leh-nerd skin-erd

I already acknowledged the need for security. I agree 100%, but let's not pretend your comments on your "Couch Potato to 5k" morning jog past BOs house was a reasonable counterpoint to the argument that physical barriers to entry and a reasonably secure border make sense. Even assuming the former prez had physical barriers out front, he's still behind reinforced walls and bomb resistant glass with Bill Gates level technology to keep him safe from harm. Bottom.line...hes got walls and they are damn good ones to boot. Conversely, the southern border would be improved substantially if the best plan our leaders came up with was to stack a few rows of Kleenex boxes 10 feet high. Somewhere between the Kleenex boxes and BO technology would be fine with me. I think walls are a part of that because walls are quite literally used....everywhere. Last thought on the safety issue. The president is rightly entitled to protection funded by the American people. On a national level, for the greater good, we all should recognize and support that. However, the tragic victimization of one not named bush/Clinton/Obama/Pelosi/schumer/Ryan at the hands of someone who entered the country illegally is no less tragic to the family than it would be if it happened in the family of the political ruling class. It would be no greater loss to see the name Chelsa Clinyon in the headlines rather than Molly Tibbets, though I'd bet you'd see a lot more political activity and handwringing afterwards. Molly Tibbets was disposable. Others are not. We know that because this problem has been going on for decades.

So, close like the secret service/technology/sniper/surveillance option. I understand your desire to push back on what you may see as the oversplification on the wall issue, but imo this is a fail on a massive level. BO and his family are protected by walls, technolgy, people beyond what any reasonable conservative would ever suggest at the border. I understand the need to protect these people and have never spent much time worrying about the enormous cost to do so. (Actually I wonder more about the hypocrisy of a guy telling me the planet is doomed if I buy an SUV polluting the planet like it's his personal carbon playground but that's an issue for another day). On a national level, providing security for people in this circle is of the utmost importance. However, all politics are local and the argument most people I know make is the border can be secured, reasonably but not without cost. It sure would be nice if our politicians cared even 10% as much about the people they serve as they do about the elite ruling class of American politics. Instead, they treat the victimized as disposable, collateral damage. Then again maybe im missing something and you were able to run up to the front lawn and buy some lemonade from one of the Obama girls when they were kids?

Hmm. Close like you could look in the living room windows, close like you were on the front porch collecting for UNICEF, or close like far enough away so that the secret service could use a few million dollars worth of technology to analyze any potential threat to the monarchy?

The Government Accounting Office reported that in 2009, there were 351,000 illegal immigrants incarcerated in fed/state/local facilities. It is commonly agreed that crime is undereported in the undocumented community, and again, that's just on this side of the border. In the US, we often export jobs and import crime. In addition, we can skip the competing narratives, but the cost borne by the taxpayer for this broken immigration system is massive. I'll do us both a favor and not link a study showing it's in the billions, you do us both a favor and don't bother citing a study where it's an economic windfall for the American taxpayer and we should double the number of folks here under the radar. "Open Borders" is no more the answer (logically) than is eliminating checkpoints at airports, the Washington monument, The Super Bowl or the White House. It simply leads to chaos, where folks like you and I discuss what's an acceptable level of violent crime and economic impact on the American taxpayer.

I didn't suggest your "certainly less than 5%" figure was anecdotal, I said your "they commit crimes at a lower rate than the native population" was anecdotal. And, it is, given that the article linked states: Empirical studies of immigrant criminality generally and that immigrants do not increase local crime rates and are less likely to cause crime than their native-born peers, and that na- gives are more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants.4 Note the reference to "immigrants", not non-citizen immigrants from earlier in the text: Estimates of the total criminal noncitizen population vary widely, from about 820,000 according to the Migra- tion Policy Institute to 1.9 million according to Immi- gration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but rarely is the number of those incarcerated estimated. Perhaps it's a typo, but for such a well-researched paper from a source you trust it seems you've misunderstood what the author was actually saying. Or, you were being mislead. We obviously view this issue differently, we won't be the first nor the last. My personal opinion is that a robust and well administered immigration policy is good for those who wish to emigrate, for citizens and the country. We don't have that now, and while virtually every politician has talked a good game about it, we still see hundreds of thousands of people entering the country illegally, and we're supposed to take solace that our leaders have kept the violent criminality down around 1.9million people, and those numbers are a guess at best.

