wtf is wrong with people . he assumed that frump was just going after "those" people well you gambled and lost . if losing your farm teaches you to never vote republicon again it will be worth it

A can't-miss partnership with underwear gnomes.

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That's part of the game plan, to force farm consolidation.

Force the farmers out of business so the large multinationals can amass millions of more acres.


It's a tactic that has worked really well for them in Central and South America and in Africa.


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They never realized that these tactics are how these large firms acquire such farmland inventory.


Soon, they will be predated into history.


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It wouldn't surprise me if someone called.

Cheer "Build that Wall" all the while needing the labor provided by the very people that wall is meant to keep out.

How fucking dumb do you gotta be to not put that together?

Repub thing and has been since long before Trump. It's why they seemingly vote against their own interests all the time. It seems to be built into the mindset.

But to whine about it...that takes some nerve.

The man couldn't see beyond his own potential profits from the lack of regulations.

Idiot.

groups. Impeachment day can't get here fast enough.

About 10 years ago, a south-eastern US-state (forgot which one) tried outlawing the use of illegal immigrants as farm-hands. Result: The farms almost went bankrupt because illegal immigrants were the only people willing to work in those conditions for that money. And the state hastily repealed the law.



The farmer in the article is an adult. He is responsible for what he does. He is responsible for his political decisions. And, oh what irony, he's voting for the "Party of Personal Responsibility".
If he loses his farm, it's because he deserves it.

Wait, don't tell me. I know his reasoning: "Trump is the only candidate bold enough to tell the truth. But he won't do what he promises to do."

So he wanted to be able to poison his croplands with massive pesticides, drain whatever aquifers there are for short-term benefits, probably also reduce wages and make working conditions worse, but still keep his no-rights immigrant labor force. Such a moral person.

I heard a woman on Tom Ashbrook who voted for trump but her farm needed the migrant workers. He asked why she voted for him and she said "I'm pro-life".

They thought they could be like cafeteria Catholics.

Cafeteria Catholics...I like that. I call them cherry picker Christians.

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JeffErson Beauregard Sessions.

Keeping our fields, service firms and factories free of workers.

Once the crack down started taking place and the undocumented workers went into hiding or left the states for safer places, it started dawning on these numbskulls that they were "poo pooing in their mess kits".....to utilize an old phrase. Farmers in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia had a meltdown when there were NO WORKERS to pick tomatoes, peaches or process catfish. And the local out of work white folks had no interest or intention of grabbing those newly available jobs. So tomatoes rotted and farmers got a chance to rethink their position on what to do about undocumented workers.

Elections have consequences and when someone talks about deporting 11 million people that you rely on for your business, you should believe them and consider how that might impact your ability to do business. Dumbasses....

Craziness. Millions of dollars worth of crops rotted in fields.

the dumb ignorant redneck losers (and I say that as someone who lived in Georgia and graduated High School there)
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/georgias-new-immigration-law-leading-to-crops-rotting-in-farmers-fields/

I guess that's why they are idiots...

Mr. Marchini, you voted for a party of out-of-touch conservatives. You voted for a tantrum-throwing man-baby whose Lack of curiosity far surpasses Shrub's and a slate of suburban Cowboys who think that ground water comes out of a faucet and whose economic illiteracy would have pole-axed both Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton.

You had MONTHS of forewarning, yet you voted for Thump and the Republicans anyway.

YOU. REALLY. SHOULD. HAVE. KNOWN. BETTER.

WTF???? Just wait you idiot trumpsters. Gone will be Social Security as we know it, Medicare as we know it, Medicaid as we know it (senior go on Medicaid when they have spent down their funds) and ObamaCare which is the ACA that you like.

Why in the hell didn't you take the repubs at their word? Now that they totally control it all you question what they will do? WTF???

yet here it is in black and white.

A Republican Congressman wanted a border checkout reopened. Terrorsts you know. So it was reopened and they started catching farm hands sneaking into the country - some in Commercial trucks.

