Meanwhile, the administration is planning to import 661,000,000 lbs of beef to try to reduce record high prices but refuses to say where it will come from.
ButlerianJihad · 2026-08-28 03:37:51 UTC
Cows, hopefully
mech422 · 2026-08-28 04:31:28 UTC
green cows ?
inigyou · 2026-08-28 04:31:18 UTC
Would those be the high prices he created by importing millions of invasive foreign screw worm flies?
testdelacc1 · 2026-08-28 04:45:24 UTC
Of all the many things he did, I argue that this is the stupidest, most pointless and damaging thing he did. There was no upside to doing it. He went out of his way to destroy a program that had been running successfully out of sheer stupidity. He mainly hurt his voters (cattle farmers in rural areas), not democrats. It hurt him on the biggest issue he ran on - inflation.
It was a massive unforced error that he’s been scrambling for months to fix.
He could literally have done nothing and it would have been better.
Almost all of his other missteps and mistakes can be rationalised - there was some benefit to himself or someone who bribed him or voted for him. But this screwworm thing just perfectly encapsulates him as a person and his presidency as a whole - something works well for 70 years to protect Americans and he destroys it through malicious incompetence.
Doge was full of these, just in areas that you don't understand.
testdelacc1 · 2026-08-28 08:19:53 UTC
Yeah ok, that’s very plausible. I’m limited my by knowledge, so this screwworm thing is the worst, most pointless blunder that I know of.
atmavatar · 2026-08-28 05:42:08 UTC
That's almost like disbanding the CDC's pandemic response team mere months before a once in a lifetime global pandemic.
And then he was re-elected.
Unfortunately, it would seem that stupid, unnecessary, self-own changes are not a red line for a significant fraction of the voting public.
swed420 · 2026-08-28 11:35:50 UTC
> That's almost like disbanding the CDC's pandemic response team mere months before a once in a lifetime global pandemic.
Both parties of capital interests have lots of blood on their hands for the intentional mishandling of the pandemic (which has not ended) in the name of propping up our archaic consumption-first economies.
I think Iran was an enormous blunder that hurt everyone around the world, and will for a long time. But at least I can see what he was aiming for - the acclaim for winning a war and bringing a long time foe to heel. He was sold an easy war by Netanyanhu and being gullible he was easily convinced.
There was a reasonable, desirable goal he was aiming for.
But this screwworm thing is so stupid simply because there was no upside to it. It just hurt Americans, especially Trump voters. No one benefited other than screwworms now feasting on American cattle.
inigyou · 2026-08-28 15:25:17 UTC
It reduced government spending and gave billionaires more poor people tears to drink.
blitzar · 2026-08-28 07:48:08 UTC
Remember he ended the brutal unsolvable war between Azerbaijan and Albania - when you are operating on that level you get a pass for these minor oversights.
testdelacc1 · 2026-08-28 08:18:10 UTC
Poor Albania, drawn into a war they didn’t even know they were a part of until Trump mentioned it.
blitzar · 2026-08-28 12:51:54 UTC
Fortunately for them, it felt like it was over before it even began.
noir_lord · 2026-08-28 11:56:37 UTC
> He could literally have done nothing and it would have been better.
Struggling to find a policy where that doesn't apply.
If he'd gotten elected and then gone and lived on the golf course for four years it's hard to argue things would be worse on the other side of the pond.
inemesitaffia · 2026-08-28 11:57:48 UTC
The screwworm thing is straight up misinformation end to end.
I remember looking into it when it happened.
It's believed the vector is smuggled cows/beef.
jawilson2 · 2026-08-28 17:04:57 UTC
You also have to remember that he probably also pocketed a massive bribe. Follow the grift.
TranquilMarmot · 2026-08-28 04:35:32 UTC
No better time to consider going vegetarian or cutting out red meat, even one day a week can make a huge difference.
goshx · 2026-08-28 05:52:03 UTC
On an unrelated note, the government is rounding up protected wild horses and sending them to slaughterhouses.
beloch · 2026-08-28 07:46:38 UTC
The imported beef will most likely come from all the usual suppliers. Australia. New Zealand. Argentina, right after a recall of Argentinian beef. Canada, just as Trump is renaming bodies of water and raising taxes on his own citizens to spite. etc..
expedition32 · 2026-08-28 08:46:08 UTC
Wait I thought the US was a free market economy? The government doesn't import anything that's what supermarkets do.
throwaway173738 · 2026-08-28 12:04:38 UTC
The government controls imports by tariffs and inspections and so on.
buildsjets · 2026-08-28 03:39:02 UTC
Well, at least we can all enjoy a healthy salad instead.
inigyou · 2026-08-28 04:29:57 UTC
Uh, about that...
mikestorrent · 2026-08-28 05:10:41 UTC
If people would stop putting lettuce in Greek salads we'd be FINE
sdcfgy · 2026-08-28 06:45:02 UTC
That’s quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
Iolaum · 2026-08-28 07:29:30 UTC
What? lettuce is not part of the traditional greek salad recipe.
sdcfgy · 2026-08-28 07:31:08 UTC
Exactly. It's a travesty that people are putting lettuce in Greek salad.
jonathanstrange · 2026-08-28 07:51:37 UTC
Technically speaking, you cannot put lettuce in a Greek salad because it will by definition cease to be a Greek salad once lettuce has been added.
