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As President Donald Trump threatened to allow a government shutdown if Congress did not provide funding for his proposed wall along the Mexican border, a Republican congressman from Ohio offered up alternative routes to getting the wall built: through Internet crowdfunding or through an initial coin offering.
During an interview with NPR's Morning Edition on December 12, Rep. Warren Davidson said that he had offered what he referred to as a "modest proposal" in the form of his "Buy a Brick, Build a Wall Act." The bill, which he submitted on November 30, would authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to accept monetary gifts from anyone "on the condition that it be used to plan, design, construct, or maintain a barrier along the international border between the United States and Mexico." The funds would go into an account called the "Border Wall Trust Fund," and a public website would be set up to process donations electronically.
Rep. Davidson told NPR's Steve Inskeep that the donations could come from anyone and be gathered in a number of ways."You could do it with this sort of, like, crowdfunding site," Davidson explained. "Or you could do it with blockchain—you could have Wall Coins."
Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/ohio-congressman-we-can-fund-border-wall-with-wallcoin/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:12PM (64 children)
Colbert said it best last night. If Trump finds a coupon for 50 cents off Totinos, then "TOTINOS IS PAYING FOR THE WALL!!!"
Give me a break. Trump made a very specific claim with a specific meaning. Nothing of the sort is actually going to happen. It was silly to believe otherwise at any time.
This latest kerfuffle translates to Trump demanding that we stroke his fragile little ego or people will suffer.
Meanwhile, remember the other part where he claimed there would be a beautiful golden door and if people did the right thing and went to the door they would be let in? Well, that caravan was bound for the door and the many now separated families before did go to the door and knock. How'd that work out for them?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:21PM (29 children)
ROFL - that caravan was headed for no golden door. Families separated? Possibly, a couple. Most of that caravan was military age males. The bleeding heart liberal media chased after the few women and their children, while ignoring the many truckloads of military age males. Oh - those military age males? The ones with gang tats certainly didn't make it onto your TV screen.
Now it's "If you pay us fifty thousand dollars apiece, we'll all go home."
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:52PM (6 children)
Ah yes, the super scary MILITARY AGE MALES! Ooooh, "the ones with gang tats" didn't make it onto the TV screen? How did you find out about them? Was it infowars? Fox News? C'mon, spill the beans, who sent you the gang tat pics!?!?
That shit you said there is some anti-male bullshit, check your privilege son.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:15PM (3 children)
The term "military age male" is also implicitly misandrist. It presumes that all males that appear to be between certain ages are violent criminals and soldiers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:05AM (1 child)
To a first approximation, that is a reasonable presumption. The counter-examples are certainly a minority, and in violent cultures a very small one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:04AM
As can be witnessed on this forum with the sociopathic milquetoasters round here.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @12:34AM
Don't you mean "military aged males without bone spurs"?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:27AM (1 child)
I mean, Europe got boatloads of 'military aged males' and just look at the enrichment they're now enjoying!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @03:06AM
Sometimes when they say "Cultural enrichment" they mean "your babies are not dark enough".
Sometimes the females may get a say in whether or not they want said sperm. Hard to refuse being serviced by a dozen studs. All willing to help spread multiculturalism.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Saturday December 15 2018, @08:00PM (6 children)
A couple? It was thousands.
Let me guess, those babies had diaper rash in the shape of gang tats? You could swear that 3 year old was flashing gang signs?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:46AM (5 children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVnPPiLTMFk [youtube.com] Sorry, it's Fox News - I know what most people here think of Fox. A couple hundred women, children, and old folk at the front of the caravan, and a thousand or more military aged males following. Sara Carter supplies video evidence.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:21AM (1 child)
Ok, I watched that. The content was interesting but it was fucking painful putting up with that dickhead host talking over the reporter and pushing his agenda every time she spoke. How the hell can you tolerate watching such a shitty arsehole? It's like staring into an unwiped goatse.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:43AM
Fact is, I can't stand that kind of an asshole. I don't watch much of Fox, nor any other MSM news shows. I went searching for some specific terms, and that was about the third or fourth hit - I used it.
