Apr 29, 2025
Overheard
I don't mean to be too obvious with this, but it needs to be repeated often.
Authoritarian governments are absolutely dependent on maintaining a constant fear in the minds of the citizenry. "Enemies without and enemies within."
As crisis looms, people will generally lean towards a protector - somebody they see as a strong leader to tell them what to do "for the good of the state", which is supposed to mean for all Americans because we're supposed to be the ones in charge of this joint.
But Trump is operating from the standard Daddy State playbook. Every time we turn around he's jumping up and down screaming about the Crisis du Jour.
- The southern border
- Immigrants eating the pets
- Deep State
- Trade imbalance
- Rampant crime
- George Soros
- Fentanyl
- People with brown skin
- and and and
To be sure, we have real problems
- Climate change
- Unfair labor practices
- Healthcare
- Childcare
- General affordability
- Deficit and debt
- and and and
Congress’s hesitancy to do its job would have puzzled the Constitution’s framers.
On the afternoon of Sept. 12, 2001 — for one of the few University of Virginia classes meeting that week after 9/11 — I set aside my prepared remarks and instead offered those rattled undergraduates a prediction about their futures.
Our messy, sometimes dysfunctional, politics of checks and balances would for a time disappear, I suggested, with Americans of all creeds united to follow their president’s lead. Yes, even in support of this unlikely national commander: an amiable but ineloquent Texan who rose to the presidency even though his opponent had gotten more votes.
I did not paint this picture to make my students feel better — although I anticipated it would. Rather, I was explaining to them what history showed was about to happen. At least until the president’s missteps in Iraq intruded years later, George W. Bush enjoyed extraordinary latitude to lead the nation against the threat of global terrorism, both at home and abroad. Republican and Democratic members of Congress joined hands on the steps of the Capitol to sing “God Bless America.” Troops became Bush’s to deploy unilaterally. Intrusive intelligence was his to gather. The economy was his to repair and resurrect. He was, in short, in broad command of our political system.
Bush’s ascension was predictable because it followed a durable pattern in America’s past: During normal times, our government by design and political habit is divided, and the zigzag path it follows emerges from the muddled process of compromise and consensus. Inefficiency is not a constitutional bug but a feature.
In times of genuine crisis, however, when strong action is needed without delay, Americans typically turn to a single, vigorous national leader. The eminent, mid-20th century political scientist Clinton Rossiter called these departures from the norm “constitutional dictatorships.”
Today we are experiencing another kind of vigorous national leadership from the White House. But the current presidency is unlike anything we have seen before. This is not an institution grown muscular from the natural push and pull of American politics.
It is a presidency on steroids.
There is no crisis clause in the U.S. Constitution. Rather, when presidents have proclaimed emergencies — or perhaps more accurately, when they have recognized them — in most cases, Americans have simply behaved differently. They rally to the leader. And these episodes of emergency leadership have produced astounding displays of executive power.
This pattern is older than the Constitution itself. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress was the national government. But the perils of English marauders on American soil caused Congress to follow Gen. George Washington, who raised and equipped troops, controlled food supplies, meted out justice, regulated public health, and took any steps he deemed necessary to fight off the threat. Congress accepted all this while actively rebelling against kingly rule.
At the beginning of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was the government of the United States for 11 weeks, not even calling Congress back into session until he could get the Union war effort begun in a direction he single-handedly established. He blockaded Southern ports, a belligerent act widely understood to be the sole province of Congress. He spent tax dollars that had not been appropriated to raise, provision and deploy troops — all without specific legislative authorization. Later in the war he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which by the conventions of the day amounted to a monumental taking of private property.
Lincoln’s powers were later dwarfed by Woodrow Wilson in World War I, who could, among other things, direct Americans as to how much sugar they could add to their morning coffee. Wilson was granted by a compliant Congress the power to distribute fuels and other public necessaries; to fix wheat prices and coal prices; to take over factories and mines; and to regulate the production of intoxicants. Enhanced legal constraints were created by Congress to control treasonous utterances and punish disloyalty, which the president executed, energetically, through the federal courts.
And during the Great Depression, and then the Second World War, Franklin D. Roosevelt ran a command economy. For a time, he shut down the nation’s banks. He directed human and natural resources to where he judged they were most needed. He controlled prices. And he supervised the growth of an unprecedented defense and national security state, including surveillance of public and private communications. The National Archives reports of Roosevelt’s Office of Censorship, “At its peak, in September 1942, more than 10,000 civil service employees opened and examined nearly one million pieces of incoming and outgoing overseas mail each week.”
