Iowa
updated
8:41 a.m.
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Ben Lange, the Republican hoping to unseat incumbent 1st District U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, released a web video Thursday attacking his Democratic opponent and distancing himself from attack ads paid for by a nonprofit conservative organization. Des Moines-based America Future Fund (AFF) released an ad last week alleging Braley supported building an Islamic cultural center two [...]...
Iowa Independent - 6:09 a.m. - 3 clicks 
AUDUBON — Democratic congressional candidate Matt Campbell of Manning Tuesday night renewed his challenge to opponent U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, to debate in a formal, televised setting — something King has not done with a balloted opponent since winning his seat in 2002....
Iowa Independent - 5:03 a.m. - 3 clicks
State Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, told The Des Moines Register Wednesday that he is planning to organize a boycott of any businesses who purchase advertising on Jan Mickelson’s WHO-AM radio program in response to remarks he made regarding homosexuality and AIDS. As first reported by The Iowa Independent, Mickelson said on the air that AIDS [...]...
Iowa Independent - Wed 1:45 p.m. - 3 clicks
The Iowa Corn Growers Assocation's political action committee announced its support for 66 Iowa candidates today. Unlike the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, which endorsed 64 Republicans and just three Democrats , the Corn Growers' PAC is supporting 33 candidates from each party. For the governor's race, the corn growers took the unusual step of endorsing both Governor Chet Culver and his Republic...
Bleeding Heartland - Wed 1:45 p.m. - 4 clicks
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the Republican candidate in Iowa’s 2nd District, recently called on Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack to join her in opposing a tax law change linked to health care reform — something his office reports he’s already voted to change. “Miller-Meeks should do her homework,” a Loebsack spokeswoman responded after reading Miller-Meek’s sta...
Iowa Independent - Wed 11:47 a.m. - 4 clicks
Federal agents have paid another unannounced visit to two Iowa egg producers currently embroiled in a voluntary recall of Salmonella-tainted product. Wright County Egg, owned and operated by the DeCoster family, and Hillandale Farms, owned and operated by Orland Bethel, have come under increased government scrutiny in the wake of a voluntary egg recall of more [...]...
Iowa Independent - Wed 10:06 a.m. - 4 clicks
In 2008, supporters of Democratic Congressional candidate Rob Hubler donned chicken suits outside some of Representative Steve King's events, to highlight the incumbent's refusal to debate. At that time, King's excuse was that the League of Women Voters and Sioux City Journal would not provide "neutral" forums. He cited the Journal's alleged "attacks" on his character, perhaps referring to a ...
Bleeding Heartland - Tue 9:42 a.m. - 9 clicks
Representative Bruce Braley's re-election campaign started running its first television commercial of the year Monday evening in the Cedar Rapids and Quad Cities markets. The ad responds to the misleading hit piece the American Future Fund began running in the same markets last week. The conservative group's commercial claimed Braley "supports" building a mosque at the site of the World Trade Ce...
Bleeding Heartland - Mon 7:44 p.m. - 7 clicks
Representative Leonard Boswell's campaign held a press conference this morning to announce an endorsement from Mark Rees, who finished fourth in the seven-way Republican primary in Iowa's third Congressional district. Rees positioned himself as a moderate and mostly self-funded his campaign. He only won about 4 percent of the GOP primary votes . From a Boswell campaign press release: "Boswell...
Bleeding Heartland - Mon 3:22 p.m. - 9 clicks
Iowa school districts are able to hire back more teachers as the academic year begins, thanks to the fiscal aid Congress approved earlier this month. That's the bill Terry Branstad avoided talking about for weeks , before finally admitting that he opposed extra federal money to support state education and Medicaid budgets . Republican governors who aren't in campaign mode understand how foolish ...
Bleeding Heartland - Sun 8:48 a.m. - 9 clicks
Coming off its worst week yet, Brad Zaun's campaign is hyping a new poll showing him leading seven-term Representative Leonard Boswell by 51 percent to 41 percent in Iowa's third district. The poll was commissioned by former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman's American Action Forum, and taken by Republican pollster Ayres, McHenry & Associates. The poll was in the field from August 16 through 18, before a...
