Trump Build a Wall | It's Going To Be YUGE

esident Trump’s first week in office was so frenetic and chaotic that last Friday, we published a guide to everything he had done so far, along with a 1-to-10 rating of every action’s immediate substantive impact and potential long-term significance. We assumed it would be a one-time effort to help distinguish the genuine signal from the Trumpian noise, because we assumed the insane pace of head-snapping news would calm down a bit. Then that very evening, Trump unveiled his most explosive move yet, an order temporarily blocking all citizens of seven Muslim countries and all refugees from anywhere from entering the United States. Needless to say, the news cycle did not calm down after that.

So welcome to Week Two of the Did-It-Matter-Meter. If the main theme of Trump’s wild first week was that it’s important to separate knee-jerk media freakouts from true signs of dramatic change, the main theme of his even wilder second week was that it’s hard to keep track of all the true signs of dramatic change when they’re all getting jumbled together. We’ll try to un-jumble them here, but the most consistent takeaway from Trump’s two-week blitzkrieg of action, commotion, weird tweets and brazen untruths is that America has floated into the uncharted here-be-dragons section of the map. And the waves are getting pretty rough.

Slamming America’s Door: It’s not clear whether Trump’s executive order focusing on refugees (but roping in other foreigners, green-card holders and even some American citizens) is really the “Muslim ban” he promised during the campaign. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said it shouldn’t be called a ban, even while Trump was calling it a ban; Trump ally Rudy Giuliani basically confirmed that it’s a thinly disguised Muslim ban designed to pass constitutional muster, a kind of Muslim ban wearing Groucho glasses. But whatever it is, it sent a message to the world that America is no longer a welcoming country. It sent a message to Americans that migrants fleeing the world’s most horrific crises are dangerous enemies of the state. It separated families; it disrupted companies; it prevented students and professors and doctors and scientists from getting back to the U.S. after travels overseas. Meanwhile, most national security experts seemed to think it will inflame and inspire our enemies, offend and alienate our allies, and generally make America less safe.

It’s a huge deal, although it’s officially temporary, so it’s conceivable that Trump could soften it, or the courts could block it. But no matter what happens to it, the dysfunctional process that produced it also sent a message about Trump and his White House. The two former generals who have been portrayed as the grownups on his national security team—Defense Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly—were not fully in the loop, nor was Rex Tillerson, who hadn’t yet been confirmed as secretary of state. The order seems to be the work of a tight inner circle of nationalistic ideologues consisting of Breitbart provocateur Steve Bannon, 31-year-old policy aide Stephen Miller and some Republican congressional staffers who, incredibly, signed non-disclosure agreements pledging not to tell their Hill bosses what they were doing. The federal bureaucracy had no idea what was coming, which led to utter chaos at and mass confusion in Washington. A week later, it still isn’t clear to whom the order applies, or even whether the administration intends to comply with judicial restrictions on it.

Trump’s personal reaction was also telling. He tweeted that a Delta computer glitch (which didn’t happen until Sunday and was quickly resolved) was responsible for the chaos at the airports, as if thousands of protesters had flocked to the very places where refugees were being detained because they wanted to rebook flights. This we-have-always-been-at-war-with-Eurasia gaslighting approach, reminiscent of Trump’s Week One whoppers about his inaugural crowd size and 3 million illegal voters, is a disturbing signal of the irrelevance of facts to this White House. Just as telling was Trump’s reaction after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer choked up while discussing the plight of the refugees. The president dismissively accused him of crying “fake tears,” asked, “Who is his acting coach?” and even called him Fake Tears Chuck Schumer on Twitter—as if it were unfathomable that a human being could get emotional about something happening to another human being.

That is, well, let’s just say significant. But the mass mobilization against Trump’s order was significant, too. So was the extraordinary “dissent cable” denouncing the order that has been signed by more than 1,000 State Department diplomats stationed around the world. It’s going to be an interesting four years.

Immediate Impact: 9. Potential Importance: 9.

