Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Second rate reporter says what?

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The words do not have to be perfect.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

“But what about the lurkers?”

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: Speaking of ‘Great Farm Product’…

C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: Speaking of ‘Great Farm Product’…

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This is one massive load of bullshit from the Oval Office Occupant.

… The escalated tariffs don’t hit agricultural products directly, since most were already facing a 25% tariff imposed by China last year. But the news still sent commodity prices plummeting.

“The President of the United States owes farmers like myself some type of plan of action,” John Wesley Boyd Jr., a soybean farmer in Baskerville, Virginia, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Monday.

“Farmers were his base. They helped elect this president … and now he’s turning his back on America’s farmers when we need him the most,” he added.

Soybean, corn, and wheat growers have been battling tariffs from China for nearly a year now. Beijing imposed those duties in retaliation to tariffs put on Chinese products by the Trump administration.

The tariffs made those American agricultural products more expensive for Chinese importers, and private buyers have mostly stopped buying American-grown soybeans or wheat…

On Friday, the leading wheat, soybean and corn grower industry groups put out a joint statement expressing their opposition to Trump’s move to escalate tariffs. The three commodities represent about 171 million acre of farmland in the United States.
“Farmers have been patient and willing to let negotiations play out, but with each passing day, patience is wearing thin,” said National Corn Growers Association President Lynn Chrisp in the statement. “Agriculture needs certainty, not more tariffs.”

Of course, it’s not just American farmers who are gonna end up paying for this:

Reader Interactions

180Comments

  2. 2.

    TaMara (HFG)

    NBC interviewed a soybean farmer and I kid you not, he blamed Clinton (B, not H) and said even though he’s close to losing his farm, he supports IQ45.

    WASF

  3. 3.

    Brachiator

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I am looking forward to seeing the design for the Great Patriot Farmer medal and the White House ceremony.

    Where Trump will serve them ham berders.

    “Farmers were his base. They helped elect this president … and now he’s turning his back on America’s farmers when we need him the most,” he added.

    Funny. He’s doing exactly what he told them he would do. Guess they weren’t paying attention.

  4. 4.

    Catherine D.

    “Farmers were his base. They helped elect this president … and now he’s turning his back on America’s farmers when we need him the most,” he added.

    Stupid is as stupid does, sugar toots.

    OT – my old fart cat had his semi-annual old fart checkup Saturday. The blood work came back today, and the vet pronounced it “perfect” Happy dance!

  5. 5.

    SFAW

    @TaMara (HFG):

    NBC interviewed a soybean farmer and I kid you not, he blamed Clinton (B, not H) and said even though he’s close to losing his farm, he supports IQ45.

    No doubt NBC hired a crack investigative team to track down such a person. Or maybe they just plagiarized stuff from the FTFTFNYT.

  6. 6.

    chopper

    Kids, we need to talk for a moment about Krusty Brand Chew Goo Gum Like Substance. We all knew it contained spider eggs, but the hanta virus? That came out of left field. So if you’re experiencing numbness and/or comas, send five dollars to antidote, PO box…

  7. 7.

    TenguPhule

    @SFAW:

    No doubt NBC hired a crack investigative team to track down such a person.

    No doubt the team was high on something. Crack or whatever.

  11. 11.

    randy khan

    @TaMara (HFG):

    I’m not at all surprised. People often want to believe that their decisions weren’t wrong, and will look for other people to blame.

    But it won’t take too many people realizing their mistake to turn things around.

  13. 13.

    MomSense

    Great Patriot Farmers? WTF This sounds like it was pulled out of one of Stalin’s Five Year Plans

  15. 15.

    Baud

    I’d be interested in hearing from Hillary voting farmers. But I guess they don’t go to the usual diners.

  17. 17.

    RSA

    From the Politico article;

    Instead, Republicans seem to be relying on Trump’s conservative base in agricultural states to deliver the president a message. Asked who can determine when the economic pain from retaliatory tariffs is too much to stand, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said, “It’s up to the producers.”

    Note to Republicans: Things get done by those representing the people–that’s the common understanding of a republican government.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    The President of the United States owes farmers like myself some type of plan of action,”

    The plan of action is to keep them in the fold by hate mongering against brown people.

  19. 19.