Bleeding Heartland - Fri 10:05 a.m. - 12 clicks
The Sierra Club published its fourth annual "Cool Schools" report , which seeks to identify the greenest college campuses in the country. Researchers sent detailed questionnaires about sustainability programs to 900 colleges and universities, of which 162 responded. None of Iowa's state universities returned the Sierra Club's survey, and only two of the state's private colleges participated. The ...
Bleeding Heartland - Thu 7:23 p.m. - 8 clicks
The Environmental Integrity Project released a detailed report today on coal ash contamination in 21 states, including Iowa: Days before the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) kicks off a series of regional hearings across the United States on whether and how to regulate toxic coal ash waste from coal-fired power plants, a major new study identifies 39 additional coal-ash dump sites in...
Bleeding Heartland - Thu 10:08 a.m. - 5 clicks
The Federal Emergency Management Agency decided this week against providing federal funds to rebuild the Lake Delhi dam in northeast Iowa after last month's catastrophic breach: A written analysis by FEMA officials said the Lake Delhi Recreation Association is a private, non-profit association formed to provide recreational services. "The applicant does not provide any essential governmental ...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 26 - 7 clicks
Last week the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation endorsed 67 candidates it views as "Friends of Agriculture." Only three Democrats, all incumbents, made this list: State Representative Geri Huser, State Senator Dennis Black, and State Senator Rich Olive. Huser is in the corporate-friendly "six-pack" of Iowa House Democrats, and her race in House district 42 isn't expected to be competitive. Black isn't...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 25 - 8 clicks
Catching up on some news from last week, I see former First Lady Christie Vilsack not so subtly suggested that Leonard Boswell should be ready to step down from Congress in 2012: Vilsack said during an interview at the Iowa State Fair that she is considering "other options" like running for congress. "I just turned 60, so timing is important - political timing as well as personal timing," she...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 24 - 8 clicks
Iowa's Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman stood by her false assertion about President Barack Obama's faith yesterday. As Bleeding Heartland discussed here , Lehman claimed last week that Obama "personally told the muslims that he IS a muslim. Read his lips." Sam Stein of the Huffington Post asked Lehman to clarify and got this response: "I was watching television when he was over ...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 24 - 6 clicks
Following up on my post about a very bad week for Brad Zaun's campaign , here's a piece by Civic Skinny with more details on Zaun's unpaid bills : According to Polk County District Court records, Republican Zaun ignored for years - until he decided to run for Congress - bills for $1,070.77 from Iowa Health Des Moines and $50.66 from Radiology PC. He was sued in March of 2005 and failed to appe...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 23 - 4 clicks
You come across the strangest things on Twitter sometimes: Yes, it's delusional to believe Politico is in the game to "protect" Barack Obama, but for now I'm more interested in Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman's claim that the president is Muslim. Presumably she was responding to Tim Grieve's August 19 report for Politico on the latest Pew survey about the president's religio...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 22 - 8 clicks
This thread is for anything on your mind this weekend. Anyone volunteered for an Iowa Democratic candidate lately? In honor of the Iowa State Fair, with its multitude of cooking competitions, I want to hear Bleeding Heartland readers' favorite ways to cook Iowa sweet corn. I don't ever get tired of eating plain old corn on the cob: shuck corn just before cooking, while bringing a pot of water to ...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 21 - 8 clicks
When Congress passed $26 billion in fiscal aid to the states, including $96.5 million in education funding and $128 million in Medicaid assistance for Iowa, Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad avoided commenting on the issue. Scott Keyes of Think Progress was in Iowa recently and got Branstad to speak on the record about the issue. Click the link for the audio and the full transc...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 20 - 4 clicks
The Democratic National Committee voted today to keep the Iowa caucuses the first presidential nominating contest in 2012, according to Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Norm Sterzenbach , who's attending the DNC meeting. I'll update this post with more details as they become available. In July, the DNC Rules Committee approved the following calendar : Iowa caucuses on February 6, 2012;...
