“ICE operations are having a massive chilling effect.”
Joint Texas and Kansas Statement
Massive Chilling Effect
A joint statement from Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Kansas Livestock Association and Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association regarding the ongoing ICE operations in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas:
“The Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association are closely monitoring reported U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity affecting agricultural communities in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.
Our organizations respect the responsibility of federal agencies to enforce the law. At the same time, cattle producers, feedyards, dairies, livestock markets, processors, and other rural businesses depend on a stable workforce to care for animals, protect food safety, and keep the supply chains operating. Sudden workforce disruptions can create immediate animal-welfare, operational, and economic consequences that extend well beyond an individual business. These ICE operations are having a massive chilling effect on the legal, documented, skilled workers that put beef on the table and keep the cattle supply chain moving. Additionally, these types of disruptions will lead to higher beef prices for consumers.
Reported impacts to our organizations throughout the past few days have been:
- Thousands of fed cattle slated for shipping to processors now delayed, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs.
- Workforce disruptions at numerous supply chain chokepoints such as feedyards, dairies, processors, feed and grain companies, transportation hubs, and community services.
These disruptions come at a time of enhanced focus and pressure on the cattle and beef supply chain. They are a costly and unnecessary impact to cattle producers already suffering from unwelcome political interference to both the markets as well as the physical supply chain. Frustratingly, the harm these actions cause to cattle producers last for days and weeks after such operations conclude.
We urge federal officials to conduct enforcement actions in a lawful, orderly, and transparent manner; respect due process; and communicate clearly with affected employers and communities.”
Comments
Meanwhile in Wisconsin
This video is a real treat.
What’s Happening in Nebraska?
Let’s Check in on Iowa
Iowa Farmers Beg for Diesel Relief
Never Seen Farmers More Pissed
Farmers Seek Clarity! From Trump?!
The next post is where it’s at.
Iowa Farmers Union Endorses Democrats
The Iowa Farmers Union announced its endorsements of the five Iowa Democrats running for Congress.
The Farmers Union said it had endorsed Josh Turek for the U.S. Senate, and Christina Bohannan (in Iowa’s 1st District), Lindsay James (Iowa-2), Sarah Trone Garriott (Iowa-3) and Dave Dawson (Iowa-4) for the U.S. House.
“This election is too important to sit on the sidelines. Farmers are facing unprecedented challenges, from unfair trade policies and corporate consolidation to threats to water quality and rural healthcare,” Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman said in a press release. “We need leaders in Congress who are ready to take real action on the issues that matter to our members. The candidates we’re endorsing today have demonstrated they understand these challenges and are committed to solutions that put farmers at the center of agricultural policy.”
Rick Rule
We can debate whether we should have let them in, but we did.
Deport them All, on changed rules is racist, wrong, and economically stupid too.
Current Polling Numbers on Immigration
- Nate Silver’s Aggregate: Places Trump’s net approval on immigration at approximately –11.0% to –13.0%.
- The Economist/YouGov Tracker: Recorded Trump’s immigration approval at 40% approval vs. 53% disapproval (putting him 13 points underwater), marking a low point for what was historically his strongest policy issue.
Debate Challenge
I think Scott Presler should speak to the farmers and ranchers in Texas, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Kansas about his deport them all priorities.
In fact, I challenge him to a national debate.
Hello Scott Presler, let’s debate immigration policy.
First, Some Good News
More Good News
I hear Trump’s ballroom is going well.
“Wow what a view.”
The ballroom is my top priority. What about yours?
Republicans are going to get crushed in the midterms.
And there is precisely one person who deserves all the credit for three reasons: Stupid wars, stupid tariff policy, stupid deportation policy.
Related Posts
September 22, 2026: Republican Politicians Distance Themselves from Trump. Sorry, Too Late
Even in deep red states, republicans stand up to Trump.
September 23, 2026: Hello MAGA, Let’s Discuss Trump Costing Republicans Six Senate Seats
Stop pretending. Abandon ship.
September 25, 2026: Consumer Sentiment Drops in September to Just Above Record Lows
Republican attitudes decline the most, but from higher levels.
ICE agents are arresting cattle or illegal aliens? All those American citizens lost their birth certificates & identification?
The should read history about the life of farmers under Rome from the small freeholder farmers of the Republic through the slave run hugh latifundia estates of the empire which evolved into the serf run feudal domains of the Dark and Middle Ages.
