The Witness Chronicles, 2/11/25

Ignoring the courts and screwing the farmers

Photo by Kelly Neil on Unsplash

Will Trump Ignore the Court Orders, and the Law?

We are in a Constitutional crisis and that is not a minor thing

This is the equivalent of the Confederacy seceding from the Union. Except this is originating from the center of that Union, the Executive branch of the federal government. It is not a geographic secession, it is an idealistic separation.

The specific thing being tested here is whether the law applies equally to all of us. Think about that. In a dictatorship, the leader is not just above the law, they are the law. That is what the original citizens of the American colonies rebelled against, Imperialism, defined as loyalty to an absolute ruler, a king.

In just the last few weeks the Trump administration is going against the very basis of our democracy, a hard fought principle at the foundation of this country and our government.

Stop and think about that. The Revolutionary War was fought to create this country and a democracy unlike any seen before across history. And the Trump people are moving as fast as possible to undo our entire history.

Was it the price of eggs, or gas, that was the tipping point for simple-minded voters deciding to elect this dangerous man, despite the fact that he was very clear about what he would do, over and over again? The question is, are we as citizens, morons who thought this man would do something different and bring prices down when he had no ability to do so, and admitted that after being elected?

We will debate that for decades, if the democracy prevails, a legitimate question given what they are trying to do. Trump somehow hobbled both Congress and the Supreme Court, leaving only lower courts to uphold the rule of law. Trump is a made man, with 34 federal felony convictions. He has not directly killed anyone, but his abrupt freeze on USAID may already be killing hundreds of children in places he considers vile.

I’m pretty sure the man has never seen a child who has died of starvation. But I’m also pretty sure that if he did he would not care because I have become convinced he actually enjoys the suffering of others, based on his constant focus on retribution. He is a psychopath, in my judgement.

A man who sees himself far above the law is a man with no constraints, external or within his mind. And he has associated himself with another cold soul, Elon Musk, a man who lives within a fantasy of being king on another level. He sees himself as the ultimate savior of mankind by moving some of us to Mars, a planet that we cannot live on.

This is all craziness on a level never seen before in US leadership. Space guy and reality TV star running the country? Wake me up, please.

I want to say a word about farmers. They are getting a double whammy from the Trump administration despite the fact that a majority of people in rural areas voted for Trump. First the deportation of illegal immigrants is hitting their labor supply in multiple ways.

It is not a secret that many farm laborers are immigrants doing jobs legal workers don’t want to do, including all kinds of general labor year round and picking vegetables and fruit during harvest seasons. Not only that but our meat packing and poultry processing plants are another major employer of illegals and fear is keeping these workers away.

They are simply not showing up to work, and when you lose workers in a business working with highly perishable products, the losses can be immense.

That’s whammy number one. Number two is the freezing of agricultural aid. These aid programs are designed to help farms modernize and invest in infrastructure like equipment, fencing, etc. The whammy is not just the freeze. The programs encouraged farmers to invest upfront with guarantees that they would be repaid. The result is likely to result in bankruptcies and farm failures, if not resolved soon.

You may say, why should we subsidize these businesses, when after all they are businesses? They know the risks involved. But this is food, a critical requirement in any society, and farming is not a consistent business due to weather and climate issues. Their success affects all of us when we shop for groceries and if you thought grocery prices were high last year, wait till shelves empty as these actions impact the food supply chain and result in crops rotting in the fields and skyrocketing meat and poultry prices.

I point this out because it is yet another example of how the Trump/Musk flood of ill-considered freezes has wide ranging effects that go far beyond any cost savings and directly hit those in regions and income levels that elected Trump. No one elected Elon Musk, in case anyone forgot.

CEOs are supposed to be masters of strategy, those overarching long term plans that guide business decisions and that must consider a wide range of future conditions, good and bad. There is no sign that anything resembling strategy is at work here. Instead we just get a barrage of executive orders designed to confuse and convince voters that they are actually doing stuff.

It is telling that for a President who decries the effects of non-issues like DEI, woke, and gender, that the majority of his executive orders focus on those non-issues and are mostly meaningless.

It is critical that we highlight these cascading actions wherever we find them. Their cause has to be pointed directly back at Trump and Musk and they must be held accountable. The problem right now is what if they simply refuse to acknowledge the effects of their actions, even when legally ordered to reverse them?

That is the question everyone should be asking ourselves.

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Martin Edic