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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with a left-wing advocacy group to boost voter turnout as part of President Joe Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to get involved in elections. The USDA worked directly with Demos, a New York-based group that helped draft Biden’s Executive Order 14019, according to records obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.) Biden signed his order on agencies and voter registration in March 2021. On Aug. 9, 2021, Demos’ Adam Lioz emailed USDA officials, many in the office of Secretary Tom Vilsack, under the subject line:...

The internal Department of Agriculture (USDA) communications — obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT) and shared with Fox News Digital — show that Kessler was involved in initiatives to "transform" the U.S. food system and to crack down on the meat industry for high prices. Kessler was the only individual on the email chains who wasn't affiliated with the USDA. "These emails reveal that Eric Kessler has direct access to Biden cabinet officials and plays an intimate role in shaping this administration’s agenda," APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News Digital. "As the architect and operator of the...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The federal government announced Tuesday a program that will provide $1.3 billion in debt relief for about 36,000 farmers who have fallen behind on loan payments or face foreclosure. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the farm loan relief program funded from $3.1 billion set aside in the Inflation Reduction Act allocated toward assisting distressed borrowers of direct or guaranteed loans administered by USDA. The law was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in August. The USDA provides loans to about 115,000 farmers and livestock producers who cannot obtain commercial credit. Those...

Key members of President Biden’s cabinet are going on tour in a bid to promote the $737 billion energy, climate and health care legislation passed by Congress last week. As part of the “Building a Better America Tour,” Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will travel across the country to tout the inappropriately named Inflation Reduction Act, according to an internal memo obtained by Politico.

President Biden on Monday will roll out a new plan to target a handful of meatpacking companies that control the bulk of the nation's supply, months after his administration accused the conglomerates of facilitating anti-competitive behavior that has caused meat and poultry prices to skyrocket.Biden will join Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Merrick Garland for a virtual White House meeting with farmers and ranchers to announce the administration's plan to tackle rising prices and boost competition industry-wide, including $1 billion in federal funding from the coronavirus relief package to help expand independent meat and poultry processing capacity.The White...

President Joe Biden tweeted Wednesday that supermarket shelves are well stocked across the country while grocers ration food. “For all those concerns a few weeks ago that there would not be ample food available for Thanksgiving, families can rest easy today,” Biden claimed. “Grocery stores are well-stocked with turkey and everything else you need,” the president added. Meanwhile, Publix Supermarkets, a Florida-based grocer, warned customers this week to expect food shortages in all 1,280 stores across the southeast.

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack stated that the Biden administration is “trying to help people deal with the consequences of rising prices, whether it’s increasing the SNAP benefit or whether it’s making sure that the child tax credit is available to folks or whether it’s rebuilding the infrastructure of this economy” to fix supply chain issues. Vilsack said, “I think it’s — the key here is that we’re also trying to help people deal with the consequences of rising prices, whether it’s increasing the SNAP benefit or whether it’s making sure that the child...

President Biden and a third of his Cabinet will be at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Scotland that starts Sunday, a high-profile show of force amid pressing domestic issues. Attendees at the conference include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Eric Lander, and EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Biden climate advisers John Kerry and Gina McCarthy will...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that only 0.1 percent of coronavirus relief set aside by the Trump administration for American farmers went to Black farmers, according to a Washington Post interview published on Thursday.... “We saw 99 percent of the money going to White farmers and 1 percent going to socially disadvantaged farmers and if you break that down to how much went to Black farmers, it’s 0.1 percent,” Vilsack said. ...The Post notes that only 1.3 percent of American farmers — around 45,000 — are Black...

Hey. I’m always here to offer advice to the Left, to make their road smoother, to point them in the direction of fellow travelers they should cancel for deficiencies of “wokeness.” Let’s start with the issue of GMOs, poisonous Roundup, and Monsanto (now swallowed up by Bayer). Joe Biden is going to appoint Mr. Monsanto, Tom Vilsack, as his Secretary of Agriculture. Tommy boy held that post under Obama. The Organic Consumers Association writes [1] (see also [2], [3], [4]): “If, like us, you dream of an organic, regenerative food system led by independent family farmers, then news that Joe...

