Friday, January 4, 2019

Walker's twin gift to Evers, rural WI; pollution, farm closures

Walker will begin making speeches and boosting Trump's re-election, but I doubt that he'll be bragging about his obeisance to the Tariff King or the Walker record near any small Wisconsin dairy farm:

* Wisconsin lost 7.6% of its dairy farms in 2018, a rate double that of the previous decade, according to state data, an industry publication is reporting.
File:Confined-animal-feeding-operation.jpg T

That reality was highlighted in a recent first-person account in The Washington Post.

The trend was building all year; Walker posted pictures of curds on Twitter and said, 'yum...' or 'eat more cheese.'

*  Meanwhile the larger operations, or CAFOs, have been encouraged to expand while continuing to leave behind contaminated drinking water linked to illness and at least one infant's death.

That reality brought The New York Times to Wisconsin before this week's disclosures that the contamination and health hazard is more widespread.

So Walker is off to the lucrative banquet speaking circuit, where he may find his beloved custard on the menu.

Back in Wisconsin, things are less sweet.


Some sample Walker photo Tweets below:

September 24, 2018:


Adrian’s Frozen Custard in Burlington. Mmmmmm!


Eating away the pain of a loss with cheese curds in Superior. Hoping for a victory!


    2 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    As recently as Jan. 2 he tweeted about cheese curds and included a gross picture. He and the GOP never had a rural strategy and everything they did seemed calculated to make life there untenable for small farmers. Their roads are crumbling, their medical facilities are closing and consolidating, their schools are struggling and the rural population is decreasing because of these things.

    In addition, milk pricing at the federal level is not conducive to small farms being viable.

    Did Walker ever call for a change to federal policy? No. He and other politicians followed Trump and blamed the Canadians who do have a federal policy that supports farmers.

    In addition, the Ag and Business tax cuts made CAFOs so profitable that everyone, including people from the Netherlands, wanted in.

    I have heard people say that rural folks deserve this because they voted for Walker. I don't think they did deserve this. He lied to them. Representatives like Scott Krug and Joel Kitchens and Howard Marklein lied to voters.

    James Rowen said...

    Thanks for the Twitter tip. https://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2019/01/walker-explains-why-he-wont-be-governor.html