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President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans are pushing American farms to a "breaking point," experts warned.

Martin Casanova, founder of THX, a program that connects consumers with farmworkers, told Newsweek. "We are dangerously close to a breaking point. In 2022, an estimated 15 million tons of produce were left unharvested in the U.S.—enough for 30 billion daily servings."

A key aspect of Trump's immigration agenda is the removal of millions of undocumented immigrants, with a focus on the immediate deportation of individuals who were in the U.S. illegally, especially those with criminal records. However, the president's flagship policy has sparked concerns about its potential ripple effects on the economy.

Business leaders are advocating for a more balanced approach that supports businesses while preserving the essential workforce crucial to their survival.

Agricultural output will fall between $30 and $60 billion if Trump's flagship policy is carried out, according to the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC).
 
President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans are pushing American farms to a "breaking point," experts warned.

Martin Casanova, founder of THX, a program that connects consumers with farmworkers, told Newsweek. "We are dangerously close to a breaking point. In 2022, an estimated 15 million tons of produce were left unharvested in the U.S.—enough for 30 billion daily servings."

A key aspect of Trump's immigration agenda is the removal of millions of undocumented immigrants, with a focus on the immediate deportation of individuals who were in the U.S. illegally, especially those with criminal records. However, the president's flagship policy has sparked concerns about its potential ripple effects on the economy.

Business leaders are advocating for a more balanced approach that supports businesses while preserving the essential workforce crucial to their survival.

Agricultural output will fall between $30 and $60 billion if Trump's flagship policy is carried out, according to the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC).
At least those farms are safe from the transgender menace. That’s all that really matters.
 

After more than four decades working in the paper industry, Gaetano “Guy” Spinelli poured his life savings into developing an eco-friendly yet durable paper straw and opened his company, Boss Straw, in Woodstock in 2021.

Then in February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting plastic straws while declaring that paper straws “don’t work.”

“I’ve had them many times. On occasion they break. They explode,” Trump said. “If something’s hot, they don’t last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation.”

The president’s rant incensed Spinelli, who had voted for Trump in November. Business immediately dropped following the executive order.

“He’s put me from a profitable picture to a nonprofitable company,” Spinelli said. “And my product is a strong product. I’ve got a paper straw that lasts two weeks in any drink, hot or cold,” without compromising taste.

Despite the recent hit to his company, the 75-year-old business owner said that if he could go back, he would still cast a ballot for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“Outside of what he did to me, I think he’s doing a pretty good job,” Spinelli said.

...

Nemer, who was born in Lebanon and had been a loyal Democrat, instead voted for Trump, who penned a letter in late October to the Lebanese American community pledging a commitment to peace in Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East. A few days before the election, Trump met with Arab American leaders in Dearborn, Michigan, the nation’s biggest Arab-majority city, where Nemer resides.

But she grew alarmed in February, when Trump proposed the evacuation of millions of Palestinians from Gaza, with plans to turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East.” In March, Trump shared an AI-generated video depicting “Trump Gaza,” featuring him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunbathing together.

The Trump administration has also targeted college campus protesters who demonstrate against Israel and the war, threatening some with deportation. But on Friday, the government reversed course on student visa terminations amid a barrage of legal challenges to the policy.

“Our freedom of expression, freedom of demonstration and just overall liberties are at stake,” she said.

Yet even in hindsight, Nemer doesn’t think she could have voted differently.

“We weren’t getting that empathy from the Democratic Party, unfortunately,” she said. “But Republicans are almost making the same mistake now.”

...
The United States appropriated or otherwise made available around $180 billion in aid for Ukraine since the full-scale invasion. But shipments of weapons were stalled by internal debates within the Biden administration over the possibility of Russian escalation — delays that Alik Kasman of Buffalo Grove believes proved debilitating for the military of the nation of his birth.

“President Biden … understands, or seemed to understand, the nature of the war. He committed to helping Ukraine,” said Kasman, an activist for military aid for Ukraine, who was born in Kyiv. “However, we have seen that his material support, actual weapons transfer to Ukraine, were not nearly sufficient.”

Moscow was counting on a quick victory and not ready for prolonged resistance; if Ukraine had immediately received everything Congress allocated, Kasman contends that “the war could have been finished.”