    Anne Laurie

    @TaMara (HFG):

    NBC interviewed a soybean farmer and I kid you not, he blamed Clinton (B, not H) and said even though he’s close to losing his farm, he supports IQ45.

    Yeah, I remember when those same farmers, or their parents, blamed Jimmy Carter for Reagan’s cronies destroying farm communities by looting the local banks.

    That’s when I began to suspect that J.K. Galbraith wasn’t entirely joking when he said every halfway bright farm kid got the hell outta their hometown, leaving behind the dull and the timid… which is why rural-controlled legislatures were reliably half a century behind their times. (Galbraith always cited his own history as an example.)

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    I’d be interested in hearing from Hillary voting farmers.

    What, all three of them? //

  21. 21.

    Patricia Kayden

    Smart move on Trump’s part. Screw over the rubes while praising them profusely to keep them in place. He’ll have their vote next November so it’s all good.

  23. 23.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    owes farmers like myself some type of plan of action

    Nothing. You’ll get nothing and LIKE IT.

  26. 26.

    TenguPhule

    @RSA:

    . Asked who can determine when the economic pain from retaliatory tariffs is too much to stand, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said, “It’s up to the producers.”

    Springtime for Hitler is guaranteed to fail.

  28. 28.

    Just One More Canuck

    Trump is sounding very Maoist

    Greta Patriot Farmers, Let 100 Flowers Bloom! Smash the Imperialist running dog Gang of Four.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Also, they tend to be African Americans.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/07/11/black-soybean-farmers-say-they-were-deliberately-sold-defective-seeds-because-of-their-race/?utm_term=.c1defd8fbc3e

    Black farmers say they were deliberately sold defective soybean seeds because of their race

    A group of black soybean farmers from the South says a company intentionally sold them defective seeds in an elaborate scheme to place them at a disadvantage because of their race.

    A lawsuit filed by African American farmers from Tennessee and Mississippi accuses Stine Seed Co. of selling them seeds they were told were of good quality and would bring successful harvests. But despite fertile soil, ample rain, good equipment and adequate farming capabilities, the farmers say, their yields were significantly lower than expected. Farmers from a 2,200-acre farm in Rome, Miss., say they lost more than $1 million after an extremely poor harvest.

    The lawsuit says that after the farmers complained about the poor harvest, a company employee told them that the farms were having yield problems.

    “They’ve been farming all their lives. They’re capable farmers. They had new equipment. It’s not that they had antique tractors . . . But for the bad seeds, these farmers would’ve been yielding optimal yields,” said Thomas Burrell, president of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, a Memphis nonprofit group that advocates for black farmers in the South.

    Stine Seed has denied allegations that the company targeted black farmers and sold them subpar products. The Iowa-based company is seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, filed in April in federal court in Tennessee. Calling the accusations “inflammatory,” the company said the farmers were unable to present evidence proving that they were treated unfairly because of their race.

    Much more at the link.

  32. 32.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Patricia Kayden:

    He’ll have their vote next November so it’s all good.

    He might have their vote, but they’re not going to be living in the same place. Their next job is likely to be in a city.

  33. 33.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    I’m surprised the farmer didn’t blame Mexico, like his congresscritter Steve King.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    @MomSense:

    Great Patriot Farmers? WTF This sounds like it was pulled out of one of Stalin’s Five Year Plans

    North Korea’s Dear Leader gave Trump a free tip on how to name the farmers.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RSA: This is really stupid. The President only has these authorities to levy tariffs because Congress specifically, in legislation, enabled the executive branch with them. All they have to do is pass legislation to pull the powers back, which would put an immediate stop to this mess. Or, at least, set up a court fight over it as I doubt the President would stop even if the legislation passed and Congress overrode his veto.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    “Our great Patriot Farmers?” Seriously? Has he been reading the collected works of Josef Stalin?

    Fuck those farmers. Racists traitors, 95% of them.

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    I’ll start worrying about these industrial farmers when they start publicly speaking out against this nonsense. After decades of driving down the San Joaquin Valley, festooned with signs blaming everything on whatever Dems are in office I’ve long stopped worrying about their finances and instead worry about what they want to steal next.

