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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2019 12:09 am
by williatw
paperburn1 wrote: Right now in the internet age we have the collective sum of knowledge of the known universe at are fingertips and we use it look at cat pictures and argue with strangers - unknown :D

Probably for the first time in human history, for good and for bad...the "plebes" (us) get to gain access to information unfiltered by our master's pet main stream media a fact that displeases said masters' to no end.

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 7:44 am
by williatw
Who's who of the Trump-Russia collusion collapse red carpet

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman’s report that there was no collusion — nearly one year after the House committee had found the same — and as rumors swirl that the Mueller probe is nearing its anti-climactic conclusion, which rockstar reporters and pundit prima donnas can we expect to see on the red carpet?

We are in the midst of award show season, and the Academy is still counting the votes… If only we knew who might win for the “Best Trump-Russia Meltdown” and “Wildest Don Jr. Conspiracy Theory.” There are certainly a number of celebrity media personalities in the mix for such nominations, stemming from their star turns and breathless reports on a potential Trump-Russia scandal.

In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman’s report that there was no collusion — nearly one year after the House committee had found the same — and as rumors swirl that the Mueller probe is nearing its anti-climactic conclusion, which rockstar reporters and pundit prima donnas can we expect to see on the red carpet?

Dozens staked their reputation and credibility on the theory that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 election. Expect their upcoming performances to feature Oscar-worthy acts of goalpost moving and pivoting from past comments.

Here’s a list of contenders:

Keith Olbermann: Always stylish, which perhaps makes it fitting that Keith was hosting GQ magazine’s web series called The Resistance (after being relegated to the web from cable TV) when he boldly declared back in 2017, “Case Closed. Collusion Has Been Proven.” Olbermann did not stop as the evidence dissipated; my amateur count shows shows more than half of the 147 episodes of season 2 of The Resistance focused on some combination of Trump, Russia and Mueller.

Chris Hayes: The bespectacled MSNBC anchor has gone “All in” on Russia Collusion, routinely allowing guests to go unchallenged in making wildly absurd claims. For example, recall the tough line of journalistic inquiry when NY Mag’s Jonathan Chait asserted on his show that Trump may have been a Russian asset since 1987. Moreover, like all celebs he hit the late night circuit, telling Steven Colbert he was convinced of collusion, citing Occam’s Razor as proof.

Ana Navarro: CNN’s go-to Republican when it comes to supporting Democrats is not often noted for her Trump-Russia peddling. Her greatest hits album is more of the “Trump is a racist” genre. Yet her award stems from her recurring primetime role opposite Steve Cortes in which one week she fear mongers over the “breadth and scope” of the President’s Russia conspiracy, and in the next she arrogantly files her nails during the televised debate. What style! What class!

Seth Abramson: This professor and pundit literally wrote the book on the “Proof of Collusion.” If we are smart enough to buy his bestseller, the promo explains, we’ll learn “how a U.S. president compromised American foreign policy in exchange for financial gain and covert election assistance.” Perhaps it’s a shame that the Senate and House Intelligence Committees didn’t get advance copies to help map out their case.

Carl Bernstein: Despite his Nixon-era compatriot Bob Woodward finding “no collusion” in his two years of investigating, Carl Bernstein, long gracing cable news screens with his Trump-Russia theorizing, recently declared that Mueller has the President “cornered,” and “knows everything about Russia.” This is no change from two years ago, when he surmised that the Trump-Russia conspiracy could be “more dangerous than Watergate.”

Rachel Maddow: MSNBC’s most popular anchor has figured out how to turn the Trump-Russia theory into ratings gold, wowing viewers on both sides of the aisle. She has ventured into the fantasy genre with wildly fanciful tales: of Trump receiving his talking points from the Kremlin; that peace with North Korea is really to benefit Putin; that Tillerson was a Russian plant; and a provably incorrect theory that the White House deceptively edited Trump’s transcript and video with the Russian president.

Cenk Ugury: The host of The Young Turks is hip, progressive, and fresh, and he certainly was a trendsetter in the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory world, being one of the first to come out publicly to assert the President’s guilt. In March of 2017, he claimed Trump “did a deal” with Russia in exchange for cash, and that he “might not last six months.” Well, twelve months passed, then eighteen, and now we are nearly two years since that declaration, and not only is Trump still President, but Cenk is still running Russian collusion reruns.



https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house ... red-carpet

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 8:40 pm
by Diogenes
Posted by someone calling themselves "Bob" at this website.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/322540/#respond


It is a pretty good synopsis of what happened.




