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[McTraveller]

All aboard the executive power train!

This is terrifying.

Also - how TF can 55 miles of wall or whatever cost $1.375B?  That's $25M per mile!

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

[smjjames]

Wouldn't most landowners along the border be opposed to having their land taken for building the wall? Theres also a catch 22 here in that said wealthy landowners would have more money available for a long legal fight.

[Doomblade187]

All aboard the executive power train!

This is terrifying.

Also - how TF can 55 miles of wall or whatever cost $1.375B?  That's $25M per mile!

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

I belive the funs also go to exisiting wall maintenance and new (?) detention centers. Still expensive tho.

[Baffler]

All aboard the executive power train!

This is terrifying.

Also - how TF can 55 miles of wall or whatever cost $1.375B?  That's $25M per mile!

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

You're a bit late. Spurious national emergencies have been a cause for concern at least since the Carter administration and probably sooner. As to the spending bill, this about covers the reactions on the right to it:
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/5-insane-provisions-amnesty-omnibus-bill/

[Kagus]

It's government work. Of course it's expensive.

[Starver]

Reminds me of a tactic used in the UK against certain developments (usually new roads, that people thought shouldn't be ploughed through a bit of landscape) that was a given field or other stretch of land that is going to be part of the Compulsory Purchase order is put through a Trust that then sells it on as smaller plots (square feet or yards or maybe metres) to supporting subscribers for a peppercorn 'donation' value, leaving a figurative minefield and administrative headache as the road-building process then has to fully identify and properly contact so many individuals (all informed ahead of time of their full rights to legal challenges in the most time-consuming way) and deal with them all.

No idea if it actually worked as well as advertised; no idea if it still works well, here in the UK, with law/process changes and electronics-era streamlining of Land Registry enquiries; no idea if it translates to the US legal/property system in any way. But it was a passing thought...


(And, as per normal ninjas, I bet a significant proportion of the money will end up to the Trump family benefit, either directly or in kind.)

[Kagus]

(And, as per normal ninjas, I bet a significant proportion of the money will end up to the Trump family benefit, either directly or in kind.)

That would imply some amount of criminal competence.

[Folly]

Meh, that's kind of old news; they've been talking about that since January:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/politics/trump-national-emergency.html

Trump has been threatening this for a while, but the threats were largely dismissed because everyone assumed that if Trump actually tried to declare a National Emergency, the House would block it from going forward. This was the assumption because the Republicans in the Senate have traditionally opposed presidents using National Emergencies as an abuse of their power. In particular, many of these Senators voiced strong opposition whenever Obama declared National Emergencies, and more than a few Senators have specifically voiced opposition to Trump's threats of using a National Emergency for his wall. And of course the Dem's in the House will vote against the National Emergency, for reasons I probably don't need to explain.

It's worth noting that at this point only the Senate leader McConnell has voiced his intention to flip. On such a divisive issue, it is conceivable that his party might actually vote against him. It will be interesting to see in the coming days just how many other senators decide to join him.

[smjjames]

All aboard the executive power train!

This is terrifying.

Also - how TF can 55 miles of wall or whatever cost $1.375B?  That's $25M per mile!

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

You're a bit late. Spurious national emergencies have been a cause for concern at least since the Carter administration and probably sooner. As to the spending bill, this about covers the reactions on the right to it:
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/5-insane-provisions-amnesty-omnibus-bill/

True on spurious national emergencies, but the thing is that Trump has greatly lowered the bar for precedence since nearly all of the past ones have had actual national security reasons behind them. Which is what the Republicans have been getting at, even if they have been hyperventilating over it.

[Gentlefish]

Reminds me of a tactic used in the UK against certain developments (usually new roads, that people thought shouldn't be ploughed through a bit of landscape) that was a given field or other stretch of land that is going to be part of the Compulsory Purchase order is put through a Trust that then sells it on as smaller plots (square feet or yards or maybe metres) to supporting subscribers for a peppercorn 'donation' value, leaving a figurative minefield and administrative headache as the road-building process then has to fully identify and properly contact so many individuals (all informed ahead of time of their full rights to legal challenges in the most time-consuming way) and deal with them all.

No idea if it actually worked as well as advertised; no idea if it still works well, here in the UK, with law/process changes and electronics-era streamlining of Land Registry enquiries; no idea if it translates to the US legal/property system in any way. But it was a passing thought...


(And, as per normal ninjas, I bet a significant proportion of the money will end up to the Trump family benefit, either directly or in kind.)

