The nature preserve on the US-Mexico border became a target of rightwing ire after it opposed construction of Trump’s wall
Marianna Treviño-Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center: ‘I used to believe much better of people.’ Photograph: John L Mone/AP
In Mission, Texas, on the border between the US and Mexico, sits the National Butterfly Center. A 100-acre nature preserve once exclusively dedicated to the conservation of plants and wildlife, it has now been thrust into the national spotlight and become a focal point of divisions over the country’s immigration policy.
This week, the butterfly center was forced to close its doors indefinitely amid ongoing threats from far-right conspiracists and QAnon followers who falsely claim it is a haven for human-trafficking and illegal migration.
“They’re not conspiracies, they’re just outright lies,” Marianna Treviño-Wright, the executive director of the National Butterfly Center, told the Guardian. “I think that’s a very important point that needs to be made. As long as they’re called ‘conspiracies’, then it seems like there’s some plausibility.”
The North American Butterfly Association (NABA), which runs the center, decided to close it down indefinitely on Wednesday as a precautionary measure, after being warned to “be armed at all times or out of town” during a We Stand America rally in support of a border wall.
The butterfly center first attracted the attention of the far right in 2017. Treviño-Wright and the NABA made headlines for suing the organizations behind the construction of a section of Donald Trump’s border wall after they sought to build straight through the butterfly preserve. Those groups included We Build the Wall, led by Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon and founder Brian Kolfage, which is now facing corruption and fraud charges.
Conspiracy theories about the butterfly center snowballed after Kolfage posted a series of tweets, claiming it was run by “left wing thugs with a sham butterfly agenda” and asserting without evidence that “rampant sex trade” was taking place on the property. Treviño-Wright said an increase in online and in-person harassment soon followed.
A court date for the case about the section of border wall on the center’s property has not been set yet.
Treviño-Wright said since the lawsuit she has faced personal threats and on one occasion, assault, by the extremist Virginia Republican congressional candidate Kimberly Lowe who visited the butterfly center last month and demanded to see “‘illegals crossing on rafts”. In an audio recording of the visit, Lowe is heard claiming baselessly that Treviño-Wright was “OK with children being sex-trafficked, raped and murdered”.
“It’s utterly ridiculous that instead of Democrats and a pizza joint, it’s immigrants and a butterfly center,” Treviño-Wright said, comparing the situation to the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy that took off in 2016 in an attempt to paint the then presidential candidate Hilary Clinton as a proponent of human trafficking.
The butterfly center’s closure this week did not come as a surprise to Treviño-Wright.
“This has been escalating. Not just the attacks on us, but the agenda in the political landscape. I think it makes sense for the [NABA] board to pump the brakes. If this madness is going to continue until the midterms or, God forbid, beyond that, we need to have personnel and a plan in place to protect ourselves as best as possible to be prepared for this horrible situation.”
Marianna Treviño-Wright stands near a section of the new border wall in Mission, Texas. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP
Treviño-Wright said the construction of sections of the border wall, andthe subsequent vitriol that came from QAnon followers and Trump supporters, had a profound effect on the butterfly center and its staff.
“When you’re targeted by laws that are designed to be destructive, it’s very difficult to continue operations as normal. So it’s been disruptive. It’s been destructive. And it’s made it very difficult for us to focus on our mission, which is environmental conservation and education.”
Choking back tears, Treviño-Wright explained the events of recent years had put a strain on her mental health and personal relationships.
“It really has made me a misanthrope. I used to believe much better of people, but now I’m afraid to even go to the grocery store because I can’t trust that the person with the cart next to me doesn’t believe” the lies, Treviño-Wright said.
On her accidental venture into political activism, Treviño-Wright called herself: “Utterly reluctant, unwilling, and anxious-to-not-be-here-or-be-doing-this-any-more.”
The butterfly center is now sharing strategies for dealing with confrontational conspiracists with the Children’s Museum of Denver, which was forcibly shut down after anti-maskers frequently directed their anger towards staff.