Watergate x 1000:
1. Hillary ran a pay-for-play scheme at State, to line her pockets in exchange for access to State.
2. The Mueller/Comey FBI covered this up.
3. The Bengazi investigation discovered Hillary's secret email system, used to facilitate the pay-for-play. When her emails were subpoenad Hillary and Mills and Abedin deleted over 30,000 emails using "Bleach Bit." When questioned about her secret harddrives being wiped, she looked at America and said, with a wry smile, "You mean like wiped with a cloth?"
4. Comey's FBI gave immunity agreements to all of Hillary's cohorts, protecting them from criminal liability. Comey allowed them to destroy cellphones, harddrives, and anything else they wanted.
5. Comey's FBI pre-wrote Hillary's exoneration letter, months before scores of witnesses and 'ol Hillary were interviewed. Strock wrote the draft that replaced "recklessness" with "carelessness"... allowing Comey to claim her actions with the email system didn't violate federal law.
6. Hillary was interviewed by Comey's FBI, not under oath, not recorded, and with her cohorts present -- all in blatant violation of FBI protocols.
7. AG Lynch met with Bill Clinton in a secret meeting in Lynch's plane … to discuss (they say) grandchildren. Lynch later expressed "regret" over this meeting. The FBI tried to track down who leaked news of the meeting, clearly in a panic that it was discovered.
8. In July of 2016 Comey gave his Hillary exoneration speech, saying that "no reasonable prosecutor" would charge her … despite a mountain of evidence. We later learn that Comey, Strock, McCabe, Page, and the high eschelon of the FBI HATED Trump, and they expressed that they were going to do everything they could to stop him from being president.
8. In Aug of 2016 the FBI began its Russia investigation, using FISA warrants based on the Clinton Steele Dossier. FBI agents, including Comey and Rosenstein, signed off on the veracity of these applications, knowing that the info came from the Hillary camp. This info was not told to the FISA court.
9. Trump was elected, despite a vast array of government forces working against him. Obama's AG and FBI then set about to frame Trump with a "Russian collusion" narrative, which has lasted until this day.
10. In mid 2017 Trump fires Comey. Rosenstein asks Trump to appoint Comey buddy Mueller to be head of the FBI -- Trump refuses. The very next day Rosenstein gets revenge...he appoints Mueller (who is, objectively, in this case, the MOST conflicted lawyer in the world) as special prosecutor to "investigate" Trump. Trump's presidency and anything we elected to do has now been hampered and hindered for 2 years because of Mueller. All as planned.

The level of treachery by the highest officials in our nation is simply astounding. These crooks did all they could to protect Hillary, and frame Trump. They all should be hanging by their necks in the public square for what they did, what they tried to do, and for the damage they did to our country. But they are stiil free, still running the same scam....covering their tracks, protecting the rats.
Again … Watergate x 1000. Where is the justice?

We Normals are seething....does the GOP have any understanding of this? Does the GOP have any clue about how these events have eroded our confidence in everyone in DC, including the GOP?

The DOJ is a cesspit of leakers, liars, and partisan hacks who will protect the status quo at all costs. Listening to the smug McCabe on 60 minutes made me want to puke. And he was #2 at the FBI....second in command for Christ's sake, not some low level peon.


...

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2019 9:18 pm
by williatw
Diogenes wrote:The level of treachery by the highest officials in our nation is simply astounding. These crooks did all they could to protect Hillary, and frame Trump. They all should be hanging by their necks in the public square for what they did, what they tried to do, and for the damage they did to our country. But they are stiil free, still running the same scam....covering their tracks, protecting the rats.
Again … Watergate x 1000. Where is the justice?

Good post as usual Diogenes thanks. The key would also be the statements that Rosenstein made to Congress; to wit, that the remarks made about invoking the 25th Amendment were not “serious” and made in jest. This of course contradicts the statements made by McCabe in his 60 minutes interview and also the FBI legal counsel who said they were very serious. This would be actual obstruction of justice by Rosenstein; making false statements to Congress and further obstructing by not testifying and handing over requested documents in a timely manner (un-redacted). Squeeze that weasel Rosenstein hard enough and he will squeal like a pig on the other conspirators. Whether a plot to wear a wire to try to compromise the President and attempt to invoke the 25th is a stand alone crime itself I don’t know. But a pattern of deception and dissembling to Congress about it after the fact surely is.

More here:


Autopsy of a Dead Coup
The illegal effort to destroy the 2016 Trump campaign by Hillary Clinton campaign’s use of funds to create, disseminate among court media, and then salt among high Obama administration officials, a fabricated, opposition smear dossier failed.

So has the second special prosecutor phase of the coup to abort the Trump presidency failed. There are many elements to what in time likely will become recognized as the greatest scandal in American political history, marking the first occasion in which U.S. government bureaucrats sought to overturn an election and to remove a sitting U.S. president.

Preparing the Battlefield
No palace coup can take place without the perception of popular anger at a president.

The deep state is by nature cowardly. It does not move unless it feels it can disguise its subterranean efforts or that, if revealed, those efforts will be seen as popular and necessary—as expressed in tell-all book titles such as fired FBI Directors James Comey’s Higher Loyalty or in disgraced Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s psychodramatic The Threat.

