And they are very welcome here, despite what our grandstanding who-can-be-the-biggest-public-asshole politicians might make you think.Texas BBQ spots are shutting down due to high beef prices:
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 7, 2026
"The biggest reason that the price of beef is so high is that the supply of cattle has been diminishing. With lower supply, there's going to be higher prices." https://t.co/08OMJCXeO0
That said, this is a problem for the rest of us who live BBQ.
"The biggest reason that the price of beef is so high is that the supply of cattle has been diminishing," Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told ABC News. "With lower supply, there's going to be higher prices."Have we done that “perfect storm” metaphor to death, yet? Anyway, Trump’s little “military exercise” isn’t helping things any.
Ajilore said there are multiple contributing factors at play, including recent droughts that have limited grazing areas and led to feed issues for cattle.
Ajilore also noted that high fuel prices and fertilizer supply issues stemming from the Iran war are also causing problems for ranchers.
I know for a fact this is a real problem because Texas BBQ is primarily brisket, and my SIL tells me the price of brisket has been rising for years. He’s a backyard BBQ chef, but when I tell you I’ll forego a trip to Lockhart for his brisket, I’m not talking about convenience. He’s noticed the price rising for sometime, which he attributes to the rising popularity of BBQ restaurants. They did used to be rare, and the good ones rarer still. Now they pop up like franchise fast food joints, or fire ant mounds, if you want to be more colorful (and descriptive), and despite the clamor and Texas Monthly trying to sell magazines, the good ones are still rare. But everybody wants to smoke brisket.
So I’m of two minds about this. Some BBQ places getting squeezed out just means they don’t have deep enough roots. It might also lessen the pressure on brisket availability. We don’t need everybody and his dog smoking brisket. At some point, after all, it’s just BBQ. We need the few good places. The rest? Eh….
But some of this is just more of the complete fuck up of this wholly incompetent administration. The Iran “military exercise” is part of the problem; and now screwfly promises to make matters worse. Some restaurants closing won’t lower prices when scarcity is worsening.
IOW, this is no way to win friends and influence people in Texas.An outbreak of screwworm (a fly that lays eggs in livestock wounds that hatch into flesh-eating larvae) threatens to cause $1.8 billion in losses to the Texas economy and cost the state’s farmers $732 million per year if it spreads similarly to a 1976 infestation. https://t.co/7Tbn0k5JPo
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) June 7, 2026
Elon and his smug little band of twenty-something incel know-nothings threw 25,000 USDA people, whose job it was to contain screwworms south of the border, out of work. For the laughs.
ReplyDeleteRussell Vought will do all he can to prevent those people from being re-hired. He believes God wants him to do everything he can to make other people's lives worse.
I dunno. I voted for the HR ladies and I would have voted for the old stuttery guy too. Any of them could have slept through four years and done a better job of keeping the government running than the freaks and clowns who came along with Trump.