FDR interned Japanese Americans and sanctioned the development of the most lethal weapon used in history, without any substantial oversight or checks by Congress or the judiciary. He didn’t even tell his vice president about the bomb, although Harry S. Truman was the one who ultimately had to decide whether to use it. These were powers unknown to even the most ambitious monarch. And during the long run of the Cold War, some of these enhanced authorities reappeared, especially in instances where the nation’s security was vulnerable.
All this muscular presidentialism is an undeniable part of American political history — and a reminder that aggressive use of executive powers in Donald Trump’s second term is not entirely new.
And yet: For all of Trump’s resort to emergency powers, he has seldom stuck to the accepted playbook of crisis government.
Those who have studied these episodes in American history have noted one indispensable principle of proper crisis government: They are not free-for-alls for those in charge.
Even during periods of greatest emergency, constitutional dictators in America have been restrained by certain boundaries of behavior, which must be acknowledged and respected. “Although the normal rules do not apply,” observed South Carolina law professor William J. Quirk of these unusual times, “there are other rules that do and that make the difference between a constitutional dictatorship and a dictatorship.”
The first and most basic relates to the definition of the word “crisis” itself — and whether that term is even appropriate for our times (quite apart from any calamity this president may have self-generated now that he is back in the White House). Was the country Trump inherited in January besieged by an emergency on the same scale as the Civil War or the Great Depression? That’s plainly not so.
There are among the president’s supporters those who will assert that we are at war, perhaps on cultural grounds. But a heavy burden of proof is on them to make that case. Given the stakes, the proper standard for persuasion is Thomas Jefferson’s, announced in the Declaration of Independence: a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind.” Or, for those who prefer Lincoln, reasoning “without guile and with pure purpose.”
Second, crisis government in the democratic tradition is to be deployed as a last resort. Any problems, however vexing, that can be addressed through normal constitutional means should be handled that way and that way alone.
A routine failure of the political order to address certain public issues does not gift the president dictatorial powers. Otherwise, partisans are too tempted to take refuge in emergency claims merely to avoid the heavy lifting called for under our system. Constitutional dictatorships are to be expressly reserved for that special class of troubles that threaten the survival of the republic — say, 9/11 or the attack on Pearl Harbor — and that are resistant to resolution through normal politics.
It follows that the exercise of emergency powers should be confined to the agreed upon threat at hand. A constitutional dictator must be parsimonious, focusing his or her enhanced powers on the wolf at the door. There is no broad license to diverge unchecked into political priorities unrelated to the crisis. The objective is to get out from under the state of emergency as quickly as possible, without distraction.
Conversely, Trump’s exercise of his authorities has been comparatively unfocused. He imposes massive tariffs across industries and nations, compels states to verify citizenship at polling places, dismantles broad swaths of executive agencies created under law, levies punitive fines or sanctions on universities and law firms, offers pardons of Jan. 6 offenders, and deports more than 100,000 foreign nationals. There is no common public purpose visible in this collection of executive actions.
Which brings us to a key point: The basic premise of crisis government is national unity. The community as a whole — Republican and Democrat alike — is under threat from a mutual peril, and thus has consented — against all the normal rules of political behavior — to entrust a single person with extraordinary authorities to defeat a common enemy. The misuse of such authorities by the president to benefit his or her political friends or ideological allies is inimical to the spirit of emergency government.
Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson applaud as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress last month. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It should go without saying that crisis governments are to last only as long as a well-defined emergency, and once it is ended, those responsible for it should be held to account for their actions. Rossiter acidly observed that “officials who abuse authority in a constitutional dictatorship — in other words, men who were charged with defending democracy but instead profaned it — should be ferreted out and severely punished.” That kind of accountability rules out the deployment of one of Trump’s favorite tools of executive power: the pardon. In a constitutional dictatorship, there is no lasting protection for those who misuse the great trust invested in them, however great the emergency may be.
There is one final difference between what the nation has commonly experienced during times of national emergency and the Washington, D.C., of today: the effective disappearance of Congress.
It is true that Congress has always played a secondary role in past instances of constitutional dictatorship. But it has never vanished as a governing partner. Once Congress reconvened in July 1861, Lincoln formally invited its review and authorization for his solo acts as a wartime president. He subsequently had to contend for years with a nettlesome legislative Committee on the Conduct of the War, and he had to lobby Congress to constitutionalize emancipation by passing the 13th Amendment.
Wilson became America’s closest approximation to a prime minister, openly courting congressional authorization for virtually everything he did. His Congress was a full governing partner.
FDR worked both around and through Capitol Hill, but Congress flexed its muscles enough for the president to know that lawmakers were not to be ignored — generating enough political opposition to spark a stunning 635 presidential vetoes, one-quarter of all ever issued. This baseline congressional vigilance remained true throughout the Cold War and George W. Bush’s presidency.
