Your first paragraph may have some merit IF there weren't 3 border agents standing behind Trump at his last Rose Garden presser stating they needed a wall? 

Not sure how much closer they could get to the "neighborhood elementary school" without actually being in Mexico.

Pelosi and Schumer don't want to discuss the border. They have no answers outside of "Technology and drones". What does that even mean?

---

On a side note, you have to respect how POTUS magically turned this into a "steel" wall which in turn will be made in the USA by the very industry Obama said jobs weren't coming back to. The irony there is pretty steep.

Wait, I thought we were talking about something that happened in Congress.  Now you're talking about a Rose garden. I'm getting whiplash.

This occurred  in the White House situation room, not Capital Hill.

---

If I'm the county school superintendent, and you invite me over to your house to discuss what I know about your neighborhood elementary school, and I proceed to pontificate about whats going on at a high school on the other side of town, how would you feel about me? You would interrupt me and tell me you don't care about that right now, right?

Pelosi and Shumer wanted to discuss the border.  
Nielsen answered with stuff about people getting here via airports.  That's not the border.

Your first paragraph may have some merit IF there weren't 3 border agents standing behind Trump at his last Rose Garden presser stating they needed a wall? 

Not sure how much closer they could get to the "neighborhood elementary school" without actually being in Mexico.

Pelosi and Schumer don't want to discuss the border. They have no answers outside of "Technology and drones". What does that even mean?

---

On a side note, you have to respect how POTUS magically turned this into a "steel" wall which in turn will be made in the USA by the very industry Obama said jobs weren't coming back to. The irony there is pretty steep.

Pelosi and Schumer don’t even know what they mean. “Technology and Drones” already exists and these items are not at the top of DHS’s request list. They refuse to listen simply because of Trump.

---

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articl...-dealmaker

Trump is really a terrible negotiator.  
============================================================================
"Trump, in reality, was never a peerless or even a particularly skillful dealmaker, and many of the most significant business transactions he engineered imploded. Instead, he made his way in the world as an indefatigable self-promoter, a marketing confection and a human billboard who frequently licensed his name to buildings and products paid for by others."

"In Trump’s professional life, his inept dealmaking often came home to roost in unmanageable debts and serial bankruptcies. In his more recent political and presidential life it has revealed itself through bungled, hapless efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act; forge a nuclear agreement with North Korea; wage trade wars with China, Mexico and Canada; retain control of the House of Representatives; turn military and diplomatic strategy on its head; lay siege to sensible immigration policy; and, now, force a government shutdown to secure funding for a prized project — a wall along the U.S.’s southern border.

"Striking lasting deals requires intimacy with the finer points of what every party wants out of a negotiation, realistic goals, maturity, patience, flexibility — and enough leverage so the other side can’t simply stall or walk away from the table. Trump hasn’t met any of those prerequisites in his repeated efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to build a wall..."

"Early in the year, hampered by his inability to be flexible or understand the other side’s needs, Trump opposed a bipartisan Senate proposal that offered $25 billion for a wall as long as a path to citizenship was opened for 1.7 million young, undocumented immigrants living in the U.S."

"“We need a dealmaker in the White House, who knows how to think innovatively and make smart deals,” he tweeted back in 2011.  We still don’t have one."
===============================================================================
This is a good article.  Trouble is, Trump's supporters don't read articles like this.

---

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articl...-dealmaker

Trump is really a terrible negotiator.  
============================================================================
"Trump, in reality, was never a peerless or even a particularly skillful dealmaker, and many of the most significant business transactions he engineered imploded. Instead, he made his way in the world as an indefatigable self-promoter, a marketing confection and a human billboard who frequently licensed his name to buildings and products paid for by others."

"In Trump’s professional life, his inept dealmaking often came home to roost in unmanageable debts and serial bankruptcies. In his more recent political and presidential life it has revealed itself through bungled, hapless efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act; forge a nuclear agreement with North Korea; wage trade wars with China, Mexico and Canada; retain control of the House of Representatives; turn military and diplomatic strategy on its head; lay siege to sensible immigration policy; and, now, force a government shutdown to secure funding for a prized project — a wall along the U.S.’s southern border.

"Striking lasting deals requires intimacy with the finer points of what every party wants out of a negotiation, realistic goals, maturity, patience, flexibility — and enough leverage so the other side can’t simply stall or walk away from the table. Trump hasn’t met any of those prerequisites in his repeated efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to build a wall..."