Treviño-Wright said she didn’t know if her center would reopen, but “certainly hope[s] it does.
“It’s a magical place and it’s a place I’ve poured the last 10 years of my life into developing and defending. I hope there’s a wonderful future in store for the National Butterfly Center, but as long as these people get away with these things, I’m not sure of anything. Not just for anything but for our entire country.
“It’s just unbelievable that somehow things have reached this point in American history that a nature center stands at the crossroads of whether our country slides full-on into authoritarianism or our democratic republic survives.”
Miami-Dade Elections Department 2021-22 records show more than 5,000 registered Democrats switched their party affiliation to Republican. The increase comes just as more victims of third-party registrations are coming forward to report that their voter registration was altered without their permission.
All of the victims were older than 65 years old, live in Miami-Dade County, and all of them were outraged when they learned they were registered as Republicans. “People are being taken advantage of,” Sen. Annette Taddeo said. “Lots of these people don’t speak English or are elderly.”
Sometime in early December, Juan A. Salazar, a 77-year-old Dominican living in Little Havana, exited the elevator of his building tower in his electric wheelchair to get some fresh air in the parking lot out front, as he usually does.
But he recalls that on that particular day, a group of three canvassers wearing red caps and t-shirts that said “Republican Party of Florida” approached him.
According to Salazar, the three workers asked him if he wanted to fill out an application to get his new voter ID card. He told the canvassers there was no need — he knew he got one automatically in the mail before every general election. But the canvassers insisted. “You will get it faster,” Salazar recalled them saying.
Several Miami residents, many of whom are Hispanic and over 60 years old, are now coming forward with their own claims about having their party affiliation changed from Democrat to Republican after interacting with canvassers. https://t.co/JFwLvfw40F
Last Nov, Florida Republican voter registration surpassed Democrats by @ 4,000 votes. Included in that- >5,000 Miami Dade Democrats recorded as “switched”. Now more senior voters are telling us- they didn’t know their party affiliations changed. Our report tonight @WPLGLocal10 ⏩ pic.twitter.com/HiVzHSZSEV
The financier famed for bankrolling some of Steve Bannon’s best-known ventures, as well as the far-right strategist’s jet-setting lifestyle, is in deep trouble for steering a $28 million yacht—the same boat where federal agents arrested Bannon in 2020—out of American waters.
A New York judge slapped Guo Wengui, who also uses the aliases Kwok Ho Wan and Miles Guo, with $134 million in contempt of court fines on Wednesday for violating multiple restraining orders barring him from selling or relocating the boat or any other property he controls.
The high price tag results from nearly a year of the fugitive Chinese national defying the court’s order that he return the craft to a U.S. port—an order that carried a daily forfeiture of $500,000.
The yacht is being sought as an asset to cover unpaid loans allegedly owed to a Hong Kong investment firm.
Wengui is also the chief financial backer of the social media platform GETTR.
Several years ago he and Bannon flew banner planes around Manhattan which declared them to be the Chinese government in exile.
Wengui presently lives in a $68 million Manhattan penthouse.
A New York judge slapped Guo Wengui with $134 million in contempt of court fines on Wednesday for violating multiple restraining orders barring him from selling or relocating the boat or any other property he controls. https://t.co/yBwR1f7ZgS
There is a maga group trying to finish destroying a very important preserve that tRump against court rulings just started destroying for his vanity wall. They want the preserve gone, revoked , or just ruined beyond ability to function so they can get their wall section that wont make a bit of difference.
Yes that would cause kid real distress. Funny thing about those who think that teaching history about slavery causes white kids discomfort forget is black kids experience racism long before they start school.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
I find the misleading right wing media’s obsession with a civil servant weird. Dr Fauci is accomplished yes, but he only a bureaucrat. He has no power or authority to make rules and regulations. His only task is to advise based on his skill and education, like others in the government. Yet the right has developed an almost cult like mythology around this person. I wonder why? Could it be he is an intelligent well skill person who knows what he is talking about? Could it be he refutes and shoots down all the right wing nonsense over Covid and public health measures? Or could it be he disagreed with the cult leader tRump and the followers of the dear leader must now attack him with everything they have to protect the snowflake that claimed Covid would just disappear like magic called tRump? I wonder?
