Could Army Corps of Engineer Officers refuse the order to build if they consider a declaration of a national emergency in this case to be an illegal act?
If they were given the job, shit would snowball so fast.
The wall/fence hasn't been designed, contractors have just built a couple of poorly-thought through prototypes. Any professional engineer would balk at what's already been done and emphasise just how much work would need to be done before anything got built. Costs would skyrocket, no matter how Trump tried to hide it.
The entire concept probably wouldn't survive professional engineers being involved with it.
I mean they’d bid it as a design build,
But think of the protests. Every construction company that could bond it would bid on the wall, and all of the losers would protest. It would be a FAR shit show of epic proportions.
After like a month of the bid process and Trump going "where's my wall" he pulls the project and goes no-bid to someone he or kushner knows or owes money to
Right, it's hardly like this admin has given a shit about the proper procedures and channels now, if he authorizes via "emergency" (whatever the fuck that means) he'll just no bid it straight to his equivalent of halliburton. They can also stomp over environmental impact reports, eminent domain, whatever at that point.
Unfortunately for them they can't stomp over the physical realities of building a wall and the time, effort and material that will take.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
Well first we'd have to know exactly what he wants as a wall. But like the Republicans ACA "replacement" there's no actual detail, because then there'd be something to argue about. Recall the meeting with Democrats a few days back where they had to wait 45 minutes to get started because the Republicans didn't have anything prepared to actually justify their request for 5.7 billion
Some posters previously have done some rough math about a 2000 mile concrete wall at such and such height, but that doesn't take into account the variety of terrain, soil types, etc along TWO THOUSAND FUCKING MILES OF BORDER, the logisitics of of processing and delivering concrete to these remote locations, etc etc.
If this was a serious proposal the last two years would have been spent putting this type of information together, but A: that would require work and B: it would come out to fuckoff cost and take fucklong time, and then it would be that much harder to justify. Which is why it's still just an idea, like the ACA replacement. He's shutting down the government over a racist campaign slogan. There's nothing there.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
The most I've found on it is this twitter thread from a court-accepted expert on walls.
She's not complimentary about the endeavour.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
The most I've found on it is this twitter thread from a court-accepted expert on walls.
She's not complimentary about the endeavour.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
The most I've found on it is this twitter thread from a court-accepted expert on walls.
She's not complimentary about the endeavour.
Not that I needed much convincing the wall is stupid but that feels really obvious when I think about it.
I think this is already a thing. Like, there's a video of a guy skiing while carried by a drone, and it does in fact just pick him up.
I think the limited factor there is "inexpensive" but yeah.
Of course, this cheap drone will still be a big capital chunk so it will mostly work for coyotes and drug smugglers while all the wall will keep out would be the destitute and desperate.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
The most I've found on it is this twitter thread from a court-accepted expert on walls.
She's not complimentary about the endeavour.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
The most I've found on it is this twitter thread from a court-accepted expert on walls.
She's not complimentary about the endeavour.
Do we have any engineers that could weigh in the logistics of actually building this thing in terms of time, resources, or even manpower? What would this even look like?
The most I've found on it is this twitter thread from a court-accepted expert on walls.
She's not complimentary about the endeavour.
Not that I needed much convincing the wall is stupid but that feels really obvious when I think about it.
I think this is already a thing. Like, there's a video of a guy skiing while carried by a drone, and it does in fact just pick him up.
They already have "jet bikes" that are basically a motorcycle with four quad copter type engines. The controller tech to sync the four props is easy tech now so just get 4 strong enough electric motors with propellers and some kind of thing you can sit on in the middle and away you go. I imagine in the next decade well tested models of that are common but you could jury rig it right now that would likely work well enough to hop up and over a wall. Although really given the "steel slats" a saw from home depo seems the better answer. Just cut a hole big enough let your group through and then spot weld it back in place so at a glance people don't even notice anything is wrong.
So how long is it till the feds miss another pay check?
I know this past tuesday stopped them from getting checks this upcoming tuesday. That would mean this needs to go another eleven days till they missed another check right?
