Oh no! Trump’s wall to block butterflies!
The bankruptcy of our modern intellectual culture, including its increasingly insane hatred of anything-Trump, might best be illustrated by this story today in the San-Antonio Express-News: First signs of border wall construction spotted at National Butterfly Center.
The full article might be behind a paywall, but let me quote from the teaser text:
A gigantic yellow earth mover arrived on National Butterfly Center land Sunday afternoon, the first sign of the beginnings of border wall construction in that protected habitat.
The steel-and-concrete levee wall is expected to slice through the center, placing 70 of the sanctuary’s 100 acres of land south of it.
Oh my! Isn’t Trump evil! This wall will prevent the illegal immigration of butterflies!
First, any sane rational person will immediately recognize that putting a wall through a butterfly sanctuary is going to do nothing to interfere with the butterflies that use that sanctuary. Butterflies are smarter than the average news reporter, and know that they can simply fly over a wall.
Second, the use of hyperbole in the article’s text reveals the reporter’s bias. The wall will “slice” through the center. And the earth mover is “gigantic” (which anyone can clearly see it is not, simply by looking at the picture at the top of the story). The writer used these absurd emotionally charged words to accentuate the disaster of this “slicing” by the “gigantic” earth mover.
Finally, the article’s timing also reveals the author’s biases. She is acting as a PR agent for Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who last week introduced amendments to the Democratic house budget bill that would have forbid any wall from being built inside or around this or other Texas border parks.
Cuellar’s proposal, however, is clearly not meant to protect the park, but to prevent the border patrol from protecting the U.S. border, as it is constitutionally required to do. It might make sense to require any border wall to skirt the southern edge of these parks in order to prevent harm to the parks, but Cuellar’s proposal specifically outlaws any wall “within, south of, or north of the National Butterfly Center,” essentially making this park a guaranteed gap in the wall which in turn could very well attract illegals in great numbers. Based on what I have seen of illegal trash in federal lands here in southern Arizona, that intrusion would do far more harm to the park than a simple wall.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. Or you can buy it directly from the author and get an autographed copy.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The bankruptcy of our modern intellectual culture, including its increasingly insane hatred of anything-Trump, might best be illustrated by this story today in the San-Antonio Express-News: First signs of border wall construction spotted at National Butterfly Center.
The full article might be behind a paywall, but let me quote from the teaser text:
A gigantic yellow earth mover arrived on National Butterfly Center land Sunday afternoon, the first sign of the beginnings of border wall construction in that protected habitat.
The steel-and-concrete levee wall is expected to slice through the center, placing 70 of the sanctuary’s 100 acres of land south of it.
Oh my! Isn’t Trump evil! This wall will prevent the illegal immigration of butterflies!
First, any sane rational person will immediately recognize that putting a wall through a butterfly sanctuary is going to do nothing to interfere with the butterflies that use that sanctuary. Butterflies are smarter than the average news reporter, and know that they can simply fly over a wall.
Second, the use of hyperbole in the article’s text reveals the reporter’s bias. The wall will “slice” through the center. And the earth mover is “gigantic” (which anyone can clearly see it is not, simply by looking at the picture at the top of the story). The writer used these absurd emotionally charged words to accentuate the disaster of this “slicing” by the “gigantic” earth mover.
Finally, the article’s timing also reveals the author’s biases. She is acting as a PR agent for Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who last week introduced amendments to the Democratic house budget bill that would have forbid any wall from being built inside or around this or other Texas border parks.
Cuellar’s proposal, however, is clearly not meant to protect the park, but to prevent the border patrol from protecting the U.S. border, as it is constitutionally required to do. It might make sense to require any border wall to skirt the southern edge of these parks in order to prevent harm to the parks, but Cuellar’s proposal specifically outlaws any wall “within, south of, or north of the National Butterfly Center,” essentially making this park a guaranteed gap in the wall which in turn could very well attract illegals in great numbers. Based on what I have seen of illegal trash in federal lands here in southern Arizona, that intrusion would do far more harm to the park than a simple wall.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. Or you can buy it directly from the author and get an autographed copy.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
American Thinker
1: Texas governor Greg Abbott should formally request that the president issue a declaration of an emergency.
