All week, there were dire warnings that Trump would force a government shutdown by refusing to approve a federal budget unless it included funding for his border wall. Democrats, of course, were adamantly opposed to funding the Wall, and some Republicans objected because of the cost With four days to go, Trump backed down and said he will wait until September to start again on demanding the funding. Some voters may recall that Mexico was going to pay for the Wall. That great, beautiful Wall stretching from sea to shining sea.

If there is anything to be positive about this administration it is the likelihood that resistance is working.
LikeLike
That’s a mighty big (1,000 font) IF, Wendy!
LikeLike
Trump should ask his supporters to just hold hands and make a human wall. Put their feet are in concrete so this human wall doesn’t move. That makes as much sense as constructing a wall. Walls don’t work.
LikeLike
I lived in West Germany, from 1976-1978. The East Germans had a wall around their country, to keep their people in. Walls work.
Notwithstanding the wall proposal, it is worth noting, that illegal crossings are down by up to 90% since pres. Trump took office.see
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/border-rancher-illegal-crossings-90-since-trump-became-president/
Technology is part of the solution. Boots on the ground, aerial surveillance, cooperation from local authorities, and screening of job applicants, will all help to keep illegal aliens out of our country.
LikeLike
Interesting to compare Trump’s wall to the Berlin Wall, built by a dictatorship to lock its people in and keep others out.
This is America, not East Germany.
The Berlin Wall was torn down, piece by piece. Freedom of movement prevails again in Germany.
LikeLike
The point I am trying to make, is that walls can keep people in OR out. Walls are only a tool, nothing more.
Our nation has every right to control who enters our borders.
And the wall built around East Germany was built to keep their people in. The guard towers faced in,the claymore mines were on the eastern side, the machine guns were aimed east, the lights illuminated the eastern side, etc.
The East Germans were not concerned about keeping anyone out.
LikeLike
Yes, of course, we want to be just like East Germany!
Where are our Stasi?
LikeLike
Charles: Illegal crossings were already going down under Obama. As regards East Germany, it wasn’t just a wall, the East German border guards would shoot to kill. They even used land mines in some spots. There were many highly note worthy escapes from the DDR: by home-made planes, hot air balloon, tunneling, etc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/07/berlin-wall-escape-stories_n_6090602.html
LikeLike
” Walls work” what will the wall do. I would really like to hear about it.
The Berlin Wall was in East Germany if I remember correctly . Not “bigly ” at all not that Berlin is all that small a City but the perimeter of west Berlin is not very big . I believe the rest of the border was maintained by barbed wire and shoot to kill orders. . After he finishes the wall with Mexico will he build a wall with Canada “to keep the DRUGS OUT “, “The bad Hombres” then Then there are the coasts.
The wall on the West Coast will have to be Earthquake resistant. The wall on the East Coast will it go around Long Island?. And on the Gulf coast are we going to take a short cut across Florida after all the Colombian drug dealers and really bad Hombre’s live in Trump properties in South Florida. So I got a better Idea for a Wall . A very small Wall around around Mar-a-Lago with Donald his despicable Family and Cabinet in it.
Because if you want to stop undocumented immigration, all you have to do is throw employers like Donald who hire them to undercut wages, behind walls. Something the Republicans have never been willing to do . Countless times calls for bio-metric and verifiable worker IDs have been blocked by the same people who rail against the undocumented immigrant.
LikeLike
GREAT, WONDERFUL, BESTEST idea yet! (Too band the Orange Buffoon didn’t think of it.)
……..
Quote: “So I got a better Idea for a Wall . A very small Wall around around Mar-a-Lago with Donald his despicable Family and Cabinet in it.
Because if you want to stop undocumented immigration, all you have to do is throw employers like Donald who hire them to undercut wages, behind walls. “
LikeLike
Interesting remarks. I am not suggesting that the USA be like the German Democratic Republic. I am merely postulating, that walls can serve many different purposes.
I lived in West Germany (The Federal Republic of Germany) for two years. I saw the border wall up close, and in person. I need no lectures about it.
The Berlin Wall, was a circular wall, that separated the British, French, and American Sectors of occupied Berlin, from the Soviet occupied sector. The GDR had a border wall, separating the GDR from Federal (west) Germany.
Our constitution empowers the federal government to “provide for the common defense”, and that includes a military establishment (Army, Navy ,etc). All nations must protect their borders, and control who enters. Hospitality has limits. We require foreigners to have visas, and to not overstay their welcome. We have the right to keep undesirables out of our nation, drug transporters, terrorists, etc.
