211 Comments
User's avatar
David J. Sharp's avatar

Taylor Farms … a million bucks to MAGA PAC … cyclospora … everything Trump touches turns to …

Potter's avatar

Taylor Farms will also pay for this dearly in loss of sales.

Demetria Livingston's avatar

I will NEVER buy anything from them EVER AGAIN, period. I check every label.

Potter's avatar

The issue is the government not checking fast or well and the bribery. If you avoid Taylor how do you know some other name or company to avoid?How can you feel confident or comfortable about any food you eat?

David J. Sharp's avatar

This whole administration has the USA on tenterhooks, always suspicious … save for the elite, who do not shop.

Potter's avatar

Some of the Taylor food might get on the Trump table. or some such. In the meantime RFk jr advises to eat fresh food and forget vaccinations. Incoherent.. People wake up..more.

Marlene Lerner-Bigley (CA)'s avatar

Costco sells Taylor Farm products too. Ugh…

Potter's avatar

I just discovered that I just bought( and ate) another brand, organic, from Whole Foods is produced by Taylor/ If you look up the company they are responsible for a great deal of our fresh food supply including what we buy from trusted stores.

Demetria Livingston's avatar

Yes, exactly. You have to be on your toes because they do that.

Rex Farley's avatar

David, seems like connecting those dots leeds us right to the , I''ll say toilet.

James Quinn's avatar

This will not end until the Republican Party (or at least what’s left of it) realizes that it is being hurt as badly as it likes to imagine “the libs” are being hurt.

Oldandintheway's avatar

The Republicans in Congress, and perhaps all elected Republicans everywhere, are not going to reform. They are either Trump believers in Trump the Savior, or else they are receiving some of the money? Every cabinet member is running their own grift--taking bribes, selling land to family members, or giving no-bid contracts to friends.

If you want a tariff or regulation removed, pay Trump. No one cares about the consequences. It's all about the money.

And now that they realize the next Congress will attempt to put a stop to most of this, they are grabbing whatever they can, as fast as they can.

We are going to have to vote them all out, no matter what obstacles they put in the way.

Commonsense's avatar

Exactly right. The obstacles they create are the flagrant, easy disinformation sessions in what used to be a resilient Dem stronghold in places like Miami-Dade County, FL.

Repubs campaigning for various offices and the outgoing Gov. have told the Cuban and Venezuelans there that if they vote for a Dem, they'll turn the State (or Country) into a Socialist haven like what they escaped from.

I think Dems campaigning there now (especially for our U.S. Senate seat, Rubio's former seat), ought to ask them how has the trump admin has benefitted them and how do they like ICE deporting friends, neighbors and relatives to places where they have no family? Time to reclaim our So FL Dem voters with the truth - and throughout the state as well. We now have 30 electoral votes, it'll take time but I'd love to see it at least get to be a swing state.

Daniel Solomon's avatar

They want a caudillo and Trump fits.

But the Trump administration is anti DEI and despite their arrogance, they are the first to get cut.

In my house district, two Cuban Americans will oppose each other. FL 27. https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_27th_Congressional_District

Salazar, Diaz Balart and Carlos Giminez (b. Havana) all, in essence, support rapists, pimps and obstructionists in the EPSTEIN/Trump saga. So do all the Republican Florida House members. I'm hoping the Epstein survivors will lift the Democratic candidates.

Commonsense's avatar

That would be nice if we could get finally get the remainder of the docs or, alternatively, determine a smoking gun - who it is that's holding up the production (or perhaps got rid of the docs that mention trump). Also, I'd like to have them ascertain, in an affidavit, that they still have possession of the remaining approx. 30, 000 docs not produced yet. So, either they can admit they didn't retain custody of them (destroyed them) or they're intentionally flouting a court order - either way, they're in trouble.

I really don't think the formerly Dem Miami-Dade voters are going to change their minds about trump or republicans being the good guys - even if trump knocks down the rest of the WH, plus the Statue of Liberty - they'll still just keep voting for people that they should, by now, have been able to see that they don't do anything for them - just so they can prevent the "Socialist Democrats" from "taking over the country". That's exasperating!

I wonder why they can't see that trump has lost the war and is ruining everything he touches?

Daniel Solomon's avatar

I'm in discussion groups with a few Cuban Americans, otherwise sane, who vote Dem but support other Cuban Americans like Lil Marco because he says he wants to take over Cuba. At least one wants him to run for president, knowing he is the tool of Norman Braman and his household included known felons.

https://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/marco-rubio-2016-campaign-norman-braman-117134

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFKgfiOUtAk

https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-senator-marco-rubios-brother-in-law-is-a-convicted-drug-trafficker-2011-7

https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-senator-marco-rubios-brother-in-law-is-a-convicted-drug-trafficker-2011-7

Oldandintheway's avatar

What would they do with Cuba? More resorts and casinos?

