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a larger campaign to drive Americans out of rural areas and centralize access to food, the Biden administration is rolling out a draconian and needless new wastewater rule that could put small and mid-size food processing facilities out of business. A large group of United States senators and representatives are demanding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdraw a new meat and poultry wastewater proposal, which they claim “stands to hamper rural economies and drive small- and mid-sized processing facilities out of business.” “Given the technical complexity and high costs of wastewater treatment alterations, coupled with the massive expansion of the...

"White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an...

Joe Biden's HUD is coming to make the suburbs more 'fair.' As we sit comfortably in our homes, having dinner with our families, crime rates are going up all around us. That is to say that criminals are no longer relegated to the inner cities; they've evolved to suburbs and rural areas as they seek new and more vulnerable targets. The Biden administration is fostering the decline of those outer areas by using the Housing and Urban Development agency to force suburbs to accept high-density "affordable housing." For several decades, one of the major dreams of the middle class has...

New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman went on a tone-deaf rant against rural Americans who are fed up with Washington, D.C. elites making their lives miserable. Krugman’s Jan. 26 drivel, headlined “Can Anything Be Done to Assuage Rural Rage,” bemoaned that rural Americans have shifted so far to the right that loyal Democrats supposedly “face intimidation and are afraid to reveal their party affiliation.” Krugman exploited the findings of political scientist Katherine J. Cramer that reportedly tied “rural resentment” to “perceptions that rural areas are ignored by policymakers, don’t get their fair share of resources and are disrespected by...

Source: Photo/Salena ZitoLEBANON, Kansas -- There is something uplifting about standing in the center point of the United States of America. It evokes a sense that is both spiritual and patriotic, particularly if you reach this point having traveled on both sides of the monument that marks the spot. There is a restorative energy you absorb, no matter where the back roads take you. You have to take time listening to folks in city neighborhoods, tree-lined suburbs and small towns. No one person's story is perfect. No situation or place is perfect. There is plenty of despair among people in...

Remember John Lennon's silly song, "Imagine"? Well, here's my (much shorter) version. Imagine if some of the biggest cities in America seceded from their states. Imagine Illinois without Chicago, Pennsylvania without Philadelphia, California without Los Angeles or San Francisco, New York state without New York City, or Texas without Houston, Dallas or San Antonio. Those states would lose a major tax base and some of their best orchestras and other artistic institutions. But the gains in quality of life would completely offset any financial or artistic losses. Big cities have been and continue to be centers of destructive ideas, and...

Many argue rural America has been in steady decline for decades. It was particularly hard hit by the “Great Recession of 2007-09,” according to a 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Task Force on Agricultural and Rural Prosperity, which was created by Executive Order in April of 2017. The report found that rural Americans working in agriculture still lacked access to electronic connectivity, technology-oriented jobs, and businesses that otherwise improve quality of life in metro areas. The effects of the Great Recession, the report concluded, “still permeate throughout rural life, particularly for communities with high poverty rates, low...

Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday proposed a three-year program with $7.35 billion in funding to bring broadband access to rural America. The bill would focus on the most remote and least served areas. More than 20% of rural Americans lack access to high-speed internet service, says the Center for Rural Innovation.

When President Joe Biden announced former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his pick for Transportation Secretary, many scratched their heads. Why would he tap someone who oversaw a small budget, in a small town, in the midwest for such a roll? That puzzle is finally coming together. It turns out that Biden favors Buttigieg's transportation views, specifically the idea that America should move away from the gas tax and instead opt into a tax based on the number of miles a person travels. It would be a new way to provide cash for the Highway Trust Fund, which...

New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks ignited a wave of backlash after insulting rural Americans who have no contact with the “expert class.” SNIP “Look at how much more Republicans are affected by conspiracy theories than the Democrats, so it can’t just be the internet, there must be some demand,” Brooks said, pointing out the “two core problems.” “A lot of people in the expert class live in blue cities who are thriving,” he claimed. “And a lot of people left behind in the rural parts of America, they feel threatened economically, culturally, socially and they have no contact...

