If We Build It, They'll Probably Still Come

[Warren]

Mar Lago is hiring more furriners.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/e ... WxRjwT45J/

Some of them, I assume, are good people.

[Ellie]

Cards Against Humanity, an irreverent card game company known for its attention-seeking pranks, says it bought land on the U.S.-Mexico border to block President Trump from building his wall.

The Chicago company said on its website that this was part of a holiday promotion, for which customers could contribute to the wall-blocking project with $15 purchases for surprise gift packages.

On Wednesday morning, just a few hours after the launching the program on Tuesday, Cards Against Humanity said it was sold out.

"Donald Trump is a preposterous golem who is afraid of Mexicans," said Cards Against Humanity on its web site. "He is so afraid that he wants to build a twenty-billion dollar wall that everyone knows will accomplish nothing. So we've purchased a plot of vacant land on the border and retained a law firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for the wall to get built."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/15/us/cards- ... index.html

Oh yes, I am so sure your stunt plot of vacant land is going to stave off eminent domain for more than six seconds. God, the way people are peeing themselves with delight about this on my Facebook feed, you'd think they personally slapped Trump across the face with a glove.

[lunchstealer]

It's cute how people think America respects property rights. It's even cuter how they think they don't cheer for it 99.99% of the time.

[thoreau]

Because if there's anyone who couldn't force people off their land for a stupid construction project, it's Trump. Right.

[Eric the .5b]

Oh yes, I am so sure your stunt plot of vacant land is going to stave off eminent domain for more than six seconds. God, the way people are peeing themselves with delight about this on my Facebook feed, you'd think they personally slapped Trump across the face with a glove.

I think they're more betting that he never actually starts getting the wall built.

But yeah, it's the same sort of mastubatory, slacktivist glee all those people posting "I Support [Other People, Far Away] Punching Nazis" macros months back were indulgently in.

[thoreau]

IIRC, the CEO of CAH is on Tumblr and responded to a rape accusation by talking about rape culture.

So, yeah. Makes sense that they'd engage in this sort of signaling.

[Eric the .5b]

IIRC, the CEO of CAH is on Tumblr and responded to a rape accusation by talking about rape culture.

Well, he did still explicitly deny that he raped her or ever had sex with her.

[thoreau]

IIRC, the CEO of CAH is on Tumblr and responded to a rape accusation by talking about rape culture.

Well, he did still explicitly deny that he raped her or ever had sex with her.

Yeah, but then he talked about how in a rape culture things can get confusing. So he put an asterisk over his denial, intentionally or not.

Honestly, I think his firm denial is probably legit. I just think he's the sort of guy who wants to be sure he's using that kind of language.

[Eric the .5b]

IIRC, the CEO of CAH is on Tumblr and responded to a rape accusation by talking about rape culture.

Well, he did still explicitly deny that he raped her or ever had sex with her.

Yeah, but then he talked about how in a rape culture things can get confusing. So he put an asterisk over his denial, intentionally or not.

Honestly, I think his firm denial is probably legit. I just think he's the sort of guy who wants to be sure he's using that kind of language.

You're saying he's one of those sons-of-bitches who throw disclaimers down when he says something on a subject he knows is touchy?

[dead_elvis]

Or, you know, maybe people are voting with their revealed preference. CPB, brought to you by a temp agency, what could go wrong?:

With a mandate from President Donald Trump to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border Protection awarded a $297 million contract to a private company to help recruit and hire the new agents and other workers.

The agency said that the contract was in response to its well-documented hiring woes. It said several factors, such as “changing generational values, the state-wide legalization of marijuana and a growing distrust of law enforcement” have made hiring more difficult.

In fact the agency said in the bid documents for the contract that it has to recruit 133 applicants to fill just a single Border Patrol agent position.
...
Congress requires a force of 21,370 agents, but a report recently said that as of May there were only 19,500 agents. Compounding the problem is retention: between 2013 and 2016 an average of 523 agents were hired, while 904 left.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/new ... story.html

[Jennifer]

OFFS.

Critics have been wary of that hiring goal, noting both its costs and that the last time the agency added to the force with hiring surge in the mid 2000s, hiring standards were lowered. That move likely contributed to a spike in corruption and misconduct cases that tarred the agency.

In response Congress required all new hires to pass lie detector tests, but the requirement contributed to the hiring shortfall.

Why not require hires to have their horoscopes drawn up and submit to tarot card readings while you're at it?

Not that I have any sympathy whatsoever for CBP -- they're almost as bad as the DEA these days, in terms of "Your mission is inherently evil" -- but that could set a bad precedent when hiring for agencies that are actually useful and non-evil.