In the main, of course, members of Congress did defer to presidential direction during these crises. Yet they did so all the while mindful of their obligations to protect their institution and its prerogatives. Thus they actively patrolled those outer boundaries of proper presidential behavior: assuring that the scope of the president’s authorities were being exercised in the public interest, not for partisan or personal ends; reining in presidents who, as Rossiter argued, would find the constraints of the judiciary too easy to shrug off; and policing the essential from the nonessential departures from regular constitutional practice. These were all core to the proper functioning of Congress, even during system-threatening crisis.
We are just now approaching the end of Trump’s first 100 days — so there remains ample time for the scales of government to rebalance. But this is unlikely to happen without the insistence of Congress — which Trump narrowly but effectively controls for the moment. The hesitancy by lawmakers to play their assigned role would have puzzled the Constitution’s framers, who gave pride of place to the legislative branch in the first article of the Constitution.
Thus the only certain check on a president who claims that “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want,” is a Congress firm enough to assert in reply, “Yes, but we have Article 1.”
Apr 28, 2025
Nail-Biting
No deals yet. Anyone surprised by this?
The big time "gamblers" are working hard to hedge their bets so they get by at least with no real damage, while everybody else can only sit and wait for whatever shoes - or swords of Damocles - are sure to drop.
Today's Brian
... is actually Today's Marc Elias.
(paraphrasing)
"I am more powerful than Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos, or Mark Zuckerberg because I can stand up right here, right now, and say, "Fuck you Donald Trump. Fuck you. And they can't do that."
Apr 27, 2025
Cuts
The suicide rate among American farmers is still 2 to 3.5 times higher than the general population.
So what happens? DOGE cuts funding for the suicide hotline.
What the fuck are we doing?
Colorado farmers just lost their most important mental health lifeline
The $10 million program offered services to farmers and ranchers, whose suicide rate is at least two times higher than the average population
Colorado farmers and ranchers lost access to a critical lifeline when the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week froze funding for a program that supports the mental health of a population whose suicide rate is at least two times higher than the average population, and whose profession is marked by uncertainties in the weather, market and cost of operating.
LeeAnne Sanders, spokesperson for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said annual funding for the union’s AgWell program in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico is just $100,000 to $160,000, but that funding helps counter the stresses of farming and ranching, which contribute to mental health challenges and the statistically higher rates of suicide.
AgWell funding comes from a $10 million federal grant to the USDA’s Farm and Ranch Assistance Network funneled in part through the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Partnership. The Western regional partnership recognizes that high levels of stress are present in agricultural communities from causes like unstable finances, carrying the pressure of multigenerational farm lineage, injury, acute illness, adverse weather and climate change. The partnership helps producers in 13 Western states from Washington to New Mexico as well as Alaska, Hawaii and four U.S. territories.
And neither Chad Franke, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, nor AgWell founder Dan Waldvogle can understand why a program costing so little would be slashed when it helps people do the critical work of providing food for America and the world as their challenges loom larger all the time.
“There is a recognition that mental health in general is an area of concern in the United States, but within the ag community, the stress is unique and pervasive,” Franke said. “Farmers and ranchers really don’t control their own destiny. When it comes to business, it rains too much. It doesn’t rain enough. It hails. The wind blows. It snows too soon or it doesn’t snow enough. There’s just so little that farmers and ranchers really, truly have control over that it’s a unique situation as far as stress goes.”
Waldvogle conceptualized AgWell in 2018 after four ranchers living near the ranch he was working on in southern Colorado all died by suicide within a matter of months.
“One of those individuals moved cows for us up in the high country in the summers,” he said. “Another one, I was actually their mentor. He was a beginning farmer. And then another was an old timer that was, you know, probably a sixth-generation rancher just upriver from us. So it definitely heightened my awareness of the issue at that time. And at the same time, I was going through some issues and joined the Farmers Union as a staff member. I had the opportunity to kind of create the program, and then federal funding for it was enabled through the 2018 Farm Bill.”
The “business card” that can change everything
AgWell has helped producers in the Eastern Plains town of Peetz, says Danny Wood, a 61-year-old dryland farmer who grows corn, wheat and grain and who is the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union director for his region. Wood spoke to The Colorado Sun from his fields on Tuesday.
“I’m out here in my fields right now, and it is so dry, we are in such a drought, it’s stressful,” he said. “The economy is stressful. It was hard for everybody to get their operating lines (of credit) renewed this year because we lost money last year. And we’ve lost money for the last three years. So there’s the added stress of that now.”
Franke says AgWell was created out of the understanding that farmers and ranchers “tend to be solitary, do-it-yourself kind of people, who will do what they need to do to get things done,” but “when it comes to mental health, you can’t do that. You can’t do it alone.”
