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27 Responses to Saturday–tell us what you are thinking
At the risk of becoming the target once more of a pseudonymous individual who likes to show off his ignorance of El Paso culture, tradition, and language, I would like to challenge him and anyone to please offer an explanation for how imposing across the board tariffs on all Mexican imports is going to help any American. I would also like to suggest that – if we really want to stop the flow of asylum seekers – we need to make up for all the years of our interference in Latin America, and we need to extend a helping hand to our neighbors so that they can improve living conditions for their citizens.
Because everything is the fault of the evil American empire and people who have ne respect for our laws should be given money to not break our laws.
You should expand your theory of criminality to rape and murder, because people who get raped and murdered are the actual root cause of their rapes and murder.
Personally, I don’t mind the tariffs. I can just buy something else from somewhere else. Everyone crying about tariffs misunderstand basic economics and trade. If it goes on long enough Mexico faces the very real prospect of some other country stepping in and making the products. Then what will they do? Next they should either stop or tax money being sent back to Mexico, which is a significant drain on our economy. Make it hurt and Mexico will stop aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.
Same with China’s threat regarding rare earth metals. They destroyed the American market for these metals years ago by making them available so cheap we could no longer compete. Introduce tariffs and now American companies can go back into production, if China decides a prolonged trade war is in its best interest.
But, by all means keep bashing America and everything American. There is nothing more “American” than someone who can seem to find nothing that they like about America. America should not be allowed to police our borders or to have other countries treat us fairly with respect to trade. Mexico should be allowed to let people march across its country and straight into ours with no pushback whatsoever.
And keep calling people you disagree with ignorant. There’s no way anyone could possibly disagree with you because you know everything. You should run against Trump, Robert Francis O’Rourke seems to have blown his shot by “being real”. lol
So, tell us, oh great unknown, where are you going to get your avocados, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and most of the fresh produce you now consume? Do you have at least an inkling of just how much stuff crosses our border each and every day? And, please tell me when I ever bashed America? I do not call people who disagree with me ignorant. Only one person, and not because he disagreed with me, but because he clings to opinions that are not based in fact or history or any knowledge of his environment!
By all means we should derive benefit only from vegetables and the people you would deign allow to pick them. You remind me of the people on country club lane who won’t give the old lady that cleans their house a ride to the bus stop when it is raining. I am sure those people, like you, think they are saving the world throwing pennies at poor people.
And, what, pray tell does your wild whine about people on Country Club Lane who do any thing at all have to do with the topic at hand?! I simply used vegetable as an example, and your ridiculous response only proves me to be correct. Stop attacking everything I say, and produce some factual information, or at least some first hand experience!
Actually, I regularly complain to Albertsons about the lack of fresh USA vegetables. Mexico has been dumping tomatoes and it was pushing USA stuff off the shelves. I can remember when I worked in Mexico listening to one of my Mexican co-workers talk about how her husband soaked all their vegetables in bleach as part of food prep. She grown up on a ranch near Ascension and thought it was a good idea. I won’t buy veggies I eat raw from Mexico. Why anyone would want to eat veggies from a country that can’t deliver potable water to its citizens is beyond me. And yes, I know our produce costs more. I’m fine with that.
While I’d like to see all tariffs eventually go away, one unintended consequence of the China tariffs was that some companies were moving production to Mexico as a tariff avoidance strategy on raw materials. For example, many electronic components were made in China and had limited supply elsewhere. If you manufacture in the US, you had to pay those tariffs but if you manufactured in Mexico you didn’t. Now that playing field is leveled. So there is some benefit to US manufacturers. And if this is the straw that finally convinces the Dems in Congress to close the asylum loophole to take away the magnet that is causing this financial immigrants to flood in, it would also be a good thing.
I don’t like the tariffs. It’s bad policy, particularly if your goal is to reduce immigration. Tariffs on MX will hurt MX’s economy which will make more people vulnerable and will potentially lead them to migrate.
Tariffs really are a tax on the U.S. consumer. They increase the cost of imports. Distributors and retailers are merely going to pass the cost on to us.
I also don’t think that the President (any president) should have the power to unilaterally play with tariffs. The Congress should have this power.
Because Congress always works in American interests, right? Yeah, let’s just let Congress handle everything….just like they are fixing our open borders.
No, Congress doesn’t always work in American interests.
However, there’s this little thing called the Constitution which says that the role of Congress is “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” Article 1, Section 8
Call me silly, but I think we are better off when we follow our own rules … whether it helps or hurts our political preferences.
And back in 1977 Congress modified that a little: Presidents also draw on statutory authorities. Congress has passed legislation giving the executive additional authority to act on specific foreign policy issues. For instance, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (1977) authorizes the president to impose economic sanctions on foreign entities. Funny, how Dems complain when GOP Presidents use powers they have to Dem Presidents.
