We’ve seen this movie before

Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles recently did a post he titled “It’s Back to The Future with Trump’s 2020 campaign.” Actually, I think the more accurate movie analogy for Trump and his MAGA supporters is the political allegory Pleasantville (1998). As Roger Ebert described it: The movie opens in today’s America, which we have been taught … Read more

The imperial president threatens to close the U.S.-Mexico border

Jonathan Swan warns at Axios, “President Trump and his chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, have realized they’re passing no major legislation through this divided Congress.” Trump goes it alone: [T]he Trump team is busy figuring out ways to go over the heads of Congress. The one exception is drug pricing.) What to expect: More executive orders, … Read more

The Trump Constitutional Crisis Has Arrived

Let me be the first to say, if Trump releases the Mueller Report in full, I’m dead wrong about most of what I’m saying. I hope that happens, and that I’m just wrong. But if Trump doesn’t release the Report and starts to make excuses, the crisis is coming. The Mueller Report will be the … Read more

Proposed walls would dissect national monument, wildlife refuge

*NEW* DHS Document Reveals Locations for 213 Miles of Border Wall Construction Across Three Border States

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Arizona– A newly-obtained letter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to the Department of Defense requests use of billions of dollars in military funds to build new border walls as part of the Trump Administration’s emergency declaration at the border. According to the document, 213 miles of new and replacement border walls, floodlights and surveillance equipment would be imposed on communities and landscapes in California, Arizona and New Mexico– including a wall that would block the San Pedro River, one of Arizona’s last remaining free-flowing waterways. Find the original document and summary of its meaning here. See maps of the proposed border wall construction areas: Yuma 1, Yuma 2 and El Paso.

In response, representatives at the Sierra Club released the following statements:

“The irony of using our national security budget to divide communities, destroy wildlife habitat and cut us off from our public lands is atrocious. The only crisis on the border is the one this administration is creating by building these barriers and stripping people of their rights and protection under the law. We cannot allow Trump to illegally steal taxpayer dollars in an attempt to militarize safe places and build more walls through our most precious American landscapes,” said Richard Guerrero, LCDR, USN (Ret.) and Sierra Club Borderlands Activist.

Read more