AgWell, he said, “has really honed in on not so much talking about strictly mental health and mental wellness, but about the need for community, the need to watch out for our friends and our neighbors, and how to do that.”
To that end they offer summits “where we invite just the general public to come in. This is not just for our members,” he said.
“And we do things like Pizza4Producers, where we will pay for the pizzas and invite producers to come out, just talk, and build that connection among neighbors, while sharing some of that information of, this is what you need to look out for in yourself and your neighbors. These are some of the resources. We’ve got little business card-sized handouts that have a list of those crisis management resources.”
Wood says he has used those cards three times in the past six months to help producers in his community.
“They have contact numbers on them of places you can call if you need to talk to someone,” he said, adding they can get six free sessions of anonymous, professional counseling.
He gave the first card to a high school junior who approached him in distress.
“Now, can you imagine approaching a gentleman who’s 61 years old” that you know but aren’t close to “and telling him ‘I need some help?’ I mean, that had to be a milestone killer for him to do it.” But Wood was able to pull out the card and direct the young man to help.
The second person was a single mother caring for her child and her ailing parents, who reached out to Wood’s wife implying she wanted to die by suicide. He was able to give her a card, too, connecting her to a therapist.
And the third was an older man having a hard time with his farm who couldn’t get an operating line of credit. Wood gave him a card, and the man said, “Well, do you want me to let you know what happens?”
“No, no I don’t,” Wood answered. “That’s not what this program is about. This is a resource to give them the contact, and it’s completely anonymous. They talk to this therapist or the specialist. And I don’t want to know what happened. That’s not my business.”
“This is the most amazing program, and I can’t believe the funding got cut for it,” he added.
“They wouldn’t cut it if they had any idea how important this is. Because there’s folks just like me. I’m out here spraying all day. And it’s dry, it’s bleak, it looks horrible. I mean, it’s depressing. And this was a horrible time to have a cut, I guarantee you.”
Helping a new generation adapt to the challenges of agriculture
Leah Ricci, interim executive director for the Quivira Coalition, which supports new ranchers and farmers interested in regenerative agriculture in several Western states, says AgWell funding has helped participants in the coalition’s New Agrarian program adapt to the isolation associated with working in agriculture.
“One of the things we have heard directly from our participants and from alumni is that isolation is one of the number one challenges they face when trying to enter careers in agriculture and particularly in the West, when people are often like, no joke, two hours from the nearest grocery store,” she said.
“They may be working and living somewhere where literally the only people they see are their boss and their boss’s family members. So being able to access opportunities that support their social well-being, help them feel connected to other beginning ranchers and farmers and just to provide a regular space for them to gather is critical to helping them navigate the type of isolation they have to deal with.”
With AgWell funding, Quivira has been able to create a “weekly wind-down” Zoom call that’s modeled after a call AgWell first offered to ranchers and farmers in Colorado.
“It’s essentially a weekly space that anyone can show up to, and if someone has something hard to talk about, they know the space is there,” Ricci said. “But more importantly, it’s a consistent space that anyone can show up to if they want to just connect with others, and they know that there’s going to be a staff person there who’s welcoming and supportive, and other farmers and ranchers who they can connect with.”
Franke said the AgWell program is so important not only to producers but to rural communities that the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union is committed to shuffling its budget, finding new partners and seeking out new grant opportunities to keep it going.
Supporting producers through mental health programs is crucial, he said, because of the service they provide, the food they grow, for America and the world.
“But when you look at the numbers, in the last five years, we’ve lost around 400,000 family farm and ranch operations in this country. That is rural America,” he said. “You know, the eastern Colorado towns, the mountain towns, the reason they exist and continue to exist is because of agriculture. If we lose family farms and ranches, the small towns across this country will continue to die off and just shrink in population and no longer have a reason to exist.”
Franke said the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union met with the USDA Thursday and USDA reiterated that all Farm and Ranch Assistance Network grants have been suspended.
Four Democratic state lawmakers introduced House Bill 1321 earlier this month that would send $4 million from the state’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act cash fund to the governor’s office to support the state’s legal defense against Trump administration actions slashing federal dollars meant for Colorado.
“The additional funding will ensure that Colorado is ready to respond swiftly and effectively to future federal actions that threaten nonnegotiable services like health care, early childhood education and public safety,” said state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat. He’s one of the lead sponsors of the measure.
The bill passed the state House and on Thursday its first vote in the Senate. Republicans are fighting the measure but do not have the votes to block it.
The $10 million program offered services to farmers and ranchers, whose suicide rate is at least two times higher than the average population
Colorado farmers and ranchers lost access to a critical lifeline when the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week froze funding for a program that supports the mental health of a population whose suicide rate is at least two times higher than the average population, and whose profession is marked by uncertainties in the weather, market and cost of operating.
