**Folks, there’s still time to donate this evening and get entered in the giveaway which you can read more about here. Cat will announce the winners in the morning. I thank each one of you for your generous contribution. Thank you!
Not only do the Drummonds receive millions from the taxpayers for keeping the mustangs and not only do they receive money for crop subsidies, they also receive livestock subsidies. This site is a fascinating read and it’s also where we learned about Tia Juana Drummond! Here’s a couple of interesting searches.
{ 114 comments… read them below or add one }
FIRST! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Here is your official, seconded,
Woot! Woot!! Woot!!!
Can you tell us how it changed your life? And made you buy strange cookbooks?
Yes. I buy only metal untensils for my ceramic cookware. It makes me feel urban.
Also, I just ordered a jar of unpeeled garlic off Amazon, since my small-town grocery store doesn’t carry it. Help me, Rhonda!
Over and out. Forever and ever, amen.
Anyway, can someone please explain Tia Juana to me? I thought she was fictional until I saw this post.
I think she is fictional and they’ve somehow made paperwork up for her in order to file for more subsidies. I don’t know that I just have this feeling. It doesn’t make sense, her name doesn’t make sense. Tia is Aunt in spanish and I lived in San Diego for over 14 years about a mile from the border so Tijuana, what the heck? Everyone knows that’s a place not a person. People create false identities all the time for social security fraud, tax purposes, foster children, etc., Is it such a coincidence that the Drummonds have a lawyer in their family or that they are such good friends with a state senator? In this day and age, with the economy toppling and arguments over medicare, social security and medicaid, it seems ridiculous that we would subsidize millionaires to feed “wild” mustangs. Which, though I love horses and my daughter rides, are not even a native species to North America. Why doesn’t someone subsidize me to feed the raccoon’s in our neighborhood?
Sorry, this stuff just makes me so mad. It’s okay to lay off teachers, place burdens of health payment on seniors on a fixed income but hey, let’s not question the money we give millionaires to feed horses that aren’t even wild or endangered. AAArrrrgggh.
preach on. i posted something similair in regards to the “wild” mustangs on pw’s site and it wasn’t received warmly. people need to learn the difference between indigenous and feral.
I am from Madill, OK & would like to report that Tia Juana Drummond is a real person. She was my 3rd grade teacher. When we came back from Christmas break she had married A.A. Drummond. He was much older but they were married until he passed away several years ago. She is a really nice lady and I use to work with her daughter (from a previous marriage).
As far as the farm subsidies goes I know my father in law would lose everything he worked for if they weren’t available. Right now Oklahoma is going through a horrible drought & he is having a hard time right now.
Awesome Lyn, thanks for the info. What was Tia Juana’s last name before she married?
Her maiden name is Pruitt. She married a man by the name of Neil Duncan. She was divorced from him for several years before she married Mr. Drummond. I’m trying to figure out what relation he was to PW’s family or if they are related at all. He did make his money from oil.
I do know MM’s dad has a lady who does embroidery (sp), she’s my neighbor, do all of their hats, shirts etc. Don’t know why he would come that far, maybe Tia recommended her to him if they were related some how.
Ok did a little digging & Alfred A. “Jack” Drummond who was married to Tia Juana is related to MM. As far as I can tell he was a great great, maybe 3 greats, uncle.
Here is the deal: farm subsidies are for people like your father in law. They are meant to keep farmers in business during circumstances that would put them under. They were not put into existence to maintain an above average lifestyle for the farmer.
Amen, BadBoPeep! Just wish there was a system in place to keep that money going to the places it was originally meant to go. There will always be people out there who will “screw” the system, whether they be rich or poor.
Thinking of Ree’s cooking and “cow disaster” just ruined my keyboard. Quick– out of the library!
I thought she might be fictional too! I spotted her on the mustang subsidy forms…
Is she real or is she fictional? And which is worse! I must know! I must…..
She is real. See above comment
I despise farm subsidies! They are sooooo unfair!
Farm subsidies wouldn’t be all that bad if they were used to support farms that grow actual produce to sell it locally, and humanely keep livestock and animals.
It is a shame when subsidies go towards corn to make cheap food and candy even cheaper, and soybeans to fatten up livestock on feedlots so we can all buy shitty beef at Walmart for $1.80 a pound.
Tell it sistah!
Yep–speak it!
Hey,
That shitty walmart beef is the only meat my family can afford.
