President Nelson and AoF 10

[longview]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Note to self: Buy stock in Dewalt if this stupid wall is ever funded.

The Israeli barrier is working magnificently!  Keeping the moslem terrorists from infiltrating to do martyrdom operations.

[Rajah Manchou]

56 minutes ago, longview said:

The Israeli barrier is working magnificently!  Keeping the moslem terrorists from infiltrating to do martyrdom operations.

True. Walls with armed patrol to snipe anybody (terrorist or otherwise) who might climb them do work great. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-palestine-shoot-video-gaza-shooting-video-sniper-protests-a8298196.html
(warning, the video is of a sniper on a wall shooting a human who was doing nothing but standing next to the wall)

But I would hope sniper turrets don't become a thing in America.

Edited September 6, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Calm]

47 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

True. Walls with armed patrol to snipe anybody (terrorist or otherwise) who might climb them do work great. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-palestine-shoot-video-gaza-shooting-video-sniper-protests-a8298196.html
(warning, the video is of a sniper on a wall shooting a human who was doing nothing but standing next to the wall)

But I would hope sniper turrets don't become a thing in America.

A different claim of the man being one involved in a violent demonstration:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/army-clears-sniper-filmed-shooting-gazan-denounces-cameraman/

I agree I don't like the idea of sniper lined walls.

Edited September 6, 2018 by Calm

[longview]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

But I would hope sniper turrets don't become a thing in America.

[Hamba Tuhan]

29 minutes ago, longview said:

This is the ugliest thing I have seen all day. 

[Rajah Manchou]

41 minutes ago, longview said:

(Photo of a border fence)

I posted in another thread some medieval Jewish accounts that when the lost tribes return to Jerusalem, God will dig out subterranean tunnels for them to make it possible. I'm starting to see why it might be necessary.

[The Nehor]

11 hours ago, longview said:

The Israeli barrier is working magnificently!  Keeping the moslem terrorists from infiltrating to do martyrdom operations.

Yes, because they have armed guards patrolling it. How many armed guards will it take to protect almost 2,000 miles of wall? How much will it cost to pay them all? Do you still think we will make money off this?

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

This is the ugliest thing I have seen all day. 

Indeed, I was promised a beautiful wall.

[longview]

10 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

This is the ugliest thing I have seen all day. 

But it is a beautiful thing for thwarting the genocidal determination of moslem extremists to harm Jewish families.  Captain Moroni would strongly approve.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, because they have armed guards patrolling it. How many armed guards will it take to protect almost 2,000 miles of wall? How much will it cost to pay them all? Do you still think we will make money off this?

If you read my post of 9/5/2018 (around 11 am), we would be saving 113.9 Billion per year.  Even if we were to station full fledged army bases along the border, we would still come out way ahead.  America has about 800 overseas military bases at annual cost of $156 Billion per year or $195 million per overseas base per year.  If we were to string an army base every 50 miles along the 2000 mile border, we would only be spending 6 Billion a year.   Leaving us over 100 Billion to save or to work with.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Indeed, I was promised a beautiful wall.

If the wall will prevent the wrongful attempts by certain segments in permitting aliens voting access in our precincts then the will of the lawful citizens will not be subverted.  If we can prevent other nations from expropriating (directly or indirectly) the tax money paid by hard working tax payers then we can direct our resources on more urgent priorities.  Yes, Virginia, the wall can be VERY beautiful.

Edited September 6, 2018 by longview

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, longview said:

But it is a beautiful thing for thwarting the genocidal determination of moslem extremists to harm Jewish families.  Captain Moroni would strongly approve.

If you read my post of 9/5/2018 (around 11 am), we would be saving 113.9 Billion per year.  Even if we were to station full fledged army bases along the border, we would still come out way ahead.  America has about 800 overseas military bases at annual cost of $156 Billion per year or $195 million per overseas base per year.  If we were to string an army base every 50 miles along the 2000 mile border, we would only be spending 6 Billion a year.   Leaving us over 100 Billion to save or to work with.

If the wall will prevent the wrongful attempts by certain segments in permitting aliens voting access in our precincts then the will of the lawful citizens will not be subverted.  If we can prevent other nations from expropriating (directly or indirectly) the tax money paid by hard working tax payers then we can direct our resources on more urgent priorities.  Yes, Virginia, the wall can be VERY beautiful.

