Erik

[Jason Lewis @jlew1415]

A history of E15.
Seeing a lot on here about E15 and wanted to clear a few things up where I could.
Lets look at where we are and how we got here.
(a thread) 1/19

[Erik @farmboy69341]

@BradyD78 E-88 all day

[Erik @farmboy69341]

@braunfarm

[david friedberg @friedberg]

why not just raise income tax rates?

because your real intent is not to just “provide healthcare”.

you’re masking that you are proposing the creation of, for the first time in the 250 years of this American republic, an organized government seizure of private property from citizens.

you’re calling it a “wealth tax” or a “billionaires tax” or “millionaires tax” or whatever nom du jour polls well. but at the end of the day, it’s the seizure of private property from citizens by the government. citizens that earned money, paid their fair taxes on those earnings (53% if they live in California) and are now being told they need to hand over after-tax assets because the government has failed to provide promised services with the revenue it’s collected, and are now re-casting their own failure to be a socio-economic inequity that must be justly resolved... a slippery slope that has never gone anywhere good (see economic effects in USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, France and Norway wealth tax etc.)

the American founders fled tyranny in Europe and this amazing nation was populated by immigrants (myself and your parents) from around the world not just looking for a “better life” but for a place where they could have freedom from tyrannical governments that can take what they want from private citizens. a great nation borne of property rights, the rule of law, and endowed freedoms to believe, speak, or act. these principles led to the greatest run of innovations, successes, and widespread increase in prosperity, for all citizens, ever seen.

the citizens, the individuals, not the institutions, delivered this progress. those who invented, who toiled, who bled, who sacrificed, who took risk and persevered, who led, and who changed the world, are not charlatans, kleptocrats, or oligarchs. they’re what made us all better off. prosperity is a measure of america’s success, not its failure.

it is your principle that is so offensive, as evidenced by the broad disdain for your flippant flirtation with the darkest of human fantasy - socialism. you and other neo-socialists have led so many of us to reflect on America’s history and what it is becoming. that now leads so many to consider, so unnecessarily, leaving their homes for a place where everyone stands up to shout down the principle you suggest. because if your ideas are now considered moderate, it’s clear this titanic is sinking.

that a “simple tax” of taking assets that have been earned, through toil and tribulation, rightly taxed, and preserved, should now be unjustly seized, is your solution to a problem of obvious government mismanagement and outright fraud, tells us that your true motivation lies not in giving people healthcare but in cutting down success and deleting the system of prosperity and opportunity for all.

i don’t care, and neither should anyone else, what the sum total market value of a private citizens private assets might be. it is none of my business and should be none of yours. because, again, once you open that pandora’s box, we might as well study Lord of the Flies … there is literally nothing stopping 51% of citizens demanding that their government go out and seize 100% of the private property of the 49%.

want to give healthcare to people in need? do your job and fix healthcare. make it affordable. want to be lazy about it? then do your job lazily and raise income taxes.

want to take private property from private citizens who have paid their fair share of taxes and legally earned their property, then honestly declare that it is envy, not inequity, that you strive to resolve…

[Aaron Combs @cfarms76]

40 years ago today corn closed at $2.53. Right in the middle of the 80’s farm crisis. Today the same buying power would need $7.56 for the same bushel…

[The Real Mike Rowe @mikeroweworks]

