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Donald Trump’s Mexico wall: Here’s a little context …

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The Donald said he was going to do it and now he is.

The Great Wall of the Rio Grande, the Trump Wall will stretch almost 2,000 miles (3,100kms) from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, putting a gleam in the eye of graffiti artists everywhere. Banksy is said to be drooling in anticipation.

The estimated cost of this stunning feat of architecture is anywhere between $10 and $20 billion depending on who you listen to. Construction time is also a bit of a back-of-the-envelope exercise but by the time an exhausted bricklayer slaps the last bit of mortar on it, it is probable Donald Trump will be around 90 years of age.

In centuries to come anthropologists will marvel at it and wonder what far-sighted genius brought it into existence. Maybe even an old shyster like Erich Von Daniken will propose some unlikely theory that the Trump Wall was built by God who arrived by spaceship with the blueprint and a couple of trillion tons of prefabricated concrete.

Full column here.

1,022 Comments

  • Yvonne says:

    Seems bizarre that Trump is going to honour the contract to take our detainees and yet we have a situation where people with perfectly valid visas are stuck in transit.
    He needs to take a deep breath, stop the dramatic decrees and start implementimg his campaign policies with some planning and advice.

  • Henry Blofeld says:

    Ex Aussie PM Bob Hawke urges Australia to get behind POTUS Donald Trump, Mr Insider, and the World too, suggesting to isolate Trump would be a big mistake. Meanwhile over in Andrew Bolts column Andrew lambasts PM Turnbull as a do nothing waste of space citing POTUS Trump as having done more in one week that Turnbull has done in 16 months! Isn’t that the truth!
    http://tinyurl.com/jlqed8z

    • Carl on the Coast says:

      HB says: “Ex Aussie PM Bob Hawke ”

      You know something we don’t know HB? When did he change his nationality?

      • Henry Blofeld says:

        Well spotted Carl and there is nothing “ex Aussie” about the robust and fully alive and well dinky di Australian Bob Hawke is there.

  • jack says:

    i always wonder when someone says that the country is ungovernable or that the system is broken whether they really mean that they can’t get through the policies that why want to.

    • Yvonne says:

      I’d say it means exactly what they say Jack I.e ungovernable- by either major party. Have you been living under a rock for the last 8 years or so? – as JB would say.

      • jack says:

        well, on a rock rather than under one.

        and yes, it s a small rock a long way away, but i still keep an eye on what’s going on.

        it doesn’t seem to me the system is broken, either here or in the states. what is true is that the exec government in both places has lacked the political skill and will to persuade a majority of law makers to support them on some issues.

    • The Bow-Legged Swantoon says:

      Exactly. They all love the way things work when they work the way they want. I believe Tony Abbott was a big fan of increased centralisation of power in Canberra when Howard was running the show. He changed his mind when Gillard and Rudd were in charge. Then he was a fan of the changes to voting procedures and the double-dissolution election when he thought it would get rid of the Senate crazies. Now that it hasn’t he wants to try another short-circuit.

      I actually like the man but like the rest of his party he’s looking for easy answers where there are none. And the other side is no better. When they’re winning elections there’s no grander thing than democracy. When they’re losing the system is broken, the voters are ill-informed (or uneducated or uninterested or disengaged), their opponents are evil – everything is wrong, in fact, except them.

  • Yvonne says:

    You bloody beauty
    I was there on centre court and watched him cry when Rod Laver presented him with the trophy after he beat Bagdhatis. in 2006.
    Deja vu. Couldn’t be a worthier champion.

  • Dismayed says:

    Razor says: January 29, 2017 at 7:53 pm. And there we have it. Finally after 2 weeks of you misleading, contorting and abusing You admit Queenslanders are paying more for electricity. Due to the reasons I stated and supported by the links I presents initially and subsequently . But can you do it with humility. NO you have to continue to abuse and change the context to suit yourself. The fact you continue to say the link was get up poll shows just how willing you are to mislead your Pathological Dishonesty overrides everything. the poll link at the very bottom of the page after about 6 other links to reports and data etc proving you were wrong was more context on how Queenslander actually want competition and renewables. You try so hard to demonise every one an every thing because you biggest fear of which you have many is being shown to be wrong which you have been again. Shazzamm troll.

