quote:

Originally posted by doublesharp:
No fuckin way PDJT caves.

Agree, this "Flip Flop" is a negotiation strategy.
I also think Syria mission accomplished as well as Iran and Afghanistan. We are not responsible for what kind of shithole they become.
Easily got $5 bil right there!

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
What is the use of having the Presidency, House and Sentate, if Republicans do not know how to yield power?

That's the problem the yield too much. I believe you meant wield. Yes, they don't wield power consistently. Too many rino's and not enough Freedom caucus.

If the senate balks, I am fine if it's shutdown over this issue.

Why is the News reporting that the Senate is likely to vote against funding the wall?

Who are the Republican Senators that are refusing to wield power in support of their constituents?

quote:

Why is the News reporting that the Senate is likely to vote against funding the wall?

They say the Wall needs 60 votes to pass...

Ted Cruz has an idea: Make El Chapo pay for the wall.

December 21, 2018
Ted Cruz Is Right: Make El Chapo Pay for the Wall
By Daniel John Sobieski

It would be poetic justice, is deliciously named, and wouldn’t cost the taxpayers a dime. It doesn’t make Mexico pay for the wall, just one particular Mexican who has done great injury to the people of the United States and who is responsible for a major part of drugs flooding into the United States.

It is legislation introduced by Sen.Ted Cruz of Texas last year -- the Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order (E.L.C.H.A.P.O.) Act which would use fund confiscated from drug dealers like El Chapo and traffickers to pay for border security. As Cruz explained after introducing his bill in April of 2017:

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill calling for the use of $14 billion seized from cartel drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to be used to pay for the President’s border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

“Fourteen billion dollars will go a long way toward building a wall that will keep Americans safe and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and individuals across our southern border,” Senator Cruz stated, according to a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas from the senator’s office…

The Texas senator said that leveraging criminally forfeited assets from El Chapo and other Mexican cartel members and drug dealers can “offset the wall’s cost and make meaningful progress toward achieving President Trump’s stated border security objectives.”

Some might dismiss this idea as a campaign gimmick intended to help Cruz in his tough 2018 reelection bid, but it is an idea whose time has definitely come. El Chapo is responsible for many crimes against his people and ours, including the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry using a weapon supplied by presidential wannabe and former Obama AG Eric Holder:

We assume Holder reads the morning paper and has heard of the 40 assault weapons illegally purchased under the Phoenix ATF's Fast and Furious operation that somehow wound up in the home of Sinaloa cartel enforcer Torres "the Jaguar" Marrufo. If he has, we suspect his reaction might have been akin to that of another famous sitcom character, Steve Urkel: "Did I do that?"

This is no sitcom, but rather a major tragedy -- and a major crime. Marrufo is the enforcer for Sinaloa Cartel chieftain Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed at the hands of an illegal immigrant working for the Sinaloa cartel just 10 miles from the Mexico border near Nogales, Ariz.

Among the weapons Obama and Holder supplied El Chapo with under Fast and Furious was a .50-caliber rifle liberals like to rail against: As Fox News reported about Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo”:

A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman’s hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car or, as it was intended, take down a helicopter…

Federal law enforcement sources told Fox News that ‘El Chapo’ would put his guardsmen on hilltops to be on guard for Mexican police helicopters that would fly through valleys conducting raids. The sole purpose of the guardsmen would be to shoot down those helicopters, sources said.

Wisconsin Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner has proposed similar legislation in the House to spend money seized from the drug cartels to fund a border wall:

"This is a way to fulfill the president's desire to have Mexico pay for the wall," Sensenbrenner, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told the Washington Examiner. "Having the money seized from Mexican drug cartels would mean that the bad Mexicans would end up paying for the wall, and the bad Mexicans have been terrorizing the good Mexicans with crime and kidnappings and murders within Mexico itself."…

"The [Drug Enforcement Agency] has estimated that the gross receipts of the Mexican drug trade or somewhere between $19-$29 billion a year," he said. "We don't have to be 100 percent efficient to get the the money we need to completely pay for the wall relatively quickly."

