Ending Big Finance's hold on farm communities

I know that most of what I post about farming these days isn’t very positive. This has some ideas.

Yet both the narrative that subsidies flow from “coastal elites” to farmers and the fatalism about rural economic decline indicate a profound misunderstanding of what’s actually going on. Farmers have as much reason to be angry, if not more, because of the larger, less visible financial flows heading in the other direction, sucked out of their pockets and funneled to the big money centers, often into offshore tax havens. This is part of a broader phenomenon affecting the entire economy, which I call the finance curse. The good news is that this can be decisively reversed without turning the clock back on progress—and with transformative economic and political results. - The Nation

Trump plan for farmers would make things even worse

I've pretty much run out of variants of "shamefully underreported and underemphasized in corporate 'news' media."

Presidential budgets, released annually, are aspirational documents—they display an administration’s intentions and goals, but are typically considered “dead on arrival” in Congress, which ultimately sends its own federal spending proposal to the White House. This year’s version, which has no chance of clearing the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, sends a jarring message to a key Donald Trump constituency: large-scale farmers who rely heavily on federal programs.

The proposed budget calls for a 31 percent cut to a program that subsidizes crop insurance, a key support for corn and soybean farmers during extended periods of low prices, such as the one currently in effect. This, even though Trump enjoyed strong farm-country support in 2016 and loves to flatter “our Great Patriot Farmers,” as he once put it on Twitter. The budget would also slice about 10 percent—$9.1 billion over 10 years—from the US Department of Agriculture’s conservation programs, which provide farmers with incentives to use practices that keep soil in place and reduce water pollution. - Mother Jones

Trump screws federal workers

You'd think this would end the possibility of any of these workers, except for a relative handful of hopeless diehards, voting for another term of this miserable, repugnant clown show. If that's not the case already.

In a move that drew outrage from labor unions and progressives, President Donald Trump this week quietly took steps to slash a scheduled pay raise for millions of federal workers from 2.5% to 1% due to supposed concerns about "keeping the nation on a fiscally sustainable course."

"I have determined that for 2021 the across-the-board base pay increase will be limited to 1.0%," Trump said in a message to Congress on Monday. "This alternative pay plan decision will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well‑qualified federal workforce."

The president's proposed "adjustment" to the scheduled pay raise will take effect in January 2021 unless Congress passes legislation to override the change.

Just a day after his message to Congress, Trump tweeted, "BEST USA ECONOMY IN HISTORY!" - Common Dreams

Negligent MN PUC gives Enbridge an OK

By no possible stretch of the imagination is Enbridge's proposal a) safe; b) needed; or c) anything other than a "public bad" in any way, shape, or form. And this doesn't make it a done deal.

Months after a court decision threw its future into question, the Line 3 pipeline replacement project is moving closer to regaining the permits it needs to begin construction.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted 3 to 1 Monday on three key approvals for the project: a revised environmental review, a certificate of need and a route permit...

Paul Blackburn, an attorney representing Honor the Earth and the Sierra Club in the case, suggested that the groups he represents — and others — will again challenge the environmental statement at the Minnesota Court of Appeals if the PUC fails to broaden its analysis of the impacts of a potential spill on Lake Superior. - MPR

Trump Ag Sec thinks farm workers are overpaid

So many despicable assholes, in the federal government, these days. You've undoubtedly noticed that as well.

In other words, to appease “people who are anti-immigrant” while also increasing the supply of farm labor, (Agriculture Secretary Sonny) Perdue wants to give farm owners increased access to a program that grants foreign workers temporary resident status without a path to citizenship. 

But there’s a problem, Perdue added. Under the federal guest-worker program that has supplied US farms with labor for decades, known as H2A, there’s a mechanism that prevents farmers from paying guest workers wages below the prevailing rate in the surrounding area, which would undermine wages for other nearby workers well.

This “adverse effect wage rate,” calculated for each state by the US Department of Labor using USDA surveys, is just too high, Perdue insisted. - Mother Jones

Right on! Susan Kent is new MN Senate DFL leader

A contemporary progressive has replaced a dinosaur conservadem. That's a very good thing. Go ahead and laugh at the corporate media pundits' preposterously self-important finger-wagging on this, if you still just gotta pay any attention to them at all.

Democrats in the state senate have a new leader: Sen. Susan Kent.

The Woodbury resident was elected Minority Leader in a party meeting on Saturday, officially ousting the long-serving Sen. Tom Baak. - Bring Me The News

This also means that in the more-likely-than-not event that DFLers are in charge of redistricting after 2020, Sen. Bakk won't be able to engineer some sort of Iron Range-friendly, pro-sulfides, pro-gun nuts, pro-etc. gerrymander. Or block votes on progressive priorities unless he gets his way on crap like that.