In candidate and President Trump’s case that prepping of the battlefield translated into a coordinated effort among the media, political progressives and celebrities to so demonize Trump that his imminent removal likely would appear a relief to the people. Anything was justified that led to that end.

All through the 2016 campaign and during the first two years of the Trump presidency the media’s treatment, according to liberal adjudicators of press coverage, ran about 90 percent negative toward Trump—a landmark bias that continues today.

Journalists themselves consulted with the Clinton campaign to coordinate attacks. From the Wikileaks trove, journalistic grandees such as John Harwood, Mark Leibovich, Dana Milbank, and Glenn Thrush often communicated (and even post factum were unapologetic about doing so) with John Podesta’s staff to construct various anti-Trump themes and have the Clinton campaign review or even audit them in advance.

Some contract “journalists” apparently were paid directly by Fusion GPS—created by former reporters Glen Simpson of the Wall Street Journal and Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post—to spread lurid stories from the dossier. Others more refined like Christiane Amanpour and James Rutenberg had argued for a new journalistic ethos that partisan coverage was certainly justified in the age of Trump, given his assumed existential threat to The Truth. Or as Rutenberg put it in 2016: “If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, non-opinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable. But the question that everyone is grappling with is: Do normal standards apply? And if they don’t, what should take their place?”


I suppose Rutenberg never considered that half the country might have considered the Hillary Clinton presidency “potentially dangerous,” and yet did not expect the evening news, in 90 percent of its coverage, to reflect such suspicions.

The Democratic National Committee’s appendages often helped to massage CNN news coverage—such as Donna Brazile’s primary debate tip-off to the Clinton campaign or CNN’s consultation with the DNC about forming talking points for a scheduled Trump interview.

So-called “bombshell,” “watershed,” “turning-point,” and “walls closing in” fake news aired in 24-hour news bulletin cycles. The media went from fabrications about Trump’s supposed removal of the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Oval Office, to the mythologies in the Steele dossier, to lies about the Trump Tower meeting, to assurances that Michael Cohen would testify to Trump’s suborning perjury, and on and on.

CNN soon proved that it is no longer a news organization at all—as reporters like Gloria Borger, Chris Cuomo, Eric Lichtblau, Manu Raju, Brian Rokus, Jake Tapper, Jeff Zeleny, and teams such as Jim Sciutto, Carl Bernstein, and Marshall Cohen as well as Thomas Frank, and Lex Harris all trafficked in false rumors and unproven gossip detrimental to Trump, while hosts and guest hosts such as Reza Aslan, the late Anthony Bourdain, and Anderson Cooper stooped to obscenity and grossness to attack Trump.

Both politicos and celebrities tried to drive Trump’s numbers down to facilitate some sort of popular ratification for his removal. Hollywood and the coastal corridor punditry exhausted public expressions of assassinating or injuring the president, as the likes of Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp, Robert de Niro, Peter Fonda, Kathy Griffin, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, and a host of others vied rhetorically to slice apart, shoot, beat up, cage, behead, and blow up the president.

Left wing social media and mainstream journalism spread sensational lies about supposed maniacal Trump supporters in MAGA hats. They constructed fantasies that veritable white racists were now liberated to run amuck insulting and beating up people of color as they taunted the poor and victimized minorities with vicious Trump sloganeering—even as the Covington farce and now the even more embarrassing Jussie Smollett charade evaporated without apologies from the media and progressive merchants of such hate.

At the same time, liberal attorneys, foundations, Democratic politicians, and progressive activists variously sued to overturn the election on false charges of rigged voting machines. They sought to subvert the Electoral College. They introduced articles of impeachment. They sued to remove Trump under the Emoluments Clause. They attempted to invoke the 25th Amendment. And they even resurrected the ossified Logan Act—before focusing on the appointment of a special counsel to discredit the Trump presidency. Waiting for the 2020 election was seen as too quaint.

Weaponizing the Deep State
During the 2016 election, the Obama Department of Justice warped the Clinton email scandal investigation, from Bill Clinton’s secret meeting on an airport tarmac with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to unethical immunity given to the unveracious Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, to James Comey’s convoluted predetermined treatment of “likely winner” Clinton, and to DOJ’s Bruce Ohr’s flagrant conflict of interests in relation to Fusion GPS.

About a dozen FBI and DOJ grandees have now resigned, retired, been fired, or reassigned for unethical and likely illegal behavior—and yet have not faced criminal indictments. The reputation of the FBI as venerable agency is all but wrecked. Its administrators variously have libeled the Trump voters, expressed hatred for Trump, talked of “insurance policies” in ending the Trump candidacy, and inserted informants into the Trump campaign.