Innovations by Black farmers remain at the core of sustainable agriculture today. Black people have largely been expelled from the US agricultural landscape. In 1920, nearly a million Black farmers worked on 41.4 million acres of land, making up a seventh of farm owners. Today, only about 49,000 of them remain, making up just 1.4 percent of the nation’s farm owners, and tending a scant 4.7 million acres—a nearly 90 percent loss. This didn’t happen by accident. Since Emancipation, Black farmers have had to fight for a share of this country’s fertile ground, due to a history of racist policies...

Rural America is experiencing 'disaster gentrification' as wealthy Covid-19 evacuees from the hotspot cities flock to the relative safety of picturesque towns. In Blaine County Idaho, home to Sun Valley ski resort, more than half of the houses are rental properties. As of yesterday 228 had tested positive for the disease, around 10 percent of its population. 'People come here from all over the world,' ER doctor Brent Russell told the Idaho Statesman. 'When I'm in the ER, I get people from New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Seattle. Every week there's people from those places.

It’s no wonder he chose to skip the Iowa caucus, given that former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg apparently thinks farmers and manufacturers all across America lack “gray matter." In a clip just now circulating online, Bloomberg, while speaking at Oxford’s Said Business School back in 2016, explained that "anybody [can] be a farmer," but that it takes "a lot more gray matter" to "think and analyze" enough to work in the tech field. “I could teach anybody – even people in this room, no offense intended – to be a farmer,” Bloomberg explained. “It's a process. You dig a hole,...

Said they deserve 'uncomfortable' lives A UC Berkeley graduate student and instructor took to Twitter on Wednesday to vent about his repulsion for rural Americans and why they deserve to live "uncomfortable" lives. Jackson Kernion, a graduate student who has taught at least 11 philosophy courses at the university, posted that he "unironically embrace[s] the bashing of rural Americans." "They, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions," he said in the since-deleted tweet. "Some, I assume, are good people. But this nostalgia for some imagined pastoral way of life is stupid and we should shame...

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,...

But Booker said the framework to prevent mass shootings must include the experiences of communities that endure shootings regularly. “Mass shootings in this country are awakening an issue that has existed in my community for generations,” Booker said. He noted shootings occur frequently in his Newark neighborhood, including the March shooting of Shahad Smith, a man Booker shared a building with. “These communities are often left out of conversations or completely dissed.” Samantha Dorf of the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action agreed, telling participants that while mass shootings fill news headlines, “it’s the everyday gun violence that takes...

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.”

Well, for liberals, year one was the darkest era in human history. It was the return of Lord Voldemort, the resurgence of Sauron from the land of Mordor, or the Galactic Empire reigning hellfire from the Death Star, whatever terrible cultural villain suits the narrative that was it. Frankly, it was probably the former because liberals seem to really gravitate towards the Harry Potter universe, but I digress. CNN and MSNBC ventured into Ohio and Pennsylvania respectively to speak with Trump voters. CNN’s Martin Savidge spoke with five Trump supporters from Youngstown, Ohio in Mahoning County. It was a...

We’re three weeks out from Virginia’s gubernatorial race and it’s been mostly relegated to the backburner thanks to the endless news that emanates from the Trump White House. It’s an off-year election, but it’s in D.C.'s backyard. The state has increasingly become more bluish since the Bush years, albeit the state legislature is Republican. The House of Delegates, the lower chamber, is reliably Republican where they hold a supermajority. The state Senate is more competitive. Anti-gun groups under the Bloomberg umbrella tried and failed to flip the Senate in 2015. Those groups are mounting a second invasion of the state...

The Democratic Party is regional. It’s mostly confined to the urban areas and states that touch salt water. That spells certain doom for a healthy party that’s incapable of winning rural areas. It’s not impossible. They’ve done it before, though it was before the toxic ethos of political correctness and identity politics were thrown into the mix. Now, the party’s hard left turn on immigration and abortion is starting to make moderate to right-leaning Democrats, ones who can win in these regions, difficult to find, let alone support. To complicate matters, there are still healthy numbers of Democrats who think...