The Monday Night Massacre: The furor over refugees reached its climax after acting attorney general Sally Yates, an Obama administration holdover, sent a memo to Justice Department lawyers telling them not to enforce or defend Trump’s executive order. Trump promptly fired her, and the media promptly freaked out. The move was widely compared to the notorious Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon illegally fired an independent special prosecutor, who was investigating him, and prompted the leadership of the Justice Department to resign.

But Trump’s move was totally legal. Yates was not investigating him; she was basically a temp who was defying her boss. She didn’t have to enforce his order if she found it objectionable, but Trump had every right to find an attorney general who would. And whether or not you think the order is sensible, it’s not obviously illegal. Whether or not Trump and his team have authoritarian tendencies, firing Yates was not evidence of authoritarian governance.

That said, the odd news release announcing her firing, attacking Yates as “weak on borders and very weak on immigration,” accusing her not merely of insubordination but outright betrayal, reinforced the notion of a bunker-mentality White House incapable of acknowledging differences of opinion. This incident may have been overblown, but nobody should be shocked if there are similar incidents.

Immediate Impact: 3. Potential Importance: 4.

Politicizing Security: So far, this West Wing has the feel of reality TV, a constant festival of back-stabbing and undermining, competing power centers and shifting alliances. But one constant in the White House Kremlinology—maybe that’s an unfortunate word to use given all the news about Russia connections—is the central influence of Bannon, Trump’s top political strategist. And Trump confirmed that influence when he unveiled an unheard-of shakeup of the National Security Council, adding Bannon to its key committee overseeing foreign policy while removing the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff. It was a flagrant violation of longstanding norms, and some national security experts warned it could turn out to be even more consequential than the executive order on refugees.

Whether you see Bannon as a virulent white nationalist or a disruptive Jacksonian genius, the outsized clout of the rumpled guy slouching by Trump’s side in just about every Oval Office photo is an important story for today’s politics. His fingerprints have been all over policies like immigration. And the emerging memes about #PresidentBannon are already creating tensions among Trump’s team of rivals; one way to look at national security adviser Michael Flynn’s public threats against Iran is as a desperate effort to re-establish himself internally as the top dog on foreign policy. But Trump has been known to change his mind about aides in the past; he had three different campaign managers in 2016. And the NSC’s official titles and org chart will be less important than which advisers have Trump’s ear. That’s Bannon right now, but nobody knows how long that will last.

Immediate Impact: 8. Potential Importance: 4.

Rewriting Holocaust History: There was another media furor over the official White House proclamation for Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was somber enough but somehow failed to mention that the primary targets and victims of the Shoah were Jews. It was an uncomfortable oversight, especially after the Anti-Defamation League had criticized Trump’s closing campaign ad for echoing classic anti-Semitic tropes. But there’s too much umbrage over symbolism in politics, and it's not clear what caused the administration's blunder.

Once again, though, what was more troubling was the White House response, which was not to acknowledge error, but to double down, lash out and try to make a serious case that there was no reason to single out the unique experience of Jews in Nazi Germany. Spicer decried complaints about the proclamation as “pathetic,” said Trump deserved credit for “going out of his way” to release a statement, and claimed that “by and large he’s been praised for it.” In fact, hardly anyone praised the statement other than anti-Semites like David Duke and the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer; even sympathetic groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition expressed some agita. It’s still not clear whether the White House’s All Lives Matter-style approach to a Jewish genocide was another Bannon dog-whistle provocation or an inadvertent mistake by a pro-Israel White House that metastasized into official policy. But it’s still shocking that what Spencer gleefully called “De-Judification” was allowed to stand.

Immediate Impact: 2. Potential Importance: 8.

Flipping Off the World: It was always clear that Trump would inject more confrontation into U.S. diplomacy, but not an Andrew Dice Clay level of confrontation. Trump reportedly yelled at and eventually hung up on the prime minister of Australia because he was upset about an existing refugee agreement, accusing one of America’s staunchest allies of trying to send over “the next Boston bombers.” He also unloaded on the president of Mexico, another close U.S. ally, reportedly threatening to send in U.S. troops to deal with his country’s “bad hombres” and questioning the courage of the Mexican military. And then there was Flynn’s public warning that the Trump administration is “officially putting Iran on notice,” saber-rattling that will ratchet up pressure for more aggressive actions.

