There is an emergency here in the US and it goes way beyond lettuce. The lettuce narrative is just a symptom.
The CDC has told Americans to throw out all the lettuce we have and to not buy any.
Nice way to destroy farmers.
Maybe this is the right thing to do. But the situation raises questions and issues.
Trump is an idiot, a moron, a liar and a fool. He has been such a toxic employer that he has run out of A class hirees and is now going with C and D class hirees. There are a number of reasons for this.
First, people with any integrity will refuse to work for this POSPOTUS. They know that having a stint working under Trump in their resume or CV will look terrible. They know that Trump has zero integrity and that working for him suggests that they agreed to be loyal to him, even if it means they would engage in unethical behavior.Second, with the vacuum formed by people of integrity refusing to work for Trump, Trump is left with the bottom of the barrel to choose from.
Third, Trump really does make loyalty a priority in hiring, so he chooses incompetent, sniveling lackeys over people who can do a much better job.
So, we have a situation where it is reasonable to not trust the competency of the leadership of the agencies Americans rely on to keep them safe and protect them. Trump sent 5000 troops to the Mexican border to protect us from what he characterized as a dangerous "migrant caravan. There was no danger. This was a blatant obvious lie aimed at drumming up fear, a grotesque exploitation of our soldiers. But worse, the military leadership Trump has installed betrayed those soldiers and America by putting up with this charade.
We've seen the heads of multiple agencies challenged for their integrity-- Scott Pruitt with the EPA and Ryan Zinke with Interior Dept. and Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education. There is every reason to believe that they are merely the tip of the Trump Idiocracy iceberg-- that there are many more C and D... and F grade appointees and hires appointed by Trump and his ethically and competency impaired hires.
Another factor involves regulations. Trump has, to the accolades of the Republican party, launched a massive assault on regulations-- including regulations to protect we-the-people. There could be regulations requiring electronic tracking of sources of food. Walmart already does it voluntarily. I'm sure there are massive farming lobby groups that have opposed this, because it costs money. Now, their farmers are shut out of the marketplace. They are getting zero money. How's that working for them? Bottom line, it is reasonable to assume that the Trump appointed heads of the agencies involved have slacked on regulations, and that could be a factor in this situation.
That brings us back to the lettuce.
We know that some lettuce has caused e-coli related illness in the US and Canada. And I am going to throw out the package of three organic Romaine lettuce heads that I have in my crisper-- well, at least the two that are left, since I already ate one. But I don't trust the CDC. I don't trust the warning. I'll do it anyway, to be safe. But I'll bet that there will be people who don't trust the CDC who get sick because they ignore the warning.
And then there are those lettuce farmers, and distributors and groceries who are going to lose money.
Was it really necessary to put out a warning to totally stop eating all Romaine lettuce? This is a question that carries more weight than perhaps any time in recent history-- because the government is so untrusted.
That works very nicely for conservatives who hate government.
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