They should want to be back in the Republic but don’t know how to get there.
Serfdom is their future. ICE is the enforcer. Private equity and techbros are the new overlords.
Put the slave collar on bitches, stop complaining and get to work.
Interesting analogy. American farmers do often act like serfs. Perhaps because they have always been highly dependent – on the weather, and their bankers.
What other industry or business buys almost everything at retail and sells almost everything they produce at wholesale? Seems to me that is a basic problem of “farming”.
Spartacus had other ideas
Let them eat hay. And everybody of course pay all attention to the Great One and his brand on everything (like branding cattle):
“Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT???” Trump wrote today on Truth Social.
The Sun shall henceforth be called Trumpstar.
This is a classic case of “leopards eating faces”.
Will the electorate learn from this? I’m not holding my breath.
People apparently thought their own private heartland had a guarantee and insurance policy from God to go on forever as is, their own little cultural and material sandbox. The evil outsider threat \was big cities full of purple-haired feminist lesbians and unhinged Shariah law zealots. A wall would fix everything, walls everywhere, physical and legal.This jibed perfectly with Trump’s velvet rope resort exclusive delusional vision of our nation. So the heartlanders were an easy sell for him, never mind his own model-shopping Studio 54 type roots, etc. It was a low-cost fabricated flashy lie as hokey as the most shallow TV, but underneath, it resonated.
Now the heartlanders are rug-pulled with Trump’s careless redistribution of outcomes. He has no notion of thinking things through, of second-oder effects. It’s all front, all headlines, tough guy ICE whatever. Their lovely open spaces are covered with data center projects. The losers, in Trump’s mental accounting, vanish because they are losers.
In that sense he is like Stalin, minus the level of administrative focus and persistence. He is like an ADHD Stalin.
what a wonderful analysis. hat tip. as i have known for decades. the ancient greeks warned us. democracy works. assholes will elect themselves. assholes. amerikans are mostly assholes. fighting words, no doubt.
Hmmm, it would seem like a good time for our politicians to get together and negotiate out a comprehensive immigration reform that would set up a system for guest workers, when needed, that could come and go legally, get paid a decent wage that didn’t “rob jobs from Americans” but, was enough to induce them to come for the job, and then go back home.
Why will that not happen? Because neither party wants it to happen.
Woah woah woah, it almost sounds like you think those EVIL BROWN PEOPLE should have a workable pathway to citizenship and be able to do temporary work too if they wish. We can’t keep them as slaves if they have those kind of rights!!! Why do you think they need to be made illegal and subject to arrest and torture at any time?
exactly
Voting for Democrats ain’t going to solve anything because they are also a right-wing party fully owned by the corporations and the oligarchs.
Interestingly, the people who believe that the Democratic Party is “leftist” are Randian libertarian kooks or propagandized middle-class conservatives or, surprisingly, a big chunk of the fools who line up to vote for the Democrats.
ayn rand. makes me LOL. i cannot believe so many grown men and women like it. seemed unreadable to me. rand went on SS and medicare in old age, like the commies. i’m a classical liberal / libertarian in amerikan parlance. i’m also on SS and medicare and medicaide. the free shit army is wonderful way to help bankrupt the empire.
Then maybe your views should change, hypocrite?
all human primates are somewhat hypocritical. i’ve been fairly consistent the past 45 years of voting in usa and italia. i error on the side of the candidates that are the most classical liberal/libertarian. of course the major red and blue parties are the opposite. imperial world wide warfare and debt and laws to keep the peasants down on the farm.
Kid: “Mom, when I grow up, I want to be a libertarian.”
Mom: “Well, which one of the two, son? You can’t do both.”
.
mommy, i want to be a fascist when i grow up. just like daddy trump and biden………
I wouldn’t be caught dead near a “Heathcare Hero”, no matter who was paying for it.
At least one of the “heathcare insurance companies” had a sense of humor to have “quack” in their ads as an inside joke.
With utmost respect: if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. That is participatory politics. If at home and waiting for an equity genie to distribute political power to you, it will be a long wait. Or rather, a short one before, not the genie, but the consequences, arrive.
What s the unit of political power and favor? Not the individual, not the nuclear family, but more concentrated teams and piles of capital of a kind or other. Way of the world.
Were you at the table when the Orangutan received Xi for dinner? Then you were at the menu.