Contrary to claims by Sen. Chuck Schumer that border walls are ineffective, the empirical evidence shows that border walls work and no place is better proof than the Yuma sector in Arizona:

For years, Yuma sector was besieged by chaos as a nearly unending flood of migrants and drugs poured across our border. Even as agents were arresting on average 800 illegal aliens a day, we were still unable to stop the thousands of trucks filled with drugs and humans that quickly crossed a vanishing point and dispersed into communities all across the country…

The bipartisan Secure Fence Act of 2006 -- supported by then-Sens. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and others -- mandated the construction of hundreds of additional miles of secure fencing and infrastructure investments. Yuma sector was one of the first areas to receive infrastructure investments.

We built new infrastructure along the border east and west of the San Luis Arizona Port of Entry in 2006. The existing fence was quickly lengthened, and we added second and third layers to that fencing in urban areas. Lighting, roads and increased surveillance were added to aid agents patrolling the border.

Although there is still work to do, the border in Yuma sector today is more secure because of this investment.

Trump was initially able to begin immediate construction of the border wall and open up bidding for contracts thanks to the 2006 measure signed into law by President George W. Bush and supported by Democrats including then-senators Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton:

Democrats are already grumbling about Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, though Barack Obama and other leaders in their party voted not so long ago for George W. Bush’s proposal to build a major wall on the border with Mexico.

Bush signed the proposal into law in 2006, after it was passed by huge bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate. The law ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to construct about 700 miles of fencing along the southern border, and authorized the addition of lights and cameras and sensors to enhance security. The law explicitly required the wall to be constructed of “at least two layers of reinforced fencing.”

Two-thirds of the Republican-led House approved the bill, including 64 Democrats, and 80 of 100 senators approved the bill in the Senate.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 required the construction of 700 miles of new border fence along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for at least two layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras and sensors…” the act said.

It was to be modeled on the success of the border barriers in the San Diego sector of the U.S. border. The operative word was “secure”. Instead of this two-layer secure fence what has been built consists of flimsy pedestrian fencing or vehicle fencing consisting of posts people can slither through.

The two-tier fence in San Diego runs 14 miles along the border with Tijuana, Mexico. The first layer is a high steel fence, with an inner high anti-climb fence with a no-man’s land in between. It has been amazingly effective. According to a 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, illegal alien apprehensions in the San Diego sector dropped from 202,000 in 1992 to 9,000 in 2004.

Cameras and sensors played a part, but the emphasis was on physical barriers and roads that were patrolled by real live border guards, not by robots. Then in 2006, the Democrats took back Congress and, in 2008, the White House.

They saw in unrestricted immigration a means to fundamentally transform the demographics of America and its political landscape. A wave of what some called “undocumented Democrats” would be allowed to flood across the border as ICE was told not to enforce the law. Former border state governor Janet Napolitano, who became DHS secretary, reportedly once said: “You show me a 50-foot fence and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border,” The rest, as they say, is history.

But the consequences of unrestricted illegal immigration soon became too big to ignore and with a candidate willing to touch the new third rail of American politics, border security, a political movement chanting “build the wall” swept Trump into power.

If President Trump compromises the wall into nonexistence, he risks his campaign mantra “build the wall” becoming his “read my lips” ticket to a single term. In Yuma and San Diego fences and walls worked. So will Trump’s wall. Build the wall and make the likes of El Chapo pay for it.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.co...l.html#ixzz5aKYlYBlk

Ted Cruz Is Right: Make El Chapo Pay for the Wall

When President Trump said Mexico would pay for our border wall, this is the type of thing he meant. Those on the Left who mock Trump say things like "Go get Your money from Mexico's President. You said they would pay for it".

President Trump knew that a secure border wall would more than pay for itself in reimbursements from Mexico. The USA is said to spend $8,075 per year, per illegal alien family member. This is the combined cost at local, state and federal levels.