But, seriously, the other networks have people just as bad. Perhaps some aren't as fucking RUDE to their own network associates, but they can and will be just as rude to "guests". The host has an agenda, and he aggressively steers the guest into meeting that agenda. Of all the hosts I've ever seen, Johnny Carson was among the best. He seldom had an agenda, and he allowed guests to --- perhaps not steer the conversation, but at least get their veiwpoint in.
If you and I were sitting and chatting over coffee, or beer, would either of us force the conversation onto a single point of view of one specific topic? Hell no - a conversation is give and take. Rachel Madow, Young Turks, all of them, they force the conversation toward specific goals. I despise them.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday December 17 2018, @10:47PM (2 children)
Fox News is well known for showing doctored videos (Acorn, Planned Parenthood for a couple examples) over and over to push their agenda. They never make any effort to correct that once the truth comes out about the videos. They have zero credibility. They are not even licensed as news, instead they are licensed as entertainment.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 18 2018, @02:25AM (1 child)
Yeah, CNN is really bad for that kind of thing, isn't it?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday December 21 2018, @10:40PM
Sadly, they seem to have been trying to lower their standards to match Fox in recent years.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @08:53PM (14 children)
"Families separated? Possibly, a couple."
I seem to recall that the Trump Administration's own estimate was that they had at least a few thousand children separated from their families in custody. That sounds like substantially more than "a couple" of affected families.
"Most of that caravan was military age males. "
Citation needed
"The bleeding heart liberal media chased after the few women and their children, while ignoring the many truckloads of military age males."
Got any evidence to back that up?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:53PM (13 children)
Odd - most if not all of them are still on the other side of the border. Did we send the army down into Mexico to take them into custody? BREAKING NEWS: Caravan in custody, as well as the mayor of Tijuana!!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:30AM (12 children)
Look who flunked reading comprehension! I was talking about both the caravan that hasn't reached the border yet, but that intended to present itself at that fictional golden door, and the many families that already did properly and legally present themselves at a legal entry point who were systematically separated from their children and are now incarcerated separately from their young children. Even the Trump administration acknowledges that those already incarcerated children number in the thousands. They've been here for some time. You'd have to be living under a rock to not know about it.
Of course this is mustache twirling cartoon villain level evil, so I can understand why you'd want to put it out of your mind.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @03:05AM (11 children)
That was an entirely different event, of course. And, obviously, those people weren't all "legal". Some small number, as I recall, were criminals who had already been deported. A larger number were people who were ineligible and/or undesirables.
What many fail to understand is, those illegals are the ones who put their children at risk. The US didn't put them at risk of death by dehydration while crossing the border. The US didn't suggest they come, at all. We've made it fairly clear that we don't want them, but they insist on coming anyway. Donald Trump didn't do that to them, they did it to themselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @03:53AM (10 children)
None of them were illegals. They entered the U.S. at a legal point of entry and applied for status legally. Some were ineligible for various reasons, but they weren't illegal. But as far as I know, none of the children were criminals (espacially those under the age of criminal responsability). Some of them weren't old enough to know what crime is.
In many cases, their children were at risk where they were as well. Their parents weighed the risk of staying vs the risk of trying to reach the United states. Some may have underestimated the difficulty of the trip, others might have faced so much risk at home that it actually did outweigh the risk of trying to get in to the U.S. Indeed, that part is not the fault of the U.S. (unless their danger at home derived from our never ending drug war or fighting forces propped up by the CIA), but what happened to them once they got here most certainly was.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:04AM (9 children)
Let's put this on a more personal level. Some crazy person comes into your home. He/she brings half a dozen kids with her. She won't leave, insisting that she has some kind or "right" to be there. The law comes and takes her away. Now - what about the kids? Are you going to be their new mom? Are you going to send them somewhere? Where, exactly? I can almost promise you that those kids are going to see the inside of the police station, and maybe Juvie Hall. They have to go SOMEWHERE. Surely you don't want them locked up in the jail house with their mom? Out of the kindness of your heart, I suppose you can give them your bedroom, and you can sleep on the couch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:09AM (8 children)
In that case, she is trespassing on private property. In the case of the immigrant seeking asylum, she is exercising a right that the U.S. agreed by treaty that she has which is enshrined in international law. That is, she is not breaking the law.
