Kentucky’s Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative came out of a local electrification co-op set up during the New Deal, and in 1949 it was expanded into a telephone co-op with more federal infrastructure money. Today, the PRTC has used Obama FCC funding to expand into public broadband delivery, wiring up all of Jackson and Owsley Counties, some of the poorest places in America, using a mule called “Old Bub” to haul fiber through inaccessible mountain passes and other extremely isolated places.
Continue reading “One of the poorest, most desperate regions in Appalachia is experiencing an economic miracle thanks to fiber run by a New Deal-era co-op”
Tag: appalachia
Perhaps the reason @RepAndyBarr rescinded his invitation for AOC to visit the coal mines in his district is that there are none?
Earlier this week, Kentucky Republican Congressman Andy Barr withdrew his invitation for Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to visit a coalmine in his district (made after AOC defended the Green New Deal as being better for working people, including coal miners, than GOP denial inaction on climate change).
Continue reading “Perhaps the reason @RepAndyBarr rescinded his invitation for AOC to visit the coal mines in his district is that there are none?”
AOC is going to Kentucky
First AOC gave a great speech about how the Green New Deal was good for workers, including coal workers; then she accepted GOP Rep Andy Barr’s invite to visit the coal-miners in his Kentucky Appalachian district; then Barr disinvited him, citing her “incivility” in her response to the racist attacks on Rep Ilhan Omar; then it transpired that Barr has no coal mines in his district, but it doesn’t matter, AOC is going anyway: “Luckily, we still have open borders with Kentucky, we are free to travel there. We hope to visit and have a town hall, listen to concerns of workers in Kentucky.”
AOC is going to Appalachia to talk to coal miners
After Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered a blistering rebuttal to Rep Sean Duffy’s [R-WI] charge that the Green New Deal and environmentalism were “elitist” concerns that ignored the needs of rural people, Congressional Coal Caucus member Rep. Andy Barr [R-KY] invited her to visit Appalachian coal-towns and “go underground” to talk to people in the mining industry.
Continue reading “AOC is going to Appalachia to talk to coal miners”