The former Obama directors of the CIA and National Intelligence, with security clearances intact, hit the television airways as paid “consultants” and almost daily accused the sitting president of Russian collusion and treason—without cross-examination or notice that both previously had lied under oath to Congress (and did so without subsequent legal exposure), and both were likely knee-deep in the dissemination of the Steele dossier among Obama administration officials.

John Brennan’s CIA likely helped to spread the Fusion GPS dossier among elected and administrative state officials. Some in the NSC in massive and unprecedented fashion requested the unmasking of surveilled names of Trump subordinates, and then illegally leaked them to the press.

The FISA courts, fairly or not, are now mostly discredited, given they either were willingly or naively hoodwinked by FBI and DOJ officials who submitted as chief evidence for surveillance on American citizens, an unverified dossier—without disclosure that the bought campaign hit-piece was paid for by Hillary Clinton, authored by a discredited has-been British agent, relied on murky purchased Russian sources, and used in circular fashion to seed news accounts of supposed Trump misbehavior.

The Mueller Investigation
The Crown Jewel in the coup was the appointment of special counsel Robert Muller to discover supposed 2016 Trump-Russian election collusion. Never has any special investigation been so ill-starred from its conception.

Mueller’s appointment was a result of his own friend James Comey’s bitter stunt of releasing secret, confidential and even classified memos of presidential conversations. Acting DOJ Attorney Rod Rosenstein appointed a former colleague Mueller—although as a veteran himself of the Clinton email scandal investigations and the FISA fraudulent writ requests, Rosenstein was far more conflicted than was the recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Mueller then packed his investigative team with lots of Clinton donors and partisans, some of whom had legally represented Clinton subordinates and even the Clinton Foundation or voiced support for anti-Trump movements.

Mueller himself and Andrew Weissmann have had a long record of investigatory and prosecutorial overreach that had on occasion resulted in government liability and court mandated federal restitution. In such polarized times, neither should have involved in such an investigation. Two subordinate FBI investigators were caught earlier on conducting an affair over their FBI-issued cell phones, and during the election cycle they slurred the object of their subsequent investigation, ridiculed Trump voters, and bragged that Trump would never be elected. Mueller later staggered, and then hid for weeks the reasons for, their respective firings.

The team soon discovered there was no Trump-Russian 2016 election collusion—and yet went ahead to leverage Trump campaign subordinates on process crimes in hopes of finding some culpability in Trump’s past 50-year business, legal, and tax records. The point was not to find who colluded with whom (if it had been, then Hillary Clinton would be now indicted for illegally hiring with campaign funds a foreign national to buy foreign fabrications to discredit her opponent), but to find the proper mechanism to destroy the presumed guilty Donald Trump.

The Mueller probe has now failed in that gambit of proving “collusion” (as even progressive investigative reporters and some FBI investigators had predicted), but succeeded brilliantly in two ways.

The “counterintelligence” investigation subverted two years of the Trump presidency by constant leaks that Trump soon would be indicted, jailed, disgraced, or impeached. As a result, Trump’s stellar economic and foreign policy record would never earn fifty percent of public support.

Second, Mueller’s preemptive attacks offered an effective offensive defense for the likely felonious behavior of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, and a host of others. While the Mueller lawyers threatened to destroy the lives of bit players like Jerome Corsi, George Papadopoulos, and Roger Stone, they de facto provided exemption to a host of the Washington hierarchy who had lied under oath, obstructed justice, illegally leaked to the press, unmasked and leaked names of surveilled Americans, and misled federal courts under the guise of a “higher loyalty” to the cause of destroying Donald J. Trump.

The Palace Coup
All of the above came to a head with the firing of the chronic leaker FBI Director James Comey (who would lie to the president about his not being a target of an FBI investigation, lie to House investigatory committees by pleading amnesia and ignorance on 245 occasions, and repeatedly lie to his own FBI bureaucrats).

In May 2017, acting FBI director Andrew McCabe took over from the fired Comey. His candidate wife recently had been a recipient of huge Clinton-related campaign PAC donations shortly before he began investigating the Clinton email scandal. McCabe would soon be cited by the Inspector General for lying to federal investigators on numerous occasions—cynically stooping even to lie to his own New York FBI subordinates to invest scarce resources to hunt for their own nonexistent leaks as a mechanism for disguising his own quite real and illegal leaking.

The newly promoted McCabe apparently felt that it was his moment to become famous for taking out a now President Trump. Thus, he assembled a FBI and DOJ cadre to open a counterintelligence investigation of the sitting president on no other grounds but the fumes of an evaporating Clinton opposition dossier and perceived anger among the FBI that their director had just been fired. In addition, apparently now posing as Andrew McCabe, MD, he informally head counted how many of Trump’s own cabinet members could be convinced by McCabe’s own apparent medical expertise to help remove the president on grounds of physical and mental incapacity under the 25th Amendment. This was an attempted, albeit pathetic, coup against an elected president and the first really in the history of the United States.