Trump’s aides later attributed his odd hostility on the Australia call to the lateness of the hour. And it’s possible that the “Art of the Deal” author is playing negotiator games with allies and enemies alike, trying to throw his weight around to get an edge. But it’s not really comforting if the negotiator with the nuclear codes is getting too tired to keep his cool, or if blustery threats from the Oval Office are his idea of gamesmanship. And it’s instructive to compare Trump’s aggression toward America’s longtime friends with his notable speak-no-evil approach to Russia, which interfered in the U.S. election that got him his job and is now backing separatists in Ukraine who escalated their attacks this week. Similarly, while Trump often uses his Twitter feed to denounce radical Islamic terror attacks, he didn’t mention the right-wing terrorist who killed six Muslims last week in a Canadian mosque.

The world is watching the president's behavior, and its conclusions will help determine America’s international standing.

Immediate Impact: 5. Potential Importance: 9.

A Shift on the Court: As if Trump didn’t have enough on his plate this week, he also nominated Neil Gorsuch, an extremely conservative appellate judge with impeccable professional credentials, to serve on the Supreme Court. Gorsuch would replace Antonin Scalia, and he seems like a less abrasive version of the late bomb-throwing justice, a committed originalist who would tilt a court currently balanced between liberals and conservatives back to the right. It’s not clear whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be able to round up the 60 votes that he’d need to overcome an anti-Gorsuch filibuster, but if he can’t, he’ll surely get rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations. Democrats will howl, but they won’t win.

This is yet another example of Republican norm violations producing Republican victories. McConnell refused to even consider President Barack Obama’s pick for the Scalia seat, Merrick Garland, a move that not only held the seat open for Trump, but gave anti-Trump Republicans a reason to vote for him in November. The result will be a major conservative victory that will affect issues like abortion, the environment and labor-management relations for decades to come. And it helps explain why congressional Republicans who have expressed misgivings about Trump in the past have kept their misgivings to themselves lately—conservatives are over the moon about Gorsuch, who is one of their own, and see an opportunity to reshape the court for a generation.

Immediate Impact: 6. Potential Importance: 9.

Building the Cabinet: The biggest story about Trump’s Cabinet picks this week was the news that two Republican senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, plan to vote against his nominee for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, leaving only 50 votes for her confirmation. But since Vice President Mike Pence can break a 50-50 tie, that should be enough to get DeVos confirmed despite a rocky hearing.

The real confirmation news is that otherwise, the solid Republican wall is holding. Even Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price, a congressman who traded stocks while pushing legislation that boosted his portfolio—and then made misleading statements about it to the Senate—seems likely to sail through with unanimous GOP support. Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin, who neglected to tell the Senate about $95 million in real estate holdings, also seems like a shoo-in for America’s top financial job. Republican senators seem determined to ignore missteps that have doomed prior nominations—like hiring an undocumented nanny, or failing to pay Social Security taxes for a legal one—when it comes to Trump’s appointees.

This has tremendous importance for Trump’s presidency, because the Republican majorities in Congress are the most formidable threat to his power. But so far they seem to be part of the team. The image that summed up the situation was Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr.—who now run his private companies, which are supposed to be separate from his public role—glad-handing GOP senators at the White House ceremony to introduce Gorsuch. Those senators obviously care more about confirming a conservative justice than investigating the president’s convoluted finances.

Immediate Impact: 6. Potential Importance: 9.

One Rule Forward, Two Rules Back: On Monday, Trump signed an executive order requiring agencies to eliminate two old regulations for each new one they enact. This was a symbolic gesture with little substantive impact; the quantity of regulations does not mean much. But the order also included a little-noticed directive that the total cost of all new regulations for the rest of this fiscal year should be zero, a true indication of serious anti-regulatory zeal. The left tends to think of regulations as protections, blocking threats to health, workplace safety, financial stability and the environment. But the Trump White House sees regulations mostly as an economic drag. It offered more proof when it endorsed Republican efforts to repeal five Obama administration rules, including an anti-corruption rule that would force oil companies to disclose their payments to foreign governments. Tillerson personally lobbied to try to kill the rule when he was CEO of ExxonMobil, and now his new boss is likely to finish the job.