The federal government alone spends $46.5 billion dollars a year on illegal immigration: $1.7 billion on Education, $17.7 billion on medical expenditures, $13.1 on Law enforcement, $6.0 on Welfare programs, and $8.0 on General federal expenditures.

Take all that money, plus the millions of dollars a year that Mexicans send to their families in Mexico, and the billions of dollars per year in lost productivity because of drug use among Americans and use that money to build the Wall. Presto, Chango, MEXICO has just paid for the Wall!

Of course, the wall must first be BUILT before the money can be recovered, so the initial expenditure can be a loan. Our legislature knows all about loans. They borrow money from China every year, with no plan and no intention of ever repaying the money. Numbers don't lie. You can plainly see that this loan would be repaid within the first YEAR!

BUILD THE WALL!

It Was Always About the Wall
By Victor Davis Hanson

There was likely never going to be “comprehensive immigration reform” or any deal amnestying the DACA recipients in exchange for building the wall. Democrats in the present political landscape will not consent to a wall. For them, a successful border wall is now considered bad politics in almost every manner imaginable.

Yet 12 years ago, Congress, with broad bipartisan support, passed the Security Fence of Act of 2006. The bill was signed into law by then-President George W. Bush to overwhelming public applause. The stopgap legislation led to some 650 miles of a mostly inexpensive steel fence while still leaving about two-thirds of the 1,950-mile border unfenced.

In those days there were not, as now, nearly 50 million foreign-born immigrants living in the United States, perhaps nearly 15 million of them illegally.

Sheer numbers have radically changed electoral politics. Take California. One out of every four residents in California is foreign-born. Not since 2006 has any California Republican been elected to statewide office.

The solidly blue states of the American Southwest, including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, voted red as recently as 2004 for George W. Bush. Progressives understandably conclude that de facto open borders are good long-term politics.

Once upon a time, Democrats such as Hillary and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama talked tough about illegal immigration. They even ruled out amnesty while talking up a new border wall.

In those days, progressives saw illegal immigration as illiberal—or at least not as a winning proposition among union households and the working poor.

Democratic constituencies opposed importing inexpensive foreign labor for corporate bosses. Welfare rights groups believed that massive illegal immigration would swamp social services and curtail government help to American poor of the barrios and the inner city.

So, what happened? Again, numbers.

Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants have flocked into the United States over the last decade. In addition, the Obama Administration discouraged the melting-pot assimilationist model of integrating only legal immigrants.

Salad-bowl multiculturalism, growing tribalism, and large numbers of unassimilated immigrants added up to politically advantageous demography for Democrats in the long run.

In contrast, a wall would likely reduce illegal immigration dramatically and with it future Democratic constituents. Legal, meritocratic, measured, and diverse immigration in its place would likely end up being politically neutral. And without fresh waves of undocumented immigrants from south of the border, identity politics would wane.

A wall also would radically change the optics of illegal immigration. Currently, in unsecured border areas, armed border patrol guards sometimes stand behind barbed wire. Without a wall, they are forced to rely on dogs and tear gas when rushed by would-be border crossers. They are easy targets for stone-throwers on the Mexican side of the border.

A high wall would end that. Border guards would be mostly invisible from the Mexican side of the wall. Barbed wire, dogs and tear gas astride the border—the ingredients for media sensationalism—would be unnecessary. Instead, footage of would-be border crossers trying to climb 30-foot walls would emphasize the degree to which some are callously breaking the law.

Such imagery would remind the world that undocumented immigrants are not always noble victims but often selfish young adult males who have little regard for the millions of aspiring immigrants who wait patiently in line and follow the rules to enter the United State lawfully.

More importantly, thousands of undocumented immigrants cross miles of dangerous, unguarded borderlands each year to walk for days in the desert. Often, they fall prey to dangers ranging from cartel gangs to dehydration.