The Emperor's New Clothes, 2.0
Hi Mike – Since you predicted Trump in a landslide, I’m wondering what you think of his most recent cabinet picks? And if you have any other predictions? I’m also curious to hear your general thoughts on the election, and hoping you can elaborate on your recent post about what the outcome might mean for mikeroweWORKS.
Dan Jennings
Hi Dan
A fine question for a rainy Saturday morning. I'll try to answer without alienating half the country.
First of all, I did not predict a Trump landslide. I did predict a red wave in 2022, which turned out to be wrong, and again in 2024, which turned out to be right. But I never predicted or endorsed the success of a particular candidate, and as long as I’m running an apolitical charity, I won’t do that. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t shared my thoughts on any number of policies that all but guaranteed the demise of the "expert class," and the return of a (relatively) conservative government.
For me, that all began with Fauci’s “noble lie” around masking, and the rank hypocrisy of so many elected officials in the lockdowns that followed. In my neck of the woods, that was best illustrated when Governor Newsom decided to arrest people for gathering publicly, even as he and his friends dined together at The French Laundry.
“People will forgive stupidity,” I wrote, “but they won’t forgive this kind of hypocrisy. Even in California, that kind of naked elitism will have consequences.”
Shortly after that, San Francisco passed an extraordinary law that allowed shoplifters to steal $1,000 worth of goods with no fear of prosecution.
“If you want to see a red wave,” I wrote, “just eliminate the consequences of stealing! People hate that!”
I wrote something similar a few months later, when CNN began describing obvious acts of violence and vandalism as, “Firey, But Mostly Peaceful Protests.”
“If CNN wants to see a conservative Congress in 2022,” I wrote, “all they have to do is tell Americans the world is not on fire, as everything around them is clearly burning."
I don’t know if those comments qualify as “predictions,” but I was a bit more direct in August of 2021, when the media told us the retreat from Afghanistan was a “success,” even as we saw bodies falling from that airplane taking off from Kabul. Even though we abandoned hundreds of our Afghan partners to the Taliban and needlessly sacrificed 13 American soldiers to a suicide bomber at Abbey Gate, we were told by many in the media that the decision to withdraw was “courageous.” Even though we could see with our own eyes, the nearly billion dollars of weaponry we left behind for the Taliban, we were told the retreat was a “long overdue triumph.”
A few days later on my podcast, I told Gary Sinise, “There’s just no way Americans will forgive this debacle. What's happened to our media?"
And then there was the whole, "Let's Go Brandon" thing. Millions were watching when a crowd of race car fans started chanting, "F@ck Joe Biden," and a reporter on the scene assured us that what they were really saying was "Let's Go Brandon." That was the day I started comparing our media to the swindlers in Hans Christen Andersen’s famous fable, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and that's the way I'll always remember the way this election unfolded.
For those unfamiliar, the Andersen fable centers on an impossibly vain emperor obsessed with fine garments. One day, two con men posing as weavers offer to make the emperor a magnificent outfit from a magical fabric that’s completely invisible to fools. The emperor hires them, and the con men set up looms in the palace and pretend to go to work. Then, a succession of government officials – including the emperor himself - visit the fake weavers to check on their progress. They can all see that the looms are empty, but they all pretend otherwise, to avoid being thought of as foolish. Ultimately, the emperor winds up parading through town stark naked, convinced that he’s fashionably adorned. As for the townspeople, they were too scared to acknowledge the spectacle before them. They just nodded and applauded and pretended that their emperor wasn’t naked.
For me, the last four years have been The Emperor’s New Clothes, 2.0. But unlike the original, this version had many chapters, courtesy of a media that was better at spinning yarns than telling the truth. After the "successful" Afghan withdraw, they told us our southern border was secure, even though we could see thousands of migrants surging across it. They told inflation was down, even though we could see the price of everything going up. They told us it was fair to force those who did not attend college, to pay off the loans of those who did, even though we all knew that doing so was profoundly unfair. They told us that Lea Thomas was a world champion female swimmer, even though we could see his decidedly masculine phallus straining against his ladies swimsuit, as he proudly accepted his trophy. And of course, they told us there was nothing wrong with our president. Not only was he “hale and hearty,” he was “running circles around his staff,” and “sharper and more vigorous than ever.” This is what we were told, not just by the media, but by Kamala Harris herself, even when we could see that President Biden was no longer fit to lead the free world.
In the original fable, it took a child in the crowd to snap the townspeople out of their trance, by speaking the awkward truth out loud. In America, it took a few (former?) liberals. Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Michael Shellenberger, RFK, Jr., Matt Taibbi, Barri Weiss, Bill Maher...they all spoke an unpopular truth directly to their own tribes, and in the process, transformed this election into a contest between those Americans who no longer trusted the mainstream media, and those who did. Ironically, the most important “voice in the crowd” belonged to Sunny Hostin, a diehard liberal voice from The View, who asked Kamala Harris the most consequential question of the entire campaign.
“Would you have done something differently than President Biden over the last four years?”
To which Harris replied, “Not a thing that comes to mind.”
After that, it didn’t matter which Republican was on the ticket. Because in that moment, Kamala Harris told the country that she wouldn't have changed anything about the Afghan withdraw, or the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline, or the war on Title IX, or the student loan forgiveness ploys, or the abandonment of basic biology, or the spiking crime rates, or any of the failed Covid policies…nothing. In that moment, Harris told us all that the Emperor’s new clothes still looked splendid. But this time around, the the townspeople weren't buying it.
As for mikeroweWORKS, I'm optimistic about what could happen in the coming months, just as I was in 2009, when I encouraged the Obama administration to reinvigorate the skilled trades with a national campaign. In the letter I wrote to him, I said, “It’s great that you’ve committed to creating 3 million shovel-ready jobs but filling those jobs will be a lot easier if the country has a greater appreciation for people who work with shovels.” Here's a copy of that letter. https://t.co/kFlYI3IcYs
I feel the same way today, although today's opportunities require a lot more expertise than the ability (or the willingness) to pick up a shovel. Today, it’s imperative that we make a more persuasive case for the many essential jobs currently unfilled. As I wrote last week, the math has become untenable. For every five skilled worker who retire, two replace them. A 5:2 ratio is not sustainable, and something has to be done to turn the ship around. At mikeroweWORKS, we're committed to expanding our scholarship program, as well as our work ethic curriculum, which is now in 53 schools. If the new administration likes what we’re doing, I’d welcome their support, and happily explore ways we might work together.
As for the cabinet picks, I’ve already written about RFK, and the whole VP thing. I suspect he’ll disrupt a great many things in HHS, assuming he survives the confirmation process, which should be a hell of a thing.
Likewise Pete Hegseth, who I interviewed last year, and believe to be committed to returning our armed forces to the meritocracy they once were. If you want to know exactly where’s he’s coming from, read his book – The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep us Free. He pulls no punches.
Neither for that matter, does Dr. Marty Makary, who just got tapped to run the FDA. I’m supposed to interview him in a few weeks, and I'm looking forward to it. His book is called “Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets it Wrong” which is also excellent.
I also had a great conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy, the only presidential candidate that I invited onto my podcast. My reason was simple. I had read that Vivek had promised to never read a political speech from a Teleprompter. I wanted to ask him why, because I believe that the TelePrompter has become the enemy of authenticity, and I was delighted to learn that he agreed.
Ironically, the TelePrompter was designed to improve the connection between a broadcaster and his audience. But today, in a world where people have become suspicious of anything that feels fake or manufactured, it's accomplished the exact opposite result. Think about it. What could possibly be less persuasive to a citizen in 2024, than a politician or a news anchor pretending not to be reading someone else’s words, when everyone knows that they are? What could be more performative or less authentic than that? For that matter, what could be more hilarious, or more revealing, than the panicked face of a sweaty pretender when their TelePrompter suddenly stops working, and the townspeople finally see just how naked they are without it?
As for predictions, I’ll leave you with three.
1. Politicians and anchormen who continue to rely on TelePrompters are going to become less and less persuasive to more and more people.
2. Media outlets that continue to tell us to ignore what we can plainly see with our own eyes will lose their audiences and go bankrupt.
3. Gen Z will eventually become the tool-belt generation, prosper wildly in the trades, and save the county.
Carry on,
Mike

