Party’s over, it’s time to get down to work. As the executive director of Project 2025, I propose a national register to track the menstrual cycles of all the men who voted for the democratic party.
Omg, I was relieved by the outcome of the presidential election. Relieved, cautiously hopeful, all that.
But then I saw this announcement and OH HECK YEAH! (with jumping up and down and whooping out loud!)
” I’ve been contacted by the Trump transition team to hold some sort of position within the USDA and have accepted one of the six “Advisor to the Secretary” spots. My favorite congressman, Thomas Massie from Kentucky, has agreed to go in as Secretary of Agriculture.”
You have no idea. This is a dream come true. This is a thing I have literally written stupid beg letters to my congresscritters about. This is like something out of a crazy dream and does not seem REAL.
Just electrified with excitement about this. Thank you, Jesus!
You know how hard it is to find, and purchase, real actual food in America? Like, how the meat is not the right color, and chicken has no flavor, and you can’t buy good bread?
That happened because of layers and layers and layers of absolutely sh*t-tastic USDA regulations that are basically written by Tyson and ADM, that make it nearly impossible for small farmers to access markets. In most states, if you have a flock of 50 chickens, it is illegal for you to sell eggs. To anyone. Because you have to jump through so many legal hoops that in order to make a profit at all, you’d have to have a part-time secretary to keep up to date on the paperwork, and your eggs would cost $100/dozen.
And you can flat-out forget selling milk, cheese, or meat. The regulations are designed to curb-stomp anybody who might compete with the giant conglomerates.
And that’s why we can’t buy good food. If you want to eat a good chicken in the US, you pretty much have to raise it yourself.
So anyway,
Thomas Massie has been trying to get the PRIME act through congress for YEARS now– which would be a great first step toward market access for small beef producers. He is a farmer himself, and is very much in favor of reforming the system so that the regulations no longer favor massive polluting sh*t-filled feedlots over the guy with 20 beeves grazing a bucolic pasture where they’re moved every day to avoid parasites and overgrazing, and build topsoil and sequester carbon and stuff.
Joel Salatin is a pioneering farmer in Swope, Virginia, who’s been writing about the same issues for years: how to raise livestock in a way that’s environmentally friendly, respects the land, and makes the animals taste *amazing*– like what normal people enjoy eating every day in Vietnam, or Peru, but Americans don’t even know what they’re missing out on because all our meat is fed on soy nuggets and antibiotics. AND he’s been harping on, in public talks, and books, and articles, and everywhere else, about all the legal barriers to doing this (see his book: “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal”), the problems with USDA regulations, and helping small farmers work around all these absurd regulations, as well as being an activist for helpful legislation.
Wow, this would really be something. The food in this country is, indeed, shameful. Criminal, even. To have that improve, I can’t even imagine. It would solve so many problems.
I now also feel elated. Is it possible? Can this really change? Not to have to travel overseas to have food taste like food would be a dream come true.
I don’t know, I go to Europe, and the quality of the food is significantly and obviously better. And it’s quite cheaper, too. Literally, the only time I eat vegetables and food that taste as such is in Europe. And I pay a lot less. On every single trip out of the US, I lose weight without trying.
That’s the thing! I have spent non-trivial amounts of time in *the developing world*, and literally every regular joe I met there could, and did, buy food vastly better in quality than anything available to Americans. These people were not wealthy even by local standards. But by golly fresh squid was 30 cents a pound (yes, I had to translate that out of the local currency, and from metric to imperial, so it’s approximate and not inflation adjusted… still!).
How do they afford it? They can afford it because there aren’t fifty layers of bureaucrats between them and the farmer, all needing to get paid.
Odds are good it might be more expensive than Walmart, but… maybe not by as much as you’d think. And the stuff in the case at Walmart barely qualifies as food anyway.
Even in Canada, in the large city of Montreal with insane housing prices, I pay less for food than in my town in the US with the population of 30,000. And it’s better quality. Not as good as in Europe but still better.
And yes, I’m adjusting for currency. If we have Canadians in the comments, they can confirm. American food is neither cheap nor good.
Exactly! Even in the first-world, where farmers live in real houses, and not palm-thatched huts out in the rice paddies, it is *possible* to have good fresh food that is reasonably priced.
All you have to do is get Tyson and Purdue out of your legislature’s pockets.
He has proposed a bill banning dual citizenship for lawmakers. This needs to happen now! Kinda insane if you think about it, that america allows this for people making laws for the country.
