At least two South Bay firms want to help President Donald Trump build a “great, great wall” along the southern border. Sunnyvale-based remote-sensing manufacturer Quanergy is one of several Bay Area companies to submit proposals for the unfunded $20 billion-plus barrier between the U.S. and Mexico. Landing the contract could potentially bring windfall profits for the immigrant-owned company, but could undermine business prospects in the politically liberal region it calls home. Two San Francisco County supervisors, Hillary Ronen and Aaron Peskin, introduced a law that would prevent that city from doing business with companies that apply for work on the wall—whether or not they win a contract. Oakland and Berkeley already passed measures to blacklist aspiring border wall contractors, while cities in other parts of the nation weigh similar measures. That’s to say nothing of the public backlash that would no doubt ensue, despite scores of border wall bidders being minority owned. Quanergy CEO Louay Eldada, who emigrated from Lebanon, has yet to return Fly’s request for comment. But in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, he defended his proposal as applying “Silicon Valley innovation to achieve the positive security goals without the negative repercussions.” Eldada told the Chronicle that he wants to use Quanergy’s signature laser sensor technology, known as lidar, or “light detection and ranging,” to monitor the southern border. The “smart fencing” would detect and analyze movement and transmit live visualizations to border agents. Eldada’s is one of many high-tech plans put forward by companies to bolster or replace a physical barrier. Mountain View’s Future Fibre Technologies, which specializes in fiber-optic security sensors, is also vying to work on Trump’s pet project. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, however, advised that technology alone would be insufficient.
The Fly
At Least 2 South Bay Companies Bid on Trump’s Border Wall
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Two local firms have submitted proposals to help fortify the southern border wall. (Photo by ©Tomas Castelazo, via Wikimedia Commons)
Get it built!
I agree – and after it’s done, we’ll send you Irish immigrants packing!
Sorry, Ted. You lost the election. The Wall will be built.
Turn that frown upside down, Ted, and give us a big smile!
Because democracy is wonderful, Ted… isn’t it? ☺ ☺ ☺
We’re all here LEGALLY, Ted. Try to wrap your brain around the difference between legal and illegal.
Ted why so angry? Is it racist to have a secure border and promote proper legal immigration? What are you and the other libs afraid of? I truly dont understand. And while were at it lets talk about ICE detainers for immigrant criminals processed through the main jail. Is that racist too?
Once the federal money to outlaw sanctuary cities drys up, they won’t be able to buy anything anyway.
No loss there!
Build it and they won’t come!
> the unfunded $20 billion-plus barrier between the U.S. and Mexico.
Put this in the category of fake news. I have no idea who said it’s going to cost $20 billion. I suspect it’s a totally made up number by some Soros-Alinsky activist. Just like Mitch Snyder’s notorious bogus estimate on the number of “homeless”.
For what it’s worth, I think the wall that is ultimately built will be far smaller and cost far less than all of the Left-wing scare stories. The wall is a negotiating position, and when the Mexican government finally gets serious about controlling emigration to the U.S., the wall will be unnecessary. Trump will ultimately take down the Mexican drug cartels, help the Mexican government to recover sovereignty over Mexico, “normalize” and control the border, reduce human trafficking, and create a workable temporary worker/guest worker system. It will be a win-win for “undocumented” Mexicans in the U.S. Dems will lose their illegal voters, though.
A US Department of Homeland Security internal report placed the price tag at $21.6b. That’s right – Trump’s own administration.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-wall-exclusive-idUSKBN15O2ZN
Bloomberg wrote a good article showing various cost estimates and their sources, plus outlining many of the physical and practical difficulties of actually trying to build a wall – such as the need to seize many miles of privately-owned property (owned by regular US citizens or by states) to complete 2/3 of the wall.
It really isn’t that hard to google this stuff and come up with sources. And it’s certainly preferable to inventing conspiracy theories like “some Soros-Alinsky activist”.
> A US Department of Homeland Security internal report placed the price tag at $21.6b. That’s right – Trump’s own administration.