"Early in the year, hampered by his inability to be flexible or understand the other side’s needs, Trump opposed a bipartisan Senate proposal that offered $25 billion for a wall as long as a path to citizenship was opened for 1.7 million young, undocumented immigrants living in the U.S."

"“We need a dealmaker in the White House, who knows how to think innovatively and make smart deals,” he tweeted back in 2011.  We still don’t have one."
===============================================================================
This is a good article.  Trouble is, Trump's supporters don't read articles like this.

You might want to actually think when reading an opinion piece.

There's not one fact in the entire excerpt you posted. It's all opinion. The only think close to a fact is the proposed wall deal. But 1.7 million is a lot of illegals to be turned into citizens, and the actual proposal probably had a lot more conditions considered to be negative than just that. Do you have a text of the whole deal?

The criticism about his trade wars and diplomatic strategy is coming from someone who appears to think the way to negotiate is to agree to everything the other side wants. Maybe that's true in some cases, but the US is in a position of power and can demand a fair deal or else. Trump got major concessions favorable to the US in his renegotiated North American trade deal. I guess the author thinks that's a bad thing. The others are still in progress, it takes a while for the effect of the trade war to come to fruition. Whether or not Trump succeeds, at least there's a chance. The previous three presidents just gave away the farm in their trade deals.

As far as North Korea, have I missed where they have tested a bomb or launched a missile since Trump made his deal? I'm pretty sure that the previous Bloomberg-approved attempts failed miserably in that regard.

---

                                                                          

"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

Wait, I thought we were talking about something that happened in Congress.  Now you're talking about a Rose garden. I'm getting whiplash.

This occurred  in the White House situation room, not Capital Hill.

---

Your first paragraph may have some merit IF there weren't 3 border agents standing behind Trump at his last Rose Garden presser stating they needed a wall? 

Not sure how much closer they could get to the "neighborhood elementary school" without actually being in Mexico.

Pelosi and Schumer don't want to discuss the border. They have no answers outside of "Technology and drones". What does that even mean?

---

On a side note, you have to respect how POTUS magically turned this into a "steel" wall which in turn will be made in the USA by the very industry Obama said jobs weren't coming back to. The irony there is pretty steep.

Pelosi and Schumer don’t even know what they mean. “Technology and Drones” already exists and these items are not at the top of DHS’s request list. They refuse to listen simply because of Trump.

Well gosh.  Maybe we should have elected somebody who's better at respecting other people's opinions and earning their respect in return.

Pelosi was speaker of the house when the secure fence Act was passed and Bush signed it.  So I don't think pelosi is the problem here. She knows how to play with others.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

This occurred  in the White House situation room, not Capital Hill.

---

Pelosi and Schumer don’t even know what they mean. “Technology and Drones” already exists and these items are not at the top of DHS’s request list. They refuse to listen simply because of Trump.

Well gosh.  Maybe we should have elected somebody who's better at respecting other people's opinions and earning their respect in return.

Pelosi was speaker of the house when the secure fence Act was passed and Bush signed it.  So I don't think pelosi is the problem here. She knows how to play with others.

I wonder if you typed that with a straight face.

---

Well gosh.  Maybe we should have elected somebody who's better at respecting other people's opinions and earning their respect in return.

Pelosi was speaker of the house when the secure fence Act was passed and Bush signed it.  So I don't think pelosi is the problem here. She knows how to play with others.

I wonder if you typed that with a straight face.

I did.  What did I say that is so ridiculous that you think it must be a joke?

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

I wonder if you typed that with a straight face.

I did.  What did I say that is so ridiculous that you think it must be a joke?

Well, all of it quite frankly. Just to start, the Secure Fence Act (109-367) was signed under the 109th Congress and was largely partisan. At that time Dennis Hastert was speaker, a Republican, not Pelosi. Everything else you spouted was additional misguided opinion that actually runs contrary to reality.

---

I did.  What did I say that is so ridiculous that you think it must be a joke?

Well, all of it quite frankly. Just to start, the Secure Fence Act (109-367) was signed under the 109th Congress and was largely partisan. At that time Dennis Hastert was speaker, a Republican, not Pelosi. Everything else you spouted was additional misguided opinion that actually runs contrary to reality.

Ah.  You're right.  I thought that had passed in 2007.
If it was 2007, Pelosi would have been speaker and would have supported it.  But it was not, and though many Democrats voted yes, Pelosi herself was a no.
The ol' number-storer between my ears has hiccups sometimes.
But Chuck Shumer did vote yes.
Many Democrats in the Senate voted yes.
The shutdown began before Pelosi became speaker, so I still wouldn't say it's her fault.  
It could be Shumer's fault, that he has changed his mind, but that seems less likely to me.