Just because we are protecting our nation, does not make us communists.
LikeLike
Charles, I grew up in West Germany and the U.S. I visited my aunts and cousins in East Germany many times between between 1974-1989. I have Stasi files about my visits in their vaults (as a young teen and young adult I was the embodiment of a threat). I’m doing all I can not to unload every expletive in my vast vocabulary on this comment. Let’s just call it as stupid a thing as I’ve ever seen on this blog.
Angela Merkel, who grew up behind that wall and lived there until her adulthood reminded our Dear Leader on her visit that walls don’t work. I’ll take her word and my personal experience over your crave idiocy any day of the week.
You forgot to mention armed guards, a system of watchtowers in which at least one other could be seen, attack dogs, motion-triggered machine guns, tank barriers, land mines, spot lights, as well as a network of informers spread throughout your family, friends, and neighbors.
You are a special kind of idiot.
LikeLike
Greg,
As ever, thank you.
LikeLike
GregB
LikeLike
OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LikeLike
Anybody see my wall
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj32dTj4cDTAhXslFQKHdBgDGoQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hottraveldestination.com%2F5-popular-hiking-routes-europe%2F&psig=AFQjCNE57CuLuQCPx3Z_dmfvLm_Tqyskbg&ust=1493249435555560
LikeLike
Greg, you said that I did not mention the lights and machine guns in my post. Here is an excerpt:
The guard towers faced in,the claymore mines were on the eastern side, the machine guns were aimed east, the lights illuminated the eastern side, etc.
I am sorry that you take issue with my comments. I have seen a number of walls in my international travels. One was at Ressano Garcia, in the People’s Republic of Mozambique. Mozambique is a socialist nation, but the government did not prevent their people from leaving the country. The (apartheid) government of the Republic of South Africa, at that time, strictly controlled who could enter their country. The wall was there to keep unwanted people out. I found it ironic, that black people, who lived under a black majority government, would risk getting shot, to enter the white-minority ruled Republic of South Africa. Live and learn.
The USA already has some physical barricades on the southern border. (I have an ex-wife in El Paso, TX, and I have crossed the border many times). There are fences and barbed wire, and lights, and armed guards.
The idea of a wall from Brownsville TX, to San Diego CA, is “looney tunes”. No one is going to see this happen. But, I predict that there will be increased physical barricades erected on the southern border.
I worked a balloon aerial surveillance project in Afghanistan, and the US customs service and the Drug Enforcement Agency, has installed a number of balloons with video cameras, along the southern border to interdict both illegal border crossings, and for drug interdiction.
The USA is going to get serious about controlling who enters our nation. There are many tools to achieve this goal. Jailing people who knowingly hire illegal aliens is a good start. Increasing border patrols and surveillance with drone aircraft and balloons will also help.
And increased physical security, in the form of barricades, fences, barbed wire, and yes WALLS, are part of the solution.
LikeLike
Charles,
No one disagreed with the need for border security. A physical wall that stretches from sea to sea is ridiculous. Technology is smarter.
LikeLike
Say what you will.
A wall ( of some sort) will be built and the funding will effect Mexico and all others likely to breech it. It is just a matter of time.
LikeLike
“A wall ( of some sort) will be built. . . ”
April, please come to the Show Me State and we’ll go to the boats (casinos have to “be on water”-a joke as it is) together. I’ll supply the money and we’ll make a fortune at the tables since you can so clearly see and predict the future.
LikeLike
And the walls came tumbling down. Wall are made to breeched.
LikeLike
Breached, guys, breached!
LikeLike
How disgustingly sad that there are so many people who think that building this wall will bring back jobs. How can Trump’s budget build a wall, increase the military, lower corporate taxes to 15%, lower taxes for the wealthy (and middle class??) and still have a functioning government? Cuts in everything domestic that helps people would be the way.
Trump filed for bankruptcy many times and we are supposed to believe his judgements?
”””””””’
Funding for poverty level school programs are at risk. Watch the video that is filmed inside one school.
Trump Plan Could Erase This School Program…360 video from NYT
by Julia Wall, Joshua Thomas and Maureen Towey
video taken at Eno Valley elementary school in Durham, N. C.
LikeLike
I actually agree with DeVos that there is no Common Core.
The minute the tests went in ed reform completely abandoned the project.
