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2023 Republican Government Shutdown: Same Shit, Same Story


horn4life

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They voted for Trump because they were sick of the establishment Rs.  If Trump goes down, these voters won't magically return to the establishment GOP. 

And anyways, Republicans would be pulverized in future elections if Trump is removed. 

The simplest explanation remains the most likely. McConnell, Graham and Co. are holding on for dear life to Trump's nutsack because it's the only way they survive. They crossed a line and know they can't go back. 

 

 

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They voted for Trump because they were sick of the establishment Rs.  If Trump goes down, these voters won't magically return to the establishment GOP. 
And anyways, Republicans would be pulverized in future elections if Trump is removed. 
The simplest explanation remains the most likely. McConnell, Graham and Co. are holding on for dear life to Trump's nutsack because it's the only way they survive. They crossed a line and know they can't go back. 
 
 

It’s the truth.
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14 minutes ago, Hank Kingsley said:

If Trump goes down, these voters won't magically return to the establishment GOP. 

You might not have noticed but the Establishment Rs have become very Trumpy.  

Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz have already calculated it’s in their best interest to ride the Trump Train even after Trump is gone.

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Big right to life march this week in d.c.. we have 1 bus going along with 4 others from all over north dakota. Im sure the majority of them haven't been to d.c. but they'll get a good look at the locked up memorials and museums from the road.


At least there isn't a nordeaster that's gonna trap them on the interstate in Pennsylvania like 3 years ago in the forecast.

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From Reddit, so take it for what it's worth, but the dude sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

 

Do you want to take a realistic look at the proposed wall? I can help. I am a construction estimator that specialized in reinforced concrete for 12 years.

The wall promised on the campaign trail was
 to be 30’-0” tall above grade, and made of concrete and rebar. To prevent tunneling, the wall should extend at a minimum 10’-0” below grade. Now, this wall is not a retaining wall and will, for the most part, have even backfill on both sides. So I would recommend a thickness of 18” to prevent easily breaking through it. Let’s say the footing is 15’ wide and 24” thick. We won’t even worry about the rebar right now.

The border with Mexico is over 1900 miles long. Lets say that due to existing natural deterrent elements like canyon walls, that we only need to do 75% of the border.

1900 miles x .75= 1,425 miles

Typically when we talk about concrete wall construction, we speak in linear feet. Let’s convert it.

1,425 miles x 5,280 feet in a mile= 7,524,000 linear feet

Say that the following things have already happened:

-Court battles over eminent domain when we take people’s land to build the wall -Site engineering, architectural design, and structural design -Soil testing for a 7+ million foot long job site -Newly constructed roads that can handle fully loaded concrete trucks and rigs carrying excavators -Concrete batch plants that can produce the types of volumes we will be discussing in a paragraph or two

So, it’s day one and we are ready to start our wall. Say that we do such a good job today, that we get an incredibly ambitious 500 (!) linear feet of the wall built in the first day. We excavated 10’ into the ground, we formed our footings, we set our reinforcing bars, we poured the footing, it fully set, we formed our walls with 40’ high aluminum forms backset to dead men at every 10’ or so to prevent blowouts, we set our reinforcing in the forms, we got the pump trucks to the site on our new roads and they pumped the concrete 30’ into the air to go in the top of the forms. The walls set too, and we stripped our forms and backfilled all the grade back to normal.

Now, imagine we work every single day until the job is done. Every weekend, every holiday. We celebrate Christmas by pouring another 500 linear feet. We have perfect weather every day and we do not have a single problem that sets us back a day.Let’s see how long it takes us to finish this thing!

7,524,000 LF/500 LF per day= 15,048 days/365 days per year= 41.23 years.

In absolute perfect, some would say inconceivable conditions, we would finish the wall in 2060.

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From Reddit, so take it for what it's worth, but the dude sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
 
Do you want to take a realistic look at the proposed wall? I can help. I am a construction estimator that specialized in reinforced concrete for 12 years.

The wall promised on the campaign trail was to be 30’-0” tall above grade, and made of concrete and rebar. To prevent tunneling, the wall should extend at a minimum 10’-0” below grade. Now, this wall is not a retaining wall and will, for the most part, have even backfill on both sides. So I would recommend a thickness of 18” to prevent easily breaking through it. Let’s say the footing is 15’ wide and 24” thick. We won’t even worry about the rebar right now.