Immediate Impact: 3. Potential Importance: 7.

First Raid, Botched Raid: The Pentagon has launched an investigation to try to figure out what went wrong in the first military action approved by President Trump, a special forces raid against an Al Qaeda hideout in Yemen. One American soldier was killed, along with a number of reported militants as well as several civilians, including an 8-year-old girl who may have been a U.S citizen. The U.S. team apparently ran into an ambush, and Pentagon sources have been leaking to reporters that the White House mishandled the entire affair.

Really, though, it’s way too early to know whether Trump and his aides made any rookie mistakes—and even if they did, it’s way to early to draw any conclusions about what that means going forward. The dead girl was apparently the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Qaeda militant who was killed by a drone strike in 2011, and critics have suggested that after Trump’s campaign rhetoric about killing the families of terrorists, her death could now inflame tensions in the Muslim world. But this seems like a situation where everyone should take a breath and wait for solid information.

Immediate Impact: 4. Potential Importance: 2.

An Obamacare Flip-Flop: Last week, the Trump administration decided to cancel an ad campaign designed to encourage the uninsured to sign up for Obamacare. But after a wave of criticism that this amounted to sabotage, the administration relented and let the ads keep running through the January 31 deadline. It was a responsible move, and it demonstrated that the Trump team does not always ignore its critics.

The big remaining question is what will happen to the program all those uninsured Americans were signing up for. Early in the week, a leaked audiotape of a House Republican retreat demonstrated that congressional leaders still have no idea how to repeal and replace Obamacare, or even how to repair it without fracturing their party. This is an area where the big story might be the lack of change.

Immediate Impact: 1. Potential Importance: 6.

He Said What? The Internet went berserk over Trump’s remarks commemorating Black History Month, in which he bragged about his victory, lambasted the media for producing fake news and, most memorably, declared that Frederick Douglass “is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.” It certainly sounded like Trump was unaware that Douglass is long dead. But Trump has a unique knack for commanding attention and changing the subject with his mouth. He created a new furor by putting on another Trumpian show at the National Prayer Breakfast, bragging about his “tremendous success on The Apprentice,” suggesting he would pray to improve the abysmal ratings of his replacement, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Trump continued his stream of over-the-top tweets, too, trashing undocumented immigrants, the media and the Democratic Party.

It must be said that this isn’t normal. And sure, there’s something unsettling about a president who was elected with virtually no black votes revealing such obvious disinterest in the historic contributions of black Americans—especially when he seems eager to advance voting restrictions that are anathema to the black community, and when his administration is reportedly considering a move that would reduce scrutiny of white supremacist groups to focus more attention on Islamic terrorism.

But generally, the serious stuff Trump does will matter more than the silly stuff Trump says. People ought to pace themselves when it comes to withdrawals from their outrage reserves. He’s changing the trajectory of the country so quickly that it’s hard to keep track of all he’s doing, so it can be tempting to wallow in the zaniness of his rapid-fire verbal gaffes. But sometimes you’ve got to say—as Trump actually said while addressing a pastor at the prayer breakfast—“to hell with it.”

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DHS secretary expects border wall to be built within 2 years
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President Trump is setting an ambitious timetable for the construction of his promised “big, beautiful border wall.” But aside from potential funding and political complications, geologists and law enforcement officials are pointing to what could be a bigger challenge: the terrain.

Citing everything from bedrock depth to soil chemistry, experts say building a wall spanning the 2,000-mile border will be much tougher than erecting one of Trump's trademark skyscrapers.

“Earth doesn’t forgive sloppy,” field geologist Mika McKinnon warned in a tweet following Trump’s directive last month to design and construct the wall.

The southern border between the U.S. and Mexico is made up of wetlands, grasslands, desert, rivers, mountains and forests – all of which could pose pitfalls for builders.