As for parents who break the law, the kids go to a close relative if at all possible, or to foster care. They do not go to kiddie jail. They most certainly do not have to represent themselves in court and in general, they are allowed to communicate with their incarcerated parent.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:49AM (7 children)
All the parties to the treaty have to agree that asylum is necessary, don't they? No, she's not exercising a right unless and until we AGREE that she has a right to enter this country.
And, once again, I say that they have an obligation to fix their own country, rather than to bug out to America, and bring their problems with them.
Nice graphic here, explaining how and why we do no good for the world - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE [youtube.com] The video is a little out of date - maybe ten or fifteen years out of date. The numbers have changed, ever so slightly, primarily because China has changed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:12PM
TMB's taxonomy disagrees with you [soylentnews.org]. Rights are not something we bestow upon another.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:19PM (2 children)
There exists a right to apply for asylum. The procedure for that starts with entry.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:27PM (1 child)
Citation needed. I could swear that one can apply for asylum at an embassy or consulate. Remember Vietnam, and the evacuation of Hanoi? (Sorry, you may not be old enough to remember.) Asylum was granted to those folk before they ever left Vietnam. We couldn't airlift all the people to whom asylum was granted, so many were left behind. Obviously, if there is any requirement of entry before applying, it can be waived.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:22PM
>a href="https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum/asylum">here. here [wikipedia.org], and here [usatoday.com].
All indicate that one may apply at a point of entry or even when already inside the U.S. as well as at an embassy (note, if you are in the embassy, you are technically already inside the United States).
I was a bit young to know what was going on when Hanoi was evacuated, but I do know what happened.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:15PM (2 children)
The people in the caravan are Central Americans. They've been trying to fix their own countries for the last 150 years, but every time they make a start, the US installs another violent dictator, and they have to start again.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 17 2018, @06:31AM
Maybe they should close their borders, to keep the Norte Americanos the hell out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @09:43AM
So why go to America? They have a Trump!
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:22PM (29 children)
This is why you anti-Trumpers have failing rhetoric.
Trumpers don't care about the wall; they care about preserving their nation. Whether there's a wall or not, and regardless of who pays for any such wall, the point is to make sure that the people coming into the United States are American, not un-American.
It's the same issue all over the Western world. Walls and making people pay for walls are all indirect ways to say "We don't want these other people coming in here and shitting over all the shiny things we've built—these people, who just don't get it, who just don't understand what our values are. No! Our people built this place over generations; these others don't get to come in here and just take advantage of those things we've built for our people according to our principles and values."
You're not allowed to say these things directly, though; so, people talk about walls instead.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:05PM (25 children)
Then they take all the flags and copies of the Constitution and build a great fire. They use the fire to melt down all those shiny things into slag which they mold into bricks for their wall. Then, now that everything's burned or melted they crack open the cheap bathtub gin that's left and drink a toast to saving all the whatever it was.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:36PM (23 children)
What are you talking about?
People coming here have zero respect for the rule of law, let alone for the Constitution or even the principles from which it was derived. That's why they are freely breaking the law by crossing the border illegally, trespassing on private property, no less.
America is not founded on wild immigration, but rather on the importance of individual rights, personal responsibility, limited government, and the rule of law. If the first thing you do is break the law, then you are NOT welcome here, particularly when you bring with you leftist ideas of a Nanny state.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:02PM (22 children)
America also isn't built on emulating East Germany/
If you want to make the illegals go home, crack down on the fine upstanding American employers that would rather pay them under the table than hire Americans.
Then get rid of that monument to Kafka that is INS and replace it with an organization dedicated to helping legal immigrants integrate into society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:03PM (2 children)
Hiring people is a matter of voluntary association.
Government's major purpose (according to you folk) is to secure order and the border; the Illegal aliens have broken the law, which is reason enough to pursue and prosecute them—no need for contorted ideas like yours; government has rules already, but is not enforcing them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:37PM (1 child)
Well, they are voluntarily inviting people to illegally immigrate to the U.S.
As for the rest, you seem to be quite confused about who believes what about the proper role of the Government, even in this thread.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @05:30AM
I have no idea what you're trying to say. I'm genuinely sorry.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 15 2018, @11:56PM (17 children)
East Germany is not applicable. East Germany was in the business of keeping people IN, who wanted OUT. Putting a lock on the doors in my house to keep people OUT is certainly not a crime. Only if I kept a house full of people locked IN would we be talking about human rights violations.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:38AM (12 children)
If you want something directly equivalent, we'll go with China.
