Quick Reminder That trump's Wall is a Godless Con Job

The fckers building it aren't even factoring in wind conditions for the damn thing.

Via Rosie Perper at Business Insider:

The border wall collapsed about midday Wednesday and landed on a row of trees, according to the police in Mexicali, a town on the Mexico-California border...

The fallen length of wall was about 130 feet long.

Agent Carlos Pitones of the Customs and Border Protection sector in El Centro, California, told CNN that the wall was newly installed and had been set in concrete that had not yet hardened.

According to CNN, the National Weather Service recorded wind gusts up to 37 mph when the wall fell down...

Simple rules of construction, especially for high-walled structures like warehouses I've been seeing along the Polk County line where dozens have been going up: REINFORCE THE MOFOS.

And even then, has anyone working on these 50-foot monstrosities put into consideration how resonance and wind vibrations would work against something sticking up THAT high across a wide and flat landscape?!

We've had about 80-90 years of construction history telling us we need to model out tall structures for wind effects because this is what you get when you don't:

Which always begs the question: JUST WHAT THE FCK ARE WE TAXPAYERS PAYING FOR IN trump's GODDAMN CONSTRUCTION BOONDOGGLES.

This Day I Can't Even: December 20 2018 A Day Which Will Live in OMFG

I was going to write about things but other things kept popping up.

I was going to write about trump's ongoing tariff wars combined with market anxiety over oil, interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and growing concerns over a dysfunctional federal government had dropped the New York Stock Market deep into the red over the last two-three months and seriously deep over the past week.

I was going to write about the ongoing revelations in Mueller's Russia-trump Investigations, including how the judge overseeing Michael Flynn's plea agreement openly flipped out in court over Flynn's transgressions and accusing Flynn of treason, "You sold this country out!". Judge Sullivan walked it back later by noting treason only applies in times of war against a declared hostile foreign power, but still whatever the judge saw in the un-redacted portions of the plea deal made the judge recoil in horror.

I was going to write about the REAL power in the Republican Party wasn't trump or the deep pocket SuperPACs, but the Far Right Noise Machine of Limbaugh, Fox Not-News and assorted partners in crime. It's an open secret trump doesn't listen to advisors or experts, he listens to the ill-informed pundits on TV. Considering how the wingnut media has been berating trump for his failures to get his coveted trump Wall funded by Mexico Canada tariff hikes China the U.S. Defense budget American taxpayers...

I was going to write about how trump's sudden temper tantrum - spurred on by that Far Right Noise Machine on Fox & Friends - over getting HIS Wall built created a last-minute scramble by the outgoing Republican House to pass a new Continuing Resolution / Budget... with the glaring problems of A) the Republicans don't have the votes to support including $5 BILLION for the Wall, B) the Senate already passed a CR without it and will NOT be able to vote for a changed bill including it, C) half of the Republicans in Congress have ALREADY GONE HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. We're essentially going to get a trump Shutdown after all...

But no, I get home today after a crazy day at work and get my dinner done and then I check Twitter and I see stuff about Secretary of Defense Mattis (the last Sane Man in trump's chaotic White House) RESIGNING FROM THE POST AND STEPPING DOWN SOME TIME IN FEBRUARY OMFG OMFG WE ARE SO DEAD THIS IS HORRIFYING WE ARE FORSAKEN BY THE OLD GODS AND NEW THIS NIGHT...

Oy. Seriously, this is a bad thing. Mattis is leaving under duress, no longer willing to abide by trump's unwillingness to listen to reason and trump's impulsive foreign policy moves such as the recent decision to withdraw (ABANDON) from Syria regarding the ongoing civil war/fight against ISIL. To refer to Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice about the Syrian withdrawal, this is how bad it's going to get:

The immediate, within 24 hour removal of State Department personnel, while not logistically difficult, is a huge issue. The personnel being withdrawn were working on the civilian side of the Stability Operations we are conducting. This includes the USAID personnel who are working with internally displaced Syrians, as well as refugees in the region and coordinating humanitarian relief and assistance with local NGOs and other local groups. The military withdrawal will, of course, take longer because it isn’t just removing personnel, but equipment, which will obviously take longer than 24 hours...

If we pull out there will be four immediate effects.

1. The collapse of the local stabilization we’re contributing to. This will result in increased internally displaced Syrians and Syrian refugees who will flee ahead of both Syrian and ISIS efforts to fill the vacuum the withdrawal will create.
2. As a result of the first effect, we will see an increased humanitarian crisis in the areas we withdraw from.
3. We will once again have abandoned the Kurds despite the promises we’ve made to them, which further diminishes the United States ability to exercise any form of national power (Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic), because it further demonstrates that we can’t be trusted, won’t keep our word, and can’t be counted on.
4. The vacuum and destabilization created by the withdrawal will be filled by both Syrian forces and ISIS. They will move to occupy and control the areas we’ve left, will fight each other in them, and this will lead to further destabilization in Syria and, potentially, throughout the Levant. It creates new stresses, challenges, and threats for Iraq and Lebanon, as well as for Israel and Turkey even though both of those states have been pursuing their own interests in Syria. And because of increased refugee outflows, it will increase pressures and problems for our allies in the EU...

