L 440pm - Why would the feds have a problem securing the border of that reservation, are they not part of the US as far as their 'foreign policy' and our national security goes??

M 114pm - OK, you're again going after Trump with no connection as to whether walls work or not. But your "no one actually believes that walls don't work" is disputed by ALL of the Dem leadership, and ALL of the liberal talking heads doing their echo chamber bit on TV and radio. The direct quote "Walls don't work." is available from everyone starting with Pelosi and Schumer, going through the Hoyers and Waters, and continuing on down the line. The question is, why has the Democratic leadership joined together in perpetrating a huge and significant lie on the American public. Such lies to garner public support are material, and don't measure up to the Trump claims of this or that number being off. Yes, the Israeli experience ($2M/mi) substantiates my own more conservative $3M/mi. But neither includes the cost of additional technologies and ongoing staffing used to deliver the low porosity of such borders. For example, I would also include an array of buried geo-phones on our side of 'the wall' with automated processing to detect and localize the inevitable tunneling efforts. Of course, there will be additional sensor, localization, and command/control systems brought to bear to bring our border up to Israeli porosity standards, but, say, 1,500 miles at $3M/mi will still knock hell out of $4.5B without all the additional stuff. My own back of the envelope calcs come to about $7B for the fixed infrastructure and supporting systems, and somewhere in the $1-2B/yr cost of staffing, operations, and infrastructure systems maintenance/upgrade. Compared to the reported dollar and cultural costs of a porous border like our current one, this cost is cheap. And if its success deters additional migrants, criminals, and narcotics, then the human misery saved will itself be worth it to all concerned (including Mexico). Anyway, that's my elevator speech to describe the way people like me and with my kind of experience with these systems think and present their case. Thanks for getting down to some details.

M 1135am - It's hard to believe that this is the best you can do to counter the 'walls work' thesis or L's wall apologetics. But do give it a try. Please cite some data that substantiate the thesis you and Nancy promote. Neither of you have provided one iota of substantive evidence to support your strong assertions. To most people, the assertion that 'walls don't work' is completely equivalent to 'the earth is flat', because the evidence to contrary, as pointed out here, is overwhelming and available to all on a daily basis.

ToddJ brings up an interesting point, whether you agree with his specifics or not. According to ample liberal media (print, broadcast, blogs, …) there definitely are ‘holidays’ – secular and religious – that are distinctly favored asymmetrically depending on your ideology. Googling the topic provides ample evidence. Conservatives, for example, are more prone to observe religious, patriotic, and historical (traditional) holidays. And liberals are obviously more observant of the socio-political holidays such those celebrating labor, ethnic identities, Cesar Chavez, MLK, May Day, Cinco de Mayo, Labor Day, and Indigenous People’s Day (instead of Columbus Day). Even a semi-religious (semi-secular?) holiday like Thanksgiving is now beginning to be eschewed by the Left because of its Pilgrim heritage. Christmas has long been dunned by the secular humanist Left. And from years’ long observances of events like 4th July, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out the political affiliation of the residences and businesses that fly flags, buntings, …, and who attends the convocations to observe the holidays. Parades and fireworks are more iffy to argue since they provide entertainment and expression (e.g. political party and activist floats) for people of all persuasions. But attend, say, a Veterans Day convocation, and you’ll have trouble finding a liberal save some old codger in his American Legion cap who served overseas in the long distant past and is now a liberal. Bottom line, to argue that the Right and Left observe all of our holidays with equal enthusiasm, seems to me, as something people do who haven’t been paying attention or serve another agenda. Just a thought.

PaulE 1118am - Paul, how do you assess Salon as a persuasive leftwing media organ? Do people on your side take them seriously, for example, on making such a call for a general strike?

BrandonB 1002am - I'm slowly starting a policy of removing topic-irrelevant comments from my commentaries. I removed several from this comment stream, and the exchange between you and ToddJ on Trump was judged not germane here. But please feel free to include all of such corrective dialogues in the current sandbox. (Note that I left your 1107pm that launched the sidetrack exchange.)

MaryW 152pm - Well, the hope is that such repeatable cost will be avoided by building barriers and supporting technology for securing borders. Bottom line - walls, fences, and other barrier infrastructures are always much cheaper than positioning humans on such boundaries. That's why they continue to be profitably used from ancient times to the present day.

BillT 1111am - Good find Mr Tozer. Unfortunately for our liberal readers, such a piece from elsewhere fits snugly under their enormous blindspot; they only see such sentiments as arising from a sprinkling misbegotten rightwing blogs like RR.