  39. 39.

    texasdoc

    Dems may not get farmers’ votes after this tariff debacle, but we should take every opportunity to point out to other voters that we are all paying more for imported goods, in effect a tax, due to tariffs. And the relief funds Trump plans to offer farmers, from tariffs collected on imported Chinese goods, are not being paid by the Chinese, but by us, through higher prices.

  41. 41.

    Barbara

    @randy khan: I firmly believe reporters look for these guys. My extended family includes the owners of a large soybean farming enterprise and they are furious at Trump. I suspect that many people are experiencing the kind of feelings that make them prefer not saying anything rather than admitting that they were wrong.

    Also, it is totally insane that Trump thinks China would capitulate like the small business vendors he pushed into taking so much less than they were owed.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RSA: Aren’t these the same folks that are always screaming we live in a Republic, not a democracy?

  46. 46.

    joel hanes

    @chopper:

    they really are that stupid.

    Some of them. Probably even many of them.

    But there are a bunch of pretty good people among farmers, people who in Iowa are restoring native prairie and wetlands and open oak woodlands on parts of their farms, protect their watercourses and hillsides, use low-till and integrated pest management, and who are frustrated that many of their neighbors are culturally resistant to such conservation practices.

    Almost all categorical statements are false.
    It only costs a few keystrokes to add the words “some” or “most” to convert them into true statements.
    (I’m a white male from farm country who hasn’t voted for a Republican for any office since about 1970)

  47. 47.

    Barbara

    @Baud: His plan is to make you so angry at refugees that you won’t notice that you are now as destitute as they are.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Brachiator:

    Funny. He’s doing exactly what he told them he would do. Guess they weren’t paying attention.

    “You’re going to have your face eaten by leopards SO MUCH, you’re going to get TIRED of having your face eaten by leopards. You’re going to come to me, begging, ‘Please, Mr. Trump, Sir, could we have a little less of the leopards eating our faces?’ Because let me tell you, all the previous administrations, including that loser Obama, their leopards never ate ANYONE’S faces! But when you elected, by the greatest margin in history, by the way — not many people know that because of Fake News — when you elected your favorite president EVER (Trump!), I am the ONLY ONE who can make the leopards eat people’s faces. Perfectly fair, perfectly legal. Maybe i’ll make them eat your face and maybe I won’t. We’ll have to see what happens.”

  53. 53.

    Aleta

    From tweets since this morning:

    China buys MUCH less from us than we buy from them, by almost 500 Billion Dollars, so we are in a fantastic position.

    We can make a deal with China tomorrow, before their companies start leaving so as not to lose USA business

    Enjoy!

    Hopefully China will do us the honor of continuing to buy our great farm product, the best, but if not your Country will be making up the difference based on a very high China buy……

    .. This money will come from the massive Tariffs being paid to the United States for allowing China, and others, to do business with us.

    If the Federal Reserve ever did a “match,” it would be game over, we win!

    The golden era of American energy is now underway!

  54. 54.

    Fenix

    Evening, all. I’m a little shaky right now. The Esther Bunny miracle kitten is really sick. She’s got a fever, and we don’t know why. Made two trips to her vet all day today, and have to keep an eye on her throughout the night in case she needs to go to emergency for IV fluids or something. She’s just so damn tiny, still only 2 lbs. Treatment options are limited for the little tater tot, especially since this is such a mystery.

    Please think happy healthy pet-loving jackel thoughts her way.
    My ig pics of her

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Aleta: I suppose it would be nice if the person entrusted (why?) with the authority to make these kinds of decisions had a passing understanding of freshman economics.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    Had nearly forgotten what normal feels and sounds like. Right ear has been stuffed up since Easter time (or before). Late last night whatever it was finally popped open and relatedly, roller coaster sinus pressure is suddenly tremendously alleviated.

    Happens periodically but not frequently and has for decades so not at all alarmed but usually lasts less than a week.

  58. 58.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Fenix:

    Aww, poor little sweetie! Wishing her (and you!) a comfortable and uneventful night. All good thoughts coming the little kitty-bunny’s way.

  61. 61.

    Honus

    @Roger Moore: please tell me any objective evidence to support the assertion that nine out of the first ten white patriot farmers interviewed wouldn’t say that.

  64. 64.