The how to beat it isn't complicated or expensive. The principal philosophy driving creation of the wall is open racism and othering. I'd rather not stoop to debating the inefficiency of a wall with someone when they start quoting Trump's made up bullshit.
I get that the ease of bypassing it is meme'y and a totally valid criticism but "don't be a wasteful dystopian racist dictator who's afraid of the brown people" should be a pretty easy sell.
So how long is it till the feds miss another pay check?
I know this past tuesday stopped them from getting checks this upcoming tuesday. That would mean this needs to go another eleven days till they missed another check right?
The prospect of Trump diverting funds from, say, the CoE's projects to fix and improve Houston's reservoirs is outright terrifying. And the fact that my senators are complicit in this damage to our state, in addition to supporting essentially ceding control of an important resource (Rio Grande) to Mexico by building a wall is just mind boggling to me.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
he also made it clear the muslim ban was a muslim ban but that got ruled constitutional, so I wouldn't place any faith in the courts
I understand people are cynical in these times but you're reaching relatively far back into his administration to find a point to go "but the courts don't work." Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, and just because they don't doesn't mean they never ever will. How about we see where the legal challenges go instead of make assumptions? I mean all that aside, this is all temporary because the next president is likely to not do this bullshit. :P
The naked hypocrisy of Republicans who claimed Obama was guilty of executive overreach and are now telling Trump to literally steal money from the government to further his own private, autocratic agenda which doesn’t have the votes in Congress is making me absolutely furious
I didn’t think it was still possible, but here we are
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Could Army Corps of Engineer Officers refuse the order to build if they consider a declaration of a national emergency in this case to be an illegal act?
If they were given the job, shit would snowball so fast.
The wall/fence hasn't been designed, contractors have just built a couple of poorly-thought through prototypes. Any professional engineer would balk at what's already been done and emphasise just how much work would need to be done before anything got built. Costs would skyrocket, no matter how Trump tried to hide it.
The entire concept probably wouldn't survive professional engineers being involved with it.
I mean they’d bid it as a design build,
But think of the protests. Every construction company that could bond it would bid on the wall, and all of the losers would protest. It would be a FAR shit show of epic proportions.
After like a month of the bid process and Trump going "where's my wall" he pulls the project and goes no-bid to someone he or kushner knows or owes money to
And there are protests and those will be upheld until trump orders GAO to let it go then the protests will go to the courts with injunctions, and the no bid company will not have a way to get paid during the process, and it will be a whole shitshow.
L3 held up a defense contract for 8 months until they were hit with sanctions on another contract so they agreed to drop the protest in exchange for not receiving a T4D.
The only bright side to the distopian Trump, is that Trump is really old. 72, he’ll be 74 by the next election. Actuary tables are favorable, and Pence is so unpopular as to be ridiculous.
It's not Trump breaking all the norms that's scary in the long run, it's what future presidents will want to do with the pieces.
The next President will be Democrat (unless Trump resigns like Nixon.) The next President after that will be Republican. Who knows what sort of fascist he will be?
The next President will be Democrat (unless Trump resigns like Nixon.) The next President after that will be Republican. Who knows what sort of fascist he will be?
If they miss their first paycheck today people are going to be really pissed once they realize their usual Christmas overspending is going to become late or default payments. I’m not sure the average worker has thought about this yet.
If they miss their first paycheck today people are going to be really pissed once they realize their usual Christmas overspending is going to become late or default payments. I’m not sure the average worker has thought about this yet.
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
If they miss their first paycheck today people are going to be really pissed once they realize their usual Christmas overspending is going to become late or default payments. I’m not sure the average worker has thought about this yet.
I assure you they have
Average worker. Not people here. The average American economically doesn’t think super far into the future. Unless you have some articles covering people’s thoughts re: my point.
If they miss their first paycheck today people are going to be really pissed once they realize their usual Christmas overspending is going to become late or default payments. I’m not sure the average worker has thought about this yet.
I assure you they have
Average worker. Not people here. The average American economically doesn’t think super far into the future. Unless you have some articles covering people’s thoughts re: my point.
people who live paycheck to paycheck are always thinking about their next paycheck. I guess I don't really have an article to link, but I do have 20 years of thinking about my next paycheck as anecdote =/
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
Bear in mind that Trump is completely blind to political norms so his behaviour here probably shouldn't be taken as an intentional signal of anything.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
If they're passing this, why the fuck won't they just open the government back up?!
