Iowa Farmers complained about Obama but now Complain about Trump -they want CLEAN WATER!

[riversedge]

Each year Wisconsin's run off problems from mega dairy farms gets worse under Gov Walker and his Repugs minions. Now it is hitting Iowa.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/iowa-farm-waters-trump/?utm_term=.64556b758851

The Forgotten
Rural farmers felt ‘shoved aside’ under Obama. Now some fear an unregulated ‘Wild West.’
In Iowa, former president Barack Obama’s promotion of “Meatless Mondays” irked cattle farmers, and rules targeting farm runoff in waterways felt like a threat. Donald Trump pledged to reverse much of what Obama had done, but now there are new worries. “People don’t like to be told what to do,” one farmer said. “[But] we need clean water.”

Story by Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan | Photos by Bonnie Jo Mount


Annette Sweeney rounds up cattle on her farm in Iowa. Sweeney is active in politics. She voted for Donald Trump and is supportive of his efforts to reduce environmental regulations. (Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
‘Smothered’ and ‘shoved aside’ in rural America
In Iowa, Obama’s ‘Meatless Mondays’ and environmental regulations helped Trump win the White House. Now some worry that he’s creating an unregulated ‘Wild West.’
By Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan Dec. 29, 2017

“Come on! Come on! Go, girls!” Annette Sweeney was on horseback, hollering at her chocolate-colored cows on a perfect Iowa morning, happy that her life is better since Donald Trump became president.

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Sweeney, 60, raises Angus cows and corn on the flat, green farmland of central Iowa. One in 7 Americans live in places like this: Rural counties have 72 percent of the nation’s land but a shrinking population as urban areas have ballooned in size and wealth.

In recent years, Sweeney has felt a growing “disconnect” between how people think in cities and in places like Buckeye, a town of 108. In her view, farmers were too often “shoved aside” during the presidency of Barack Obama, while environmentalists and conservationists, many of whom live nowhere near a farm, took over the national conversation.

Iowa farmer Annette Sweeney voted for Donald Trump and supports his rolling back of environmental rules, some of which she sees as a hindrance to farmers. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

Obama set aside millions of acres of undeveloped land as national monuments — more than any other president — preventing huge areas from being mined, logged or farmed. Obama also implemented more regulations with a significant economic impact than any president in three decades, according to the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center. Those actions were cheered by many Americans but widely viewed in rural areas as killing jobs.

Incredibly, Sweeney said, Obama’s Agriculture Department even started pushing Meatless Mondays, an insult to Iowa’s pork, beef and chicken producers. “I will eat more meat on Monday to compensate for stupid USDA recommendation abt a meatless Monday,” Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R) tweeted in response. Meatless Mondays felt like a “slap in the face” to Sweeney, who has this bumper sticker on her Buick: “EAT BEEF: The West Wasn’t Won on Salad.”

But nothing galled Sweeney more than a regulation Obama issued in 2015 called Waters of the United States or WOTUS. The Environmental Protection Agency said it was aimed at keeping pollutants — including fertilizer, manure and other farm runoff — out of streams and creeks that feed the nation’s waterways. Farm runoff is a leading cause of water pollution, contaminating drinking water, spawning toxic algal blooms and killing fish.

To Sweeney, WOTUS felt like the government’s hands on her throat.

Was some bureaucrat now going to show up and police her puddles and tiniest ditches of water? She said that is what happened several years ago: A federal conservation official told Sweeney she had a half-acre of wetland in the middle of a 160-acre field. Wetlands are protected habitats for migrating birds and other wildlife and are important for healthy soil and water...............................

[riversedge]

1. In Iowa, a snapshot of the rural vs. urban divide

In Iowa, a snapshot of the rural vs. urban divide

Iowa, an early-caucus and battleground state for the general election, is representative of the political divide between rural and urban areas. In the 2016 general election, Donald Trump won 93 of 99 counties.

[marble falls]

2. They need to remember this in November.

[Sneederbunk]

7. But won't.

[marble falls]

8. That's my worry.

[MontanaMama]

3. Iowa overwhelmingly voted

in favor of dirty water when they voted for the Dotard. Connect the dots folks.

[gopiscrap]

4. fuck them-they voted trump

let them live with the consequences..maybe next time they'll think before voting for trump or some scum of his same ilk

[Girard442]

5. Here's the problem: there is no "one cow, one vote" principle.

If you belong to a shrinking segment of the population, your only hope of being treated well and fairly by your government is to support candidates who will treat everyone well and fairly. If your principle is to stick it to others, don't be at all surprised if those others don't come to your defense when you feel you're being mistreated.

[Afromania]

6. Who knew you needed clean water for farming?

I respect their farming skills but why are they such fucking idiots when it comes to voting? When a company comes in and claims your crop is theirs its ok. Their seed has blown onto your land and taken over your fields through no fault of your own, but now they are on your asses because nobody gets any freebies from the big companies.

You know who supports that kind of shit? Republicans support that kind of shit; Republicans run on deregulation and say it's good for business. It goes without saying that they probably will let farm water become polluted as hell because it's good for a business somewhere.

[Fullduplexxx]

9. Polluting for profit. You will now find your place in the republican party

Hope you like it down there