Suddenly there was a shortage of people to pick crops. The Western Growers Association made the necessary calls to elected officials they just happened to know and *POOF* border crossing was closed. Traffic just flowed through like before.

These people are incapable of learning.

Then depend on someone else to fix it so they can bitch about the fix - can't win with them.

and purchasers of fresh produce will be paying $5 for a head of nonorganically-grown lettuce. Thanks, Trump!

Her FIL owns a construction company and hires almost exclusively undocumented Mexican workers. Loves them. "They work so hard!"

increase wages and included perks just to attract workers. The article also stated how no Americans wanted to work in the fields...that is out. So I CANNOT understand anyone who relies on foreign workers supporting this man.

When there are no people to pick the crops, they will rot in the fields, and prices at the grocery store will skyrocket. When sweeping tariffs are applied to country's that we import food from, those foods will be un affordable or unavailable.
It seems that no single group of people lacks the ability to "connect the dots" as much as the people that vote republican. We laugh at republicans for their inability to see the consequences of their actions. But we are all victims of what they do.

When food gets more expensive and lawns don't get mowed, maybe people will wake up.

produce imported from Mexico will be our salvation. Which will be great for Mexican agriculture. The people who used to come here will be able to work there. So in a way, trump is doing something about the immigration issue.

was going to go after immigrants. They all deserve Darwin Awards for voting against their own interests.

all sorts of things about this mentally ill man. If anything, there was nothing "fake" about his bizarre campaign behavior because that is who he is. They erroneously thought it was all a ruse to sound folksy or something, but it was not. He is completely unhinged.

ever heard of critical thinking? Guess not.

Labor laws should be aggressively enforced, and the minimum wage raised to a comfortable living wage.

Then it wouldn't matter where people came from.

Presumably, everyone who works here is making this nation a better place.

Otherwise our economic system is a cruel farce.

It needs to be followed to help prevent exploitation.
Illegal hiring leaves workers vulnerable and unprotected.

How does it not?

No one seems to make this point. It's always No Immigrants or Amnesty for Immigrants; ENFORCE THE LABOR LAWS Maybe the industrial food corps will make less profit, but everyone else, all the consumers and the workers will benefit, and the whole country more healthy economically.

...I was not disparaging workers either legal or undocumented.

My beef is with those who hire illegally.

When undocumented workers are caught on their farms, in their factories, in their homes, they know nothing.

No sir, we didn't know this labor contractor hired undocumented workers, never.

And then the contractor vanishes into the mist, only to reappear later under a new name.

There is no golden-tower solution here, REGARDLESS what you were told/sold. It appears you might be in for a golden shower, instead.

I've had to get a new username since I couldn't get into my old Crowman1979 account anymore.

months that he would do..."

This level of stupidity just drives me nuts.

"He's just saying that to get votes."

Lie in it.

Unless you lived nearby a populous metropolitan area before the GOP began implementing that thirty-year assault plan to assimilate in corporate media, then you were mostly put out in the dark. Sucked up to dial up and Rush and Hannity on your AM.

yet they still are able to get the necessary information to make informed choices. Although it would be nice if by "investing in infrastructure" that meant not only rebuilding roads and bridges but bringing high-speed Internet to the rural areas in the richest nation on Earth.

The Millers and Smiths down the road are Republican Fox devotes and so damn it, Honey, we are going to have to be also.

Back in sticks everybody has to look after each and that indicates being on talking terms (or even friends) with those nieghbors acres away

I was referring to the farmer. There is no excuse for him voting for hate, not anything. I don't get it.

It doesn't make sense to me to hate on others just to be reciprocal. There is no way to heal the world but there is enough time to try and understand it.

at the time of the election and for generations in my family. (I gave it away to PopulationConnection.org in December).

But yes, the area is full of RW douchebags.