I’m not a Dem. The Dems disturb me much more than Trump.
Just think Trump is wrong on this one.Tariffs aren’t going to fix this immigration quagmire. Also, think the Congress shouldn’t give up the power given to it by the Constitution.
Tariffs are a negotiating tactic. It sends the signal to Mexico that that there is a penalty for talking and then failing to act. And it will make a whole lot of people in the donor class call their Congressional representatives and address the open border situation. At this point, whatever cattle prod Trump wants to use to resolve the mass migration is fine with me, because Congress doesn’t seem to be recognizing just what a problem it is causing and will continue to cause long-term.
It’s a poor tactic, because it risks making the problem even worse.
Mexico can’t control Central American migration any more than we can.
Moreover, it is politically unpopular in MX to bend to the will of any U.S. president. Trump could have gone further with a quiet carrot than a big stick on this one.
The price of these tariffs = We will have more migrants (not less), U.S. citizens will pay higher prices for products, and the U.S. economy will stagnate.
Stating that everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant proves that you have more in common with Trump than you might realize. Helping hand? The US provided about a billion dollars in aid to Guatemala alone over the past five years. We pledged another $10.6B aid for Central America and southern Mexico last December. If you think they deserve more, empty your bank account.
Did I say anything about what you call aid? As in, direct payments of money? I fear that your have reacted with your emotions rather than having absorbed the words that I did use! By the way, what is your source for that billion dollars in aid that you cite? You do realize also that the amount of total foreign aid given by us to Guatemala is a tiny fraction, under donnie, than it was prior to his ascension to his throne? Each year, since he took office, the amount is smaller still, so that this year, to date, the total is less than $25mil? But, again, that is not what I was talking about. I simply said that we need to lend them a helping hand, and that we need to make up for all of our years of interference.
U.S. aid to Guatemala peaked at $297 million in 2016 and it was still higher in 2017 ($257 million) and 2018 than any time from 2001 to 2015. The numbers for 2018 and your number for 2019 are partial year numbers which means actual aid is higher than shown at https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/GTM. If you think we’re not spending enough, you would fit right in on El Paso city council.
Again, I never mentioned spending, or money, or financial aid, or anything like that. You are the one who brought that up, and then you got your figures wrong!
Oops. One more thing you got wrong. I did not say that everyone who disagrees with me is anything at all. I specifically mentioned *one* person, who like you, chooses to remain anonymous, but whose ignorance of life in El Paso is obvious. Did you make the mistake of assuming that I might meant you? Who, as far as I know, haven’t ever posted here before?
But John,
That is the main problem now is all of the money we sent for decades was not used to help the nations or the peoples. It went for the most part into dictators and crooks pockets most of the time with the US turning a blind eye for favors but to US money..
Which is why we need to lend actual, physical help, along with our sincere apologies for the years and years of interference in their affairs. And, let’s not forget how many of our tax dollars also disappear when handled by American agencies, like the Defense Department.
An afterthought. I lived in Costa Rica for a time, and that little nation has received a lot of help from China. I recall that China offered them a new national stadium for futbol, and the catch was that only Chinese labor could be used in the actual construction. Think about it. That is real help.
Ireland Alvarado, my wife’s granddaughter, I am not counted when music is involved, completed in the Texas State UIL Solo competition today and received 1’s in Solo and Ensemble
This process involves qualifying in District, Regional and then State. There is not really a State Champion but in these events, the score of a 1 is as high as you can get in the State so in my opinion that makes her a State Champion. She also got a 1 last year as a Sophomore, going for a three-peat next year.
Congratulations Ireland and all the other students that worked hard for these awards!
Too bad the city council, city manager, and mayor haven’t love, respect, or common sense. Many of the people pushing this crooked agenda will be dead in twenty years. Leaving the innocent and the people who couldn’t bother to vote to pick up the pieces. Get out and vote! 3% isn’t going to do it!
The City’s CFO told ABC News that City is fiscally responsible. This was in response to inquiries about the Trump Campaign’s unpaid bill.
“As with any invoices we issue out, our expectation is to be paid for the services rendered,” Robert Cortinas, El Paso’s chief financial officer, told ABC News in a statement. “The City is fiscally responsible.”
Those of us who live here know better.
The use of a form letter to try to collect $470,000 proves once again that it is amateur hour downtown. The story includes a copy of the letter.
elpasospeak 
At the risk of becoming the target once more of a pseudonymous individual who likes to show off his ignorance of El Paso culture, tradition, and language, I would like to challenge him and anyone to please offer an explanation for how imposing across the board tariffs on all Mexican imports is going to help any American. I would also like to suggest that – if we really want to stop the flow of asylum seekers – we need to make up for all the years of our interference in Latin America, and we need to extend a helping hand to our neighbors so that they can improve living conditions for their citizens.