LeeAnne Sanders, spokesperson for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, said annual funding for the union’s AgWell program in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico is just $100,000 to $160,000, but that funding helps counter the stresses of farming and ranching, which contribute to mental health challenges and the statistically higher rates of suicide.
AgWell funding comes from a $10 million federal grant to the USDA’s Farm and Ranch Assistance Network funneled in part through the Western Regional Agricultural Stress Assistance Partnership. The Western regional partnership recognizes that high levels of stress are present in agricultural communities from causes like unstable finances, carrying the pressure of multigenerational farm lineage, injury, acute illness, adverse weather and climate change. The partnership helps producers in 13 Western states from Washington to New Mexico as well as Alaska, Hawaii and four U.S. territories.
And neither Chad Franke, president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, nor AgWell founder Dan Waldvogle can understand why a program costing so little would be slashed when it helps people do the critical work of providing food for America and the world as their challenges loom larger all the time.
“There is a recognition that mental health in general is an area of concern in the United States, but within the ag community, the stress is unique and pervasive,” Franke said. “Farmers and ranchers really don’t control their own destiny. When it comes to business, it rains too much. It doesn’t rain enough. It hails. The wind blows. It snows too soon or it doesn’t snow enough. There’s just so little that farmers and ranchers really, truly have control over that it’s a unique situation as far as stress goes.”
Waldvogle conceptualized AgWell in 2018 after four ranchers living near the ranch he was working on in southern Colorado all died by suicide within a matter of months.
“One of those individuals moved cows for us up in the high country in the summers,” he said. “Another one, I was actually their mentor. He was a beginning farmer. And then another was an old timer that was, you know, probably a sixth-generation rancher just upriver from us. So it definitely heightened my awareness of the issue at that time. And at the same time, I was going through some issues and joined the Farmers Union as a staff member. I had the opportunity to kind of create the program, and then federal funding for it was enabled through the 2018 Farm Bill.”
The “business card” that can change everything
AgWell has helped producers in the Eastern Plains town of Peetz, says Danny Wood, a 61-year-old dryland farmer who grows corn, wheat and grain and who is the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union director for his region. Wood spoke to The Colorado Sun from his fields on Tuesday.
“I’m out here in my fields right now, and it is so dry, we are in such a drought, it’s stressful,” he said. “The economy is stressful. It was hard for everybody to get their operating lines (of credit) renewed this year because we lost money last year. And we’ve lost money for the last three years. So there’s the added stress of that now.”
Franke says AgWell was created out of the understanding that farmers and ranchers “tend to be solitary, do-it-yourself kind of people, who will do what they need to do to get things done,” but “when it comes to mental health, you can’t do that. You can’t do it alone.”
AgWell, he said, “has really honed in on not so much talking about strictly mental health and mental wellness, but about the need for community, the need to watch out for our friends and our neighbors, and how to do that.”
To that end they offer summits “where we invite just the general public to come in. This is not just for our members,” he said.
“And we do things like Pizza4Producers, where we will pay for the pizzas and invite producers to come out, just talk, and build that connection among neighbors, while sharing some of that information of, this is what you need to look out for in yourself and your neighbors. These are some of the resources. We’ve got little business card-sized handouts that have a list of those crisis management resources.”
Wood says he has used those cards three times in the past six months to help producers in his community.
“They have contact numbers on them of places you can call if you need to talk to someone,” he said, adding they can get six free sessions of anonymous, professional counseling.
He gave the first card to a high school junior who approached him in distress.
“Now, can you imagine approaching a gentleman who’s 61 years old” that you know but aren’t close to “and telling him ‘I need some help?’ I mean, that had to be a milestone killer for him to do it.” But Wood was able to pull out the card and direct the young man to help.
The second person was a single mother caring for her child and her ailing parents, who reached out to Wood’s wife implying she wanted to die by suicide. He was able to give her a card, too, connecting her to a therapist.
And the third was an older man having a hard time with his farm who couldn’t get an operating line of credit. Wood gave him a card, and the man said, “Well, do you want me to let you know what happens?”
“No, no I don’t,” Wood answered. “That’s not what this program is about. This is a resource to give them the contact, and it’s completely anonymous. They talk to this therapist or the specialist. And I don’t want to know what happened. That’s not my business.”
“This is the most amazing program, and I can’t believe the funding got cut for it,” he added.
“They wouldn’t cut it if they had any idea how important this is. Because there’s folks just like me. I’m out here spraying all day. And it’s dry, it’s bleak, it looks horrible. I mean, it’s depressing. And this was a horrible time to have a cut, I guarantee you.”
