On January 21, the United States confirmed its first case of the coronavirus. The nation’s political and media elite obsessed over Mitch McConnell’s just-announced resolution governing the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump.
On January 23, China locked down the city of Wuhan. Cable news in America lit up with praise for the epic, nay historic, performance by House impeachment manager Adam Schiff in the trial’s opening arguments.
On January 30, the World Health Organization declared a world health emergency. The U.S. Senate prepared to vote on impeachment witnesses.
On February 5, the cruise ship Diamond Princess quarantined thousands of passengers after a major outbreak on board. Mitt Romney announced that he’d vote to convict Trump on one of the two counts against him, and the Senate voted to acquit on both.
If the Senate had approved additional impeachment witnesses, the trial would have stretched into February at least, overlapping even more with the epidemic.
Trump closed off travel from China while the trial was still ongoing, the day after senators asked their final questions of the impeachment managers and the White House defense team. Only two and a half weeks after the trial, the White House requested $1.25 billion in emergency coronavirus funding from Congress.
If the trial hadn’t ended expeditiously, the Senate easily could have been still seeking the testimony of, say, former White House counsel Don McGahn about the details of the non-firing of special counsel Robert Mueller — at the same time that everyone expected the administration to be shifting into wartime footing against the virus.
In that circumstance, the impeachment trial obviously would have been immediately shelved, because a discretionary national crisis can’t compete with a real, unavoidable one. Political melodrama must give way to a potential public-health catastrophe. Purportedly historic events that were going to be forgotten within weeks can’t compare with days that genuinely might define our era.
For more than three years, American national politics has been constantly on a crisis footing over presidential tweets, two-day controversies, and dubious storylines whipped up by the media and Trump’s genuine outrages. Little of it has been enduring, or nearly as important as the intense, wall-to-wall attention at any given moment suggested.
Trump and his opposition have been engaged in a performative dance of mutual animosity that is angry, hysterical, and, ultimately, inconsequential.
The Mueller probe constituted the tent pole of this period. For years, it drew wishful comparisons to Watergate in the media, but it came up empty, since its premise of a Trump conspiracy with the Russians was always a progressive phantasmagoria.
After all the energy devoted to inflating the Russians into a clear-and-present danger to the workings of America here on our shores, that threat has instead proved to be China, which loosed a virus on the world that has temporarily crashed the American economy and shut down much of American life, including elections.
After we spent months pretending that Trump would somehow be ousted from the presidency by his own party in the Senate, not only is he still the president, all people of good will are rooting for him to perform as ably as he can in this crisis.
After acting as though we had endless time and energy to waste on nonsense because the stakes were so small in what was, until the day before yesterday, a time of peace and prosperity, we have been jolted into a period when our national decisions really matter, and time and resources are of the essence.
In short, the epidemic has put in stark relief the pettiness and absurdity of much that has taken place in our national life since Trump won the presidency.
Trump is handling two crises at once. One, the COVID-19 crisis, preventing its spread while also trying to treat the victims and prevent as many deaths as possible. Another, trying to keep the economy from free fall and bring it back to life as soon as possible, even as Democrats do everything they can to tank it.
So far… he’s nailing it.
So, Mitch McConnell saved America from a much worse COVID-19 epidemic by preventing witnesses from being called at Trump’s impeachment trial. Got it.
As I recall, conservative “news” outlets countered increasingly loud warnings from the mainstream media about the mounting dangers of a coronavirus pandemic with claims that it was a manufactured crisis, needed because the impeachment process had ended in Total Vindication. It was all just politically-motivated fear mongering from democrats and the left-wing media, remember?
This is historical revision on the roll, and it isn’t the “evil leftist mainstream media” that’s trying to pull it off.
@Greg:
Yes, Mitch helped the government work properly and do it’s job by dismissing the impeachment farce.
Nothing to revise here, just analyze. In an environment where you party is has ditched rule of law will do anything to gaslight and misinform, I’ll give the Reps and Trump as pass as they are constantly under attack, even when we just try to pass a relief bill.