I’m not one that spouts the “uniparty” bs (I think that’s just a right wing canard to fool the rubes), but, in a way I agree with you. The reason that we’ve arrived where we’ve arrived is that we’ve made (allowed?) corporations to be more important thatn people. Constantly lowering taxes on them so they can “compete”. Everyone has been conditioned to hate on the billionaires themselves, but, the real culprit is the corporation. They are the ones that are “not paying their fair share”. If they are making so much money that their stocks are going through the roof, but, the people are suffering, then the people will eventually not be able to buy their products. Forget tax the wealthy. It’s time to go back to taxing businesses more.
Farmers’ & ranchers’ profitability depends – among other things – on the prices they can fetch for their product and their input costs. Not being in farming or ranching, I don’t know which is the bigger factor affecting their costs – lack of migrant workers or the cost of fertilizers, urea and diesel. With produce farmers (tomatoes, apples, etc.) it’s probably the labor. “Crop” farmers – corn, soybeans, alfalfa – would probably be more affected by the fertilizer & fuel price increases that Trump’s war on Iran has brought about. The tariff volatility probably more affects grains and livestock. My point is that farmers have plenty of grievances with Trump aside from deportations.
Subsidies for Ethanol in the gasoline and soybeans in the wiring. F-em.
Lol. I had to get rid of a car with soybean wiring – rodent damage was going to bankrupt me.
Labor cost = Trump. Input costs = Trump. Missing markets = Trump. Equipment costs = Trump. Interest costs = Trump. Cattle inventory = W over Al Gore.
Higher beef prices and mass bankruptcies of farms are a small price to pay to keep the MEXICANS from turning our kids TRANS! MAGA!
Goldfish.
In 2016, I worked with people who mostly seethed with hatred for Hillary and voted for DJT in 2016. By 2020, they were sick and tired of him. When DJT was declared loser in 2020, my R-leaning coworkers’ palpable relief (“Jan 20th can’t come soon enough”) told me the D’s didnt need to “cheat” on election day to win.
In 2024, my D friends seemed to think that, after giving the country 4 years of Biden, they would fare better against DJT by giving those R-leaning coworkers a chance to be burdened by a candidate worse than Hillary and more like Palin. (Sarah. Not Michael, though he is funny, too.)
So, my R-leaning coworkers forgot how much DJT annoyed them the first time around and went so far as claim “he learned his lesson on mistakes he made”, at times during the same 2024 campaign week that DJT bragged about the very decisions they said he would do differently.
Goldfish.
The GOOD NEWS is that we don’t have any private unions around to keep the corporate boots off labors necks!
Old Rush Limbaugh used to SHOUT,
(because he went deaf downing hundreds of opioid pills per day),
” if’n the corporate farms paid union wages to laborers we’d pay ten bucks for a head of iceberg lettuce!”
TRUE REPORTING, look it up on AI, aka.
“Aggregate intelligence”
Sleep well comrades.
Well hope all those republican voters who are seeing the light are willing to take to the street when trump pulls his fraud card.
Remember he said you only have to vote for me one more time then well handle the rest.
Or something like that
Maybe we will reach a turning point where the power swings back to the people and not the very wealthy and corporations.
Good Doobie Bros song.
Taking it to the Street? Yes, that’s good song, but RogerRoger also mentioned Power to the People, which is a better song by John Lennon.
what a delight to wake up to a 3-star Mishelin post today. If there were ever a classic case of “you reap what you sow” this would be the case.
But the tools and fools keep telling us that everything is automated and robots are doing all the work. So who’s lying, all the farmers, ranchers and their associations or the tool and fool clowns?
You want to see a real mental case, a person that hates socialism and liberals yet wants a government bailout just check out this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdH7clBdKH4
Again, why isn’t she just hiring all those robots to fix her labor issues?
AI screws up all the time with basic questions, and people saying robots are going to take over…total goofball nonsense, but people just like to BS about the latest fad, doesnt matter if it makes any sense or not.
It’s not so long ago that people thought steam power was the devil’s work and wouldn’t last. The Luddites tried to prevent it. Somehow, despite all the negativity, it brought in the industrial revolution which led to the lifestyle you enjoy today. It’s early days for AI and robots but it’s coming, and nobody knows the changes which will occur. Good luck with your prognostication.
The ballroom looks like something from the Palace of Versailles.
What ever happened to Louis XVI anyhow?