Usually, the United States is somehow blamed for their plight, even though a few years ago the Mexican government issued a comic book with instructions on how citizens could most effectively break U.S. law and cross the border.

The wall would make illegal crossings almost impossible, saving lives.

Latin American governments and Democratic operatives assume that lax border enforcement facilitates the outflow of billions of dollars in remittances sent south of the border and helps flip red states blue.

All prior efforts to ensure border security—sanctions against employers, threats to cut off foreign aid to Mexico and Central America, and talk of tamper-proof identity cards—have failed.

Instead, amnesties, expanded entitlements and hundreds of sanctuary jurisdictions offer incentives for waves of undocumented immigrants.

The reason a secure border wall has not been—and may not be—built is not apprehension that it would not work, but rather real fear that it would work only too well.

https://www.amgreatness.com/20...ways-about-the-wall/

It sounds like there is some political wrangling going on on the Hill with VP Pence, Mulvaney, and Kushner meeting with Chuck U Schumer and Pelosi. The meeting is now over, and they are reportedly heading back to talk to Mark Meadows and the other Freedom Caucaus members.

I have a feeling they may try to agree to a number, but it won't be the whole $5 billion.

A test vote in the Senate on Friday showed that Republicans lacked the 60 votes needed to advance the House plan.

Pelosi, poised to become speaker, said in a letter to colleagues Saturday that “until President Trump can publicly commit to a bipartisan resolution, there will be no agreement before January when the new House Democratic Majority will swiftly pass legislation to re-open government.”

https://www.apnews.com/3e58f7b...4e7cb71142dbb9f50bad

Huh? What is she smoking? Is she delusional?
Where does she get 60 votes in the Senate?

The son of former President Ronald Reagan issued a warning for President Donald Trump this week, telling the president that this is his last chance to get the funding that he needs to build the border wall.

"Hey @POTUS in 1986 my father made a deal with the Democrats Amnesty for Border Security my father is still waiting," Michael Reagan tweeted on Thursday. "U have no choice its now or never. #BuildTheWallNow."

https://www.dailywire.com/news...-about-ryan-saavedra

Meadows: Many House GOPers Would Encourage Trump to Accept $2.5 Billion for Wall

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC) said the “vast majority” of House Republicans understand there might be a compromise on the amount of border wall funding, and “a number of Republican members” would encourage the president to accept a deal offering around $2.5 billion for wall funding.

Meadows said, “Certainly, the vast majority of Republican members of the conference understand that there may be a compromise between 5.7 billion and 1.6, or wherever the number may be. But as we’re looking at it, whether it’s 2.5 or 2.7, it doesn’t matter, Chuck Schumer has said no. The American people see that as a compromise. I see that as a compromise. And so, certainly, if that’s on the table, you would find a number of Republican members encouraging the president to go ahead and accept that.”

https://www.breitbart.com/vide...-5-billion-for-wall/

quote:

Meadows: Many House GOPers Would Encourage Trump to Accept $2.5 Billion for Wall

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC) said the “vast majority” of House Republicans understand there might be a compromise on the amount of border wall funding, and “a number of Republican members” would encourage the president to accept a deal offering around $2.5 billion for wall funding.

I'm a few weeks ahead of the best and brightest Washington has to offer.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...790030154#2790030154

quote:

Sounds like typical Trump to me. Really needs $2. Demands $5. All works out in the end.

Meanwhile, CNN contacted journalists in San Diego to get the "local view" of the effectiveness of San Diego's border wall. The reporters would have informed CNN that the wall was very effective.

So CNN decided to not book them as guests.

San Diego TV station: CNN declined our 'local view' because of reports on wall effectiveness
https://thehill.com/homenews/m...e-of-reports-on-wall

Is past time to put a stop to foreign aid. The money are not being used for well, and we could use these funds for border security. As well as this country.

Bill

PINSKER: The Real Story At Our Southern Border — And Why We Need A Wall

Because the United States of America has failed to secure its southern border, we've created a power vacuum.

