I’m sure, then, that you’d be OK with a Democratic president declaring a national emergency in order to confiscate all firearms…
Small government conservatives should be appalled by the idea of a strong executive using a phony security scare to impose draconian rules on America and squander taxpayer dollars. I’m honestly amazed at how quickly people have been to flip on their principles to support a boondoggle that nobody (except Trump) really wanted in the first place.
Fact is that the Republicans are the pro-authoritarian party now. It isn’t to say all Republicans are authoritarians, but the Republicans are more than happy to accept them with open arms. The Republicans are for small gov’t in the sense of a small cadre of Republicans being in total authoritative control, and maintain that control by any means necessary. Democracy optional. The only way the party will get cleaned up is if the non-authoritarian Republicans stand up to them and demand that they cut it out. That’s not going to happen though because politics in the USA has become a sport. It is about my side winning and to an increasing degree your side losing (those libtard tears). I fear for the future of the USA citizens.
The problem, as iiandyiii points out, is that Democrats started their negotiations with a bipartisan solution. They should have picked a more aggressive starting point, say, impeachment and removal of Kavanaugh from SCOTUS. Then they could offer Trump little concessions on border security and they’d look like the one’s negotiating in good faith.
None of this has anything to do with Trump’s wall. None of this has anything to do with the shutdown. The Democrats have offered many billions for real and modern border security improvements.
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Do not change my quote. That’s a big breach of etiquette. Where’s the moderator?
And no, the dems did not vote for a “wall.” How many times does that bullshit need to be refuted before you stop asserting it?
No? Why not?
It’s a lot more than 50,000 BeepKillBeep.
I guess you’re okay with USA citizens being victims. A President’s primary duty is to protect the citizens.
Okay my apologies for changing a quote. I’m new here.
Have you ever heard of the Secure Fence Act of 2006? Yes Akaj, they did vote for 700 miles on a barrier.
The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President George W. Bush, authorized about 700 miles of fencing along certain stretches of land between the border of the United States and Mexico.
The act also authorized the use of more vehicle barriers, checkpoints and lighting to curb illegal immigration, and the use of advanced technology such as satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles.
At the time the act was being considered, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer were all members of the Senate. (Schumer of New York is now the Senate minority leader.)
**
Obama, Clinton, Schumer and 23 other Democratic senators voted in favor of the act when it passed in the Senate by a vote of 80 to 19.**
Couple of observations:
I seem to recall that govt programs/hiring/expenditures didn’t exactly plummet under R presidents, or when Rs controlled either/both houses of Congress. Could folk just stop trying to equate excessive gov’t w/ D?
Why are Ds obstructionist now, when Rs had the opportunity to fund the wall at any time over the past 2 yrs?
While people can cite data re: crime attributed to illegal aliens, what percentage of those aliens would have been stopped by a wall?
Trump has retreated from his campaign promise of a concrete wall across the entire border, to simply proposing enhanced fencing at strategic points. Does that MATTER TO HIS BASE? Moreover, isn’t any difference between Trump’s desired additional fencing and D proposals for enhanced security essentially semantic?
I’m torn between whether I wish the Ds to deny Trump his ridiculous dream of $5.7B for a wall, or whether they should give him the $5.7B (a pittance WRT the entire budget) in exchange for whatever they can get from the “master negotiator.” Not sure which approach would achieve more in terms of policy and political capital.
700 miles of fencing, vehicle barriers, checkpoints and lighting does not equal 2000 miles of wall. Everyone agrees border security is important, but only Trump and his idiotic followers think a wall is the best way to accomplish it.
Or do they? They wasted the last two years when they could have funded it. Hmm, wonder why.
AE, I’m going to let you slide here as you’ve already apologized. But you should know it’s explicitly against the rules to alter text in quote boxes. This is a hard-learned rule on our part with much justification.
Please take the time to read the rules of Great Debates and the rest of the Straight Dope Message Board. We’re a find place for debate and discussion - and some dipstick jokes - but we come by that through trying hard to not have the sort of behavior that poisons other online communities.