I understand having to stretch a dollar, but you might want to rethink that. There is something seriously unnatural about that prepackaged meat they sell. I bought it a few times and could tell something wasn’t right. I buy from my local neighborhood grocery that still has a real butcher staff and cuts and packages meat the traditional way. I watch the sales. If I get low on meat and the sales aren’t good, I go to Sam’s instead of walmart. They sell real butcher meat instead of prepackaged there. Walmart instantly changed to that crap to get back at the butcher’s union when their butchers voted to go union. They probably spent more on changing the system and buying the stuff than in just treating the butchers better. They would rather spend on anything than their people.
Can’t speak for all of them, but my father works for Wal Mart and he, along with many employees he is friends with, are treated better there than they were at any of their previous jobs.
Just because they won’t unionize doesn’t mean they mistreat their people.
I have come in contact with a wide variety of Wal Mart employees and they have not been so fortunate as the ones Jen knows. I also know a little about it myself, as I worked for them as a young woman, at their third or fourth store. It was what I call a “wifey” job, one that’s good enough to let you help out when you are married to a man earning good wages and benefits. Had I been a single woman, I could not have made it. A woman named Ehrenreich wrote an excellent book called “Nickle and Dimed” about her experiences trying to live on only what she made working for Wal Mart, Merry Maids, and two others low paying businesses.
It isn’t just retail that treats women that way. The doctor I worked for bragged to his out of state colleagues that he could get an office lady so much cheaper than they could because in his town, there were thousands of women whose husbands made high blue collar wages and benefits, and you could get them for low pay and no benefits. Those kinds of business people are pushing off what should be part of their overhead onto other businesses.
These days, they seem to go mostly to rich farmers who don’t need them.
I think they largely go to corporate agri business. Very few small family farms get them and hardly any vegetable farmers get subsidies. It goes for grain and cows and corn. That’s why produce is so expensive in comparison to mean and grain products at the store. It’s awesome how the healthiest foods are also the most expensive. It has nothing to do with the reality of the cost of production, but rather the lack of subsidies.
Farm subsidies – welfare for the rich.
We are POOR farmers. The subsidies help us!
It looks like TiaJuana Drummond is a real person out of Madill OK.
She’s the dear sister of the late Bob Pruitt Sr:
http://www.wattsfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/wattsf0/obit.cgi?user=252534Pruitt%20Sr.
Who would have thought that someone would name their child TiaJuana?!
Apparently TiaJunanas parents just loved unusual names. Bob Pruitt Sr’s real name is Marland Wix Pruitt. I can see why he decided to go by Bob.
They also have a sister by the name of VanNoy Blettel.
She probably just goes by Betty.
Must be the good ol’ influence of Jack Daniel at work.
Oops I meant Daniels.
Hey Kimar,
When I click on the site it doesn’t come up with a Bob Pruitt. It comes up with a Mr. Stevens. Are you sure the link is correct?
I’m not sure why, but the period at the end of the link is PART of the link, but not included when you click it. If you just add the period once you have the link in the location bar, it will take you to the obituary.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a link with a period at the end of it.
http://www.wattsfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/wattsf0/obit.cgi?user=252534Pruitt%20Sr. <—- thats the period that needs to be included. LOL
The Pruitts did have some unusual names but they are/were good hardworking people
Top TEN
damn I am a over achiever today…
D’OH!
You are reaching such heights….before you know it, one day you will be numero uno and then your life will be changed forever”!!
I am surprised there are no politicians in the Drummond family. I am sure they do something to keep their elected officials happy!
MM’s uncle was a lobbyist in DC before he returned to OK to head up the Cattlemen’s Assoc and secure subsidies for his clan. He has a law degree. That, IMO, is worse than a politician.
He is also the one who crafted the standard Drummond bride pre-nup. This is a man who has had a pair of fancy cowboy boots for 20+years because he gets them reshod over and over. Sells Amway in his dusty-ass office.
You can all tell me I’m an unsophisticated hick if you want to. I don’t care. But I know how I was raised, and if a couple are not sure enough of their feelings and their trust of each other’s character to marry without a pre nup, I don’t think they are ready for marriage. A young couple should marry and throw in their lot together, share and share alike. If trust is already missing, they shouldn’t be marrying.
I think it would be a deal breaker for me. If someone didn’t trust me with absolutely everything, I would know he had reservations.
I can see an older couple who remarry after losing spouses having a legal agreement as to how to set up the inheritance for their children.