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
If they're passing this, why the fuck won't they just open the government back up?!
The next President will be Democrat (unless Trump resigns like Nixon.) The next President after that will be Republican. Who knows what sort of fascist he will be?
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
If they're passing this, why the fuck won't they just open the government back up?!
Because trump is still being cry baby pee pants over how the dems won't let him have his wall.
It's really looking like the GOP line is "This is a Crisis and we need to give the POTUS emergency powers immediately!" More people are coming out of the woodwork saying it's the only way to get around the Democrats.
Lindsey Graham is a US Senator, and also a real piece of shit.
This is beginning to remind my of the Star Wars prequels, and not in a good way.
Don't rewatch Babylon 5 anytime soon.
The jaw dropping thing about our darkest timeline compared to the various fascist dystopian setups out there (B5, SW:1-3, 1984) is just how half-assedly this lurch towards full on dictatorship is.
1984 and the Prequels had large wars that existed as actual real threats to the political entities. Trump just makes up random word salad about furriners driving fast cars in caravans towards the border in order to get their murder on.
B5 and the Prequels had the bad guys spend years building political support for when they eventually play the Martial Law/State of Emergency card. Trump gets asked if he's going to do it, tweets threats for a week, and suddenly has enablers telling him it's the only solution.
1984 famously had the Ministry of Truth, an organization of thousands of people dedicated to rewriting history on a daily basis in order to ensure that Big Brother is never wrong. Trump just makes shit up and nobody cares. And it's not even gaslighting, which is a peeve of mine since that term comes from a play where there's a minimum number of characters and independent verification of the lighting levels is impossible. This is just Trump lying (bullshitting, technically) and nobody caring because they'd rather believe Trump than disbelieve the lies.
I, and imagine most of us on the forum, probably thought that the US was relatively protected from becoming a dictatorship because doing so would be difficult. You'd need the armed forces, you'd need a large amount of popular support, you'd need to do some hard work to pull it off. The reality I'm seeing right now is that it's actually really easy to go full-dictator. You just do it and see if anyone steps up to stop you. The right-wing won't, because they support the general policy goals and the mushy middle mostly just can't believe what they're seeing.
The fragility of democracy is depressing to behold.
This hasn't been quick. The delegitimationof the democratic party has been going on for decades and decades. It was the entirety of the GOP playbook during the Obama years and is basically the cornerstone of right-wing media and has been since the 80s at least. And if you wanna actually follow the through-line here to it's roots in the delegitimation of minority political power, this is a movement literally centuries in the making. Trump is simply the current culmination of a long standing movement in american politics. He stepped in to a ready-made movement as one of it's members.
What we are seeing is that previously no one was willing to just go for it. It started with McConnell and his ilk, who realised it was a potent political strategy. And it has reached it's current peak with Trump mostly because he's fucking oblivious to everything but the demands of his own ego.
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
Feel like this is a signal they want to keep the government shutdown "but please keep working for us we promise you'll get paid"
Posts
Right, it's hardly like this admin has given a shit about the proper procedures and channels now, if he authorizes via "emergency" (whatever the fuck that means) he'll just no bid it straight to his equivalent of halliburton. They can also stomp over environmental impact reports, eminent domain, whatever at that point.
Unfortunately for them they can't stomp over the physical realities of building a wall and the time, effort and material that will take.
Well first we'd have to know exactly what he wants as a wall. But like the Republicans ACA "replacement" there's no actual detail, because then there'd be something to argue about. Recall the meeting with Democrats a few days back where they had to wait 45 minutes to get started because the Republicans didn't have anything prepared to actually justify their request for 5.7 billion
Some posters previously have done some rough math about a 2000 mile concrete wall at such and such height, but that doesn't take into account the variety of terrain, soil types, etc along TWO THOUSAND FUCKING MILES OF BORDER, the logisitics of of processing and delivering concrete to these remote locations, etc etc.
