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Government Shutdown: TLS Certificates Not Renewed, Many Websites Are Down (zdnet.com)
More than 80 TLS certificates used by US government websites have expired so far without being renewed, leaving some websites inaccessible to the public. From a report: NASA, the US Department of Justice, and the Court of Appeals are just some of the US government agencies currently impacted, according to Netcraft. The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by US President Donald Trump's refusal to sign any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall he promised during his election campaign. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of government workers being furloughed across all government agencies, including staff handling IT support and cybersecurity. As a result, government websites are dropping like flies, with no one being on hand to renew TLS certificates.
Often it seems that one of Trump's top motivations is to piss on the democrats, without concern for what it does to anyone who is not a hard core supporter of his. If we could get someone on Fox & Friends to say that the most dramatic thing he could do to piss off the democrats at this point would be to resign - leaving Pence in charge - he just might do it. Pence is not a great guy either but he's at least reasonably intelligent and honest enough to not stare into a camera and lie his ass off (yet). Just tell trump about the sweetheart deal Nixon got when he resigned and Trump might go for it. Hell if he goes out willingly he could still get lifetime secret service protection for him and his family for the rest of all their lives, saving him many millions of dollars.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Bullshit. They were willing to discuss it without shutting the government down. Trump said he would be the one to blame in the shutdown. His had no plan on controlling the border, Plus it was to be paid for my Mexico. This shutdown is just a diversion tactic to get attention away from his really big problems.
This isn't a government shutdown. This is a minority party that gained a slight foothold in one part of the government and immediately used it to shut down the government and is now trying to blame everyone but themselves for the outcome.
The Senate and the President of the United States are ready to reopen the government immediately. It's solely one small part of the government that's refusing to open things. So call it what it is: the Democrat Shutdown.
Democrats took control of the house: Jan 3
Shutdown started: Dec 22
Trump, McConnell, and Senate Republicans own this. Everyone, including you, know this.
One appears to be a test domain, one expired before the shutdown and the third does not resolve publicly and the article says the org was not affected by the shutdown.
If they set up Let's Encrypt properly, they can have automatic renewing of their certificates.
You're full of shit.
The Republican-controlled Senate passed the bill. Then the Republican-controlled House refused to vote on it. It expired.
The Democrat-controlled house passed the Senate bill. Mitch McConnell (R!) is refusing to let the senate vote on it.
If it went to a vote it would pass. Mitch is refusing to put Trump in a position where he'd have to veto it.
The Democrats are the only ones acting honestly here. They passed the Republican bill. The shutdown is entirely of Trump's making.
The government shutdown is going on 20 days. Today's date in Jan 11. You might wan to check on which party had majorities in both houses on congress when the shutdown began and who is being obstructionist. If there's anyone to thank or blame, it's Trump and the republicans.
Too bad only Democrats believe in personal responsibility.
They have been playing that game since Regan was in office. The shutdown is the only leverage the President has. If he signs appropriations bill he has no way to pressure Congress to make additional funds available for the wall and he knows it.
I know Nancy Pelosi knows it; and I bet you know it and are really just posturing.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
There's no reason this isn't automated, run a CRON job every 30 days that refreshes the TLS certs and move on with your day.
Strangely the shutdown started when Republicans controlled the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate.
It's almost like they staged this so that stooges like you would blame the not-yet-seated Democrats in a complete disconnect with reality.
Does it hurt to be so stupid as to fall for that?
Only 6% of the Israeli "wall" is actually a wall. 94% is just lots (really lots!) of barbed wire fencing in multiple layers - with a dead zone between where people crossing can be observed, and with a trench to slow them down long enough to be observed, and smooth sand/gravel so that successful crossing attempts can at least be detected in hindsight. The tall concrete walls you see in the news are only in places where there isn't enough width to have a fence + dead zone, or where there's an issue with snipers - e.g. housing right up close to the border from where people can shoot or be shot at. Back in the US, most illegal migrants from the south arrive legally at border points then overstay. Really, a wall will have next to no effect on the number of illegal migrants entering the US. As for drugs - if drug lords are resourceful enough to build mini-submarines for example, then a wall isn't going to stop them.
If they pay for his wall because he has a tantrum, what's next?
He'll be shutting down the government for every last little thing until he gets his way.
There's no way anybody should give way on this (except The Donald, obviously).
PS: Wasn't Mexico going to pay for this?
No sig today...
No, it's her desire to see him not get a key campaign promise through and see him not get reelected in 2020. That's what this is about. They are willing to ensure than 800k federal employees don't get paid for months because they are that Hell-bent on seeing his chances reduced in 2020. That's it.
The Democrats supported every wasteful thing Bush and Obama put out there. They supported Obama's expansion on Bush's militarism.
The fact is that if Trump wanted $10B to bomb a randomly named country, half the Democrats would give him the money. It's only--only--when that money is put toward something that is a core campaign promise and related to what people want (border security) that they lose their minds and channel Ayn Rand.
Is it that no one is on hand to renew or that people are on hand and choosing not to do their job?
Most likely the administrators are not essential and thus cannot renew them. If they are furloughed they are nnot allowed to even check email, use a gov't issued phone, or do any work at all.
That's what some at the TSA are doing. Calling in sick to make matters worse. http://fortune.com/2019/01/11/...
Given the choice of working for no pay or doing something else to try to pay rent and buy food, yea I can see calling in sick to work a side job.
Also keep in mind that many in the federal bureaucracy were already "resisting" the moment Trump came into office.
Bullshit. I know a lot of feds, and they just want to do their jobs and carry out whatever policies the administration puts in place, even if they disagree with them. In a number of cases, all the turmoil has resulted in them not even being told what they are to do, what programs to drop, where to refocus efforts, etc.
Whatever happened to "elections have consequences"?
Perhaps there is room on both sides to stop acting like children, and learn to work together.
while (sig==sig) sig=!sig;
What he says he would or wouldn't sign is 100% irrelevant, because 1) he's a liar so nothing he says is ever relevant and 2) the Senate hasn't voted on the budget yet, so there's no budget for the president to sign.
This problem is caused by senators who are too pussy to pass a bill that the president doesn't like. Think about that. This is the pussiest president we've had since .. Wilson!?!?! And the Republican dominated senate is too pussy to stand up to him. Those senators need to go. Start with voting McConnell out as majority leader.
1) Securing the perimeter of a McMansion's yard is EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM as walling off 2,000 miles worth of border.
2) Do you really think $5 billion worth of wall will stop that last Mexican boogeyman? Or give us anything close to $5 billion worth of border security? Do you really think the Lord of Grift will do anything other than pocket most of the money?
3) You want to stop those Mexican boogeymen? Slap a good stiff fine on those who hire them. You could even fund a few hundred feet of wall with the revenue...oh, wait, I just remembered. Taking money from rich people is socialism.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
You mean by doing the sensible thing, eg. Postponing the wall until there's money to pay for it?