Pre-Nups aren’t always for the untrusting.
They could protect a young spouse from the older spouse’s adult children, include directions for one spouse being a vegetable, or protect each spouse’s independently earned income.
You may want your spouse to trust you, but not all people who get married are trustworthy and some are pretty good at hiding who they really are.
We have been married for 37 years, our parents and grandparents also had true partnerships and were married for a lifetime. Starting out with agreements about what happens if you divorce just seems like you are not truly committing. Your mind and heart are in the wrong place. The same as having separate money. When two are truly joined as one, everything is “ours.” The kind of people who make contracts and keep their money separate just coincidentally seem to be people who divorce a lot.
OMG! The rich getting richer off of the pyramid schemes! Way back in the day I was attempting to sell Advocare in Columbia, SC. Could not get a foothold ~ this particular family (rich, knew everybody and was connected to lots through their money) seemed to monopolize the market there.
that was in response to the post about the cheap ass lawyer selling amway
If I went to see a lawyer and saw he was selling Amway out of the office, I would really have second thoughts. Is the man maybe just eccentric?
I went with my son to his office and we saw all the Amway info sitting there in his office with a few products sitting around. That was 15 yrs ago.
My son decided to stick with the lawyer he already had hired.
*slurp*
They buy them each and every one. Including the judges.
I’m totally not surprised if there are no Drummonds in politics. In this society it is totally acceptable to dig up all kinds of dirt on elected officials, and Pappy and clan’s closets are likely stuffed with skeletons they would rather have left alone. I’m not sure that they were aware when PW started her blog that it would unearth what inquiring minds already have, or Pappy would have put his boot down. I suspect his money grubbing mind was changed when he saw the revenue rolling in.
I would love to see a good opposition research team turned loose on the Maggie Drummond issue.
Lad’s pappy – upCHUCK- you know, the one who went bankrupt and hid his ASSets with his spawn, has a farm in Waricka (don’t know how to spell it and could care less) but who knows what kind of gubmint subsidies he gets so gREEd and her spawn can have bigger and better fireworks on the Fourth of July. (does this compensate for Ladd’s “inadequacies?”
Oh Mamie, I so wish it wasn’t true. Is there no one in PW’s family who stands up and says this is wrong, what we’re doing is wrong, how we’re acting is wrong? Out of that entire clan, huge clan, you would think there would be one member that would have a conscience. I have to believe they’ve produced one decent person in the whole lot.
Aunt Carol the psychologist knows the score and all of the dirty family secrets. No f-in wonder she had to get a Ph.D to make sence of it all. Ladd’s mother is a saint because her husband Chuck is so wicked-bad. Missy never ever ever smiles except for Ree’s camera. She is the unhappiest woman I ever saw but then she is married to Pesky. But these are “the outlaws” not born and bred Drummonds.
You sound like you know the Drummonds personally? Or see them regularly? Do you live in Pawhuska?
We’re all ears. Stop by anytime!
Lets test my intuition shall we?
Chuck is a basically a total wank, he smokes, swills on whisky and pleases himself just what the eff he does in life…
Piss him off and look out!! No-body tells this mother effer what to do, how to do it and when to do it!
nah-ahhh Chuck rules the rules…
Missy;
The REAL Pioneer woman, she holds her own with a horse, a cow, a ranch, a recipe, hell Missy is all that AND THEN SOME.
poor Missy
But her husband is a total wank (heck she can wrangle a horse around him triple time – and then some) On the one hand he tears her down and demeans her and then on the other he takes any credit that should be her due and basks in it…
How am I doing?
Missy loves her kids, loves her horses and loves the “isolated” ranch living.
she pays her dues and then the poor woman has to put up with/contend with gREEd another selfish narcissist
Up side is Chuck(er) can see her talent and admires her, hence gREEd has extra incentive to hate Missy.
At least gREEd’s growing ass and shovel whacked face are going south and now “Pesky” tim has left the house in search of more interesting game…..
Could that nonsense be just one of the reasons why America is going broke and had their credit rating reduced from AAA to AA+ (which is a huge drop, by the way…). These folks with their sense of entitlement know how to make money at anything. In the meantime, there are real, live people (including children) who are homeless. Homeless…! I wonder how Ree would feel if her little punks were homeless.
Reading those lists makes me sicker than reading Ree’s recipes. She should be ashamed.
