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As Uncle Joe himself would say, come on, mannnnnnn https://twitter.com/liz_crampton/status/1335985200900272132
Let's do a trip down memory lane of the USDA in the Vilsack era. Here's what I wrote when Obama picked him 12 years ago. https://grist.org/article/more-on-vilsack/
This post was written in 2009, but the lede pretty much sums up food/ag policy in the Vilsack/Obama era. https://grist.org/article/2009-09-24-usda-obama-monsanto-organic/
Throuhgout the era, Vilsack's USDA kept deregulating dodgy herbicide resistant crops, even as evidence of weed resistance mounts. https://grist.org/article/2011-01-27-in-stunning-reversal-usda-chief-vilsack-greenlights-monsantos-al/
Ok, that particular one might have come from on high against Vilsack's wishes. He played the good soldier. https://grist.org/article/2011-01-31-media-reports-white-house-pressure-stomped-on-vilsack-over-gmo-a/
Here, Vislack does a bit of global marketing for the ag-biotech industry. https://grist.org/article/2009-vilsack-biotech-will-solve-our-ag-probl/
Tireless champion of government support for corn ethanol (a horrible idea.) https://grist.org/article/2009-06-30-vilsack-ethanol-gods/
And again. (The cellulosic ethanol discussed here is really corn ethanol). https://grist.org/article/food-2010-10-26-obama-and-cellulosic-ethanol/full/
Champions industrial ag at a big industrial ag confab. https://grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-03-07-usda-chief-flatters-industrial-agriculture-obama-wendell-berry/
Here is a post about an utterly bizarre debate on the rural divide between Vilsack and @ezraklein at the height of the Obama era. https://grist.org/article/2011-03-11-its-the-suburbs-stupid-on-the-ezra-klein-tom-vilsack-dustup/
You know the horrific situation meatpacking workers find themselves in during COVID? The Vilsack USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service did them no favors by relentlessly pushing a scheme to semi-privatize inspection. https://www.motherjones.com/food/2013/04/usda-inspectors-poultry-kill-lines-chicken/
Now, Vilsack ultimately pushed ahead w the scheme—against major protests from food safety and worker advocates—but relented on raising poultry line speeds. But the move left the door cracked for speedups, that Trump's ghoulish USDA chied smashed open. https://www.propublica.org/article/line-speed-waivers-trump-usda-is-letting-factories-with-troubling-safety-records-slaughter-chickens-even-faster
^^^^^^that couldn't have happened, if the Vilsack USDA hadn't pushed through that inspection-privatization scheme. Vilsack's team also promoted a similar scheme for pork—which Trump's guy ultimately made happen. https://www.motherjones.com/food/2015/02/usda-whistleblowers-report-gross-condition-hog-slaughterhouses/
Some of the USDA folk involved in that pushing those rules under Vilsack ultimately cashed in. https://www.motherjones.com/food/2013/12/todays-usdas-meat-safety-chief-tomorrows-agribiz-consultant/
Here's the definitive piece on the Obama ag policy team's cave in on reining in the power meat companies weild over farmers. https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novdec-2012/obamas-game-of-chicken/
Here is a piece on @rosenblawg et al on the Vilsack USDA's not great, way-overrated record on redressing the wrongs done to Black farmers. https://thecounter.org/usda-black-farmers-discrimination-tom-vilsack-reparations-civil-rights/
^from