No kidding that's what Cards Against Humanity has done. They took people's money, bought a large piece of borderland, and pieced off the plots for those owners. It's going to be a nightmare tbh and I can't wait to see that crop up in the news.

[Kagus]

Reminds me of a tactic used in the UK against certain developments (usually new roads, that people thought shouldn't be ploughed through a bit of landscape) that was a given field or other stretch of land that is going to be part of the Compulsory Purchase order is put through a Trust that then sells it on as smaller plots (square feet or yards or maybe metres) to supporting subscribers for a peppercorn 'donation' value, leaving a figurative minefield and administrative headache as the road-building process then has to fully identify and properly contact so many individuals (all informed ahead of time of their full rights to legal challenges in the most time-consuming way) and deal with them all.

No idea if it actually worked as well as advertised; no idea if it still works well, here in the UK, with law/process changes and electronics-era streamlining of Land Registry enquiries; no idea if it translates to the US legal/property system in any way. But it was a passing thought...


(And, as per normal ninjas, I bet a significant proportion of the money will end up to the Trump family benefit, either directly or in kind.)

No kidding that's what Cards Against Humanity has done. They took people's money, bought a large piece of borderland, and pieced off the plots for those owners. It's going to be a nightmare tbh and I can't wait to see that crop up in the news.

Good god their marketing team is some next level 5D backgammon shit.

[hector13]

If anything, it makes it more time consuming and consequently more expensive. While a waste of taxpayers money isn't great, the wall as an end goal is going to be a waste anyway, so making it as entertaining as possible for the wall-detractors is... worth it? Meh, sure.

[smjjames]

Reminds me of a tactic used in the UK against certain developments (usually new roads, that people thought shouldn't be ploughed through a bit of landscape) that was a given field or other stretch of land that is going to be part of the Compulsory Purchase order is put through a Trust that then sells it on as smaller plots (square feet or yards or maybe metres) to supporting subscribers for a peppercorn 'donation' value, leaving a figurative minefield and administrative headache as the road-building process then has to fully identify and properly contact so many individuals (all informed ahead of time of their full rights to legal challenges in the most time-consuming way) and deal with them all.

No idea if it actually worked as well as advertised; no idea if it still works well, here in the UK, with law/process changes and electronics-era streamlining of Land Registry enquiries; no idea if it translates to the US legal/property system in any way. But it was a passing thought...


(And, as per normal ninjas, I bet a significant proportion of the money will end up to the Trump family benefit, either directly or in kind.)

No kidding that's what Cards Against Humanity has done. They took people's money, bought a large piece of borderland, and pieced off the plots for those owners. It's going to be a nightmare tbh and I can't wait to see that crop up in the news.

Good god their marketing team is some next level 5D backgammon shit.

I thought that was a cardgame or something?

Either way, it's one thing for someone to purchase a bunch of borderland that someone is willingly selling and another thing for the government to forcefully take a bunch of land, so, it's not really equivalent.

[misko27]

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

That Coast Guard thing is actually important. Coastguard has precisely one icebreaker, and it's been in use since 1988 I believe. Icebreaking is something that's actually become more important with the advent of Climate Change, not less, so it's an important issue. But back when Trump upped his demand from 1.6bn for Border Security, to 5bn for a wall (or "wall"), one of the places the difference came from was this icebreaker, which came from the Department of Homeland's Security's budget. When Democrats tried to reinstate 750 million for the icebreaker (which would have put wall funding down to 4 billion), Republicans refused. It's one of the reasons Democrats all balked at the same time and went from agreeing on 1.6 billion to agreeing on zero.

Source

[Loud Whispers]

I like how the bill also just gives all civilian federal govt workers a 1.9% raise and also buys the Coast Guard an ice breaker.

That Coast Guard thing is actually important. Coastguard has precisely one icebreaker, and it's been in use since 1988 I believe. Icebreaking is something that's actually become more important with the advent of Climate Change, not less, so it's an important issue. But back when Trump upped his demand from 1.6bn for Border Security, to 5bn for a wall (or "wall"), one of the places the difference came from was this icebreaker, which came from the Department of Homeland's Security's budget. When Democrats tried to reinstate 750 million for the icebreaker (which would have put wall funding down to 4 billion), Republicans refused. It's one of the reasons Democrats all balked at the same time and went from agreeing on 1.6 billion to agreeing on zero.

