Category: 2025

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American Prospect: Trump Labor Department Says His Immigration Raids Are Causing a Food Crisis

The Department of Labor’s new rule cutting farmworker wages bluntly states that souped-up immigration enforcement has devastated the agricultural workforce and created a significant “risk of supply shock-induced food shortages,” according to a document filed in the Federal Register last week. The document also indicates that American workers are simply not interested in and do not have the skills to perform agricultural jobs, at odds with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’s claim that the farm workforce will soon be 100 percent American.

“The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce, results in significant disruptions to production costs and threatening the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers,” the document says, adding that “this threat will grow” given new federal funding for immigration enforcement under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
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Moneywise: The US now has more unemployed workers than job openings for the 1st time since April 2021 — why this single ‘turning point’ signals trouble ahead

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Axios notes that just three years ago, Americans revelled in a job market that offered a greater than 2:1 ratio of jobs to unemployed people. “As of July, that ratio has fallen to 0.99”.

According to Reuters, many economists blame the Trump tariffs for cooling the labor market, with Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House telling the outlet that her firm expects “the slower pace of consumer spending and cost pressures related to tariffs will keep the pressure on businesses to look for cost savings where they can, including their workforce”.
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Gulf News: Crypto’s dirty secret: How mining it is hurting the planet — and farms

Bitcoin’s energy use per dollar generated now exceeds that of mining copper or gold

Every Bitcoin transaction has to be validated through a process called “mining,” where thousands of computers compete to solve mathematical puzzles. The first to solve it adds a block to the blockchain and earns a reward.

The catch: this process devours electricity. According to UN University’s 2025 report, Bitcoin’s energy use per dollar generated now exceeds that of mining copper or gold. The study found that for every dollar of Bitcoin created between 2020 and 2021, around $0.35 worth of environmental damage occurred — more than most metals or industrial products.

Much of the electricity powering these “mines” comes from coal- or gas-fired plants, especially in countries with cheap power. That means more greenhouse gases — and fine-particle air pollution — are released into the atmosphere.
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Water is another overlooked casualty. Mining farms need massive cooling systems to prevent overheating. Whether drawn from rivers, desalination plants, or power-station cooling systems, that water use adds up — and competes with agriculture in regions already facing scarcity.
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Investigations found that some farmers were running illegal mining operations inside agricultural facilities, tapping subsidised electricity intended for irrigation and cooling. Officials warned that such practices damage soil quality, risk electrical fires, and undermine food-security goals.
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Jess Piper: Silencing Mockingbirds

Reading is resistance

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”

~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

I was in my classroom, and it must have been second or third hour because I remember I was hungry — we hadn’t had lunch yet, and I was running too late that morning to grab breakfast. I was reading a short chapter from To Kill a Mockingbird aloud to my 8th graders.

Most liked it so far.

My Principal walked in for an observation and noticed we were reading a novel, and then proceeded to walk right back out…he stood at the door for a second and told me to visit his office after school.

If you think being summoned to the Principal’s office as a child is terrifying, you should be summoned as a teacher.

A shiver went down my spine.
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BBC: Renewables overtake coal as world’s biggest source of electricity

Renewable energy overtook coal as the world’s leading source of electricity in the first half of this year – a historic first, according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember.

Electricity demand is growing around the world but the growth in solar and wind was so strong it met 100% of the extra electricity demand, even helping drive a slight decline in coal and gas use.

However, Ember says the headlines mask a mixed global picture.

Developing countries, especially China, led the clean energy charge but richer nations including the US and EU relied more than before on planet-warming fossil fuels for electricity generation.
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Robert Reich: The Mad King’s Television

When over the weekend federal Judge Karin Immergut (a Trump appointee) blocked Trump from deploying Oregon’s National Guard to Portland, Trump said she “should be ashamed of herself” because “Portland is burning to the ground.”

Trump promptly ordered the California National Guard to Portland.