There is a significant difference between locking your doors and threatening to barricade the neighborhood until your neighbors pay for enough bricks and rolls of barbed wire to wall off your yard.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:53AM (11 children)
Go with China? That's almost funny. Our leftists want a Socialist America, don't they?
Maybe it is necessary to continue allowing illegal aliens to erode our over burdened court systems and welfare systems, to spark the revolt that will create Red America?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @01:45AM (10 children)
Well, China undeniably built a wall to keep people out. How'd that work out for them?
As I said, if you want the illegal immigrants to go somewhere else, crack down on those upstanding all American employers who clearly prefer to pay illegals under the table rather than employ Americans.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:55AM (9 children)
Actually, the Great Wall served it's intended purpose, for quite a long while.
Cracking down on employers? I'm all for that.
I've told this story here before, maybe you read it, maybe not. I was a new foreman for a construction company. Sent to a town to build a sawmill, drying kilns, a boiler, couple warehouses, a hog for the sawdust powered boiler, drainage and area paving. I contacted the employment office, as well as some private agencies, put ads in the local papers trying to find people who wanted to work. No takers, for days. I'm a foreman without a crew, and I'm getting desparate. Then, an old Mexican guy walks up, and asks me how many people I need, and how many of each craft. I told him what I needed, and next morning I had a crew on the job site. Filled out all the paperwork, made copies of documents, and sent it all to the main office. Everything was good for four or five days. The boss arrived on site, looked around, then asked me what I was paying the Mexicans. Told him I was paying them the same wages I was paying the white boys.
That was our first disagreement. The boss thought I should have paid the Mexicans about 2/3 what I was paying the whites. He stopped bitching when I asked if he wanted only 2/3 the effort that the white boys made.
When I hired a Mexican, as near as I could determine, they were legal. We didn't have E-verify then, all I could go by were driver's licenses and social security cards. If a Mexican showed me the same paperwork that a white boy showed me, I had to presume that he was legal.
Given the tools to verify his right to work, I would have checked on that. I had no such tools, so I hired whoever had legal looking paperwork.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:12AM (8 children)
The Great Wall of China was built to slow down invading armies and give them time to mobilize their defenses. It did nothing for small groups or individuals who could sneak over.
As people have stated many times, many illegals arrive by plane with a proper visa. A lot of others get smuggled inside vans or trucks, some use tunnels, some use boats. A wall on our Mexican border will do very little, BUT it will make Trump's cronies a LOT of money.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:00AM (7 children)
The major flow of illegals into this country is foot traffic across the border. The coroner in Tuscon says that he gets an average of 5 bodies PER WEEK. In the winter months, that drops a little lower, in the summer months it goes up, but he says the average is 5 per week. Roughly 250 people die each year, right there in that one short stretch of the border. No one knows how many live to tell their stories of crossing the desert, just to cross the border.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @08:35PM (6 children)
It sounds like there is already a significant barrier to illegal immigration in place.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 16 2018, @09:22PM (5 children)
I thought you were interested in a more humane solution to illegal immigration, than a scorching hot desert where the weak dehydrate and die. I'm willing to just shoot them, which is much more humane than dying of thirst.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 16 2018, @10:26PM (4 children)
Step one, don't go to great expense to make it even worse than it already is.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 17 2018, @06:28AM (3 children)
Scenario one: The individual who wants to come to the US is told he'll suffer horribly from heat and thirst before he gets to the US, but he has 85% chance of success. He decides to take the risk.
Scenario two: Same individual reads that there is a wall in the way, patrolled by alt-right grannies with PMS and AIDS, which he will have to face AFTER suffering horrible from heat and thirst for a week or more. He decides the alt-righters are too horrible to risk. Soon, there are no more people dying at the border.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 17 2018, @06:35AM (2 children)
No, they suffer and die on the Mexican side trying to dig under the wall or scale it, or they end up in the hands of the drug smugglers and other low lives already known to smuggle people in through the entry points for a terrible price.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 17 2018, @12:38PM (1 child)
Well, your opinion is noted. I happen to think Mexicans are a lot smarter than that. "Dude, we can show you how to get to the US, but, only 5% of the people who try it live through it!" Are YOU going to take those odds? What makes you think Mexicans are stupid? Are you some kind of RACIST?????