Swaths of the area also feature a thick layer of loose sediment – like dirt, sand and soil – on top. Some spots are packed with hydrophilic clay soil, which swells, moves and could destroy the foundation.

“In some places the bedrock will be too deep – you’ll never be able to reach the bedrock in an affordable fashion,” McKinnon told Smithsonian Magazine.

McKinnon says in order to make sure the wall itself doesn’t topple, builders need to survey the land first.

Trump in his executive order called for a study to be completed within 180 days that looks at, among other things, "all geophysical and topographical aspects of the southern border."

Such planning could entail assembling a team of scientists to test everything from clay particles to loose silt. The Trump administration continues to express confidence it can get the job done -- and quickly.

Homeland Security Secretary Gen. John F. Kelly told Fox News he wants the wall finished in two years.

The timeline Kelly gave Fox News is different than one laid out in a U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report obtained by Reuters last week. In it, Trump’s “wall” actually would be a series of fences and walls potentially costing taxpayers twice what the president quoted on the campaign trail. The report put the figure at $21.6 billion – higher than the $12 billion Trump regularly cites. Trump later tweeted that once he gets involved in negotiations, "price will come WAY DOWN!"

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I am reading that the great border WALL will cost more than the government originally thought, but I have not gotten involved in the.....
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Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump

...design or negotiations yet. When I do, just like with the F-35 FighterJet or the Air Force One Program, price will come WAY DOWN!
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The report also said the wall would take longer to build.

It lays out three phases of construction covering more than 1,250 miles by the end of 2020. With 654 miles of the border with Mexico already fortified, the barrier would extend almost the length of the entire border.

The president’s vow to build a wall – and make Mexico pay for it – was a concept first introduced on the campaign trail. It gained momentum and support from like-minded immigration hawks, but drew denunciations from Democrats, immigrant activists and environmentalists.

In the Texas border city of Brownsville, Democratic Mayor Tony Martinez questioned the wall’s feasibility and purpose. He also believes the time frame the Trump administration is touting is “nearly impossible.”

Martinez accused the Trump administration of offering a quick fix in a difficult location that most Americans – and Washington lawmakers – know little about.

Allowances will need to be made in certain areas for flooding because the border crosses numerous floodplains. In New Mexico, engineers will have to carefully carve out areas near Big Bend National Park to keep in compliance with environmental regulations.

In some parts of California, they would have to build on sand dunes -- something that, while tricky, is doable.

To safely erect a wall in sand, geophysicists would have to conduct extensive seismic surveys to determine what lies beneath. Conducting such a survey would involve installing rows of 3D microphones that detect vibrations in the ground.

U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, whose district includes more than 800 miles of border, said it would be “impossible” to build a wall in many places and calls the wall “the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.”

“Each sector of the border faces unique geographical, cultural and technological challenges that would be best addressed with a flexible, sector-by-sector approach,” Hurd said in a written statement. “What you need in San Diego is very different from what you need in Eagle Pass, Texas.”

Trump supporter Jon Anfinsen, president of Local 2366 of the National Border Patrol Council in Del Rio, Texas, also has his concerns.

Anfinsen told Fox News that while some sectors can support a wall, his in Del Rio, Texas, is “too hilly to feasibly make a wall on its entire stretch of border.”

Anfinsen said most border agents are in favor of some sort of wall or fence but stresses “a wall alone won’t make the country safer.”

He suggested combining a fence, wall or barrier with new technology and adding manpower to patrol the patchy parts of the border.

The original border barrier was authorized under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 which was signed by former President George W. Bush. The legislation OK’d hundreds of miles of fencing along the Mexican border. Over the years, it’s been tweaked and in some areas hastily redrawn, cheating homeowners and businesses out of their own land.

When the border wall was first authorized, then-Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison pushed a measure that would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to decide what type of fence should go up in different areas – the reason why there are so many different types of border barriers in place today.

Trump Build a Wall | It's Going To Be YUGE

Thứ Năm, 16 tháng 2, 2017

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