(There'll be money, right? Trump's economic policies are working...?)
No sig today...
If your certs are about to expire(30-60 days out) and you are not planning for it, especially when they will be failing around the end of the year with Christmas and new years, that is just an example of you being a poor system administrator.
Ah.. Boo Hoo... Seems the Democrat tactic from the Obama years is being used by the Republicans...
Remember all the "Give me a CLEAN CR!" statements from Obama when the Republican house was trying to get concessions on the ACH and the Budget from him? The house kept passing bills and the Senate kept ignoring them and we shutdown the government then too.
It's how the game is played by both sides, so cry into your beer if you have to but your complaints are falling on deaf ears here.
BTW.. How'd that all turn out? The House republicans caved, passed a clean CR and we moved on. I suspect the House will lose this fight too, but that's just my guess based on history.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
As for drugs - if drug lords are resourceful enough to build mini-submarines for example, then a wall isn't going to stop them.
We already know that now, as according to the DEA's 2018 report, the most common way for drugs to enter the country in the south is via the points of entry already. After that is tunnels, light aircraft, and then marine vehicles. Additionally, most of the fentanyl that enters the country comes from China. Sure some of it comes from Mexico, but its easier to use the postal service to send small quantities directly to buyers. $1.7mil worth of fentanyl was seized at the port in Philadelphia just this June. It came from China.
Obama deported the most illegals than any previous president. He did run and get elected as a Democrat right? Just cause fox and friends tells you something, that doesn't make it real. In fact, if it's coming from fox it will either be a lie, or coated in delicious lies. Just like the crazy neckbeard racist fuckwads don't represent conservatism as a whole, neither to the left wing nutjobs who seem to get endless airtime. I get that it's hard to understand these bubbles, but you really need to be aware that they exist on both sides. Left = all conservatives are racists Right = all democrats are socialsts The extremes are entirely made up bullshit. Sadly tho, the extreme on one side is certainly acting out with little to no repercussions.
Clinton, Obama, Schumer and Pelosi all voted for a wall before Trump made actually getting it done a major campaign promise. Millions of people entering illegally, and often getting injured, assaulted, or even killed during the trek, was a "crisis" that needed to be solved, until Trump decided to actually solve it. The funding was "urgently needed", these Democrats said on national TV, until Trump would "get credit" for having done it.
"Illegal Immigration is wrong, plain and simple. Until the American people are convinced we will stop future flows of illegal immigration, we will make no progress." Sen. Chuck Schumer
"We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented and unchecked." - Barak Obama
Less than a year later, Obama and 25 other Senate Democrats voted for the Secure Fence Act, the 2006 legislation that authorized the construction of 700 miles of barriers along the southern border.
"[we must] spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in. ... I do think you have to control your borders." - Hillary Clinton
How about the Dems allow the government to do what they themselves have said is "urgently needed" rather than obstructing it because they don't want the orange idiot to get the credit for it?
What alternate facts?
I've literally heard recordings of Nancy, Chuck, Hillary and even Barrack himself claiming we needed this from only a few short years ago. What gives? Where they for it before they decided it was a bad idea it or some such nonsense?
I think one side IS inventing facts here, but in this case it's not who you seem to think.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Whatever happened to "elections have consequences"?
Perhaps there is room on both sides to stop acting like children, and learn to work together.
Sorry, the "pen and a phone" only work when Dems win the presidency.
Because reasons. Or something.
America elected Trump
Actually, no. Fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Hillary, period. Even with a seemingly historic election we still had a rather appallingly low voter turnout in 2016 (less than 2/3 of eligible voters), hence more people who could have voted didn't bother voting than turned out to vote for Trump.
in part to fix immigration
As has been shown before, Trump has held almost every position on almost every issue at one time or another. Consistency is not his strength (one can debate what his strength actually is...).
72% of Americans believe illegal immigration is a problem.
Do you have a source for that? I found a study that basically said the opposite of that, where 72% said that illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay if certain conditions are met. That's a long ways from your claim.
globalists who want cheap slave labor
Considering the millions of dollars that Trump has refused to pay to people working for him over the years, it would seem that Trump himself should be in that camp. Or is it not "cheap slave labor" when it is money that is refused to American skilled workers?
leftists who want cheap votes
Going with that conspiracy again? Just because Trump says it is so doesn't make it the case.
If Mexican illegal immigrants voted majority Republican, they'd treat them the same way they treat Cuban refugees (who vote 80% Republican).
Keep peddling that conspiracy if you want...
You lost.
You do know there was an election in November 2018 as well, right?
America First
Tens of thousands of unpaid workers would like to challenge you on what that means.
Traitors get the rope.
Careful what you wish for there. The number of constitutional amendments that Trump has not openly spoken in opposition to grows shorter every month.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
He literally spelled it out on his website the HOW. I cannot believe that so many fucking people are going 1984 on this point. One of those points mentioned in that document, FROM HIS FUCKING WEBSITE, is them expecting Mexico to cut a fucking check for the wall, full stop.
Perhaps there is room on both sides to stop acting like children, and learn to work together.
I don't think so. Every time Donald throws a tantrum, his base poll numbers go up, and congressional Republicans tremble in fear.
Likewise for Democrats. Nancy Pelosi was demonized by people like AOC last fall, yet now that she is standing up to Trump, her popularity with the progressive base has soared.
So far the shutdown has not affected me in the slightest. I wouldn't even know it was happening if I turned off the news.
US government is dead. Netcraft confirms it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Trump is arguing for a 100% wall, and is arguing that it will magically solve 100% of problems. The Dems think this is a waste of money, and that there are more cost effective ways to control the border, which is why they voted for an increase in funding for border security a few days ago. Just not for a wall.
"The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by US President Donald Trump's refusal to sign any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall he promised during his election campaign."
Is no less accurate as:
The blame falls on the current US federal government shutdown caused by the US Congress' refusal to pass any 2019 government budget bill that doesn't contain funding for a Mexico border wall promised to voters.
When you have two stubborn groups refusing to compromise THEY ARE BOTH RESPONSIBLE for the consequences. Right now we are a global embarrassment mostly because of partisanship at a time when we have an escalating trade war and need unity. You might point a finger at who put us in that position but I'd point out that isn't productive, it doesn't much matter we have to deal with the situation we are in. The money being requested here is a drop in the bucket relative to the budget and international credibility this costs us, the Americans who want this pay more than enough in taxes to be entitled to it, so my 2 cents is do the stupid thing and move on.
I know that this being /. that people like to bash Trump at every opportunity (even when unwarranted), but isn't this problem one of crappy cert management?
Waiting until the very last minute before renewing a cert isn't a Best Practice. It's not like your wasting money by renewing a cert early.
