Seeker. Husband. Father. Populist. Producerist. USDA Zone 5B. Proudly Midwestern. Heartland Enthusiast!
A small city in the Heartland
Joined October 2020
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A thread of my threads.
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/SaysSimulation/status/…
This is coming in from too many directions to be ignored. Trump in 2 interviews (links to follow), the DHS secretary, multiple Repub congressmen, 53 Repub cosponsors of a bill giving illegals legal visa status. It was likely planned before the midterms, to be announced after.
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When the Repubs decide to screw over their own base, they have a decades long pattern of doing things like this, with this sort of timing. "Welp, now ya voted, so its time to be adults & come up with sensible solutions that we never ran on or promised not to do in the election"
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In fact, we were not allowed to vote our way out of it. From a Repub, 52 Repub cosponsors. Big two changes are that visas for seasonal work become year-round, and illegal immigrants are given a clear pathway to get year-round visas that can be extended indefinitely.
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🌾 CONGRESS IS SLIPPING AMNESTY INTO A FARM LABOR BILL
Don't take my word for it. Read the official summary from the Congressional Research Service.
H.R. 9535, the "Securing Agriculture's Workforce Act." Sponsored by House Agriculture Chairman Glenn Thompson. 61 cosponsors, 52 of them Republicans.
One line tells you everything. The bill "establishes an H-2A visa pathway for current unauthorized agricultural workers who otherwise meet requirements."
Current unauthorized workers. People who are here illegally right now.
The sponsor's pitch: "With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings."
The border is more secure because we finally started enforcing the law. You don't reward that by handing a visa to the people who broke it.
And the timing couldn't be worse. Monday night the President said, "We haven't put the same pressure on waitresses and on farmworkers, etc. Not even close." That's exactly the opening this bill's supporters have been waiting for.
We've seen this movie before. In 1986 Congress created the Special Agricultural Worker program, and it was riddled with fraud, with applicants claiming farm work they never did. My career taught me that every carve-out turns into a business model. Make farm work the safe lane and the fake employment letters will show up by the truckload.
Farmers have a real labor problem and I'm not dismissing it. Fix H-2A. Speed it up. Cut the red tape. Let it run year-round. That's legal labor and I'll support it.
But a visa for people who are here illegally isn't a workforce plan. It's amnesty in overalls.
Call your representative and ask one question: are you one of the 61?
@POTUS @StephenM @RealTomHoman @SecMullinDHS @ICEgov @HouseAgGOP @CongressmanGT @Jim_Jordan @JudiciaryGOP @Phase2Deport @NICEnforcement @itsyourgov
and Trump is leading the way back into the fold, into the controlled opposition wing of the uniparty, and no, voters don't get to decide the important things.
Agricultural workers won't be the end of it, not by a long shot.
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xitter.twitterapi.xyz/SaysSimulation/status/…
Watch the clip. Trump's #1 priority for working across the aisle is some form of amnesty for long-time illegal immigrants, even if he never uses the word "amnesty". He acknowledges that there are 2 large groups of people with differing views. His choice is to fuck his own base
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Trump is doing the "Art of the Deal" for Trump, make no mistake.
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xitter.twitterapi.xyz/SaysSimulation/status/…
"U.S. Aircraft Evacuated From Second U.K. Base Due to Iran Threat" (WSJ, link later). Today the US pulled its refueling tankers from RAF Mildenhall, after pulling its B-1s from RAF Fairford last month. The US has lost confidence in UK internal security & believes Iran was
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Reality is what it is. RW can't win Electoral College without the Midwest. Farm policy swings elections in at least 8 Midwestern states. People say: "Screw the farmers!" Farmers say "Oh no, screw you!" EC lost. Face shoved in dirt under Leftist boot forever, as deserved.
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Soooo.......in this case you think the removal of protections to help a beef shortage pissed off beef producers.
There are far more beef purchasers than beef producers.
If we have to gear our politics to just please farmers we may as well just go socialist. Rep Senators like John Thune and Jerry Moran, who are really democrats, are in power for this very reason. They are Corn Mafia politicians. They have one job, vote for Democrat spending (when needed), in order to get as fat a Farm Bill as possible.
It's pretty simple. The Corn Mafia folks sell out conservatives(when needed) in order to get big govt handouts for farmers.
What's funny is that this is a producer of the K shape you dislike. In farm country, the landowners are the upper arm. They are the rich people, and they stay that way on lots of govt spice.
Cash payments to industrial corns & beans agriculture is a terrible mistake, in my opinion. We can do much better with regenerative farming.
The key difference is that I don't dislike or blame the farmers. If you want to dislike someone focus on the vast urban underclasses.
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