During the 2024 presidential race, Kasman didn’t see any good options for Ukraine on the ballot. He voted for Trump, hoping for a change in the status quo.

“Kamala Harris did not indicate that she would do anything different than President Biden would have … a cautious supply of weapons that would prolong the war but would not lead to any decisive outcome.,” he added.

In February, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” while falsely claiming he started the war. During a contentious White House meeting later that month, Trump berated Zelenskyy and declared himself “in the middle” and not either the side of Ukraine or Russia in the war.
Kasman said he is not happy with Trump. But he doesn’t believe the alternative would have been better.

“As an advocate for Ukraine, it is much easier to deal with Trump because I can go to (Washington, D.C.) and I can contradict his point of view,” he said. “Whereas with Biden, that was a much more difficult task. I had to go and explain why I believe Biden is saying one thing and doing something else.”


...

A few days after the election, J. Marcos Peterson wrote a Chicago Tribune letter to the editor explaining why he — a self-described gay, first-generation Mexican American with family members in the U.S. without legal permission — voted for Trump.

The letter took Democrats to task for failing to build coalitions, botching the economy and mishandling the southern border. The opinion piece also expressed ire at the Biden administration’s fast-tracked work permits and other assistance for recently-arrived migrants.

“Seeing my undocumented family members, who have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, work, pay taxes and buy their own homes with zero benefits, then watching millions of new migrants skip the line with government funded help, only enflamed me and other Latinos like me,” he said in the letter.

As the first hundred days of Trump’s second term come to a close, Peterson said he’s been generally pleased.

“Everything he promised to do, he’s doing,” Peterson said during a phone interview.

...




but-i-only-wanted-the-bad-things-to-happen-to-other-people-v0-2ry1ihkehiwe1.webp
 
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Sara Busse needed to make a hot meal for 40 needy seniors. She had promised a main dish, a starch, a vegetable, a fruit and a dessert.

In the past, she had gotten many of those ingredients for free from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This time, she had dried cranberries, crackers and vegetable soup.

“What am I supposed to do?” she said. “What am I supposed to cook?”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration cut about $1 billion in federal aid to anti-hunger groups, according to the national advocacy group Feeding America.

That put more pressure on charitable organizations that distribute groceries or meals to hold up their corner of the American safety net, dipping into reserves and scrounging for donations to replace the food they had lost.

Ms. Busse’s charity in the shadow of West Virginia’s Capitol illustrates this struggle in miniature. Trinity’s Table serves meals at a senior gathering, a child-care center and a women’s shelter, all to people living in or near poverty. For many of her clients, Ms. Busse said, this may be the heartiest meal of the week — and perhaps the only one of the day.

In the past few months, Ms. Busse had already spent $10,000 — a third of her group’s savings — to keep the meals going, replacing the ingredients the government was no longer providing.

She said she had begun to feel as if she were trapped in some grim reality cooking show, forced to turn a dwindling supply of federal aid into 600 meals a week, for as long she could.

...

The Agriculture Department began helping food banks this way in the 1980s, with a program that served a dual purpose: It provided nutritional items to needy individuals but also propped up prices for U.S. farmers, by buying their goods and then giving them away.

During his first term, President Trump did not cut this aid; he increased it, sharply, to accommodate farm surpluses caused by his trade wars and the hunger that followed the Covid-19 pandemic. Spending on food aid quadrupled, to $3 billion in 2020.

This time, however, Mr. Trump’s administration did the opposite. It canceled about $1 billion in food aid announced last fall by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to Feeding America. Feeding America said that, before those cuts, it had projected that the government would spend $2 billion on aid to food banks this fiscal year.

...


The sudden cutbacks hit hard in Appalachia, where hunger is especially prevalent and government aid plays an outsize role in fighting it.

Food banks in cities typically get 25 percent or less of their food from the Agriculture Department. They have other options: donations from big-box stores and grocery distribution centers, wealthy benefactors and companies.

Not here.

Facing Hunger Foodbank, which supplies groceries to food pantries and charity kitchens in the southern half of West Virginia, relied on the government for about 40 percent of its food.

It had been expecting 16 truckloads from the government for April. Then 11 of those were canceled, said Cyndi Kirkhart, the food bank’s chief executive.