The border with Mexico is over 1900 miles long. Lets say that due to existing natural deterrent elements like canyon walls, that we only need to do 75% of the border.

1900 miles x .75= 1,425 miles

Typically when we talk about concrete wall construction, we speak in linear feet. Let’s convert it.

1,425 miles x 5,280 feet in a mile= 7,524,000 linear feet

Say that the following things have already happened:

-Court battles over eminent domain when we take people’s land to build the wall -Site engineering, architectural design, and structural design -Soil testing for a 7+ million foot long job site -Newly constructed roads that can handle fully loaded concrete trucks and rigs carrying excavators -Concrete batch plants that can produce the types of volumes we will be discussing in a paragraph or two

So, it’s day one and we are ready to start our wall. Say that we do such a good job today, that we get an incredibly ambitious 500 (!) linear feet of the wall built in the first day. We excavated 10’ into the ground, we formed our footings, we set our reinforcing bars, we poured the footing, it fully set, we formed our walls with 40’ high aluminum forms backset to dead men at every 10’ or so to prevent blowouts, we set our reinforcing in the forms, we got the pump trucks to the site on our new roads and they pumped the concrete 30’ into the air to go in the top of the forms. The walls set too, and we stripped our forms and backfilled all the grade back to normal.

Now, imagine we work every single day until the job is done. Every weekend, every holiday. We celebrate Christmas by pouring another 500 linear feet. We have perfect weather every day and we do not have a single problem that sets us back a day.Let’s see how long it takes us to finish this thing!

7,524,000 LF/500 LF per day= 15,048 days/365 days per year= 41.23 years.

In absolute perfect, some would say inconceivable conditions, we would finish the wall in 2060.


Lolol interesting. Im sure donald would tell you hes talked to many many construction guys. The best. And they all promised him 2-3 years
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12 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

They closed terminal B TSA security.  Routing passengers to the other terminals. Sunday night may not be so bad but could be a mess if not sorted out by tomorrow morning. 

Still closed 

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Oh well, I guess if Terminal B is just a "regional" terminal, who cares about anyone having to check-in, shuttle to a different terminal for TSA and then shuttle back to catch their flight.

They shouldn't be so poor they can't fly their Gulfstream! -Paul Ryan/GOP

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5 hours ago, Atx71 said:

At least now he is hurting the people he is suppose to hurt.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/01/08/politics/donald-trump-2020-hurting-the-wrong-people/index.html

 

 

$10 says this woman says things like "My parents whipped my ass all the time when I was little, and I turned out just fine!" 

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6 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

From Reddit, so take it for what it's worth, but the dude sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

 

Do you want to take a realistic look at the proposed wall? I can help. I am a construction estimator that specialized in reinforced concrete for 12 years.

The wall promised on the campaign trail was
 to be 30’-0” tall above grade, and made of concrete and rebar. To prevent tunneling, the wall should extend at a minimum 10’-0” below grade. Now, this wall is not a retaining wall and will, for the most part, have even backfill on both sides. So I would recommend a thickness of 18” to prevent easily breaking through it. Let’s say the footing is 15’ wide and 24” thick. We won’t even worry about the rebar right now.

The border with Mexico is over 1900 miles long. Lets say that due to existing natural deterrent elements like canyon walls, that we only need to do 75% of the border.

1900 miles x .75= 1,425 miles

Typically when we talk about concrete wall construction, we speak in linear feet. Let’s convert it.

1,425 miles x 5,280 feet in a mile= 7,524,000 linear feet

Say that the following things have already happened:

-Court battles over eminent domain when we take people’s land to build the wall -Site engineering, architectural design, and structural design -Soil testing for a 7+ million foot long job site -Newly constructed roads that can handle fully loaded concrete trucks and rigs carrying excavators -Concrete batch plants that can produce the types of volumes we will be discussing in a paragraph or two

So, it’s day one and we are ready to start our wall. Say that we do such a good job today, that we get an incredibly ambitious 500 (!) linear feet of the wall built in the first day. We excavated 10’ into the ground, we formed our footings, we set our reinforcing bars, we poured the footing, it fully set, we formed our walls with 40’ high aluminum forms backset to dead men at every 10’ or so to prevent blowouts, we set our reinforcing in the forms, we got the pump trucks to the site on our new roads and they pumped the concrete 30’ into the air to go in the top of the forms. The walls set too, and we stripped our forms and backfilled all the grade back to normal.