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
No, something SOME of the colonies were founded on. Almost everything they came here to be able to do is illegal now because they were psychotic religious cults too extreme at a time when Europe burned people at the stake over religion. Not exactly something we want to bring back.
There is no "two sides" to this. This problem falls squarely in the laps of the Republicans.
Trump had an entire year to get this pushed through when the Reps had all three branches of gov't. He didn't.
It only suddenly became a burning priority when the democrats took the house. There is only one side being childish right now, and that's been the case for a while now.
(Yes, the democrats have their issues, but those issues are not what caused this current mess.)
Nobody is better at caving in to demands than the democrats.
Then how is it that Boston and Seattle get boatloads of federal money for downtown highway expansion while midwest cities get zippo?
The Big Dig started in the 90s (with funding from the 80s) and was done over 10 years ago now. How many large projects have the democrats pulled off since then?
How is your health insurance doing?
The democrats wanted single payer. Democratic voters wanted single payer. The GOP wrote the fucking bill based on what the Heritage Foundation wanted, and we ended up with ACA as a direct result of GOP demands. The GOP walked away from the discussions because they didn't want reforms to be signed by a democrat.
How about your social security benefits?
It would be doing fine if the GOP wasn't raiding Social Security every chance they get.
Thank Democrats for having a spine.
If I find one I'll try. I'm not holding my breath, I expect them to cave soon.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Trump was a democrat for most of his life but democrats have moved farther to the left and have become more radical over time.
A shutdown is the only leverage he has as president. Sure, he owns it but it's also congress because they control the purse. Democrats could easily end this just as much as Trump. Who is acting from a position of principle?
When two cars are playing chicken both are at fault when they crash not just the one who accelerated first.
The republican house approved a version that Trump would sign but it never made it to the Senate vote because there were not enough votes from Democrats.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/...
"He's" shutting down the government?
If the budget originated with Trump and the dems refused to sign because it included wall funding, would you then say Pelosi and Schumer are shutting down the government?
If not, your a partisan hack, only finding fault in the other side.
If so, you're just an idiot, basing your argument solely on who brings the budget to the table first.
HINT: There isn't money to pay for 24% of what the Federal Government does. It brings in enough revenue to pay interest on the debt, pensions (Federal and SSI), healthcare, and welfare. No money for anything else - DOEs (both of them), EPA, FBI, OSHA, CBP, DOD, etc.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So because a wall may help, but would not entirely solve the problem, we shouldn't do one at all? A locked door may help keep a burglar out of your home, but it won't entirely solve the problem so take your door off the hinges instead.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What you just said:
"No, we aren't in the business of governing anymore."
The election is over. Now it's time to actually govern, which means working together to get the business of the federal government done.
If you don't want to govern, don't run for government office. If you just want to be a political hack, get a fucking AM radio talk show like all the other hacks.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You'll probably start to know pretty soon as those furloughed workers start not getting paychecks. The economic ripples are going to start.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The election of the President in the US has always been, for 200+ years, by electoral college
Which was necessary when calculating the national vote was not a practical thing to do in a short amount of time (days, even). We can tally the national vote in hours or less now. Results don't have to be transported on foot, by horse, or even by rail.
a massive Democrat campaign to overturn the results by trying to force the electors to not vote for him
Nice conspiracy you have, there. Care to provide support for it?
It was also NOT an "appalling low turnout" as it was statistically above the average turnout for all elections and had the largest RAW count of votes EVER.
That represents barely 60% of the population of people who are eligible to vote. Any other democracy would consider that an appalling failure - especially if you include the citizens who are uniquely ineligible in this country who would be able to vote in almost every other democracy.
Our country has the distinction of being one of the only "democracies" where politicians can pick their voters as much as the voters can pick their politicians.
But go ahead and keep slinging silly insults at me and attacking me instead of actually presenting facts. That seems to pass as dialogue for a certain portion of our country now.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Those were not about walls along the whole fucking shebang southern border, but rather small portion, and about sensible policies. You know, like the one republican hate more than dems : fining hugely and financially crushing people hiring illegals. But wait, can't do that, most of those are rich folk voting republican AND donating money. Yet this crack down on the people hiring illegals is what WORK.
A wall won't help without massive amount of support. The logistics alone are a nightmare, even if the wall only costs 5 billion dollars, you have the years of court battles fighting over eminent domain, as most borderlands are owned by private citizens. And again, without paying enough people to walk the wall, regularly, it is the equivalent of a screen door. Spend 5 billion on patrolling, it would actually help the situation. Walls are easily overcome. To your analogy, you want to put a million dollar door locked with a pad-lock next to an open window.
C'mon, his entire twitter feed is a tantrum feed.
Could have something to do with the fact that the fence they are asking for is $361 PER INCH (generously, including the 150 miles of fence that is already built) and would only cover 11% of the border? Doesn't sound worth shutting down the government to me.
This shutdown is just a diversion tactic to get attention away from his really big problems.
I actually think it's not a diversion tactic. I think it's a miscalculation. A lot of what Trump does is done impulsively. His number one apologist, Scott Adams, says that in business you need to make decisions quickly because the quicker you act, the quicker you can fix it if you made a mistake. He gave out a big tax cut to the corporations when other changes he had made seemed to be making the economy stronger. That I blame on impulse - do everything now, not later. I think this whole wall thing is really just red meat for his supporters, most of whom are if anything even more deeply committed to him than ever before. My closest friends are, unfortunately, pretty conservative and deeply committed to Trump. One of them seems to believe that at least 60% of Americans, maybe more, are head over heels in love with Trump like he is. So what the shutdown is, for Trump supporters it's a sign that he's still in charge despite the November loss of the House. I think it's probably a little early for this kind of tactic as the 2020 presidential election is almost 2 years away, but he's just solidifying his base with this. I cal it a miscalculation because by the time of the 2020 election, nobody who isn't already behind Trump is going to be very enthused about this and if he had done it next year it might have had some effect on moving some voters his way if he wins the fight. By Nov. 2020, however it ends up won't be an issue any more. I think he needs to solidify his base next year, not this year, but he does everything impulsively, so here we are.
PS: Wasn't Mexico going to pay for this?
If that was ever funny, it stopped being so long ago.
The only thing that's funny is the revisionist history I've seen people like you engaging in, given that he did say that Mexico would pay for the wall, he did so numerous times, and he even explicitly said that Mexico would pay for it in a "one-time payment". To his credit, he was walking the rhetoric back even before his inauguration, and I think it's a good thing when people (politicians or otherwise) change their minds after realizing that they were wrong, but that doesn't absolve them of responsibility for the things they said. As such, what I'm not okay with is a politician attempting to gaslight an entire nation by lying about what was said when it's inconvenient for him to be held accountable for those words later. There's no denying—at least among honest people—that he made the claim that Mexico would pay for the wall and that they'd do so via a lump payment, rather than the tariffs, taxes, or whatever other reimbursements he's now trying to claim he meant all along.