Screenshot 2025-04-28 at 9.36.52 PM.png
 

After more than four decades working in the paper industry, Gaetano “Guy” Spinelli poured his life savings into developing an eco-friendly yet durable paper straw and opened his company, Boss Straw, in Woodstock in 2021.

Then in February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting plastic straws while declaring that paper straws “don’t work.”

“I’ve had them many times. On occasion they break. They explode,” Trump said. “If something’s hot, they don’t last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation.”

The president’s rant incensed Spinelli, who had voted for Trump in November. Business immediately dropped following the executive order.

“He’s put me from a profitable picture to a nonprofitable company,” Spinelli said. “And my product is a strong product. I’ve got a paper straw that lasts two weeks in any drink, hot or cold,” without compromising taste.

Despite the recent hit to his company, the 75-year-old business owner said that if he could go back, he would still cast a ballot for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“Outside of what he did to me, I think he’s doing a pretty good job,” Spinelli said.

...

Nemer, who was born in Lebanon and had been a loyal Democrat, instead voted for Trump, who penned a letter in late October to the Lebanese American community pledging a commitment to peace in Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East. A few days before the election, Trump met with Arab American leaders in Dearborn, Michigan, the nation’s biggest Arab-majority city, where Nemer resides.

But she grew alarmed in February, when Trump proposed the evacuation of millions of Palestinians from Gaza, with plans to turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East.” In March, Trump shared an AI-generated video depicting “Trump Gaza,” featuring him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunbathing together.

The Trump administration has also targeted college campus protesters who demonstrate against Israel and the war, threatening some with deportation. But on Friday, the government reversed course on student visa terminations amid a barrage of legal challenges to the policy.

“Our freedom of expression, freedom of demonstration and just overall liberties are at stake,” she said.

Yet even in hindsight, Nemer doesn’t think she could have voted differently.

“We weren’t getting that empathy from the Democratic Party, unfortunately,” she said. “But Republicans are almost making the same mistake now.”

...
The United States appropriated or otherwise made available around $180 billion in aid for Ukraine since the full-scale invasion. But shipments of weapons were stalled by internal debates within the Biden administration over the possibility of Russian escalation — delays that Alik Kasman of Buffalo Grove believes proved debilitating for the military of the nation of his birth.

“President Biden … understands, or seemed to understand, the nature of the war. He committed to helping Ukraine,” said Kasman, an activist for military aid for Ukraine, who was born in Kyiv. “However, we have seen that his material support, actual weapons transfer to Ukraine, were not nearly sufficient.”

Moscow was counting on a quick victory and not ready for prolonged resistance; if Ukraine had immediately received everything Congress allocated, Kasman contends that “the war could have been finished.”

During the 2024 presidential race, Kasman didn’t see any good options for Ukraine on the ballot. He voted for Trump, hoping for a change in the status quo.

“Kamala Harris did not indicate that she would do anything different than President Biden would have … a cautious supply of weapons that would prolong the war but would not lead to any decisive outcome.,” he added.

In February, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” while falsely claiming he started the war. During a contentious White House meeting later that month, Trump berated Zelenskyy and declared himself “in the middle” and not either the side of Ukraine or Russia in the war.
Kasman said he is not happy with Trump. But he doesn’t believe the alternative would have been better.

“As an advocate for Ukraine, it is much easier to deal with Trump because I can go to (Washington, D.C.) and I can contradict his point of view,” he said. “Whereas with Biden, that was a much more difficult task. I had to go and explain why I believe Biden is saying one thing and doing something else.”


...

A few days after the election, J. Marcos Peterson wrote a Chicago Tribune letter to the editor explaining why he — a self-described gay, first-generation Mexican American with family members in the U.S. without legal permission — voted for Trump.

The letter took Democrats to task for failing to build coalitions, botching the economy and mishandling the southern border. The opinion piece also expressed ire at the Biden administration’s fast-tracked work permits and other assistance for recently-arrived migrants.

“Seeing my undocumented family members, who have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, work, pay taxes and buy their own homes with zero benefits, then watching millions of new migrants skip the line with government funded help, only enflamed me and other Latinos like me,” he said in the letter.

As the first hundred days of Trump’s second term come to a close, Peterson said he’s been generally pleased.