Probably part of it. A while back I had an online friend in butt-hole USA, who was permanently on Medicare or such, and she was telling me how she had purchased a house! I was so shocked I didn’t even ask how someone with no money could buy a house. Then when the American economy took a nosedive, and the rest of the world joined in, I figured banks giving people with no credit and no money, houses and cars and such, was part of the problem. Our banks here are so tightly controlled that would never happen. Now your dang congress just seems to be a bunch of hard headed a-holes who do not give a good goddamn about anybody in the USA or the rest of the world except their own egos. And it sucks!
“Creative financing”pushed by unscrupulous lenders is part of what caused the dominoes to start falling down in ‘o8. It was insane. Adjustable rate mortgages, which it is beyond me why anyone would sign.
We did it the old fashioned way, bought our first little house with an FHA guaranteed loan, but totally conventional otherwise. When we sold that to move here, we still bought a small, modest three bedroom brick ranch, used the money from the other sale to pay 25% down on a 15 year conventional mortgage. Paid for and done. When we went to get pre approved for the mortgage, the bank officer said we would qualify for a much larger loan. My husband nearly spit out his coffee, and told them there was no way he was going to still be making house payments when he was on social security.
Oh, yeah, it would be nice to have a big fancy house, but this is what we can afford and we were able to hang on through some hard times and pay it off.
One thing about US finances that is bugging me right now is how much we have given to other countries that was borrowed money. I am not against foreign aid, but if you have to borrow it, you can’t afford to do it.
You must be confusing medicare with medicaid. Medicare is available to all senior citizens past a certain age. We pay into it out of every pay check, and it is not means tested. Medicare recipients also pay a monthly premium out of their social security. It is not free; it is not welfare. Medicaid is a government medical program for the extremely needy. I don’t believe they pay anything. (The problem comes in when someone too young for medicare cannot afford medical care, but has too much to qualify for medicaid.) I can’t remember the guidelines off the top of my head, but you have to be really low income to qualify for medicaid. You can keep a house that you live in on a small piece of land if you have to go on medicaid. I would think it would be hard to get a new loan and start making payments if your income were low enough to qualify for medicaid.
It’s also possible that you are confusing this with SSI, supplemental security income to the disabled. It is also means tested and available to those below a certain income. My husband is on regular SSD, social security disability (he has Parkinson’s disease), which is available to anyone who qualifies healthwise under the social security system. Actually, he was on early social security while waiting to be approved. When he was approved, he was switched to SSD, and in about a year and a half, when he is his full retirement age of 66, they will quit calling it SSD, and it will just be SS. SS takes money out of every paycheck your whole life. It is not welfare.
All clear as mud?
Kinda. What she was on struck me as sort of a state funded welfare. I really thought she was ripping off the system if that was the case because she spent all her time going on trips and buying expensive things for her daughter. If she could do all that running around and post pics on the internet, why wasn’t she well enough to do some sort of work? But it proves I have no idea how your system works.
There are always people who know how to scam the system. One thing that goes on a lot is what’s called “crazy checks” colloquially. Lazy people convince a psychiatrist that they get so stressed by jobs that they can’t tolerate work. Sometimes people turn a behavior problem of a child into a “mental problem” and get checks for the child. (I read where someone said that if you had to be in an institution to get a crazy check, a wave of mental health would sweep the land.) I think this nonsense probably comes out of SSI. Yet someone who has worked and paid into the system for a lifetime and has an incurable disease has to get a lawyer and have a hearing before an administrative law judge to get approved many times.
Entitlements for the rich. And yes this kind of stuff lead to our credit demotion. Any by the way, babysitting mustangs requires much less paid labor that cattle that is why the cowboys for hire by the day hate them so much – those horses take food out of their children’s mouths. Dont get me wrong, the mustangs are gorgeous but maybe they can live in the lodge and PW and her punks can live in the wild?? Would make a great calendar – like the Miss Mustang contest. She has red hair extensions. Doesn’t that qualify as a tail?
Thank you Mamie!! my thoughts exactly. Here in Virginia, we are having horrible problems with coyotes. They aren’t native to our area and they are destroying the habitat and starting to move into populated areas and attacking pets and children. Why? Because people complained about the wolves, which are the predators of coyotes and kept them in check. So we took care of those darn wolves – I might add it was farmers that complained the most – and now we have no wolves in Va anymore. The government of Va now offers bounties for hunting coyotes or might I say the tax payers of Va but we laid off 30,000 teachers this year.
