Iowa
updated
7:10 p.m.
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Farmers have withdrawn an application to build a 5,000-head hog facility in northern Dallas County, amid strong local opposition to the project. The confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) would have been located near Minburn (Beaver Township). Nearly 350 Iowans signed the following online petition to the Dallas County supervisors : Deny the permit for a 5,000-head hog confinement This CAFO...
Bleeding Heartland - 3:29 p.m. - 7 clicks 
State Representative Brian Quirk announced today that he is no longer a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which lobbies for a wide range of conservative and corporate-friendly policies in state legislatures. Up to now, Quirk had been the only ALEC member among the 40 Democrats in the Iowa House. Follow me after the jump for background and details on Quirk's decision, as...
Bleeding Heartland - 10:11 a.m. - 10 clicks
Longer days, warmer weather and the approaching end of the school year mean more time outdoors for many Iowans, especially children. Last week Kamyar Enshayan, a Cedar Falls City Council member and director of the University of Northern Iowa's Center for Energy and Environmental Education, raised an important question: "Is having weed-free lawn worth it?" Excerpt from Enshayan's May 10 guest ed...
Bleeding Heartland - 6:10 a.m. - 11 clicks
Speaking in Des Moines this afternoon, Mitt Romney promised to lead the country "out of this debt and spending inferno" by reducing federal government spending from 24.3 percent of the country's gross domestic product to 20 percent of GDP within four years. Romney would address what he called a "prairie fire of debt" by moving some federal programs to the state level or the private sector, repeali...
Bleeding Heartland - Tue 2:50 p.m. - 12 clicks
Governor Terry Branstad's education reform blueprint called for higher academic standards and better methods to assess student skills. I just hope my kids don't learn to count the way the governor counts jobs created in Iowa. Creating 200,000 jobs in Iowa was one of Branstad's key promises as he campaigned for governor in 2010. During that campaign, Branstad also exaggerated how many jobs h...
Bleeding Heartland - Tue 6:11 a.m. - 11 clicks
The word "devastating" is overused in political commentary, but I can't think of a better way to describe the television commercial President Barack Obama's re-election campaign rolled out today. The fifth commercial the president's team has run in Iowa since the beginning of April is in my opinion the most effective by far. (The previous ads claimed Republican Mitt Romney "stood with Big Oil," ...
Bleeding Heartland - Mon 3:22 p.m. - 15 clicks
In the final days of the 2011 Iowa legislative session, funding for passenger rail was one of the last disputes House Republican and Senate Democratic negotiators resolved. The final deal called for no passenger rail money in the state budget for fiscal year 2012, but left "intent" language describing future state funding to match federal grants for a train route between Iowa City and Chicago. A...
Bleeding Heartland - Mon 4:51 a.m. - 20 clicks
I found a hate message posted on the information board at my US Post Office in Dayton, Iowa, 50530 on March 2, 2012. There were also three modified cartoons referring to President Obama, fried chicken, watermelon, and black salami. I thought that the cartoons were inappropriate and offensive to public decency; I removed them. The threat letter seemed more personal, so I added my answer and lef...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Sun 6:08 a.m. - 13 clicks
Governor Terry Branstad signed an executive order today to nullify an administrative rule banning the use of lead ammunition for hunting mourning doves in Iowa. He advanced two contradictory positions: that the Iowa legislature (not the state Natural Resources Commission) should decide whether dove hunters must use alternative ammunition, and that he was compelled to act because the Iowa Senate fa...
Bleeding Heartland - Fri 2:45 p.m. - 16 clicks
President Barack Obama talks about intervening to save the U.S. auto industry in his re-election campaign's latest television commercial, now on the air in Ohio and Iowa. I've posted the video and transcript of the 30-second spot below. "Succeed" went up on May 10: My transcript: Obama speaks to off-camera interviewer: The decision to intervene with the auto industry was not popular. Oba...
Bleeding Heartland - Fri 6:07 a.m. - 14 clicks
So what if the next Iowa caucuses are nearly four years away? I'm on Public Policy Polling's wavelength : 2016 Iowa caucus polling is interesting, even if it doesn't mean much now. Disclaimer: there's no guarantee that Iowa will get to lead off the nominating process during the next election cycle. Our chances of keeping our place in line are better if President Barack Obama is re-elected than ...
Bleeding Heartland - Thu 3:50 p.m. - 12 clicks
Iowa lawmakers always cram so much action into the last few days of the legislative session. Instead of writing one long news roundup on the final decisions by the Iowa House and Senate, I'm covering specific issues in separate Bleeding Heartland posts this year. Rod Boshart posted a good, comprehensive list here on what bills did and didn't pass during the 2012 legislative session. Follow me ...
Bleeding Heartland - Thu 9:21 a.m. - 12 clicks
The U.S. Postal Service announced yesterday that it will save money by reducing hours of operation at thousands of small post offices, rather than shuttering them. The changes will affect 178 Iowa post offices , listed on pages 35 through 46 of this pdf document . After the jump I've posted reaction from several representatives in Congress: Republican Steve King (IA-05) and Democrats Bruce Bra...