You mentioned the statistic, not me. You said "almost certainly less than 5%", though 5% of what number you seem not to be willing to discuss. Then you mentioned the oft-repeated never cited anecdotal evidence that illegal immigrants "commit crime at a much lower rate than the native population". Of course, it's widely accepted that undocumented immigrants underreport crimes for a variety of reasons, and the population is impossible to gauge for obvious reasons, that statement sounds much more anecdotal than verifiable. Numbers range from 11-20million, putting your 5% number at 550,000-1,000,000 people here for "nefarious gain". Of courose, that's not counting those who will enter unlawfully in the future at a conservative 400k per year (20,000 nefarious types), nor the ongoing human tragedy on the other side of the border as people are taken advantage of, robbed, assaulted and murdered. Then again, maybe that number is a very comfortable "certainty less than 5%" as well.

I wasn't clear, I really was trying to get some feedback on what a victim of a violent crime (sexual assault, assault, armed robbery etc) or the family of a victim (homicide, vehicular manslaughter) committed by someone might consider an acceptable level of nefarious activity. For example, the family of a murder victim might think "Man, this is heartbreaking, but thankfully the murdered represents a very small percentage of the whole.". Not as a whole of the population of the US, but just those here illegally. 5% of what number?

Define "significant minority" from the perspective of the victim.

Have you run through the back yard? What's that like?

He is. That popular vote thing is trotted out like a high school cheer, still not quite getting that they could say he won a Betty Crocker Bake Off in Peoria in 1986 for as much as it matters. The interesting part is for all the popular vote wins he racked up, the people that mattered rejected his stale politics and voted DJT instead of BOs hand- selected heir apparent.

I don't know about that. Could be a bad decision, time will tell, but he's often been a couple steps ahead on issues. I'm thinking this is his call, and he'll live with the consequences. In the calm light of day, painting the dems as disinterested in protecting ordinary Americans (and those victimzed on the other side of the border) worked spectacularly well for him. I'll give him another month.

Liberal happiness is confusing. If the Bills win a Super Bowl, I'm worried you will celebrate by going on a multi-state killing spree.

Well, the world is all judgy to begin with, that's why we have laws that regulate behavior. Speaking only for me, your assumptions are flawed, but you're entitled to your visceral response just like everyone else. If you're a supporter of euthanasia in general, so be it. In my case, relieving the suffering of a person I would have given my life for would have been a blessing, but not including terminating their life. I also think you are being naive when assuming the law will be used only in situations similar to what you described, and that medical professionals are the end all and be all of integrity. Where there are rules to manipulate and money to be made, people will manipulate the rules to their advantage. It happens now with abortion, and it will happen again.

Carter Page. But what about his mute naive twin brother Mueller Page?

Sorry Crayola, it is as reasonable to be distrustful of members of the medical profession as it is to be suspicious of any other group in America. There is no reason to give them a pass. The problem I have is that people are people, and some people do things most sane people would not. My assumption is that you would not support the abortion of a child at 8.5 months because the vessel carrying said child was emotionally paralyzed over being furloughed for 36 days. My assumption is that there are doctors who would be willing to perform the abortion based on his/her personally held opinions about life, about medicine, and his/her ability to flourish financially. I only think that because of my own experience and the quick google search using the phrase "doctor arrested for overprescribing..." that yielded 153,000 results. When I changed the search to 'doctor arrested for killing patients' the results dropped below 130,000. When I went with 'mother arrested for killing children' the number dropped below 100,000. Of course, then there is this: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fetal-tissue-20171209-story.html First, do no harm. But once harm is done, for heaven's sake turns a profit.