As an aside, I don't have any "favored politicians". The party I'm registered with stopped representing my interests a long time ago, and none of the others do any better by me.
We already know that now, as according to the DEA's 2018 report, the most common way for drugs to enter the country in the south is via the points of entry already. After that is tunnels, light aircraft, and then marine vehicles.
I guess the citation is this one: https://www.dea.gov/sites/defa...
Mexican TCOs transport the majority of illicit drugs into the United States across the SWB using a wide array of smuggling techniques. The most common method employed by these TCOs involves transporting illicit drugs through U.S. POEs in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor trailers
[It specifically refers to "Ports of Entry", POEs, a more precise term than "point of entry". Ports of entry are the existing staffed border stations, that obviously a wall will do nothing to improve.]
Other cross-border smuggling techniques employed by Mexican TCOs include the use of subterranean tunnels... Mexican TCOs also transport illicit drugs to
the United States aboard commercial cargo trains and passenger buses. To a lesser extent, Mexican TCOs use maritime vessels off the coast of California. Mexican TCOs also rely on traditional drug smuggling methods, such as the use of backpackers, or “mules,” on clandestine land trails to cross remote areas of the SWB into the United States. Mexican TCOs exploit various aerial methods to transport illicit drugs across the SWB. These methods include the use of ultralight aircraft and unmanned aerial systems (UASs) and drones to conduct air drops. Ultralights are primarily used to transport marijuana shipments, depositing the drugs in close proximity to the SWB. Currently, UASs can only convey small multi-kilogram amounts of illicit drugs at a time and are therefore not commonly used, though there is potential for increased growth and use. Mexican TCOs also use UASs to monitor the activity of U.S. law enforcement along the SWB to identify cross-border vulnerabilities.
The only one of these that the wall would stop are "traditional drug smuggling methods, such as the use of backpackers, or “mules,” on clandestine land trails". I'm curious what percentage this makes up.
When playing Uno do you claim that the person who just got rid of their last card actually lost because you have a full house in your remaining cards? Why don't you try win with the rules of the game being played, rather than rules for some other game that you're only following on your own.
It doesn't matter if Hillary ran up the score in California and New York. 50% + 1 vote wins the state and it's delegation (with few exceptions). And the President is elected by those delegations, not you. It's always been that way, so I don't know why you would think that it's all of a sudden different when your chosen tribe managed to lose an election that basically everyone though was un-loseable through amazing arrogance and disconnection with the voting public.
Maybe next time spend less time shmoozing the coastal elite for money and instagram photos, and actually speak to issues that moderates in the middle of the country want solved. Then you don't historically lose "safe" states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that a Republican hasn't won in three decades. And then, consequently, we wouldn't have a Dorito-tinted proto-facist sitting in the White House.
The "popular vote" isn't anything but an excuse for those who lost the election. It's a safety net for their massive ego, and the sycophants that can't understand that perhaps there are many other people out there that disagree with you. The nation-wide "popular vote" hasn't EVER been considered for the election of a President in the history of the United States Constitution. Stop moving the goalposts and then attempting to validate obstructionism and straight-out denial through the new position of said goalposts. We get it, you're still bitter that your favored tribe didn't win two years ago and you want to make any excuse or equivocation that you can for why. But the fact is, HILLARY LOST ACCORDING TO THE GOD DAMN ELECTION RULES.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Maybe they saw what a failure the fence was an decided that something different was needed.
The fencing that is there is a success. CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) confirms 90% of their apprehension are in areas that are not covered by fencing as it stands. From their findings following the initial 2006 Secure Fencing Act :
https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/...
For example, Vitiello stated that in 2005 Yuma Sector was âoeinundated with illegal cross-border incursions.â There were 138,549 illegal alien apprehensions, according to a CBP case study.
From 2006â"2007, after adding 29 miles of primary pedestrian wall, 9.1 miles of lighting, 9 miles of all-weather roads, a bridge along the border, and 603 agents, Yuma Sector experienced an 82 percent decrease in illegal entries. In addition, Yuma saw a 95 percent decrease in agent assaults from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2015, the study reports.
The 700 miles built of fencing simply isn't enough. Walls are effective, every country who has implemented a type of border barrier has seen dramatic drops in border crossings. To deny that is to deny reality.
But no, tell us how this is not simply democrats not wanting Trump to get credit for something they themselves have failed to fully implement. They don't want the "Trump Wall", but let's be clear : Democrats are for a wall, because it WORKS. They just want it to be a DEMOCRAT Wall.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Nice 97% you pulled out of somewhere. I work with border patrol agents and their managers daily - I work for a company that builds and fields camera systems along the border, and we presently have hundreds of them. Border patrol agents want a mix of solutions highly dependent on the terrain. Talk to the guys in CA, and they have all the fence they need. Some could use repair. They want more agents. Talk to the folks in Nogales, and they want more cameras. Talk to the guys near Las Cruces, and they want helicopters. The guys in El Paso want a fence, but the people who own the land won't allow it, so you're in for a long eminent domain fight. We design a camera system into a freight box that can be set up in 30 minutes, and presently border patrol rents land from the landowner on a temporary basis to site the cameras near El Paso. Southwest Texas has land that is continually being remodeled by the Rio Grande - good luck constructing a wall there.
Pro-tip :
You need 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done. That requires DEMOCRATS.
The REPUBLICAN house actually passed a 5.7 Billion Wall bill before christmas, the Senate didn't vote on it because they lacked, *GASP* 9 DEMOCRAT votes.
Stop blaming the wrong party here. It's been the same story for 2 years. "But you control the Senate!" they say as they conveniently skip over the Republicans only having 51 seats (now 53 (?) ).
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Elections do have consequences, and the consequence of electing more Democrats to the house than Republicans is that Trump can't just demand what he likes and get it anymore.
The Democrats, and the majority of Americans, don't support the wall. How is it acting like Children for them to refuse to sign something they don't agree with? A parent isn't acting like a child if they refuse to give their toddler more dessert every time they start having a temper tantrum; and depressingly that's a close analogy to the current President and his typical behaviour.
If your certs are about to expire(30-60 days out) and you are not planning for it, especially when they will be failing around the end of the year with Christmas and new years, that is just an example of you being a poor system administrator.
I think your expectations for employee patriotism are a bit out of whack.
So a test for you. We have a cert, it will expire Jan 10th every year (2+ year isn't permitted)
Ensure that cert is paid for and renewed, except we won't be paying the bill until Jan 4th.
Are you seriously going to pay for that out of pocket? You are expecting some govt IT person to do that it seems, as you are labeling them a poor system admin for nothing more than not paying for it themselves out of pocket.
If you need something on the 10th but won't give me the money for it until the 4th, fuck it, it just isn't getting bought until the 4th then.