If we frame the argument as, Congress passed the secure fence Act in 2006, but never provided sufficient funds to build the fence described in the act, that makes Shumer and other Democrats look insincere for not funding it over the last 12 years but also it makes their current offer of 1.5 billion this year to add more fencing look reasonable.

If we frame the argument as, Trump wants a "big, tall, beautiful, solid wall," that would be something new.  That wouldn't be anything like the fence described in 2006. And we shouldn't expect anyone in the Senate to agree with it based on any past vote.  

So either way we frame the argument, it seems to me that the senators are the ones trying to be reasonable, today.

Also, let's not forget that Trump told Shumer to his face with the cameras on that he would take the blame for shutting down the government.  Why not take Trump at his word there?

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Nancy and Chuck really embarrassed themselves tonight and looked terrible physically.

---

Nancy and Chuck really embarrassed themselves tonight and looked terrible physically.

Actually, they all embarrassed themselves, and Trump looked like he was staring into the sun after being stung on the eye by a bee the whole time. When you put three politicians on TV and the one that has the most to say is Nancy Pelosi, it's time to round 'em all up, deport them to Honduras and find new ones.

---

Nancy and Chuck really embarrassed themselves tonight and looked terrible physically.

Actually, they all embarrassed themselves, and Trump looked like he was staring into the sun after being stung on the eye by a bee the whole time. When you put three politicians on TV and the one that has the most to say is Nancy Pelosi, it's time to round 'em all up, deport them to Honduras and find new ones.

One guy talked about border security.

The two other guys talked about a shutdown and denying people were murdered by illegals. Terrible night for dems.

---

Actually, they all embarrassed themselves, and Trump looked like he was staring into the sun after being stung on the eye by a bee the whole time. When you put three politicians on TV and the one that has the most to say is Nancy Pelosi, it's time to round 'em all up, deport them to Honduras and find new ones.

One guy talked about border security.

The two other guys talked about a shutdown and denying people were murdered by illegals. Terrible night for dems.

If someone told you that we need to ban alcohol now because their mom was killed by a drunk, you would say hey wait a second people get killed by people that are not drunk all the time, what is the prevalence? Or you would say, that doesn't matter people have a right to drink if they want to. You're a rational person.  A handful of stories is not going to change your mind. Even if those stories are really sad. 

But statistics might change your mind, right?

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Actually, they all embarrassed themselves, and Trump looked like he was staring into the sun after being stung on the eye by a bee the whole time. When you put three politicians on TV and the one that has the most to say is Nancy Pelosi, it's time to round 'em all up, deport them to Honduras and find new ones.

One guy talked about border security.

The two other guys talked about a shutdown and denying people were murdered by illegals. Terrible night for dems.

One guy talked about how border security is a national crisis and a humanitarian crisis. I agree. He talked about the need for a wall. I disagree. He said that the Mexican trade deal will pay "indirectly" for the wall. One, that's not Mexico paying for it. Two, that's not how government funding works. That's barely how private funding works. He cherry-picked cases that we're all familiar with (how nice of him to bother to know the name of the American hero who died on December 26th) to make it seem like we're under seige. We're not. He's a tool.

Schumer wanted to talk about a President throwing a temper tantrum. He's a tool.

Pelosi was the only one to really mention what's happened: bipartisan legislation has been placed in front of Trump that he's refused to consider. He has said that he would keep the government shut down for as long as it takes to get his wall. He's the one who said he'd shut the government down. He's refused legislation that separates border security funding from turning the lights back on. She's still a tool, but she's the only tool who had anything of substance for the conversation.

---

Nancy and Chuck really embarrassed themselves tonight and looked terrible physically.

Actually, they all embarrassed themselves, and Trump looked like he was staring into the sun after being stung on the eye by a bee the whole time. When you put three politicians on TV and the one that has the most to say is Nancy Pelosi, it's time to round 'em all up, deport them to Honduras and find new ones.

Amen!

---

One guy talked about border security.

The two other guys talked about a shutdown and denying people were murdered by illegals. Terrible night for dems.

If someone told you that we need to ban alcohol now because their mom was killed by a drunk, you would say hey wait a second people get killed by people that are not drunk all the time, what is the prevalence? Or you would say, that doesn't matter people have a right to drink if they want to. You're a rational person.  A handful of stories is not going to change your mind. Even if those stories are really sad. 

But statistics might change your mind, right?

And the Quackie for Best Illogical Rambling in Message Board Tgread goes to...