Bleeding Heartland - Aug 20 - 6 clicks
And you thought I lived in rural Iowa! HA! Well, I do drop in now and then, mostly to rub elbows with the little people and remember what it’s like to be poor. Humbles me you know. Mostly, more and more that is, I live here. In my mansion, in Hawaii. Where it is sunny [...] ...
A Feather Adrift - Aug 17
Things are quite bad here in Iowa. Rains continue at the rate of 4-5 days a week. We have gotten here an additional three inches plus in the last few days. It did not rain yesterday, nor is it supposed to today. Friday, more rain. In northern and western Iowa and in Des Moines, the [...] ...
A Feather Adrift - Aug 12
So, come election day, I will get to vote here in Alexandria, VA - my new home. I was checking out the Alexandria voter registration site (because I'm a political dork, and that how I roll), and found out the following. 1. Alexandria has an electronic voting system (new to me - I was always an opti-scan voter in Iowa). 2. Virginia law requires you to produce a valid ID or sign an a...
Towards a Green Future - Aug 10
I’ve only been through Magnolia, Iowa once or twice, and I don’t know much about the town. Though, what I do know reveals a story all to common in the Midwest and Great Plains. Located in Harrison County in far Western Iowa, the population of the area reached its peak over 100 years ago, a [...]...
Rural Populist - Aug 10 - 2 clicks
Iowa City residents are rightly concerned that affordable housing policy changes could affect the quality of life in our community. Ironically, most concerns are founded on a misguided belief that balanced mixed income/housing stock neighborhoods are detrimental to overall quality of life. This in the absence of state and national data that support such reasoning. However, by inaction, de facto h...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
The issue of what to do about panhandling and other annoyances on the Ped Mall in Iowa City will likely to come to a head tonight with a group of ICCI and FAIR! members asking the city council to delay a vote on the issue citing a lack of data to make the decision. Council member Terry Dickens has largely led the charge for the Downtown Assocation (DTA) to make panhandlers, musicians and others to...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
I had the following oped published in today’s Des Moines Register: Livestock pollution turns off young Iowans BRIAN DEPEW, SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER I recently returned from a visit to my family’s farm. While there, I was dismayed to learn that three more livestock confinement buildings are being built within 2 miles. Once complete, there will be 13 [...]...
Rural Populist - Aug 10 - 4 clicks
Guest Post by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin In the last few weeks I’ve traveled to over 26 cities and towns all over Iowa to meet face to face with residents and listen to their hopes, their concerns, and their feedback on the 2007 farm bill, which will strengthen investment and economic opportunities for our rural communities [...]...
Rural Populist - Aug 10
I attended last night's City Council meeting and it brought out a new understanding of how Iowa City's "diverse" downtown commercial interests are ruling the roost in Iowa City . In discussing the second reading of a more stringent ordinance to limit panhandling on the Ped Mall , the majority of city council members pooh-poohed 1st amendment concerns in supporting the ordinance, the curren...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
While out of state in Ohio this past weekend, I felt badly for missing Gov. Culver's visit to the Hamburg Inn for a chat with The People. Having not supported the Big Lug when he ran against Ed Fallon in the last go round, I am not particularly surprised at the way his first term has gone. When I attended the Labor Day picnic and watched him spend most of his time pitching E-85 to members of local...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
Upon the heels of Easter weekend and the celebration of the resurrection of God’s only child, Jesus Christ, the Religious Right (alias GOP) grabbed their pitchforks and stormed the Iowa State Capitol Monday demanding that the Democratic majority put forward a bill that would change the Iowa Constitution by redefining marriage “between a man and a woman.” This begs the question: W.W.J.D.? Desp...
Political Fallout - Aug 10
Dear Senator Grassley: My monthly health insurance premiums are killing me, literally. I wish I was speaking hyperbolically. And no, I’m not a hypochondriac: Who could afford to these days with skyrocketing health care and insurance costs, especially in the midst of an economic crisis? One of my biggest fears, other than Congress sabotaging a golden opportunity to reform health care (If only ...
