Now THAT'S the way to win an argument! #sarcasm

Thanks for standing up for me. It took me awhile to craft my response.

Not sure where you get $50 billion, but for the sake of argument, let's use your number.

There are many studies regarding what we spend on i*****l i*******ts each year (less what they pay in taxes) but even the ones at the cheap end say 10s of billions (welfare, healthcare, education, law enforcement, incarceration, etc.). But those are the costs of the ones already here. So my conservative estimate is the ROI is somewhere around 6 - 7 years. Whereas if we do not build it, those 10s of billions a year only increase.

If we'd done it in 2009 when the Democrats said it needed to be done, guess what! Paid for!

As for Mexico paying for it. Every person we prevent from coming here illegally is a drain on Mexico's budget, not ours. Seems like if I squint at that a little it sure looks like Mexico paying for the wall. We just fronted the money for the mortgage and made them the mortgagee.

And let's talk about that word "laughingstock". My guess is that g*******ts will promote that angle, while nationalists will cheer. What the H E double hockey sticks do we care what the g*******ts think about anything?

Has President Trump lied? Sure? I already lied twice today myself. I'm guessing you lied when you said the wall would cost $50 billion.

kemmer, you need to try a little harder if you want to convince me that your opinion is worth more than 2 lbs of manure in a 1 lb bag.

The point of border walls is not to make it impossible, but rather, as difficult as possible, for illegal border crossings.

So these walls:
- Israel (West Bank)
- The Vatican
- Hungary (border with Serbian border)
- Macedonia (border with Greece)
- Spain (around the city of Melilla in Morocco)

ALL perform that function. And you said so yourself, the Great Wall worked until the enemy went around it. The wall itself did what it was supposed to do!

There are many others of smaller scale that do the same thing:
- Clinton's Chappaqua Home (1st pic)
- Obama's DC area Home (2nd pic)
- Taylor Swift just started work on a 2nd wall at her home to "improve security".

You KNOW there are more like this - politicians and celebrities who tell us how we should live, but reserve the right to do the opposite themselves...because it's a sensible thing to do to secure themselves and their loved ones!

Let's see if you actually have an argument, or you read a "headline" and boom - "Lock Him Up!"

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/trump-felony-michael-cohen-paul-manafort-collusion-payment.html
Headline: The Department of Justice Calls Donald Trump a Felon
From the article: They have not formally charged Trump with this crime — it is a sentencing report for Cohen, not Trump — but this is the U.S. Department of Justice calling Trump a criminal. (I call that an assumption, since in order to be a felon you must be convicted of a felony - we ain't there yet)

I found other sources that said federal prosecutors have implicated that President Trump
- committed
- participated in
- directed someone to commit
a felony.

Being accused of committing a felony is miles from being a felon.

What do you expect federal prosecutors (aka DOJ) who are trying to take the President out to say. Of course they're accusing him. That's what prosecutors do.

Then, there's the question as to whether or not the act(s) performed (the payoffs) were in fact criminal. How, in a world where congress spending $17 million of taxpayer money to silence accusers of sexual misconduct over the years is OK, is spending your own money to do the same thing a felony? And you know a lot of that was spent during e******ns to hide bad behavior from the v**ers!.

Finally, regarding the value of Cohen's "admission" that Trump directed him to commit criminal acts. He plead guilty to 8 counts of tax evasion, bank fraud, and "campaign violations" including 2 that were for "hush money" to Stormy and Karen (which again, may or may not be criminal acts) which means that 6 counts he plead to were committed by himself. Considering what Mueller and his team have done to General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Sam Patten, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, and others - is it surprising that a weasel like Cohen would throw President Trump under the bus in exchange for a 3 year sentence at cushy Otisville prison? I'll bet you dollars to donuts, that Mueller threatened Cohen with other options (like one of those "rapey" prisons) if he didn't cooperate.

So - DASHY - when you see a headline like this in the future, tap the brakes just a bit until there is something to it. OK?

There are certainly a lot of folks - mainly those that do not live in the border states - who have no idea how militant it is at the border and for miles on the US side. Because, a majority of the border is just a line on a map or a short barbed wire fence with gaps everywhere, coyotes with human cargo and drug cartel mules and m*****a freely go back and forth. Many smaller border towns are chaotic as cartel money or threats of violence have c*********d any US authority there. And the MSM has no desire to tell the t***h about what is going on. So I'm with you for the most part on your suggestion, except that I think you could space the Browning's a little farther apart and save a few bucks.

You're probably right. Thank God for standardized testing - LOL!

Which is of course very different from Obama's teleprompted speeches that included the likes of:

“More young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America”
(2007 campaign claim) At that time there were five times more black men enrolled in colleges and universities than young black men in federal and state prisons — and two and half times the total number incarcerated (including local jails).