[GregGutfeld @greggutfeld]

this is THE biggest political comeback in history. but its not just Trumps. its the American people's - forgotten and maligned by an elite class who assumed wealth and status kept them immune from the problems plaguing everyone else - crime, inflation, the border, homelessness. that assumption was a mistake. every mugging and rape ignored, every female athlete called transphobic for resisting men in locker rooms, every hardworking couple called racist for expressing concerns over illegal immigration. this is their comeback too.

[Erik @farmboy69341]

Bring the rain

[Erik @farmboy69341]

Somehow the corn keeps growing. Going to use a lot of water this year

[Brit Hume @brithume]

Difference between Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren/Bernie
Sanders is that Bloomberg is trying to buy the election with his money and Warren/Sanders are trying to buy it with yours.

[Lori Peterson @loripeterson75]

Donations to my classroom are currently being matched! https://t.co/EFpSHGiYAt #STEM#learningforall

[Erik @farmboy69341]

@cowbroker Unicameral will quickly re-shuffle the deck- Ag will lose sales tax(5.5%) exemptions on all inputs, equipment and repairs for example. I have the feeling we’ll just pay more in the end.

[Faber @dfaber84]

A vegan is suing Burger King for having the vegan burger grilled on the same grill as regular burgers. In other news, my daughter won’t eat her peas cause they touched the meatloaf.

[Erik @farmboy69341]

Finally good corn 🌽! Little hail but still standing great

[Erik @farmboy69341]

Fill’er up

[Erik @farmboy69341]

What’s more peaceful than unloading corn by moonlight?

[Matthew Krueger @MatthewCKrueger]

These slabs of cement should be piled 20’ tall and fully covered with thousands of tons of sugarbeets, but sadly the yard is not even 40% complete with #beetharvest19 and are close to being done accepting sugarbeets. It’s a very bizarre sight to see. Over $500 million will be...

[Erik @farmboy69341]

Three hailstorms in a week is three too many

[Erik @farmboy69341]

USDA was right! Corn will now produce exactly 169.5 bushels on our farm. Afternoon of the 15th east of Gering NE