Don’t worry your pretty little head about this. It’s fake news, generated by “deep state” bureaucrats trying to take down Trump.
> based on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report seen by Reuters on Thursday.
.> A White House spokeswoman said it would be “premature” to comment on a report that has not officially been presented to the president.
President Trump will throw this bogus report in the trash and fire some people.
Wow
> Wow
COUGHING JOE:
Would my posting have been less astonishing to you if I had said:
“Experts say, President Trump will throw bogus report in the trash and fire some people”?
As I understand the “public interest” basis of the federal government’s antitrust exemption, and the extremely limited version of this protection afforded municipalities, it is difficult to see how these two San Francisco tyrants could possibly justify their blatantly injurious actions against this firm as being in the public interest, given that the work itself has been deemed in the public interest by the president. Apparently these two lawmakers do not understand the limits of their position: they are not judges empowered to restrain or overrule the actions of executive officers (or other lawmakers).
I can only hope Quanergy sues.
If this tactic against wall-building is deemed legal then there’d be nothing to stop a city or county from substituting whatever activity it finds offensive as grounds for flexing its blacklisting muscle — activities that could, in a city looking to become a conservative Mecca, run the gamut from family planning services to building gender-neutral restrooms to providing services to the homeless.
Ummm, those sorts of decision-making by cities already take place on a regular basis. Cities decide not to do business with a company unless it pays prevailing wage, something that this president doesn’t support. They make investment and contract decisions based on fossil fuel divestiture, even though this president has clearly opined that fossil fuels are in the public interest. They refuse to do business with companies that have unresolved judgements involving wage theft. And so on. I get your point, but it’s a stretch, and there are a lot of existing precedents against what you’re suggesting. And multiple cities, including my own and yours, have such policies in place right now.
Ummm, let’s see if I can make you understand the distinction. Public interest, something which can be argued in regards to wages, the environment, employee rights, and so on. There is no arguable public interest in a county taking revenge against a company (read: hardworking taxpayers) seeking to take part in a federal project deemed in the public interest. If there is an existing precedent in a case where public interest is not in play, please provide it.
Far be it from me to cast suspicion on these noble public servants, but who’s to say they’re not on the payroll of an out-of-area Quanergy competitor?
You’re changing the topic of the debate. I wasn’t commenting on whether any of these positions are correct or appropriate. I was merely responding to your suggestion that Quanergy should sue, and to your questioning if the tactic is legal. If they had grounds for a lawsuit, someone would have successfully invalidated such city practices long ago. And towards that end, I provided multiple examples of cases where some company could have sued (prevailing wage, fossil fuels, wage theft), but none have done so successfully. So I maintain that right or wrong, it’s a legal practice, based on existing precedents. You don’t seem to be rebutting that.
I guess I failed to make you understand the distinction, not surprising given the condescending tone of your first reply. Let’s see if this helps:
A municipality’s exemption from antitrust penalties is comprised of elements, one of those being that the action serves the public interest. What I stated in my first post, as well as the second (where you falsely accuse me of changing the topic) is quite simple: the public interest will not be served by the supervisors’ proposed action. In other words, a primarily element in the exemption will not be met, therefore the county will not be protected by the exemption and will be liable for damages.
I predict the county counsel will make sure this outrageous idea never becomes law.
Once again, I ask that you back up your position with one of the precedents you claimed were numerous. Show me a case where a municipality has been allowed to blackball a business without making a persuasive case that its action was in the public interest.
Jim Griffith says:
“…unless it pays prevailing wage, something that this president doesn’t support.”
Yet the accelerating tidal wave of illegal immigration undercuts everyone’s wages! But that’s A-OK in the minds of hypocritical, logic-challenged statists.
Another example:
“…this president has clearly opined that fossil fuels are in the public interest.”
Fossil fuels are the Gold Standard of low-cost energy production. Nothing else even comes close. But does Jim—or any other Trump basher—ever do without evil fossil fuels? As if.