2: Abbott should declare a state-level emergency.
3:Abbott should ask Texas officials to compile incidents of violence, gang activity, drug-smuggling, human-smuggling, sex-trafficking, etc. to document grounds for an emergency.
4: Abbott should make demand invoking Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that the federal government “shall” protect Texas against “invasion” by armed gangs and criminals.
5: The Texas Legislature should pass a resolution invoking Article 4, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that the federal government “shall” protect Texas against “domestic violence” spread from Mexico across the border, including armed
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/texas_can_get_trumps_border_wall_accomplished.html
MarcusZ1967–
Good stuff!
Oh, when will the first activist chain themselves to the ‘giant’ earthmover to ‘save’ the butterflies?
And if the majority of the preserve is south of the wall, shouldn’t Progressives be happy that the butterflies won’t have to live in racist, fascist Amerika?
NO EMERGENCY AT THE BORDER?
I ask different people the question: Do you think America needs to better control our Southern border with more barriers and other measures?
And usually depending on how politically aligned they are they will reply with: Build the wall, if they are more Conservative. And then you are more Liberal aligned thay will reply: We do not need a barrier on the border. Its all just made up so Trump can pander to his base.
But most rational American people when asked you will generally get them to admit that a secure border, just like the fences and gates and locked doors they safely live behind are generally a good and rational thing.
So lets look at the situation.
1. As per the Pew institute there are currently aprox. 11 million people in the United States illegally. (+++++++?)
2. There were aprox. 400 thousand apprehensions at the border in 2018. Thats 400 thousand people who were caught crossing the border illegally and were by our immigration policy released into the country with a piece of paper and a date to show up to court, which many never keep. And as of 2018 the numbers were aprox. 50 thousand border apprehensions per month. And that is not accounting for those that have not been apprehended and are here just wondering around unaccounted for.
3. So we basically have the population of Boston moving into the United States every year, illegally.
4. And these people move mainly into the now famous (And illegal IMO) “Sanctuary Cities”. And what are these sanctuary cites in the process of passing into law? Minimum wages of $15 dollars per hour for legal workers and citizens. Thats the government mandating a business pay their employees based not in the economics of their business and the market it exists in but based in a command from the government based in social engineering I.E. Socialism. All while the government itself is on the other end flooding the country with low wage workers (What ???). They are in the process of working both ends of the equation and are working through their “wisdom” and “compassion” at destroying those in the middle class burdened with these onerous rules and regulations. The government has become the enemy of its own citizens in many real ways.
5. So our immigration policy on one hand is flooding our employment market with workers at the lowest levels who are willing to work at a discounted rate thus diluting the employment market. And on the other hand the government is now mandating that the minimum wage be a “living wage” of sorts of $15 dollars per hour.
6. The result of these schizto actions by the government is to raise the cost of doing business and employing their workers. The end result is that the cost to the consumer has now been artificially raised by the government itself. Remember to legally employ a worker there are a myriad of rules and laws, insurances and fees that must be adhered to. These rules are now in the process of including paid two week family leave I believe for any employer with 5 or more workers.
And the implications are that the employer with 6 employees goes now to 4 workers and those who operate at higher levels they must hire fewer employees because of the increased costs to employ them. These rules while they sound very snuggly, at some level of increase become more than a burden to the employer and the consumer. There is a line that government need not go or they become the destroyer of the American dream. The government has long ago forgotten about this line and is hurtling towards that destruction.
American business, specifically small business is constrained by real world economics and not pie in the sky social engineering. The social engineers in government see the profits that the employers might receive as a resource and are in the process of wealth redistribution via these confiscatory rules and laws, just another tax essentially. They are increasing the cost of and disincentivizing the formulation of mainly private small businesses, and that is the foundation of America.
