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To US Farmers: Could Mr Obama Be More Insulting?

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Bloviating Zeppelin: To US Farmers: Could Mr Obama Be More Insulting?

Bloviating Zeppelin

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

To US Farmers: Could Mr Obama Be More Insulting?


Well, perhaps if he directly told them to "go to hell," he might.

A corn farmer asked Mr Obama, "please don't challenge us with more rules and regulations," when farmers have enough to contend with, via Mother Nature every growing season:



For the specifics, go here:

At Wednesday’s town hall in Atkinson, Illinois, a local farmer who said he grows corn and soybeans expressed his concerns to President Obama about “more rules and regulations” – including those concerning dust, noise and water runoff -- that he heard would negatively affect his business. An Illinois farmer gets called on, and he tells Obama that he is a farmer who enjoys growing “corn and soybeans.”

“Mother Nature has really challenged us this growing season – moisture, drought, whatever. Please don’t challenge us with more rules and regulations from Washington D.C. that hinder us from doing that. We would prefer to start our day in a tractor cab or combine cab rather than filling out forms and permits to do what we like to do.”

He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth before Obama was shouting that “we have the Secretary of Agriculture here,” and then proceeded to tell the farmer not to “believe everything you hear.”

The president, on day three of his Midwest bus tour, replied: “If you hear something is happening, but it hasn’t happened, don’t always believe what you hear.”

When the room broke into soft laughter, the president added, “No -- and I’m serious about that.”

Obama's advice: “Don’t always believe what you hear. Contact USDA. Talk to them directly. My suspicion is, a lot of times, they’re going to be able to answer your questions and it will turn out that some of your fears are unfounded.”

And with that said and written, MJ Lee at Politico.com decided to take Mr Obama up on his offer.

Mr Lee wrote:

When this POLITICO reporter decided to take the president's advice and call the USDA for an answer to the Atkinson town hall attendee's question, I found myself in a bureaucratic equivalent of hot potato — getting bounced from the feds to Illinois state agriculture officials to the state farm bureau.

Here's a rundown of what happened when I started by calling the USDA's general hotline to inquire about information related to the effects of noise and dust pollution rules on Illinois farmers:


Wednesday,
2:40 p.m. ET: After calling the USDA’s main line, I am told to call the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Here, I am patched through to a man who is identified as being in charge of "support services." I leave a message.

3:53 p.m.: The man calls me back and recommends in a voicemail message that I call the Illinois Farm Bureau — a non-governmental organization.

4:02 p.m.: A woman at the Illinois Farm Bureau connects me to someone in the organization’s government affairs department. That person tells me they "don't quite know who to refer you to."

4:06 p.m.: I call the Illinois Department of Agriculture again, letting the person I spoke with earlier know that calling the Illinois Farm Bureau had not been fruitful. He says "those are the kinds of groups that are kind of on top of this or kind of follow things like this. We deal with pesticide here in our bureau."

"You only deal with pesticides?" I ask.


"We deal with other things … but we mainly deal with pesticides here," he says, and gives me the phone number for the office of the department’s director, where he says there are "policy people" as well as the director's staff.


4:10 p.m.: Someone at the director's office transfers me to the agriculture products inspection department, where a woman says their branch deals with things like animal feed, seed and fertilizer. "I'm going to transfer you to one of the guys at environmental programs."

4:15 p.m.:
I reach the answering machine at the environmental programs department, and leave a message.

4:57 p.m.:
A man from the environmental programs department gets back to me: "I hate to be the regular state worker that's always accused of passing the buck, but noise and dust regulation would be under our environmental protection agency, rather than the Agriculture Department," he says, adding that he has forwarded my name and number to the agriculture adviser at IEPA.

On Thursday morning, POLITICO started the hunt for an answer again, this time calling the USDA's local office in Henry County, Ill., where the town hall took place.


9:42 a.m.:
Asked if someone at the office might be able to provide me with the information I requested, the woman on the phone responds, “Not right now. We may have to actually look that up — did you Google this or anything?” When I say that I’m a reporter and would like to discuss my experience with someone who handles media relations there, I am referred to the USDA’s state office in Champaign. I leave a message there.

10:40 a.m.:
A spokeswoman for the Illinois Natural Resources Conservation Service calls me, to whom I explain my multiple attempts on Wednesday and Thursday to retrieve the information I was looking for.

“What I can tell you is our particular agency does not deal with regulations,” she tells me. “We deal with volunteers who voluntarily want to do things. I think the reason you got that response from the Cambridge office is because in regard to noise and dust regulation, we don’t have anything to do with that.”

She adds that the EPA would be more capable of answering questions regarding regulations.

Finally, I call the USDA’s main media relations department, based here in Washington, where I explain to a spokesperson about my failed attempts to obtain an answer to the Illinois farmer’s question.