If this was a serious proposal the last two years would have been spent putting this type of information together, but A: that would require work and B: it would come out to fuckoff cost and take fucklong time, and then it would be that much harder to justify. Which is why it's still just an idea, like the ACA replacement. He's shutting down the government over a racist campaign slogan. There's nothing there.
Well shit, this is an incredibly good point:
Not that I needed much convincing the wall is stupid but that feels really obvious when I think about it.
I think this is already a thing. Like, there's a video of a guy skiing while carried by a drone, and it does in fact just pick him up.
I think the limited factor there is "inexpensive" but yeah.
Of course, this cheap drone will still be a big capital chunk so it will mostly work for coyotes and drug smugglers while all the wall will keep out would be the destitute and desperate.
So probably still mission accomplished for Trump.
Ways to defeat/overcome the wall are actually pretty far down on the list of reasons why its stupid.
If it is just a bunch of unpatrolled wall you just blast a hole in a portion of it, bingo bango no more wall problem tonight.
They already have "jet bikes" that are basically a motorcycle with four quad copter type engines. The controller tech to sync the four props is easy tech now so just get 4 strong enough electric motors with propellers and some kind of thing you can sit on in the middle and away you go. I imagine in the next decade well tested models of that are common but you could jury rig it right now that would likely work well enough to hop up and over a wall. Although really given the "steel slats" a saw from home depo seems the better answer. Just cut a hole big enough let your group through and then spot weld it back in place so at a glance people don't even notice anything is wrong.
Ok, wait, let him speak.
That sombody was Casey Neistat. Yea, these drones already exist
https://youtu.be/At3xcj-pTjg
I know this past tuesday stopped them from getting checks this upcoming tuesday. That would mean this needs to go another eleven days till they missed another check right?
I get that the ease of bypassing it is meme'y and a totally valid criticism but "don't be a wasteful dystopian racist dictator who's afraid of the brown people" should be a pretty easy sell.
They get paied every two weeks
I didn’t think it was still possible, but here we are
L3 held up a defense contract for 8 months until they were hit with sanctions on another contract so they agreed to drop the protest in exchange for not receiving a T4D.
It's not Trump breaking all the norms that's scary in the long run, it's what future presidents will want to do with the pieces.
This seems optimistic...
... which totally sucks.
I assure you they have
Trump has agreed to sign this, it should just fly through the House.
It is a weird interesting mixed signal. It means folks will get paid when the government is reopened. And usually occurs towards the end/after the end of a shutdown.
Essential personnel aka the people working without pay are guaranteed pay. Those furloughed are not because they are not working.
people who live paycheck to paycheck are always thinking about their next paycheck. I guess I don't really have an article to link, but I do have 20 years of thinking about my next paycheck as anecdote =/
Bear in mind that Trump is completely blind to political norms so his behaviour here probably shouldn't be taken as an intentional signal of anything.
Edit: oh screw it, I'm not even fixing the phone typo
... and it's always happened in the past, but, as current events tell us, past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
because they're bastards
Stop talking about hypothetical next Presidents.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Because trump is still being cry baby pee pants over how the dems won't let him have his wall.
No it is by law that those working are paid for their work.
Please don't act as if this is a norm. Legal rules on this stuff is different.
Furloughed workers by law are not required to be paid. The link I posted has that the Senate has passed legislation to pay them.
Contractors payments are up to their company.
This hasn't been quick. The delegitimationof the democratic party has been going on for decades and decades. It was the entirety of the GOP playbook during the Obama years and is basically the cornerstone of right-wing media and has been since the 80s at least. And if you wanna actually follow the through-line here to it's roots in the delegitimation of minority political power, this is a movement literally centuries in the making. Trump is simply the current culmination of a long standing movement in american politics. He stepped in to a ready-made movement as one of it's members.
What we are seeing is that previously no one was willing to just go for it. It started with McConnell and his ilk, who realised it was a potent political strategy. And it has reached it's current peak with Trump mostly because he's fucking oblivious to everything but the demands of his own ego.
Feel like this is a signal they want to keep the government shutdown "but please keep working for us we promise you'll get paid"