Iowa Doesn't Have to Stink
Rural Iowa Democrats Launch Group, Hold First EventDon’t be afraid. My checking account balance as of today: $0.05
I’ve always been ready to stack jobs, and have usually done so. I’m always the most responsible person on a crew of nutsacks with no direction or work ethic, a by-product of my Iowa upbringing. I have a reasonable [...]
Sullivan recalls:
I remember very vividly a heated argument with Karl Rove over eight years ago in which I worried about spending and deficits. “Deficits don’t matter!” Rove kept repeating in that nasal world-weary tone he has. After a bit, I said, “What do you mean, deficits don’t matter? Don’t [...]
It's coming up on the end of the year (believe it or not) and I thought it might be some good, lighthearted holiday discussion to think about who or what might be Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2009.
There are no real requirements for what a Person of [...]
Iowans Should Support President Obama on Iran PolicySome holiday-related links are after the jump, along with a bonus action alert and a couple of recipes for Thanksgiving leftovers.
Food Democracy Now wants you to write to your senator here to support The Access to Nutritious Meals for [...]
Air America and Iowa Progressives Share Gratitudes This Thanksgiving
Gosh, somebody besides a crazy liberal hippie is noticing that Republicans have overseen the massive inflation of the filibuster, transforming the Senate into a 60 vote body rather than the foreagreed majority vote requirement.
According to research by UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair, there was an average of one filibuster [...]
The Iowa Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that three more adult Iowans have died as a result of the H1N1 influenza virus.
The three adults were from Carroll, Des Moines and Webster counties, and all had additional risk factors that increased the chance of complications from the virus.
Since Sept. 1, [...]
Smoldering culture clashes reignite in Postville
Defense attorneys for Sholom Rubashkin continue to assert that their client, despite being recently convicted on 86 fraud-related charges, is not a flight risk and should be granted bail pending sentencing.
Late last week U.S. District Chief Judge Linda R. Reade ruled that Rubashkin, who served [...]
An Iowa District Court has reversed a $10 million verdict from 2007 against West Des Moines businessman Gary Kirke and his casino company, Wild Rose Entertainment LLC, saying they did not breach a contract with a consulting company.
One of the six attorneys representing Kirke in the case was [...]
I thought they were going to start firing staff for on-air flubs?
I hadn’t been paying attention to the semantics but it’s no surprise that the Republican party’s cable network would try to assert that George W. Bush’s tenure began after September 11th and that the Fort Hood shootings constituted a [...]
Saying that the past three years have been “an honor” and “a wonderful privilege,” the man tasked with leading the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa resigned Tuesday so that the office could be led by Stephanie Rose, an office veteran and career prosecutor who was recently [...]
Former Des Moines school board member Jonathan Narcisse criticized Gov. Chet Culver and the Republicans hoping to unseat him in 2010, but remained coy about whether he will challenge the governor in a Democratic primary.
Jonathan Narcisse
Narcisse was speaking to Dave Price, reporter for Des Moines [...]
Iowa Ag Secretary Candidate Francis Thicke Talks to BFIA about rBST, GMOs, CAFOs, and Local Control According to the Associated Press, a news release from Kentucky State Police says investigators believe [Bill] Sparkman acted alone in setting the scene. They also say he had recently [...]
At least two Iowans will be dining at the White House tonight as Pres. Barack Obama celebrates the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with his administration’s first state dinner.
Iowa Sen. Swati Dandekar, a Democrat from Marion, and her husband, Arvind, a prominent local businessman, traveled to Washington, D.C. [...]
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is calling foul on Democrat Roxanne Conlin, saying she is trying to have it both ways on the issue of taking donations from lobbyists and political action committees.
Conlin has repeatedly said she will not accept donations from lobbyists or PACs, and Tuesday called on the [...]
As more American families question their ability to put food on their tables, there are actions that all of us can take to combat food insecurity.
“I believe hunger is one of the great challenges that confronts us today in a tough and difficult economy, and I think we have an [...]