When President Obama prematurely withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq, he created a power vacuum. This power vacuum was filled by ISIS — and it directly led to a rise in global terrorism, multinational war, human rights abuses, and millions upon millions of migrants flooding into Europe. You see, it's not just a fundamental law of science, but of geopolitics: If you leave a vacuum, someone — or something — will fill it.

Because the United States of America has failed to secure its southern border, we've created a power vacuum. And now, this power vacuum has been filled by the violent Mexican drug cartels who torture, maim, and murder Americans and migrants alike.

Make no mistake: The Mexican drug cartels are in complete control of our southern border. They are setting our immigration policy, deciding who enters — and who is turned away. And when the cartels order an immigrant to smuggle drugs — or child slaves — across our border, the immigrant has two choices: Comply ... or be killed.

This is why we so desperately need a wall at key parts of our southern border.

I spent six months working on the border as a federal special prosecutor. This was part of an Army deployment where I was assigned to the Department of Justice which was being overwhelmed by illegal immigration cases and cartel activities. Whether the cartels were smuggling people or drugs, I was shocked and horrified by their brutality and viciousness. On both sides of the border, they control countless people and are responsible for the inflow of deadly drugs (especially heroin, meth, fentanyl, and cocaine) and illegal aliens into our country.

I spent time on the Rio Grande on a patrol boat with Border Patrol. All across the Mexican side, armed cartel members operate out in the open. They are doing what we are not, which is securing the border and making sure no one crosses who isn’t supposed to.

For them, illegal immigration is a business, and they charge about $6,000-8,000 to smuggle a person into America through their territory. 99.9% of all illegal aliens entering the country in our sector did it going through the cartels, paying their “fees.” The reason why illegal aliens pay the cartels smuggling fees instead of sneaking across by themselves is because if those cartel members I saw on the river found an alien crossing illegally without paying, they would murder him. They won’t hesitate to kill anyone who might interfere with their business.

Remember the migrant caravan which dominated headlines before the November 2018 election? It was originally headed to where I was in Laredo, but rerouted after the Laredo cartels murdered 3 Hondurans from the caravan, a warning sign for them to stay away.

In broad daylight and in full view of Border Patrol, they have been seen disposing of the bodies of their murder victims in the Rio Grande. When we went past them in our Border Patrol boats, they just smiled and waved at us, knowing we couldn’t do anything about them.

The cartels kept precise track of Border Patrol movements and maintained an elaborate intelligence network, all so that they knew when they could smuggle their drugs or people across into the US. When they did move migrants across, they weren’t gentle. Many of the women I encountered reported that they had been sexually assaulted and raped by the cartel members they had paid to smuggle them into the US. When a man or woman being smuggled into the U.S. couldn’t keep up with the group, he or she would be left to die in the desert, or would even be outright murdered.

Because we hadn’t secured our border, it was easy for the cartels to move their drugs and people into the U.S., and every year make billions of dollars in their illicit trade. If Democrats and Republicans alike were serious about protecting aliens and asylum seekers from being preyed upon and exploited by the cartels rather than treating them as political props, they would be demanding a wall be built.

The cartels aren’t just hurting migrants and Mexicans, but also Americans.

In particular, they target, exploit, and prey upon the most vulnerable U.S. citizens, which includes those in poverty or hooked on drugs. They would actively seek out Americans hooked on drugs and promise them more drugs or cash to buy drugs from them if they would help them transport aliens or drugs inside the U.S. Other times, they would simply hold a gun to their head and threaten them or their families. More than once, the cartels would seek out Americans they knew were suffering financial hardship, such as being behind on a mortgage and at risk of becoming homeless. They would offer them a pittance, about $2,000, to risk eight years in prison by driving drugs across the border. Their moral depravity in exploiting Americans this way was sickening.

https://www.dailywire.com/news...d-why-matt-c-pinsker

ERICKSON: The Shutdown Necessarily Continues

https://www.dailywire.com/news...inues-erick-erickson