyanne Conway, and she knows it.

[zamyrabyrd]

Thousands of terrorist drug dealers disguised as women with small children are creating a crisis at the border by presenting themselves at legal entry points, where kindly border agents obstruct them in violation of the law.

The gals and kids have strong arms and good aim:
https://www.libertyplanet.com/articles/assaults-on-border-patrol-agents-soar-300-since-caravan-arrival/

According to figures from the United States Border Patrol, assaults on U.S. citizens charged with guarding the board have soared exponentially. According to Chief Rodney Scott, who is in charge of the San Diego section of the border, assaults on border patrol agents have risen by 300 percent since the migrant caravans arrived from Central America.

That 300 percent figure becomes more alarming when you realize that most of the attacks against border patrol employees came in just a two month period, according to The Blaze. The bulk of the migrant caravan arrived in late November.

"These incursions are organized, they are bringing people down there for the express purpose of provoking a confrontation," Border Patrol agent Joshua Wilson said. "Having that barrier helps prevent many assaults on agents and that's something the public really needs to understand...It's not just a border security measure it's a measure for agents' safety as well."

The assaults have taken many forms. On New Year's Eve, a border agent was struck in the face by a rock thrown by a caravan member. Others have been pelted with debris, concrete chunks, food and more. While the border patrol has not released the exact number of incidents and assaults against their team, they have released the dramatic percentages that showcase the increasing risk faced by those charged with protecting San Diego and the nation's borders.

[zamyrabyrd]

Trump & Co. are not only lying liars telling lies, the lies they tell are about an obsolete paradigm.

Either Schumer is a liar or he has a very poor memory. In either case, he is unfit for office:

In 2009, Schumer said that hundreds of miles of border fencing made the border "far more secure" because it "created a significant barrier to illegal immigration on our southern land border."

https://greatamericanpolitics.com/2019/01/chuck-schumer-says-border-wall-ineffective-check-out-what-he-said-in-2009/

[Christo]

border fencing

Why keep pretending all the time? As if there were any rationale for The Wall? Any other than pleasing the child who's clinging to a delusion, I mean?

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Either Schumer is a liar or he has a very poor memory. In either case, he is unfit for office:

In 2009, Schumer said that hundreds of miles of border fencing made the border "far more secure" because it "created a significant barrier to illegal immigration on our southern land border."

https://greatamericanpolitics.com/2019/01/chuck-schumer-says-border-wall-ineffective-check-out-what-he-said-in-2009/

There is no contradiction. There are already various forms of barrier on parts of the border where it has been found useful (wall, fencing, vehicle barriers depending on the conditions). This is apparently what he was referring to in 2009. He is currently opposing a "wall" traversing the entire border.

I find Schumer quite fit for office. He's outclassed by Pelosi, however.

[drogulus]

There is no contradiction. There are already various forms of barrier on parts of the border where it has been found useful (wall, fencing, vehicle barriers depending on the conditions). This is apparently what he was referring to in 2009. He is currently opposing a "wall" traversing the entire border.

I find Schumer quite fit for office. He's outclassed by Pelosi, however.

     I agree on all counts. I have no predisposition against building a wall in places where it might help channel border crossers away from unsafe areas and protect local property owners. I'm all for what works for legitimate goals.

     Trump wants a fight over a wall far more than he wants anything of practical use. If he wanted better border management he'd ask the experts what works best. He won't because what he wants to work isn't anything to do with an orderly process that could win the support of American people, who are too evil to hate foreigners.

[SimonNZ]

seen elsewhere:

"Trump visits landowners where proposed wall to be built.

"Nice to meet ya folks! I heard you voted for me!"
"Yeah. We did. (sighs)"
"You're gonna be very happy the wall is gonna keep all the rapists and murderers out!"
"We don't get that here. Just a few folks passing thru on the south side once in a while. But they don't stay, they go on north. We didn't vote for you for a wall."
"So you must be poorly educated, right ?"
"Nope. I went to A&M and my wife went to Austin."
"So you're economically distressed?"
"No. I graze on 400 acres, and my wife teaches at UTEP."
"So why did you vote for me?"
" I'm ashamed to admit it, but we wanted to pay less taxes."
"So I gave you a big tax cut !"
"We're not rich. You took away our state deductions. We actually pay more now."
"You're 'state what' ?"
"A wall built here would make our land virtually worthless."
" Hey, come back! Lemme asplain the wall to you !"
"See you in court motherfucker."
"Hey !! Turn off those cameras ! You didn't tape that did you ?!"

[SimonNZ]