October 25, 2018 500 AM
Dear editor, Re: Border Wall Suhuana Hussain is a May 2018 graduate of University of California, Berkeley campus, with a degree in political economy. If “How Trump’s wall could kill a Texas Border town”—original title, with Presidio added to the headline in the October 11th Sentinel—is typical of her work, and it is published with “integrity,” as The Center for Public Integrity would have it, then anti-American journalistic bias is ample and ongoing. The headline and premise are not supported by facts. Since the article focuses on the Ferguson family opinion, let’s start with Mayor John Ferguson, of recent Trans-Pecos Pipeline fame, who could not, lest it disturb his constituents or his conscience, complete a sentence of praise for the pipeline, when interviewed on Marfa radio before its completion. That is the same pipeline that was built to deliver cheap gas with which to build industries, reduce emissions in electrical power plants and heat homes, not to mention its million-dollar donation to Presidio. The gift money barely offset the .8 million dollars in back taxes and penalties owed to the IRS by Presidio due to poor financial management practices. Somebody local did not do their job. Mayor Ferguson personifies the perennial pessimist. He warns that Trump tariffs on aluminum and steel “COULD [my emphasis] potentially increase prices to the point where it cuts production.” “It” refers to the mobile home manufacturer Solitaire which manufactures its product in Mexico and sells it in the USA. The fact is that Solitaire has “doubled” its production despite a Sentinel-headlined Trump tariff on Canadian wood products in 2017 which was supposed to be oh, so tough on the Solitaire maquiladora in Ojinaga. Does Mayor Ferguson have a positive agenda of any kind to help his town? Presidio city administrator Jose Portillo adds to the doom and gloom, “We’re not big enough to say Will Hurd’s not our party guy, he’s not our ticket…” This comment after the many positives Congressman Hurd has accomplished for Presidio. Presidio councilwoman Isela Nunez is quoted as saying “opening businesses and expanding city infrastructure is a notoriously slow process and partially blames “the land surveyor, which serves Presidio and Marfa“ which had not completed a required survey after a year for her family’s proposed office building. Good Lord! With the “nationally recognized” rocket science program at the high school, and with the number of doctorates achieved by Presidio students (not mentioned in the article) that are touted by educators, can’t the school encourage a few students to pursue a useful undergraduate degree like civil engineering? I live in Brewster County because no one trying to sell me land in Presidio County where I looked first had any idea where their property corners were. Lucky me. I am not sure I could stand listening to the excuses offered by people who are supposed to be community leaders. 44% of Presidio residents lack health insurance?! That’s why you build business on this side of the border, regardless of the maquiladora industry on the other side. You go to work, you help your company show a profit, you get off food stamps and you buy health insurance. Nobody gives it to you; you work for it. Sorry, your “party guy” and your “ticket” is Democrat congressional candidate Gina Ortiz-Jones, who will vote to give it to you, even if it bankrupts our country. The other aspect of the article that I find offensive is the identity crisis. If you are not comfortable being an American, you can stop driving to the oilfields and working in the Permian Basin for six figures, and instead cross the border bridge and work for 50 bucks a week in a maquiladora. President Nieto and President-elect Obrador will look out for you a lot less than does President Trump. (The Mexican minimum wage of approximately $15.00 a day is not enforced on maquiladoras.) And if don’t think your representatives in the state legislature and US congress are giving you enough free stuff; try the Mexican food stamp program. Moral superiority can only be gained through work. And if you live in the USA, learn to speak English. When I travel in Mexico, I struggle with Spanish, but keep at it and get minutely better each time I visit. For my effort, I get treated better in non-tourist areas. Show the host country respect by speaking its language and obeying its laws, including immigration laws. Finally, the wall: What do the residents of Presidio find themselves doing at the last minute every time the Rio Grande and the Rio Conchos reach flood stage? —sandbagging! The same community that is so pessimistic about the Trump presidency is so very, very optimistic that there will be no more upriver rain. Remember 2008? How about 1978? Become a proponent for the wall; hire a home grown civil engineer, work with the Feds and the International Boundary and Water Commission, and let six miles of the wall augment the existing levees that are meant to keep your city from getting swept downriver. And stop complaining about environmental damage. Like the pipeline poopers, your arguments rely on scientists whose salaries are paid by special interest groups. The 15,000 scientists who give The Center for Public Integrity and Suhuana Hussain their argument comprise two-tenths of 1% of the six million (6,000,000) full-time research scientists worldwide. Ms. Hussain’s Berkeley degree in political economy might best be described as “how to kill the American economy by playing** left-wing politics.” Her job is to see how much good she can undo. Suhuana and Hussain are both Arabic names. It strikes me as imbalanced for the left to attack President Trump for not passing instant judgment on Saudi Arabia after what appears to be the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but to get all heated up when someone like me points out that we do nothing in our own country to separate fact from opinion, and that reporters ought to be held to the standard that they assign to the president. To wit: The Center for Public Integrity that Ms. Hussain writes for, according to its website, has received two Pulitzer prizes while writing for ultra-left wing causes, including the environment. Let me point out that a typical Bachelor of Science degree in engineering requires more math and science-based rigor in problem solving than does a doctorate in environmental studies. Epilogue: Get civil, hire an engineer, define your own problems and solve your own problems. Sandbagging and, second dictionary meaning: to deceive by deliberately playing a game poorly
George “Rex” Redden South Brewster County