Political Fallout - Aug 10
This is the fifth year or so that I've marched with my fellow Unitarian Universalist church members in in the Iowa City Pride Festival. This particular year, the parade was both eye opening and anger provoking. Perhaps because it is an election year, the turnout of Democrats running for office was very noticeable. Also noticeable were the outpouring of religious right folks who numbered around t...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
Below is the transcription from the 5/10 Iowa City Council meeting which included a second consideration of an " aggressive solicitation " ordinance modification, the details of which can be found here . ITEM 18. CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 8, ENTITLED "POLICE REGULATIONS," CHAPTER 5, ENTITLED "MISCELLANEOUS OFFENSES," SECTION 2, ENTITLED "AGGRESSIVE PANHANDLING," TO PROHIBIT SOLICITING...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
PRESS CONFERENCE: FREE SPEECH ON THE PED MALL Iowa City, IA – On June 1, 2010, Iowa City Council will be considering a third reading to reduce the free speech zone of the Ped Mall to appease business interests that lobbied its members. We find this to be abhorrent to the 1st amendment Rights of all Iowa Citians and ask the City Council to reconsider passing this ordinance. On June 1st at 6:30 pm...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10 - 2 clicks
Masturbating motorists across Iowa were relieved to hear that the Iowa Senate did not include “masturbation” as part of its bill outlawing texting-while-driving. Unlike the Iowa House’s version, the Iowa Senate passed a tougher bill that would not only ban texting while driving but would put the kibosh on reading text messages as well (although the bill made no explicit distinction between te...
Political Fallout - Aug 10
The Iowa Assembly has set the stage for an epic battle-to-the-metaphoric-death between the state’s elderly population and the up-and-coming elected power mongers. Fearing the Elders may usurp their power, Iowa Lawmakers approved a bill changing the state’s Department of Elderly Affairs (DEA), not to be confused with the fed’s Drug Enforcement Agency, to the Department of Aging – or more aptly De...
Political Fallout - Aug 10
It was a great day to be a local incumbent in Johnson County as all of them made it through the primary either unopposed or winning by large margins. It was also a very good day for women candidates of all parties as US Senatorial candidate Roxanne Conlin, US House candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and Iowa House candidate Sandra Greiner withstood multiple challengers. On the other hand, in stat...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
( Disclaimer : a satiric moratorium has been placed on the front end of this post. Anything that smacks of satire is intended to be non-hyperbolic truth and should be read as such.) In a long overdue historic move, the Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that overturned a 10-year-old ban on same-sex marriage, noting the latter violated the Constitution’s basic fairness and equal prote...
Political Fallout - Aug 10
As the Iowa City Council gathers to decide whether to make an aggressive panhandling ordinance more rigid, a couple of different thoughts have solidified in my mind. 1) This ordinance radically changes who can speak and gather on the Ped Mall 2) How law enforcement officers will be challenged to fairly enforce the law. The panhandling ordinance has the chilling effect of lumping all "panhandlers"...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10 - 2 clicks
The Iowa City city council is considering a more restrictive aggressive solicitation ordinance that would keep panhandlers and street musicians at least 15 feet from each other, would limit the area within the Ped Mall to something like a putting green on a miniature golf course for them to ask for help, and disallows the use of obscene language on solicitation signs. In asking the city council to...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
Once again, Iowa Lawmakers are toying with the idea of prostituting Jackson Pollack’s “Mural” painting in exchange for cash to help pay for damages incurred by last summer’s flood on the University of Iowa campus. Sen. Matt McCoy, the new Fine Arts Pimp on the Block, proposed selling the painting “to help students mired in the state’s economic crisis.” The Real McCoy: "Pssssst. Hey, buddy...
Political Fallout - Aug 10
I have posted many articles about the Iowa City Council and the Ped Mall, but what do people really think about Iowa City's Downtown? Take this short Click here to take survey . Popular Progressive- Putting People First "Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It's about a...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10 - 2 clicks
As the Iowa City Council will have one more vote on the extended panhandling ordinance tentatively on June 1st. Fair-minded people should ask: which is more dangerous, a panhandler with a sign or a city council that can't be swayed from a decision that they clearly do not have evidence to support the need of? The violations of the current aggressive panhandling ordinance has been numbered at zero-...
Popular Progressive - Aug 10