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday December 17 2018, @05:45PM
Now you're playing Trump's ugly game, say any damned thing to get what you want. "But we need this new super machine gun. It's the only way to humanely mow down thousands of unarmed people trapped in a field! You don't want all those people to suffer whjjen we gut them one by one with this rusty butterknife, do you?"
I think they take the risks they do because they see no better option. If we cut that option off, they'll end up with an even worse option being the best they have remaining, and you know it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @02:14AM (3 children)
In, out, what's the difference? You're either in your cell, or out in the prison yard. Did you know that Americans can't leave the country if nobody else lets them in? You need a passport to get out and back, just like Soviet Russia. You can't just move into Mexico or Canada, you need zee papers, old man. One side or the other, the fence makes it a prison. People have a right to go where the food is, just like the caribou... Borders are Jim Crow. We must tear them down. Place of birth deserve the same protections as gender, religious, racial, etc. rights.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday December 16 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)
Umm NO. I can leave Arizona and enter into Mexico without any papers or documentation, getting back into the US requires papers. Canada requires documentation to cross the border there but I can also take a private boat and sail to many places in Central and South America with no papers, but again returning to the US requires papers.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @06:45AM (1 child)
So, you need less papers, you still need papers... Your prison is bigger, with nicer weather, and better beer, but it's still prison, and borders are the prison walls
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday December 17 2018, @03:53PM
I can travel between states without papers or ID as well, but some states require ID and almost all of them require that you provide a name to any law enforcement that might question your presence there. Where might I ask is it that you seem to think doesn't require 'papers' of some sort ?
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @06:26PM
"If you want to make the illegals go home, crack down on the fine upstanding American employers that would rather pay them under the table than hire Americans."
i agree. just like the kkk harassed freed slaves instead of the slave masters who were too cheap to ship the slaves back to africa. it's our government that is out of control. deal with that and immigration problems will disappear. people freely migrating wouldn't be a big problem if the pieces of shit in government weren't sending pigs to steal people's houses who can't afford to pay for the public schooling for the migrants/illegals/aliens/refugees/criminals. or the hospital bills. people wouldn't come over here to mooch if their were no benefits available. only honest work? more honest workers, less losers, less problems.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17 2018, @12:26AM
They're going to melt down all those flag pins made in China to make bricks for the Wall?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @09:54PM (2 children)
So in order to "save your nation" from that totally blown out of proportion threat, you opted to sell your soul to the devil.
Maybe your "nation" isn't worth saving after all if it can't live up to its own principles.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 15 2018, @10:55PM (1 child)
That's the problem.
Either there will be order, or there will be war.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday December 16 2018, @12:26AM
Exactly. Let me phrase it differently. War is the last resort to establish order after all other institutions failed.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday December 15 2018, @07:31PM
People believe it when the bible says it.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday December 15 2018, @08:17PM (2 children)
One reason for this kind of thing is that there are real reasons to doubt that Donald Trump is capable of basic arithmetic [bloomberg.com]. As in, he might be genuinely unable to figure out things at a glance like $10 billion being greater than $50 million.
There's also some evidence that Donald Trump might not be able to read [theroot.com].
Congratulations, America, for choosing a leader that is unable to meet the rigorous standards applied to 12-year-olds! Great job!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:29AM (1 child)
I dunno, 5% GDP when Malik's brother said we'd never go above 2%. I guess he must just be a retard.
(Score: 1) by j-beda on Sunday December 16 2018, @04:54PM
When you make up numbers that are not tied to reality, it undermines your statement. Data does support the "above 2%" figure, but still far below 5%.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth [tradingeconomics.com]
"The US economy advanced an annualized 3.5 percent on quarter in the third quarter of 2018, in line with earlier figures, the second estimate showed. It follows a 4.2 percent growth in the previous period which was the highest since the third quarter of 2014. Upward revisions to nonresidential fixed investment and private inventory investment were offset by downward revisions to personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and state and local government spending. GDP Growth Rate in the United States averaged 3.22 percent from 1947 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 16.70 percent in the first quarter of 1950 and a record low of -10 percent in the first quarter of 1958."