Helping a new generation adapt to the challenges of agriculture
Leah Ricci, interim executive director for the Quivira Coalition, which supports new ranchers and farmers interested in regenerative agriculture in several Western states, says AgWell funding has helped participants in the coalition’s New Agrarian program adapt to the isolation associated with working in agriculture.
“One of the things we have heard directly from our participants and from alumni is that isolation is one of the number one challenges they face when trying to enter careers in agriculture and particularly in the West, when people are often like, no joke, two hours from the nearest grocery store,” she said.
“They may be working and living somewhere where literally the only people they see are their boss and their boss’s family members. So being able to access opportunities that support their social well-being, help them feel connected to other beginning ranchers and farmers and just to provide a regular space for them to gather is critical to helping them navigate the type of isolation they have to deal with.”
With AgWell funding, Quivira has been able to create a “weekly wind-down” Zoom call that’s modeled after a call AgWell first offered to ranchers and farmers in Colorado.
“It’s essentially a weekly space that anyone can show up to, and if someone has something hard to talk about, they know the space is there,” Ricci said. “But more importantly, it’s a consistent space that anyone can show up to if they want to just connect with others, and they know that there’s going to be a staff person there who’s welcoming and supportive, and other farmers and ranchers who they can connect with.”
“Those meetings are based on a recommendation that the number one protective factor against mental illness and suicide is having a supportive social network,” she added. “Particularly in these rural communities, when there aren’t very many third spaces, anything we can do to provide that social network is a protective layer.”
Finding other funding is crucial
Finding other funding is crucial
Franke said the AgWell program is so important not only to producers but to rural communities that the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union is committed to shuffling its budget, finding new partners and seeking out new grant opportunities to keep it going.
Supporting producers through mental health programs is crucial, he said, because of the service they provide, the food they grow, for America and the world.
“But when you look at the numbers, in the last five years, we’ve lost around 400,000 family farm and ranch operations in this country. That is rural America,” he said. “You know, the eastern Colorado towns, the mountain towns, the reason they exist and continue to exist is because of agriculture. If we lose family farms and ranches, the small towns across this country will continue to die off and just shrink in population and no longer have a reason to exist.”
Franke said the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union met with the USDA Thursday and USDA reiterated that all Farm and Ranch Assistance Network grants have been suspended.
Four Democratic state lawmakers introduced House Bill 1321 earlier this month that would send $4 million from the state’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act cash fund to the governor’s office to support the state’s legal defense against Trump administration actions slashing federal dollars meant for Colorado.
“The additional funding will ensure that Colorado is ready to respond swiftly and effectively to future federal actions that threaten nonnegotiable services like health care, early childhood education and public safety,” said state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat. He’s one of the lead sponsors of the measure.
The bill passed the state House and on Thursday its first vote in the Senate. Republicans are fighting the measure but do not have the votes to block it.
20 Points Down
When asking the generic "US adults", Trump is 20 points underwater on the question of "Focused on the right priorities".
Only about half of Republicans say Trump has focused on the right priorities, AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans do not agree with President Trump’s aggressive efforts to quickly enact his agenda, a new poll finds, and even Republicans are not overwhelmingly convinced that his attention has been in the right place.
Americans are nearly twice as likely to say Trump has been mostly focusing on the wrong priorities as to say he has been focusing on the right ones, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Further, about 4 in 10 Americans say Trump has been a “terrible” president in his second term, and about 1 in 10 say he has been “poor.” In contrast, about 3 in 10 say he has been “great or ”good,” while just under 2 in 10 say he has been “average.”
Most haven’t been shocked by the drama of Trump’s first 100 days. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults say the first few months of Trump’s second term have been mostly what they expected, and only about 3 in 10 say the Republican president’s actions have been mostly unexpected.
But that does not mean they are pleased with how those opening months have gone.
In fact, Democrats seem even unhappier with the reality of the second Trump term than before he was sworn in on Jan. 20. About three-quarters of Democrats say Trump is focused on the wrong topics and about 7 in 10 think he has been a “terrible” president so far. That is an increase from January, when about 6 in 10 anticipated that he would be “terrible.”
Rahsaan Henderson, a Democrat from California, said “it has been one of the longest 100 days I’ve ever had to sit through.”
“I think the next four years will be a test of seeing who can resist the most and continue defying whatever he’s trying to do, since he defies everything, including the Supreme Court,” said Henderson, 40.
Republicans are largely standing behind the president, but are ambivalent about what he has chosen to emphasize. About 7 in 10 say he has been at least a “good” president. But only about half say he has mostly had the right priorities so far, while about one-quarter say it has been about an even mix and about 1 in 10 said Trump has mostly had the wrong priorities.
