It’s pretty clear that the young architects in training at Washington University don’t want to build His Orange Majesty’s vanity wall – as clear as an uplifted middle finger. They’re in agreement with numerous engineering, architectural, and design organizations and firms that have indicated that the project not only violates professional ethical norms but poses unacceptable financial and reputational risks.
They’ve got lots of company.
As of last April 60% of Americans who were polled opposed the border wall.
Republican congressmen from districts on the border don’t support building a wall.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill says it won’t even keep those pesky Mexicans out. She also says it’ll cost U.S. taxpayers -you and me – at least $67 billion, or $200 per person. And McCaskill, a former state auditor, knows her numbers.
And it’s damn sure that the Mexicans aren’t going to pay for it – no matter what the Dark (Orange) Lord claims. (Of course, the recently leaked transcript of his phone conversation with the Mexican president made it clear that he doesn’t really care who pays – as long as Mexico goes along with his story publicly so he’ll look like a “winner” at least once.)
Looks like nobody with the sense God gave a turnip would allocate money for Trump’s border wall, certainly not those “fiscally conservative” members of the GOP who control the entire government apparatus just now.
But wait – did I just hear that the GOP-controlled House passed an appropriations bill, The Make America Secure Appropriations Act, that parceled out the first installment of that $67 billion?
I sure did.
It was my congressperson, Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2), who gushed that an appropriations bill that “fully funds President Trump’s request for the border wall,” meets “our conservative priorities.” Every Republican member of the Missouri delegation joined Rep. Wagner – and all but five other Republicans – and voted “yea” on this bill.
Same folks voted to take health care away from Medicaid recipients and Obamacare participants just a few weeks ago. Yet they’re more than willing to begin throwing billions at Trump’s boondoggle.
Are they inherently mean? Or maybe they’re just bone stupid? Or perhaps they’re that frightened of Donny the Orange Menace and his immigrant-hating pitchfork corps?
In any case, they might keep in mind that perching on walls can, politically speaking, lead to great falls – falls that all the king’s men can’t fix.
