SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE FIGHT

                  Behind the scenes of the Trump transition team, a wrestling match is shaping up for nominee as Secretary of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA).  According to John Klar, writing in American Thinker, some 15 candidate names are in the pot. 

                  Foremost to be compatible with RFK Jr.'s Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda is undoubtedly Kentucky U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie.  He's also a tight friend of mine and truly a hero for liberty.  His Prime Act, whereby  states could legalize custom-processed meat for sale by the cut, would be the biggest food freedom initiative at the federal level in my lifetime. 

                  But for a flavor of other contenders, here are three.  Zippy Duvall, current president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), by far and away the largest farm lobby.  He's a factory chicken famer from Georgia, raising 750,000 annually.  In case you think the AFBF represents farmers, it's actually an insurance company masquerading as a farm outfit.  Over my lifetime, no group has been as opposed to my initiatives as AFBF.  They are not the farmers' friends; they are friends of big ag, food processors, and nutritional and environmental destruction.  

                  Next is Aurelia Skipwith Giarometto, a nearly 20-year veteran of Monsanto and currently the Sustainable Agriculture Partnership Manager at that glyphosate-promoting industrial agriculture corporation.  Of course, she would be a natural extension of current Ag Sec. Tom Vilsack, known lovingly as "Mr. Monsanto."  I met with him when Terry McCauliffe ("parents shouldn't tell teachers what to teach their children") was running for Virginia governor (against current governor Glenn Youngkin).  I'll never forget him telling the small group assembled:  "the reason we need farmers is because their children make the best soldiers."  Yes, that was Obama's guy and Biden's guy.  Did someone say something about forever wars?

                  Next is Ted McKinney, whose career so far has spanned 19 years with Dow AgroSciences and 14 years with Elanco, subsidiary of Big Pharma outfit Eli Lilly Co.  I'm sure he'd be interested in reducing drugs and chemicals in our livestock.  Most people don't know that American livestock uses twice as many drugs, in aggregate, as people.  Yes, he's certainly a friend of nutrition and drug-free animal husbandry.

                  Okay, that 's just a flavor of the contenders, and except for Massie, all of these would sabotage anything RFK Jr. would try to do over on the health sector.  The truth is you cannot separate farming from food, or food from farming.  So if the Trump team has any modicum of philosophical consistency, it will bring Massie forward rather than these shills for industrial chemical agriculture.

                  Because he's a small farmer trying to sell beef to neighbors and butcher his own chickens, Massie has taken a deep interest in agriculture ever since being elected a congressman.  He's used his engineering degree to build a solar-powered automatic chicken shelter mover.  He lives completely off-grid and has permaculture-style gravity-fed water systems.  The guy's a genius, but practical and philosphically libertarian.  I can't imagine a better friend of food freedom and a better partner to RFK Jr.

                  `If Trump wants to get something done, he needs to strive for philosophical similarity in his appointments.  If he gets into oil and water, it'll all devolve into rancor and finger pointing.  Not good. 

                  If you were appointed Sec. of Ag, what would be the first policy you would push?