By Rhea LandholmCenter for Rural Affairs Once a week in the summertime, brightly colored tents pop up in a corner parking lot in my community. Under each one of those tents is a producer, crafter, or small business owner who has tables of goods for sale. We celebrate these farmers
From the vault, August 20, 2011 (revised): Got gas? Would you be willing to pay $5 (or more) per gallon for a tankful? The answer to both questions is “yes” (although the answer to question number two might be hard in coming out of your mouth, dear reader). A couple
By Bela “Bill” Suhayda Wayne Johnson announced to the readers of this publication he is doing a re-read of George Orwell’s classic Novel “1984.” Johnson does to this novel what subversives do to democratic societies, they turn them upside down. Johnson tells us the book has become a difficult read.
By John & Nisha Whitehead Having burned through billions of dollars and depleted critical munitions stockpiles, the Pentagon is running out of money. Our money. According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is facing an urgent budget shortfall caused largely by the Iran war, with some critical funding accounts expected
News flash! Scientists have now discovered what type of meteorite (formerly known as meteorwrong) killed the dinosaurs. Thank the Lord. We’ve been on the edges of our seats for 66 million years for a definitive answer. It’s a bit late for the dinos unfortunately, but knowing dinosaurs, they didn’t give
July 12, 2026Dear editor; Iran has shown it could destabilize the industrial world’s economy at will by closing the Strait of Hormuz, despite the bluster of president Donald Trump and secretary of war Pete Hegseth. Regardless of the lives lost and the billions of dollars spent, Iran’s leaders feel they
By Bela “Bill” Suhayda I’ve branded Charles Coddington a communist because he speaks, thinks, and writes things communists live by (see The Voice archives for proof). Charles supports confiscation of private property, nationalizing our banks, nationalizing airlines, nationalizing energy production and a host of other industries. He supports government control
By John & Nisha Whitehead While Americans remain transfixed by the political circus—cheering for their preferred party, jeering at the opposition, obsessing over every manufactured outrage and waiting for the next spectacle—the Surveillance State continues its steady march forward. The government is watching. It watches where you go, whom you
By Dr. Glenn Mollette Delay is not always the best plan but you can’t do everything today. You can delay paying your utility bills a few days but you can’t delay for very long because the utility company will turn off your power or water. You can delay mowing your
July 6, 2026Dear editor; The 2026 Aurora Greenfest was a huge success. I hope you were among the more than 1,000 people who came to learn more about sustainability and how to care for the environment. For the first time, the Greenfest was held at the site of the former
Happy 250th birthday to us! For me, it would have been more joyous if it didn’t happen during Donald Trump’s reign. Imagine how big and spectacular it would have been under any other president. Big promises from Trump. He spends 86 million on his Great American State Fair with no
By John & Nisha Whitehead What exactly did Americans celebrate this Fourth of July? Two-hundred and fifty years after the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all people possess inalienable rights, we now live under a government that increasingly behaves as though rights belong to the government to distribute, restrict and
Musings: •The Sins of Donald J. Trump (chapter 21). He has: Attempted to establish a $1.8 billion “slush fund” for the purpose of rewarding the rioters of January 21, 2021 who claimed they were innocent of the charges against them; Welcomed white South African “refugees” while excluding refugees from other
By John & Nisha Whitehead This is a year of strange anniversaries. Two-hundred and fifty years ago, a band of revolutionaries declared their independence from a king. America’s founders rejected concentrated power. They denounced standing armies. They distrusted government secrecy. They risked their lives to escape a ruler who could
By Bela “Bill” Suhayda Many in today’s Democratic Party call themselves democratic socialists. They put democratic in front of the word socialist to soften the socialist stigma conjured in the minds of the voters. This doesn’t work with those who understand democratic socialism is a euphemism for Communism. It only
June 17, 2026Dear editor; As I sit here typing my next letter to this publication, the voice of Donald Trump continues to play in the background. I wish to thank C-SPAN for its uninterrupted coverage of Trump’s news conference at the end of the meeting of the G7 country leaders.
Another Father’s Day is in the books and I hope it was a good one for all you fathers out there. It made me wonder how Donald Trump’s offspring recognized the day. One of the latest fiascoes of the self-proclaimed stable genius currently in the White House that’s costing us
By Meredith VanKampen Krantz There is a house on Downer Place that has been standing longer than anyone alive can remember. It was built in 1894, the same decade Ellis Island opened its arms, a country still becoming. A judge built it, a native son of Aurora named Russell B.
By John & Nisha Whitehead The American taxpayer has become the cleanup crew for the American Police State. We pay for the constitutional violations. We pay for the wars. We pay for the lawsuits, the settlements, the cover-ups, the damage control, the reconstruction, the overreach, the incompetence and the corruption.
June 10, 2026Dear editor; As someone who works in healthcare and advocates for small businesses in Aurora, I think a lot about what it takes for families, workers, and local business owners to feel safe in their own community. Aurora is Illinois’ second-largest city. We are also a city that