I'd never heard of Population Connection, so I just looked it up--it does important work and gets four out of four stars on Charity Navigator.

I bet it was hard to give up the land that had been in your family for so long, but it was in the name of a good cause. How incredibly generous of you!

I've been living in Minnesota for 39 years. I inherited it in 2004 when my father passed. Fortunately the farmer who was leasing it continued to lease it and he has done a great job. I got 20% of the crop check, he got the rest since he puts in his labor and expertise and hired harvesters (a very big expense) etc -- anyway a standard crop share deal according to several sources.

But it was just too much worrying about water and nitrates and other things ... its a job for somebody living around there, not someone in Minnesota who doesn't know shit about farming.

It was appraised at $495,000 and Population Connection put it on the market for $499,500. It was taken off the market a week later after getting 3 offers, but I haven't heard from since... that was about 2-3 weeks ago.

I didn't actually give away $half a million -- since I got a charitable gift annuity back. All in all I figure I gave away between 100 K$ and 150 K$ after considering avoided capital gains taxes, charitable tax deduction, the value of the annuity, the selling costs I avoided, and so on.

On Edit - Population Connection was formerly know as ZPG - Zero Population Growth.

Enjoy your glass of Lib tears...

You have only yourself to blame...

no sympathy

Everyone here will agree that Trump is a disaster. Politics aside if farmers suffer from the Orange Idiot's policies, the country as a whole suffers. Maybe instead of lashing out at them the party could use this opportunity to educate them on the real issues here. Give them the facts. Make an attempt to show them truth in the hopes they'll absorb that knowledge. We have the chance to sway minds here. Why not take that chance?

then they'll never learn.

They do not give a damn about the impact to their country or the lives they impact.

Speechless

A politician who has kept virtually all of his campaign promises.

To be fair to this farmer and others who didn't believe he'd actually do the more extreme shit, up until now virtually all politicians chucked their campaign promises out the window as soon as they uttered "So help me God." Bush almost immediately broken his promise to not engage in regime change. Obama could never seem to find his comfortable walking shoes.

You couldn't drive down a backstreet/highway without seeing huge ass "FARMERS FOR TRUMP" BANNERS along the fields.

I had lunch in a small town's restaurant/golf clubhouse one day and there were 2 older men/farm owners who I overheard bitching that they might have to pay their field workers $15/hour once the CA law went into full effect. As they set on the cool breeze blown covered patio overlooking the golfing holes in the middle of the day ordering their second round of beers..no doubt while the workers that they were complaining about were out in the 100 degree heat, working 12+ hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week picking the crops belonging to these assholes.

He's an exploiter and a BS artist.

Trump ran for nearly two years debasing Mexicans and other immigrants. Rapists, murderers, etc. He emphasized the Wall, and how Mexico was to pay for it like a vassal state receiving dictates from the liege lord.

Perhaps this plantation owner somehow deluded himself that HIS workers would get a pass until HIS crops were in....but he totally did not give a *&(* about any other workers in any other industries who might be affected.

Hope he pays for standing firm with the Big Orange Ugly.

There was a local CA article not long ago that said a large percentage of the Central Valley's crops went to countries that were included in TPP. Bye bye TPP, bye bye crop sales.

So they screwed themselves twice over..field workers AND crop sales.

Like "no one could have forseen that electing a stubborn megalomaniac who rants about deporting all undocumented foreigners could lead to their being a shortage of migrant workers in agriculture." It's weird how those unintended consequences just sneak up on you sometimes, huh?

At $7.00 a head. Too fucking bad.

while we were being laughed at for the reverse? Good times.

You remember, during the election, when Trump supporters were saying they didn't take what he said literally but they took him seriously? Well, this is what happens when you vote for someone you don't take literally, or at least someone you don't believe will do what they say they are going to do. These idiots didn't think Trump was really going to repeal the ACA or deport all the immigrants who do jobs Americans won't do, and now they're going to pay for it.