The antics of the Dems are affecting our government, and that needs to stop.
Win at the ballot box, not with cowardly courts of misinformed public opinion.
@Greg:
Either your memory is shot or you’re lying.
Which is it, Comrade Greggie?
@Greg:
You mean like Rachel Maddow saying there was NO WAY the Comfort would be in New York by this week? Yeah, she’s someone you should continue to pay attention to, Comrade Greggie.
@Greg:
No, he merely ended as soon as possible a Democrat abuse of power. Meanwhile, Trump was working, doing his job.
@Greg: The medias petty ignorant BS, and yours. Yesterday asking Trump if he could guarantee everyone that needed a ventilator would get one, hey ignoramus will there be enough trained operators to set them up? Why is NY demanding instant delivery of 30 thousand free government ventilators when he hasnt touched the 4 hundred he was sent? There are 49 other states and some territories that may need a few, ventilator hoarder.
The Chicoms are so proud of you, remember there was no evidence this was contagious WHO reported that to the world as the virus spread across the planet, cant stop those that wanted to celebrate the new year celebrations then return home, many to factories in Italy. Feb 1st was hug a Chinese day there. Now China sells faulty PPE and tests around the planet.
All Trumps fault. We get it, he should be able to make everything better by spapping his fingers. Has your media investigated the use of 300K masks at 1 hospital yet? There is nothing this country can not do and this might be another case of the US to the rescue, if only China would stop attacking.
Lately Pres Trump VP Pence and several leaders of the Covid-19 task force have been having a daily news conference.
Social distancing has been enforced in the way the media is assigned to sit.
Fewer media members and space between.
Interestingly enough the media used to be so snarky and nasty to Trump, but now they are asking intelligent and relevant questions, for the most part.
I wonder if the thinning of the herd had anything to do with that.
Or, maybe the uninvestigated question of where all those 300,000 masks went under Cuomo’s nose.
In Post #2, Greg notes:
He is essentially correct on this point. Between the day that the first case of COVID-19 appeared in America and the day that Tucker Carlson blew the whistle on the seriousness of this mounting pandemic, Trump consistently down-played the virus, later explaining that he was just trying to give Americans “hope,” and conservative media unanimously backed him up. Then Carlson had his “talk” with the President, and Trump saw the light. There is neither mystery nor guilt surrounding this understandable sequence of events. They are a matter of public record, and Greg should not be attacked for reminding us that our President is only human.
All the same, Curt is correct that the liberal media has been bending over backwards trying to turn the COVID-19 crisis into a Republican crisis, and that it is not. Those bending over backwards should be wary of the view from that position.
@George Wells:
So conservative news did that even when it was Trump that banned China travel? Ass backwards, the left sided news calling Trump a xenophobe and racist As they were saying its overblown he was comparing corona with the seasonal flu death numbers and touting his early actions, they were saying he was only playing to his xenophobic base with the china travel ban .
But Greg should feel free to link to his evidence. If thats what you remember provide a link.
Id say go watch his last live rally on you tube or the SOTU address.
From 2.2 million dead down to 240 thousand tops if we continue with washing hands and hanging out at home etc.
April 3, 2020 – Fauci: ‘I don’t understand why’ every state hasn’t issued stay-at-home orders
The short answer? Because their elected officials are effing stupid.
April 2, 2020 – Birx warns holdout states about social distancing
At first, Trump downplayed the virus by claiming it was a few cases that would be over soon. I know everyone heard him say that. At the time, it was a reasonable assumption, as virtually no credible information was available, thanks to China’s efforts to squelch real data. Then, as Kitt points out,
those early actions amounting mostly to his FORTUNATE China travel ban. Good job, Orange-Daddy, except that the comparison of COVID-19 to the “seasonal flu” was incorrect. I don’t have to prove that, because as total infection and mortality numbers for COVID-19 continue to outpace expectations – never mind that those numbers ARE less than worst-case scenarios – the error of that comparison will reveal itself.