I honestly had no idea. I’m discovering really crazy things here. If somebody asked, I would have guessed dual citizenship is already illegal for them.
My kid has dual citizenship thanks to being born outside the US.
It’s cool and all, but I don’t see the other passport ever being truly useful to him, and would give it up if required.
I think not all countries recognize a renouncing of citizenship, though. If you renounce your US citizenship, for example, they still try to make you pay income tax. If you renounce your VN citizenship, VN still considers you a citizen. I believe it is the same with China.
Like, if you’ve been granted citizenship by another country, does that count as permanently excluding you from public office, do you have to renounce it, and what if the second country still claims you?
Like, I think it’s a good policy generally, but I’d like to understand the technicalities.
No. Otherwise Ted Cruz would never have been eligible to run for President. Or be a senator.
Neither would have Arnold Schwarzenegger been able to be a governor (though he was never eligible to be President.)
Kissinger could be Secretary of State, but I don’t think he could’ve ever be in the line of succession to be President even if he was stateless when he was naturalized.
There are jobs in the US that require one to renounce any other citizenship. There are also countries that do not allow you to renounce the citizenship. What you need to do in that case is to (1) make an attempt to renounce it and (2) stop using the passport of the other country and let it completely expire. So for example, when you travel to that other country, you will use your US passport to enter and will not avail yourself of any services/rights available to citizens only (for example, you will not participate in the elections over there).
I am personally not opposed to the idea of dual citizenship, I think there are cases where it can be useful. However, I do agree that there should be limits. Having lawmakers with multiple passports they are actively using should not be allowed.
I support that in theory, but on your US passport, it says what country you were born in, and I know for a fact that if my son tried to enter his natal country using just his US passport, that would cause problems, even though his second passport expired ages ago!
@methylethyl, I am familiar with the problem. Fortunately I do not hold positions (and do not plan to hold any) that forbid dual citizenship. However, if you are in that situation, you either (1) do not travel to that country or (2) you bear 5 minutes of an unhappy rant of an immigration officer while trying to enter and perhaps risk not getting in (although I am personally not aware of a case where a person was barred entry). The alternative (active use of a passport of that country) could land you in jail.
With these things you can get in problems either way – when entering a country where you were born, they will complain if you do not use that country’s passport and demand you show it to them. Then, when coming back to the US, they can start asking questions about why you did not use your US passport in that other country and give you an earful about that.
“The alternative (active use of a passport of that country) could land you in jail.”
I thought most countries only care about what passport you use to enter and depart that country, specifically a country you have a passport for expects you to enter and depart using that and only that passport. What you use elsewhere should be irrelevant…
You are correct in principle. However, if you hold a position that requires you to relinquish all other passports (for example, you work for the government and handle sensitive information) and you do not do so but keep actively using them, it will not end well for you and rightly so.
Also, I did witness a US immigration officer lecturing my family member on our return trip because they did not use their US passport to enter the country of their birth. There was no problem in the end, but in principle the US government wants you to use your US passport when traveling abroad, so it is not completely irrelevant.
All I know is, our child is a legit US citizen, we had all his US paperwork in order, we had read up that the US prefers that you travel on your US passport, ALL that stuff, and then when we got to the airport to go back to the states… they were not gonna let us leave with our kid, because he didn’t have a local passport, and his US passport said he was born there, so obviously he should have one. Fortunately, we’d already done the paperwork to get one, we just didn’t have it yet, so they were able to issue an emergency replacement just like if we’d lost it. (shrugs)
I have a weirdly large number of friends and relations born overseas (yay military), and I do know that all this varies hugely from one country to another.
Clarissa's Blog 
Party’s over, it’s time to get down to work. As the executive director of Project 2025, I propose a national register to track the menstrual cycles of all the men who voted for the democratic party.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Dude, that’s almost all of their voters. Let’s spare at least some of them.
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YEEEEEEHAW!
Omg, I was relieved by the outcome of the presidential election. Relieved, cautiously hopeful, all that.
But then I saw this announcement and OH HECK YEAH! (with jumping up and down and whooping out loud!)
” I’ve been contacted by the Trump transition team to hold some sort of position within the USDA and have accepted one of the six “Advisor to the Secretary” spots. My favorite congressman, Thomas Massie from Kentucky, has agreed to go in as Secretary of Agriculture.”
