DHS Secretary Noem says entire southern border wall will be painted black to stop people from climbing it

Can we stop posting this everywhere?
It isn't like a random Lemmy comment is going to do anything
- It keeps people remembering that this is a distraction from the Epstein stuff. A useful reminder, I'd say.
- It made me smile and reminded me that Trump is scum.
- I'm not doing this because I think Trump will read a Lemmy comment and decide to turn himself in. I'm doing it because I'm pissed off and I want to associate every possible bit of news about MAGA politics with this. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with distracting people, and we should be allowed to express that we're not being fooled, even if it's ultimately just a gesture.
- I smile every time I see it, knowing that there are still people not falling for his BS. :)
- Why bro, are you on the list, you’re starting to sound an awful lot like Trump right now you weirdo
- I want those files like Jonah Jameson wants pictures of Spider-man
- The bigger issue is that blind people can't read it.
- Ok Epstein.

If they make the wall black, won't ICE try to deport it?

No, but the cops will burn through their entire budget on ammo shooting at it, and several of them will need time off to recover from shouting "stop resisting" too much
- Request for medical leave states: Officer suffered vocal chord damage while responding to shootout. 6 to 8 weeks of paid leave.

Add it to the pile of really obviously stupid ideas that can be thwarted with 3 seconds of thought...

The issue isn't about thwarting the plan. The Wall already doesn't work. Even conservative think tanks will admit to that much.
The issue is coming back to The Wall as a cultural rallying point. Build it 10' taller. Build two walls. Put turrets on the walls. Patrol with drones. Add more barbed wire. Unleash sharks with laser beams on their heads into the Rio Grande. Litter the border with radioactive waste.
Anything to get people to turn their eyes south and say "Aaaah! Invasion! It must be stopped!" The Wall is just the latest panacea for a problem these people invented. They're going to keep coming back and re-imagining it in between cooking up increasingly elaborate hoaxes about armies of brown people marching across it to Steal our Freedom.
- The percentage of the population for whom 3 seconds of thought is too much to ask is disheartening. But also nothing new.
- It's literally the wall song from Hadestown.

So good Mexico hasn’t learned about gloves yet… or you know… night time. Phew. Close one.

Or ladders, or rope, or digging, or the many other ways they have bypassed and overcome the new sections of wall already.
The whole approach is so backwards. The drug war and neocolonialism have pushed many of USA's problems to Mexico, so many Mexicans wish to move to the US to escape those issues. Best solution: legalize and regulate drugs, treat your addicts, help Mexico to put down the cartels, and work to build a tight friendly partnership with Mexico - a very significant trade and cultural partner with a huge shared border. Win for everyone, immigration plummets. Selected solutions: built an enormous wall, lambast their leaders, threaten invasion. Republicans are still in a 7th-century Chinese solution mindset, 1400 years later. Oh - and pour $30,000,000,000 into your secret police force to find and deport any suspected South American or Mexican-heritage people, primarily without trial, seemingly hurting just as many US citizens as new immigrants - shouldn't forget that brilliant strategy.
If the US could just stop shooting itself in the feet the wounds might heal.
- It was always performative to convince idiots that something is done, and as patronage for the companiies being paid insane amounts of money to build the wall.
Right now there are more people leaving the US than entering, so I think it's more to prevent people from escaping. You know, like North Korea.
- I would say give your countrymen (and especially women) some credit. Mexico has been marching steadily forward over the past decade or so. I met a lot of very competent people working very hard to better the country as a whole in my time studying there.
  The roadblocks are many and the dangers can run high at times but that’s not stopping people. As it shouldn’t. Mexico is coming into her power. Just wait.
  Even your remark, even if you feel a little beat down, is a testament to the times. Solid foundations aren’t built in a night. They’re hard fought and won with consistency. And what is Mexico if not resilient?

That clip of her standing in front of it, talking about how tall and deep it is, "almost impossible" to scale or dig under, then triumphantly proclaiming that they're going to paint it black to make it harder to climb. Right after saying it's almost impossible to climb.

Oh, and it's already black.

Don’t blame them. MAGAs don’t see color.
- They're actually blind ..... blinded with rage
- Just black and white.

When I was leaving Mexico after a few months down there in my RV I was diverted from my usual border crossing location (Sonoyta) to a much larger one (Yuma) ~40 min away. I had to wait in a 2 hour line to get to customs, and in that line I was inching forward next to the border wall. In this large city in plain view of everyone, mind you, I watched 4 seperate teams of mexican brothers get over the wall in under 5 min. The magic weapon? Rope 3 of the times, a jank looking ladder the last time. Billions of dollars defeated with a rope. The facepalm would send me into orbit rn.

That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb. So we are going to be painting the entire southern border wall black to make sure that we encourage individuals to not come into our country illegally

What happens when they have oven mits or you know, just gloves, or just wait until night when the metal is cooler and they have cover of night?

Whatever, I guess I shouldn't care about that $500+ million that goes to put on a single coat that peels off six months later because they didn't prime the surface.

And Noem said Homeland Security was going to be trying black paint to make the metal hotter.

'K... ish... I mean, I get the physics, but, doesn't this murican know the concept of nighttime?

Or… gloves? I mean climbers use gloves sometimes I’m pretty sure…
- Rock climbers don't, they need skin contact for good grip. Crack climbers do, but they're the opposite of what you'd expect, they only protect the back of the hands.
  Ice climbers wear gloves because it's usually too cold for bare hands.
- Or gantes even.

Where those Epstein files at??