My views on abortion have evolved over the years, but it's always struck me that most sane, reasonable people are pro-life at some point. The bigger question seemed to be "when does life really commence"? I guess that's been answered now...life begins at first light. Disgusting, pathetic and sad on a crimes against humanity level. Ironically, too, it's a man who signs this bill into law.

I thought I wrote this, but apparently it was you. Too bad, I thought I made some salient points. I'm not much on weighing in on draft selections once made, I figure you trust the coaches to pick the guys they want to roll with. I don't look back much, either, as I'm 100% convinced that Tom Brady going to Buffalo does not become, you know, but rather he ends up being the captain on the Maid of the Mist. I'm not saying being the captain in the Maid of the Mist is anything to be ashamed of, quite the contrary, but Tom Brady not in Buffalo is often thought of as, well, you know. My point is I appreciated your perspective as fan who followed him closely. I'm always going to pull for our guys as long as they are our guys, but it seems to me you described him to a T. I looked forward to watching him play because he gave a 100% every play. He showed poise at times, looked like a confused rookie on a bad offense at others, and yes, he missed some guys. When he showed promise though...holy crap that was fun. thanks for the write up the first time, and for remembering to remember to let us all know again.

That's why I don't go on Twitter, a bunch of morons calling a hat bigoted will just make a person dumber.

I saw an interview with the young man and Savhanna Guthrie today. He did quite well, obviously nervous, while she was just what you would expect a journalist for NBC to be. Lots of questions about feelings, questions about whether or not he should apologize to someone for standing where he was standing, and of course a question to a kid about the "smirk" after he was singled-out of a crowd by an activist looking to engage in conflict. She did ask if he felt he should have walked away, though not in the context of whether he should walk away after this activist approached him. The implication was he should relinquish he space on the sidewalk to someone else. No time for references by SG to Twitter cowards threatening him, or the Hollywood types calling for violence against him. When he mentioned threats against he and his family, no follow up questions. She's a dullard and a horrible interviewer.

Wha wha wha what? You're a self described liberal who just used just one color to draw a picture of who these kids are likely to be in the future*. You have a whole box of crayons and your going with one? I'm always amazed when a liberal lumps people together like that. So closed-minded! *magenta. You used magenta, the color of intolerance!

I don't like this ad. I've known many WW2 vets, including my father, and while I get what Barbasol is trying to do, I find it pretty tacky. Between the ping simulating the helmet, and the guy casually tossing a potato masher back toward the enemy like it's a newspaper that flew into a fox hole, its cheesey.

Look, as long as you didn't tell him "It's on like Donkey Kong!" I think you're fine. On the other hand is there a more liberal street than Massachusets?

Even the most altruistic among of us has a price point, I just wanted to get a gauge on yours. The open borders crowd is one extreme, I suppose on the right would be the close it all down crowd. The problem is that those of us in the middle carry the weight of both extremes. Personally, I'd be willing to pay a percentage of my income to help solve the problem, over and above the overly burdensome rate that I pay. The only caveat would be that there was a reasonable likelihood that the problem would be solved. I say that because in my world, my priorities are 1. My family 2. Everyone else (with a whole subset of folks in that group). Obviously, that is not going to happen, and the establishment types are perfectly winning to keep the status quo. The cool part for them is they already collect the tribute on a state, local and federal level. The way I see it, this is as good a line in the sand as any.

I was wondering about contrbutions in addition to the alternatives. Reading your earlier post, you implied the shutdown impacts you personally, but indicated "fortunately". Was that a typo, or is it a good time to be furloughed?

You are not alone in this suggestion. We Would you be willing to contribute more of your income/savings/retirment to solve the problem in a manner that is consistent with your values? And with that in mind, would you contribute a higher percentage knowing it was voluntary and others could opt out? Lets say a plan was put forth whereby like minded people could arbitrarily contribute an extra 10%, and forgo the tax deferred element on 401k or IRA contributions. Just wondering.