Apart from the obvious question of how Trump can so blatantly defy a federal judge, there’s a deeper puzzle here. Where did he get the idea Portland is burning to the ground?

Nine days ago, when Trump first threatened to send troops to Portland, Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, told him there was no reason. “He thinks there are elements here creating an insurrection,” Kotek said after her call with Trump. “I told him there is no insurrection here and that we have this under control.”

Trump responded to Kotek this way:

“I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? … They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place … it looks like terrible.”

Why the factual discrepancy between what Governor Kotek told Trump about Portland and what he believed was happening there?

In the suit seeking an injunction to stop Trump from sending troops to Portland, which Judge Immergut granted, the state of Oregon alleged that Trump relied on videoclips from Portland protests over the murder of George Floyd that took place in 2020.
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Jason Easley: Inept Republican Senate Majority Leader Demands Democrats Reopen Government He Controls

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) demanded that Democrats reopen the federal government that he and his party control.

The difference between John Thune and Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader is that McConnell refuses to sell out the Senate’s independence to Trump. Thune abandoned the Senate’s status as part of a coequal branch of the government.

Republicans keep trying to blame Democrats for the government shutdown when poll after poll shows that their strategy is not working, but since this is what Trump told them to do, Republicans keep failing.
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Sen. Thune could announce today that he is bringing the Senate back into session tomorrow to vote to change the rules to require 51 votes to pass the House CR.

Thune can do that, and he could do it very easily, because Republicans have total control of the federal government.

This is a Republican shutdown.
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Dan Wang and Arthur Kroeber: The Real China Model

Beijing’s Enduring Formula for Wealth and Power

A decade ago, planners in Beijing unveiled Made in China 2025, an ambitious scheme to take leadership of the industries of the future. The plan identified ten sectors for investment, including energy, semiconductors, industrial automation, and high-tech materials. It aimed to upgrade China’s manufacturing in these sectors and others, reduce the country’s dependence on imports and foreign firms, and improve the competitiveness of Chinese companies in global markets. The overarching goal was to transform China into a technological leader and turn China’s national champion firms into global ones. The government backed this vision with enormous financial support, spending one to two percent of GDP each year on direct and indirect subsidies, cheap credit, and tax breaks.

China has been wildly successful in these efforts. It not only leads the world in electric vehicles and clean technology power generation; it is also dominant in drones, industrial automation, and other electronics products. Its lock on rare-earth magnets produced a quick trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump. Chinese firms are on track to master the more sophisticated technological goods produced by the United States, Europe, and other parts of Asia.

And yet China’s model still has many skeptics. Lavish funding, they point out, has led to waste and corruption. It has created industries in which dozens of competitors manufacture similar products and struggle to make a profit. The resulting deflation makes companies wary of hiring new staff or raising wages, leading to lower consumer confidence and weaker growth. China’s economy, which once looked poised to overtake the United States’ as the world’s biggest, is mired in a slowdown and may never match the American one in total output.

These problems are not trivial. But it is a serious error to think they are big enough to derail China’s technological momentum. …
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Jim Palmer: The Gospel of Jane

The passing of a voice that taught us how to listen

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Jane Goodall

I read In The Shadow of Man in 2003 and it changed my life. This was Jane Goodall’s groundbreaking memoir that chronicles her early years studying wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. As a young boy I was fascinated by chimpanzees and gorillas. Jane introduced me to David Greybeard, Flo, and Fifi.

Jane Goodall, the pioneering primatologist and conservationist, passed away on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, at age 91 from natural causes while on a speaking tour in California.

Her legacy is monumental…
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Closer to the Edge: 25 QUESTIONS

Because Opposing Fascism Apparently Needs Clarification Now

1. If I walk in here with a copy of Alice’s Restaurant on vinyl, does that count as antifascist literature under NSPM-7?
2. Can I still sing “you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant” without being charged as a domestic terrorist — or do I need a permit?
3. When Arlo Guthrie said he was “sittin’ on the Group W bench,” did he mean the one reserved for antifascists in 2025?

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