    Sebastian

    @Aleta:

    Jesus Christ on a Cracker. But I am not surprised. This is the who thought the revenue of his stupid golf course equals profit.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    @Aleta

    “You guys suck. I’m taking my football soybeans and going home.”

    When does the nitTwitter-in-chief announce the Five Year Plan and an accompanying Great Leap Forward?

  66. 66.

    Ohio Mom

    @Fenix: Oh my, I can see the worry in your face in that photo. And also the love you have for that little kitty

    I’m sending good thoughts to Esther. Please keep us posted.

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    More weirdness about the FL vote hacking in 2016, via TPM:

    Federal officials today briefed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Russian hacking of two county voting networks during the 2016 election. But according to DeSantis, they made him sign an NDA that barred him from revealing the details. “I’m not allowed to name the counties. I signed a [non-]disclosure agreement,” said DeSantis.

    What in the actual fuck?

  68. 68.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: Probably right after he sets up forced reeducation camps that charge tuition payable to one of his companies.

  69. 69.

    Ohio Mom

    Trump didn’t do anything to create these nice economic times but he is certainly doing his damndest to end them. I really, really, really do not want to live through another Great Recession.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: Keyword access highly compartmented classification. Eyes only. Need to know. They read him on as the state’s chief executive, but to be read on he had to sign the clearance NDA. This is from the ongoing counterintelligence investigation. This means they’re trying to protect sources and methods.

  74. 74.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Betty Cracker:

    What in the actual fuck?

    I’ve racked my brain and I can’t think of a single remote reason why the identity of the election-hacked counties should be kept secret from any American, let alone any Floridian, LET ALONE any resident of the actual counties in question. This is fucked-up bullshit.

  75. 75.

    chopper

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Full disclosure: I interned at the Carter Center during college.

    good thing you brought that up, otherwise it’d be a total conflict of interest, being a low-level blog and all.

  76. 76.

    Raoul

    Mike Pence visited the Twin Cites just a couple weeks ago to fluff their garbage tariff war. Next week he’s heading to Eau Claire, about 90 miles east of here in rural WI. Also to fluff their garbage tariff war.

    The Trump Admin is nervous. Sure, Pence has the minimal brains to have an advance team set up hardhat guys (T.C.) or maybe some Ag dupes in Eau Claire, to backstop his visits and look on at his mellifluousness.

    But I read the frequent visits back here as desperate backstopping. Though I could, as always, be wrong.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    Trump brand soy milk. “Look for the picture of Your Favorite President – ME – on every box!”

  81. 81.

    waratah

    @joel hanes: Most of the farmers here have college degrees. They study agriculture and business economics. They too have learned to farm the area they live which is turning more farmland to dry land farming as the water levels and cost of watering become more expensive.
    Most of these farmers were in the Democratic Party. I am hoping they will see that our party wants to help them with climate control and that Trump has screwed them with the tariffs.

  83. 83.

    oldgold

    In Catch 22 Major Major’s father was a farmer. He was described hilariously as follows:

    Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a longlimbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county.

  86. 86.

    tobie

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: thanks for spelling out the linkages. I didn’t study wingnut syllogisms at school so I didn’t get the line from Bill Clinton to NAFTA to Mexico.

  87. 87.

    chopper

    president obama is the best! FULL DISCLOSURE: OBAMA’S FORMER ROOMMATE’S NEPHEW ONCE AUDITED A CLASS I TAUGHT

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @Adam L Silverman: I wonder if sometimes, in the zeal to protect sources and methods, we lose sight of the more important mission of protecting US citizens and the integrity of our elections. Are we supposed to just trust DeSantis and the feds to work with the mystery counties to address whatever deficiencies allowed the hackers to gain access in the first place? Are we supposed to just take his word for it that a) no data was changed, and b) gaining access to voter network data didn’t yield valuable information that was used for some nefarious purpose? I don’t trust that meathead DeSantis at all.

  92. 92.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Tsk-tsk yourself. Either is acceptable. Racked is preferred.