Silly cartoon. China doesn’t allow protests and has ever person allowed to enter the stadium vetted. No one would dare protest.
I know no leftist will ever concede this truth, but if we hadn’t had the mandates and lockdowns and monetary incentives we’d actually be better off now and would’ve lost less people, regardless of any vaccines existing.
Right wing cartoon comment sections I commented on
Archives threatened to go to Congress and Justice Department to get Trump to turn over records
Worried that a trove of White House records that had been brought to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate contained classified material, a top official in the former President’s orbit warned his aides last fall: Do not touch those boxes.
I disagree that I am focusing on patriarchy. I focused on income to provide for the family while allowing plenty of time for family interaction that promotes both bonding and ability for further wellbeing. In my opinion when care givers had to restrict their time to “nurture” their offspring it caused the breakdown of the nuclear family. It led to less stability, more friction in families leading to negative consequences like more breakups, absenteeism, less cohesion of the family structure, and less positive future growth.
Excessive drug use, incarceration, and other issues again can be tracked back to the less and less time care givers have to spend with family and kids especially. How often have we heard that ide hands are the devil’s playground, to mention an old saying? When kids became latch key kids due to both parents / care givers needing to work it really accelerated the breakdown of the family unit.
I want to make clear I do not think the nuclear family of one male and one female is the best or only way to have a productive healthy family. It is the one we are discussing.
Do you deny that the education opportunities are less for people of color than for white people? As I already mentioned the same programs available to white men returning from world war 2 were not available for the most part for people of color returning from world war 2. If you cannot access the education due to race which leads to less financial gain to pass on to future generations then yes, it is racist.
At one point an education could make a large difference and increased the income levels a person earned however the ability to access the education was mostly for white people. Then when education became too expensive so that the majority of people couldn’t get an advanced education or degree without extreme debt that couldn’t be paid off reasonably, then education no long lifted people out of poverty or increased financial benefit. If a person has to spend all they can make to pay back their education loans they have not improved their situation at all. In fact they have made their situation worse. The situation in the US has become only the already wealthy / very well off can afford most advanced educations that earn the highest salaries. Lower degrees are not resulting in higher salaries so do not build wealthy or financial benefits.
Again one must have the ability to access the education and not be bankrupt after one gets that education for it to be helpful in anyway. Today employers want advanced degrees but do not wish to pay wages that allow for any gain of having those degrees.
As for the progressive nature of our tax code it has been chipped away at since the 1970’s. The tax burden has shifted from those who could afford it the wealthy and large cooperation’s to the lower incomes who cannot afford it. For example in the 1950’s tax rate on the top bracket was 84.357% and the marginal tax rate was 90%. Some say that the effect rate was around 43%. That is still significantly higher than the wealthy and large corporations pay today. The country cannot continue to transfer all the countries wealth to the upper incomes while ignoring the needs of the country. The standard of living in the US is at its lowest level since the robber baron age.
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It was in response to this.
You ignore a number of facts and aspects. It appears that your understanding of the “nuclear family” is dominated by the concept of “partiarchy”, i.e. that men would suppress women. And you are overly focused on the economic situation, which is how Marxists see the world. That is not my understanding. The nuclear family is a concept based on commitment. It has little to do with there being just one breadwinner. That may be one manifestation of commitment, but the main point is that the members of the family understand the responsibilties they have for one another, especially the parents for the children. Women in the work force are not the antagonist of the nuclear family. In fact, the “liberation” of women had less to do with some sui generis social force and all the more with the technological changes of the modern age, i.e. that maintaining a household became less of a full-time job.
Regarding the color-blind impact of misguided welfare implementation, I agree with you. Note how I referred to “poor neighborhoods”. The destruction of family values wreaks havoc across the board, as can be seen by the high drug use among poor white people.