“He’s really doing the stuff that he said he was going to do,” said Tanner Bergstrom, 29, a Republican from Minnesota. He is “not making a bunch of promises and getting into office and nothing happens. ... I really like that. Even if it’s some stuff I don’t agree with, it’s still doing what he said he was going to do.”
Those who were surprised by Trump’s first few months seem to have had a rude awakening. The people who say Trump’s actions were not what they expected — who are mostly Democrats and independents — are more likely to say Trump has had mostly the wrong priorities and that he has been a poor or terrible president, compared with the people who mostly expected his actions.
About 4 in 10 in the survey approve of how Trump is handling the presidency overall. The issue of immigration is a relative strength. According to the poll, 46% of U.S. adults approve of his handling of the issue, which is slightly higher than his overall approval. But there are also indications that foreign policy, trade negotiationsand the economy could prove problematic as he aims to prove his approach will benefit the country.
Trump’s approval on those issues is much lower than it is on immigration. Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of how he is handling each. Republicans are less likely to approve of Trump’s approach to trade and the economy than immigration.
There are additional signals that some Trump supporters may not be thrilled with his performance so far. The share of Republicans who say he has been at least a “good” president has fallen about 10 percentage points since January. They also have grown a bit more likely to say Trump will be either “poor” or “terrible,” although only 16% describe his first few months that way.
Republican Stephanie Melnyk, 45, from Tennessee, is supportive of Trump’s handling of the presidency more broadly but said she did not approve of his handling of foreign affairs, particularly on the war in Ukraine. Melnyk’s family emigrated from Ukraine and she said Trump is “trying for a quick fix that’s not going to last” and that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not to be trusted.”
Melnyk, who voted for Trump largely for his positions on immigration, said she wished the president would stay on script.
“He sounds like he can be very condescending, and it sounds like my way or the highway,” Melnyk said. “It’s like, dude. You’re not 12.”
It’s common, though, for a president’s standing to be at its best before taking office and beginning the work of governing. And Trump continues to hold high approval from Republicans.
About 4 in 10 Americans have a favorable opinion of Trump, roughly in line with his approval number. Among Republicans, the figure is about double: About 8 in 10 Republicans have a positive view of the president, and about the same share approves of how he is handling the presidency. About one-third of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Vice President JD Vance, including about 7 in 10 Republicans.
Those Republicans interviewed were particularly fond of efforts to scale back the size of the federal government led by billionaire outside adviser Elon Musk and Trump’s cost-cutting initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.
“Overall, I would have to say that I’m happy with the Trump presidency,” said Matthew Spencer, 30, a Republican from Texas. “I think that the Department of Government Efficiency has made great strides in reducing our spending, and I also agree with putting America first. I agree with the policies he’s put in as far as border protection and America standing for itself again as far as the tariffs.”
“We’re only three months in, but so far, so good,” said Carlos Guevara, 46, who lives in Florida. Guevara, a Republican, said DOGE has been a “smash hit” and on tariffs, and while there may be short-term pain, “if that does encourage businesses to start manufacturing here ... then that’ll wash out over time.”
Democrats have a much bleaker outlook on the economy than they held before Trump took office. The poll also found that the vast majority of Democrats think he has “gone too far” on deportations and tariffs.
Gabriel Antonucci, 26, a Democrat who recently moved to South Carolina, said Trump’s second term is “just a lot more ridiculous” than he had anticipated.
“It really seems like he is doing everything he can to make the wrong decisions,” Antonucci said. “Things are probably going to be worse in four years than they are right now.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,260 adults was conducted April 17-21, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans do not agree with President Trump’s aggressive efforts to quickly enact his agenda, a new poll finds, and even Republicans are not overwhelmingly convinced that his attention has been in the right place.
Americans are nearly twice as likely to say Trump has been mostly focusing on the wrong priorities as to say he has been focusing on the right ones, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Further, about 4 in 10 Americans say Trump has been a “terrible” president in his second term, and about 1 in 10 say he has been “poor.” In contrast, about 3 in 10 say he has been “great or ”good,” while just under 2 in 10 say he has been “average.”
Most haven’t been shocked by the drama of Trump’s first 100 days. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults say the first few months of Trump’s second term have been mostly what they expected, and only about 3 in 10 say the Republican president’s actions have been mostly unexpected.
But that does not mean they are pleased with how those opening months have gone.
In fact, Democrats seem even unhappier with the reality of the second Trump term than before he was sworn in on Jan. 20. About three-quarters of Democrats say Trump is focused on the wrong topics and about 7 in 10 think he has been a “terrible” president so far. That is an increase from January, when about 6 in 10 anticipated that he would be “terrible.”
