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Donald Trump is blaming an intern after he seemingly took a shot at Iowa voters in a Twitter post Thursday insinuating that the reason Ben Carson is now beating him in the early voting state is because GOPers are eating too much genetically modified corn. “#BenCarson is now leading in the #polls in #Iowa,” Trump seemingly quoted a fan on Twitter. “Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain? #Trump #GOP”

It's been a long-standing tradition at the Iowa State Fair, but now you can cast your kernels for presidential candidates at the Minnesota State Fair. The early front runners in the unscientific poll at the Minnesota Republican Party booth are Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. "Anybody can stop by our booth and and cast a vote for whoever their favorite candidate is," GOP Party Chair Keith Downey said. If you make a donation or sign up to support the GOP, voters get a small cup full of corn kernels they can distribute among as many of the candidates...

It’s the same party with 2 wings. The Washington Crony Party. If one can fleece the taxpayer it will be done, Republican, Democrat, whatever, so long as money is funneled to the narrow interests which fund your campaigns. The Republican Party, though it has a free market wing which is young and growing is still dominated by the older big government crony Republicans. How long that generation can hold on, and how much damage they will create to the economy is anyone’s guess. (From The Surge) "Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) just can’t help himself. He is intent on using the...

America's grain stocks running short By Robert Pore robert.pore@theindependent.com Print Story | e-mail Story | Visit Forums Global demand for grain and oilseeds is at record levels, causing the nation's grain stocks to reach critically low levels, according to Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt. With a weak U.S. dollar and global demand so high, foreign buyers are outbidding domestic buyers for American grain, Hurt said. "Food consumers worldwide are going to have to pay more," Hurt said. "We ended 2007 with our monthly inflation rate on food nearly 5 percent higher. I think we'll see times in 2008 where...

Imagine a government energy program that is such a disaster that the Environmental Working Group and the American Petroleum Institute both oppose it. The anti-poverty group ActionAid USA wants to get rid of it, as does the pro-business Competitive Enterprise Institute. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wants to end it. So does Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. They're both sponsors of the Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2015. Feinstein pans the ethanol mandate as "both unwise and unworkable." Quoth Toomey: "It drives up gas prices, increases food costs, damages car engines and is harmful to the environment." Scott Faber of the...

Until Republicans can stop “pleasin’” crony capitalists with subsidies at the expense of the public, taxpayers will continue to be subject to regular “squeezin.” The really big difference between Republican and Democrat handout recipients is their ability to be sympathetically photogenic. When pressed, the average Democrat welfare recipient can hide the flat–screen TV, stash the cellphone in a drawer and refrain from cigarette smoking. And it’s not too much trouble to pretend to fill out the job application or limp convincingly to prove the bad back disability claim as long as photographers and media are around. The Republican dependency class...

United States Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), today joined Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and seven other cosponsors to introduce The Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act of 2013. The bill eliminates the corn ethanol mandate within the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires a yearly increase in the amount of renewable fuel that must be blended into the total volume of gasoline refined and consumed in the United States. The RFS, which was first enacted in 2005 and then expanded in 2007, requires refiners and blenders to use 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuel in 2013. "In 2005, Congress...

Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) managed to turn a disagreement with a crowd of Iowa businesses and farmers into an applause line at the Iowa Agriculture Summit. Cruz reiterated his opposition to the Renewable Fuels Standard, a popular policy in Iowa that presents a thorny problem for many Republicans who campaign against crony capitalism but want to win the GOP presidential nomination. “I recognize that this is a gathering of a lot of folks where the answer you’d like me to give is ‘I’m for the RFS, darnit;’ that’d be the easy thing to do,” he said. “But I’ll tell...

Hugh Hewitt grills David Corn of Mother Jones on his claim that then-CBS News correspondent Bill O'Reilly exaggerated the capacity of his involvement in covering the Falklands War. DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES: As Joe Walsh said, do the show, go play it straight, he’ll play fair. But you’re asking me questions you didn’t ask Bill O’Reilly. HUGH HEWITT, HOST: If you… DC: So you know, I’m given you one more… HH: Here’s Eric Engberg… DC: If you want to talk about the article or not, Hugh, because I’ve got better things to do than help you fill time on the...

The study, based on DNA analysis of corn cobs dating back over 4,000 years, provides the most comprehensive tracking to date of the origin and evolution of maize in the Southwest and settles a long debate over whether maize moved via an upland or coastal route into the U.S. Study findings, which also show how climatic and cultural impacts influenced the genetic makeup of maize, will be reported Jan. 8 in the journal Nature Plants. The study compared DNA from archaeological samples from the U.S. Southwest to that from traditional maize varieties in Mexico, looking for genetic similarities that would...