James Quinn's avatar

Voting them out is necessary, but only a short term solution. Unless the Democratic Party provides a creditable road map to a better situation that a maturity of Americans believes, MAGA and even less wholly committed Republicans will only go underground to seek a new ‘champion’. And there are plenty of those waiting their chance.

Oldandintheway's avatar

The first thing they have to do is strongly reestablish the rule of law. They need to create an independent department of justice, free from political and financial interference, run by people that 80% of Americans will trust.

Demetria Livingston's avatar

You are exactly right however I’m not sure if they are smart enough to realize the effect. Honestly, these are not the brightest.

David J. Sharp's avatar

Indeed—the ultra loyal, the ultra dumb.

JK's avatar

Owning the libs is what the 77 million voters wanted from his royal ass-ness, but by now that instant gratification isn't so satisfying; so they're stuck not knowing what they want now that they are getting screwed up the ass.

Jon M's avatar

They wanted to remove the "Deep State" but what they didn't understand until it was too late, the Heritage Foundation and unwittingly MAGAts were replacing it with a REALLY, REALLY DEEP DARK DARK SINISTER STATE, TIED TO MOSCOW, PUTIN, NORTH KOREA AND THE RUSSIAN MOB, with TRump on the Inside with the Republican MAGAt TReasonous TRojan Horse.

Scary, sickening, sad, look around, true. Vote like your life depends on it. Be on tomorrows call Sunday 4 pm EST, 3 PM Central This Will Hold. How to help secure the midterm elections elections. They are Great and brave Americans also.

JK's avatar
16hEdited

Cyclospora is a "legitimate" parasite, part of the natural order, much to our chagrin of course, but it's the criminal parasites in the White Grifters House, enabled by the Incontinent Congress, and the Antebellum Court, that have caused the HHS to crap all over us.

Special thanks goes to Senator Bill Hop-a-Long to Get-a-Long Cassidy: The Hippocratic Hypocrite.

Marlene Lerner-Bigley (CA)'s avatar

Yes, I like your description of him. That will be his legend, I am glad to say.

Joe Michalak's avatar

Taylor Farms is the least of the offenders. We have a battle on the Central Coast of California, fighting the use of pesticides in berry fields. Fields are close to communities populated by farm workers and their families. I don't know the long-term effects of breathing these molecules, but, we don't need to wait for evidenced-based analysis to inform us. Driscoll, the berry giant has been slow to respond to complaints and make changes. What astonishes me is how quickly regulatory oversight has been compromised. Now we have a wall of words from the regulators justifying their actions.

Susan Stone's avatar

Thank you for sharing that information. I will now be avoiding Driscoll, and I hope, for the sake of the farm workers, that Driscoll is held accountable. And soon,

GreenChile's avatar

It's not just Driscoll. They are the brand known to many but all non-organic strawberry producers use the same pesticides.

Marlene Lerner-Bigley (CA)'s avatar

I have a friend who is an environmental engineer and he said never eat a strawberry unless it is from an organic company. The seeds that strawberries have are covered in pesticides. Makes me so angry at these farms who use immigrants as their guinea pigs for deadly insecticides while not paying them a decent salary!!

Susan Stone's avatar

Another good reason to buy organic, which I try to do all the time. Thanks for the info.

Commonsense's avatar

I live in FL and remember in 2005 the wide, persistent press coverage of the major birth defects three sets of migrant parents experienced who worked in fields where several pesticides were being used as they were working. It made everyone angry that it was a practice back then to spray the fields and the migrants with pesticides while migrants were working in them. In 2005 and 2006, there were three births close together by migrant mothers and all three babies had serious defects. There might be much better proof currently whether the specific pesticides used in CA fields can be proven to be the cause for cancers or birth defects.

The bottom two links tell the story of one of the families - it has a positive ending. At the end of the YouTube video (at 17:34 minutes), you might find the info about the various people and entities that helped fund, film, produce, and write the script - helpful if you want to do the same. Remember also your area's news gathering orgs, too; radio, TV, and online.

2007 Environmental Health Report about the 2005 birth defects: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1867963/

2006 Tampa Bay Times story about a migrant family who had a son in 2005 with major birth defects and what their lawyer accomplished for them: https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2006/03/02/ag-mart-sued-over-birth-defects/

2024 YouTube video about the inspirational way their son is going about his life and at the end of the video, note supporters of this work.

Marlene Lerner-Bigley (CA)'s avatar

Driscoll is the worst perpetrator!!