On Tuesday, a group of civil rights leaders urged him privately to take a slew of executive actions during a two-hour virtual meeting... ...Biden made his comments unprompted, referencing an earlier remark made by NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who had warned that appointing Tom Vilsack to be secretary of agriculture would anger Black farmers in Georgia. It also wouldn’t be prudent to have that fight before the Georgia runoffs, he said, before adding that police reform should also be avoided....“I just raise it with you to think about how much do we push between now and January 5 — we...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden picked up another high profile endorsement on Saturday in Iowa, where the party’s nominating contest kicks off in nine days, after U.S. congresswoman Cindy Axne said she was backing the former vice president. Axne, a freshman U.S. lawmaker and moderate, is the latest in a slew of big-name endorsements for Biden in Iowa which could have an impact on undecided voters as caucus day nears on Feb. 3. Two former Iowa Democratic governors, Tom Vilsack and Chet Culver, have backed Biden, as has another U.S. House member, congresswoman Abby Finkenauer.

One of the top candidates being considered for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Running mate in 2016 has had some email problems of his own. Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa and President Barack Obama’s current secretary of agriculture, was caught up in a 2004 scandal that resulted in emails being “inadvertently” destroyed. Vilsack partially blamed himself for destroying emails regarding the Iowa Department of Economic Development Foundation. The Des Moines Register had requested the emails. Vilsack’s response to the controversy, rather ironically, mirrored Clinton’s response to her own email scandal: he basically said he was old and...

LAS VEGAS — Fast approaching her final decision on a running mate, Hillary Clinton appears to be looking closely at Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Labor Secretary Tom Perez, say multiple people who are in regular contact with her inner circle. But it’s another member of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet whose stock has been steadily and notably rising in recent days, vaulting him into what close Clinton friends call the “top tier": Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Tuesday that his agency is looking for “creative ways” to give public school students access to more meals, including a way to provide them breakfast, lunch and dinner year round. “We have focused on efforts to try to figure out ways in which we can expand in those time periods when youngsters may not have access to school meals,” Vilsack said in remarks at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. That includes giving students access to meals “across the school day, across the school year and across the calendar year,” he...

(CNSNews.com)-- The School Nutrition Association (SNA), which represents 55,000 school nutritionists nationwide, is pointing to data published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to draw awareness to the fact that “after 30 years of steady growth in the National School Lunch Program, student participation is abruptly down in 49 states."The nutritionists attribute the drop to new nutrition standards that were instituted by USDA in 2012.Total national participation in the School Lunch Program peaked in 2010 and 2011 at 31.8 million, according to USDA. In 2012, it was 31.7 million. But in 2013, it dropped by 1 million participants, to 30.7...

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is traveling to Colorado to announce funding for conservation projects in all 50 states. […] The Department of Agriculture says the projects concern water quality, soil health, wildlife habitat and agricultural viability. …

If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door. If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving. And no matter what, you...

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday challenging Iowa’s tough policies that bar felons from voting, seeking to restore the right to thousands of former offenders before the 2016 presidential election. The case aims to end confusion over rules that followed a 2011 policy change by Gov. Terry Branstad and a criminal investigation into people who improperly voted. Iowa is among three states where felons cannot vote after completing their sentences unless their rights are restored by the governor. “The widespread denial of voting rights on the basis of a felony conviction is the single biggest denial of...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is teaming with businesses, nonprofits and others on a five-year, $2.4 billion program that will fund locally designed soil and water conservation projects nationwide, Secretary Tom Vilsack said. Authorized by the new farm law enacted earlier this year, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program is intended to involve the private sector more directly in planning and funding environmental protection initiatives tied to agriculture. Officials provided details of the program to The Associated Press ahead of an announcement scheduled for Tuesday. …