Now, imagine we work every single day until the job is done. Every weekend, every holiday. We celebrate Christmas by pouring another 500 linear feet. We have perfect weather every day and we do not have a single problem that sets us back a day.Let’s see how long it takes us to finish this thing!

7,524,000 LF/500 LF per day= 15,048 days/365 days per year= 41.23 years.

In absolute perfect, some would say inconceivable conditions, we would finish the wall in 2060.

i don't not support a wall, but a few points.

01) a 15' wide footing seems too wide

02) 500 linear feet poured in one day is EXTREMELY ambitious

03) the overall duration assumes just one project along the wall. I would imagine there would similar project/efforts being done at multiple points along the border.

Interesting post though.

For perspective, think how long it took workers to get sound walls up over a 10 mile stretch of Mo-Pac. And I see around 45th street now they have taken the walls and supports down (due to defiencies, i assume) and are having to build new ones.

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20 minutes ago, yoladu said:

i don't not support a wall, but a few points.

01) a 15' wide footing seems too wide

02) 500 linear feet poured in one day is EXTREMELY ambitious

03) the overall duration assumes just one project along the wall. I would imagine there would similar project/efforts being done at multiple points along the border.

Interesting post though.

For perspective, think how long it took workers to get sound walls up over a 10 mile stretch of Mo-Pac. And I see around 45th street now they have taken the walls and supports down (due to defiencies, i assume) and are having to build new ones.

A concrete border wall would all be 10' sections of precast as well, they wouldn't be forming and pouring anything except the footing. That said... 500' of footing a day is already too ambitious. 

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46 minutes ago, DaysOff said:

I have no idea why TSA is showing up. If you're off probation and have anything in the sick bank let me know when the direct deposit posts.

Not to mention that as more and more TSA workers call in sick, it makes the job that much more painful for the remaining workers that show up.  Longer lines.  Unruly passengers.   Gives more of a motivation for those workers to call in sick tomorrow.  The problem gets worse by the day.

I also guarantee that as more workers call in sick, there is less likelihood that they would face any disciplinary action once the shutdown is over.  You can't punish 50% of your workforce.

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17 minutes ago, seven said:

A concrete border wall would all be 10' sections of precast as well, they wouldn't be forming and pouring anything except the footing. That said... 500' of footing a day is already too ambitious. 

I don't think the author thinks 500'/day is possible.  I think they're driving home the point that this thing still takes 4 fucking decades to construct even WITH unreasonable daily production.

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1 minute ago, retread said:

By the time they finish it, all the brown people will be here anyway.

Republicans: The government is so stupidly inefficient and can't do anything right!

Also Republicans: The government will build the border wall so fast, so high and so solidly, on time and under budget.

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5 hours ago, workswithseed said:

I hope this keeps going, more people in the private sector cause they're not getting paid by the government, would shrink the government win win. 

Sounds like a noble goal, but you might want to talk to Congress and the President - it seems like they might want to remove some of the duties/laws first.. we might be going about this bassackwards. Also, call me crazy, but this seems like pretty poor employee relations and if you ever hope to hire anyone decent in the future (yes Margaret, the government will still need employees no matter what that idiot Grover thinks) we might need to treat our employees better than forcing them to work without pay.

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6 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

From Reddit, so take it for what it's worth, but the dude sounds like he knows what he's talking about.

 

Do you want to take a realistic look at the proposed wall? I can help. I am a construction estimator that specialized in reinforced concrete for 12 years.

The wall promised on the campaign trail was
 to be 30’-0” tall above grade, and made of concrete and rebar. To prevent tunneling, the wall should extend at a minimum 10’-0” below grade. Now, this wall is not a retaining wall and will, for the most part, have even backfill on both sides. So I would recommend a thickness of 18” to prevent easily breaking through it. Let’s say the footing is 15’ wide and 24” thick. We won’t even worry about the rebar right now.

The border with Mexico is over 1900 miles long. Lets say that due to existing natural deterrent elements like canyon walls, that we only need to do 75% of the border.

1900 miles x .75= 1,425 miles

Typically when we talk about concrete wall construction, we speak in linear feet. Let’s convert it.