Lynne MacIntosh's avatar

That has been an issue in agriculture for decades. It's nothing new.

GreenChile's avatar

No, it's not new but as we learn more and more about the effects of pesticides on humans, it's becoming more important to manage them more wisely than we have in the past. We can no longer blame ignorance for our (in)action.

Lynne MacIntosh's avatar

Is also true that as long as it mainly hurts the poor, migrants and possibly illegal workers, most people never cared.

Noorillah's avatar

Yes, it has, and the fact that it is still going on is an utter disgrace.

Charlene Brown's avatar

We have taken for granted that we will have safe food/water to consume. Not so any longer! This angers me to no end!!!

Solange Kellermann's avatar

Yup, trying to kill us. No vaccines, diminished public education, police state.

Bryan Sean McKown's avatar

Tthree (3) of us were murdered in Minneapolis.

Noorillah's avatar

That's not an exaggeration. CIA,FBI, Secret Service, etc corrupt and run by flunkies; ICE grabs and detains citizens as well as mostly innocent immigrants; alienation of our longtime allies, leaving us unprotected; aligning with enemy dictators; depletion of essential military supplies; isolated and burdened by tariff wars; reduction of SNAP, including for kids; family farms lost; loss of health insurance for thousands, with thousands more to be impacted soon after the Nov. election; looming cuts to Medicare and Medicaid; increasing closures of rural hospitals; weakening of air and water quality regulations, etc etc etc.

Ruth Ben Ghiat recently ran a column explaining that DJT is destroying the US in order to make autocracies great. That could explain a lot. Fewer living Americans is less opposition... Sorry this is so dark, but we can't ignore it...

Solange Kellermann's avatar

Exactly. I think we're close to dictatorship. We don't hear Vought's name but he's a prime architect of this chaos. Trump doesn't have the brain power - he has the cruelty, the need for adoration, for more money, for power, more money, adoration. Vought has the long view. Project 2025 lays it out and you can go chapter by chapter and check 'Done'. I don't see how we get out of this any time soon i.e. years. It'll take a generation to reverse.

Mary Corredor's avatar

"Exactly. I think we're close to dictatorship. .... don't see how we get out of this any time soon i.e. years. It'll take a generation to reverse."

Solange:

Spot on and I agree, except I believe we are in a dictatorship. The Man Child in Chief does whatever he wants. Several SCOTUS justices have their lips glued to him. Even when the courts rule against him--so what? He goes around them. He could not care less what anyone says. He is THE SUPREME LEADER.

The food issue is vitally important, but now in Texas there is another heart-breaking issue that I hope the Substacks will address: The destruction of Big Bend National Park to build a stinking, ugly wall that even many Texas Republicans say is NOT needed or wanted in that area. The bulldozers are there right now.

I am a Midwesterner in my heart and not a native Texan but have lived here since 1998 and recognize the incredible natural beauty and diversity here. One of my most precious memories has to do with a trip my mother and I took when I lived in Marfa, TX. We drove a well-known scenic route through Big Bend. It was so incredibly beautiful. My mother never forgot that trip. In the back of my mind, I kept hoping we would not break down on the road because we encountered very few other people. So many people have noted that the terrain itself is a natural deterrent to crossing into the US.

Once the destruction is completed, it is irreversible. That in a nutshell is a guiding philosophy for the "Lying Epstein Administration."

Jon M's avatar

PATHETIC, As a Chemist, former molecular biologist, from day one of TRump 1, nauseated, literally by TRump 2, DogE seeing the willful, deliberate destruction of our US Government seemed to me like TReason, now as each day goes by, it comes into sharper focus, yes, TRump and his MAGAts are Completely TReasonous, from international relations, strategic oil reserves, national debt, destabilizing the dollar, reducing the military readiness by getting rid of all the competent officers, especially JAGs, Running off anyone with integrity defunding EPA, OSHA, CDC, putting total MORONS over every agency.

Add to that, they are funded by

Autocratic billionaires from all over the planet.

Heaven help us

GreenChile's avatar

We're going to have to help ourselves.

Karen Anderson's avatar

Register new voters!!! Get Out the Vote!!! Honestly, there's no other way short of revolution. [to the Listeners: I'm not in favor of revolution]

Phil Johnson's avatar

Run, don't walk to your nearest book source and glom onto Thom Hartmann's "Who Killed the American Dream?". we are into the 141st year of a USSCt fraudulent case by a joint effort from a court official who wrote the headnote of "Santa Clara County v. Pacific RR, etc." that was totally misleading in claiming that corporations were people protected by the Constitution. Since that unfortunate day in 1886, corporations have run rampant over the American public by claiming, as persons, they, too, are entitled to the protections of the 1st, 5th, and 14th Amendments.