It is the governments fault for not providing the money earlier, not my fault for not paying a bill in your name that you won't pay ahead of time. It certainly isn't my fault we got kicked out of the noc Dec 22nd either.
You realise that about every presidency since the 1980s has had Governement Shutdowns in the US right ?
This is not exactly a "Trump" thing. If the news is telling you that this is exclusive to Trump, you are watching Fake News from people with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Don't forget whipping people and putting them in the stocks for celebrating Christmas and hanging people for adultery. There are so many fun practices the early colonials had. I think it would be fair rather than to pick and choose which of religious practices of Europeans and Colonials we want to base our society on we just don't do that at all. How about we go with the spirit of the Christ figures statement when he said "Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto the lord that which is the lords." It seems Christ advocated for a separation of church and state. When he turned over the tables in the temple he also advocated for separation of church and commerce. It is odd how many who claim to be his followers center so much of their lives and beliefs around the opposite.
The House passed the EXACT SAME BILL to reopen the government that the GOP-controlled Senate passed a few weeks ago, but now McConnell say that is a non-starter for GOP Senators.
The GOP owns this. Full stop.
Oh, and while we're at it, if the damn wall was so important how come they didn't get it funded during the 2 years that the GOP controlled both houses?
But a big expensive wall does not equate to border control. Trump doesn't care about border control, he just wants his big wall.
The fence was a failure. People simply went around it or went over it. It was also breached 9,287 times in 5 years, resulting in repair costs.
People would climb it, tunnel under it, throw drugs over it... It even started a drug war that resulted in 2000 deaths.
It also had some pretty bad effects on the environment where it was built.
Okay, you say, Trump's wall will be better. Higher, stronger, cover the entire border. Here's a video of a couple of guys climbing the existing very similar existing wall, in broad daylight, with drugs strapped to their backs, using only ropes. Takes them less than a minute.
The problem needs to be tackled at source, not at the border.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Which means we should be spending less and taxing more, not spending $5 billion on something that's not even effective at preventing what it's designed to prevent. Considering the majority of illegal immigration is a result of overstayed visas, the majority of the drug traffic happens at legal ports of entry, and the known or suspected terrorists that have attempted to enter the US have been caught at airports, it seems to me the return on investment on building a border wall is nowhere near the $5 billion he's asking for.
This is slashdot, so in programmer terms, this is premature optimization. Sure, there are thousands of people illegally crossing the border, but if you actually run a profiler you'll see that's not the even the hot path, so why are we proposing to spend so much of resources on that instead of elsewhere?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Yes. The economy in the past w years has been fabulous compared to the previous 8 or almost any other time ever. Maybe any other time.
â5 billion is a rounding error for the Federal gvt. If your only argument against building a wall which the entire leadership of the DNC is on record as supporting pre-Trump is finding the money then there is no reason left not to build it.
It's not $5B, why do people keep perpetuating that myth -- the full wall is projected to cost anywhere from $25B to $75B. And since it's a large public works project, I would expect it to go much higher before it's done. The $5B is just a down payment.
At some point even a paltry $100B stops being a rounding error and becomes "real money"
Again, boo hoo... And what do you expect they are going to do over in the Senate?
I'm sorry, but the Democratic Senate leadership refused to take up anything Obama would veto too. I didn't like the game then, but I didn't claim it was somehow dirty pool or immoral on the democrats part. I understood why they where doing it and that they had the power to if they wished. I didn't complain then so you don't have to like it, but your complaints will fall on my deaf ears now.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Perhaps there is room on both sides to stop acting like children, and learn to work together.
One side is upholding the democratic process preserved by the house and senate, the other side is holding a government to ransom for his pet project like a dictator.
No. Not everything in the world should be compromised on. In fact quite the opposite. Not only should Trump NOT get his way but this stupid issue which allows the government to be shutdown through this legal process should be eliminated like other countries have done for the express purpose of preserving the democratic process.
PS: Wasn't Mexico going to pay for this?
If that was ever funny, it stopped being so long ago.
You didn't answer the question - you know what Trump said about Mexico paying for the wall, but now Trump wants to use disaster funds meant to help Americans to pay for it. So.... how do you know when to pick and choose which of Trumps words to listen to? Does he publish some guidebook of promises he really meant?
There is no "two sides" to this. This problem falls squarely in the laps of the Republicans.
Trump had an entire year to get this pushed through when the Reps had all three branches of gov't. He didn't.
It only suddenly became a burning priority when the democrats took the house. There is only one side being childish right now, and that's been the case for a while now.
(Yes, the democrats have their issues, but those issues are not what caused this current mess.)
Spending bills still require 60 senators to pass, not 51, so the Republicans could not get it passed by themselves. Trump actually said explicitly the last time they passed a CR with lots of added spending, but none for the wall, that he would never sign a bill like that again.
You could have argued that McConnell could have changed the rules to allow those bills to pass with a simple majority, but if the Senate was flipped, which was not unlikely, the Dems would have used those rules as well.
So the OP is right, the blame lies on both sides. But Trump actually has a better hand. As pointed out, the amount he's asking for really is a tiny fraction of the budget. People's opinion of Trump is not going to change much over this, people that hate him will continue to do so. Pelosi and Schumer, though, are a different story.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
One of the American representatives presiding over a district that would have a long stretch of wall (he's a Republican by the way) - recently gave his opinion that a wall would be useless, and the fence has had minimal success.
What he suggested, that makes a lot more sense, is a "smart wall" basically a series of sensors that can detect all sorts of activity and can allow personnel to go where they are needed, when they are needed. The advantage the fences have is that they sometimes slow people enough that border patrol might be more likely to accidentally stumble upon them.
If instead of building a physical wall, that wouldn't do much, we had a series of monitoring devices (that would work), it would cost many orders of magnitude less, and be way more functional.
A physical wall is little more than a vanity project.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"He's" shutting down the government?
If the budget originated with Trump and the dems refused to sign because it included wall funding, would you then say Pelosi and Schumer are shutting down the government?
If not, your a partisan hack, only finding fault in the other side.
If so, you're just an idiot, basing your argument solely on who brings the budget to the table first.
He's executive NOT legislative. Technically, he's not supposed to even be meddling with this, that's not how the branches were originally intended (and all recent Presidents do this, not hitting only at Trump here). He's using his veto to prevent the legislative body doing what the legislative branch is there to do. I reiterate, it's not just him, they all do it. It's technically not his job, and wasn't what the position of President was originally intended to do.
I think it's about time we "redefine" the Presidency and reset it back to what it was supposed to be, not the ever more powerful position it has become over the many decades. No one man (or woman) should have so much power in a democracy, whether it's a wacko on the right, or a wacko on the left- or even someone from the middle.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
You Acosta'd your own argument.
"The wall is a failure because people go to where there is no wall!".
Also, the parts that were "busted" are NOT the Steel slats part, they are simple wire fences. CBP's current proposal would change those simple wire fences to the type of fencing you see on McAllen TX, namely, the very thick and solid steel slats. Good luck griding one of those down in a timely fashion.