The Trump team continues to put a happier face on COVID-19 than it deserves, probably out of a well-intentioned desire to not unnecessarily alarm the populace. A breakdown of law and order could conceivably be the result. So I support Trump’s cautious optimism. But make no mistake. This is NOT the seasonal flu. This is a once-a-century (at the very least) catastrophic event for the history books. This will change how humanity lives. Deaths will far exceed Fauci and Birx’s projections because not everyone will heed recommended best-practices, not here, and certainly not in the rest of the World. Neither will a cure or a vaccine miraculously show up on schedule. AIDS STILL doesn’t have a vaccine or a cure, and its been here for over FOURTY YEARS!
Oh, I hope and pray that I’m wrong. But don’t see events unfolding in that direction.
@George Wells:
Actually… no. That’s wrong. Now, Trump tried to provide perspective by pointing out that the usual flu kills far more than even now have died from COVID-19 so, don’t panic and don’t live in fear, as the Democrats were trying to promote. As more information came out and the crisis grew, Trump reflected the current events. But it was never “downplayed”; certainly not to the extent the left downplayed it, mainly to simply be anti-Trump. I would challenge you to provide someone being MORE proactive than Trump was.
Congratulations for admitting what so many are unwilling to admit. More than Trump’s statements was based on what China and WHO was saying. Basically, even though there were plans for the worst-case scenario, the models and responses was based on what was likely going to be faced.
The Democrat campaign to paint Trump as some bungling idiot that doesn’t care is what spreads the fear and panic and Democrats should be held accountable for it. Again, if it was so obvious what was going to happen, WHO anywhere on the planet was more prepared and more effective than Trump?
@Deplorable Me:
I’m not a parrot. But thanks for noticing.
I’m not sure, though, why you object to my observation that pre-Tucker Carlson, Trump was giving COVID-19 the cold shoulder (or call it what you will), but AFTERWARD, he took the virus REALLY seriously. There was a so-called “sea-change” that happened right about then. Maybe Carlson was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and maybe it was someone or something else, but either way, Trump had an epiphany right about then.
I don’t fault Trump for having evolved – we all do that as we learn not so much from our own mistakes as from the absorption of incoming information. We are ALL on a learning curve with this virus, and Trump is no exception.
I’m giving the President credit here. You might take note of that.
@George Wells: Because if he is reacting to the best information available at the time, he is not “downplaying” it. Downplaying… compared to WHAT? Who else ANYWHERE was raising greater alarms? In fact, most Democrats were criticizing Trump for overblowing the crisis. Comparing the threat of the virus (again based on known data) to what the flu does to use each and every year is not “downplaying”. It’s called “perspective”.
If I say I don’t need a coat when it is 80 degrees outside, don’t come back in December and say I’m downplaying the need for a coat because it’s 15 degrees. This is exactly what Democrats are doing with all this “downplaying” bullshit.
@George Wells: Just to be clear Trump comparing the seasonal flu deaths to the kung flu was about the death tolls not symptoms, he did not want to see another 60 to 80 thousand deaths as we had with H1N1. We still dont have enough information on this germ why some can walk around not even knowing they have it and others rapidly spiral down and need ventilation.
The democrats have no idea the scope of this war on the germ, or why Trumps team refuses to send out ventilators from the stockpile on demand. Just being scared and thinking you might use a couple isnt good enough, you must show need, the Peak will be around the 15th, the ventilators being manufactured wont roll off the lines in any numbers until the end of the month.
Im happy they ironed things out with GM, I dont know exactly what the issues were but they pissed him off, now his feathers seem to be smoothed.
@kitt:
Frankly, I’m sick of all New York all the time. It is clear that if New York was serious about getting a handle on this virus they would limit the number of travelers on the subway cars and buses. But noooooooooooo, the city continues to crowd as many people on each as they can. And if Gov Blathering Idiot Cuomo complains one more time about how broke the State of New York is, I am going to personally call him and tell him to shut the hell up and put on his big boy pants. Now, he’s blathering about contacting Pelosi so that New York can get a big bonus on its pathetic handling of Chi-Com virus digging it out of the financial hole that was created long before the Chi-Com virus.