The case never held anything like that, the reason is because the conniving court reporter headnote said it and no one picked up on it until TH wrote a treatise after doing extensive research on it.

This is a must-read historical grift-describing expose. And spread the word. It all comes together now. Congratulations to Thom.

Emily Elliot's avatar

The heart won’t light up for this comment. A problem I’ve encountered for weeks on Substack. Thanks for recommending Thom Hartman’s book.

Ma's avatar

No challenge here. Just answers. What do we do next? - Thalia Martin, Md

Phil Johnson's avatar

Be a hero and write your congress critters and cite the book and ask what are they going to do about it. The judicial branch has rendered the legislative branch fruitless for 140 years and counting... research "Amend" online, I found it last night and will get into it once I come back from respecting my Lord.

Keith Wheelock's avatar

I’m so old that, for most of my life, there wasn’t a Secretary for Health and Human Services. We didn’t eat much fancy food from abroad or even CA.

As food sourcing became more exotic, I welcomed the creation of HHS. There professionals examined food and, on occasion, banned some food as dangerous. As a government scientific agency, my wife and I followed their recommendations. Some federal recalls were important and health saving.

All this has been destroyed under Robert Kennedy, Jr. Anyone who boasted about eating road kill and who would leave dead animals in strange places is no one who my wife would trust. Then he hired individuals who, like himself, had no professional credentials.

There have been a number of food outbreaks that escaped the one-time professionals in HHS. Also, if you, like me, had been raised to seek vaccines, this seems a no no from Bobby Kennedy Jr. and his sycophants.

Now we try to buy our veggies locally. On lettuce, that Taylor Farms made major contributions to Trump doesn’t encourage me to eat their rotten lettuce.

Professional scientists have, in my lifetime, provided excellent guidance on safe foods and vaccines. Now Bobby, as Trump did with Covid, is relying on charlatans to replace the professional advice of Fauci and other professionals.

Perhaps, if one’s food is principally Big Macs and Diet Cokes (or road kill), food healthiness is not important. However, for me, my wife, four children, and five grandchildren, please provide us scientific advice on what is healthy to eat.

P.S. PLEASE DON’T GIVE A FREE PASS TO FOOD CORPORATIONS THAT PROVIDE COUNTLESS BILLIONS TO TRUMP.

Ma's avatar

Similarly, as you grew up, there literally was not much shit flowing down your waterways. Sorry to be blunt and vulgar, but now all we have is human and animal shit everywhere. Don’t get me started on ticks and mosquitoes. We had a yard party in college in the 70s. Bought some oysters from the Decatur farmers’ market from some food vendor and everybody got Shigalosis. Sick as shit for weeks, some hospitalized, nobody died but these were 20 year olds. But all this was rare, once in a decade. I can’t even keep up with which food bourne illness is evolving. This is indescribably absurd. I hope donald trump’s rectum falls out of his ass and sucks his tongue into his trachea so he f*ing suffocates. -Thalia Martin, MD.

Commonsense's avatar

I've never liked how the Taylor Farms salads looked - they just don't look quite right, so I've never bought them. Sooner or later one's own crookedness will catch up with one.

Paula Brown's avatar

Why isn’t anyone of the Dems challenging Republicans on the Food Traceability Rule? We know Republicans will not! They need to bring up this topic!!

Ma's avatar

I hear you. While Democrats should champion this burgeoning outrage, we must take this on personally. The best environmental outrage website I have seen AND that Politics Girl endorses is Earth Justice - earthjustice.org. They monitor/address/attack every aspect of environment/climate change/animal rights and preservation/safety I can think of. They have over two hundred law suits going on and they give daily petitions to sign and occasional congressional interventions to pursue. Excellent and not too obtrusive.

Commonsense's avatar

Thank you for the great info about earthjustice.org.

Steven Dundas's avatar

Joyce,

Since these outbreaks began, I have followed the money. You nailed it. They are all mega-MAGA contributors. Coincidence, I think not. Thank you.

All the best,

Steve Dundas

Barbara E's avatar

Yikes. Thank you so much for letting us know! It gets worse and worse. 😌

Ruth Sheets's avatar

Every time I learn of the problems that arise from the Musk-DOGE attack on our government, it lets me know again that the current Trumplican regime cares for none of us, only the money that can be paid in bribes to their Baby Donnie to keep investigators from finding out the shenanigans they are doing to help them rake in the bucks. Safety doesn't even cross their radar screens and there is little to no accountability for their actions. I do believe they think they are invincible, demigods, so none of these parasites or bacteria will harm them.