The upshot of all this: Russia profits because they keep their allies in Syria in power, Iran profits because they gain from the chaos of the civil war to retain control over Lebanon and keep Iraq destabilized, Turkey profits because the Kurds will become vulnerable again and lose any hope of establishing their own nation. The world has to cope with an escalation in refugees fleeing the war zones, which adds to the Far Right/Nationalist uprisings happening in Europe against that refugee crisis (again, benefiting Russia). All the U.S. will get out of it are the personnel coming back home, but with no guarantees we are leaving a stabilized, functioning Syria and nowhere near a stabilized Middle East. Essentially, we're giving up on trying to help the Syrian people, and that abandonment is going to make the U.S. more despised and disrespected on the global stage than ever before.

Mattis leaving now points to the recent Syria move as a major factor, although working for trump has clear soul-scarring issues that would drive any sane man to have left months ago (Mattis likely only took the job out of a sense of patriotic duty).

Silverman added a copy of Mattis' resignation letter at Balloon Juice - follow the link please - so you can read it and draw your own conclusions.

I've already drawn one conclusion from all this week (and it's not even Friday News Dump Day yet!):

The chaos of the trump Administration is going to destroy this nation. It's no longer a matter of IF it's a matter of WHEN, and that WHEN is now counted by days instead of weeks or months.

WE ARE SO VERY ROYALLY MUTHAFUCKING FUCKED.

It's days like this I *wish* I could drink Saturnalia wine...

Update: It's not so much that I believed Mattis was great as a Secretary of Defense, it's just that he did what he could to keep trump's partisan, unpredictable, and noticeably corrupted ideas away from influencing the military in ways that would have proven disastrous for the nation's well-being. In an administration full of corrupting individuals - some of whom are just now facing criminal investigations for the crimes they're committing in office - Mattis was one of the few who could have been trusted to serve the nation's interests and not trump's. We have no guarantee the next Defense Secretary is going to do that: For what we know, it's going to be a trump-suckup who'll willingly abuse the authority and power of our armed forces to serve trump's whims (and GOD KNOWS what they'll hand over to Putin)...

I Gots Me More Government Shutdown Blues 2018 Edition

How can you tell there's a federal government shutdown pending?

The Republicans are already trying to blame Democrats for not surrendering to them over it.

It's not as though Republicans control both houses of Congress, which should simplify the GOP's ability to get shit done.

It's not as though Democrats have any influence over the Far Right factions of Congress that are refusing to give their own party some wriggle room with Continuing Resolutions. THAT'S entirely Paul Ryan's fault for not getting his own to agree to vote on another CR to extend their budgeting deadlines a little further down the road.

The budget fight this time is over DREAMers - a way to grant citizenship to those who were brought here as children by illegal immigrants, who grew up as Americans and many of whom are honest hard-working citizens in heart if not by law - and over trump's insistence for massive taxpayer funding for his Godawful Wall (guess what, trumpshirts: Mexico's not ever paying for your shit, YOU ARE).

Democrats are not going to budge on getting DREAMers their citizenship. Whatever compromises the Dems are willing to make to keep government open they're thinking long-term on the matter, and even then it's gonna be a hard sell to the whole party.

This means this is all on the Republicans: A Party that hasn't held itself accountable since Watergate. And yet blaming Democrats for their own failures to govern is all the Republicans can do at this point.

There are a lot of reasons why we've been suffering through one of the Worst Congresses Ever in American history. The failure of genuine bipartisanship out of the McConnell/Boehner/Ryan leadership - if not outright obstruction of Obama's Presidency - since 2010. The failure to rein in the worst racist impulses of their current banner-carrier trump. The failure to recognize their party are governing in the minority, ignoring the polls that show the GOP tax-cut, budget-slashing agendas are woefully unpopular with most Americans.

It all comes down to this: Republicans simply can't govern. Oh, they can win elections, but winning elections doesn't mean you can make hard decisions that elected officials are expected to make. Elections are won based on emotional drives, on bias and impulse: Republicans can sell themselves to their base on fear and anger, but those impulses are useless when it comes time to make Honest-to-God decisions that actually benefits people.

So this is why we're facing the third - or fourth? I lost track - Government Shutdown in modern memory since the 1990s. A trend of Government Shutdowns that happen ONLY when Republicans are in control of Congress, and this is the first time it's happening when they also control the White House (to get past the presidential veto power).