Also, in New York State, ALL patients who die that tested positive for Chi-Com virus, are being added to the death toll from Wu Han Flu, even if they died from cardiac arrest, cancer, et al. That give a false number of virus related deaths.
Cuomo is not just reporting on the NY situation, he’s campaigning for POTUS. And being a Democrat, he does not intend to let this crisis go to waste.
I live in a state of 29 million. Our first case was February 13th, almost two months ago. As of yesterday, there were 4,669 cases and 70 deaths. I expect that to go up until April 15th then come down. Had a long conversation with one of our doctors yesterday and he said that patients are being treated with hydroxycloriguine and z-pac therapy. Doctors, especially ER staff, are using that protocol as a prophylaxis with great success. He also said we can expect the state peak in about two weeks.
Now, to the economy; we cannot continue to shut ‘er down. Companies are operating with great success by checking temperatures of employees, having employees wear masks and using hand sanitizer frequently. Wal-Mart, pharmacies, grocers, truckers, PPE manufacturers, all operating at greater than peak capacity. Shutting down our economy more than another week is playing right into China’s hands. It’s was China wants. As we shut down, China is building more and more manufacturing plants. Ask yourself why. My state has over 100 counties where there is not ONE case of Chi-Com virus. Why not let those people go back to work with extreme caution?
As to Dr. Fauci; something about this man bothers the hell out of me. Remember, he was the one in charge of the AIDS crisis and we all know how well that worked out.
@Deplorable Me:
You ask:
Not quite overblowing, that. It would be difficult for anyone to raise an alarm any quieter than this.
Not quite overblowing, that.
Not quite overblowing, that.
Not quite overblowing, that.
He didn’t say when, but neither did he overblow anything.
.
Not quite overblowing, that.
Not quite overblowing, that.
THEN Trump meets with Tucker Carlson… and:
Between January 23 and the middle of March, anyone, Dem or otherwise, would have been hard-pressed to UNDER-blow Trump’s response to COVID-19. Trump’s “perspective,” if that makes you feel any better, CHANGED after that, and everyone knows it. Everyone ALSO knows that it would have taken a pretty accurate crystal ball to have predicted what followed the appearance of the first case of the virus. Trump can be forgiven for not having a crystal ball, and he can be praised for waking up to the seriousness of the outbreak on or before March 17, Carlson or not.
@retire05:
HIV is a particularly difficult nut to crack. “AIDS” – the disease HIV causes – was for Ronald Reagan a name like Voldemort, an unspeakable name for reasons unknown. Reagan was also slow to support the search for a cure, but in fact no cure has yet been discovered in spite of having forty years to look for one… forty years and BILLIONS of dollars to fund the search.
The failure to find a cure for AIDS isn’t Dr. Fauci’s fault. Laboratory techniques are being tried today that didn’t even exist forty years ago, and they are having no greater luck finding a cure than was found on Fauci’s watch.
@George Wells: You dodged that question. WHO was taking the threat any more seriously? You show what we’ve already established; Trump’s remarks matched the conditions at the time. However, some where saying to ignore the threat altogether for fear of offending Chinese people; to keep going out, partying, drinking, hugging and whatever.
China sounded alarms far too late and allowed far too much travel out of their territory. Once we were even aware of it and the transmissability between humans, we already had hundreds if not thousands infected here.
Again, show me who was taking it more seriously.
@retire05: If NY is so broke, maybe paying for health care and college for illegal immigrants that PAY NO TAXES isn’t such a great policy, huh? Now, we (the federal government) HAVE to help save as many lives as possible there, but this problem is made much, much worse by their irresponsibility and liberal agenda.
@retire05:
If it was up to the good doctor we would be in lock down until a mandatory for all Vaxx was developed. Like every germ this one is mutating and the mandatory vaxx may not be effective on all mutations.