“Everything he promised to do, he’s doing,” Peterson said during a phone interview.

...




but-i-only-wanted-the-bad-things-to-happen-to-other-people-v0-2ry1ihkehiwe1.webp
jesus christ, these people are mind numbingly stupid and stubborn.

spinelli, nemer, kasman and peterson....you can all get bent and i hope you that and your businesses, friends and family continue to suffer dearly the consequences of your dumb fuck decisions.
 
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Ugh...reading these tales of "I'd still vote for him again," are a stark reminder that we are in a terrible place. I don't want to say we're screwed, but has there ever been a time in history when such a large percentage of the population is so misinformed....
its staggering, really.

all 4 of those people are getting absolutely fucked and they're still in complete and total denial. heads all the way up their asses.

the lebanese woman and the ukrainian are bad and mind numbing but the gay first generation mexican american dude with a bunch of illegal immigrant family members.....holy fucking shit. what a colossal idiot. i'm not sure how much more clearly things could've been spelled out for him to make the correct choice for himself and his family and yet here we are.

so much of our current plight comes back around to messaging and the media. the right is really succeeding in fleecing and propagandizing way too people into oblivion.
 
its staggering, really.

all 4 of those people are getting absolutely fucked and they're still in complete and total denial. heads all the way up their asses.

the lebanese woman and the ukrainian are bad and mind numbing but the gay first generation mexican american dude with a bunch of illegal immigrant family members.....holy fucking shit. what a colossal idiot. i'm not sure how much more clearly things could've been spelled out for him to make the correct choice for himself and his family and yet here we are.

so much of our current plight comes back around to messaging and the media. the right is really succeeding in fleecing and propagandizing way too people into oblivion.
As long as these people continue to get their "news" from Tiktok, X and Facebook, nothing is going to change. I don't think Dems have any hopes of regaining a lot of these voters until the messaging vehicles change.
 
As long as these people continue to get their "news" from Tiktok, X and Facebook, nothing is going to change. I don't think Dems have any hopes of regaining a lot of these voters until the messaging vehicles change.
But most of all ... FOX :poop: News. That's the primary conduit for idiocy in our country.
 
its staggering, really.

all 4 of those people are getting absolutely fucked and they're still in complete and total denial. heads all the way up their asses.

the lebanese woman and the ukrainian are bad and mind numbing but the gay first generation mexican american dude with a bunch of illegal immigrant family members.....holy fucking shit. what a colossal idiot. i'm not sure how much more clearly things could've been spelled out for him to make the correct choice for himself and his family and yet here we are.

so much of our current plight comes back around to messaging and the media. the right is really succeeding in fleecing and propagandizing way too people into oblivion.
Or maybe we just have too many idiots, racists, bigots, Christian nationalists and greedy assholes in this country.
 
jesus christ, these people are mind numbingly stupid and stubborn.

spinelli, nemer, kasman and peterson....you can all get bent and i hope you that and your businesses, friends and family continue to suffer dearly the consequences of your dumb fuck decisions.
It’s hard to admit being wrong especially when your choice has put the entire world in a bad place.
 

After more than four decades working in the paper industry, Gaetano “Guy” Spinelli poured his life savings into developing an eco-friendly yet durable paper straw and opened his company, Boss Straw, in Woodstock in 2021.

Then in February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting plastic straws while declaring that paper straws “don’t work.”

“I’ve had them many times. On occasion they break. They explode,” Trump said. “If something’s hot, they don’t last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation.”

The president’s rant incensed Spinelli, who had voted for Trump in November. Business immediately dropped following the executive order.

“He’s put me from a profitable picture to a nonprofitable company,” Spinelli said. “And my product is a strong product. I’ve got a paper straw that lasts two weeks in any drink, hot or cold,” without compromising taste.

Despite the recent hit to his company, the 75-year-old business owner said that if he could go back, he would still cast a ballot for Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“Outside of what he did to me, I think he’s doing a pretty good job,” Spinelli said.

...

Peterson said during a phone interview.

...




but-i-only-wanted-the-bad-things-to-happen-to-other-people-v0-2ry1ihkehiwe1.webp
As with so many, they only see what he did to them and not what he's doing to everyone.
 
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