Okay, you say, Trump's wall will be better.
No, Trump's Wall is exactly what is already installed in many parts of Texas and other bordering states. Large, thick Steel Slats, as that is what CBP's current proposal is. Replace wire fencing with Steel Slats and close the open portions of the current Steel Slat wall.
Because nothing of this has to do with Trump, and it's been a bi-partisan goal that has seen implementation already in many areas. Trump just wants to speed it up and finish it along the length of the border where no natural barrier exists in the course of his presidency. Previous administrations contributed to this barrier already, Democrats voted for it, they just have done it on a slower time table.
This is entirely about not giving Trump credit for a Bi-partisan initiative. That you don't understand and simply quote "democrat talking points post 2016" is not surprising, but it sure is dishonest.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
The argument is that Democrats, once in favor of border barriers, are now only opposing the wall in an attempt to embarrass the president.
If Trump had the slightest sense of humility his earlier embarrassments - indeed his self-inflicted wounds on the world stage - would have likely driven him to resign. There is no point in trying to embarrass him, and no need to make him look like a total idiot on the world stage. The former has no effect and the latter has been done many many times already.
"We still don't understand why the Democrats are so wholeheartedly against [the wall]. They voted for it in 2006. Then-Senator Obama voted for it. Senator Schumer voted for it. Senator Clinton voted for it. So we don't understand why Democrats are now playing politics just because Donald Trump is in office," White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said in 2017.
And Mulvaney's statement was rated half-true at politifact . Notably, the bill he is referring to - which George W Bush signed into law - was called The Secure Fence Act of 2006. It was built, and then Trump himself trashed it by calling it "such a little wall, it was such a nothing wall". So if the administration wants to claim that the democrats are opposed to the wall simply because Trump is pushing it so desperately, they need better evidence than a very different bill that produced something that even Trump himself sees as very different from a wall.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
One of the American representatives presiding over a district that would have a long stretch of wall (he's a Republican by the way) - recently gave his opinion that a wall would be useless, and the fence has had minimal success.
CBP, the guys actually doing the Border enforcement, disagree. Sorry if I trust the "boots on the ground" more than I trust a nameless Republican you didn't even bother to name.
Here is Obama's CBP Patrol Chief, Mark Morgan, which was asked to step down by Trump, telling you the Wall is important :
https://www.newsweek.com/obama...
When did Slashdot start being more trusting of the managers instead of the techies doing the actual grunt work ? Because ORANGE MAN BAD ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Then let's listen to the people that actually do the border control stuff. How about someone from the Obama administration?
A lot of what Trump does is done impulsively. His number one apologist, Scott Adams, says that in business you need to make decisions quickly because the quicker you act, the quicker you can fix it if you made a mistake. He gave out a big tax cut to the corporations when other changes he had made seemed to be making the economy stronger. That I blame on impulse - do everything now, not later.
I'm not a huge Trump fan personally, but I do at least respect this line of reasoning. Sadly, we have a government that can't agree that water is wet, and a population so heavily divided that they would remain blue/red even if their own side was the one claiming that it wasn't. In that environment, Hillary would have done no better. Neither would Sanders.
Now, Obama wasn't exactly a president that seemed to consider definitive, decisive action as something he wanted to do as a matter of course. He was an excellent orator, and very personable, but he gave the appearance of wanting everybody to be on the same page, and a general unwillingness to play hardball with those who didn't. I can appreciate that sort of desire for compromise and bipartisan agreement...but he was never going to get the red team to agree, even if he did everything they wanted to the point where the blue team was upset at him for turning into a DINO.
Trump isn't unaware of this. It's why he has a Twitter feed that is a massive red herring, letting the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC be appalled at the not-nice things he says, only to actually make it a point to make decisive actions with the media too busy reading tweets to report news. Now again, I don't think his policies align well with my political leanings, but I do think that looking at the methods in isolation, Trump at least gives the appearance of being a bit more successful.
But Trump actually has a better hand.
He had a better hand, right up until he said he would own the shutdown. At that point, he lost his bargaining power. Why? Because where is the incentive now for the Dems to compromise when Trump has already conceded.
> The fence was a failure. People simply went around it or went over it
So what you're saying is, they a) go aroundnit, to places where there is no wall, the go around the walled part, right? And b) where there is a shorter fence they can hop over, they do?
So based on your observations, the obvious solutions would be a) make it so you can't go around the wall - don't have huge gaps and b) make it very hard to climb over - at least 8' tall with barbed wire in top.
Thanks for the suggestions!
But Trump actually has a better hand.
He had a better hand, right up until he said he would own the shutdown. At that point, he lost his bargaining power. Why? Because where is the incentive now for the Dems to compromise when Trump has already conceded.
Well that was my point. Both sides are obstinately refusing to compromise at this point, and Trump said he would take the blame even before it happened, so that's irrelevant. Trump's entire budget that was submitted to Congress was completely thrown out, and his only demand for any of it was $5.7 billion for border security, something like 0.1% of the budget. Pelosi and Shumer are arguing that it's too expensive (not persuasive), that walls are immoral (no traction on that), that he said Mexico would pay for it (why does it matter who pays for it if it's immoral?), and pretending it's not strictly a symbolic political stance. Trump's supporters already know it's a political stance, that he needs it or be seen as failing, so that doesn't detract from his argument.
So Trump has the more persuasive argument, and less to lose by not giving in. I'm not saying he's right, only that his argument is more persuasive, and that only Pelosi and Shumer stand to lose support as the shutdown continues.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
> I'm not sure where the talking points for came from that a wall would protect the people trying to migrate and seek refuge here but it's just not true.
Those quotes are from Hillary Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer - all of the leading Democrats. Obama said the same things, though I didn't quote him.
Perhaps you disagree with the Democrats. That's cool. I often disagree with them too.
Actually, no. Fewer people voted for Trump than voted for Hillary, period.
Which is completely irrelevant. Every US president has been elected under the electoral college system, which dates back to the country's founding.
It was designed to work this way, so that the president would be the president of the united states, not just of the big population centers.
Some of the states would probably have not even joined the union without it.
So yes, America elected Trump. The big population centers wouldn't have, if they were the only ones who decide, but they aren't, by design.