The fiscal impact of the ethanol mandate is huge — Michaels estimated it totals “billions, easily” in direct and indirect money — but it has come under attack by liberals as well as conservatives and appears to have lost some of its clout on Capitol Hill. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency — which administers the Renewable Fuel Standard — is considering a cut to the amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gasoline supply. ... a growing number of environmentalists want the ethanol requirement eliminated, too. ... In 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law...

CARVER – Police say someone shot an ear of corn through a police cruiser’s windshield using a makeshift device. Police say the corn, which had previously been described only as a “projectile,” damaged the cruiser but did not cause any injuries. At least two other cars have been hit by objects fired at them near Purchase and Callow streets in the last week.

Liberal umbrage-monger David Corn– of the Mitt Romney 47% and the Rand Paul hates Dick Cheney video fame– says the difficulty with making African-Americans angry enough to vote against Republican “intimidation” tactics is that they don’t realize they’re being intimidated… Chris Matthews: What about the attempt to intimidate them out of voting? Corn: Well, that’s true. It’s happening…and when you do that– when people wanna vote or they’re thinking about voting in an election– they do get ticked off and it motivates them. But…they are so disaffected or so distant from this election that they may not even know that...

At the risk of inviting all the usual charges of being politically incorrect, I once again put before you the strange practice of burning food for fuel. The video at the bottom of the post details some of the human costs associated with the increasing use of corn, grains, and other crops for fuel.There is a tendency for environmentalists of our time to think very narrowly about their issues. It is a praiseworthy thing to seek to reduce pollutants and other things that have negative environmental impacts. The Catechism summons us to good stewardship of the earth, the environment, and...

I see that both the Farmer’s Almanac and Joe Bastardi (the other Joey B) are predicting another El Nino winter, which means a stormier and colder than normal winter, especially along the east coast. That could prove to be a bit of a problem since power companies apparently took Barry at his word that “if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”  So they didn’t. And they’re closing the coal plants they do have: “In order to comply with the new Obama era EPA regs, American Electric Power, which supplies...

The average price for all types of ground beef per pound hit its all-time high -- $3.884 per pound -- in the United States in July, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That was up from $3.880 per pound in June. A year ago, in July 2013, the average price for a pound of ground beef was $3.459 per pound. Since then, the average price for a pound of ground beef has gone up 42.1 cents--or about 12 percent. Five years ago, in July 2009, the average price for a pound of ground beef...

Generally speaking, the Israelites of Christ’s time were frugal eaters. Frankly until about 100 years ago, frugality in eating was more imposed than chosen. The food was more scarce and less convenient than today. It’s availability was seasonable, and all the elements needed to be made from scratch, including hauling in the water from wells etc.Bread was the essential, basic food. So basic was it that in Hebrew “to eat bread” and “to have a meal” in the same thing. Bread was treated with great respect and many rules existed to preserve that reverence. Any crumbs of over the size...

I mentioned two days ago the decision of schools to ban birthday cupcakes. Michelle Obama is essentially fighting with students to get them to change what they eat. But what is missing from this story is the proper context. The fact is that our bad eating habits are getting encouraged by taxpayer money. In fact, the government arguably changed our dietary habits to their present behavior. The Foundation for Economic Education came out with an article yesterday about dealing with “food deserts.”

According to a new article at the Guardian, corn-mageddon could be just around the corner in the United States because of anthropogenic climate change: "The days of 'king corn' could be numbered as climate change brings higher temperatures and water shortages to America's farmland, a new report warned on Wednesday... The report amplifies warnings earlier this year from United Nations climate scientists and the National Climate Assessment that America's agricultural industry -- and specifically its corn crop -- was at risk from the high temperatures and water shortages anticipated under climate change... Corn uses the most water for irrigation of...

When Congress threw ethanol producers a gigantic bone by expanding the Renewable Fuel Standard through the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 by annually increasing the amount of ethanol that fuel refiners are required to blend into the nation’s gasoline supply, they blithely made the crucial assumption that Americans’ gasoline consumption would continue to increase indefinitely. Thanks to heightened fuel efficiency and slackened driving habits, however, Americans’ demand for gasoline has actually decreased, meaning that refiners would have to blend gasoline with ethanol well above the E10 level that is considered safe for most of the older cars and...