Yeah, I do not believe your numbers are correct at all. First off you would need a specific kind of base and overseas bases vary wildly from detection facilities to airbases to army bases. You would need a base with a large complement of troops to surveil the entire border so push that estimate way up. You numbers on the costs of illegal immigration consider only the negatives and none of the positives of their labor in the United States and they are skewed heavily in any case.

And no Virginia, a gigantic wall telling people to stay out is not beautiful. It is an ecological nightmare, horrifying expensive in terms of materials and manpower, and almost certainly will not Work.

I like how you compare Mexican immigrants trying to find a better life to invading Lamanite armies. That is also horrifying.

And even if the wall is built scriptural prophecy insists it will not Work. The promise to the descendants of Lehi is that they will tear apart the Gentiles (almost certainly people of European descent in this context) and none shall deliver. Their only protection is righteousness and they just voted in a crazy autocrat who believes government institutions exist primarily to protect him and destroy his enemies to be in charge because they think it will advantage them personally. The Kingmen are here and are winning. The wall will not protect us from the real enemy Captain Moroni fought. Instead of manning the forts to keep the filthy Anti-Nephi-Lehis out he would probably be heading off to Washington DC to pull down those sitting on their thrones in a thoughtless stupor who seek to destroy liberty.

Edited September 6, 2018 by The Nehor

[Gray]

26 minutes ago, longview said:

If you read my post of 9/5/2018 (around 11 am), we would be saving 113.9 Billion per year. 

Fake news.

[Stargazer]

On 9/5/2018 at 6:18 AM, The Nehor said:

No, they won’t.

These are the kinds of campaign promises you can expect when your candidate is mentally subnormal and judges whether a campaign promise is good based on the volume of enthusiasm for it from a gaggle of idiots at a rally. Then afterwards he whines on the phone to the Mexicans to stop bringing it up and insulting his idiocy. He should have promised he would destroy the galaxy of Andromeda while he was at it. It is probably equally likely he would succeed.

I'm not going to apologize for the candidate in question, having not voted for him and having wished some other candidate had won the nomination for his party, but from what I have heard, that isn't the only campaign promise he made, and some people seem convinced that other promises he made have been or are being fulfilled.  As for comparisons, I seem to be recall that his predecessor promised to close a certain internment camp outside US jurisdiction, and since he didn't need Congress's approval, all he needed to do was issue an executive order and it would have been done.  But in 8 years he never did it.  So if the candidate in question never finishes his super-duper wall, I don't think I'll make too much fun of him.

[Stargazer]

On 9/5/2018 at 6:23 PM, The Nehor said:

Uh huh, problem is the wall can be easily circumvented via a trip to Home Depot. Just need a ladder and some rope. Anyone stopped by this wall is just a pathetic shell of a human being.

Note to self: Buy stock in Dewalt if this stupid wall is ever funded.

The referenced article does in fact state that only 9-10% of illegal entrants will be dissuaded by this wall -- they are thus the pathetic shells, and do we really want them in this country?  We should only allow the most ambitious illegal immigrants to cross the wall.

But in all seriousness, the wall in question is supposed to be much more than just a physical structure.  There will be plenty of monitoring going on.  So I suspect it will take more than just a visit to Home Depot.  Do they have HD in Mexico?

[Stargazer]

On 9/6/2018 at 4:34 AM, Rajah Manchou said:

True. Walls with armed patrol to snipe anybody (terrorist or otherwise) who might climb them do work great. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-palestine-shoot-video-gaza-shooting-video-sniper-protests-a8298196.html
(warning, the video is of a sniper on a wall shooting a human who was doing nothing but standing next to the wall)

But I would hope sniper turrets don't become a thing in America.

I hope they don't become necessary.  And I suspect they won't.

The problem with Israel is that the illegal border crossers are not coming across to work, they are coming across to kill.  And walls are typically built not on the border, but next to the border. The person on the other side is likely to have been standing on Israeli territory.  And why the hell would someone be standing next to an armed barrier where those on the other side were waiting with charged weapons, if all they were doing was gawking?  I don't know what was in that person's mind, but nobody with honest intent would be standing anywhere near that wall.

================

I really hope that Mexico gets its government in order and fixes its economy, so that its poor don't see immigration to the US the only way out of poverty.