---

“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

If someone told you that we need to ban alcohol now because their mom was killed by a drunk, you would say hey wait a second people get killed by people that are not drunk all the time, what is the prevalence? Or you would say, that doesn't matter people have a right to drink if they want to. You're a rational person.  A handful of stories is not going to change your mind. Even if those stories are really sad. 

But statistics might change your mind, right?

And the Quackie for Best Illogical Rambling in Message Board Tgread goes to...

The conclusion will come later, if StroudCrowd1 comes back and answers the question.

---

My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

One guy talked about border security.

The two other guys talked about a shutdown and denying people were murdered by illegals. Terrible night for dems.

If someone told you that we need to ban alcohol now because their mom was killed by a drunk, you would say hey wait a second people get killed by people that are not drunk all the time, what is the prevalence? Or you would say, that doesn't matter people have a right to drink if they want to. You're a rational person.  A handful of stories is not going to change your mind. Even if those stories are really sad. 

But statistics might change your mind, right?

I don't see exactly how your examples are related to the crisis at the border. It is actually a FACT that 6 men have been caught that were on the terror watch list at the border.

Also, the people doing these things you mention SHOULDN'T BE IN OUR COUNTRY. The entire point of this issue is being lost in the mix.

My main issue is, why do regular civilians feel they are more qualified to say what we need or don't need at the border? Are people under the belief that Donald Trump programmed these border agents to say what he wants? You are right, I am a rational person. If the border patrol said, hey, you know what? A wall won't be really effective, I would actually take them at their word.

Also, not helping the democrats "argument", former Obama Administration Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan who was FIRED by Trump just said a border wall will work.

Democrats aren't going to win this battle and are looking very foolish trying to defend their position.

---

One guy talked about border security.

The two other guys talked about a shutdown and denying people were murdered by illegals. Terrible night for dems.

One guy talked about how border security is a national crisis and a humanitarian crisis. I agree. He talked about the need for a wall. I disagree. He said that the Mexican trade deal will pay "indirectly" for the wall. One, that's not Mexico paying for it. Two, that's not how government funding works. That's barely how private funding works. He cherry-picked cases that we're all familiar with (how nice of him to bother to know the name of the American hero who died on December 26th) to make it seem like we're under seige. We're not. He's a tool.

Schumer wanted to talk about a President throwing a temper tantrum. He's a tool.

Pelosi was the only one to really mention what's happened: bipartisan legislation has been placed in front of Trump that he's refused to consider. He has said that he would keep the government shut down for as long as it takes to get his wall. He's the one who said he'd shut the government down. He's refused legislation that separates border security funding from turning the lights back on. She's still a tool, but she's the only tool who had anything of substance for the conversation.

I want my wall and I want it now! And NONE OF YOU ARE COMING TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!

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Something has to be done at the Southern border. What has been going on for the last 30 years simply is not working to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. At least Trump is trying.

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Looking to troll? Don't bother, we supply our own.

 

 

If someone told you that we need to ban alcohol now because their mom was killed by a drunk, you would say hey wait a second people get killed by people that are not drunk all the time, what is the prevalence? Or you would say, that doesn't matter people have a right to drink if they want to. You're a rational person.  A handful of stories is not going to change your mind. Even if those stories are really sad. 

But statistics might change your mind, right?

I don't see exactly how your examples are related to the crisis at the border. It is actually a FACT that 6 men have been caught that were on the terror watch list at the border.

Also, the people doing these things you mention SHOULDN'T BE IN OUR COUNTRY. The entire point of this issue is being lost in the mix.

My main issue is, why do regular civilians feel they are more qualified to say what we need or don't need at the border? Are people under the belief that Donald Trump programmed these border agents to say what he wants? You are right, I am a rational person. If the border patrol said, hey, you know what? A wall won't be really effective, I would actually take them at their word.

Also, not helping the democrats "argument", former Obama Administration Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan who was FIRED by Trump just said a border wall will work.

Democrats aren't going to win this battle and are looking very foolish trying to defend their position.

I find your reasoning circular. If you're going to ignore statistical or utilitarian arguments because THEY SHOULDN'T BE IN OUR COUNTRY, where does it stop? If you get your wall, and it really magically cuts down on illegal immigration by 99%, but capturing that last 1% of them would cost $20 billion more, are we obligated to spend that money too?  Why or why not?

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Something has to be done at the Southern border. What has been going on for the last 30 years simply is not working to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. At least Trump is trying.

Incorrect.  Illegal immigration was going down for 10 years straight. There was a small uptick last year, mostly due to crises in central Central America, but it's still much less than it used to be.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.