“90 percent of the budget deficit is due to George W. Bush’s policies”
(2012 campaign) Obama repeatedly reminded v**ers that he became president during a grim economic crisis. But he went too far when he claimed that only 10 percent of the federal deficit was due to his own policies. About half of the deficit stemmed from the recession and forecasting errors, but a large chunk (44 percent in 2011) were the result of Obama’s actions.

“If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it”
(2013) The Affordable Care Act went into effect and at least 2 million Americans started receiving cancellation notices.

“The day after B******i happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism”
(2012) Obama did refer to an “act of terror” in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 B******i attacks, but in vague terms, wrapped in a patriotic fervor. He never affirmatively stated that the American ambassador died because of an “act of terror.” Then, over a period of two weeks, given three opportunities in interviews to affirmatively agree that the B******i attack was a terrorist attack, the president obfuscated or ducked the question. So this was a case of taking revisionist history too far for political reasons.

“I didn’t call the Islamic State a ‘JV’ team”
(2014) Obama repeated a claim, crafted by the White House communications team, that he was not “specifically” referring to the Islamic State terror group when he dismissed the militants who had taken over Fallujah as a “JV squad.” But The Fact Checker obtained the previously unreleased transcript of the president’s interview with the New Yorker, and it’s clear that’s who the president was referencing.

“The Keystone pipeline is for oil that bypasses the United States”
Long before Obama k**led the Keystone pipeline project in 2015, he made a number of dubious claims about it, including that the pipeline would have no benefit for American producers at all. But the crude oil would have traveled to the Gulf Coast, where it would be refined into products such as motor gasoline and diesel fuel; the State Department said odds were low that all would be exported. Also, about 12 percent of the pipeline’s capacity had been set aside for crude from North Dakota and Montana.

Look, the point is that politicians, even new ones, tell lies. Trump supporters accept the fact that his disdain for the teleprompter and his affection for hyperbole (greatest, biggest, etc.) open him up for criticism from folks who prefer it when people read from a script.

But if you want to bash the guy for "telling a lie"? It's like saying he's committed a felony for paying off women he's had affairs with - if that's a felony, you're going to have to indict a truckload of the members of both houses (and they used taxpayer dollars to keep their shenanigans secret)!

The President mispoke. There are a number of links that talk about how that "statistic" morphed into being. I'm willing to bet that the real number of people considered terrorists who have been detained coming over the southern border is a only known by a few members in the legistlature, since it's the kind of info that the intelligence community isn't readily sharing. So I guess we can commence the impeachment hearings.../sarcasm.

No one can validate this statement. All we have is the statistics regarding those who are apprehended or processed legally.

Arizona rancher John Chilton’s 50,000-acre spread along the U.S.-Mexico border is allegedly ground zero for human smugglers, drug cartel members and i*****l i*******ts, and he has videos showing trespassers sneaking through his property.

A fifth-generation cattleman, the 79-year-old Chilton has long warned the government about the dangers of leaving lengthy stretches of the southwest border secured by nothing more than a barbed wire fence. To prove his point, he set up surveillance cameras throughout his property to document the comings and goings of trespassers from south of the border.

25 Straight Minutes Of I*****l A***ns Crossing Into The US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1QPxIxPcZU&feature=youtu.be

This kind of thing is going on at many unmanned or remote points along the US/Mexico border.

And the real bottom line here, as anyone who has lost a loved one because of the actions of an i*****l a***n, arguing about numbers is moot, because 1 is too many!

Thanks ruimitoid. We all need to laugh a little each day. You know when I was younger and folks told me I was "above average" I always thought that was a complement. As I get older and watch stuff like this, along with all those street interviews where people turn out to be ignorant of some of the most memorable events or people (and don't seem too concerned) I start to wonder just where on the IQ scale that "average" line actually is/was...

It does go off the rails at times, but most folks are just strongly opinionated, not childish. Welcome.

Agree with you waltmoreno. And these days, good personal defense 9mm (I like Federal HST) puts a decent sized hole in wh**ever you hit. I like shooting the 9 because it's cheaper, I'm more accurate with it, and I have more rounds in case I need them. Still enjoy shooting my 45, but I don't carry it.

There are enough ex-military folks on here who know that there are a whole truckload of items not listed on the defense budget that get funded openly or otherwise. It doesn't take > $700 billion to maintain our military might. I read that the defense department was going to ask for a bit over $730B and Trump wants $750 - but of course that's his negotiation starting point. I'm curious how this plays out, but there is certainly enough money in the defense budget to "defend our southern border" if that's the only way to get it done. I say do it.

Yeah, my old dog (may he rest in peace) would've only brought back an empty bag and tried to convince me he'd been mugged on the way home.