    The Oxford Dictionary Online says that the phrase could use either wrack or rack. They note that

    The relationship between the forms rack and wrack is complicated. The most common noun sense of rack, ‘a framework for holding and storing things’, is always spelled rack, never wrack. In the phrase rack something up the word is also always spelled rack. Figurative senses of the verb, deriving from the type of torture in which someone is stretched on a rack, can, however , be spelled either rack or wrack: thus racked with guilt; or wracked with guilt; rack your brains; or wrack your brains.
    However, according to this entry for wrack in EtymOnline, the term should be rack:

    The verb meaning “to ruin or wreck” (originally of ships) is recorded from 1560s, from earlier intrans. sense “to be shipwrecked” (late 15c.). Often confused in this sense since 16c. with rack (1) in the verb sense of “to torture on the rack;” to wrack one’s brains is thus erroneous.
    The PhraseFinder agrees that the phrase is rack your brains, adding:

    The rack was a mediaeval torture device. The crude but, one presumes, effective racks often tore the victim’s limbs from their bodies. It isn’t surprising that ‘rack’ was adopted as a verb meaning to cause pain and anguish. Shakespeare was one of many authors who used this.
    Further, this book on common English errors says it should be rack:

    If you are racked with pain or you feel nerve-racked, you are feeling as if you were being stretched on that Medieval instrument of torture, the rack. You rack your brains when you stretch them vigorously to search out the truth like a torturer. “Wrack” has to do with ruinous accidents, so if the stock market is wracked by rumors of imminent recession, it’s wrecked. If things are wrecked, they go to “wrack and ruin.”
    The Grammarist agrees it should be rack as well.

    That being said, there is some use of wrack your brains (blue line) as shown by this Google NGram. However, rack your brains is correct and more common:

    enter image description here

    There is some disagreement, but more sources say it should be rack. Thus it seems more likely that the phrase is rack your brains instead of wrack.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: No argument here. And that’s the problem with this stuff. Because of how the FBI works, especially the counterintelligence folks in the National Security Division, if DeSantis is spinning everyone about the NDA and no votes were changed, they won’t say anything to correct the record. So what he’s describing as happened with the NDA is plausible given how these things work, we’re at the point where there’s not a lot of trust left to belief he’s operating on the level here. Which, to be honest, is one of the major objectives of Putin’s strategy.

    You’ve seen me write about this here before. And as I’ve stated each of those times, it would not surprise me if the vote was altered, even if it wasn’t tampering with actual votes, but through hacking in and manipulating voter rolls. And this is the problem. First it was 29 states, then 39 states. Now we’ve got some reporting that all 50 states were hacked. You don’t do that unless your plan is to ensure the fix is in.

  95. 95.

    joel hanes

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    collective … sounds commie

    Hippies, rather.

    As evidence, I can tell you that Wendell Berry has been a featured guest at many of The Land Institute annual get-togethers for decades.
    If that name means nothing to you, I can further tell you that I first got to know his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” because it was reprinted in The Whole Earth Catalog.

  96. 96.

    Mike in NC

    Speaking of Great Leaps Forward, these morons are still insisting we’re on a five-year plan to return men (white, straight, and Protestant, of course) to the moon. Will support that only if Bill Shatner is named director of NASA.

  99. 99.

    joel hanes

    @Honus:

    I made a desultory attempt to have career as a computer engineer in Iowa, but it was a little like trying to be a professional ballerina in Pahrump — just was not going to happen. So forty years in Silicon Valley, with at least a month back home in Iowa every year.

  107. 107.

    FlyingToaster

    @joel hanes: I grew up in the city — but the city with (then) Ralston-Purina silos next to what was then third-largest railhead in the nation (Kansas City).

    I didn’t even try to go back after college; being female and Jewish had been enough to sour me on trying to fight my peers any longer. I told one of my sibs that I had to move to a place where I didn’t want to machine-gun my neighbors. So I ended up near Boston ;)

    My impression from my occasional visits back to KCMO is that when I visit the suburbs* I went to HS in, it’s all “blackety black black black” all the fucking time. Even though my high school was not a hotbed of racism, the parents of my classmates sure as fuck were, and my classmates who didn’t get the fuck out of Dodge turned into their parents.

    * My HS was actually in KC; but the school grounds bordered a ‘burb. When I visit, I stay in a hotel on the Plaza, i.e., civilization.

  110. 110.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Oh, by the way — has everyone seen Jon McNaughton’s latest, erm, masterpiece, “MAGA Ride”?