It isn’t up to me to say why not, it would be up to you to say why it is. What’s your justification? What makes 50,000 (or more) crimes a national emergency? What’s the cutoff point and why? Unless of course you’re saying that anything can be a national emergency without any justification. That sounds awfully authoritarian to me, and last I checked USA citizens don’t approve of authoritarianism.
No, let’s not. Let’s do a “you made a claim, please back it up or admit it was just opinon and therefore of limited value.”
Honestly, the democratic messaging on this is pretty consistent: “open the government, then we can negotiate”. And because that’s a simple, principled, reasonable stance to take, they’re winning. If the wall is worth having,
Y’wanna unpack some baggage here, bud? Define “everything we want”. What, exactly, are the democrats demanding here that’s so outlandish? Because last I checked, what the democrats want is a clean continuing resolution - to pass the same bill which the senate passed 100-0 in december. And, as a matter of fact, they’ve passed exactly that bill in the house. It’s entirely on senate republicans to take that bill up for a vote.
Now, if you want to talk about “bad faith”, here’s some bad faith: what Mitch McConnell is doing. He’s pretending that “reopening the government” is something that actually counts as a concession. He’s pretending that he’s giving up ground if we reopen the government. This is bad faith, because the reality is, republicans want the government open as well. Neither party actually wants a government shutdown. Just like, in 2011, neither party actually wanted a government default. But one party finds it very convenient to be able to take hostages.
The senate voted unanimously in favor of the same bill that the house has already passed not a month ago. What changed since then, other than knowing that they’d need to overrule a presidential veto (which a unanimous vote easily could)? Instead of negotiating in good faith, they insist instead on forcing hundreds of thousands of people to go without pay for more than a month.
The democrats are winning on messaging because what the republicans are doing is obvious to anyone who is paying attention, and most people do not approve of hostage-taking. The democrats don’t really have much choice, either - if this tactic ends up working, then there’s nothing to stop the republicans from pulling the exact same shit the next time they want something. So fuck that noise. You want to apportion blame for this? Put it on senate republicans who insist on attaching conditions to doing the right thing.
Stripped of all context like this? Nah. Next question.
That’s not a source. That’s a press briefing from someone who has lied upwards of 8,000 times in the last two years. Anyone taking this white house at its word has been quite thoroughly conned. When come back, bring actual source. 
Nobody has claimed that there is NO corruption in Congress, and Abscam
Trump has failed at this, again and again. His shutdown right now is hurting millions of Americans (including me and my family). His racist symbol of a wall will do nothing to help national security, and will greatly harm it, by standing as a symbol of hatred that will continue to sour international opinion against America. His shutdown is weakening our economy, which is directly related to national security. The DoD reports that the greatest long-term threat to our national security is climate change, and Trump’s policies are doing nothing but making that worse.
Trump is a terrible president because he’s hurting Americans, weakening our national security, spreading hatred and bigotry, and much more.
I live in DC, I know many federal workers. From the statements you are making, you are obviously not very well informed about the specific challenges federal employees face in a prolonged shutdown.
Also, what portion of the phrase “delays their pay” is causing you confusion? I think that statement should be able to clearly indicate that I do, indeed, understand that they will be paid at some point.
Speaking of sources, here’s a link to the GAO report that you reference.
In that report, on page 2, you will find this little nugget of information:
Bolding mine.
In other words, the numbers for the various offenses that you have listed are not exactly real. Furthermore, if you would take the time to read the first couple of pages of the report, you will find that the report is based on a study of criminal aliens, both legal and illegal. And you will also find that legal aliens outnumber illegal aliens.
Citing these figures as a claim of criminal activity by illegal immigrants is just plain wrong.
Speaking of which, LaGuardia is now halting inbound flights due to staffing shortages. Hmm. And this is just about the best take I’ve seen on it:
Jan 2018: Lol. Look at Trump trying to take credit for planes not falling out of the sky. All he had to do with literally nothing for that to happen. Great job, genius.
Jan 2019: Somehow he found a way to fuck this up?
Trump. Always. Lies.
Anyone who hasn’t figured that out yet is not paying attention. Taking him or his administration at their word is just nuts at this point. They cannot be trusted.