7. And this analysis has not even touched on the illegal entry into the United States of gang members and “others” from all parts of the world coming and going through our porous Southern border doing what ever it is that they are doing. These activities would by evidence include human trafficking, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking (See: Operation fast and furious), terror suspects and the maiming and murdering of our own private citizens and of our law enforcement personnel.
Has a member of your family been murdered or injured by one of these individuals who if they were not here, because they are here illegally, by logic the murder or injury would not have occurred? I personally know several people who have been very negatively affected by this poor to say the least U.S. government policy that is against the interests of its own population.
8. And keep in mind, I have not gone into the social services that the American tax payers are forced through law to pay for ALL of these illegals in OUR country. This would include welfare, the educating of the illegals children, medical care, law enforcement and legal costs etc.
9. And keep in mind, I am not for one moment arguing that there be no immigration from our Southern border or anywhere else, America truly needs these people who come here to become Americans or even to work and send funds back to their family’s. But it must be done in an organized and rational manner where we know who is here, how long they are staying, do they have a criminal record, where they are working and are they a threat or an asset to our country.
10. So when the argument is made that “there is no emergency on our Southern border”, I ask you to consider these few things that I have laid out and ask yourself: What is rational and common sense and what is just political rhetoric and a policy that damages the American people in so many ways, for so many years it is thought to be “Normal”? You might ask those who see no problem: What is the acceptable number of people illegally entering the United States? 10 thousand? 100 thousand? 400 thousand people a year? 1 million people perhaps? Really? At what cost to our sovereignty, personal wealth and freedom from being unreasonably and oppressively taxed to pay for it all?
11. Both the Democrats and the Republican leadership have become the enemy of the people on this and many other issues. Is an open border policy, especially with the existence of a welfare state to incentivize and support them what rational Americans want to exist in their immigration policy? Of course not. Why?
Because most Americans are rational, not politically suicidal and value their safety and the safety of their family’s and loved ones. Simple. Democrat, Republican or what have you, you know you agree with what you have just read, you are a rational American.
If this story from the Senate is true.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/431154-graham-handful-of-gop-senators-will-vote-to-block-trumps-emergency
Then Trump must deny his signature from ANY AND ALL legislation proposed by the Congress until his agenda is reasonably funded and voted on and approved.
The Founders in the Constitution gave the president his most powerful weapon, his signature in the transforming of a bill into a law.
Trump will have to get back to this basic strategic philosophy granted exclusively to all presidents. I suggest he do so and remind all who and what this dance of power is all about.
You have to give a little to get a little.
So much for there being no emergency on the Southern border.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/04/washington-post-border-rush-may-hit-100000-migrants-in-march/
There is no rational American who believes that hundreds of thousands of immigrants illegally entering the country is either not a problem and not an emergency. I said rational American, not indoctrinated Leftist operatives in politics and the media.
No rational American.
Is Trump setting up to become a bit more serious and focused on the wall and our country’s irrational immigration policy that is designed to flood OUR country with masses of illegal individuals with the intention of growing the Democrat “free stuff” form of government?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/433370-trump-will-ask-for-86b-for-wall-in-budget-request-report
IMO Trump is about to get serious related to his essential Constitutional power, his signature transforming a bill created in Congress into the law of the land. He IMO will become ruthless and will not take council from either party’s leadership and will force the issue and demand that they do what is in his estimation the correct course to take.
Trump will plainly transmit to Congress that if they refuse to fund the wall and make serious changes to our immigration policy that he will withhold his signature from ALL legislation. That is IMO where this is all about to go.
And that is the way that it should have been from the start. Trump is slowly learning how to manipulate those who he needs to manipulate. The Founders gave this specific power exclusively to the president, now let Trump, or any president, use their wisdom as the political weapon it was fashioned to be.
In the end the potential political consequences will tend to rule the day and be what they will be, but we must have a president that is willing to lead as a true leader and not be only a tool of his political opposition’s ability to create fear and those in his own party who are also his and the American peoples true enemies.
In the end compromise will have to be arrived at, and it will be those who have the strongest stomachs that will tend to prevail. And I think that Trump has had about enough of what the two party’s leadership have been serving him to eat.