The funny thing is, the one illegal immigrant I was acquainted with in Washington state was not really poor.  He owned a fair bit of land in Mexico, and was not poor, just frugal.  I think he saw the US as far freer than Mexico, and an easier place to make a living.  I gather he lived poor in the US so as to maximize his financial future.  I found him to be a hard-working and trustworthy man.  One amusing thing about him was that he was married to a Honduran woman who was living illegally in Mexico!  He went back to Mexico for a few months in order to get her permanent Mexican residence status (this apparently involved bribing the right officials), so that he could bring her illegally to the US!  This was so that if they got deported for being in the US illegally, they could both be deported to the same country!  

Sometimes the world seems quite mad.  Or maybe it's just the denizens.

Edited September 9, 2018 by Stargazer

[The Nehor]

15 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I'm not going to apologize for the candidate in question, having not voted for him and having wished some other candidate had won the nomination for his party, but from what I have heard, that isn't the only campaign promise he made, and some people seem convinced that other promises he made have been or are being fulfilled.  As for comparisons, I seem to be recall that his predecessor promised to close a certain internment camp outside US jurisdiction, and since he didn't need Congress's approval, all he needed to do was issue an executive order and it would have been done.  But in 8 years he never did it.  So if the candidate in question never finishes his super-duper wall, I don't think I'll make too much fun of him.

He promised me that we would win so much I would be tired of winning. Still waiting.

Guantanamo is a disgrace but it is a misrepresentation to blame the failure of the shutdown on the then-President. He made the promise to close it and ordered all prosecutions to go forward. Some of the detainees had scanty paperwork and it was realized that figuring the mess out would take time. Then the Senate passed a bill blocking the funds needed for the transfer and release of the prisoners and later bills kept this restriction in force.

Then Congress passed a Defense Authorization bill prohibiting the use of funds to construct or modify any facility to hold Guantanamo prisoners making it fiscally impossible to move them to another facility. Obama signed the bill due to other necessary provisions in it while objecting to those provisions. It is clear he wanted to close it but was stymied by Congress.

So no, an executive order would not have done it unless said executive order would have just released all of them as well which would have been political suicide and morally questionable. Our current President has issued an order to keep it open indefinitely, presumably for all the "bad dudes" we need to send there.

You know, like Murat Kurnaz, an innocent guy who was held for four years in torturous conditions after authorities had determined he should be released and had no ties to terrorism or Al Qaeda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murat_Kurnaz

The entire episode is a national disgrace.

15 hours ago, Stargazer said:

The referenced article does in fact state that only 9-10% of illegal entrants will be dissuaded by this wall -- they are thus the pathetic shells, and do we really want them in this country?  We should only allow the most ambitious illegal immigrants to cross the wall.

But in all seriousness, the wall in question is supposed to be much more than just a physical structure.  There will be plenty of monitoring going on.  So I suspect it will take more than just a visit to Home Depot.  Do they have HD in Mexico?

So we want to build this expensive boondoggle to stop 10%? That is insane. What is there in addition to the physical structure? Easily destroyed and expensive to replace cameras that we cannot convict vandals for destroying due to sovereignty issues? Electrify it with all the costs that entails?

Yes, it is possible to build an all but impervious defense if we throw enough money at the problem and are willing to shoot anyone approaching the wall but I doubt we want to go that far.

Edited September 10, 2018 by The Nehor

[The Nehor]

14 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Sometimes the world seems quite mad.  Or maybe it's just the denizens.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

[Stargazer]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

He promised me that we would win so much I would be tired of winning. Still waiting.

I don't know if we're going to get tired of winning or not, but with the unemployment rate down as low as it is, including the lowest such rate among blacks since a really long time, I think that we are in fact winning. On some level at least.

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Guantanamo is a disgrace but it is a misrepresentation to blame the failure of the shutdown on the then-President.

Oh, I don't blame him.  Certainly it was a foolish campaign promise, since he either didn't know how complex the problem was, or it was calculated, meaning that he was pandering to part of his base at the time.  But I think he truly wanted to close the detention center, and I respect his feelings. Holding people indefinitely without trial does not make me feel very comfortable.  They are either prisoners of war or criminals, so pick one.  Or create an entirely new category -- but that in itself would be a problem, even assuming it could be done.