At one point, McCabe claims that the acting Attorney General of the United States Rod Rosenstein volunteered to wear a wire to entrap his boss President Trump—in the manner of Trump’s own attorney Michael Cohen’s entrapment of Trump, in the manner of James Comey taking entrapment notes on confidential Trump one-on-one meetings and leaking them to the press, and in the manner of the Department of Justice surveilling Trump subordinates through FISA and other court authorizations.

McCabe was iconic of an utterly corrupt FBI Washington hierarchy, which we now know from the behavior of its disgraced and departed leadership. They posed as patriotic scouts, but in reality proved themselves arrogant, smug, and incompetent. They harbored such a sense of superiority that they were convinced they could act outside the law in reifying an “insurance policy” that would end the Trump presidency.

The thinking of the conspirators initially had been predicated on three assumptions thematic during this three-year long government effort to destroy Trump:

One, during 2016, Hillary Clinton would certainly win the election and FBI and DOJ unethical and illegal behavior would be forgotten if not rewarded, given the Clintons’ own signature transgressions and proven indifference to the law;

Two, Trump was so controversial and the fabricated dossier was so vile and salacious, that seeded rumors of Trump’s faked perversity gave them de facto exemptions to do whatever they damned pleased;

Three, Trump’s low polls, his controversial reset of American policy, and the general contempt in which he was held by the bipartisan coastal elite, celebrities, and the deep state, meant that even illegal means to continue the campaign-era effort to destroy Trump and now abort his presidency were felt to be moral and heroic acts without legal consequences, and the media would see the conspirators as heroes.

In sum, the Left and the administrative state, in concert with the media, after failing to stop the Trump campaign, regrouped. They ginned up a media-induced public hysteria, with the residue of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s illegal opposition research, and manipulated it to put in place a special counsel, stocked with partisans.

Then, not thugs in sunglasses and epaulettes, not oligarchs in private jets, not shaggy would-be Marxists, but sanctimonious arrogant bureaucrats in suits and ties used their government agencies to seek to overturn the 2016 election, abort a presidency, and subvert the U.S. Constitution. And they did all that and more on the premise that they were our moral superiors and had uniquely divine rights to destroy a presidency that they loathed.

Shame on all these failed conspirators and their abettors, and may these immoral people finally earn a long deserved legal and moral reckoning.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/17/auto ... dead-coup/

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:05 pm
by williatw
Opinion: Washington Secrets

1,954-mile ‘energy park’ would pay for border wall, create economic boom



by Paul Bedard March 08, 2019 06:36 AM

A new plan to undertake the largest infrastructure project in world history would build a 1,945-mile “energy park” that would pay for itself, deploy sophisticated security to the sometimes dangerous area and turn a largely deserted area into an economic engine.


The plan just released would also build on the cooperative relations between Washington and Mexico City to have both countries build the energy wall.

“Just like the transcontinental railroad transformed the United States in the 19th century, or the Interstate system transformed the 20th century, this would be a national infrastructure project for the 21st century,” said Luciano Castillo, Purdue University's Kenninger Professor of Renewable Energy and Power Systems.

Image


He heads the effort authored by 28 engineers and scientists, several of whom are members of the National Academy of Engineering. The school, led by Purdue President Mitch Daniels, a former White House budget director, is running the project.


“It would do for the southwest what the Tennessee Valley Authority has done for the southeast over the last several decades,” said Castillo.

Essentially, the plan would string a train of energy panels, wind turbines, national gas pipelines along the border bookended by desalination plants, creating what the experts said would be a highly protected energy industrial park.

And because the facilities need to be protected, it would bring in tight security.

Along with that, it would be an “economic driver economic driver, both in the construction of the facilities themselves and in the businesses that would be attracted to the region by cheap electricity,” said the experts.

What’s more, it could get an easy OK from President Trump who in private meetings has talked up such a plan and its potential for “beautiful structures.”

In the plan is a blueprint of the energy wall that includes areas where solar, wind and other projects would be installed.

“At first blush the idea seems too big, too aggressive, but consider the Roman aqueducts or the transcontinental railroads -- enormous undertakings that gave enormous benefits. The cost of providing basic, essential infrastructure to the border lands is tiny compared to the opportunities it creates,” said Ronald Adrian, Regents' professor at Arizona State University and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

“I view this project as a means of creating wealth by turning unused land of little value along the border into valuable land that has power, water access and ultimately agriculture, industry, jobs, workers and communities. With only a wall, you still have unused land of little value,” he added.

The project is also very green with its focus on solar. It also calls desalination plants on each border to pump water into the arid border area.

“Once you have water, you can have agriculture and manufacturing at levels this region has not seen before,” said Castillo. “Without this, over the next few decades the American Southwest is going to begin running out of water, and then you're going to see another border crisis -- but this one will be at the Canadian border where people will be rushing across to find water,” he added.