This is how bad it's gotten for us, America. Even when they're in charge of EVERYTHING, the Republicans screw up.

And we're the ones who have to pay for it.

Again.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, AMERICA, STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN.

Not So Much a Flip As It Was a Flop

Why, yes, I did grow up reading Doonesbury:

I do not own rights. the publisher may hunt me down for this...

It's actually a common occurrence. A politician runs on an issue up until the point he/she realizes that position is toxic, and then he/she flip-flops on the issue and hopes to the Old Gods and the New that nobody (heh) notices.

Of course, everyone does. What matters is if A) the media takes it in stride, B) the Establishment leaders take it in stride, and C) the hard-core voting base that still loved the toxic issue won't riot in despair and outrage.

So when Donald Trump decided yesterday to change his tune on mass deportation of "illegal immigrants" there were several ways to view it.

On the one hand, it was kind of expected. That hard rhetoric on deporting 11 million or so illegals - with the clear implication that millions more would be harmed by the effort - was proving to be a deal-killer among the moderate voters that make up the general election cycle (you know, the ones who aren't the rabid Far Right base). Trump was floundering in the polls, making little gains in the chaotic stampede that had been his post-convention "campaign". He needed to regain numbers in the polls and the only way to do that is to start pandering to the Middle.

On the other hand, he did exactly the one thing he kept harping against during the Primaries towards the other Republican candidates, the ones who were professional politicians who made careers flipping and flopping whichever they needed on any particular day. He now had to flip-flop himself, and doing so in a way that made inconsistently bad floppers like Mitt Romney (you could see him twist in the wind over every issue except his massive tax cut) seem like master game-players.

Making it worse is that Trump was signalling a retreat on the single biggest issue he'd been campaigning on since his 2015 announcement: he was giving up a key element of his "Fear The Other" pledge of banning as many non-White people from our borders as best he could. Granted, Trump was still insisting on building that damn Wall of his - apparently he's got a 40-mile-long banner with his name TRUMP(tm) emblazoned on it that needs hanging somewhere - but he was taking off the table a meaty tasty treat that the Alt-White (AKA Angry White Boys) would love to indulge in as a weekend hobby.

In particular, it caught one of Trump's biggest cheerleaders Ann Coulter off-guard, because she just published a rah-rah book about Trump and right on Page 3 she wrote "There's nothing Trump can't do that won't be forgiven... except change his immigration policies."

OOOOOOPPPPSSsss.

And here's the thing. Once Trump and his handlers realize that few - if any - moderate voters are buying Trump's "softer" stance on immigration policy and that they're actually starting to lose whatever wingnut support they still have among the Angry White Boy crowd, they'll just as quickly go back to the "Deport 'Em All" rhetoric that got them here, hoping that it'll at least keep them happy in battleground states like Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri and Texas.

Yeah. Those are battleground states now. That's how badly Trump is starting to lose Red States.

Flop. Trump has always been a Flop.

Another Sign How the Republicans Are Going to Suffer This Election Cycle

(Update: hello again, Crooks and Liars readers linking in from Mike's Blog Round-Up. And as always, thank you Batocchio for the link!)

It's not just the unpopularity of the two leading candidates - Donald Trump or Ted Cruz - among the general electorate. The Republicans are about to lose on the issues as well.

Via Daniel Drezner's twitter, I saw this:

He links to a Pew Research poll on immigration as a topic, and the results were mind-blowing.

The numbers who view immigrants positively have gone up the last four years to 59 percent, with those viewing immigrants as a burden and job-takers sinking to 33 percent.

Along party lines, Democrats are clearly in favor of immigration while Republicans still only show over a third of their membership in favor (that means two-thirds of Republicans do not view it in a positive light).

In terms of generational views, the article shows how Millenials and Generation Xers now show overwhelming support for immigrants and immigration reform. But the real key here is this first poll: we're around 60 percent who see immigrants and immigration as a strength and would likely support reforms to keep it going.

That means whichever party is OPPOSED to immigration reform is going to have a rough go of it winning over 60 percent of the electorate.

62 percent oppose a border wall,
just saying...

HI, REPUBLICANS.

While Trump's made the most splash promoting that damn wall of his - which the Pew Research notes is massively unpopular - the key thing to note about this Presidential cycle is how the whole Republican Party platform had been and remains fervently anti-immigrant. There's been other issues at the debates - which foreign nation to bomb, which tax cut to favor, which schools to close, which social safety nets to slash - but nearly every GOP candidate had come out hard against immigration. Even the ones expected to "play nice" on the topic - Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio and Cruz just on personal connections to Hispanics (a key ethnic group affected by this) - had to avoid the questions or come out opposed to any kind of reform solution for our current immigration issues.

