Like a majority of Americans, people in my part of Pennsylvania were gobsmacked after Donald Trump declared a war of choice that might expand into World War III.
Meanwhile, many of us in Schuylkill County are contending with the Department of Homeland “Security”’s hare-brained plot to force a 7,500-bed ICE concentration camp on rural Tremont Township, which is nowhere near equipped to handle it.
There’s also the shame of having to host such an abomination, as well as the fear that DHS might unleash its ICE goons on our communities.
Sorry to state the obvious, but this war and this immigrant torture chamber — one of 24 that ICE plans — are just two more reasons why no one, even in our red area, should trust the Trump/Project 2025 regime and its allies for a second.
But our GOP Congressman/regime head cheerleader Dan Meuser, who says he knew nothing about the concentration camp until DHS filed its deed to the site, hasn’t pushed back since.
On the contrary, he’s recommended yielding to the feds in hopes of persuading them to pony up some very costly lipstick for this deformed pig.
Unfortunately, GOP officials at the township and county levels are heeding Meuser’s advice and leaving it to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro to take a forceful stand against one of Trump’s favorite agencies.
And Shapiro has, with administrative orders prohibiting DHS from proceeding with this concentration camp and a smaller one in Berks County until it demonstrates compliance with state environmental regulations for water and sewer services.
To be fair, Schuylkill County commissioners are asking DHS to contract with a hospital, set up its own emergency transport and make necessary infrastructure upgrades.
“We want signed agreements and definite answers,” Commissioners’ Chair Larry Padora said at Wednesday’s weekly meeting.
It’s a reasonable approach to take when dealing with a normal administration, but this regime has been busting norms right and left.
DHS and ICE have lied continuously about the conditions in their prisons, acquired the warehouses for both concentration camps on the sly and still haven’t provided nearly enough information to local officials.
I said as much to Padora and fellow GOP Commissioner Boots Hetherington during the meeting. (Democrat Gary Hess is the only commissioner of the three to express outright opposition to the ICE project.)
I wish I’d also warned that this regime seems to be following the Trump Organization playbook of cheating whomever it can and out-lawyering anyone who tries to be made whole.
Speaking of lies and misrepresentations …
It was a surreal moment to learn on Feb. 28 that Trump had started a possibly practically forever war.
That very morning, e-editions of the morning papers carried an Associated Press story reassuring readers that “Trump says he’s ‘not happy’ with Iran, but will give talks more time.” And the mediator, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, had told CBS News the previous day that a deal was within reach.
But emails and phone messages quickly showed that Trump had doled out time in hours, not days or weeks. Since then, it appears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s already exploited one war to avoid prison, was egging him on for months.
And really, who could expect Trump and his gang to negotiate in good faith about anything?
Thanks to their war, energy prices are rising in the United States, and shortages of all sorts of products are looming. And even the administration says our country’s less safe (unless that’s just a ploy to give DHS another windfall with no reforms attached).
Of course, what most Americans are facing can’t compare to the anxiety of families whose loved ones have been deployed, the grief of those on both sides who have already lost someone to the senseless invasion, and the suffering of those in the war zones.
It’s hard to say why Trump backed away from his America First shtick. Probably his sadism and lust for Iran’s oil were factors.
But given his insatiable ego, this war and military actions in the Caribbean and Venezuela could also be attempts to rebrand himself as Donald the Great or Donald the Conqueror.
He’s more likely to go down in history as Donald the Incompetent, although Don the Con, the moniker he’s had for years, also describes him to a … T.
Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.
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