1,425 miles x 5,280 feet in a mile= 7,524,000 linear feet

Say that the following things have already happened:

-Court battles over eminent domain when we take people’s land to build the wall -Site engineering, architectural design, and structural design -Soil testing for a 7+ million foot long job site -Newly constructed roads that can handle fully loaded concrete trucks and rigs carrying excavators -Concrete batch plants that can produce the types of volumes we will be discussing in a paragraph or two

So, it’s day one and we are ready to start our wall. Say that we do such a good job today, that we get an incredibly ambitious 500 (!) linear feet of the wall built in the first day. We excavated 10’ into the ground, we formed our footings, we set our reinforcing bars, we poured the footing, it fully set, we formed our walls with 40’ high aluminum forms backset to dead men at every 10’ or so to prevent blowouts, we set our reinforcing in the forms, we got the pump trucks to the site on our new roads and they pumped the concrete 30’ into the air to go in the top of the forms. The walls set too, and we stripped our forms and backfilled all the grade back to normal.

Now, imagine we work every single day until the job is done. Every weekend, every holiday. We celebrate Christmas by pouring another 500 linear feet. We have perfect weather every day and we do not have a single problem that sets us back a day.Let’s see how long it takes us to finish this thing!

7,524,000 LF/500 LF per day= 15,048 days/365 days per year= 41.23 years.

In absolute perfect, some would say inconceivable conditions, we would finish the wall in 2060.

Yeah, not really.  The actual construction of the wall (minus any odd construction areas) would proceed much faster than what he is saying due to having multiple crews performing sequential tasks of repeating work.  However, it is all the stuff that he says needs to happen before then that will take awhile.

The volumes of concrete are staggering and I can do a pretty good swag on the costs.

If the wall need to be 30' above ground and 10' below then you would need a 2' thick footing and and a 38' wall.  Due to soil conditions you would need drilled piers below the footing in some areas, but let us assume those are not there for now.  Being 30' above grade would probably force the wall to being more than 2' thick, but say 2' for now.

7,524,000 linear feet X 38' tall X 2' thick/27 cuft/cuyd= 22,000,000 cuyds for the wall.

7,524,000 linear feet X 15' wide X 2' thick/27 cuft/cuyd= 8.5 million cuyds for the footing.

For a total of around 30 million cubic yds of concrete which is in the same neighborhood as the 3 Gorges dam in China, a project that was approved and fully funded  in 1992 and completed in 2012-in China.  FYI, the Hoover Dam took about 4.5 million cubic yds. of concrete and was initially funded in 1928 with a completion in 1935.  However, studies, deals, and multistate cooperation were in the works long before then.  

Based on some of my own numbers from being a concrete contractor for 23 years you are looking at about a minimum of $15 billion for just concrete wall construction. At least that much again would be required for construction infrastructure and additional wall infrastructure for maintenance and monitoring, and any lighting, electrical, drainage concerns etc.   Then there is land acquisition and design.  At least a $60 billion price tag.

Any way you look at it this would be one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken. If it took 20 years for 3 Gorges in China then this would probably be 30 years in the US.

Now lets look at the vulnerabilities of a concrete wall: If I were going to breach it, I would tunnel up to and saw through the below grade portion of the wall and then continue the tunnel to an exit point.  Above grade the wall could be breached by sawing or coring through it in a matter of hours.

 

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1 hour ago, seven said:

A concrete border wall would all be 10' sections of precast as well, they wouldn't be forming and pouring anything except the footing. That said... 500' of footing a day is already too ambitious. 

With multiple crews at various locations that is not that hard to accomplish in the easier areas.

 

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1 minute ago, Jiggy-Z said:

With multiple crews at various locations that is not that hard to accomplish in the easier areas.

 

And it's 10X harder in the difficult areas/terrain.

Bottom line, it's a buttfuckingly stupid idea.  And it always has been.  Limited physical barriers in places where they will be most effective.  That's what makes sense, and that's pretty much what we already have.  If there's a proposal that says "hey, there's a 5 mile gap here where more barrier would really help," then present that.  "WALL!" is not a proposal.  It's a fucking slogan.

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4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

And it's 10X harder in the difficult areas/terrain.

Bottom line, it's a buttfuckingly stupid idea.  And it always has been.  Limited physical barriers in places where they will be most effective.  That's what makes sense, and that's pretty much what we already have.  If there's a proposal that says "hey, there's a 5 mile gap here where more barrier would really help," then present that.  "WALL!" is not a proposal.  It's a fucking slogan.

It might be the only way out of this.  Have Trump get excited about the terrible parts of Wall, get some number that sounds biggish, say 100 miles, and build that.  He'll get to say he delivered on the most important parts of Wall and campaign on getting the rest done.  Otherwise he's just going to lose this standoff.

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