They all moved, en masse, to “blended learning”
Billions of dollars, millions of hours of work at the local level and they tired of Common Core in 12 months.
LikeLike
The Common Core is far from dead.
Gates has distributed grants to shore it up. Also, the same standards have been “rebranded” in many states. You see the shoring up the Gates Foundation grant awards for 2015, 2016, 2017–awards of millions.
I think you will also find that portions of the edtech industry have “adopted” the standards
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=Common%20Core
According to the CCSS website for 2017, 42 states, DC, four territories, and Department of Defense schools. adopted the CCSS.
A more accurate map, from 2016, may be this one http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-states-academic-standards-common-core-or.html
LikeLike
Not to mention the massive, suffocating rollout of NGSS for science which is just another Common Core spinoff devoid of rationality.
LikeLike
News flash to the Trumpeters: we already have a huge wall/fence system at the border. Trump and his obedient tribe seem to think there are no walls/fences or border guards between the US and Mexico. The wall is just red meat for the easily duped and easily manipulated Trump adorers.
LikeLike
I found this to be interesting. Breitbart seems to be on the outs, along with Bannon.
……
Breitbart Can’t Convince a Committee to Let It Cover Congress..The Atlantic
Breitbart News’ application for permanent congressional press passes was denied on Tuesday, after a months-long attempt by the right-wing news outlet to obtain credentials.
The Standing Committee of Correspondents of the Senate Press Gallery voted to table Breitbart’s application and also to not extend its temporary passes, which are valid through May 31….
In the course of its quest to get credentials, Breitbart, normally a secretive organization, has been forced to disclose information about its operations, structure, and finances. But the committee has not been satisfied by Breitbart’s responses…
Read More:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/breitbart-cant-convince-a-committee-to-let-it-cover-congress/524217/?utm_source=eb
LikeLike
Thanks, Carol, love those little tidbits of good news! I shall read the article with gusto.
LikeLike
The thing I love about Trump’s ‘signature’ campaign promises– like The Wall– is that they cost so much $, they’re bound to get bogged down by the ‘Freedom’ Caucus et al House & Senate conservatives bent on cutting spending/ decreasing natl debt.
Take his promise to ‘repurpose’ $20 billion fed-ed funds into ed-vouchers. From where? Maybe Title I, which is running about $15 billion? Might have to fight a hornet’s-nest over that… But more on point, just to make it happen, the 1-yr-old ESSA law– which took many yrs of foot-dragging to accomplish– would have to be re-opened & re-written. I suspect there is very little appetite in Congress for doing that.
LikeLike
Someone on Twitter suggested that Trump be told the wall has been completed, but that only the “Greatest” presidents will be able to see it.
I think Congressman Elijah Cummings would be the appropriate member of Congress to escort him to the invisible wall, as Trump maintains that Cummings told him he will be one of the great presidents.
“Also in the course of the interview with Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush, Trump maintained that Democratic Rep. Elijah E. Cummings had told Trump that he would rank among the best presidents ever.
TRUMP: Elijah Cummings was in my office and he said, ‘You will go down as one of the great presidents in the history of our country.’
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Really.
TRUMP: And then he went out and I watched him on television yesterday and I said, ‘Was that the same man?’ ”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/06/trumps-completely-bizarre-claim-that-a-democrat-said-he-would-rank-among-the-greatest-presidents/?utm_term=.048681441cef
LikeLike
Quote: “Someone on Twitter suggested that Trump be told the wall has been completed, but that only the “Greatest” presidents will be able to see it.”
I LOVED your comment! (Needed some humor and you provided the BEST!!) Yep, tRump would fall for it.
LikeLike
Good article…”reality will contort itself to match his imagination”.
……………
DONALD TRUMP’S UNINTELLIGIBLE PRESIDENCY..The New Yorker
AMY DAVIDSON
April 25, 2017
Why are we spending so much time trying to match what Donald J. Trump says to reality? Is it because he is the President of the United States, and could start a war with words? Or because we place some sort of value on the truth, or on the meaning of words? Whatever the source of our folly, it is, from the President’s perspective, just that: a big waste of time. Reality will contort itself to match his imagination—his Presidentialness—all on its own. He doesn’t even need to sign laws, let alone accurately describe what he wants to do. He is in the White House; the world and time bend.
That, at any rate, is among the secondary conclusions that one can draw from Trump’s interview, over the weekend, with Julie Pace, the White House correspondent for the Associated Press….
http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/donald-trumps-unintelligible-presidency
LikeLike