–Joel Salatin
https://www.thelunaticfarmer.com/blog/11/6/2024/celebration
You have no idea. This is a dream come true. This is a thing I have literally written stupid beg letters to my congresscritters about. This is like something out of a crazy dream and does not seem REAL.
Just electrified with excitement about this. Thank you, Jesus!
LikeLike
What is it, though? I never heard of these people. What is their happy-making agenda?
I want to feel the excitement!
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You know how hard it is to find, and purchase, real actual food in America? Like, how the meat is not the right color, and chicken has no flavor, and you can’t buy good bread?
That happened because of layers and layers and layers of absolutely sh*t-tastic USDA regulations that are basically written by Tyson and ADM, that make it nearly impossible for small farmers to access markets. In most states, if you have a flock of 50 chickens, it is illegal for you to sell eggs. To anyone. Because you have to jump through so many legal hoops that in order to make a profit at all, you’d have to have a part-time secretary to keep up to date on the paperwork, and your eggs would cost $100/dozen.
And you can flat-out forget selling milk, cheese, or meat. The regulations are designed to curb-stomp anybody who might compete with the giant conglomerates.
And that’s why we can’t buy good food. If you want to eat a good chicken in the US, you pretty much have to raise it yourself.
So anyway,
Thomas Massie has been trying to get the PRIME act through congress for YEARS now– which would be a great first step toward market access for small beef producers. He is a farmer himself, and is very much in favor of reforming the system so that the regulations no longer favor massive polluting sh*t-filled feedlots over the guy with 20 beeves grazing a bucolic pasture where they’re moved every day to avoid parasites and overgrazing, and build topsoil and sequester carbon and stuff.
Joel Salatin is a pioneering farmer in Swope, Virginia, who’s been writing about the same issues for years: how to raise livestock in a way that’s environmentally friendly, respects the land, and makes the animals taste *amazing*– like what normal people enjoy eating every day in Vietnam, or Peru, but Americans don’t even know what they’re missing out on because all our meat is fed on soy nuggets and antibiotics. AND he’s been harping on, in public talks, and books, and articles, and everywhere else, about all the legal barriers to doing this (see his book: “Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal”), the problems with USDA regulations, and helping small farmers work around all these absurd regulations, as well as being an activist for helpful legislation.
This is EPIC.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow, this would really be something. The food in this country is, indeed, shameful. Criminal, even. To have that improve, I can’t even imagine. It would solve so many problems.
I now also feel elated. Is it possible? Can this really change? Not to have to travel overseas to have food taste like food would be a dream come true.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s hoping!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know about Joel Salatin from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. So yes, if policies follow anything like his farming practices (from 2006).
But obviously, you can’t expect that kind of food to be cheap, in any way.
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I don’t know, I go to Europe, and the quality of the food is significantly and obviously better. And it’s quite cheaper, too. Literally, the only time I eat vegetables and food that taste as such is in Europe. And I pay a lot less. On every single trip out of the US, I lose weight without trying.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s the thing! I have spent non-trivial amounts of time in *the developing world*, and literally every regular joe I met there could, and did, buy food vastly better in quality than anything available to Americans. These people were not wealthy even by local standards. But by golly fresh squid was 30 cents a pound (yes, I had to translate that out of the local currency, and from metric to imperial, so it’s approximate and not inflation adjusted… still!).
How do they afford it? They can afford it because there aren’t fifty layers of bureaucrats between them and the farmer, all needing to get paid.
Odds are good it might be more expensive than Walmart, but… maybe not by as much as you’d think. And the stuff in the case at Walmart barely qualifies as food anyway.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Even in Canada, in the large city of Montreal with insane housing prices, I pay less for food than in my town in the US with the population of 30,000. And it’s better quality. Not as good as in Europe but still better.
And yes, I’m adjusting for currency. If we have Canadians in the comments, they can confirm. American food is neither cheap nor good.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly! Even in the first-world, where farmers live in real houses, and not palm-thatched huts out in the rice paddies, it is *possible* to have good fresh food that is reasonably priced.
All you have to do is get Tyson and Purdue out of your legislature’s pockets.
LikeLiked by 1 person
ah, the neggies. Someone is butthurt that I insulted Walmart.
I didn’t even think they were the Walmart type.
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Thomas Massie is my favorite congressman!
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Thomas Massie is going to be THE GREATEST SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE EVER!
LikeLiked by 1 person
He has proposed a bill banning dual citizenship for lawmakers. This needs to happen now! Kinda insane if you think about it, that america allows this for people making laws for the country.