Some of the Founding Fathers were religious, none were overtly so, and believed pretty profoundly in religious liberty. Of course, there are the likes of Jefferson, whose views on organized religion were hardly complimentary. Benjamin Franklin was a proper Enlightenment Deist who found the notion of a Personal God that went around intervening in worldly affairs ridiculous.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And what is the economic good being done? The new version of NAFTA is little more than a reorganized version of the pre-existing one. The trade war with China really started under Obama, it's just that Trump is by nature more strident. As to those tax cuts, those are debt funded, so the taxpayer will end up paying for those anyways through debt servicing and cuts to other services.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
As pointed out, the amount he's asking for really is a tiny fraction of the budget
That is completely and utterly irrelevant. A budget bill was written that could have passed both houses of congress. Trump even said he would sign it. Then all of a sudden he decided that he would not sign anything that did not have wall funding in it. He sunk the whole process on his own. It doesn't matter whether he was asking for $5, $5,000, $5M, $5B, or $5T. If there is such great support for the wall he could have asked for the next bill from congress to address it directly so it could have any up or down vote and it could be abundantly clear which way each member of congress voted on it. Instead we have a giant spending bill that has tons of other moving parts, and ultimately obfuscates where people stand on this issue.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Besides, even if it's not perfect, a one-time $5 billion is peanuts compared to the cost of hosting illegal immigrants. Even the liberal politifact says the costs is between $43 to $279 billion per year
Those numbers aren't referring to illegal immigrants, they are referring to ALL immigrants. Illegal immigrants are a small subset of the total and are not eligible for most of the government assistance that is available for legal immigrants.
Enigma
no it's not hard to ignore that, but it's not all Trump. most of those were going in the positive direction under Obama, and in fact have slowed slightly the past 2 years. (expand the graph from past 2 years that fox news hows to the past 10 and look at the data). Data doesn't just exist for the past 2 years. So, claiming Trumps success over Obama's policies, is kinda well.. short sighted. Also, since when is taxing the rich (something that was done up until Reagan, 1980 had a 70% tax bracket... so... that's excessive yes, but compared to the 40% of today, with more loopholes for the rich to dodge paying that).
Look at history, don't just echo Fox news. Also, what leftist rag? do you know what news source I use? of course you don't everything besides brietbart and fox is "Left" I'm not even left, I'm actually conservative, but I hate the bias most news sources have today. Conservative tax views should be looking at the true historical tax rates. the rich used to pay a shit ton more than they do now. instead they get to pocket it, and keep a 154 Billion warchest while paying their employees minimum wage of $7 per hr...
Used to be employers cared about employees. That's not a left/right thing, that's just common human decency.
> The vast majority of unauthorized immigration is not illegal. > It's only a misdemeanor the first time you're caught
Are you saying it's not illegal because it's a misdemeanor, or it's not illegal if you don't get caught?
Misdemeanors include crimes such as:
Assault resulting in bodily injury
DUI/DWI (the first time)
Conspiracy
Misdemeanor Domestic Violence
Burglary of a store or other non-residence
Resisting arrest
Obscenity
Perjury
Possession of a controlled substance
Property theft
Harboring a runaway child
Deadly conduct
Making a false report
Unlawful possession of a weapon
Violating a restraining order
You're saying misdemeanors are perfectly legal?
Maybe you haven't quite thought this through all the way?
Republicans didn't support the wall either. Why do you think Trump waited until Democrats had control of the House to push hard on this? With a Republican majority house and senate it would have just been an embarrassment to him. With a Democrat house, he can use it to score a few points with his base, but I'm not sure his judgement on when to call it quits is going to help him in the long run, as the tougher things get for government employees, the more support he's going to lose.
Over the lifetime of the wall, which is probably 20 years or more, that's 0.0008% to 0.005%.
The massive hole in your analysis is the claim that the wall would be effective. It wouldn't.
That ebil, terrsit-infested caravan Trump was talking about before the election? They're asylum seekers, and went straight to a legal port of entry. (Btw, federal law and treaty obligations require we let them into the US while investigating their claims.)
Which means a wall would be completely ineffective at stopping them. And stopping drugs (they're smuggled in through ports, airports and ports of entry). And stopping damn near everything else Trump claims it would stop.
Your cost also does not include the eminent domain seizure of a few million acres of land. Nor does it include the cost of ceding that land to Mexico, 'cause the Rio Grande floods and you can't build a wall right next to it.
So, with an ROI of at best almost zero, why do it?
Spending bills still require 60 senators to pass, not 51, so the Republicans could not get it passed by themselves.
No, the Republicans did not try to get it passed by themselves.
The Democrats offered to vote for Trump's entire wall ($27b) in return for citizenship for the DACA kids. Republicans didn't even put that to a vote.
You could have argued that McConnell could have changed the rules to allow those bills to pass with a simple majority
Or, since it's a spending bill, McConnell could have left the rules alone and passed it via reconciliation.
So the OP is right, the blame lies on both sides.
Only if you pretend time started about 3 months ago.
But Trump actually has a better hand. As pointed out, the amount he's asking for really is a tiny fraction of the budget. People's opinion of Trump is not going to change much over this, people that hate him will continue to do so. Pelosi and Schumer, though, are a different story.
Polling doesn't bear out your prediction. Trump is getting the blame for the shutdown, people are responding that it's stupid to keep the shutdown going over the wall, and we're just starting to get to the point where it hurts the economy.
Am I the only person that finds it oddly predictable that, in response to a story about TLS, almost every single comment is a biased (one way or the other) comment about "the Wall" or the Donald or the Problem with America Today.
Cert expiration is a problem mostly because certificates cannot be renewed. They must be replaced, and as close to expiration as possible. If only there were a way to push the expiration out.. maybe by having a replacement cert, or a see-next-instance logic.
This way, certs could be renewed before they expire, just as Domain names are. And yes, I understand the technical limitations making this a necessary evil today. But it is a problem for government users now, and is a problem in many other like cases. For instance, when a cert expires over a weekend. Who hasn't got the call at 5 am when this happened?
As for the wall... I'll comment when its relevent.
Pro-tip 1: The budget bill that passed the Senate before Christmas passed 93-6. 93 is a little bit more than 60.
Pro-tip 2: Budget bills can pass the Senate with a simple majority via Reconciliation.
The REPUBLICAN house actually passed a 5.7 Billion Wall bill before christmas
The House passed a bill without a wall. The Senate amended that bill, and passed it 93-6. Trump said he would sign this bill. It needed to go back to the House because of the amendments.
Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others started attacking Trump for agreeing to sign the bill. Trump suddenly decided the wall must be in the bill.
Pelosi passed the same bill that passed the Senate 93-6. She has also passed bills for individual parts of the government, taken verbatim from that 93-6 bill.
Also, in 2017, Pelosi and Shumer offered to pay for the entire wall ($27B). In return, they wanted visas and a path to citizenship for the DACA kids. If Republicans really wanted that wall, wouldn't that have been a very good deal to take? Especially since Trump was forbidden by the courts from deporting the DACA kids anyway.
This is entirely on the Republicans and their utter inability to govern. And Trump's fear of Ann Coulter.
Would you be supportive of immigration controls that are effective, such as random ID checks and fines for employers of illegal immigrants?