No president or high-level official in our government is supposed to be able to take money or gifts without Congressional approval. That law is ignored on a regular basis by this crew. When will the people of America declare that we have had enough, and do it in large enough numbers to force more obedience by Trumplandia to the laws of our nation?

Karen Anderson's avatar

That's the same question that millions of us are asking. The Resistance is fragmented with some groups operating in silos. And we're all exhausted, just as They want us to be. I don't know what it will take, but I don't want to continue to be dragged along the bottom by this regime.

Ruth Sheets's avatar

Karen, the challenge for all of us is that they have concentrated a cadre of white-collar thieves, corporate cheats, ignorant folks who supposedly went to "elite universities but learned nothing good, testosterone-fueled losers, women desperate for attention, and ultra-greedy white child-men in one place where they can daily, compete with each other to see which outrage they can get their Baby Donnie to perpetrate on the American people. It began with "Project 2025" in this round, but they have been adding to that a war, turning against our allies, illegal tariffs, and working on dividing our nation beyond recognition with their hatreds.

We have to keep in mind that together we are far smarter than they are, but we have let them exhaust us with one attack after another. We can stand against them if we work together and target their actions as illegal, childish/infantile, and constantly point out their crimes against humanity. We have to get our media to stop the lying, maybe by getting our talented tech folks to sabotage their messages with over-dubbing the truth when one of their "hosts" lies. We need our skilled people to find ways to hack Flock cameras. I hear some communities have already begun the process of neutralizing them by people in the exact same clothing disarming one, then others doing it too so the camera will think it's all the same person when it isn't. We need more communities to take a stand against data centers whose only purpose is to surveil us, something none of us has asked for. In short, we who can, need to become active and use our skills to undermine what the greedy, ignorant fools are doing.

Not a single one of the inhabitants of Trumplandia is worthy of a position in our government, but they keep allowing cruelties and inhumane actions. Now that ICE is getting electrified gloves, people need to find out about the corporations that are making them and do things to undermine those corporations, then vote out anyone who voted in Congress to give ICE even more money to do harm to our nation, our communities. We the People need to become more aggressive without actually breaking the law seriously, just a bit, which is fair since our DOJ, supposedly our legal arm is breaking laws right and left and people are getting hurt. WE also need to get far more humor into our responses to this Trumpian insanity. Laugh at their stupid lying signs and the ridiculous projects being put up to support a demented old man, and send tons of emails, notes, and phone calls to our members of congress to let them know what we think of them, laughing all the way.

We also need to get the word out that the "assassination attempts" on Donald Trump, including the whole decoy incident in Turkey were all fakes, orchestrated by Trumpers to gain some kind of sympathy for Baby Donnie who actually has nothing to offer anyone except a bunch of whiny white supremacists who think they should rule America, and the oligarchs they are hoping will help them. Trump has dementia. Let's get the word out and demand more forcefully that he be removed from office and that the rest of Trumplandia be investigated for its criminal activity.

Sorry for the length of this, but I am hoping to help us all become more energized in opposition to Trumplandia's cruelties and desire to exhaust us with their constant harms and BS.

Karen Anderson's avatar

Ruth, thank you for your incredibly thoughtful reply. It’s people like you that make moving forward possible.

I agree that humor is necessary! I recommend Nick Anderson, Robin Snyder, Andy Borowitz, and the political cartoon group, Counterpoint - all on Substack. Political cartoonists are amazing!

Phil Johnson's avatar

Thom Hartmann will give you some hope. He has set the stage for resistance that has teeth. We just have to be alert and give our neighbors and friends information about the oligarchy that has set the country on fire.

Karen Anderson's avatar

Agree that Hartmann is great!

Commonsense's avatar

Midterms are coming...I fervently hope we can also take the Senate.

Noorillah's avatar

Donnie doesn't eat veggies.

Linda (Evanston IL)'s avatar

Grateful for our excellent farmers market! We do not eat meat so we will not become ill from imported Argentine beef. And Joyce has her chickens for eggs. 🐓🥚

marypaz's avatar

Um, I suspect that Joyce's chickens don't end up on her table. The eggs, yes.

Lor's avatar

Appalling and horrific to harm our people by not taking care of Americans who are struggling daily. It is beyond shameful and unacceptable

Nancy Conner's avatar

I’m grateful for our local farmer’s market & neighbors who are generous with their “ excess” veggies. But I’m also furious that this is happening with seemingly no consequences or adequate, timely communications to the public.

What is the statute of limitations to hold offenders like Taylor Farms accountable?

Rob Gargett's avatar

"To the fullest extent of the law" comes to mind!