Too bad the REEbots would never consider the truth about the farm subsidies and how it fits into what has happened to our country. They just want to drink even more of the cool aid. I hate to be the one to bring this up but Food Network is about to be even more of a food porn thing because only the very rich will be worrying about cup cake wars and faux pioneer wimmin.
Mamie, you must be my soul sister. I totally get what you say about the cowboys resenting the mustangs, as “bad” as it sounds. I raise, love, admire, and respect horses, but that bit PW did about the horse “beauty pageant”………one of the most dumb-ass things I’ve ever wasted time looking at. Looks like something a junior high school girl would write. Unbelievable to me that the messes…..oops, I mean MASSES…..actually think this stuff is clever and creative.
Does she really have extensions?
It’s a part of it, but I frankly think it’s a smaller part. Government is in the back pocket of corporate america (small letters intentional) and Big Ag (a sub-set of corporate america), not dumbass cattelemen in the middle of nowhere. Don’t get me wrong, a dumbass cattlemen lawyer can do well for their clan with underhanded cheating and scamming, but really, they’re small potatoes. A few million is nothing in the corporate america greed chain. The Drummonds are just opportunistic bottom-feeders.
Wall Street and the banking industry brought the country down. I work across the street from one of the largest Fortune 500 companies on the planet, and the urge to knee every single freakin’ suitie I walk by is sometimes overwhelming.
Right wingers act like capitalism can do no wrong, but my brother, who writes on political/economic issues, says we don’t even have capitalism anymore, we have CORPORATISM!
(Oh, and btw, for folks here who work their ranches and farms, I tremendously respect the back-breaking work you do. Lazy, greedy landholders like the Drummond clan, not so much. Lladdie and Timmeh might put in a long day’s work, but that doesn’t mean their intentions are good and pure.)
Laddie and Pesky don’t do that much. Mostly, they follow cattle around letting the farm hands mostly do the hard stuff.
I take that back. I believe Tim and Missy actually DO breed cattle and breed and train horses.
But these are gentlemen ranchers, for whom the whole livestock and farming thing is just a game.
Oh
My
God…! I happened to click on her blog today. I cannot believe my eyes. She’s pimping out her children again. I feel so sorry for those kids. It’s not as if they have any say in the matter, or the wisdom to make any decisions.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2011/08/toddlers-and-tiaras/
Lord-luv-a-duck…
Do you think the girls did that impromptu or mom thought up the idea for a post and had them pose? Does she live in the moment or live in the post?
Let’s hope it was impromptu, because if she had them pose in those provocative poses, well, there’s no excuse for that. Maybe I’m old fashioned (or maybe it’s because I’m Canadian) but there is no way I would publish pictures of my daughter like that. Anyway, my daughter is prettier… *heh* (I just had to get that in there, sorry…).
LOL! Yeah these girls look like their mom
well the poor girls had racoooon eyes! or shall we sar reeecooon eyes. geez is she a closet pedophile????
i’m guessing the latter
ree’s just another middle-aged mamma, pitifully living vicariously in the middle of nowhere.
Right under that post is an ad for keeping your kids safe online.
You’re kidding…! Are you kidding…?
Oh, gawd…!
Can someone explain to me what a ‘cow disaster’ is?
Would you like me to tell you about the time the cow shit through the window of the car (and all over me) or the time that we had a storm and lightening fried 3 of them – Dear Son thought smelling given melting-oozing bodily fluids was a interesting thing to do…. Or the time a cow had a infection that smelt soooo bad I wretched my guts up?
Seriously, what I am doing here is highlighting that gREEd is so far removed from the real (farming/ranching) world that it isn’t funny.
Cow. Disaster. AKA Anne Marie **see above**
just MHO
I would say anything that causes a loss of cattle beyond the ordinary. The excessive heat this summer in some parts of the country has caused lots of cattle to die a premature death, for example.
I thought, once upon a time, that the EWG site had information on the different subsidy programs, if you click around. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, though.
off topic but here is another example of subsidies out of control…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu6ok5ykyuQ&feature=share
back to the ‘stangs there are several big ranches around here making a ton of money babysitting them its insane, yep i have 3 endangered quarter, paint, appaloosa horses (they act wild at times) how about a check each month for them…
How about taking that money the government is using to feed horses and provide farm subsidies to rich farmers and improve healthcare for veterans? You know those ladies and gentlemen who risk/lose their lives for the rest of us. I know way too many veterans – including the disabled one I’m married to – who have to fight for every little bit of healthcare they can get. And sometimes it just isn’t enough or they have to fight too hard and give up.