I just watched an incredible documentary on the Independent Film Channel about the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Wow. What an awesome legacy Mr. and Mrs. Hershey left for their community.
An introduction on their website is below. www.mhs-pa.org .
"At Milton Hershey School®, we believe that all students can" [...]
It was inevitable that conservatives would attack the Senate health care reform legislation over the proposed 0.5 percent hike in Medicare’s payroll tax for the country’s highest earners. Now they’re drilling down into the specifics.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has asked the Joint [...]
The announcement won’t be for a few days. I’m sure it’s because they’re still trying to figure out how to get those fiscally minded Blue Dogs on board with the decision.
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[...]One of three Democrats vying to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley is calling on the veteran lawmaker to decline all contributions from federal lobbyists and political action committees (PACs).
Des Moines attorney Roxanne Conlin said in an e-mail to Grassley that the senior senator has accepted millions from “the [...]
Iowa Christian Alliance President and Republican National Committee member Steve Scheffler is among 10 co-sponsors of a resolution being circulated that aims to impose a conservative litmus test on potential GOP candidates.
The resolution, dubbed a “purity test” by the media, became public Monday. It lists 10 positions Republican candidates should [...]
Cedar Rapids residents who live in Iowa House District 33 have an opportunity today to vote in a special election. Candidates are: "The time for fear-mongering is over," Braley said. "I have listened to my constituents all week, and they have told me" [...]
Health Care Reform Update: Science or Rationing?Coralville Courier’s Group2012 (who is probably also commenter Liberal Shark), one of the Thayer boys, offers somebody else’s work (one sample link, this is circulating all over the right-o-sphere) as his own without citation.
Of course, NO IT IS THE DEMOCRATS WHO ARE THE LIARS, but the problem [...]
The Republicans were ready to ban the filibuster after we tried to block the most extreme of Bush’s judicial nominations.
Since the Democrats regained control of the Senate, Republicans have abused the filibuster rule like never before. Until 1970, no session of Congress had more than ten votes on [...]
If you say a beauty queen who couldn’t hack it as governor of Alaska or tell a scrap of truth to save her life shouldn’t be president, the teabaggers get upright and angry because they “identify” with her.
If you point out “Joe the Plumber” was completely wrong in his attack [...]
This has to break some kind of record for number of insanely wrong and empty-headed statements in a row.
Republicans are for good things! Democrats for bad things!
Do we really deserve to be the most powerful country in the world at this rate? Not if these people are calling the shots. [...]
UPDATED: Nine Iowa congregations have joined a new sect of Lutheran churches, signaling that they could leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest Lutheran denomination in the world.
The moves come after the ELCA voted this summer to allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships to [...]
Former Gov. Terry Branstad’s endorsement of Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., in 2000 helped him win his seat and eventually allowed him to join fellow Democrats in moving their health care reform bill forward, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats said Monday.
“Ben Nelson gave Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid [...]
Iowa estimated to recover millions now spent on care for uninsured
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released new state-by-state projections of the impacts of passage or failure of the Democrats’ sweeping health care reform package.
According to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the projections demonstrate that “the health care [...]
Although a local medical examiner may be right that the number of deaths from the H1N1 influenza virus in Iowa is greater than official statistics would indicate, Iowans should not be concerned that this is because the virus has mutated as some rumors have suggested.
Instead, the disparity is caused by [...]
Liberal blog Bleeding Heartland reports that former Butler County Democratic Party Chairman Bill Maske has announced he will challenge Fourth Distict U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Ames, in 2010.
Maske, who has launched a Web site, is a veteran school administrator with no previous electoral experience.
The Fourth District Democratic Central [...]
Iowa conservatives give former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee the highest favorability rating among potential 2012 presidential candidates, according to the most recent Des Moines Register Iowa Poll.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Des Moines [...]
At the Jefferson-Jackson dinner on Saturday I was pleased to meet Bill Maske of Truro (Madison County), who is running against Representative Tom Latham in Iowa's fourth Congressional district. I don't know whether there [...]