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So we want to build this expensive boondoggle to stop 10%? That is insane. What is there in addition to the physical structure? Easily destroyed and expensive to replace cameras that we cannot convict vandals for destroying due to sovereignty issues? Electrify it with all the costs that entails?

If that study quoted here by [someone, I forget who] is correct, even stopping 10% would be cost effective.  I believe that the wall, if finished, would stop more than 10%.  

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yes, it is possible to build an all but impervious defense if we throw enough money at the problem and are willing to shoot anyone approaching the wall but I doubt we want to go that far.

One can grumble about the expense, but do we really want the southern border to be open for whoever wants to come over?  Maybe the wall, as envisioned by the current president, is impractical, but in case this got lost in the shuffle, there is already a wall there, in places.  It does stop some people.  I am not in favor of just giving up and putting out welcome signs, like some people want to do.

[Gray]

6 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So we want to build this expensive boondoggle to stop 10%? That is insane. What is there in addition to the physical structure? Easily destroyed and expensive to replace cameras that we cannot convict vandals for destroying due to sovereignty issues? Electrify it with all the costs that entails?

Yes, it is possible to build an all but impervious defense if we throw enough money at the problem and are willing to shoot anyone approaching the wall but I doubt we want to go that far.

Yes, the wall is a dumb idea. But more importantly the 👏 wall 👏 is 👏 never 👏 going 👏 to 👏 happen.

[Gray]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I don't know if we're going to get tired of winning or not, but with the unemployment rate down as low as it is, including the lowest such rate among blacks since a really long time, I think that we are in fact winning. On some level at least.

Unemployment improving more slowly than under Obama. The Trump economy is mostly a slight slowdown from previous trends, along with some artificial and temporary juicing in the form of the tax scam.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Unemployment improving more slowly than under Obama. The Trump economy is mostly a slight slowdown from previous trends, along with some artificial and temporary juicing in the form of the tax scam.

And just wait for the price spikes from those “easy to win” trade wars.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Yes, the wall is a dumb idea. But more importantly the 👏 wall 👏 is 👏 never 👏 going 👏 to 👏 happen.

It might give us a fun government shutdown.

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I don't know if we're going to get tired of winning or not, but with the unemployment rate down as low as it is, including the lowest such rate among blacks since a really long time, I think that we are in fact winning. On some level at least.

Oh, I don't blame him.  Certainly it was a foolish campaign promise, since he either didn't know how complex the problem was, or it was calculated, meaning that he was pandering to part of his base at the time.  But I think he truly wanted to close the detention center, and I respect his feelings. Holding people indefinitely without trial does not make me feel very comfortable.  They are either prisoners of war or criminals, so pick one.  Or create an entirely new category -- but that in itself would be a problem, even assuming it could be done.

If that study quoted here by [someone, I forget who] is correct, even stopping 10% would be cost effective.  I believe that the wall, if finished, would stop more than 10%.  

One can grumble about the expense, but do we really want the southern border to be open for whoever wants to come over?  Maybe the wall, as envisioned by the current president, is impractical, but in case this got lost in the shuffle, there is already a wall there, in places.  It does stop some people.  I am not in favor of just giving up and putting out welcome signs, like some people want to do.

I don’t think he was pandering. I think he underestimated how dedicated our Republican controlled Congress was to keeping our torture camp open. I like to imagine it was to humiliate the President and frustrate his campaign promise and not because they really like torture camps but I am not sure.

I find that study laughable.

it is not an either/or. We have border security now. The choice is not between letting everyone in and building the stupid wall. 

[longview]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

Unemployment improving more slowly than under Obama. The Trump economy is mostly a slight slowdown from previous trends, along with some artificial and temporary juicing in the form of the tax scam.

From the Canada Free Press

"For most of Obama’s eight years, the employment numbers were dismal and stagnant. Despite all the stimulus spending and alleged “shovel ready jobs” Unemployment was way up, growth was almost impossibly slow, and no one within the President’s (OBAMA) administration seemed to have any genuine interest in making things better.

We were told, on multiple occasions, that Americans had to accept this condition as “the new normal.”  Manufacturing jobs were never coming back, and it would take years of labor-training to turn this mess around – if it could be turned around at all.

Donald Trump, Obama said in June of 2016, would need a magic wand to make it happen. As The Hill reported:

During a PBS town hall that aired Wednesday, Obama referenced Trump’s promise to bring back jobs to the United States when talking about manufacturing.