I see developing therapy treatment as a much better alternative.
@kitt: We see a repeat of the AIDS model in NYC right now. AIDS could have been fairly easily controlled through safe sex practices, but that was just too much to ask, apparently. Eventually, it got into the blood supply, infecting people that didn’t lead risky life styles and the race was on. Likewise, from what we are seeing in NYC, social distancing and personal responsibility is just too much of an inconvenience or burden to bother with. We’ll be hearing NYC and NY whining for some time to come.
@Deplorable Me:
And China continues to do what Communist nations do; deny, deny, deny and accuse others of being xenophobic.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15840/china-defective-medical-equipment#.XocHa9GiYwM.twitter
As to New York state; I suspect that if that state’s budget was examined prior to this outbreak, you would find it was pretty much broke then. Mismanagement of taxpayer money seems to be a chronic problem in Democrat run states/municipalities. But hey, never let a crisis go to waste and so now Cuomo will demand that the taxpayers of Texas, and others, bail his sorry ass out.
@Deplorable Me:
And now the FDA is relaxing the donating of blood by homosexuals, sex workers and drug users to try to increase the number of blood donors. It used to be that homosexual men were required to be sex “free” for one year before donating blood. The LBJQUXYZ crowd raised hell and now that rule is reduced to three months (it’s homophobic to want to reduce the transference of AIDS, don’t you know?). And you’re right; homosexual contraction of AIDS was preventable to a large degree. Just stop having sex with other men. But noooooooooooo, that was way too much to ask of someone who had sex with abandon. Just look at the San Francisco bath houses and how the gay movement there bitched and complained when they were shut down.
No surprise King George laments there is no know cure for AIDS yet after billions of $$ has been spent on research. He didn’t mention that BILLIONS OF $$ has been spent on cancer research yet we have no known cure for cancer, which is NOT an avoidable disease.
@Deplorable Me:
I really apologize. I didn’t grasp the meaning of your question. I can assure you that I NEVER read liberal media OR conservative media for that matter (I just don’t have the time) so I am not exactly up on current arguments. I CAN tell you this: I was taking COVID-19 seriously. I was alarmed about it as soon as it surfaced, long before Tucker Carlson got Trump on board, and because it was Trump who mattered, not House Democrats or their partisan surrogates, I payed attention to HIS comments, not the noisy opposition. So forgive me if I cannot whip up a double scoop of vehemence over whatever the “official” Democratic position was or how it evolved. I have already predicted trump’s victory in November (or whenever the election gets held) so I simply don’t bother about all that background noise.
I told my friends that three things should occupy our immediate attention regarding the COVID-19 crisis:
1. This was going to be worse than anyone anticipated. The stock market would eventually fall by 50% OR MORE. I announced this on the first day the market fell significantly, the first 1000 point drop of the Dow, two days AFTER I sold $500,000 of stocks and parked the cash at zero interest.
2. We should close our borders up TIGHT, giving our citizens no more than four days to get home, and then they were locked out and on their own. Nothing in or out, not boxes, not food, UNTIL we knew that there was no real risk of getting exactly what we got. So take note: I agree with your closed-borders position… ALL borders.
3. We should immediately institute those practices such as the Japanese and the South Koreans have been practicing out of an EXCESS of caution for at least the past twenty years. (You always could tell tourists from those two countries visiting Hawaii – from the face-masks.they were so often seen wandering about wearing.) Excess caution is the very safest practice.
Back in early 1980, when the news broke that several cases of a never-before-seen “gay cancer” had appeared in two different American cities, I told my “friends” that it had to be a sexually transmitted disease, and for exactly that reason I completely stopped having sex. On a dime. With ANYBODY. That is the face of excess caution in the absence of detailed understanding, and I suspect that I have my life to thank for it.
@retire05:
I was unaware that cancer was a suitable topic here, but I will offer you this:
COVID-19 is a single affliction with a single cause.