    Worth the click, just for the sheer over-the-top awfulness.

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:
    Not to worry or piss you off but seeing as how we really haven’t overly successfully recovered from the Great Recession, my concern is that if we have another it will go directly to depression. Because we really didn’t do enough to fully recover and the genius in the WH won’t do anything like President Obama did or especially tried to do and was thwarted by, wait for it, republicans. Same as the last depression almost a century ago. And I’m in the same place as you, the last 10 yrs have been just trying to hang on and continue working rather than retire, just to eat. I lost everything in the last recession. I don’t really have enough to retire yet, SS isn’t enough, so I have no idea what will happen if the shit hits the fan but I know it won’t be good for me and probably at least 100 million of my closest friends.

  112. 112.

    FlyingToaster

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Now we’ve got some reporting that all 50 states were hacked.

    I absolutely believe that they tried.

    I don’t for a minute believe that they succeeded*. But casting doubt on the validity of everyone’s vote is certainly a goal.

    *I’ve tried to navigate public records in Massachusetts. They didn’t succeed here, but I’m pretty sure they gave it a go before they realized that our SoC is nicknamed “The Prince of Darkness” for a reason.

  114. 114.

    Gvg

    @Adam L Silverman: you know, I think this is mistaken. We have a right to know the names of the counties, and some other details. I am sorry, I think the hiding stuff is just corruption and incompetence not real need to know secrecy. Prior actions on the part of this administration have made me not believe that it’s real correct use of secrecy.
    You may be too trained professionally to see it, but keeping this kind of information from us does more damage than revealing facts. Trust has run out.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Gvg: I don’t disagree with you. Or with BettyC. I’m just explaining what I think happened in this case.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I think we need to coin a new word to describe his work.
    Masterfuckingpiece.
    You know it doesn’t quite get there in one word does it?

  120. 120.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:
    Abuse is involved that’s for sure. Not sure there is any art involved in any way. No wait, yes, I’m sure there is no art involved in any way.
    I’ve seen graffiti walls that were far, far closer to art than anything that ass has put his hands on.

  121. 121.

    FlyingToaster

    @Ruckus: @Ruckus: Wow!

    My dad was born in KC, 97 years ago. But his grandad worked for the Union Pacific in St. Joe, so the whole “horse drawn wagon” thing was not part of his upbringing.

  122. 122.

    L85NJGT

    @TenguPhule:

    The US did $26 billion in Mexican ag imports last year. We send them soy, corn and meat and they send fresh fruit and veg north.

  123. 123.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Did NAFTA hurt them like Trump is hurting them?

    I’m curious as to how long Trump’s supporters who are now suffering will stand behind him. It’s easy for politicians who are safe, fat, and piggish to stay loyal, despite their constituents, but not the farmers and blue collars who are being victimized by their Beloved Leader.

  127. 127.

    Ruckus

    @FlyingToaster:
    Granddad was a Packard factory trained mechanic but the roads and gas stations just didn’t really exist for cross country travel. I once asked granddad about the depression and he said he worked every day during the depression, working on stars cars in Hollywood in his garage. Fifty years after the family took the wagon trip, one could drive coast to coast in 3 days easy.

  129. 129.

    tobie

    @Adam L Silverman: DeSantis’s reference to an NDA struck me as suspicious. Maybe he wanted to use a business or layman’s term to indicate the briefing was classified. But what kind of governor publicly announces they’ve gotten a super secret briefing? Either a sheer doofus who doesn’t care if he panics his constituents or someone who is hiding something. My guess is DeSantis is hiding something.

  130. 130.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Betty Cracker: I think a lot of the sources and methods stuff is nonsense and have been thinking about writing a post on that forever. Maybe this will be the hook for it.

    A balance is necessary. In information warfare, exposure can be a powerful weapon. It should be used.

  131. 131.

    Gravenstone

    @chopper: I’ll co-sign this statement. Farmers are not a universally bright bunch, outside of their specific profession.

  132. 132.

    OGLiberal

    @debbie: Are brown people hurting worse? Even if they aren’t, is the perception that they are? That’s all that matters to Trump supporters. They’ll eat shit and like it as long as the browns are eating shit with razor blades…or as long as they think that’s the case. O, and Trump owned the libs! These people are hopeless and helpless. They will not sway…they are members of a cult led by an ignorant, reality TV schlub.