Good thing DOGE saved us so much money that we can now easily afford to pay for completely logical projects such as this.

Right... Because black paint is going to stop them how exactly? "It absorbs the heat, so they will get burns when touching the fence".

Ever heard of night?

We all know that border crossings happen in broad daylight on the least cloudy days. I mean, come on, people SLEEP at night!
- Crossing the border is a 9 to 5 day job, everyone knows that
Or gloves
Yes, but at the same time. A reduction of attempts during the day means you can have a concentration of manpower at night. And with the forcing day jumpers to wear gloves and long sleeves and pants. They are more likely to subcome to heat exhaustion. Because once over the other side they won't really have time to stop and strip off the extra layers when running from border patrol.
Hell it can probably make thermal cameras more effective to having g a cooler body with the back drop of hot as hell steel.

As someone who lives somewhere that just got up to 120° f hot metal is no joke. We had a ton of people hospitalized a few years back because they went to open gates to their homes and weren't expecting scolding hot metal when it was already like 11pm.

I'm not going to hate this because it's a idea that doesn't work, I'm going to hate it because it's just another method to harm people who want to come to the land of the free. On top of it border states like to charge people for leaving out water so just anything they can possibly do to be vindictive and hateful I guess.

scolding hot metal
I like the mental imagery --- it's not scalding hot, no, the metal is actively chastising you.
- "You KNOW better than to touch me when I've been in the sun all day!"
Because if there's anything people have learned about Mexico, it's that they don't have any blankets. Or anything like rope or fabric covers that can easily just be tossed on it.
- What happened in 1855?
If it's that hot, I imagine the metal is gonna be hot regardless of what color paint
people who want to come to the land of the free.
No, it's the southern border of the US.
I'm going to hate it because it's just another method to harm people who want to come to "the land of the free"
What country do you mean? Canada? Mexico?
As someone who lives somewhere that just got up to 120° f hot metal is no joke. We had a ton of people hospitalized a few years back because they went to open gates to their homes and weren't expecting scolding hot metal when it was already like 11pm.
Ever heard of night time?
- So you think that Canada is in the south? This is a discussion about the southern border wall.
  Yes I've heard of night just like I said in the quoted text people were getting severe burns and needing to be hospitalized because they were not expecting the gate to their house to be that hot at nearly midnight.

Shit, I didn't realize that angle grinders were so sensitive to black paint.

So she knows someone who sells black paint. Didn't take a lot to figure that out.

Noem spoke during a visit to a portion of the wall in New Mexico, where she also picked up a roller brush to help out with the painting.

congrats on her achievement of finally having done some small amount of manual labor for the first time in her life.

And how does that stop a ladder?

Or the dozens of tunnels.
- Or the people who overstay their visas, which is where most "illegal" migration comes from.
  Or the border patrol stations who are staffed by people in the employment of cartels and other organizations who occasionally stage a huge bust.
- Or a simple stack of milk crates?

Take a step back from the fascism, human rights violations, kidnappings, and concentration camps and just think about the fact that these people are in charge of the government. Regardless of politics, these people are just objectively stupid and have virtually no understanding of anything outside of knowing how to give speeches and spread propaganda.

I know things are bad and will continue to get worse before they get better, but I do take some solace in the fact that these people are so incredibly stupid that they will never be able to run a productive or efficient government. It's like watching as your boss makes his son a manager and seeing everything go to shit around him.

The problem is that people voted for them.
If you ever have a fair and free election again within your lifetime, how do you propose to overcome this demented voting behaviour?
While contemplating that, how do you propose rebuilding your country that has been damaged in the collateral and insidious manner by policy decrees made by an orange man in a red hat?
From where I'm sitting on the other side of the planet, you have your work cut out for you.

Simply bc Trump thinks it'll make the fences too hot to climb. This was attempted and failed in Trump's first term. The paint peeled after a year.

Hence the need to repaint….

Demonstrating the great critical thinking power of conservatives :)

I wish

Yes but what about the Epstein files?

All 65 miles of it?

One of his buddies sells paint. Grifted.

If black makes it hotter, then why are red, orange, and yellow called "hot" colors?

Checkmate, conservatives.

Of course nobody in Mexico has ever heard of a tarp...

Hilarious. Let’s waste more money. Can we try the Joker-method next? Just torch a big pile of cash and call it a day.

I see a red wall and I want to paint it black...

Oh look CBS news, the presidents personal boot licking journalists.

Is that why my fake news and/or conspiracy/conservative blocklists block CBS News? I wasn’t sure but I just let it continue to be blocked.

This is the same border wall they've been pulling down with Toyotas?

I think it's the one they can slip straight through.
- Ya and there are many gaps. Or angle grinders can cut the lower part of the poles no problem.

Coneheads movie was ahead of it's time: https://youtu.be/yGNSxME5Z_s&t=14:40

If you own that movie already and connect your account to movies anywhere so YouTube will give it to you for free your link will not take you to the timestamp. It will just take you to the beginning of the actual movie, just letting you know.

Why don’t they get MAGAts with bayonets to stand guard every 3 feet?

Do you want more children murdered?

Magas think that Mexicans hate black as much as they do

Good time to invest in glove stocks

Ladders too

Stupid is as stupid does.

So there is a market for white spray paint South of the border? Got my new side hustle!

Wut?

Wait, I thought she loved BBC?

In fairness to her, you don't often see anyone climbing on black people either!

Im really interested to see what kind of manual labor workers they get to paint the wall....like you know the US Federal government is gonna go with the cheapest bids, which will most likely be immigrants potentially of illegal status.