Free Republic

York County didn't qualify to receive low-interest loans to help residents and businesses impacted by severe weather earlier this month. The announcement came after a federal survey team from the U.S. Small Business Administration visited the county this week to assess damage caused by tornadoes and severe storms on Aug. 7. The SBA didn't say why York County didn't qualify for assistance. The National Weather Service confirmed two tornadoes touched down – one in Manheim Township and the other in East Hopewell Township. Thousands of people were without power for up to a week. Some families said it will take...

Liberal ignorance of flyover country was on full display on CNN this morning. On New Day, CNN contributor Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—a Bernie Sanders ally—suggested that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin should support the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill because it includes funds to address climate change. El-Sayed claimed that "climate change is ravaging coastal states like his." As NewsBusters tweeted, "Someone get the Dr. a map." West Virginia is—of course—a landlocked state. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Every once in a while, it becomes necessary to make an exception to our “don’t spotlight randos” rule. This is one of those times. Everyone, meet Jackson Kernion. According to his Twitter bio, he’s a “Philosophy PhD?” And his philosophy is evidently that rural Americans suck: I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans. they, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions. Some, I assume, are good people. But this nostalgia for some imagined pastoral way of life is stupid and we should shame people who aren't pro-city. — Jackson Kernion 🌐 (@JacksonKernion) November 6,...

Are the ‘Whistleblower’ and the West Wing Spy the Same Person? When Paul Sperry put a name to the “whistleblower” last week, it was already quite well known in Washington circles who that person was. And a lot was known about his connections to the DNC, John Brennan, Joe Biden and the top tier of FBI officials who had targeted Trump and his campaign.Nevertheless, one of the attorneys for this person, Mark Zaid of Whistleblower Aid, put out a statement saying that the release of Eric Ciaramella’s name “is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless.” That’s right,...

In an Instagram post on Monday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said the Electoral College needs to be abolished. One of her main gripes with the system was its so-called "racism.""The Electoral College has a racial injustice breakdown," AOC explained. "Due to severe racial disparities in certain states, the electoral college effectively weights white voters over voters of color, as opposed to a 'one person, one vote' system where all are counted equally."She addressed the biggest concern behind abolishing the Electoral College: with populous blue states making the decisions for the country as a whole."You may have heard this Electoral College...

The malignant environment of our nation’s capital sadly seems to unfairly brand America. The relentless dysfunction and self-interest promulgated by the media and elected officials spewing rancor into every headline and microphone all too often drowns out the quiet whisper of America’s greatness. Moving from Nashville to southwest Montana, my wife, Gracie, and I drove across the country in June and disconnected from the news emanating from a tiny section of the nation. In doing so, we rediscovered a portion of America’s vast beauty and majesty. Leaving Music City, we traveled through the rolling hills of Tennessee and Kentucky to...

The University of Alabama gave back a philanthropist’s $26.5 million donation and took his name off the law school Friday, a week after he called on students to boycott the institution over the state’s new abortion ban. Hugh F. Culverhouse Jr., a 70-year-old Florida real estate investor, said he has no doubt the board of trustees acted in response to his remarks, and he complained that the state of Alabama is only reinforcing its reputation as “the land of the backward,” full of “hicks.” University officials emphatically denied the decision had anything to do with Culverhouse’s stand on the abortion...

Since Donald Trump Jr. first gave an impassioned and well-received speech in support of his father and conservative values at the 2016 Republican National Convention, rumors have swirled about his own political future. At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for President Donald Trump on Thursday, Trump Jr. told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would "never rule anything out" when it comes to potentially making a run for office. "Right now, I'll never rule anything out," said the president's eldest son, according to Newsweek. "I do enjoy it. I like being in the fight. I like being in...

Noah Millman wrote a marvelously honest piece for "The Week" last week about the pay-to-play college admissions scandal. He acknowledges what many have known for a long time: First, that admission to the most elite schools is not purely based upon merit. Second, that education as good as -- and often better than -- that at the Ivies and other top-tier institutions can be obtained elsewhere. What parents are really after, Millman says, is status. This has become more important than the education itself, or even connections, which the children of these grasping, bribing parents frankly already have. Millman makes...