LikeLike
Because everything is the fault of the evil American empire and people who have ne respect for our laws should be given money to not break our laws.
You should expand your theory of criminality to rape and murder, because people who get raped and murdered are the actual root cause of their rapes and murder.
Personally, I don’t mind the tariffs. I can just buy something else from somewhere else. Everyone crying about tariffs misunderstand basic economics and trade. If it goes on long enough Mexico faces the very real prospect of some other country stepping in and making the products. Then what will they do? Next they should either stop or tax money being sent back to Mexico, which is a significant drain on our economy. Make it hurt and Mexico will stop aiding and abetting illegal immigrants.
Same with China’s threat regarding rare earth metals. They destroyed the American market for these metals years ago by making them available so cheap we could no longer compete. Introduce tariffs and now American companies can go back into production, if China decides a prolonged trade war is in its best interest.
But, by all means keep bashing America and everything American. There is nothing more “American” than someone who can seem to find nothing that they like about America. America should not be allowed to police our borders or to have other countries treat us fairly with respect to trade. Mexico should be allowed to let people march across its country and straight into ours with no pushback whatsoever.
And keep calling people you disagree with ignorant. There’s no way anyone could possibly disagree with you because you know everything. You should run against Trump, Robert Francis O’Rourke seems to have blown his shot by “being real”. lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
So, tell us, oh great unknown, where are you going to get your avocados, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and most of the fresh produce you now consume? Do you have at least an inkling of just how much stuff crosses our border each and every day? And, please tell me when I ever bashed America? I do not call people who disagree with me ignorant. Only one person, and not because he disagreed with me, but because he clings to opinions that are not based in fact or history or any knowledge of his environment!
LikeLike
By all means we should derive benefit only from vegetables and the people you would deign allow to pick them. You remind me of the people on country club lane who won’t give the old lady that cleans their house a ride to the bus stop when it is raining. I am sure those people, like you, think they are saving the world throwing pennies at poor people.
LikeLike
And, what, pray tell does your wild whine about people on Country Club Lane who do any thing at all have to do with the topic at hand?! I simply used vegetable as an example, and your ridiculous response only proves me to be correct. Stop attacking everything I say, and produce some factual information, or at least some first hand experience!
LikeLike
Actually, I regularly complain to Albertsons about the lack of fresh USA vegetables. Mexico has been dumping tomatoes and it was pushing USA stuff off the shelves. I can remember when I worked in Mexico listening to one of my Mexican co-workers talk about how her husband soaked all their vegetables in bleach as part of food prep. She grown up on a ranch near Ascension and thought it was a good idea. I won’t buy veggies I eat raw from Mexico. Why anyone would want to eat veggies from a country that can’t deliver potable water to its citizens is beyond me. And yes, I know our produce costs more. I’m fine with that.
LikeLike
While I’d like to see all tariffs eventually go away, one unintended consequence of the China tariffs was that some companies were moving production to Mexico as a tariff avoidance strategy on raw materials. For example, many electronic components were made in China and had limited supply elsewhere. If you manufacture in the US, you had to pay those tariffs but if you manufactured in Mexico you didn’t. Now that playing field is leveled. So there is some benefit to US manufacturers. And if this is the straw that finally convinces the Dems in Congress to close the asylum loophole to take away the magnet that is causing this financial immigrants to flood in, it would also be a good thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
John,
I don’t like the tariffs. It’s bad policy, particularly if your goal is to reduce immigration. Tariffs on MX will hurt MX’s economy which will make more people vulnerable and will potentially lead them to migrate.
Tariffs really are a tax on the U.S. consumer. They increase the cost of imports. Distributors and retailers are merely going to pass the cost on to us.
I also don’t think that the President (any president) should have the power to unilaterally play with tariffs. The Congress should have this power.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Because Congress always works in American interests, right? Yeah, let’s just let Congress handle everything….just like they are fixing our open borders.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, Congress doesn’t always work in American interests.
However, there’s this little thing called the Constitution which says that the role of Congress is “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” Article 1, Section 8
Call me silly, but I think we are better off when we follow our own rules … whether it helps or hurts our political preferences.
LikeLike
And back in 1977 Congress modified that a little: Presidents also draw on statutory authorities. Congress has passed legislation giving the executive additional authority to act on specific foreign policy issues. For instance, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (1977) authorizes the president to impose economic sanctions on foreign entities. Funny, how Dems complain when GOP Presidents use powers they have to Dem Presidents.
LikeLike
I’m not a Dem. The Dems disturb me much more than Trump.