The 2009 Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best-Performing Cities Index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas by how well they are creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth. The components [...]
Let the Conversation Begin: A Unified Approach to the Economic Crisis
Some defense and immigration attorneys criticized [...]
An Iowa Perspective on Coal's Assault on Human HealthIf you'd like to watch online, the IDP will be livestreaming the proceedings here, beginning at 6:30 pm central.
Senator Tom Harkin [...]
…with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working.
The legislation, a variety of economists [...]
Join me after the jump [...]
Get Senate Debate Updates Today From Health Care for America NOW!Government asserts that Rubashkin aided flight of Agriprocessors co-worker to Israel
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade has ordered that the Iowa meatpacking manager found guilty on 86 counts of fraud and money laundering will remain behind bars.
Sholom M. Rubashkin, who served as the day-to-day manager at Agriprocessors [...]
A TV and film star is throwing a $100,000+ fundraiser for a candidate for Iowa governor tonight, but the beneficiary isn’t the bleeding-heart Hollywood liberal you might expect.
The Iowa Republican reports that Sioux City businessman and social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats could raise $200,000 for his gubernatorial campaign [...]
Instead of asking conservatives to call home-state senators with pleas for votes against health care reform, the Republican National Committee is asking its membership to contact the offices of two Democratic senators deemed “critically important” to squashing any up-or-down vote on the reform bill.
U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and [...]
Teen library patrons in Ames will continue to have the opportunity to access accurate sex education materials thanks to a vote Thursday night by the local library's board of trustees. The Register’s Kathie Obradovich reports that U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin will not make it to the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in person tomorrow night because he’ll be busy trying to pass health care reform in Washington, D.C. In his absence, the party will play a video greeting from [...]
Former Iowa State University wrestling coach Jim Gibbons and state Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, both announced intentions Thursday to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell in 2010.
Gibbons, who coached ISU to an NCAA championship in 1987, said he will leave his job at Wells Fargo Advisers to [...]
On Nuclear Disarmament for IowaGuess what? Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama. Not just the wacky teabaggers. 52% of all Republicans. Now Doug Hoffman, pathetic as he already was, has retracted his concession of the race, because he says ACORN stole that election too. Does he have any evidence? Of [...]
Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan’s attacks against U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley are simply “insulting Iowans who disagree with the [Obama] administration’s political decision to bring terrorists to the United States,” an aide to the senator told the Iowa Independent Thursday.
Jill Kozeny, communications director for Grassley, was responding to an [...]
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley’s comparison of civilian trials for terrorists to the murder trial of O.J. Simpson is “false and disrespectful,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan said Thursday.
While questioning Attorney General Eric Holder about the idea of prosecuting five men accused as co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks [...]
Details for those and other [...]
Now that Democratic leaders in the Senate have unveiled their health care reform plan, Democrats have “rounded third [base] and we’re heading to home,” U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Cumming, said Wednesday night.
During an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Harkin said no one in the Democratic caucus wants to [...]
Here's Life's photo essay, "Sexiest Men of the 50s, 60s, and 70s."The question of possibly housing Guantanamo Bay detainees at a prison facility on the Iowa-Illinois border isn’t something that deserves consideration, according to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who said today that he opposes such individuals ever entering the country.
When asked if the detainees would put Iowa residents in danger, Grassley [...]
At Ames High School, he won three state' [...]
Republicans didn't hit the panic button when would-be "shoe bomber" Richard Reid was tried in federal court.
Numerous international terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda are already in U.S. prisons. [...]
The incomparable Ezra Klein:
But what’s the alternative? No one wants an individual mandate. But the folks who spend all their time trying to solve the first problem Ross describes have concluded that you can’t do it without an individual mandate. After all, why do people get priced out of [...]
Man-on-the-street ignorance footage is easy to come by but the above video demonstrates a log on the tea-bagger fire that’s been crackling since election day. In the span of a few weeks it became part of accepted right-winger lore that TARP and its related bailouts were a product of the [...]