Look at this poll regarding that Trump Wall: Both Cruz and Trump supports favor building up border defenses (costly and won't work), numbers which go against that top Overall Voter number showing two-thirds of the nation oppose such a plan. Kasich's supporters are currently showing as the most pro-immigration of the remaining GOP candidates, but even HE can't shake the fact his party is adamantly against reforms on this (also, he's in no position to win the nomination right now: he's merely in it to keep Trump from winning delegates outright).

Trump's made so much noise pushing that Wall of his, it won't matter if it's either Trump or Cruz winning this July at the Cleveland convention. The entire GOP is in trouble if they campaign at a national level against immigration reform (among other issues that will turn the general electorate against them). The problem will be one of degrees: if it's Trump they'll lose everybody, if it's Cruz they'll lose MOSTLY everybody.

The Republicans have been so vocal against immigrants that any attempt to shift back to the center on this issue would be greeted with disbelief and disdain.

What other issue can the Republicans honestly run on that would counter the votes they'll lose over immigration reform? Their "tax cuts for the rich" plan will not find a safe haven this year of anti-Establishment anger. If they think running against gays and transgender will win over voters, they're wrong. The Republicans do not have a sane foreign policy platform - "Bomb ISIL" "Boycott China" and "Nuke Iran" are not winning stances with moderates/centrists who prefer working with allies - at the moment.

If Republicans think "repeal Obamacare" is going to impress anybody, it's only going to get their own voters nowadays. Have you noticed ANYBODY making noise about repealing Obamacare lately? That hasn't been a major topic: we've gotten to the point where the fight to repeal it has fled to the fringes.

No, let's be blunt: Immigration has been one of the top three issues of this 2016 election cycle, and the Republicans are poised to lose big because of their opposition to it. Maybe not with the House elections, but definitely with the Presidential race, and likely with the Senate races in EVERY state - even Red ones - where pro-immigration forces are in play.

GOP Crazy August 30 2015 Edition: Now Our Watch Begins

In the "Yes, Republicans Are Not Thinking Things Through" Dept., we've got this little thing about wall-building that the Far Right anti-immigrant nativist crowd thinks will solve all ills.

As though building a massive 1,500-mile-long border wall between the U.S. and Mexico will stop immigrants from even trying to enter.  Like previous walls were ever effective?  Ask the Chinese how effective the Great Wall (12,000 MILES!) was stopping the Mongol hordes (answer: not that well).  Ask the French if that Maginot Line ever worked out (nope).  Ask the Soviets if that Berlin Wall was good for anything other than incredible graffiti art on the Western side of it.

Build a 50-foot-tall wall and you're pretty much creating a market for 51-foot ladders (two-packs, one for each side to climb up and climb down).  That and a burgeoning tunnel industry.

And now, in order to match the "Trump's Wall" insanity of the 2015 round of GOP primaries, Scott Walker - desperate to fix falling numbers and regain a top spot in the polls - is pushing the nativist agenda to another conclusion: that we need to enforce the U.S. border with CANADA to stop the dreaded Canuck threat from the north, eh?

...Republicans typically take a tough approach on securing the southern border, but few have said a wall should also be built along the U.S.-Canada border.
Walker reasoned that it's about much more than building a wall, arguing, "It starts with securing the homeland."
"It wasn't just about building a wall and securing our borders," he said. "It was also about making sure our intelligence community has the ability for counterterrorism and the ability to go after the infrastructure they need to protect us."

Well, the Canada-United States border is the longest international border between two nations in the world at 5,500 miles long give or take a few meters in that evil metric system.  It's also one of the least-defended, as the United States and Canada have not been at war with each other since the 1870s.  I think.

Granted, Michael Moore - that librul! - has covered this idea before.  We've been inundated with Canadians for generations, with them taking our acting and singing jobs from us (damn us, KIRK IS CANADIAN!) at an alarming rate...

Still, when you consider what it is Walker is actually asking out of us, he's asking for Americans to build a massive ice wall designed to protect us from that most insidious threat from the North:

White Walkers.

Walker vs. Walkers.  Who would win?

To be honest, I doubt the Republican Party would carry through on ANY wall-building project for one simple reason.

Such a project would represent a massive government jobs program.  Even if they sub-contract it out to vendor corporations, such massive construction jobs thousands of miles long and with additional fortifications and barracks for security staff would cost into the hundreds of billions of dollars (just for Trump's Wall to the South).  Given that the Canadian border is three times longer...  Both walls would be a huge expense.  And while the Republicans are eager to waste billions on war, any project of this size would bring up the unavoidable question of who (taxes) would pay (taxes on the middle class and poor) for it (not the rich who will always get their tax cuts).