And when cities refuse to do business with companies that don’t toe their ‘politically correct’ line, why do they never allow taxpayers to vote on it? For example:
• Should the city give preference to politically correct companies that pay the highest wages, with no consideration as to the cost?
Or
• Should cities continue to award contracts to the low-cost bidder?
But we KNOW they will never allow taxpayers a chance to vote on a question like that. And why not?
The answer is obvious: the fix is in—and as usual, the job of taxpayers is to just shut up and pay the freight, no matter how much it costs them.
But what if the shoe was on the other foot? What if, for example, the President made federal disaster money for San Jose flood relief contingent upon hiring only companies that are not in the business of selling or producing ‘alternative energy’?
Same kind of situation, but we know exactly what would happen: the newspapers, radio and TV stations, and City Hall meetings would all be packed with indignant protests by the fake virtue-spouting snowflake contingent and their media enablers. The usual suspects would be running around in circles like Chicken Little, flapping their hands and clucking, “The sky is falling! Impeach Trump!”
Here’s an idea: instead of letting leftist politics poison our city budget even more, wouldn’t it be best to just try and serve the taxpayers to the best of their ability for a change?
Gov Moonbeam is already forcing us to pay TWICE to get the same pot holes fixed. That is also due to to the wrong-headed attitude that all tax money is up for grabs by the same lying politicians who assured us that they could manage public transportation better than the low-cost, experienced transit companies that had been in that business for decades.
So now we have a bunch of unaccountable mis-managers called VTA, who squander more tax money every year with their *politicized* public transportation racket, which is far more costly than putting those contracts out for the lowest-cost bid.
Defending our country’s borders is undeniably in the public’s interest. But it is being attacked by the same gang that told us VTA was a swell idea.
Question: Why should anyone listen to them after their VTA fiasco?
Gag me. This is really hypocrisy on a giant scale. Silicon Valley is full of companies that have engaged in who knows what kinds of dealing with dictatorships around the world over the decades. Our biggest firms spend their days building NSA-sized databases of our most personal information. If we want to start punishing companies start there. We should not waste time ostracizing smaller local companies, at least one of whom hopes to build a humane electronic wall. This whole issue of sanctuary seems to be too much about politicians scoring points to run for future office and too little about legitimately protecting vulnerable undocumented immigrants and citizens.
Building this “wall” is a waster of money, much of the border is already “walled” and this wall does nothing to address immigration…
But this is a perspective based on the actual figures surrounding immigration and infrastructure. But none of that ever stopped you right-wing funbags from making incoherent ramblings online. They cant impeach this clown fast enough.
$20 Billion! Bay Area mentality reaffirms greed is good! Who cares if it works or doesn’t? Silicon Valley “entrepreneurs” are the whores of the free world. Greed makes the world turn and all else is pure nonsense. Building a better America with greed! USA! USA! USA!
Frustrated Fin Fan. A decad of jibber. Or more.
I’m not one to jump on a typo, but didn’t you mean for your pseudonym to be DILDO?
FINFAN you fool! I am so ashamed of you right now. Don’t you see that, once again, you have gone off into the weeds of rational thought? There is a simple solution to this entire problem.
Have all companies doing business with “The Wall” declared “sanctuary businesses”. Require that these companies hire, or at least promise to hire, a certain percentage of illegal immigrants as part of their workforce and subsidise them. The companies must then agree to build “affordable housing units” that used to be called guard towers, along “The Wall” then for every illegal alien drug mule, gang or cartel member “yearning to be free”, who gets past the Wall, we toss one homeless person over the Wall to the Mexican side where their unsanitary “encampments” will further strengthen the Wall by serving as a
filthy Moat of putrefying garbage and human excrement, drug use, dirty needles and crime. Then, if the wind blows the putrid stench of this Moat south into Mexico, maybe the Mexican government can finally be persuaded to help solve the problem.
There, I’ve stopped oppressive companies; reduced unemployment; protected immigrant’s rights; built the Wall, solved affordable housing; ended homelessness and persuaded Mexico to help us with the border crisis.
Geez, do I have to think of everything?!