Amnesty, by any means necessary

Published 04-29-21

My check in on the news and narratives of the day as I have my coffee and watch the birds is a usual start to my mornings. Most days it’s an aggravating way to begin the day, but I can’t seem to help myself.

Between media reports and a healthy dose of caffeine my blood pressure rises to a significant extent that I’m more than ready to start on whatever projects and chores need to get accomplished.

Not to mention so disgusted that my first hour or so is spent muttering to myself about how abjectly moronic the people in charge can actually be.

This week has been no exception... for the aggravation or the projects.

Tuesday morning brought a Washington Times story that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would no longer be imposing monetary fines on illegal immigrants who “refused to leave, and would grant amnesty for any fines imposed by the Trump Administration.”

According to a statement by DHS Secretary Mayorkas, “the fines weren’t having much effect,” but I guess we’ll have to take his word for it, since no documentation of fines levied or paid was offered.

Imagine my shock to learn that while monetary fines had been written into federal law for “several decades” they were not utilized before President Trump’s supposed “ineffective and unnecessary punitive measures.”

Of course this administration deems following the law ineffective. It doesn’t suit either their purposes or their goals.

But let your hearts be lightened by the Biden team’s actions, no matter reality of kids in “holding areas” filled to bursting and border enforcement officers on diaper and bath duty.

I guess the solution to kids in cages is to build more cages, I mean holding facilities.

Policy choices, like cancelling the Remain In Mexico program and a lack of will to penalize those here illegally, result in de facto amnesty without Congressional approval. Selective enforcement of established law has been the norm for most of my adult life, especially regarding immigration.

The picking and choosing of laws and an administration’s priorities, the policy papers and activist training in support of subverting the legislative process and the lawyers to codify it in precedent setting cases have caused a jumble of a national strategy that can only be described as incoherent, and that is speaking charitably.

The view from 30,000 feet is a little more sinister with legislative and executive branches coordinating with non-governmental organizations and corporations to takeover and reshape what is American Life.

Because it usually includes funding. Lots of funding.

Taxpayer funding.

It’s quite profitable.

•••••

As part of the morning news reading I usually try to keep an eye on Ag related news, not just from back home, but here in Tennessee as well.

What plagues farmers doesn’t change much, weather and commodity prices are always top of mind.

And coming from the Central Valley, water has always been at the top of mine.

I have yet to meet a farmer who hasn’t complained about getting rain at the wrong time, wind bent crops or hail and frost damaged fruit and blossoms. In California or Tennessee.

It’s part of the charms of farming, gambling against everything Mother Nature can throw at you. And sometimes she’s ruthless.

It’s not so unusual for me to read about worsening drought conditions and irrigation districts planning shrinking water allotments back home and ten minutes later read a story from Tennessee where water issues tend toward the too much of a good thing and planting windows getting delayed by weeks, if not months.

These issues effect more than the farmer. They trickle down. Tropical storms two years ago left behind water-logged ground at prime planting time. Specifically with soybeans, a staple crop here in west Tennessee and used in all manner of oils and processed foods.

Crops didn’t get in until July, and with late planting you get smaller than expected yields.

Those smaller yields are hitting the market now and causing problems in yet another supply chain.

Has there been any supply chain untouched or unbroken during the last year?

At least this one can’t be blamed on COVID.

Coupled with the national discourse from the left regarding arable lands and the “vast swaths of America” where no one lives opening to development and migration and the push for a diet that drastically reduces beef consumption and a move to chemically extracted “plant proteins” I have concerns for what the future holds for Agriculture under this new normal.

I also have a hard time comprehending that the people wanting to filter cow farts will have to figure out where all these plants needed for protein harvesting will be grown to support our own population, let alone the share of the world we manage to feed on the slivers of productive land America has.

Our hubris is in for one heck of a fall.

•••••

Oh, the joys of Modge Podge!

One of these days, I’m going to talk myself out of the project ideas I have for the house. Or my aching joints will.

In between all the rain I have been trying to get the last of the painting done upstairs, and my sights fell to the kid’s playroom/video game lounge I envisioned for the converted attic room upstairs.

Paint would be bad enough, but I had the crazy idea to wallpaper a couple walls and the hallway with pages from Samuel’s favorite comic books he had been saving through the years and chalkboard paint one side so the kids could draw to their heart’s content. Vince had more than a few concerns about my plans, and the amount of work involved... he should know better after fifteen years of living with my stubbornness, but he’s a man, so I’ll forgive his doubts.

One week later I’m exhausted and I had to buy out two Walmart’s worth of 32 oz. matte Modge Podge. But only one more wall to go!

My OCD was in rare form as I tried to keep pages in order and grouped so the comics could be read and followed... and the Advertising Director is never too far away, as the coolest ads for video games in some of his older comics have also found some prime spots. Even better, Sam asked if they could be included.

That apple definitely didn’t fall too far from the tree.

Funnily enough, as I started sticking pages to the wall I was reminded of years ago when Grammie and I made our own Modge Podge with corn starch and Elmer’s Glue to make a window card with a purple pansy I had picked from her yard, dried and pressed in the dictionary on the bookshelf in our playroom.

I can pretty much guarantee Grammie had Modge Podge in her craft closet... or a suitable fabric glue we could have used, but her call of “Let’s see what happens” was impossible to resist.

I’d say my apple didn’t fall too far from her tree either.