  133. 133.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mike in NC: @Ruckus: Thanks guys for those comforting thoughts.

    Nah, you just said the subtext to my comment out loud. If you had tried being reassuring, I would have rolled my eyes at you.

  135. 135.

    Ruckus

    @Ohio Mom:
    I would never try to convince anyone that any republican has any idea about economics. They don’t. As @Mike in NC: stated they have a great track record of financial genius. As in the know how to fuck it up absolutely completely and totally. That’s why trump is their god, they think that’s good conservative economics. And it never has been. Ever. Not one day. Sure liberals can get it wrong, but conservatives start wrong, stay wrong and think that what they do is great. The proof is in the recessions.

  139. 139.

    Martin

    Who would have thought a mobster from NYC who never saw a farm that he didn’t think would be better as a golf course would fuck over farmers? Good thing they voted for him.

  143. 143.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    That piece of crap is on a stand. The only way that asshole could ride would be to pay someone to operate the bike.
    Conservatives must drop a lot of acid. Because that is the only way their world makes any sense whatsoever. And I’m not talking about the good acid, I’m talking that shit that everyone at Woodstock was warned about, the really, really bad stuff which never ends well, the stuff Timmy got in serious trouble for.

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    It might be able to be gotten that way but it would take a long, long battle and would probably be redacted all to shit. And by then it’s value to or against someone would be for history. Or maybe he’s just lying. Who knows….. Most likely we’d know from the courts and congress long before a FOIA request would be honored.

  146. 146.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ruckus: The only interesting thing about that painting is that even crazy right wingers feel they must embrace diversity, as evidenced by the multi-cultural crowd — forget the fact that no Trump crowd is ever anywhere near that well-integrated, it’s artistic license.

  147. 147.

    tobie

    @Sebastian: Exactly. NDA is not a term that intelligence professionals use. A governor would not sign an NDA to receive a classified, counterintelligence briefing. Possibly some other document but not an NDA.

  151. 151.

    chopper

    @Gravenstone:

    but they got “horse sense” amirite?

    i come from a long line of farmers. farmers by and large aren’t any smarter than any other americans and many of them are far, far dumber than average. the smart ones in my family got the fuck out of farming as soon as they had the chance.

  155. 155.

    Adam L Silverman

    @tobie: That is not true. I signed an NDA the last time I was read off of a compartment. I am bound by it for over 70 years. This is standard operating procedure for those of us with high level clearance when getting access and/or moving on to other projects and being read off access.

  156. 156.

    TomatoQueen

    @Fenix: Oh no. Fenix sending healing wishes for great effects from the fluids and antibiotics for little silvery EstherBunny. Be well soonest, little one.

  157. 157.

    Ruckus

    This is one massive load of bullshit from the Oval Office Occupant.

    Anne, that could be from any day since noon, Jan 20, 2017.
    I’ve had a question in the back of my mind for some time now and that is, does anyone think there is enough lawn around the WH to spread as much bullshit as Trump generates in a year? I told the XO of the ship I was on when I was discharged and he told me I’d be back, my kind always comes back, that I had a friend whose family owned a dairy and they had lots of cows and each one of those cows shits a lot every day and I’d work every fucking day for the rest of my fucking life, shoveling that shit before I’d come back to work for anyone like him. And Trump creates more bullshit than all of those cows put together.

  158. 158.

    L85NJGT

    I found a trucking company film on youtube from the fifties, and waded into the Trumpster comments. It is all Carter’s fault for deregulating the industry. They don’t see a whitewashed propaganda film, or how profoundly the industry has changed – they just want to wallow in the imagined world of their youth.

  159. 159.

    NotMax

    @Ruckus

    The common wisdom is the brown acid at Woodstock was “bad,” as in tainted. In fact the problem stemmed from it being too pure and concentrated, so in actuality could be described as too good.

  161. 161.

    Sebastian

    @debbie:

    That’s a question more suited for Adam. Reading Adam’s comments it seems that LE indeed makes you sign NDAs. It’s just that NDAs came up all the time with Trump that we are (or at least I am) sufficiently conditioned to associate NDA with Trump.