Like I said, he’s right on everything.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Literally the only thing I know him for is the PRIME act, and that is good enough for me.
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I honestly had no idea. I’m discovering really crazy things here. If somebody asked, I would have guessed dual citizenship is already illegal for them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m actually against the idea of dual citizenship for everyone, not just lawmakers. It makes no sense to me.
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My kid has dual citizenship thanks to being born outside the US.
It’s cool and all, but I don’t see the other passport ever being truly useful to him, and would give it up if required.
I think not all countries recognize a renouncing of citizenship, though. If you renounce your US citizenship, for example, they still try to make you pay income tax. If you renounce your VN citizenship, VN still considers you a citizen. I believe it is the same with China.
Like, if you’ve been granted citizenship by another country, does that count as permanently excluding you from public office, do you have to renounce it, and what if the second country still claims you?
Like, I think it’s a good policy generally, but I’d like to understand the technicalities.
LikeLike
No. Otherwise Ted Cruz would never have been eligible to run for President. Or be a senator.
Neither would have Arnold Schwarzenegger been able to be a governor (though he was never eligible to be President.)
Kissinger could be Secretary of State, but I don’t think he could’ve ever be in the line of succession to be President even if he was stateless when he was naturalized.
But you knew that.
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Dude, that is clearly not what I was responding to.
This is about proposed limits on “lawmakers”, not the office of the President, for which we all know the rules.
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There are jobs in the US that require one to renounce any other citizenship. There are also countries that do not allow you to renounce the citizenship. What you need to do in that case is to (1) make an attempt to renounce it and (2) stop using the passport of the other country and let it completely expire. So for example, when you travel to that other country, you will use your US passport to enter and will not avail yourself of any services/rights available to citizens only (for example, you will not participate in the elections over there).
I am personally not opposed to the idea of dual citizenship, I think there are cases where it can be useful. However, I do agree that there should be limits. Having lawmakers with multiple passports they are actively using should not be allowed.
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@random reader
I support that in theory, but on your US passport, it says what country you were born in, and I know for a fact that if my son tried to enter his natal country using just his US passport, that would cause problems, even though his second passport expired ages ago!
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@methylethyl, I am familiar with the problem. Fortunately I do not hold positions (and do not plan to hold any) that forbid dual citizenship. However, if you are in that situation, you either (1) do not travel to that country or (2) you bear 5 minutes of an unhappy rant of an immigration officer while trying to enter and perhaps risk not getting in (although I am personally not aware of a case where a person was barred entry). The alternative (active use of a passport of that country) could land you in jail.
With these things you can get in problems either way – when entering a country where you were born, they will complain if you do not use that country’s passport and demand you show it to them. Then, when coming back to the US, they can start asking questions about why you did not use your US passport in that other country and give you an earful about that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Funniest thing I’ve seen this morning:
https://x.com/SkySoldier90/status/1854210241233064043
The Amish, of course, should benefit immensely from having sane pro-small-farmer people in charge of the USDA.
😀
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—and I think I heard it was Scott Pressler who went out and got the Amish to vote?? No confirmation on that, but it sounds plausible.
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“The alternative (active use of a passport of that country) could land you in jail.”
I thought most countries only care about what passport you use to enter and depart that country, specifically a country you have a passport for expects you to enter and depart using that and only that passport. What you use elsewhere should be irrelevant…
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You are correct in principle. However, if you hold a position that requires you to relinquish all other passports (for example, you work for the government and handle sensitive information) and you do not do so but keep actively using them, it will not end well for you and rightly so.
Also, I did witness a US immigration officer lecturing my family member on our return trip because they did not use their US passport to enter the country of their birth. There was no problem in the end, but in principle the US government wants you to use your US passport when traveling abroad, so it is not completely irrelevant.
LikeLike
All I know is, our child is a legit US citizen, we had all his US paperwork in order, we had read up that the US prefers that you travel on your US passport, ALL that stuff, and then when we got to the airport to go back to the states… they were not gonna let us leave with our kid, because he didn’t have a local passport, and his US passport said he was born there, so obviously he should have one. Fortunately, we’d already done the paperwork to get one, we just didn’t have it yet, so they were able to issue an emergency replacement just like if we’d lost it. (shrugs)
I have a weirdly large number of friends and relations born overseas (yay military), and I do know that all this varies hugely from one country to another.
LikeLike