[dead_elvis]

That is what makes this so stupid- there clearly is a limit on the number of qualified applicants willing to do the job, and lowering qualifications clearly causes problems. It's magical wishful thinking to think hiring a temp agency to do the hiring is going to change those facts.

[Jennifer]

"Before hiring decisions are made, applicants are required to drink a cup of coffee brewed old-school, which is then handed over to a trained parapsychologist who studies the pattern of the coffee grounds in the cup to determine the candidate's suitability for the job."

[Dangerman]

CAH should buy land where there is already a wall and try to tear it down.

[Warren]

CAH should buy land where there is already a wall and try to tear it down.

I think their idea is better. Tearing down an existing wall is undoubtedly a crime. That get's them arrested and then they're defendants in a criminal trial. Better to be plaintiffs in a civil trial.

[Dangerman]

No, their idea is dumb because there is already a wall.

[Mo]

CAH should buy land where there is already a wall and try to tear it down.

I think their idea is better. Tearing down an existing wall is undoubtedly a crime. That get's them arrested and then they're defendants in a criminal trial. Better to be plaintiffs in a civil trial.

Not if you own the land.

[Jennifer]

https://reason.com/blog/2017/12/13/a-st ... flies-shed

Trump's border wall will be bad for people and bad for property rights. It will also be bad for butterflies.

On Monday the North American Butterfly Association (NABA) filed a lawsuit in D.C. District Court alleging a pattern of intrusion and harassment by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials preparing for the construction of a border wall.

Federal personnel and contractors, the lawsuit claims, have entered and cleared land on NABA's privately owned 100-acre Butterfly Center in southern Texas without the association's permission, in violation of several statutes as well as the Fifth Amendment to U.S. Constitution.

"They've cleared vegetation that we wanted there that we placed there for butterflies. They stopped our employees from going on our private property," says NABA President Jeff Glassberg.

Future plans to build a wall along a levee that bisects the Butterfly Center—an area that NABA has spent $7 million turning into a wildlife refuge for some 235 species of butterflies—would make over two thirds of the property inaccessible to visitors or staff, the lawsuit claims.

"If you're an American citizen," Glassberg tells Reason, "you ought to be very concerned that the government can come on with no authorization and do whatever they want."

The trouble began on July 20, when Marianna Trevino-Wright—the Butterfly Center's executive director—came across a team of uninvited workers using chainsaws and heavy equipment to clear vegetation along a private road that is wholly on the center's property.

"I was like, 'Hi, what are y'all doing back here.' I mean was really that casual," says Trevino-Wright. "One of the guys with chainsaws said, 'We're clearing this land.' I said, 'You mean my land.'"

[Warren]

CAH should buy land where there is already a wall and try to tear it down.

I think their idea is better. Tearing down an existing wall is undoubtedly a crime. That get's them arrested and then they're defendants in a criminal trial. Better to be plaintiffs in a civil trial.

Not if you own the land.

I would be very surprised if it wasn't a crime to dismantle the bits of wall thus far built by the government. I would have thought they eminent domained the land, but it doesn't really matter. Going into court to prevent something from being erected is a better position to be in than going into court trying to undo something that already exists.

[Mo]

CAH should buy land where there is already a wall and try to tear it down.

I think their idea is better. Tearing down an existing wall is undoubtedly a crime. That get's them arrested and then they're defendants in a criminal trial. Better to be plaintiffs in a civil trial.

Not if you own the land.

I would be very surprised if it wasn't a crime to dismantle the bits of wall thus far built by the government. I would have thought they eminent domained the land, but it doesn't really matter. Going into court to prevent something from being erected is a better position to be in than going into court trying to undo something that already exists.

Depends on the easements and rights you get. If you end up buying the appropriate easements and land rights because someone is an idiot, then you can tear it down.

[Mo]

First it was, we're not anti-immigrant, we're anti breaking the law.
Then, we're not against legal immigrants, we just want to make sure we encourage more skilled immigrant
Now ....

[dhex]

what the fuck is the endgame for these numbnuts?

[Jennifer]

IIRC it was Voltaire who said the comfort of the rich requires a vast population of the poor.

Just yesterday, Paul Ryan said Americans need to make more babies to bulk of the workforce. (I guess letting in more immigrants isn't an option?) But of course, he opposes family leave and pretty much any other policy that would make it easier for non-rich people to have those babies Ryan wants to see.

[Highway]

what the fuck is the endgame for these numbnuts?

"Yay, no more of "those" people!"

Although that might be more of the desired result.

[Mo]

what the fuck is the endgame for these numbnuts?

"Yay, no more of "those" people!"

Although that might be more of the desired result.

No dial 1 for English (which doesn't really exist). No "Permancer sentados por favor."