Martin Wosnik, director of the Center for Ocean Renewable Energy at the University of New Hampshire, also said he plan would help cut illegal immigration “The most effective way to stem migration, including illegal immigration, to the U.S. over the long term is to create local opportunities in the countries that people are leaving. This project provides such opportunities for the U.S.-Mexico border region,” he said.


https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wash ... nomic-boom

This to me seems like an idea too good to be allowed to happen; at least not with the current political arrangement in the House of Representatives. Of course that could change in 2020 (hopefully).

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:10 pm
by williatw
More:


What if a border wall could pay for itself?

Image
A bold new plan proposes that the United States and Mexico jointly build a 1,954-mile energy park along the border instead of a wall. The proposal, by 28 prominent U.S. scientists and engineers, says that the effort would bring abundant energy and water to the region while also providing border security and economic stability. (Purdue University photo/Jorge Castillo Quiñones
Building an energy corridor along the border instead of just a wall would be a 'giant leap for mankind,' bringing security and jobs to the region, says a Purdue University-led national consortium of engineers and scientists

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Instead of a wall, build a first-of-its-kind energy park that spans the 1,954 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico to bring energy, water, jobs and border security to the region.

That's the audacious plan put forward by a consortium of 28 prestigious engineers and scientists from across the nation who propose that the two nations work together on an enormous infrastructure project: a complex train of solar energy panels, wind turbines, natural gas pipelines, desalination facilities that together would create an industrial park along the border unlike anything found anywhere else in the world.

The facilities would provide the desired border security, the researchers say, because utility facilities and infrastructure must be well-protected. The connected energy parks would also be an economic driver, both in the construction of the facilities themselves and in the businesses that would be attracted to the region by cheap electricity and plentiful water resources. Comments from co-authors of the proposal to build an energy-water-security corridor are available here.

Luciano Castillo, Purdue University's Kenninger Professor of Renewable Energy and Power Systems, and lead of the consortium, says if enacted, the mega infrastructure project would have a historic positive effect for both nations.

"Just like the transcontinental railroad transformed the United States in the 19th century, or the Interstate system transformed the 20th century, this would be a national infrastructure project for the 21st century," Castillo says. "It would do for the Southwest what the Tennessee Valley Authority has done for the Southeast over the last several decades."

Ronald Adrian, Regent’s Professor at Arizona State University and a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering, says this proposal, although a huge undertaking, is worth serious study.

“At first blush the idea seems too big, too aggressive, but consider the Roman aqueducts or the transcontinental railroads — enormous undertakings that gave enormous benefits. The cost of providing basic, essential infrastructure to the border lands is tiny compared to the opportunities it creates,” he says. “I view this project as a means of creating wealth by turning unused land of little value along the border into valuable land that has power, water access and ultimately agriculture, industry, jobs, workers and communities. With only a wall, you still have unused land of little value.”

Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Regent's Professor at Arizona State University, says a cooperative effort between the United States and Mexico to address the issues of the border region would reinforce the cultural ties that have existed for hundreds of years.

"The USA-Mexico border is home to families with common bonds, large Spanglish-proficient communities, talented creative large pools of young people, intersecting cultural ties and more. These communities have faced day and night similar ecological, health, education, energy, water and security challenges," Castillo-Chavez says. "They know that solutions must address these challenges across both nations. There are no effective single-territory solutions."

The plan was first reported by Scientific American; the full proposal is available online.

Contributing to border security

The first question often raised about the proposal is about border security and, Castillo says, the energy parks would provide ample security.

"All utility plants, pipelines and other energy production facilities have security — as any infrastructure will have under any conditions,” he says. “In addition to physical security features, such as multiple levels of fencing, these pipelines and facilities would also have electronic sensors and drone surveillance. This would allow areas for wildlife to continue to migrate while alerting officials to anyone crossing the border illegally."

Adrian agrees: “The measures being undertaken to control the U.S.-Mexican border with a barrier ( the 'wall') are entirely compatible with a long bank of solar panels backed by a super pipe line — same land, similar construction issues, and the fact that each of these systems is a barrier to some degree.”

The idea of combining the border security wall or fence with solar energy panels isn't original — in fact, President Trump himself has floated the idea as one of many possibilities.

"This is a different kind of initiative that will solve many existing challenges while bringing people together," Castillo says. "It will bring energy, water and education to create more opportunities for the USA and Mexico on both sides."

Providing water resources

The southwestern United States is dry and prone to drought — two of the world's worst droughts in in the past 30 years have taken place there. Droughts, of course, limit or damage economic development and agriculture wherever they occur, and the chances of droughts in this region are expected to increase significantly in coming decades due to climate change.

