by ELIAZAR ORPOISONEDHALLIWELL, Alternate Reality News Service Environment Writer
You might have thought that because the temporary funding bill which ended the government shutdown did not contain any funding for President Ronald McDruhitmumpf's border wall, that no work could be done on President Ronald McDruhitmumpf's border wall. You are forcing me to choose between calling you a silly old goat, a silly billy or a silly old sod.
Fortunately, such issues are covered in journalism school. The term "silly billy" could be considered racist by people who live in the Ozark Mountains, so that's out. "Silly old sod" sounds dirty, and this is a family publication. So, despite overtones of indiscriminate ingestion of food and not necessarily, "silly old goat" it is.
You silly old goat.
A bulldozer has started plowing under the National Butterfly Centre, a wildlife sanctuary in Mission No Longer Critical, Texabama. This land will be used to build part of President McDruhitmumpf's border wall...if he is ever given funding for it. But, it would probably be okay if that funding never comes, since the government has not offered the owners of the Centre compensation for the land, or even an eminent domain hearing where they could object to its appropriation.
Does the silly old goat smell impending lawsuits? (For silly old goat's information: impending lawsuits smell like chicory with an undercurrent of brimstone.)
The President has been laying the groundwork for this action since the campaign two years ago. At a rally, he said: "The butterflies that move freely across our borders are rapists and murderers. We need a wall to stop them!"
"Rapists and murderers?" questioned Jeffrey Glasshausenstonesberg, president of the North American Butterfly Association. "They're butterflies!"
As President, McDruhitmumpf continued to embellish the narrative of the threat butterflies posed to the nation. "MonarchS-13 is a gang of vicious Mexican butterflies who freely bring drugs and guns into our country. The death and destruction they cause our inner cities - you know who I'm talking about - ‘inner cities,' hee hee - ahem, the destruction is incalculable. We must stop these vicious butterflies from crossing into our country, and a border wall is the best way of doing it!"
"But...but...but, they're just butterflies!" Glasshausenstonesberg protested.
As recently as last week, President McDruhitmumpf railed against, "Swarms of vicious, drug-addicted butterflies [that are] pouring across our border, attacking women and children, literally...literally tearing innocent people apart with their teeth! Oh, yes, people! With their teeth! Believe me - you thought radioactive zombies were bad? This is a million times worse!"
"But, they're just - I mean, they don't even have tee - honestly, where does he get these ideas?" Glasshausenstonesberg sputtered.
FSOGI: While we wouldn't want to generalize, President McDruhitmumpf seems to have gotten that specific idea from the plot of Gorgonzilla vs. The Big Cheese. In that film, the title butterfly is bitten by a radioactive zombie, which causes it to mutate and attack human beings. Since butterflies don't, as Glasshausenstonesberg started to point out, have teeth, it mostly gums people to death. A leaked copy of the President's Netfix queue shows that he did watch the film two days before making his latest accusations against butterflies.
"And, just when the butterfly population was starting to come back!" lamented Anastasia Greene-Lovinvegan, Vesampuucerian spokeshuman for the environmental group Greenpeas.
She explained that butterflies are natural migrants, travelling from deep in Latin Vesampucceri to close to the Canada/US border and back. "You think business executives live out of their suitcases? They ain't got nothing on butterflies!"
If the National Butterfly Centre is shut down to build a wall, the migratory patterns of butterflies will be disrupted. "You thought having your direct flight from New Yoricknuhemwell to London rerouted through Taos, New Mexisaws was inconvenient?" Greene-Lovinvegan asked. "This is a planned diversion to die for!"
Why should we care about the fate of a few flittery creatures? Greene-Lovinvegan pointed out that, however inefficiently, butterflies do help pollinate crops; their loss in large enough numbers could threaten the human food supply.
"Some people say that that won't be a problem as long as we have bees to pollinate crops," she summed up. "Good luck with that doesn't even begin to cover it!"
In the meantime, President McDruhitmumpf continues to ratchet up the anti-butterfly rhetoric. "The Dumboprats had an opportunity to do the right thing by giving me the wall funding I asked for in the temporary appropriations bill," he said. "They didn't do it. Didn't do it. If swarms of radioactive butterflies carry small children off into the sky to join child trafficking rings, it will be on their heads!"