Source

It's nice to see the President manages to find some consistency in the department of disappointment

Where is the US fleet or icebreakers to rival Russia's? It doesn't matter if you have plans for them, they take years and shiptons of resources to produce, you need them yesterday
The USA doesn't even have a single serviceable icebreaker that can compete with the Russian arctic fleet, whilst Russia also has the largest and most advanced arctic fighting force. Even if Trump accelerated US arctic preparations now, and got elected a second term, it would be his successor that would have to continue arctic preparations before the US could compete with Russia
Shit's fucked yo

In WWII the British and French Empires between them controlled the vast majority of the world's wealth; they couldn't turn that wealth into fighter planes, tanks, warships and munitions, for lack of time. Ispil sums it up succinctly, it doesn't matter how much money you can throw at an arctic ship project, it's going to take a decade to complete construction of one icebreaker whilst Russia already has the world's largest fleet of icebreakers, largest and most powerful icebreaker ships and largest fleet of nuclear icebreakers. The USA needs to have a concerted arctic policy that outlasts its presidents to compete

Russia launched the world's biggest, most powerful icebreaker on Thursday in St. Petersburg.
"She is one of several new icebreakers planned for Russia's growing fleet — a fleet already bigger than all other countries, combined," Mary Louise reports.
"Russian interest in the Arctic is rising, as global warming opens up shipping routes and access to mineral resources."
In addition to launching new icebreakers, Russia is building new bases in the Arctic Circle and modernizing its nuclear submarines.

You can only buy so much time with money - and these are not just any ship, these are icebreaker ships. You need it done by people who are the pinnacle of arctic maritime and nuclear engineering, which is to say the least, a small group of people in the world

As the United States and Russia eye new shipping routes in the melting Arctic, political and military leaders in Washington are pointing to a crucial gap in the one type of vessel that can turn frozen waters into reliable lanes for commerce or national defense.
Icebreakers — the ships that smash through sea ice, opening routes for other craft and rescuing trapped vessels — are increasingly important to navigating in the far north. Russia has 40 of them, including nuclear-powered craft painted an intimidating red and black.
Meanwhile, the U.S. icebreaker fleet? Two.
 Or three, if you count the aging vessel in a Seattle drydock being cannibalized for parts.

The icebreaker gap is also exposing some deeper problems that speak to the long neglect of the issue. Not only are they expensive, costing at least $1 billion each, but it would take the U.S. shipbuilding industry – which has long ceased to build icebreakers -- at least ten years to build a brand new one.
And it’s unclear who would pay for the next generation. Icebreakers are operated by the Coast Guard, but their cost falls way outside the reach of its budget. Funding them, said Zukunft, is the “billion-dollar question.”
At its height, the U.S. icebreaker fleet hovered around eight ships, comparable to that of other Arctic countries like Canada, Finland and Sweden. But the Coast Guard’s robust fleet dropped out of commission one by one, and today consists of one 40-year-old heavy icebreaker, the Polar Star, commissioned in 1976, and one medium icebreaker, the Healy, commissioned in 2000. The Polar Star’s sister ship, the Polar Sea, has been sitting in a drydock in Seattle since its engine failed in 2010.
The ships require thick steel, reinforced hulls and enormous horsepower to ram through ice. Icebreakers also have special onboard tanks and pumps that shift water from one side of the boat, rocking it to break the surrounding ice. The Coast Guard’s total budget request for fiscal 2016 is $9.96 billion; a single icebreaker would eat a tenth of the budget.
Zukunft said in order to get funding for icebreakers outside of the Coast Guard budget, the vessels would need to be seen as national assets—in the same light as aircraft carriers and nuclear ballistic submarines. “At the end of the day it really is a national asset, where it’s not just Coast Guard, it’s the National Science Foundation, the Arctic Research Council, the Department of the Interior, Transportation, Defense Department, Commerce, a number of others, that have equities in heavy icebreakers,” he said.
Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowski, who’s led the charge for new icebreakers for years, wants to see the Navy and Coast Guard partner to fund the ships. “Do you know how many naval ships we are building? A lot,” she said. “Do you know how many icebreakers we are building? None.”
But even if funding to build new icebreakers came tomorrow, it would still take too long to build one ship, analysts say. Current law requires Coast Guard vessels to be constructed in U.S. shipyards unless the President determines there’s an overriding national-security interest to build a ship outside of the U.S.

Taking it for granted that you're better than your opponents is how you find out rudely one day, you're not. The USA has numerous hurdles to cross to get a functional icebreaking fleet whilst Russia is the only nation in the world that has nuclear icebreakers. There is a considerable gap here, and a quarter of the world's gas and oil is at stake

Hurr durr we don't need icebreakers cos the ice isn't melting cos global warming am fake