    • Razor says:

      You have just written unadalterated crap. The figures I presented are simple just as your cherry picking is simple for the eye to see.

      Again the link that shows SA is paying nearly double what Queensland is. You use spot prices to suit yourself when what people pay overall counts. Here it is again in black and white you fool. Obfuscate as much as you like but this shows it all. It cannot be any plainer. Do we believe the AER website or the rentseeker website. I’ll go with the AER.

      https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistics/annual-volume-weighted-average-spot-prices

      You got caught out AGAIN and are now, true to form, trying to weasel your way out of it. How much is Getup paying you by the way?

  • Yvonne says:

    This is one hell of a game of tennis – bloody awesome!

  • Trabvitch says:

    Just saw this in an old online issue of “The Namibian” written by a bloke/blokette called “The Rambler”

    “Also, Unam just awarded a N$340 million contract to build an administration block at the main campus in Windhoek to a known tenderpreneur”.

    Love that last word – could apply to a number of Australian firms who get Government contracts…

  • Yvonne says:

    This is a good game of tennis. Like a roller coaster ride at the moment!

  • plmo says:

    RE: Dismayed says:
    January 29, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    ” It is self evident to those that have their eyes open. I cannot help you with that.”.

    Dismayed,

    Really!! I will take that as a total admission that your initial commentary was first class unsubstantiated hyperbole!!

    That you absolutely loath President Trump is manifest and is of course your right. But the reality is that he won the election fair and square under the rules of the game. His use of Presidential Executive Orders simply continues the practice of his predecessor.

    So far there have been 15 such Executive Orders, each giving play to specific policies upon which he campaigned.

    The hyperbole demonstrated by his critics, after one week of government, does tend to diminish the quality of their argument.

    No he is not rolling back all improvements since WWII. No he is not trashing all Environmental Laws – his Order applies to two specific pipelines. No he is not causing havoc and mayhem in Immigration law – the Immigration Department’s latest release suggests some 370 individuals are directly impacted in this initial period.

    Trump is obviously a loud mouthed, coarse and vulgar individual but since when have ‘dubious and offensive personal qualities’ proved a bar to serving as a President of USA; think in modern times, Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson and Clinton.

    To illustrate just how complex just one of the issues – Affordable Health Care – is:

    http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-facts/

    http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2017/01/26/trumps-obamacare-executive-order-much-ado-about-very-little/

    To attempt to reduce this issue to a simplistic hyperbolic rant as so many do is to diminish the criticism.

    So no substantiation from you on your criticism – disappointing – Dismayed.

    • Dismayed says:

      No I cant be bothered. Thinking people know your dictator trump is trying to undo all that has been accomplished in the last century. He is bad for the US and bad for humanity. there is nothing complex. Taking health care from those who previously had none is regressive. undoing Environmental diligence is bad for the future generations and the planet as a whole. Your list highlights the damage he is already wreaking. Most of those areas you mentioned are being targeted if you were prepared to be honest you would acknowledge that. It is not hyperbole. History tells us the dangers this sociopath presents. He has already made the world a more dangerous place. He has just empowered murderous thugs to strike at the US and its allies. He is deliberately dividing the world along nationalistic and religious grounds. We know from history this creates more death and destruction. His voodoo economics will lead to further problems which will exacerbate the division he is deliberately stoking.

      • Razor says:

        Well we didn’t see that coming did we! What little credibility you have is being eroded post by post. Put up or shut up you tool.

    • John O'Hagan says:

      plmo, I’m afraid your understatement on Trump’s immigration order is at least as far off the mark as the hyperbole you are ascribing to others. You have rather carefully crafted a technically-correct statement about the number of people affected which is just as misleading as saying that the rights of hundreds of millions are affected, which is also technically true.

      The truth is in between, but is sufficient dire to have attracted harsh criticism from the governments of three out of four of the remaining Five Eyes (Malcolm is typically hedging his bets), as well as those of Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Indonesia and many others. The parties in power in those countries run from deep conservative through to social democrat. Add to that the outrage coming even from senior Republicans, and you will be hard put to persuade anyone that their united concern is hyperbole.

  • Trivalve says:

    Just played my first game of cricket for two years Jack. There’s life in the old dog yet! Revised infrasructure not an issue.

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