AIDS is single affliction caused by a single pathogen – HIV. AIDS earns its “syndrome” moniker because it represents multiple different symptoms that present once the immune system is compromised by the “Human Immunodeficiency Virus. By finding a cure that would kill the HIVirus, AIDS in turn could be eradicated.
CANCER is a term that covers a myriad of different diseases that have in common an abnormal and often uncontrolled reproduction of cells in the body. Cancers are known by association to be caused by a variety of substances, some of which, like tobacco smoke inhalation, are largely voluntary. Asbestos inhalation causes mesothelioma, but the lung cancer caused by the tar and nicotine in tobacco is different. Some cancers respond well to surgical and/or pharmacological treatment and/or radiation, while many do not.
This is offered to make the point that some cancers ARE avoidable.
Other cancers are also caused by human behavior. Those generally are caused by viruses that damage human DNA. The viruses known to cause human cancers are:
Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) – Burkitt’s Lymphoma
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) – Liver Cancer
Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) – Liver Cancer
Human Herpesvirus 8 (HH8) – Kaposi’s Sarcoma
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – Cervical Cancer, Head and Neck Cancers, Anal, Oral, Pharyngeal, and Penile Cancers
Human T-cell Lymphotropic Virus 1 (HTLV) – Adult T-cell Leukemia
Merkel Cell Polyomavirus – Skin Cancer (Merkel Cell Carcinoma)
Most of the above cancers are both caused and spread by viruses transmitted from host to host via sexual or other fluid-exchanging practices.
All of them are cancers that are avoidable.
@George Wells: Thanks for your contribution to the US treasury, come tax time capital gains tax is much appreciated. No dividend payers? 15 percent and 20 percent, depending on your income, you are a financial genius Im sure.
There are both Northern and Southern border precautions already in effect but thanks anyway. March 18th for Canada you are a bit behind Trump speed.
@kitt:
King George said:
“Back in early 1980, when the news broke that several cases of a never-before-seen “gay cancer” had appeared in two different American cities, I told my “friends” that it had to be a sexually transmitted disease, and for exactly that reason I completely stopped having sex. On a dime.”
Ummm, he seems to have changed his story because prior, when he was a frequent poster here at FA, he described (in detail) how he and his “husband” had oral sex. He also stated that he married his “husband” so that he could have access to federal health insurance.
Perhaps King George’s memory has deteriorated since then.
He was an arrogant ass then. Nothing has changed.
@kitt:
You DO understand how ROTH accounts work, right?
However – I’ll give you this – I’m so cheap that I DIDN’T liquidate my regular IRAs, content instead to let Uncle Sam share whatever loss of principle those accounts took. That was a mistake, fueled by my reluctance to pay those same capital gains taxes that you wished on me, and it has cost me a pretty penny on paper. However, I expect to make it up when the 1/2 million gets reinvested close to the market bottom. And THAT gain WON’T be taxed! Sort of what J. Paul Getty did after the market crash in ’29, when he bought up Standard Oil (I think it was) for pennies on the dollar. LOL! I should be so lucky!
@George Wells:
I am afraid thats exactly what will happen China marches in and scoops up our US companies on the cheap.
We need to know what the exit strategy is I dont want the never accurate modelers to make the call.
@kitt: @kitt:
There was a Gottlieb article about a four or five-step economic recovery plan that rang right to me, so if you can find it, it might be worth your reading. I’mnot sure that Trump has all the answers, but I think he’s doing better than Obama would have done.
@George Wells: He is an excellent project manager. He expects others to be excellent, if they fall short they dont last.
@George Wells:
The point is, unless someone else was raising all the proper flags, how can Trump be accused of “downplaying” the crisis? Other countries and our esteemed Democrat leaders all had the same information and NO ONE was any more alarmed than Trump.
Yet, he cut off foreign travel (before anyone else) formed the teams, initiated responses and began holding briefings before any of our Democrats showed ANY concerns.
It’s only “downplaying” in retrospect; it was accurate response in real time.