Edit: Wait a moment. You can put lettuce i a Greek salad. It just happens not to be a Greek salad afterwards. A subtle difference.
sdcfgy · 2026-08-28 08:14:28 UTC
Salad of Theseus?
tacomagick · 2026-08-28 09:45:56 UTC
Reminds me of the chefs that take a base soup and just change/add a single ingredient to make bunch of other soups just to fill their food schedule quotas for the month since they cannot serve the same soup every day.
stockresearcher · 2026-08-28 12:21:55 UTC
Yeah, North American chefs will generally call the base a mirepoix, but it’s got different names in different languages. It turns out that this soup base concept is remarkably similar across cultures and continents (though the actual vegetables used are based on what’s grown locally).
"Since Trump’s announcement, Detwiler said, online discussion has fueled confusion about what is happening with beef imports and the recall."
Articles like this one aren't exactly helping either.
Animats · 2026-08-28 03:58:32 UTC
That's only about 50 cows. This isn't a big recall.
Total slaughter of cows in Texas is about 1.8 million head per year.
cosmicgadget · 2026-08-28 04:58:22 UTC
You can get 30k pounds of beef from 50 cows?
abstractbeliefs · 2026-08-28 05:03:00 UTC
30,000 split 50 ways is 800lbs per cow (270kg), seems not unrealistic.
Even if you halve the yield to 400lbs then it's only 100 cows
sehansen · 2026-08-28 07:13:52 UTC
800 lbs is 360 kg, but I think you meant 600 lbs per cow. Still seems realistic.
blooalien · 2026-08-28 05:04:30 UTC
> You can get 30k pounds of beef from 50 cows?
This article [1] says you get about 500-ish pounds of beef from one cow, so 25,000-ish pounds from 50 cows? They weren't massively far off the mark there.
About 500 pounds of "take home packaged beef". At the import level it's usually "hanging weight" of a beef carcass before butchering, about 700 pounds. In this case, according to Beef Magazine [1], there had been some preliminary butchering at the sending end , with the take home packages to be made up at the local supermarket, which would result in some midrange weight per cow.
More to the point, Beef Magazine reports this as an ordinary inspection failure event.
It's a recall because, for some reason, the beef didn't go through USDA incoming inspection, and this wasn't discovered until three months later, long after the beef had been sold, and probably consumed. That's a failure of Customs and Border Protection, which is supposed to make sure that doesn't happen. Beef Magazine says that's an automatic trigger for a Class I recall. It's not a political decision.
Unlike the CBS article, the Beef Magazine article names the shipper and gives the lot numbers of the recalled beef. The Beef Magazine author has a degree in agricultural production, teaches Animal and Range Science at Montana State University, and worked their way up from cattle ranch foreman to director of Montana’s Beef Quality Assurance program. He probably knows something about beef.
The CBS author has a degree in Law and Public Policy and has given a TED talk. His LinkedIn profile says he is "one of America's leading food safety advocates." I'd go with what Beef Magazine says here.
> About 500 pounds of "take home packaged beef". At the import level it's usually "hanging weight" of a beef carcass before butchering, about 700 pounds.
I'm fine with "about 700 pounds", but that's still not too far off from the 30k pounds the original comment stated for around 50 cows (just over a bit instead of under a bit), so it still holds true that their guesstimate isn't all that far off-base.
mysterydip · 2026-08-28 12:17:58 UTC
“According to Beef Magazine” wasn’t a phrase I expected to read today, but I’m delighted to add it to my lexicon
glitchbot · 2026-08-28 12:37:42 UTC
!
Animats · 2026-08-28 18:24:34 UTC
Specialty sources, the ones people in the affected industry read, tend to be reasonably accurate, because their readership knows the subject and will notice errors. If you want to know which data centers in Dubai were hit by Iranian attacks, the mainstream press and Dubai influencers are useless, but there are data center status sites that have solid info. If you want to know what's getting through the Strait of Hormuz, the info from politicians is useless, but there are shipping sites that name ships and keep stats. If you want to know where GPS is being jammed, there's a tracker site run for aircraft dispatchers. If you want to know what's going on with "return to office", there are commercial real estate sites that have a good idea, including one that gets data from office building entry systems.
Hence looking at Beef Magazine for info about beef.
