We never get a break from the horrors of the Donnie Show anymore … rarely does a single day go by that there isn’t some new abomination to stir our ire, to cause a wtf to emit from our voicebox before we can catch it. Today’s came before I was even out of bed, thereby jump-starting my day, though not in any good way.
There are a number of reasons that Trump was able to garner enough electoral votes to win the election in 2016: gerrymandered districts, Russian propaganda, Hillary’s lack of popularity, and “The Wall”. He fostered fear among the predominantly un-and-under-educated … fear of immigrants who, he said, were “bad hombres”, were rapists and drug lords, who must be stopped. He alone, he said, could fix this, and his solution was … well, it started out being a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern border that “Mexico is going to pay for”.
Early on, like the moment he first said the words, it was clear that Mexico wasn’t going to pay for a damn wall or anything else. Why should they? Why would they? So, that part of the conversation simply died, and Trump’s cheering section quickly forgot about it. Now, 31 months into his term, the “big, beautiful wall” is to be an ugly black fence, and he is planning to steal from We the People to build said fence. Before election day 2020. Why? Because it is the only thing, when all the detritus is set aside, that he proposed that rallied the masses in 2016, and as of right now, he has accomplished absolutely nothing. It is a safe bet that the economy will be in worse, not better, shape by the time election day rolls around, so he needs something with which to appease his base.
The wall, or fence as it were, has been undisputedly proven by experts to be useless, unnecessary, and a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. That, in and of itself, would be bad enough, but now he is so obsessed with his damn fence that he is planning to steal from landowners, and steal money from disaster relief funds that exist to help people after such things as hurricanes, wildfires and more.
According to The Washington Post …
Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.
He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.
[Trump] has told senior aides that a failure to deliver on the signature promise of his 2016 campaign would be a letdown to his supporters and an embarrassing defeat.
When aides have suggested that some orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying “take the land.”
The article goes on to tell of Trump’s insistence on painting the fence black, even though it will add significantly to the cost, simply because he likes the way it looks. Billions of dollars will be spent, people will have their land stolen from them, and worse yet, irreparable damage will be done to the environment. All so Trump can say he kept his promise … sort of … to his supporters. It’s a fence, not a wall. It’s being paid for by We the People, not Mexico. It will kill flora and fauna. And it won’t do a damn thing to resolve the issue of people crossing the border without proper authorization.
Tropical storm Dorian is brewing in the Atlantic, expected to strengthen to a Category 3 hurricane. Puerto Rico, still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria in 2017, is in its path, and then it is likely to head to Florida as it gains even more strength. Will Puerto Rico once again be denied disaster assistance, this time because Trump spent all the money in the pot on his abomination of a fence … a useless fence?
It is my opinion that since this fence’s only real purpose is to give Trump bragging rights for his 2020 re-election campaign, the money for the wall should come from his campaign war chest. Surely all his wealthy donors, all those people to whom he gave tax cuts amounting to millions of dollars, would be willing to chip in to ensure he pleases his gullible base with this ignoble wall? Here’s what his top ten donors have given him …
- Robert Mercer, Renaissance Technologies – $13.5 million
- Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson, Las Vegas Sands Corporation (LVS) – $10 million
- Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (WWE) – $6 million
- Bernard Marcus, Retired – $7 million
- Geoffrey Palmer, G.H. Palmer Associates – $2 million
- Ronald M Cameron, Mountaire Corp. – $2 million
- Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies – $1.25 million
- Walter Buckley Jr, Actua Corporation (ACTA) – $1 million
- Cherna Moskowitz, Hawaiian Gardens Casino – $1 million
- Peter Zieve, Electroimpact – $1 million
You want a wall fence, Donnie … pay for it with something other than our money! Get your donors to up the ante by a few million each. We the People have better things to do with our money, like providing health care to our citizens, repairing broken infrastructure, providing relief to Puerto Rico to re-build, providing funds to California when the inevitable wildfires hit later this fall, and finding ways to protect our planet for our children and grandchildren. Frankly, we have more to fear from you than from immigrants crossing the border.
Meanwhile, Arizona and New Mexico are mountainous. Coronado National Forest, in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, has several 9,000-ft peaks.
The US-Mexico border has a delicate ecosystem that could be disrupted by any new barrier. A wall would prevent animals reaching their hunting lands, water sources and migration corridors. Grey wolves and jaguars hunt on both sides of the border. Other cross-border populations of wildlife include bison, bighorn sheep, ocelots and bears.
Filosofa's Word 