Bleeding Heartland - Thu 5:06 a.m. - 15 clicks
The Iowa House and Senate adjourned for the year today. Tomorrow Bleeding Heartland will sort through the state budget compromises and other news about the survivors (mental health reform, solar tax incentives) and casualties (property tax reform, nuclear power bill) of the session's busy final days. For now, enjoy a couple of wild geranium photos after the jump. One of them includes other native...
Bleeding Heartland - Wed 8:07 p.m. - 15 clicks
In an interview with ABC News today, President Barack Obama confirmed that he thinks same-sex couples "should be able to get married." UPDATE: Added more Iowa political reaction below. Click here to watch the ABC News video. Obama explained that he has always supported equal rights for same-sex couples in the context of civil unions, but balked at backing full marriage rights because the word...
Bleeding Heartland - May 9 - 4 clicks
Iowa is second only to Vermont in the number of farmers markets and community-supported agriculture farms per capita, according to data compiled by the Vermont-based non-profit Strolling of the Heifers . Strolling of the Heifers created a "Locavore Index" as a rough measure of local food access and demand in each of the 50 states. Using data exclusively from government sources (principally ...
Bleeding Heartland - May 9 - 18 clicks
The Iowa Senate and House approved a conference committee agreement on education reform yesterday with bipartisan support in both chambers. Bleeding Heartland discussed here the key differences between the education reform bills passed by the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate. The following conference committee members hashed out a compromise version of thi...
Bleeding Heartland - May 9 - 18 clicks
We left Iowa at 6:45 am on Tuesday morning and started this odyssey to a new life in a new land. Dramatic enough for ya? Well so far it’s gone swimmingly well with only a couple of minor blimps. We … Continue reading → ...
A Feather Adrift - May 2
Coca-Cola was one of the highest-profile companies to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council. ThinkProgress reports that Chuck Grassley isn't at all pleased about it, and tweeted a call for a boycott of Coca-Cola to punish them. Lest you think this is snark, see for yourself : U might think abt not drinking Coca Cola since companysucombed to pressure fr Leftis...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Apr 22 - 2 clicks
Just stumbled across this and thought it might brighten your day, too! And to my many dear friends whose states aren't there yet, may that day come soon! The Zach Wahls video past the fleur de Kos …… ...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Apr 3
Dear Governor Branstad, Let me first mention that I did not vote for you, but I did not vote for Chet Culver either. I generally didn't expect that you would be a good governor for working Iowans or for those of us who think that consumers should have the right to know what goes in their and their children's food. I am writing this to express my dismay at the political theater that you h...
Popular Progressive - Apr 2
First the Iowa Department of Public Health tried to deny that legally married same-sex couples in Iowa could have both parents' names on their child's birth certificates. They lost that case . Now they're going after same-sex couples' children's death certificates. The Iowa Department of Public Health has denied parentage via a death certificate to a same-sex spouse. Jenny Bun...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 29 - 2 clicks
I decided to dig a little into GOP primary (and the Iowa caucus) exit polls in key battleground states, focused primarily on the youth, women and race, to see if anything interesting popped up. Here are the numbers, including exit poll percentages and the corresponding raw vote total for that demographic between 2008 and 2012: Other than in Iowa, young voters were a smaller percentage of ...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 29
The Decorah Eagles have produced three eggs this Spring. The Decorah Eagle Cam located at the nest site of an American Bald Eagle pair high in a Cottonwood tree in Decorah, Iowa is the most-watched live stream ever with over 250 million views. The hatch watch for the first egg began Sunday, March 25. Once the hatchling pips (makes a hole in the shell and begins to rotate), the full hatch can 2...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 26
Bob Vander Plaats is the President of the group "Family Leader". He's also a repeated failure in electoral races for several positions in the past few years. But what he really is is an attention whore, not unlike the former half-term Governor from Alaska. He also desperately needs to get a real job, to get real hair cut if nothing else. But at a rally in the rotunda of the Iowa state Ca...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 21
I recently ran across the amusing and enjoyable story of Dan Dolan an Iowa Republican who wound up speaking at a Democratic state party convention. Thinking he was at the Republican state convention he gave a version of his typical stump speech. When he was finished , someone raised his hand and said, "I think you want to talk to the Republicans." That was Dolan's third o...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 18
School Superintendent Jim Stanton thought he had a great idea for a school assembly in Dunkerton, IA . He thought by inviting the band Junkyard Prophet from You Can Run But You Can't Hide International , which describes itself as a Christian Youth Ministry, that he could get a dialog started about harmful lyrics in modern music, drug use, and bullying. Or so he now claims. ...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 10
One Iowa is announcing that 3 former Iowa Supreme Court justices have been chosen to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award . The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award® is the nation's most prestigious honor for public servants. Throughout his political career, President Kennedy inspired people to follow their conscience and to work for the benefit of their communities, the...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 7 - 5 clicks
From the DNC's Protecting the Vote site. Man, the Right is shameless. Following in the footsteps of James O'Keefe , another Republican operative tried to commit voter fraud in order to prove voter fraud exists. First came this sensational story out of New Mexico. An Albuquerque man says he successfully registered his dog to vote in Bernalillo County. The dog owner said he saw a v...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 3
I make no bones about being a very proud double alumnus of the University of Iowa. But I'm angry and very sad that "my" University is an enabler of Limbaugh. ...
DailyKos (Iowa) - Mar 2