“Well, how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There’s no answer to it,” Obama said.

“He just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2016/12/02/flashback-obama-mocks-trump-asks-if-he-has-a-magic-wand-to-keep-carrier-jobs-in-us-n2253723

[Gray]

2 minutes ago, longview said:

From the Canada Free Press

"For most of Obama’s eight years, the employment numbers were dismal and stagnant. Despite all the stimulus spending and alleged “shovel ready jobs” Unemployment was way up, growth was almost impossibly slow, and no one within the President’s (OBAMA) administration seemed to have any genuine interest in making things better.

We were told, on multiple occasions, that Americans had to accept this condition as “the new normal.”  Manufacturing jobs were never coming back, and it would take years of labor-training to turn this mess around – if it could be turned around at all.

Donald Trump, Obama said in June of 2016, would need a magic wand to make it happen. As The Hill reported:

During a PBS town hall that aired Wednesday, Obama referenced Trump’s promise to bring back jobs to the United States when talking about manufacturing.

“Well, how exactly are you going to do that? What exactly are you going to do? There’s no answer to it,” Obama said.

“He just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have? And usually the answer is, he doesn’t have an answer.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2016/12/02/flashback-obama-mocks-trump-asks-if-he-has-a-magic-wand-to-keep-carrier-jobs-in-us-n2253723

This is what happens when you rely on fake news for your information.

President Trump's First Year Of Job Growth Was Below President Obama's Last Four Years:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/06/president-trumps-first-year-of-job-growth-was-below-president-obamas-last-six-years/#6c5e629825ab

 

Quote

 

Updated BLS information now has Trump now only being behind Obama's last 4 years vs. 6.

These are the original and updated numbers.

2011: 2.091 million

2012: 2.142 million

2013: 2.302 million

2014: 2.998 millon

2015: 2.713 million

2016: 2.240 million

2017 original: 2.046 million

2017 updated: 2.188 million

 

 

[Stargazer]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

Unemployment improving more slowly than under Obama. The Trump economy is mostly a slight slowdown from previous trends, along with some artificial and temporary juicing in the form of the tax scam.

This may be true, but as you approach zero it begins to go asymptotic. This is because it is impossible to have zero percent unemployment, and it gets harder and harder to reduce it lower than around 5% -- for the simple reason that below 5% one is dealing with essentially optimal conditions -- and 5% represents essentially normal turnover.

I'd like to see figures that show a slight slowdown from previous trends.  As for "tax scam" I take it you mean the "tax scam" of reducing the tax burden?  I'd ask why you think it's a scam, but this is verging on political, and perhaps we shouldn't go any further with it.  The Nehor brought the current president into the discussion, however, and I felt I should chime in, because as much as I don't like him, I think the standard leftist mantra is that he resembles a certain German dictator whose name  must not be mentioned is a bunch of bs.  And I do realize that it is consider impolitic to attribute anything at all positive to him -- since he's literally Satan to some people.  

[Gray]

18 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

This may be true, but as you approach zero it begins to go asymptotic. This is because it is impossible to have zero percent unemployment, and it gets harder and harder to reduce it lower than around 5% -- for the simple reason that below 5% one is dealing with essentially optimal conditions -- and 5% represents essentially normal turnover.

Possibly. But interestingly the slow down in job growth started just as Trump took office.

 

18 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

I'd like to see figures that show a slight slowdown from previous trends. 

See the numbers I provided just above your post here.

 

18 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

As for "tax scam" I take it you mean the "tax scam" of reducing the tax burden?  I'd ask why you think it's a scam, but this is verging on political, and perhaps we shouldn't go any further with it.  The Nehor brought the current president into the discussion, however, and I felt I should chime in, because as much as I don't like him, I think the standard leftist mantra is that he resembles a certain German dictator whose name  must not be mentioned is a bunch of bs.  And I do realize that it is consider impolitic to attribute anything at all positive to him -- since he's literally Satan to some people.   

I call it a scam because it mostly benefited the extremely wealthy. Most people didn't see a significant change. In fact most people are worse off due to inflation, including rising healthcare costs from GOP sabotage of healthcare and Trump's tariffs which are raising costs in a number of areas.

http://www.mcall.com/business/realestate/mc-biz-homebuilding-tariffs-cost-20180618-story.html