I completely disagree with your contention that education as a path out of poverty would somehow be racist. That doesn’t make sense and contradicts the facts, i.e. that one’s chances of economic success are very strongly correlated with your level of education and the character qualities that go along with obtaining a degree, namely the capacity to set a goal and work until it has been achieved.
I also completely disagree with the simplistic notion that family breakdown has something to do with the tax-code. Most western countries have progressive tax systems, i.e. the more you earn, the more you pay. And if it is carried interest that you are looking at, then you might want to rethink your political affiliations. Or do you think that Nancy Pelosi and Co., who just keep getting richer with stock investments, are going to do anything about that? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I am getting really discouraged to even try to respond even to normal conversations.
White House records obtained so far by January 6 committee show no record of calls to and from Trump during riot
White House call records now in possession of congressional investigators do not reflect calls made to or from then-President Donald Trump as the violence unfolded on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, leaving them with gaps so far in their understanding of what transpired that day, three sources familiar with the House investigation into the insurrection tell CNN.
Giuliani asked Michigan prosecutor to give voting machines to Trump team
In the weeks after the 2020 election, Rudolph W. Giuliani and other legal advisers to President Donald Trump asked a Republican prosecutor in northern Michigan to get his county’s voting machines and pass them to Trump’s team, the prosecutor told The Washington Post.
What a bottle of ivermectin reveals about the shadowy world of COVID telemedicine
An anti-vaccine group known for spreading medical disinformation is writing prescriptions for unproven COVID-19 treatments, with the help of a doctor whose medical license was revoked in Alabama.
Scottie's Playtime 
I disagree that I am focusing on patriarchy. I focused on income to provide for the family while allowing plenty of time for family interaction that promotes both bonding and ability for further wellbeing. In my opinion when care givers had to restrict their time to “nurture” their offspring it caused the breakdown of the nuclear family. It led to less stability, more friction in families leading to negative consequences like more breakups, absenteeism, less cohesion of the family structure, and less positive future growth.
Excessive drug use, incarceration, and other issues again can be tracked back to the less and less time care givers have to spend with family and kids especially. How often have we heard that ide hands are the devil’s playground, to mention an old saying? When kids became latch key kids due to both parents / care givers needing to work it really accelerated the breakdown of the family unit.
I want to make clear I do not think the nuclear family of one male and one female is the best or only way to have a productive healthy family. It is the one we are discussing.
Do you deny that the education opportunities are less for people of color than for white people? As I already mentioned the same programs available to white men returning from world war 2 were not available for the most part for people of color returning from world war 2. If you cannot access the education due to race which leads to less financial gain to pass on to future generations then yes, it is racist.
At one point an education could make a large difference and increased the income levels a person earned however the ability to access the education was mostly for white people. Then when education became too expensive so that the majority of people couldn’t get an advanced education or degree without extreme debt that couldn’t be paid off reasonably, then education no long lifted people out of poverty or increased financial benefit. If a person has to spend all they can make to pay back their education loans they have not improved their situation at all. In fact they have made their situation worse. The situation in the US has become only the already wealthy / very well off can afford most advanced educations that earn the highest salaries. Lower degrees are not resulting in higher salaries so do not build wealthy or financial benefits.
Again one must have the ability to access the education and not be bankrupt after one gets that education for it to be helpful in anyway. Today employers want advanced degrees but do not wish to pay wages that allow for any gain of having those degrees.
As for the progressive nature of our tax code it has been chipped away at since the 1970’s. The tax burden has shifted from those who could afford it the wealthy and large cooperation’s to the lower incomes who cannot afford it. For example in the 1950’s tax rate on the top bracket was 84.357% and the marginal tax rate was 90%. Some say that the effect rate was around 43%. That is still significantly higher than the wealthy and large corporations pay today. The country cannot continue to transfer all the countries wealth to the upper incomes while ignoring the needs of the country. The standard of living in the US is at its lowest level since the robber baron age.