If only ICE were sicced on those whose names are in the Epstein Files…
If only AI was…
REMINDS me of the old, “king and i”, song, “shall we dance”
Democrats are often the same people working to “de-meat” the American diet. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Democrats don’t need to do a single thing and republicans will de-meat America through bankruptcy, high prices, and total failure.
And the suckers and loser will still vote for them! Gotta hand it to you when you’re right!
And don’t forget total deregulation – which would make eating every burger a spin on the Russian roulette.
Last time I had large land animal meat was in 2003. I’ll race you up any hill or mountain this minute.
Never been a registered Dem either.
But I hope your stereotypes give you great comfort.
“Hills are speedwork in disguise.” – Frank
Because it worked so well…
WSJ–President Trump has rejected Iran’s proposal for a seven-day ceasefire and has told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after the November midterms, U.S. officials said.
perhaps an amuse-bouche first….
CBS: The Army is requesting military planning aimed for Cuba. Is the US preparing for military action?
STATE DEPT SPOX TOMMY PIGOTT: We’re always going to guided by the national interest of the US. The president has a wide array of options
Every option is on the tab;e to scramble everything based on Trump’s ADHD and screw up a whole new area.
Well if true then oil stocks should do well right up until Iran blows up all the oil infrastructure in the middle east and then there is no oil to sell.
And all the desalination plants.
This is the wrong-footed move that may be big in the history books.
You can’t fix stupid but you can vote against it…
and the political party…
that put all of their eggs in one basket case.
Today was a noteworthy day for this Non-Trump farmer.
I was in one of my not so local tractor dealerships and the salesman (a former Trump supporting MAGA hat wearing good ol boy) unsolicitedly stated that he was done with Trump and his lies. It was almost unbelievable when he stated that he would vote entirely democratic because no rapeublicans stood up against Trump.
His tirade it lasted for almost five minutes. I asked him if others in his community felt the same way. It was an unequivocal YES!
This tractor dealership sells a particularly analog tractor and is about 65 miles from my farm. Since I needed a mid size tractor and a group of associated implements I cut a deal with him and saved about $35,000. Pay by check in full the day it is delivered next week – on a handshake. The $11,000 snowplowing attachment is from Canada and mine was the last one brought into the country before the tariffs went on. The next buyer will have to pay 25% more!
I’ve been getting earfuls from nearby row crop farmers at coffee. They are fed up with Trump because they will not break even this year and expenses are only going higher. More Trump caused bankruptcies are happening and farmers are talking a different tune than one month ago.
Unless Trump pulls off a miracle with fuel and fertilizer prices, it will be a bloodbath for rapeublicans.
no Trump miracle, war resumes after midterms
This is as good as it gets until Jan 2029.
your perspective is unique and great. hat tip to ya.
Buyer’s remorse now is kinda useless. And I will re-iterate, democrats winning isn’t going to change or fix much. Watch money continue to pour into Israel and more war.
true but fighting income inequality and using money for USA improvements instead of wars and corporate welfare. Stopping the molester and thief from pissing on the constitution will be worth it. There are some firebrand democrats who may one day change things for the better
Thank you, Frosty, for your occasional anecdotes. Always entertaining to read.
>> His [[unsolicited] tirade it lasted for almost five minutes.
LOL. I read this line and immediately thought: Somewhere, someone is writing this same thing about my low-EQ dumbass…
Except why stop at 5 when you have material for 30?
Hmmm..Gotta work on my tight ten. Hyde Park, here I come.
thank you for your insight
Corn up 25%, beans up 30% and wheat up 35%YoY. Farmers are doing little happy dances. We will have to wait till next year to see how much of that bleeds through to consumer prices.
All of it will.
Health care insurance up, property taxes up, car insurance up, diesel up, feed up, labor gone, and wages not up. They may be doing happy dance the same way homer simpson burned $27 of bacon to get $0.63 of grease.
Homer: Okay, this bacon’s done.
Homer picks up the bacon and throws it onto the floor in front of Santa’s Little Helper.
Homer: And now for the profit taking. <chuckles>
Homer pours the grease into a tin that Bart’s holding.
Bart: Uh, dad, I don’t think the dog can handle any more bacon.
Santa’s Little Helper: <wheeze>
Homer: Looks like he’s about ready for another squeezin’.
Marge: Homer! That side of bacon was for my bridge game tonight.
Homer: Marge, if you don’t mind, I’m a little busy right now achieving financial indepence.
Marge: With cans of grease?