California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona are currently in a drought categorized as severe to exceptional and are using up groundwater resources, according to research conducted at the University of Saskatchewan.

"Water conservation efforts are laudable, but they won't be enough to bring this area out of its crisis," Castillo says. "And they fall far short of a blueprint for growth and prosperity."

The proposal offers a plan to increase water resources in the region in two ways.

First, in the United States, nearly half of the water is used by fossil fuel and nuclear power plants used for cooling, and increasing the amount of wind and solar production of electricity would allow billions of gallons of water available for other resources.

Second, the proposed plan includes wind-powered desalination plants at each coast, which would then pump fresh water into the interior region.

"Now, once you have water, you can have agriculture and manufacturing at levels this region has not seen before," Castillo says. "Without this, over the next few decades the American Southwest is going to begin running out of water, and then you're going to see another border crisis — but this one will be at the Canadian border where people will be rushing across to find water."

Wealth of energy resources

Although the region has a scarcity of water, it's quite the opposite for energy-producing resources.

Oil and natural gas: Some of the largest deposits of oil and shale gas are located in Texas, New Mexico and Southern California. In fact, a U.S. Geological Survey assessment of untapped resources in southwest New Mexico and west Texas found just these resources alone represent an increase of 100 percent in oil reserves and a 65 percent in natural gas reserves.

Wind energy: Research conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that the strong winds at the Texas Gulf Coast and the Baja California regions are ideal for wind farms.

The proposal suggests that these wind farms be used to power desalination plants, and previous work done at Purdue University found this this could provide 2.3 million acre-feet of water per year, an amount equivalent, the proposal says, to satisfy the water needs for all of the manufacturing, mining and livestock needs of the state of Texas.

Solar energy: The sun is so intense in the border region that the Mexican state of Chihuahua has one of the highest solar radiation potentials in the world. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire and the Imperial College of London found that a line five solar panels wide along the border would produce as much energy as the hydroelectric power production along the border of the U.S. and Canada (which, of course, includes Niagara Falls).
The proposal notes that the energy corridor would enable load-shifting, in which electricity generated could be sent to the eastern half of the United States when demand is high and then to the western United States later in the day when the highest demand shifts to that region.

Private investment, environmental impact studies needed

The authors of the proposal note two final components would be needed to bring this plan to fruition: private funding and an educated work force, says Jay Gore, Purdue's Vincent P. Reilly Professor in Mechanical Engineering and director of the Energy Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.

"A project of this magnitude must be a private-public venture driven by free-market forces. It would require assuring border security first, industrial-scale infrastructure second, and an educated workforce, third. The private capital will flow to secure, infrastructure-ready and educated areas with great priority," Gore says. "Over the years, I have learned from some of the most distinguished experts, including Nobel laureates, that for an entrepreneurial economic boom to happen it requires the availability of secure land, energy, water and an educated workforce."

The proposal plans for at least three "energy security institute" campuses to be developed along the border where people from both nations can come to learn the skills needed to work in the wind energy, solar energy and natural gas industries.

"Universities within the four states, California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, should be convinced to establish partnerships with their Mexican counterparts across the border to establish curricula for workforce development at all levels to attract private investment by corporations and venture firms from around the world," Gore says.

Castillo says the vision of the energy and water park would be to attract many businesses on both sides of the border in a broad and lucrative economic zone.

"Instead of being a region of conflict, the border area could become the largest industrial park of its kind in the world," he says.

Carlos F. Coimbra, head, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (and affiliated Center for Energy Research) at the University of California, San Diego, says the project will need to consider all of its effects, including the environment.

"Environmental impact respects no borders, so it is important for the quality of life on both sides that there is substantial cooperation on all fronts, including border security, economic development, sustainable growth, educational partnerships, etc.," he says. "The American Southwest is still a development frontier, and we now know, better than ever, how to build sustainable communities that are well adapted to the semi-arid environment of the border that is rich in specific fauna and flora, but is also very sensitive to human impact."

This work work aligns with Purdue's Giant Leaps celebration, celebrating the global advancements in sustainability of life as part of Purdue’s 150th anniversary. Sustainability is one of the four themes of the yearlong celebration’s Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.



George and Wosnik (2019) estimated that a solar park of only five solar panels of 1-meter width (5.0 m/16 ft) along the entire border (3,200 km or 1,989 miles) can produce approximately 15.8 GWh/day.1 This energy production is on the same order of magnitude as the hydropower production along the US/Canada border, and approximately the same as that from a nuclear power plant. The estimated cost is $4.5 B installed (assuming a cost of $1.50/Watt); however, selling all energy produced with a return of investment of less than 10 years, while providing the means for instant feedback and surveillance capability throughout the entire region for both security and environmental purposes.



https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/release ... tself.html
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/release ... R-2019.pdf

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:03 pm
by paperburn1
This is dandelion fluff. sounds very good at first until you look at the hard logistics of building where there was no infrastructure in the first place. then you need users of that infrastructure distributed along that border. most of the southern border is wilderness, the reason we did not build a wall there in the first place. Just building a 4 lane highway along the border would cost 5 million a mile so a road down the border would cost 10 billion dollars and Trumps cost for the wall is 5 times that number , the math keeps getting worse and worse. now add all the additional infrastructure and we are in the trillions dollar ranges. payback has increased by a factor .