Just think Trump is wrong on this one.Tariffs aren’t going to fix this immigration quagmire. Also, think the Congress shouldn’t give up the power given to it by the Constitution.
The world is not binary.
LikeLike
Tariffs are a negotiating tactic. It sends the signal to Mexico that that there is a penalty for talking and then failing to act. And it will make a whole lot of people in the donor class call their Congressional representatives and address the open border situation. At this point, whatever cattle prod Trump wants to use to resolve the mass migration is fine with me, because Congress doesn’t seem to be recognizing just what a problem it is causing and will continue to cause long-term.
LikeLike
It’s a poor tactic, because it risks making the problem even worse.
Mexico can’t control Central American migration any more than we can.
Moreover, it is politically unpopular in MX to bend to the will of any U.S. president. Trump could have gone further with a quiet carrot than a big stick on this one.
The price of these tariffs = We will have more migrants (not less), U.S. citizens will pay higher prices for products, and the U.S. economy will stagnate.
The idea is to pick a tactic that might help.
LikeLike
Stating that everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant proves that you have more in common with Trump than you might realize. Helping hand? The US provided about a billion dollars in aid to Guatemala alone over the past five years. We pledged another $10.6B aid for Central America and southern Mexico last December. If you think they deserve more, empty your bank account.
LikeLike
Did I say anything about what you call aid? As in, direct payments of money? I fear that your have reacted with your emotions rather than having absorbed the words that I did use! By the way, what is your source for that billion dollars in aid that you cite? You do realize also that the amount of total foreign aid given by us to Guatemala is a tiny fraction, under donnie, than it was prior to his ascension to his throne? Each year, since he took office, the amount is smaller still, so that this year, to date, the total is less than $25mil? But, again, that is not what I was talking about. I simply said that we need to lend them a helping hand, and that we need to make up for all of our years of interference.
LikeLike
U.S. aid to Guatemala peaked at $297 million in 2016 and it was still higher in 2017 ($257 million) and 2018 than any time from 2001 to 2015. The numbers for 2018 and your number for 2019 are partial year numbers which means actual aid is higher than shown at https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/GTM. If you think we’re not spending enough, you would fit right in on El Paso city council.
LikeLike
Again, I never mentioned spending, or money, or financial aid, or anything like that. You are the one who brought that up, and then you got your figures wrong!
LikeLike
Oops. One more thing you got wrong. I did not say that everyone who disagrees with me is anything at all. I specifically mentioned *one* person, who like you, chooses to remain anonymous, but whose ignorance of life in El Paso is obvious. Did you make the mistake of assuming that I might meant you? Who, as far as I know, haven’t ever posted here before?
LikeLike
But John,
That is the main problem now is all of the money we sent for decades was not used to help the nations or the peoples. It went for the most part into dictators and crooks pockets most of the time with the US turning a blind eye for favors but to US money..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Which is why we need to lend actual, physical help, along with our sincere apologies for the years and years of interference in their affairs. And, let’s not forget how many of our tax dollars also disappear when handled by American agencies, like the Defense Department.
LikeLike
An afterthought. I lived in Costa Rica for a time, and that little nation has received a lot of help from China. I recall that China offered them a new national stadium for futbol, and the catch was that only Chinese labor could be used in the actual construction. Think about it. That is real help.
LikeLike
John, why do you keep trying. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him think! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You live in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, complete with electric trolley. Your city council and management are the hand puppets.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ireland Alvarado, my wife’s granddaughter, I am not counted when music is involved, completed in the Texas State UIL Solo competition today and received 1’s in Solo and Ensemble
This process involves qualifying in District, Regional and then State. There is not really a State Champion but in these events, the score of a 1 is as high as you can get in the State so in my opinion that makes her a State Champion. She also got a 1 last year as a Sophomore, going for a three-peat next year.
Congratulations Ireland and all the other students that worked hard for these awards!
GO COUGaS
LikeLiked by 1 person
Too bad the city council, city manager, and mayor haven’t love, respect, or common sense. Many of the people pushing this crooked agenda will be dead in twenty years. Leaving the innocent and the people who couldn’t bother to vote to pick up the pieces. Get out and vote! 3% isn’t going to do it!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The City’s CFO told ABC News that City is fiscally responsible. This was in response to inquiries about the Trump Campaign’s unpaid bill.
“As with any invoices we issue out, our expectation is to be paid for the services rendered,” Robert Cortinas, El Paso’s chief financial officer, told ABC News in a statement. “The City is fiscally responsible.”
Those of us who live here know better.
The use of a form letter to try to collect $470,000 proves once again that it is amateur hour downtown. The story includes a copy of the letter.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/tale-2-invoices-beto-orourke-pays-el-paso-080100582–abc-news-topstories.html
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