No, I'm not going to post links. Do your own work. Or get an LLM to do it for you.
dlcarrier · 2026-08-28 06:20:26 UTC
To put it in another context, it's half of the maximum payload of a refrigerated shipping container.
King-Aaron · 2026-08-28 05:17:04 UTC
Just remember that a big part of project 2025 was to reduce oversight in the food industry to disrupt trust in the system.
Am I the only one that finds the ”30 kilo pounds” quite entertaining?
tclancy · 2026-08-28 08:00:53 UTC
What? I have that much beef for breakfast with a couple of Brawndos.
pfix · 2026-08-28 08:25:42 UTC
No, I looked at that quizzically as well :D
vel0city · 2026-08-28 13:20:05 UTC
My friends don't like it when I use terms like "kilomiles"
malshe · 2026-08-28 15:13:55 UTC
Personally I prefer kiloyards but kilomiles is nice too
burnt-resistor · 2026-08-28 09:26:52 UTC
So about this quota* of imported beef of secret origin(s) that won't meet regulations: I guess it will be a gamble which will contain e. coli, s. aureus, salmonella, listeria, or mad cow, given that country of origin (CoO) labeling nor lot codes aren't required for retail, processed food, or restaurant sale for ground beef. It can be produced with absolutely zero standards.
* Quota amount of ground beef is 6.7% of yearly consumption: 330k short tons / 660M lbs / 300M kg
US ground beef consumption per year: 4.89M short tons / 9.77B lbs / 4.43B kg
Comments
It was a massive unforced error that he’s been scrambling for months to fix.
He could literally have done nothing and it would have been better.
Almost all of his other missteps and mistakes can be rationalised - there was some benefit to himself or someone who bribed him or voted for him. But this screwworm thing just perfectly encapsulates him as a person and his presidency as a whole - something works well for 70 years to protect Americans and he destroys it through malicious incompetence.
More info about how the program worked - America’s never ending battle against flesh eating worms (2020) - https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...
And then he was re-elected.
Unfortunately, it would seem that stupid, unnecessary, self-own changes are not a red line for a significant fraction of the voting public.
Both parties of capital interests have lots of blood on their hands for the intentional mishandling of the pandemic (which has not ended) in the name of propping up our archaic consumption-first economies.
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
There was a reasonable, desirable goal he was aiming for.
But this screwworm thing is so stupid simply because there was no upside to it. It just hurt Americans, especially Trump voters. No one benefited other than screwworms now feasting on American cattle.
Struggling to find a policy where that doesn't apply.
If he'd gotten elected and then gone and lived on the golf course for four years it's hard to argue things would be worse on the other side of the pond.
I remember looking into it when it happened.
It's believed the vector is smuggled cows/beef.
Edit: Wait a moment. You can put lettuce i a Greek salad. It just happens not to be a Greek salad afterwards. A subtle difference.
Articles like this one aren't exactly helping either.
Total slaughter of cows in Texas is about 1.8 million head per year.
Even if you halve the yield to 400lbs then it's only 100 cows
This article [1] says you get about 500-ish pounds of beef from one cow, so 25,000-ish pounds from 50 cows? They weren't massively far off the mark there.
[1]: https://cattledaily.com/how-much-meat-do-you-get-from-one-co...
More to the point, Beef Magazine reports this as an ordinary inspection failure event. It's a recall because, for some reason, the beef didn't go through USDA incoming inspection, and this wasn't discovered until three months later, long after the beef had been sold, and probably consumed. That's a failure of Customs and Border Protection, which is supposed to make sure that doesn't happen. Beef Magazine says that's an automatic trigger for a Class I recall. It's not a political decision.
Unlike the CBS article, the Beef Magazine article names the shipper and gives the lot numbers of the recalled beef. The Beef Magazine author has a degree in agricultural production, teaches Animal and Range Science at Montana State University, and worked their way up from cattle ranch foreman to director of Montana’s Beef Quality Assurance program. He probably knows something about beef.
The CBS author has a degree in Law and Public Policy and has given a TED talk. His LinkedIn profile says he is "one of America's leading food safety advocates." I'd go with what Beef Magazine says here.
[1] https://www.beefmagazine.com/market-news/argentine-beef-reca...
I'm fine with "about 700 pounds", but that's still not too far off from the 30k pounds the original comment stated for around 50 cows (just over a bit instead of under a bit), so it still holds true that their guesstimate isn't all that far off-base.
Hence looking at Beef Magazine for info about beef.
No, I'm not going to post links. Do your own work. Or get an LLM to do it for you.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/project-2025-plan...
* Quota amount of ground beef is 6.7% of yearly consumption: 330k short tons / 660M lbs / 300M kg
US ground beef consumption per year: 4.89M short tons / 9.77B lbs / 4.43B kg