I'm very much in favor of cripplingly high fines for employers of illegal immigrants. The way I see it, they are the cause of the biggest problems with said illegal immigration. If employers are hiring illegals instead of Americans, they're doing so because they can hire them for less than minimum wage while not paying for required benefits and employment taxes. This creates a second-class citizen situation: yes, we get cheaper products, but we do so because we're supporting a type of slave labor where illegal immigrants are forced to earn significantly below the cost of living for their region, which is why you see them having to group up several families in a one-family house. They don't complain about any abuse or safety violations at their work place because they fear deportation is found out.
Random ID checks, not so much. It's unconstitutional to perform a warrant-less search, and this is what it amounts to. If you have cause to perform a check on someone's resident / citizenship status, then you perform it, such as when hiring a new employee.
That said, I'm not a Democrat. So gauging my opinion on the above isn't a representative sample of that if it's what you're looking for.
Besides, even if it's not perfect, a one-time $5 billion is peanuts compared to the cost of hosting illegal immigrants. Even the liberal politifact says the costs is between $43 to $279 billion per year [politifact.com]. Over the lifetime of the wall, which is probably 20 years or more, that's 0.0008% to 0.005%. So the wall only has to be 0.005% effective to save us money, which it certainly will be. Heck, even Trump's rhetoric about building the wall is more than 0.005% effective.
The $5 billion isn't for a complete border wall. It's what he's asking to build a section of it right now. The estimates are at $25 billion. And it's not a sunk cost. It's not like you build the wall then don't do anything for 20 years. You have maintenance, you have patrolling. Smugglers build tunnels to get past existing patrols. People vandalize existing barriers to get through right now.
Most importantly, even if you're right, and it would save us money, as I've stated, it's not the hot path for illegal immigration. If you apply those funds elsewhere, you can save more money. Trump talked about the cost of drug trafficking, but the majority of that cost would go away for free if we ended the drug war and just legalized all drugs. That would do away with enforcement costs, leaving only the societal costs. Taxation of those sales can be used to offset those societal costs.
Basically, it's not just a question of whether there are positive gains from investing the money on a border wall. Even if we have the money, there's an opportunity cost to not investing it someplace else with a higher return on investment. You'd think a businessman like Trump would understand that concept.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Perhaps there is room on both sides to stop acting like children, and learn to work together.
Right. Like funding the government while the debate about the wall continues. That would be the adult thing to do.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
The whole point of Let's Encrypt. It authenticates via several methods that the holder of the certificate also controls the domain. It is better that what other certifiers do.
You do not need any certificate to just encrypt.
The big issue is that any professionally managed websites should be renewing there certificates a good 90 days before expiry to ensure it stays live if issues arise. So a site going down after just 20 days of inattention shows incompetence.
I am surprised that on Slash Dot people are so consumed with Anti-Trump feelings that they did not see that straight away.
$18.5 billion in Medicaid for illegal immigrants. That's just healthcare - and it's nearly 4X this ask for the wall. ILLEGAL immigrants, not legal.
Medicaid is not what the figure you quoted represents. I read the Forbes article from which your source drew its data and the majority of the cited costs are not Medicaid. You're misrepresenting the data. The article includes all kinds of indirect costs like forgone tax revenue and tax advantaged bond financing from non-profit hospitals, tax breaks for insurance provided as employee benefits or unpaid emergency room visits causing higher costs for all patients. It even includes $1.5 billion in charity care voluntarily given by physicians as a "cost". It doesn't show any evidence that illegal immigrants are using that healthcare, it just takes the total costs from a number of areas then assumes illegals use the same amount as legal residents and ascribes that cost to them. Even the author recognizes the shakiness of his figures:
Whatever the case, your assertion of "18.5 billion in Medicaid" is wrong and not even supported by your own source.
Enigma
I'm very much in favor of cripplingly high fines for employers of illegal immigrants. The way I see it, they are the cause of the biggest problems with said illegal immigration. If employers are hiring illegals instead of Americans, they're doing so because they can hire them for less than minimum wage while not paying for required benefits and employment taxes.
That may be the case in some places, but not all. I'm in the upper-midwest, farm country. The rural towns around here are dying. Fast. There's plenty of farmland, but there isn't a labor force to sustain the farms.
For the locals, "home" is a shitty little town in the middle of nowhere, with no way to ever pay for more than a run-down old house or a double-wide trailer. There's no real advancement, no way to strike it rich. So there's no reason to be invested in working and living there, other than because it's been home to the family for a few generations. There's a lot of migration out of the rural towns, and they are dying.
This has driven up the going rate for farm labor, which is now pushing $12/hr, sometimes going as high as $15/hr. The demand for labor and decent pay has brought in an influx of Mexican workers, and definitely not all of it them are legal. However, with this mix of legal and illegal, it seems the pay is largely the same across the board. Why? If you are absolutely desperate for workers, the last thing you want to do is piss them off, because they don't live here, and will happily drive 50 miles down the road to work for someone who's not a racist asshole. After all, they already have traveled a thousand plus miles for work.
But what's really, really surprised me is the attitude of the farmers hiring these Mexicans. A couple were interviewed in the papers in the last year or two and both said that they'd rather hire Mexicans than the locals. Why? Because they're hard working, they stay out of trouble, and they don't leave for greener pastures as soon as they see a potentially better option. If you treat them right, they settle down and get shit done. Why? They're sending most of their money back to their family, which is using it to build a better life. When they have their dream home, the kids are well educated, they've got some new cars, and a nice nest egg tucked away, they're planning to go back and live the good life. And the harder they work now, the faster they get there.
Immigration, legal and illegal, is benefiting both our countries in this regard. It's keeping these farms alive, that's making more money for the local area, the state, and potentially the US if any of those agriculture products get exported, and it's improving the lives of the families back home in Mexico. Yes, we'd rather have americans doing these jobs, but when they're not, even for what's regionally OK pay, what's the alternative? Active farms make money, fallow lands don't. And no other industry is going to replace tens of thousands of acres of farmland out in the middle of nowhere with minimal infrastructure around for miles.
Sure, you can take the free market approach of "if they're not profitable, let them die", but that's the same as saying, "I hate Mexicans so much I want to see both our countries poorer." We'd all like to see a functional immigration system, but I don't see that happening in the near future. If we go nuclear on illegal immigration, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. We'd like to think we're not, but that's just wishful thinking. What's more likely than a political solution is that automation will steadily reduce these jobs, until they're more trouble to find than they're worth.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
The fence works, where it exists. Why do you close and lock your doors when you leave your home?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Just a tip: President Trump won about 56% of the vote; the only vote that matters is the Electoral college. The "popular vote" is neither popular nor a vote. There is only ONE vote for the President, and President Trump cleaned up convincingly.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
He won 56% of the only vote that matters: the Electoral College. You should read the Constitution, it tells you how a President is elected, and it is NOT by popular vote. Only one vote matters: the Electoral College.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
The job recovery began long before Trump was even a serious contender for the Republican nomination.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.