Just happened to watch this real CSpan video - mtg happened today

Watch the fun, how shutdown is ! This video is visible all over the world !

https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?455813-1/president-trump-democratic-leaders-clash-border-funding

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I used this video as a teaching moment for my kids on emotional intelligence and how to manage your emotions (or not) effectively.

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I’d love to have Pelosi explain how she supports more funding for border security but building a wall is immoral.

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Curious–do I just have a thick skin? Trump seemed to really handle that well to me, especially at the end where he simply owned the accusation.

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I don’t understand why there’s any dispute. People pour $5B into research into self-driving cars or anything that reduces what they have to pay in wages. Seems to me that a wall doesn’t need to be paid or to eat or have health insurance. If you build it well, shouldn’t it reduce overall long-term employment costs?

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I liked how Trump was practical “Why should I take a vote in the House if I can’t get it past the Senate because [you guys] won’t give me the votes?” Am I missing something?

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That’s a problem if your goal is to grow government.

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I thought Trump did well to own it. From a political theatre standpoint, he played to his base when confronted with owning a shutdown and did a really good job of it. He knew exactly what his base wanted to hear - bravo!

However, I thought that Schumer was goading Trump into owning the shutdown. Schumer was pushing all of Trump’s buttons with the finger pointing, the “20 times,” etc. Schumer is a clever guy. Schumer knew that if Trump owned the shutdown, that the admission would be toxic to the “independent middle”. And that’s where Trump got played. Had he been emotionally aware enough to know that Schumer’s plan all along was to get Trump to own the shutdown, he could have avoided turning off the “independent middle”.

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$5 b for the wall vs $1.5b proposed by the Democrats. This was just political theater. A total joke. They won’t shut the government down for $3.5b . They probably spend that ever hour.
BTW the wall will cost more like $500b. So the whole debate is about pandering to the base of each faction.

Thumb nail cost of wall. 40’ high. 3000 miles long. Means 600m sf of wall times ‘$100/sf means $60 b just for the cost of the concrete . Plus foundations, right of ways, drainage, gates. Bridges tunnels roads. Guard towers . Electronic surveillance. Easily double the cost to $120b
$5b is a joke. Sounds like Browns Choo Choo train .

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This is a way better way to protect the border:

This is the Oculus guy who got pushed out from Facebook. He has a startup that uses components from consumer tech with some AI algorithms to spot humans across the borders, and then send automatic messages to agents giving the exact locations. Luckey even offered to build the whole thing for free and lease it to the feds.

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It’s also idiotic to build a wall only on one border. If it’s really about security, the Canadian border is a lot less safe then the Mexican border.

If it’s about immigration, the biggest source of illegal immigrants in the US now is visa overstayers.

So this battle about building a wall on the south is a Nativist play

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How many people illegally enter from Canada each year? What is the total population living N of the US vs S? Where do over 80% of illegals drugs sold in the US come from?

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Yeah… For whatever reason Canadians aren’t into growing Cocaine. Maybe it’s too cold?

@acre, I think Trump did well the way he owned it. Everyone’s about protests nowadays and shutting things down, so it seems within the norm of current society–he essentially said “Yes, border security is that important, that I’m protesting to get it.” As that Independent Middle, I sympathized with this being a worthy cause to put one’s foot down on.

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Security is not the same as illegal immigration. Trump says terrorists and what not are coming over the southern border. If that was the case why would they be so stupid as to not switch borders if there is a wall on one side. As Elt1 says, it will be practically impossible to build the border anyway. Finally if the real problem is illegal immigration, the southern border is no longer the largest source. So why not go after the largest source

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My observations about emotional intelligence were not for or against a wall, nor for or against a government shutdown. My point was that Chuck Schumer repeatedly goaded Donald Trump into a position whereby Trump lost his temper a bit and owned the government shutdown.

That was Schumer’s aim - to get Trump to own the shutdown. Had Trump been more emotionally intelligent, he could have avoided this trap. Now Trump is backed into a corner.

That was a teachable moment for my kids.

Watch Canadian Bacon.
All Trump has to do is invade Canada:sunglasses:

You avoided all 3 questions. How secure do you think Canada is vs Mexico? If people were going to try sneaking into the US, would they go to Canada or Mexico first?

I answered questions. Let me change it back since you didn’t seem to understand. Why would $5B protect the border? How would a $500B wall protect us more then spending less on other mechanisms? Considering our biggest problems is opioids for drug issues and most of this is bought over the internet and shipped illegally using various lega shipping methods, how would a wall protect us?

@BA_lurker If you think you answered those 3 questions, that’s pretty funny. This is clearly pointless as you always live in some alternate reality with a unique way of processing info.

Sorry, I honestly think it’s the other way around. I am looking for pragmatic solutions and I just see attempts by you to throw out random stuff and insist on answers for your rote talking points. If you sincerely feel that the wall will solve the problem, please explain why it’s the most effective way to address the different issues brought up and why there is no other solution that is more cost effective