Men and women lose their lives and health. Children grow up without a parent or with a sick parent – mentally and/or physically. Spouses never see the person they married again after the war is over – even if they are sitting right in the same room with them. But yet there is still money to redo a lodge. There is still money to buy an ungodly amount of fireworks. There is still money to buy the ugly clothes and shoes. And people wonder why I use the name “Witch With Attitude”.
i like your name
call me a stalker….
wow, you all, I’m becoming way too cynical. I think I need to grab my daughters and watch Finding Nemo.
Have fun…! I’m going to grab mine and watch Rio.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1436562/
Cheezus. I don’t know that bugs me more….pimping your own beautiful daughters’ faces on the FREAKING INTERNET FOR EVERY FREAK~ASS FREAKSTER TO SEE (gee ree, I think they KNOW where those girls live), or the multitudes (300 something when I looked) who blow tons of sunshine up PW’s butt in response to it; Or, promoting the program T & T just by mentioning that your golden children even WATCH the program…….Hey, I’m all for pretending, dress up, princesses, etc., but I’d like to slap those whackjobs that push their little girls into pageants at such an early age. In response to the farm subsidies…..we are personally acquainted with a couple who moved into our neck of the woods and became “gentleman farmers”. He’s a lawyer, she’s a PhD of something or other that has to do with conservation. They started out with a few horses and chickens, but for tax purposes, needed more to write off, as horses and a few chickens do not qualify for being a “farm” in this state. Hence, they ventured into cattle. Bought up a ton of land, created ponds on this land through subsidies, brought in cattle through subsidies, somehow financed the equipment needed to maintain and hay a portion to feed the cattle (and their horses) through subsidies, and this REALLY pisses me off…..are being paid to not do ANYTHING with a portion of the land. They had leased some acreage to a gentleman who raised soybeans on it, but found that the government would actually pay them MORE to leave it alone as a sanctuary for wild animals. (What?! the one’s that ate one of MY chickens today?) All they had to do was drop some trees for habitats and make sure some fencing was appropriate. Now this couple is making a profit from raising cattle on your dime, and they justify it by saying that if the government did not do this, beef prices would be astronomical.
Honestly, beef prices probably should be higher. Most Americans are eating too much meat, and a good portion of that is cheap, low-quality processed beef stuff. Terrible.
I don’t really know much at all about agriculture subsidies, but it seems to me that it would make a pretty awesome difference in the health of our populace if subsidies were restructured so that there was some sort of requirement for crop rotation, and you had to plant at least one vegetable on a certain percentage of your land before you could be eligible for subsidies. Not really sure what to solution is to help out and promote smaller livestock operations, but would like to see something that results in less meat on the market, but produced in more environmentally friendly conditions and with naturally healthier animals.
I don’t think there’s really any question in the field of nutrition that we would all be just fine, and probably better off, if we were only eating meat, say, once a week, and consuming less-expensive plant proteins the rest of the time.
THAT is flippin’ interesting detective work.
margaret thatcher needs to visit and give us some insite into their world…
Let’s take into consideration that some of the beef that’s produced in this nation isn’t produced just from big ranches like what the Drummonds have, not all of it comes from a feedlot either. Our modest little herd of 35 that have a calf every year pay our land and house payment. That’s it. Don’t lump all beef producers into one category and then say that beef prices should be higher when you have no idea what goes into producing it. Yes, healthy food is more expensive. It costs more to raise an 800lb calf that’s healthy than it does to sell that 350lb steer that’s chronically sick that you sell to keep from having a death loss. Do you want to pay more for the calf that’s been out on grass and been fed only natural feed, or do you want to give less for the puke from the feedlot that is pumped full of anti biotics and fed full of stuff you don’t wanna know about? YES healthy food costs more because it costs more to produce!!!!
I’m not going to stand on a soap box and defend anything that the Drummonds may or may not be, but take into consideration the ice storms and BLIZZARDS that our part of the world has had lately. Now? We’re in the middle of one of the worst droughts that has ever hit our county. So yes, there are such things as disasters, and considering how many head of cattle they do legitimately run, yes, they’re going to have some big losses. And yes, I do know how many cattle they run, I grew up in Pawhuska and I know several of their cowboys and lots of the folks that have worked for them on and off over the years.
