US politics: Donny, you're out of your element

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

From what I'm seeing, sounds like the new DHS memos basically makes it so that anyone who's in the country illegally is eligible for deportation. So it seems clear that Trump is going for all 11 million. Where they get the funds and how much that destroys our community and economy is yet to be seen.

Its mostly re-allocating existing resources, so I don't think funding is going to be an issue. At least for deportations. The expanded detention facilities to process asylum-seekers at the border probably will cost money not currently available though. And the border wall would cost a ton of money. Costs due to effects on the community and the economy have definitely not been calculated, but it'll be something.

I'm opposed to this, but not as much as I was to the travel ban. That was illegal, at least in its original and still-current state, but this is enforcing existing law. I think its a bad law, and I support changing it, but I can't get too upset at executive branch enforcement of existing law (unless its clearly a law the courts will strike down in the near future; which isn't the case here).

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

Its mostly re-allocating existing resources, so I don't think funding is going to be an issue. At least for deportations. The expanded detention facilities to process asylum-seekers at the border probably will cost money not currently available though. And the border wall would cost a ton of money. Costs due to effects on the community and the economy have definitely not been calculated, but it'll be something.

I'm opposed to this, but not as much as I was to the travel ban. That was illegal, at least in its original and still-current state, but this is enforcing existing law. I think its a bad law, and I support changing it, but I can't get too upset at executive branch enforcement of existing law (unless its clearly a law the courts will strike down in the near future; which isn't the case here).

I'm not sure if it's going to be as simple as re-allocating existing resources. You're talking about ~11 million people that will need to be rounded up, detained and deported. That's a lot. 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

I'm not sure if it's going to be as simple as re-allocating existing resources. You're talking about ~11 million people that will need to be rounded up, detained and deported. That's a lot. 

Yeah, you can't do that without massive allocation of more resources, at least not in a timely fashion. Current immigration law requires that every one of them has a hearing, every one of them has representation allowed, every one of them will be negotiated with their country of origin. That's kind of the big problem with US immigration policy right now that everyone wants to solve, which is that the US simply does not have the resources to enforce the law on everyone that is here without documentation, and as a result the US must prioritize in some way. For Obama, his goal was to crackdown hard on any actual criminals while protecting those who had never committed a crime and going even further and legitimizing some of those who had been here at an early age without any choice in the matter. 

Trump appears to be wanting to just get the easiest ones he can. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The biggest reason is that McMaster is on active duty and thus had two options when being offered the post: take the job, or resign from the military. He chose the former. It doesn't speak to a lot of greatness - he won't be able to pick his own staff, and that will cause issues. 

 

You're so right about that.
 

[Red Tiger]

Can somebody explain to me why OBama never ended the war on drugs?

[Werthead]

A British Muslim schoolteacher was prevented from travelling to the USA from Reykjavik on 16 February, despite the travel ban being lifted, British people supposedly being exempt and the fact he had no links to the seven selected countries.

Discrimination is possible. Maybe the combination of him being Muslim and Welsh sent the border guards over the edge?

[Commodore]

McMaster was not a fan of Rumsfeld's faith in technology, and says similar mistakes were made in Vietnam

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/human-element-when-gadgetry-becomes-strategy

Quote

But the U.S. experience in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq demonstrated that it was impossible to calibrate precisely the amount of force necessary to prosecute a war. The human and psychological dimensions of war, along with the friction and uncertainty generated when opposing forces meet, invariably frustrates even the most elaborate and well-considered attempts to predict the effects of discrete military actions. Enemy countermeasures such as dispersion, concealment, deception, and intermingling with the civilian population limit the reach of surveillance and precision strike capabilities. Other factors, such as cultural, tribal, and political identities enhance complexity and influence the course of events. Emphasis in planning and directing operations, therefore, ought to be on effectiveness rather than efficiency. The requirement to adapt quickly to unforeseen conditions means that commanders will need additional forces and resources that can be committed with little notice. For efficiency in all forms of warfare, including counterinsurgency, means barely winning. And in war, barely winning can be an ugly proposition.

As historian Michael Howard observed, no matter how clearly one thinks, it is impossible to anticipate precisely the character of future conflict. The key is to not be so far off the mark that it becomes impossible to adjust once that character is revealed. Fortunately, the U.S. and its partners in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to recover from defects in the initial planning of those campaigns, defects analogous to those that undermined U.S. efforts as it went to war alongside its South Vietnamese allies in 1965.

In the last paragraphs of his book, A Better War, Lewis Sorley relates a story from December 1975, about seven months after the fall of Saigon. New Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was away from the Pentagon. Workmen took advantage of the opportunity to refurbish the secretary’s office. In doing so, they removed a large relief map of Southeast Asia that had hung on the wall during much of the Vietnam War. Perhaps if the map were still hanging there when Secretary Rumsfeld returned to the Pentagon more than thirty years later, it might have inspired a healthy dose of skepticism about the latest orthodoxy predicting how U.S. technological advantages would make war fast, efficient, and decisive. That skepticism, in turn, might have generated a deeper understanding of the nature of the conflicts in which the United States and its partners remain engaged today.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

I'm sure the underemployed white working class men will love to move to rural California for a few months to pick vegetables for a bit more than minimum wage.