Rahsaan Henderson, a Democrat from California, said “it has been one of the longest 100 days I’ve ever had to sit through.”
“I think the next four years will be a test of seeing who can resist the most and continue defying whatever he’s trying to do, since he defies everything, including the Supreme Court,” said Henderson, 40.
Republicans are largely standing behind the president, but are ambivalent about what he has chosen to emphasize. About 7 in 10 say he has been at least a “good” president. But only about half say he has mostly had the right priorities so far, while about one-quarter say it has been about an even mix and about 1 in 10 said Trump has mostly had the wrong priorities.
“He’s really doing the stuff that he said he was going to do,” said Tanner Bergstrom, 29, a Republican from Minnesota. He is “not making a bunch of promises and getting into office and nothing happens. ... I really like that. Even if it’s some stuff I don’t agree with, it’s still doing what he said he was going to do.”
Those who were surprised by Trump’s first few months seem to have had a rude awakening. The people who say Trump’s actions were not what they expected — who are mostly Democrats and independents — are more likely to say Trump has had mostly the wrong priorities and that he has been a poor or terrible president, compared with the people who mostly expected his actions.
About 4 in 10 in the survey approve of how Trump is handling the presidency overall. The issue of immigration is a relative strength. According to the poll, 46% of U.S. adults approve of his handling of the issue, which is slightly higher than his overall approval. But there are also indications that foreign policy, trade negotiationsand the economy could prove problematic as he aims to prove his approach will benefit the country.
Trump’s approval on those issues is much lower than it is on immigration. Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of how he is handling each. Republicans are less likely to approve of Trump’s approach to trade and the economy than immigration.
There are additional signals that some Trump supporters may not be thrilled with his performance so far. The share of Republicans who say he has been at least a “good” president has fallen about 10 percentage points since January. They also have grown a bit more likely to say Trump will be either “poor” or “terrible,” although only 16% describe his first few months that way.
Republican Stephanie Melnyk, 45, from Tennessee, is supportive of Trump’s handling of the presidency more broadly but said she did not approve of his handling of foreign affairs, particularly on the war in Ukraine. Melnyk’s family emigrated from Ukraine and she said Trump is “trying for a quick fix that’s not going to last” and that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not to be trusted.”
Melnyk, who voted for Trump largely for his positions on immigration, said she wished the president would stay on script.
“He sounds like he can be very condescending, and it sounds like my way or the highway,” Melnyk said. “It’s like, dude. You’re not 12.”
It’s common, though, for a president’s standing to be at its best before taking office and beginning the work of governing. And Trump continues to hold high approval from Republicans.
About 4 in 10 Americans have a favorable opinion of Trump, roughly in line with his approval number. Among Republicans, the figure is about double: About 8 in 10 Republicans have a positive view of the president, and about the same share approves of how he is handling the presidency. About one-third of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Vice President JD Vance, including about 7 in 10 Republicans.
Those Republicans interviewed were particularly fond of efforts to scale back the size of the federal government led by billionaire outside adviser Elon Musk and Trump’s cost-cutting initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.
“Overall, I would have to say that I’m happy with the Trump presidency,” said Matthew Spencer, 30, a Republican from Texas. “I think that the Department of Government Efficiency has made great strides in reducing our spending, and I also agree with putting America first. I agree with the policies he’s put in as far as border protection and America standing for itself again as far as the tariffs.”
“We’re only three months in, but so far, so good,” said Carlos Guevara, 46, who lives in Florida. Guevara, a Republican, said DOGE has been a “smash hit” and on tariffs, and while there may be short-term pain, “if that does encourage businesses to start manufacturing here ... then that’ll wash out over time.”
Democrats have a much bleaker outlook on the economy than they held before Trump took office. The poll also found that the vast majority of Democrats think he has “gone too far” on deportations and tariffs.
Gabriel Antonucci, 26, a Democrat who recently moved to South Carolina, said Trump’s second term is “just a lot more ridiculous” than he had anticipated.
“It really seems like he is doing everything he can to make the wrong decisions,” Antonucci said. “Things are probably going to be worse in four years than they are right now.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,260 adults was conducted April 17-21, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
Today's Belle
Apparently, the Trump administration has decided it's not appropriate for Americans to learn about how to achieve freedom.
Exports to China are beginning to fall - farmers are looking at some big trouble coming their way.
West coast ports are reporting that they're beginning to see the expected 40% drop in incoming shipments.
3½%
If 3½% of a population engage in an active and sustained campaign of passive resistance, even a very repressive regime will fall.
And the likelihood that a democracy will be restored or installed is much higher with non-violence - 15% less likely to relapse into authoritarian rule or revolution.
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