Do you know what lives less than 3 miles south of me? Mustangs. Mustangs of the same type that live at Ree’s house. Mustangs that displaced a family of 5 that I know personally from the ranch that had lived/worked on for years. The owner took the easy way out, got rid of his cow/calf operation and transitioned to housing mustangs. Fewer cows=fewer cowboys. It makes me want to throw up every time we drive down the high way and I have to hear my 5yr old son remark on the mustangs. How do I tell him that just bc Spirit was a mustang that it doesn’t make these way neato cool?!?
I feel this need to disaster assistance can be met by private crop/livestock insurance rather than the gov’t. That’s what every farmer around me uses. Their profits aren’t as high because they pay for the insurance but then if something goes wrong, they’re not looking for the taxpayers to bail them out.
That makes sense, certainly for rich farmers. It’s no different than homeowners’ insurance. Our home doesn’t produce any income to help pay for the insurance, which is getting more and more expensive, thanks to all the extreme weather.
Also, with THAT MANY cattle and weather conditions being uncontrollable, you’d think that Ladd would take a least minor precautions…. you know…. like most other ranchers. Why not build some windbreaks or even SHELTER for the cattle during those blizzards? And hey, how about tapping into the underground aquifer that the Drummond ranch sits right over? Oh that’s right! They’d have to pay the indians for the mineral/water rights!
Yes, MUCH better to just let the cattle die and collect from the taxpayers – it’s a blank check.
jesus christ.
These people just get worse and worse. Guess my instinct was right – Drummonds know jack shit about ranching. These are such lazy, entitled idiots. Ree found herself the right niche with those bottom feeders.
Wonder if those Mustang entitlements are part of the tax cuts? (rhetorical question.)
I’m not going to argue with you, I don’t agree with everything that they do. Simply trying to share my opinion that some of their losses were legitimate, no matter how asinine their management practices are otherwise.
For now, the Osages don’t have a monopoly on water rights, just the minerals. Lots of things going on in Texas could influence that, law makers there are trying to pass legistlation that says the water isn’t yours unless you bring it out of the ground somehow. Anyone in Osage county has the right to drill water wells on their own property as long as they own it outright. I know this for certain bc we’re waiting on a driller to come drill another water well for us this week. With the lack of rain, our ponds are dry. We have glorified mud holes in their places. Cattle up to their bellies in mud is not a good thing.
This would really be uncharted territory in subsurface rights if they make those changes to the law. Would that mean that oil and natural gas companies could suck out for free what is under your land, when you still retain the mineral rights? Both properties we have owned, the mineral rights have never been severed from the surface rights.
Their losses might be legitimate to you by your definition, but it’s not the taxpayer’s responsibility to compensate the Drummonds when their gamble doesn’t payoff – and that’s primarily what farming/ranching is, a gamble. Thus the crop/livestock insurance industry was born.
You’re incorrect regarding water rights on the Drummond ranches. They may be able to drill for water and use a “reasonable” amount for household but if there is ag or industrial use then according to the Winters Doctrine, the Osage Tribe absolutely has a claim on that water and can attach a fee. Whether they would or not is between the Drummonds and the Tribe. The Winters Doctrine stipulates that a Tribe has the first claim of ANY mineral/water on it’s native land and can lay claim to it should it be brought to the surface for ag, industrial, or commercial use. This was researched by the Osage Tribe about 15 years ago when someone, a non-indian, had the idea to buy a bit of land over the aquifer and pump out millions of gallons into watertight railcars and ship it to California when they were in a drought. The Tribe put a stop to that right quick.
I believe what you might be thinking of is the permit required? Currently they are not requiring permits to be issued for household water drilling purposes because of the drought. But, again, just because they aren’t requiring a permit doesn’t mean the Tribe won’t present a bill for a claim on any water removed from the subsurface for non-household use.
Correct, for commercial reasons you can’t drill a huge well and ship it out lol. . . Not like they would eeeverr do something like that!!
I would argue that many things they do shouldn’t be paid for by tax payers. I can get over the cattle “disasters” easier than I can the mustangs. The mustangs are the farthest thing from a “gamble” as you put it lol. They’re a sure fire thing. If certain steps were taken, equine over population and world huger could be ended in just a few short steps…but that’s a whole nother can of worms that’s full of my opinions XP
…Make that “hunger”…
Jeeze.
My typing skills are STELLAR today.
