Melodrama

In High school, back when rocks were soft, I was one of what is now called “theater kids.” It was a lot different back then though, our state champion wrestler was also one, (I wrestled too, I just wasn’t nearly as good as Mark.) A couple of our football players… and so on were part of that group. It was a lot of fun, and not nearly the stove piped liberal haven that it’s now stereotyped as. The point though is that Melodramas, which was one of the types of plays we put on, are just a lot of fun to do; and the best part to get, is the villain. Yes, you lose in the end, but you get all the great lines, you can be really over the top, ham it up, and it’s all part of the schtick. If you’re not familiar with the genre, the perfect introduction to it is a movie called “The Villain” staring Kurk Douglas in the title role with Ann Margret in her heyday, a YOUNG Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Paul Lynde. Go forth and watch it, it’s hilarious.

It's not so great however when real life reflects the genre. Primarily because the villain doesn’t always lose, and sometimes we don’t even know who he is. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. Dinner is steaks on the grill, the booze is in the sliding pantry, the soda is under the settee, and the tip jar is at the link.

One of the standard plots of the Melodrama is the Villain using lawfare and underhanded dealing to steal the farm/ranch/business from some honest poor unsuspecting family. And that’s what we have going on here.

As an aside, you know, it’s amazing how much stuff gets pigeonholed and hidden from the average individual that isn’t in a specific industry. I would never have known about this particular bullshit, if I hadn’t started spending a lot more attention to farming news, as a new farmer.

The case we’re talking about involves Joe and Russell Marino, who where fourth generation farmers, and the biggest produce farm in New Jersey. At it’s height Sun Valley Farm employed 180 seasonal workers, and ran 15-20 semis worth of produce out the front door a day. They were used to Department of Labor inspections, those happened frequently, and was always one guy, coming by to make sure that things were on the up and up.

That was, until 2015.

The farm had been driven more and more, to use a type of foreign laborer under the H2A guest worker program. The crop in question was asparagus. Now asparagus is a pain to harvest, it’s pretty back breaking labor, and to date, there’s no automation to do it.

Normally, Sun Valley was using local guys, and some of the migrant workers that travel the circuit. This year, they didn’t get any of those, no one showed up. So they were forced to go to the H2A people. They had advisors from the H2A program, they did everything by the book, they put in the application that it was asparagus, and during the interviews they got seventeen workers that said, “Oh, si, I have picked asparagus a lot Hefe.”

Come the first day of work, all seventeen walk off the job, “Hefe, this is too hard, we quit.”

“But you said you had done this before?”

“Hefe, we quit. Here’s our tools, we’re done.”

Well, what could the brothers do? They let them go, documented everything, went to their H2A advisor, told him what happened, and moved on.

Comes the annual Department of Labor inspection… Instead of the one guy they normally see, they got a whole team. Instead of one day, they were there for a week. Instead of an “outbrief” where any issues are discussed, the team just packed up and left.

The rest of the season passes.

After the season, a Director from D.C. shows up with two agents in tow. (agent means “I get to carry a gun.”) Said director pops up with, “You owe those employees you fired back wages for the entire season, and you took their food money illegally, and there’s all these other charges, you owe $550,000 in fines, payable right the fuck now.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, I never fired anyone, they walked off the job!”

“Our records say you fired them. And if you want to appeal this, you can talk to our judge who is a Department of Labor Employee.”

Well, you can imagine how the rest of this went.

Look, I’ve written about this shenanigan before. Trump recently made this sort of shit illegal, but in 2015 under President Obama, it was very legal indeed.

Unelected bureaucrats, appointed by no one as a judge, bound by no judicial rules, answerable only to the guy that hired them and working for one of the two principals in the case gets to decide the rules, no lawyers allowed except the ones the bureaucrats appoint you, no jury.

Here's a money quote: “That was the most frustrating thing of the entire affair,” Marino says. “It’s not hard to tell the truth. I wanted to tell a jury with passion and conviction, but the government machine would not let me. I tried so hard to fight and expose DOL. I sent emails to all the big news outlets, politicians, and reporters, but no one in the big media responded. They wouldn’t touch us.” Source https://www.agweb.com/news/business/family-farm-wins-historic-case-after-feds-violate-constitution-and-ruin-business think about that for a second. No one in the media, no one in politics would even listen to this guys case. Why, you might wonder?

If, after reading this, you feel like the whole thing was a setup; congratulations, you can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. After multiple appeals, each before another level of Department of Labor internal judge, they lost the farm. Four generation farm, gone like that. Eventually, they were lucky enough to catch the attention of the Institute for Justice

https://ij.org/

who sued the DOL, and ten years after the fact, they were vindicated. I don’t know how much money they got back, but the judge and jury that heard the case bent the DOL over a barrel and allowed any passer by to have a go.

Here's a quote that’s pertinent: “In 100 percent of cases where the administrative law judge ruled in favor of the FTC staff, the Commission (appeals board) affirmed liability; and in 100 percent of the cases in which the administrative law judge found no liability, the Commission reversed. This is a strong sign of an unhealthy and biased (emphasis added) institutional process.”