I bet they're also overjoyed to go to the Palm Springs Valley and work on golf course for 12 hours a day in 120 degree weather. It's like a free tanning booth! 

In all seriousness though, the city my grandpa lives in in CA will collapse overnight if they deport all the undocumented migrants. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Can somebody explain to me why OBama never ended the war on drugs?

Too much money in it. See Prison Industrial Complex.

[Fez]

15 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I'm not sure if it's going to be as simple as re-allocating existing resources. You're talking about ~11 million people that will need to be rounded up, detained and deported. That's a lot. 

Most of the work looks like it will be done by deputized local police departments, which, again, is already existing law. So most of the costs won't Federal.

Of course, its likely that some local departments will refuse to participate, which is what happened before and why the Obama administration ended this particular program last time. I wouldn't be surprised if there are new efforts to coerce participation though.

Also, the immigration courts are badly backed up, but it sounds like the current plan is to immediately send individuals to Mexico and formally deport (or allow them back in) them after a hearing; whenever that is. If that's the case, that saves a lot on detainment costs. Of course, maybe the courts will rule against that particular bit. Also, no guarantee that Mexico will accept the individuals, especially those that aren't Mexican citizens but only passed through on their way to the US.

[OldGimletEye]

10 minutes ago, Commodore said:

McMaster was not a fan of Rumsfeld's faith in technology, and says similar mistakes were made in Vietnam

http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/human-element-when-gadgetry-becomes-strategy

Interesting article. I don't have time to read it all right now and take it all in. But, I'd say this has long been a problem in American military thinking. I recall reading Bevin Alexander ages ago, and if I recall correctly, he wrote about how American military planners during the Korean war, were quite convinced they would be able stop any Chinese crossing into North Korea with air power alone.

As we all know, that didn't work out too well. The Chinese were often very good at countering American air superiority through a variety of crude but effective tactics.

[Crazydog7]

I don’t understand why some internet wit hasn’t taken Napoleon from Animal Farm and given him a Trump Toupee.  Someone should get on that…..like now

[Maester Drew]

17 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

On a recently unearthed tape, MY is seen/heard to advocate for pedophilia. 

Unearthed? That tape came from a Drunken Peasants Podcast that is easy to find- no "unearthing" was necessary.

[The Wedge]

Just now, Crazydog7 said:

I don’t understand why some internet wit hasn’t taken Napoleon from Animal Farm and given him a Trump Toupee.  Someone should get on that…..like now

Ha!  We've been reading Animal Farm at night with our 5th and 6th grade kids.  Upon hearing some of Trump's insane press conference last week one of them said, "He sounds like Napoleon."

[Kalbear]

27 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Can somebody explain to me why OBama never ended the war on drugs?

For starters it'd be massively unpopular to do so. Most people believe illegal drugs are not good, that criminals bringing drugs into the country are not good, etc. There's certainly no national outcry to do so.

However, he also did not encourage prosecution of states that legalized pot, and that was something that if he had a desire to he could have easily pushed for. This is something that Sessions et al will almost certainly do here soon. 

Also note that quite a lot of drug prosecution (much like quite a lot of private jails) have nothing to do with the federal government. They are states issues first and foremost. There's only so much he could do.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, Maester Drew said:

Unearthed? That tape came from a Drunken Peasants Podcast that is easy to find- no "unearthing" was necessary.

It looked pretty obscure to me. Some bizarro looking streaming video podcast with a bunch of 4 chan like internet personalities on it. One guy was wearing a luchador mask and taking giant bong rips. Really strange format. Looked quite underground. Not that it takes away from Milo's comments, but I can't imagine that "show" has much in the way of viewership.

[Red Tiger]

6 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

For starters it'd be massively unpopular to do so. Most people believe illegal drugs are not good, that criminals bringing drugs into the country are not good, etc. There's certainly no national outcry to do so.

But it's not like he was gonna run for a third term. He could have also shoved the idea of "states rights" into the Republicans faces.

[Fragile Bird]

So, a Pakistani reporter just pointed out the success of Trump's anti-immigration stance around the world - he said the Saudis have deported 60,000 Pakistanis as "threats to security".

ETA: at the WH press conference

[Maester Drew]

2 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

It looked pretty obscure to me. Some bizarro looking streaming video podcast with a bunch of 4 chan like internet personalities on it. One guy was wearing a luchador mask and taking giant bong rips. Really strange format. Looked quite underground. Not that it takes away from Milo's comments, but I can't imagine that "show" has much in the way of viewership.

Drunken Peasents has almost 140,000 subscribers on Youtube. Granted, that's not a "huge" channel, but that is far from being obscure.

[Mexal]

Spicer just said that Obama's guidance to schools on transgender students being able to use a bathroom that aligns with their gender identity will likely be rescinded and that Trump believes this is a states rights issue. As expected, we're going backwards.