Thanks for posting the Medicare explanation Paula S. We’re there too – I had to go nearly a year without any type of insurance while waiting to go on Medicare. Due to a pre-existing condition I couldn’t buy coverage while waiting to turn 65. When my husband retired at 62 we were able to continue his insurance coverage at the cost of about $800 a month until he turned 65 – that took a big bite out of our income. Then later to continue on his insurance as a supplemental to Medicare for him and coverage for me it was going to be close to $1600 a month. We couldn’t afford it – we feel lucky that he worked in an occupation for 34 years that gives us a monthly retirement check in addition to my small SS check. It’s not a lot but we have a roof over our heads and food on the table. We, as so many others, are feeling the pressure of this economy. It’s important that younger people understand that being on Medicare or Social Security or having a retirement check doesn’t mean, for most seniors, cruising down the highway in a huge RV with a fancy car in tow.
The other thing that people don’t realize is that not only is Medicare not “free” (entitlement my ass) but depending upon a person’s situation there may be Part D (prescription drugs) and supplemental insurance to pay. Plan ahead kiddos because it is only going to become more difficult!
Ree Lee, sounds like we are in a very similar situation in life. Yeah, I am sick of this new crap of right wingers referring to social security as an “entitlement” with every other breath. They are trying to make it seem like welfare in the minds of the people. During this recent fracas, I called and emailed all our representatives several times, telling them it was NOT an entitlement, it was a social contract, one that we had had no choice in signing. My husband was in the workforce 46 years, and paying in all that time. Now he is disabled and we had to wonder if the check would come. Half his pension is eaten up by drugs. We would have been in real trouble. I lost my job in the recession and applied for hundreds of jobs and had twenty interviews, nada.
My advice to younger people would be to have as little consumer debt as possible, if you are lucky enough to get a job with a true pension plan, stay there. If they also offer a 401k, put as much as you can in it. Keep your pantry full, save money. Life is uncertain, and your circumstances can change in a heartbeat.
Yes, some conservatives are calling for a revamping of social security–privatizing it or eliminating it completely, but not all. I’m in the camp that it should be revamped–but not privatized. Let me explain, I firmly believe that retirees, widowed parents with children and the disabled receive benefits… but like all government programs like this, there is abuse. There are healthy, able bodied people who apply/receive disability or death benefits for their children when they don’t qualify. It’s putting a strain on the viability of the program to the extent that when it comes time for me to retire, there won’t be anything left.
I think the government needs to enlist an auditing process to audit for discrepancies and abuse of their funds–like they do with us taxpayers.
Scroll up to my comment at 11:46 about “crazy checks.”
After my both my older kids were diagnosed with diabetes and ADHD the pediatrician at the time asked me if I wanted to apply for disability from social security on behalf of both kids. Unless my kids were so disabled that it affected my ability to work and support my family, I saw no need. Evidently, the diagnosis of ADHD screams “free money” from some parents. It sends a horrible message to kids.
Hey you guys, I was noticing that politics seems to be a much discussed subject and was wondering what you thought about creating a Politics/Current Events forum?
Any interest?
Sure. I can see why you would want it on the forum instead of mixed in with everything else.
Well not so much that but I think it would be easier to carry on a conversation in forum format, at least that’s what I was wondering. LOL
I think that would be a great idea. I have noticed politics being injected into more and more threads, both here and in the forum, so there’s obviously an interest. However, I already have favorite sites to go to for politics/current events, and I come here to talk about PW, not those topics. Perhaps if there were a separate forum here for that subject, it would be easier for me to avoid the political threads/posts?
How long has this drought been going on? Seems it was flooded a year ago going by her postings?
Seriously, what kind of farmers aren’t prepared for a year of low rainfall? They’d die in Australia with that lack of ability.
They need to take a look at Somalia and put things in perspective.
It’s not *just* commercial use – there are two kinds of water use: 1. Household or 2. Commerical, Ag, Industrial – they lump them all together because it’s no longer personal but part of a profit-building venture. The Drummonds drilling wells for their ag use would definitely fall under the Winters Doctrine. For the record, it wasn’t disclosed to me who the people were that thought of shipping water to California, but I don’t believe it was the Drummonds.
I absolutely agree the BLM contracts are a sure-fire deal and that’s why the Drummonds do it. Ladd has said as much as well. He’s very open about the fact that the mustangs are “where they make their REAL money”. This is why I called him a liar when he had the nerve to tell the reporter he only netted $100,000 from them. BULLSHIT!