Homer: <sarcastically> No. With savings and wise investments. <forcefully> Of course, with grease.
…
Homer: Okay, boy. This is where all the hard work, sacrifice and painful scaldings pay off.
Employee: Four pounds of grease … that comes to … sixty-three cents.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Bart: Dad, all that bacon cost twenty-seven dollars.
Homer: Yeah, but your mom paid for that!
Bart: But doesn’t she get her money from you?
Homer: And I get my money from grease! What’s the problem?
Dont expect dumb farmers to appreciate the math.
One of my cousins in a Western state owns about 600 acres, and farms another 1200 acres of leaseholdinğs.
We were bouncing around in his pickup last summer checking the irrigation sprinklers. He was explaining to me how many acres he had in various crops.
Since he has a four-year degree in Ag from the same engineering school I graduated from, I asked him how he tracked all the associated input costs. (I assumed he would have a spreadsheet with lease costs, seed, fertilizer, etc, tracked year over year for comparison purposes).
Nope! He just wings it.
And he “wings it” because when things go wrong, the government is there to bail out this loser. If dems take congress I hope they let these fools fail and let corporations take over to optimize yields and production.
Not sure why you got downvoted on that one because it is true that the prices will bleed through. Unfortunately the increases in futures prices do not always flow through to the farmers. They are at the mercy of local storage capacity and prices often are lower than what the public sees.
Row crop farming is a ridiculously tough business and that is why I go for higher margin, specialty crops that are not fertilizer or pesticide intensive.
Working smarter, harder and creating highly nutritious foods has its own set of rewards.
People who got exactly what they voted for are now upset because they got exactly what they voted for. More at 11.
I was supporting Trump in 2024 but couldn’t quite convince myself to vote for him so voted third party as I am in California and my vote wouldn’t mean anything. The main reasons why I supported Trump:
He lied and broke or screwed up every commitment he made to the voters. Trying to come up with words that describe him. Unprincipled, unscrupulous, unethical, disreputable, and just plain shifty are some. I fail to see how anyone could continue to support him other than Israel supporters or big industry players that are successfully buying favors from him. Oh yeah, can’t forget the bribes for pardons for the wealthy crooks…
Missed a big one: Release the Epstein files and the Kennedy assassination files…
What a shocker! If only he had a previous term as presidentwhere everyone could see that he was a crook and a liar.
Yeah, but her laugh.
What do you expect from the lowest IQ in the room?
How could you have possibly believed him in 2024 in the first place? That’s what I don’t get – I know so many people in 2024 were conned by this guy for the third time. Small solace that you didn’t vote for him I guess. My in-laws are Hispanic and many of them voted for him and now regret it. I’m staggared at how dumb they all were. Oh you figured out now that Trump really doesn’t like you; that wasn’t obvious for the last ten years?
He’d been going through bankruptcies for decades.He had flashy casinos, hired hard working people he paid well, but the whole thing didn’t pencil out. It was all glamor up front projects that failed later. All hat and no cattle. But a new sucker arrives every minute.
“I fail to see how anyone could continue to support him”
About 30% of the population are complete idiots.
Modern complexity is too much for many brains to process.
“Next time you’re at the gas station, remember this picture”.
Notably absent: Bibi Netanyahu.
Trump knows he has trapped himself out on thin ICE. Seems he will now take many other Republicans for a shivering drop also.
William Jennings Bryant came out of plains farmers movements, and was an architect of the transition of Democrats to their platforms in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Texas cattlemen have depended on workers swimming the Rio Grande since Remember the Alamo, so it’s time they pay nonexistent white people a living wage.
Details how supporters poured money into Mexican-American slums and Rio Grande counties for the 1948 Senate race, where George Parr controlled overwhelming vote counts for Johnson through late vote revisions and potential vote stuffing.
Cato great author!
https://unwall.app/www.newyorker.com/magazine/1990/02/05/the-johnson-years-the-old-and-the-new-iv-the-stealing
I think this is why they are now talking of declaring martial law before the elections
At this point it might be his only hope. But I think he might have to face the pitch forks folks if that happened.
Where exactly in the Constitution is the President given the power to declare martial law?
That won’t stop him from doing it anyway. Then it will go to the Supreme Court and six months later if the Supreme Court says so we can have the mid terms. Then Trump will find another excuse not to hold the midterms and the whole process will be repeated. When Trump dies in 2035 we can have an election.