NBC News intelligence and national security reporter Ken Dilanian is no stranger to expressing his opinions on social media. Last month, after the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Dilanian advocated for a change in how senators are allotted to the states. Now, he’s openly wondering “how much longer the American majority will tolerate being pushed around by a rural minority.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is in the final stretch of a 44-city blitz for the midterm elections, but the America he’s glimpsed from the airport arrivals and his armored limousine is hardly a reflection of the nation as a whole.The president has mostly traveled to counties that are whiter, less educated and have lower incomes than the rest of the United States, according to Census Bureau data. It’s a sign that he is seeking to galvanize the same group of voters that helped carry him to victory in 2016. Trump has largely eschewed the big metropolises for smaller...

The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service of the University of Virginia analyzed Census Bureau population projections to estimate each state’s likely population in 2040, including the expected breakdown of the population by age and gender ... we see that, in fact, the [US] population will be heavily centered in a few states. Eight states will have just under half of the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate. The next eight most populous states will account for an additional fifth of the population, up to 69.2 percent — meaning that the 16...

Political bickering has long been a roadblock to getting big things done in the US but a grassroots movement getting few headlines could yet herald a new American age of change. A green giant in a loin cloth would seem an unlikely indicator for what some describe as a revolution under way in the heart of America. But the Jolly Green Giant statue on Highway 169 in rural Minnesota wears a 48-inch (1.2m) smile for a reason. Accompanied by the slogan Dream Big, he typifies a sense of hope and renewal in the nearby city of Blue Earth that is...

Following a Democrat’s special election win in a Wisconsin Senate district that voted for President Donald Trump, a group backed by former President Barack Obama said it plans to invest millions of dollars into state-wide elections in Wisconsin and 10 other states. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, said this year’s election cycle is critical to affecting the congressional redistricting process. It is the first cycle whose winners will participate in drawing congressional maps for the decade starting in 2021. The committee backed Democrat Patty Schachtner in last month’s election in the 10th...

There’s a chance that what ails the GOP is terminal, but to give ourselves a chance at recovery, we’ve got to move—physically. The Republican Party is sick, so sick it can’t breathe, and its lack of oxygen has given it severe muscle fatigue. There’s a chance that what ails the GOP is terminal, but to give ourselves a chance at recovery, we’ve got to move—physically.The party’s national committees, think-tank brains, campaign strategists, and government functionaries all live in the fever swamps of Washington that firmly anchor the snotty southern end of the Acela Corridor. The GOP’s elected and unelected leaders...

MSNBC host Joy Reid thinks that rural Americans are “the core threat to our democracy” and pointed to a series of tweets by liberal author Jared Yates Sexton that claimed Trump supporters “do not believe in the Constitution or any founding principles unless they're advantageous” as proof of her far-left theory. “By 2040, about 70% of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states. They will have only 30 senators representing them, while the remaining 30% of Americans will have 70 senators representing them,” MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin tweeted over the weekend. Reid, who tweets so often that...

Message from MSNBC to you hicks out in the sticks: the people who gave us Le Pen, Brexit and now, Trump represent the “real problem.” Unlike we city dwellers, you don’t “mix” and “get along together” with people from “cosmopolitan cultures.” . . . Then came the pièce de résistance—Dickey’s swipe at the great rural unwashed: “the voters who cast their ballots for Marine Le Pen, for Brexit, for Donald Trump, they’re not the people who are part of those cities, those cosmopolitan cultures where people mix and get along together. That is the real problem. That’s the divide we...

MONTICELLO, Iowa — The Table of Knowledge was delving into President-elect Donald J. Trump’s plans to upend government, and marveling at how he had forced his fellow Republicans in the House to reverse themselves on gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics. “He’s getting responses; things are happening,” Jerry Retzlaff, a retiree, said. “He got Congress to turn themselves around with one tweet.” “There’s no secret the press doesn’t like him, and neither does a lot of the leadership,” he added. “And that’s because he’s planning on making a lot of changes.” The eight men around a rectangular table, sipping coffee...

**SNIP** A flyover state is the huge region between the coasts. As opposed to the eastern seaboard, northern post-industrial states and Pacific Ocean states. They’re overwhelmingly Republican, stanchly conservative, regressive right wing, evangelical Christian and working class, well, the loudest, most ill-informed of them are. The term wasn’t commonly used in a political manner until recently with the emergence of the Tea Party and the election of Obama. **SNIP** Since the inception of the term silent majority almost 50 years ago, and all of its iterations since, this block of voters was hardly a majority and never silent. This group...

No one listened to Tom Vilsack. As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. And he’s spent most of his tenure focusing on rural development, trying to revitalize areas that ultimately voted for Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election. “The Democratic Party, in my opinion, has not made as much of an effort as it ought to, to speak to rural voters,” Vilsack said Tuesday in...