BrandonB 904pm - You are hopeless. You probably won't do the country a favor and stay out of the voting booth.

BrandonB 918pm - had you bothered to check, then you'd have discovered "where an old model of border barrier rises about 12 feet from the sandy ground. The stretched agency only had three agents patrolling that 26-mile-long section of the border." ABC News. Now let's see if you can draw some cogent conclusions from this about increasing border security.

MaryW 439pm - It appears that you want to go beyond what Dr Bach recommends. He just thinks MJ should be regulated as are "alcohol and tobacco". You want to increase that to include the much more draconian regs applied to cocaine and opioids. Whoulda thought?!

I do think this forum is more than a bit difficult for Mr Brandon. Does he even see the need to identify the evidence for Pelosi's assertion that border barriers are "ineffective"??

BrandonB 418pm - It sure does. Do you even understand how I use it, and whatever does that have to do with racism? Again, just because you say it does? Mike Thornton, flaming liberal and former KVMR news director, correctly identified my use of 'raghead' - You use "raghead" as a way to dehumanize and entire group of people, in order to make it easier to hate them and therefore kill them. https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2011/09/of-ragheads-and-regressives.html For example, here's a commentary of which you and yours have demonstrated no understanding since it was posted nine years ago. https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2010/02/of-ragheads-and-racism.html

Note in the discussion of 'racism' and its assignation to "ultra conservative ideology", none of the discussants touch any definitions or citations that would give even a smidgen of support and substance to their accusations. It is so, simply because they say it is so.

What the wall/fence/... criticizers miss is that even if a tunnel is dug (or some other method of breaching is accomplished), overwhelmingly such infrastructures still reduce the border's porosity and reduce the need and exposure of human border patrol agents.

M 1041am - Actually, historians divide our revolutionary population into thirds - those who were patriots, those loyal to the Crown, and those who really didn't give a crap who won. And of the patriots about 10% were 'in the field' (your 3%). Historically this is not an unusual percentage of war fighters in a population. During WW2 out of a 140M population about 16M "served" in our military at one time or another, and of that considerably fewer than 4M "fought" or saw combat (the "tip of the spear"). But your point is made.

BrandonB 902am - My "mob"??! Really, are you now also part of my "mob", or "Circle of Jerks", or ...? Try to find the answer to why RR has as many leftwing as rightwing commenters debating on these pages. There must be something unique and attracting about this forum that allows a breadth of opinion which for the Left is breathtaking, pearl-clutching, and should be verboten (and will be when their fundamental transformation is complete). Yes, there are also some loonies on the Right for whom logic is optional, no one here claimed otherwise - but we do keep score on that count, and, hands down, you guys are winning ;-)

Sociologists and historians agree that a radicalized 5% share of a population is sufficient to destabilize the other 95% within a political jurisdictions such as nation-states. That's a threshold to keep in mind as we read the news and keep up with events.

Re l's (actually L's) 848pm - Could it be that none of you folks understood L's comment??? He was actually drawing a plausible conclusion from M's critique of capitalism, and asked a begged question about the self-selection of "the brown and black people" with regard to economic sustainability. Can any of you worthies point to what was racist and/or "race baiting" about that question? BTW, Mr McClean should probably withdraw from this exercise since he continues to display his ill-read past - here he again demonstrates that he hasn't a clue about the definition of Nazi or Nazism. For him, like most progressives, a person who doesn't share his beliefs is simply a Nazi - period, end of story.

M 502pm - pay attention Mr M, they are already here and have been for some time.

M 459pm - I am sure that you have given the same advice to the nation's leading newspapers, magazines, broadcast media outlets, and weblogs which have and continue to extensively cover and comment on AOC's intent to introduce her bill in the House Finance Committee "under the leadership of Rep Maxine Waters". Again, you seem to only hear of these things on RR.

M 357pm - You're not paying attention again Mr M. It's your own darling AOC who has made the proposal to pay for her "Green New Deal", and presumably has additional details. Again, a need to broaden your reading horizons.

RobertC 1204pm - I have given references for the presented facts that can be rebutted in detail, which you apparently cannot do and so continue with attaching unfounded labels to what I have observed and cited - it would be refreshing for you to try the alternative approach were one available to you. "climate denier"?? And clearly you have no real idea about what I have written in these pages concerning climate. Perhaps my expressed position on the matter is not accessible to you. Can you define 'climate denier' for us? But in all fairness, you are more than clear about your own socio-political sentiments with your "In short, it was spawned from the same old nineteenth century thinking that allowed the current broken capitalistic economic system to flourish and decimate the planet." Thank you for that.