Trump Would Approve Waterboarding in a Heartbeat

Trump approves waterboarding in Columbus, OH

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said he not only would bring back waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique discontinued by the Obama administration, but also would “approve more than that,” even if such tactics prove ineffective.

“Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass I would — in a heartbeat.”

Trump said to loud cheers during a rally at a convention center here Monday night that attracted thousands.

“And I would approve more than that. Don’t kid yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn’t work.”

Trump said such techniques are needed to confront terrorists who “chop off our young people’s heads” and “build these iron cages, and they’ll put 20 people in them and they drop them in the ocean for 15 minutes and pull them up 15 minutes later.”

“It works,” Trump said over and over again. “Believe me, it works. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway, for what they’re doing. It works.”

Reality

Torture is illegal, unethical, and simply does not work. When a subject is in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information provided during the time of torture is useless. It is irresponsible to forget the lessons we learned during the war against terror for Donald Trump to suggest a war crime.

Media

Links

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/23/donald-trump-on-waterboarding-if-it-doesnt-work-they-deserve-it-anyway/

Trump Says He Would Bring Back Waterboarding

Donald Trump would “absolutely” bring back waterboarding as an accepted form of interrogation, he said today on ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump characterized waterboarding as a form of “strong interrogation” that is “peanuts” when compared to tactics used by ISIS against its hostages.

“I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us,” the Republican presidential candidate said. “What they’re doing to us, what they did to James Foley when they chopped off his head, that’s a whole different level and I would absolutely bring back interrogation and strong interrogation.”

Trump also said he does not want to close any mosques in the United States but he does want to put them under surveillance. He previously said it may be necessary to close some mosques if it is determined “bad things are happening” in them.

When asked if he wants blanket surveillance across all the nation’s mosques, Trump said “strong measures” are necessary.

“The people that are involved in those mosques, they know who the bad ones are and they know who the good ones are, but they don’t talk,” he said. “We have to surveil the mosques.”

Trump also said those on terror watch lists should be restricted from purchasing guns if they are a known “enemy of state.” Currently, someone one a terror watch list can legally purchase a gun in the U.S.

“If somebody is on a watch list and an enemy of state and we know it’s an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely,” Trump said, while emphasizing that he is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

“If we have an enemy of state, I don’t want to give him anything,” Trump said. “I want to have him in jail — that’s what I want. I want to have him in jail.”

Reality

Torture is illegal, unethical, and simply does not work. When a subject is in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information provided during the time of torture is useless. It is irresponsible to forget the lessons we learned during the war against terror for Donald Trump to suggest a war crime.

Media

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/donald-trump-bring-back-waterboarding-35357550

Links

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-bring-back-waterboarding/story?id=35354443

Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again

In his first policy paper, Trump laid out a highly racist and nationalist immigration reform based on faulty data and promoted crimes against humanity all while failing the mention of its high cost to taxpayers.

For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries)

The paper goes on to explain the core issues of Donald Trump’s reforms:

  1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.
  2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.
  3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Reality

Allow me to break down each core issue and explain the problem. As we read these we first need a dose of reality for context. If at any time you start leaning towards Trump’s side just remember a few things:

  1. Mexican immigration net zero. Meaning more Mexicans are leaving the US and moving back to Mexico than the Mexicans coming in. Illegal immigration is not as big of a problem as you think it is.
  2. Undocumented immigrants commit far less crime than the rest of the population. In general the people who are living in the country illegally don’t want any contact with law enforcement.
  3. The Obama recovery worked, the economy is strong, unemployment is at record lows, S&P 500 is up. While wage growth has been stagnant, it’s not like billionaire business owners couldn’t have done something about that.
A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

Let’s play a game of logic. Drugs are coming across the southern border so Trump wants to build a wall with Mexico and is cheered for it by Republicans. Drugs are coming across the northern border and Governor Scott Walker makes the suggestion that we should also build a wall with Canada and is laughed at and called crazy by Republicans. How could this be that Republicans see 1 problem happening in 2 different places and have vastly different ideas? Logically if this was really about drugs then they would have jumped at the idea of a northern border wall. The only logical conclusion then is race, Canadians in general look and talk like Americans, Mexicans are brown and have a different word for everything. Therefore this idea has its roots in racism.

A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

This is really vague and kind of a “no duh” comment. But what Trump is talking about here is rounding up every illegal immigrant and returning them to their place of origin, nationwide e-verify, ending birthright citizenship, defunding sanctuary cities, increasing the number of ICE officers, and more.

Mass deportations would involve rounding up every undocumented person and forcibly removing them from the country. What Trump is advocating here already has a name, it’s called “ethnic cleansing” and it is not seen as a positive and moral thing. What Trump also fails to mention is the cost. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told lawmakers that it costs about $12,500 to deport one immigrant from the United States. Multiply that by 11.3 million, and you get $141.3 billion. Not great for the deficit and smaller government.

Tripling the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would cost $8.4 billion per year, again not great for the deficit and smaller government. What Trump also neglects is that President Obama has deported more illegal immigrants than any of his predecessors. So vote Democrat.

Nationwide E-Verify system, while the least controversial of his reforms, would still cost taxpayers $2.15 billion, again not great for the deficit and smaller government.

All-in-all Trumps plan would be a giant middle finger to freedom and morality and cost the taxpayers over $160 billion, again not great for the deficit and smaller government, but great for people who hate Mexicans.

A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Want to improve jobs? Vote Democrat. Under President Obama, unemployment is at a 20 year low and is below natural unemployment rate, meaning we are at total employment.

Want to improve wages? Don’t vote for Trump. He believes we must keep wages low in order to compete with other countries.

Want to secure America? Well Republicans don’t have the best track record.

Links

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/

http://immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/criminalization-immigration-united-states

http://cronkite.asu.edu/buffett/canada/borderdrugs.html

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/26/canada-border-is-drug-wars-2nd-front/?page=all

1 2 3 4