#2. Your response to MY support for closing borders was that it would be ineffective because that wouldn’t stop all the spread and that’s not where it came from, initially. Glad to see your reevaluation. In fact, our borders should be closed ALWAYS with only legal entry allowed after this crisis is over.
@Deplorable Me:
Still too lenient. In a post-pandemic World, a two-week quarantine of EVERY legal entrant, INCLUDING OUR OWN CITIZENS, is not just prudent, it’s necessary. Freedom to travel doesn’t mean that you can bring back a-symptomatic pathogens in tow. and loose them on our population. They can’t all be tested for, and there will be brand new ones from time to time. As for ILLEGAL entrants, shoot them. They’ll stop coming.
This isn’t an “evolving” perspective I have. It’s what I have always supported – the right of a people to take whatever steps they deem necessary to protect whatever it is that happens to be important to them. Never mind that the Founding Fathers didn’t envision global pandemics or tsunamis of illegal immigrants. They didn’t think of everything. And for that reason among others, an originalist interpretation of the Constitution is harmful to our health. You simply can’t cut every garment you need out of 250-year-old cloth, and you can’t expect to give everything not addressed in the Constitution to the states, because they are never of one mind, and in the end it is one country..
@George Wells: Pandemic is not the norm. When this is over (and that might take a long time to be completely over) then we get back to normal. However, normal is not open borders.
And, not to be contentious, but you were quite adamant that my reference to protecting the population by securing the borders and entry was not helpful. Of course, you weren’t referencing directly to what I wrote but rather arguing with an interpretation of your own devising.
@Deplorable Me:
That kind of says it all. We were arguing about two different things. I was saying that a country has every right to close up completely, but that closing off one route of entry to some people while leaving other routes essentially open to other people won’t stop what you might otherwise hope to keep out.
Did you read about the tunnel the FBI found near San Diego? Near a finished section of “The Wall”? Went almost a half-mile, was 30 feet deep, and supported the transportation of wholesale quantities of illegal drugs, illegal money and illegal people. Think “Field of Dreams” (whispering) “If you build it, they will come.” In this case, you build the wall. In this case, illegal people will come with illegal drugs and illegal money. The idea that “crime doesn’t pay” is a myth invented by Law Enforcement. No matter how many criminals you incarcerate, the dream lives on. I believe that you understand this, but you seem to choose focusing on just that one remedy – Trump’s wall – instead of pursuing a comprehensive fix. And if that’s wrong, I apologize. It isn’t worth beating to death. The whole world is losing its mind, and arguing about a wall that we BOTH agree to build isn’t worth a plugged nickel.
Which would you say was easier; to just walk across an open border or dig a tunnel 30 feet deep? Which method do you think can move more people and drugs across the border? We have listening devices that detect digging or cutting on the wall.
The wall is WORKING
You are correct; arguing about the wall is pointless. It is necessary and it works.
@Deplorable Me:
And when the wall is finished, how many tunnels get built?
That wall is like the silly little lock on your car door. It will stop little children from breaking in, but not career criminals who can walk through your car’s lock like it wasn’t there. The real criminals who stand to gain significant money every time they successfully thwart the wall have all the incentive they need to outsmart a dumb wall. They will fly over it, or dig under it, or boat around it, or simply take out a section of it with however much it takes to get the job done. Don’t even try to tell me that you can’t imagine at least twenty ways you could get through a Trump wall – you don’t have to possess criminal ingenuity to outsmart an inanimate object that was made without the benefit of lethal countermeasures.
@George Wells: Where would the answer to my question be? I don’t see it anywhere.
Do you think 200,000 a year can come across the border in tunnels?
@Deplorable Me:
I think 200,000 a year can come by whichever means are available to them. Considering how many miles (over 1900 ) of borders we have with Mexico, and how many tunnels could be built across them, the 200,000 figure sounds easily within reach.
The Berlin Wall stopped most East Berliners from escaping the ravages of communism, but that was because the space it enclosed was relatively confined, the people it constrained had few alternate options for escape, and the communists kept a close eye and trained guns on every foot of their precious wall.