It's the perfect Republican welfare program. The taxpayers build dams and canals, and the irrigation water is provided nearly free to grow crops in the desert.

How about that, the person wo gets the most votes win

Wait until they find out that their rude awakening will be never-ending. "Just talk", eh? Like Maya Angelou said, when people tell you who they are, believe them.

"You fixed the sheets and blankets! Now go take a nap!"

That people who didn't want Trump and voted against him took the horrible things he was saying very seriously. And the people who voted for him didn't really believe him.

Even evil Spock doesn't understand it

yup

Still you, and eventually the rest of us, will face higher food costs thanks to the orange haired shit gibbon.

Any immigrant that can show that he/she has worked in America for two years should automatically become a citizen, notwithstanding any external legal matters.

I fear these "make America great again" voters don't realize that things will get worse for all of us if he continues to do these things. There is a reason we have cheap vegetables. If these farmers had to pay people minimum wage, they would sell a whole lot less lettuce.

Imagine how much hatred and venom his family had to endure four generations back, from the original Central Valley settlers, the Greenwoods, and the Sloats, and the Smiths et al, good strong ANGLO-SAXON STOCK, as God intended!

I'm sure Marchinis and others of their ilk were threatened with being run out of the territory many times, to go back WHERE THEY BELONGED.

Ironic, ain't it.

Out of business.

The right must learn to live with their choices.

ADM or Cargill could always buy them up. Maybe Glencore?

What through this exact same story to repeat in Florida. Here in Florida, many of the workers in the orange groves and Strawberry Fields are Mexican. Many of them have their kids in school, who as natural born American citizens, often wind up forming small businesses or becoming professionals. Many of them going to the military. It is one thing to make California angry, as that state will be hard blue. However, this band will go ahead and cut straight to the profit margins of Florida citrus barons, exactly the sort of people who donate to political candidates.

Pretty soon, Florida will have the Strawberry Festival. It is one of the largest festivals in the South, the sort of place where Kenny Rogers or Shania Twain will go ahead and play the stadium where a few hours ago some local band played. However, while this vessel is very much one of the few remnants of old Florida before Disney, even the area around the festival grounds shows the immigrant influence. For example, there are a whole bunch of Mexican restaurants right around the festival grounds, ones that get their produce from the same market that the old server diners like Fred's market did. Last year the festival wound up booking, in addition to reliable country chestnuts, Mexican bands: ones that ranged from the Tejano ones (think Selena) to mariachi ones. Of course, the vessel operators just saw that as the festival growing, which it did. They even had an announcement, calling this "Hola Plant city", even though the announcer did pronounce the Spanish and a very old Florida Southern accent, people were happy to be welcome.

The reason I'm serving you this slice of Central Florida culture is to show that even in Plant City, Florida, one of the few areas in central Florida that is a strong bastion of the original Dixie Florida culture, the Mexicans have woven themselves into the economy. Now, if Mr. Trump decides to go ahead and start purging Mexicans, the truth is some people were really going to feel the impact are going to be the old Southerners. It will not just be that there will be no more Mexicans to pick the oranges and strawberries, although that will be a big part of it, but a lot of the small businesses that help keep the mall rents reasonable and the bank loans coming will be gone. Of course, those of us who understand the game that Trump and his handlers were really playing will know the true score, namely that the northern banks will come in and pick people off, selling Florida land to carpetbaggers like the one who owns a compound in Florida called Mir a Lago. Seriously, with all the complaining about New York bankers coming down here and messing up Florida, I'm still amazed at the fact that Donald Trump, who is a living example of the very worst aspects of New York, especially all the real estate industry which many Florida natives consider a bane of their existence.

In any case, listen for many stories exactly like the opinion piece showed, but look for them in Florida especially, because for all the talk about making Trump voters see things our way, that will be a prime opportunity, because once they see Trump and his friends gladly putting Florida native meat on the same plate as the Mexican American meat, they will realize they are in trouble.