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 3:17 pm
by williatw
paperburn1 wrote:This is dandelion fluff. sounds very good at first until you look at the hard logistics of building where there was no infrastructure in the first place. then you need users of that infrastructure distributed along that border. most of the southern border is wilderness, the reason we did not build a wall there in the first place. Just building a 4 lane highway along the border would cost 5 million a mile so a road down the border would cost 10 billion dollars and Trumps cost for the wall is 5 times that number , the math keeps getting worse and worse. now add all the additional infrastructure and we are in the trillions dollar ranges. payback has increased by a factor .

This would be in place of Trump's wall; but using your figure of 50 Billion or so over ten years give or take is only 5 billion a year; a pittance in a multi-trillion dollar federal budget, even assuming the feds have to pay for all of it. The link mentions private sector investment as well as Mexican investment on the proposed joint project.

Also not counting the energy sales from exploiting the natural gas/oil in that area in addition to wind/solar:

Oil and natural gas: Some of the largest deposits of oil and shale gas are located in Texas, New Mexico and Southern California. In fact, a U.S. Geological Survey assessment of untapped resources in southwest New Mexico and west Texas found just these resources alone represent an increase of 100 percent in oil reserves and a 65 percent in natural gas reserves.
And of course the value of the water produced/sold by the proposed desalinating of sea water.

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 5:38 am
by choff
Could use the wall for electric power transmission, this would provide an added security enhancement. Might get the odd brownout from would be climbers.

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 1:17 am
by hanelyp
Will the desalination and water pumping be able to match the highly variable electrical production from solar and wind?

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 10:07 am
by williatw
hanelyp wrote:Will the desalination and water pumping be able to match the highly variable electrical production from solar and wind?

In a word if I had to guess...no; but leave us not forget:
Oil and natural gas: Some of the largest deposits of oil and shale gas are located in Texas, New Mexico and Southern California. In fact, a U.S. Geological Survey assessment of untapped resources in southwest New Mexico and west Texas found just these resources alone represent an increase of 100 percent in oil reserves and a 65 percent in natural gas reserves.

Sure the harnessed oil and gas deposits would be able to balance out the "highly variable electrical production from solar and wind". In fact it likely would be the bulk of the revenue generated by the project though probably not as touted as the renewables.

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 2:47 pm
by williatw
Pentagon finds $12.8 billion for Trump's border wall


by Pete Kasperowicz March 19, 2019

The Defense Department has identified $12.8 billion in possible funding that it could use to fulfill President Trump's call for a border wall.


Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., released the 20-page spreadsheet on Twitter Monday night.

Trump last month declared a national emergency at the border, and said he wants to use $3.6 billion for border wall projects. The Pentagon's list said it has found possible funding sources that are "in excess of the amount needed."


But it's not clear which projects the Defense Department will draw from. Some states that have been allocated big chunks of money that haven't been spent could see a hit.

California, for example, was identified as having more than $700 million in unused Army and Navy military construction that could be used. Hawaii has more than $400 million that could be used.

More than $200 million in similar funding allocated for Hawaii, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Guam, Germany, Guam, and Guantanamo Bay Cuba are also on the list.

Reed warned in his tweet that "military bases in your state could be negatively impacted" by Trump's border emergency.

Congress has passed a resolution to disapprove of Trump's push for emergency funding, but Trump vetoed it, and lawmakers are not expected to have enough votes to override him. Opponents of Trump's move are still hopeful that court challenge might prevent Trump from spending the money.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... order-wall

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2019 4:03 pm
by paperburn1
The marine's have already openly made clear that this action will have a adverse impact on readiness.
For what it is worth. We are already making plans to try and minimise the impact.
Now you know why Chaos has left the room.

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 1:57 pm
by paperburn1
Build a wall, steal a wall, who would have thunk it
https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/v ... 45695/?t=2
:lol: :lol:

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 2:53 pm
by williatw
paperburn1 wrote:Build a wall, steal a wall, who would have thunk it
https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/v ... 45695/?t=2
:lol: :lol:

And...that's an argument for not building a wall? Or one for building a wall along with more border guards/troops to reinforce it and help keep it secure? If a bank gets robbed in spite of having security/safe/etc. no one would suggest getting rid of or reducing said security because it failed. Would be more of an argument for more such not less. On a related topic although probably premature at this point to say but any comments about the laying of the (likely) egg that Mueller's report is shaping up to be?