    I have a feeling information is being released in a very controlled manner to establish a story line and shared knowledge. Layer by layer. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out much more shocking things down the road. But first, the stage has to be set.

  162. 162.

    tobie

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the clarification. I didn’t know this.

    @Sebastian: I agree a stage is being set. By whom, though, and to what end? It sucks living in the middle of the world’s greatest espionage plot!

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Sebastian: @tobie: This is what is called normalization as part of information warfare and political warfare. So destroying the common acceptance and understanding of facts, and thereby degrading trust in officials and subject matter experts, that it is impossible to take anything at face value. As a result, nothing is true, but everything is possible.

  166. 166.

    Jay

    “Yet, as I kept opening the letters, I saw a pattern. For every hateful message, there was one of gratitude. For every angry accusation that our actions were driven by the inability to accept Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, there was a note of thanks from someone lamenting Trump’s rollback of protections for marginalized people. What’s more, for every wish that our business die a painful death, there was a dollar bill or a generous check or an order for a gift certificate.

    When we opened after a 10-day hiatus, our dining room was full. In the following weeks, people who had never been to the Shenandoah Valley traveled out of their way to eat with us. Hundreds of orders for our Red Hen spice blend poured in. And the love spread far beyond our door, as supporters sent thousands of dollars in donations in our honor to our local food pantry, our domestic violence shelter and first responders.

    After nearly a year, I’m happy to say that business is still good. Better than good, actually. And besides the boost to our area charities, our town’s hospitality and sales revenue have gone up, too.”

    https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-pleasant-reminder-that-all-is-not-lost.html?m=1

  169. 169.

    Ruckus

    @Jager:
    Why bother with a helmet if you have nothing to put in it or protect?
    IOW, those heads aren’t worth a bucket of spit, why waste the fiberglass……

  170. 170.

    joel hanes

    @FlyingToaster:

    I’ve been to both Kansas City cities, and I don’t blame you for fleeing.
    (Though the barbecue is … damn now I’m hungry)

  171. 171.

    joel hanes

    @Adam L Silverman:

    antibiotics are amazing

    For a while.

    While the wholesale use of antibiotics for everything under the sun is pure folly, but it’s also true that the pharma companies have utterly failed to act responsibly about development of new antibiotics.

    It seems to me that this is an area where government can fund science and industry in the public interest, because capitalism unchained won’t. Ever.

  173. 173.

    Barb 2

    @chopper:

    My Kansas relatives left the state two and three generations ago.

    The dumb farmers who are still Trump cult fans – no empathy for you. Because of the cult of hate people are dying.

    Yes, wouldn’t it be funny if Trump did come up with a farmer’s patriot medal? We read it here first – up top.

  176. 176.

    trnc

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Aren’t these the same folks that are always screaming we live in a Republic, not a democracy?

    Yes, but their idea of a republic is one where only people calling themselves to republicans get to make rules and then choose whether or not to follow those or any other rules.

    Add it to the list of things they scream about in bad faith.

  177. 177.

    Citizen Alan

    @TaMara (HFG):

    I am shocked and slightly horrified at how little I care about the suffering of these people. Pithy jokes about the Leopard eating people’s faces don’t cut it for me anymore. At this point, I want farmers who support trump to lose everything and spend the rest of their lives begging the democrats to protect the social safety net so their children don’t go hungry.

  178. 178.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @chopper:

    it was possibly two!

    i grew up in corn farming country, they really are that stupid.

    I’ve talked to MAGA hats, they are this dumb. You walk them to the conclusion and their brains bail to “Clinton”.

  179. 179.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @texasdoc:

    Dems may not get farmers’ votes after this tariff debacle, but we should take every opportunity to point out to other voters that we are all paying more for imported goods, in effect a tax, due to tariffs. And the relief funds Trump plans to offer farmers, from tariffs collected on imported Chinese goods, are not being paid by the Chinese, but by us, through higher prices.

    Fortantly Step On His Own Dick Trump is doing that for the Dems.

  180. 180.

    Miss Bianca

    @Fenix: Oh, no! Late to the thread, but just wanted to say that I will say a little prayer for the Esther Bunny! : (

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