Trump’s Wall will stop most but not all illegals from entering the country BY THAT ROUTE. Many will take other routes. The total number of illegals entering the country is as much a measure of how profitable we make the trip for them as it is how difficult we can make it, those two considerations acting in opposite directions. How the two resolve depends on the relative strength of each.
When our economy falters, like it is during the COVID-19 crisis, our attractiveness to foreigners lessens, but when our economy is robust, illegal immigration surges. This economic factor has a greater effect on illegal immigration than our half-hearted efforts to stop it. The equilibrium would shift dramatically if we legalized extermination of illegals, but in spite of arguing that illegal immigration represents a significant threat to our national security, the GOP is afraid to defend against that threat with lethal force. I’m not sure why. My guess would be that they are afraid of losing the Latin vote, the strength of Republicans’ convictions carrying them only so far…
@George Wells: Then I say believe whatever it takes to support your fantasies. I can’t help with that.
@Deplorable Me:
You don’t help with anything.
Between Trump’s aggressive ICE pursuit of Illegals already here and the economy’s shuttering, Mexicans have been net returning to Mexico on their own. Trump’s wall didn’t send them packing – it’s less than 10% complete. The fact that Trump continued to roll up the red-carpet welcome mat that Obama started retracting after George Bush rolled it out is what made the difference. What, you think those Mexicans who were lucky enough to find a section of new wall just said “Uh-Oh, here’s a bit of Trump’s wall. We better not drive 10 miles to go around it!” Ouch! Bad thinking! You know better!
@George Wells: If you think its just the latins that we are afraid of coming across the border , you know nothing. Mexico is a failed State run by cartel factions, cartels that dealt with terrorists groups to get a toe hold into the opiate trade. Those are you clues now go research for yourself.
You have had 2 stories so far as to what you did before the market drop. No one believes either story or you.
@George Wells: You obviously have no idea what the wall even consists of or the fact that it will eventually extend across all areas that can be crossed. It stops the mass migration. One or two at a time will get around it. A tunnel taking months to build might get through but will most likely be detected before completion. It will absolutely successfully stop the hundreds of thousands a year that simply walk across.
Now, if our immigration laws were upheld, if there were no sanctuary cities, if there were no liberal courts that protected illegal immigrant’s “right” to violate our laws, a wall might not even be necessary. But, sadly, the left encourages illegal immigration, even when it threatens citizen’s safety and health, so something permanent is required. Democrats simply cannot be trusted.
@kitt:
That’s down right funny!
Do you think that NOBODY saw this coming?
Your BELIEFS are your business, but if you really DID care and really DID want evidence, I could supply you with an invoice from Heritage Auctions (the largest and most prestigious of its kind in the World) showing the sale to me – George Wells – a gold item for the handsome sum of $50,000.00 US. It is a pre-Columbian pendant weighing over 6 ounces. Its sale made several of the trade papers. You can see the item for yourself if you go to the HA.com website and search finished auctions for “DIQUIS GOLD”, and find the item that sold for an even $50K. I buy gold artifacts in addition to gold coins, some of the latter costing me in excess of $20,000.00 each, and I have receipts for those as well. You need but supply me with an email address, and I’d be happy to send you the evidence you evidently need to prove that not everybody is poor. I also have countless statements from Merrill Lynch and Charles Schwab that would have the numbers you doubt, but I’d have to redact account information for security purposes. I would take for you a picture of me with all my gold, but I haven’t already done that, and now the bank that holds my safe deposit box has its lobby closed except by appointment, and I’d rather not bother them with something so abjectly unnecessary. But let me know if you’d like that other evidence. I know it must be disturbing for you to have so little trust in your fellow man.
P.S. I also have a $200,000.00 diamond ring. Funny how much money you can save by not having children! Not only do I not have children, but I don’t drink or take drugs. The money piles up fast when you don’t waste it.
I have a picture of that diamond ring already on my hard drive and can send it to you too, if you think it won’t make you cry…