This was their OFFICIAL response, via email:


“Secretary Vilsack continues to work closely with members of the Cabinet to help them engage with the agricultural community to ensure that we are separating fact from fiction on regulations because the administration is committed to providing greater certainty for farmers and ranchers. Because the question that was posed did not fall within USDA jurisdiction, it does not provide a fair representation of USDA’s robust efforts to get the right information to our producers throughout the country.”

I say: what a bunch of multi-syllabic, unhelpful, unmitigated, ignorant, specious, no-load, political BULLSHIT.

What NOW, Mr Obama?

This does NOTHING for that farmer.

And that is only a PORTION of the problem with Big Government, sir.

The ball's in your court, sir, to utilize a euphemism in which you'd likely be familiar. But God forbid if any backspatter, attributions, responsibility, accountability, commitment or duty actually fell upon you or your administration.

We can't have actual Leadership, after all -- can we?

BZ

P.S.
You, Mr Obama, wouldn't know a leader from a manager from a knowledge worker from an American farmer from a toadstool. You might want to open, for example, any book by Peter Drucker.


12 Comments:

Blogger Old NFO said...

And from what I 'hear' those very rules ARE going to be implemented... sigh

Sat Aug 20, 05:08:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Well Seasoned Fool said...

What I don't hear anyone saying is, this is in Obama's home state that he represented as Senator. Illinois is mainly rural and farms. Man hasn't a clue about anything outside his insular little world.

Sat Aug 20, 06:11:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Well Seasoned Fool said...

Not defending the Lightbringer. Just an observation. The two biggest groups of bitchers and complainers I know are farmers and owner operator truckers. Just saying.

Sat Aug 20, 09:23:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obama could piss off the Pope...

Sat Aug 20, 12:17:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Well Seasoned Fool said...

Piss of the Pope? Probably on Obama's bucket list.

Sat Aug 20, 01:46:00 PM PDT  
Blogger ASM826 said...

Well, yes, I think he could be more insulting. He could collectivize the the farms and send the farmer to the gulag, too.

Sat Aug 20, 05:31:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Greybeard said...

"Illinois is mainly rural and farms."
Yeah. And the Chicago machine controls all of it, therefore the stupid regulations continue and expand.
The revolution is coming soon. Be prepared.

Sat Aug 20, 05:33:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Z said...

TexasFred's comment is so funny...!!

But the Video is SO NOT FUNNY..what the heck NERVE does this guy have who knows NOTHING about farming and, apparently, has never tried to call the gov't for answers to questions: IS HE KIDDING? He REALLY thinks these people are going to get answers from bureaucrats that they can COUNT on IF they even get through?

The farmer's right; they don't NEED to be filling out form after form; is Obama denying their truth? ptui

Sat Aug 20, 09:41:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Tom said...

And to add more insult to injury, I understand that a commercial vehicle license will be required to drive a tractor, combine, or other farm equipment, and said vehicle will also need licensing. That's all the farmer's need - more regulations to grow the food we all eat. Insanity!!

Sun Aug 21, 05:17:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

NFO: why yes, indeed they are. So Our Mr Obama essentially, further, bald-faced LIED to the man.

WSF: an excellent point. However, those two groups are also very HARD WORKERS, from the people I've met involved in those jobs.

TF: and likely has already.

WSF: I think that's already occurred.

ASM826: point taken. Shall we not say that is the likely ultimate goal?

Greybeard: precious metals.

Z: our lovely DC micromanaging everyone EXCEPT the parasites.

Tom: YES, you are absolutely CORRECT, Mr Obama wants a national commercial LICENSE for people to operate their OWN machinery on their OWN property!

ONCE AGAIN, the rights of the INDIVIDUAL and PROPERTY diminished and/or completely REMOVED.

BZ

Sun Aug 21, 10:24:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Crystal said...

There's just one problem here. No one who ran with this story followed up. There really was no such regulation and that is why no one in government could be found who knew anything about it. Funny. ha.ha. And yet, we have a commenter here saying 'from what I 'hear' those very rules ARE going to be implemented...sigh"

So there you are, sighing over nothing and somehow in the echo chamber even have confirmation of a nonexistent regulation.

sigh

Sun Sep 11, 01:27:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Crystal, you miss the point entirely.

Just a minor portion of the issue is the regulatory aspect; the major point is Obama's dismissive nature -- he really doesn't care, at all, what the farmer has to say or his CONCERNS or his FEELINGS, in concert with the issue of actually trying to find anyone COMPETENT to speak to in government, who can actually answer the damned question -- as proven by the reporter.

Mr Obama couldn't have cared less about the man; he was nothing more than an irritant to be dismissed as unworthy.

And yes, those regulations are being proposed.

BZ

Sun Sep 11, 10:11:00 AM PDT  

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