Read that through again, just to make sure it sinks in. If you were found innocent on the charges, the appeals board overturned that ruling EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you were found guilty, the appeals board found that you were indeed guilty EVERY SINGLE TIME.

In 2024 alone, according to an IJ release, DOL collected $4.9 million in back wages and imposed $5.8 million in penalties on agricultural employers.

“The truth is, in these cases, DOL very often fails to return money to workers,” Belden (the IJ attorney) says. “DOL keeps much of the money it collects or kicks it back to Congress. An independent judge or jury would not have money floating in the backs of their minds as potential influence.”

Look, I don’t know who wanted the Sun Valley Farm’s land, what Snidely Whiplash was twirling his mustache over the acquisition of this 125 year old farm, but the thing is, he won. Yes, the Marinos’ got money in the suit. They did NOT get their farm back. It’s gone. All their gear, gone. The family home, gone. And some son of a bitch made bank.

If I had the time, it might be worth checking the tax records and see who bought the land at fire sale prices, and what was done with it. If I was an Inspector General, I would be doing forensic accounting on every single Department of Labor employee that touched this case, to see who had gotten a payoff, and make no mistake, there was a payoff somewhere.

Considering the state, I might just suspect this was all Cosa Nostra related, if I was a suspicious man. The trouble is, this bullshit was being done in every state in the union.

This is not what happens in the nation that I gave decades of my life to defend, people. HEADS ON PIKES. A completely unmistakable message needs to be sent, that YOU mister Government employee, will be held personally and criminally liable for shenanigans like this.

As a cop, it was CRYSTAL clear that if we violated someone’s civil rights, we could be, and would be, held personally responsible, and cops don’t do well in prison. As a Foreman and Manager for the Department of Defense, it was also made very clear indeed that we could be held criminally liable for any illegalities that happened on our watch.

Why is DOL, and some of the other Departments of… any different? How come they can pull shit like this, and no one is going to jail? Who is getting paid off, and how much?

In other news on government, it seems that the current mayor of NYC might just have found an acorn. I’m a big fan of civil rights, and personal freedoms. And there are people who are too insane to safely use those freedoms. When I was growing up, people who were found stoned out of their mind multiple times on the street, were sent in for a psych eval, along with criminal charges. Later that custom declined. So did America.

When we did away with almost all involuntary commitment proceedings, and got rid of all the loony bins, we developed the addiction and homeless problems that we have, in less than five years. Now, a DEMOCRAT is willing to come out and say it out loud.

Adams pitches plan to get drug addicts off NYC streets

The proposed plan would be administered by doctors and mental health professionals, not by cops, or by apparatchiks. It’s a start.

It would allow a judge to order commitment if the doctor proved it needful, and the patent refused. Will it fix it all? Don’t be silly, it took us forty years to get here, it’s not going to get fixed by the whisk of a pen. But it’s motion in the right direction.

NATO may have also found an acorn,

NATO Has a New Alliance Maritime Strategy

Go forth and read it.

Heinlein is cheering somewhere, https://www.newsweek.com/trump-hegseth-department-defense-name-change-war-2118837 Apparently someone read his books. Trump and Hegseth want to change the name of the military establishment from “Department of Defense” back to “Department of War.” Something that RAH advocated for his entire life.

The Bad Cat hit it out of the park again: tribal war -failure of imagination and threat misdiagnosis

In a similar issue, we have John Hume. The guy who founded the biggest Rino sanctuary and Rino protection NGO in history. And is now on trial for trafficking in fourteen million dollars in Rino horns. the-guy-who-runs-the-worlds-largest-rhino-sanctuary-charged-with-trafficking-rhino-horn.

A 27 year old sergeant in the Space Force who is a decorated army vet from the Afghan war is now serving 54 years, for shooting the guys (killing one) that tried to steal his wife’s car. Look, they were minors, and that’s bad, but the real kicker, is that after they were caught in the act, they fled (yes, the car they ran in was also stolen) and he got in his car and ran them to ground. That is where he messed up. If you shoot someone while defending yourself, or to stop a violent crime in action, you’re golden, in most places. (YMMV in blue states like NY and CA, where they want to burn you at the stake just for owning a gun…) On the other hand, going chasing after a guy who’s running, as if you were a cop, is going to get you in a world of shit, unless you ARE a cop. Add the fact that he did this in deep blue Denver, and well…

People, if you’re going to carry a freedom seed dispenser, you better know, not just how to use it, but more importantly, WHEN to use it, and when NOT to. If you are not a cop, you don’t get to chase them when they run away. Sorry for your desires to be a hero, and get a nice write up in the papers, but that’s the way it is.

QOTD: “[Dirie] is a deeply good man whose presence enriches the lives of those around him,” said one of the letters. “I respectfully ask that you consider his character, his contributions, and his ongoing potential when making your decision.” the Al-Ihsan Islamic Center, writing to ask for clemency for their worshiper who kidnapped a 12 year old out of her back yard, and raped her repeatedly.

I’ve spoken of heads on pikes before. In this case, I mean it quite literally. Cut this bastards head from his still living body, and place it on a sixteen foot long pole in the town square in Minneapolis, and invite his family and his mosque to the unveiling.

Yours in Service,

William Lehman