Random Views From A Community Activist
by John Drury
Crunching the numbers on the death penalty
Senate
Democratic leader and gubernatorial hopeful Mike Gronstal was
interviewed last week on IPTV’s Iowa Press. Des Moines Register
columnist David Yepsen pressed Senator Gronstal on the issue of
bringing the death penalty back to Iowa. As you probably know, there
were more than a handful of legislators wanting to debate this
contentious issue and Gronstal effectively blocked senate debate on it
in this last session.
Yepsen
asked Senator Gronstal why he was so against the death penalty, given
the recent Jetseta Gage case, a case that did prompt the legislature to
toughen their sex offender laws. In almost the same breath, he said
that his first instinct in the Gage case was that the state should kill
the sex offender, but that he is morally opposed to the death penalty
and that he didn’t think that an evenly split senate should waste time
debating the issue.
Yepsen
countered with the thought that if Iowans want a death penalty in this
state, then they need to rid the legislature of Democrats so the debate
can take place. Gronstal then retrenched and said that bringing back
the death penalty is not a fiscally responsible thing to do. It costs
more to kill the offender than it does to keep them in prison for the
rest of their lives.
I don’t
know about you, but I’m confused as to why Gronstal is opposed to the
death penalty. Is it because it’s immoral to kill, or is it because we
just can’t seem to crunch the numbers?
At least he didn’t scream it
DNC
Chairman Howard Dean has been criticizing Republicans calling the
Republican party “pretty much a white, Christian party.” He also said
that Republicans “never made an honest living in their lives.” This has
caused some Democrats to run for cover saying that Dean is going
overboard and that he doesn’t represent their views. Howard Dean has a
pretty good handle on the issues facing this country; I have to wonder
why he chose to resort to name calling when he could be pointing out
where the Republicans have been dead wrong on so many issues.
Democrats increase their numbers
Governor Vilsack has announced he will sign an executive order
returning the right to vote to convicted felons that have served their
time. He notes that when you return these rights, “crime rates and
recidivism are lower.” Republican leadership is crying foul. House
Speaker Christopher Rants said, “I think society’s entitled to say, you
know what, we welcome you back, but you don't get to help make laws
once you've crossed a certain line.” At the same time he is taking
moral high ground, Speaker Rants’ office circulated a 2003 study by
sociologists from the University of Minnesota and Northwestern
University arguing that Democrats would benefit most from permitting
felons to vote.
Supervisors give in to Farm Bureau
At their
regular meeting this morning, the Cerro Gordo County Board of
Supervisors lifted their moratorium on construction of hog confinement
facilities in the county. A few years ago, they went against state law
and enacted a moratorium on any new confinements or expansion in the
county. State law prohibits local governments from regulating this
industry but the supervisors were under an extraordinary amount of
pressure from the public and enacted the moratorium, reasoning that we
need a timeout while the state legislature figures this issue out.
Well,
years later the state has yet to enact meaningful legislation that
would strike a balance between the industry and the people and the
environment. By ignoring this issue, the legislature has only added
fuel to the growing civil war in rural Iowa.
The
supervisors did mention that they were working on something called a
“good neighbor policy.” Is it just me or does anyone else find it
incredibly sad that the Iowa legislature has allowed rural Iowa to get
to the point of needing a policy to hopefully ensure good
neighbors?
This
issue pits neighbor against neighbor. This issue must be solved, it
must be solved at the state level, and it must be solved in the next
legislative session. Stay tuned.
Blog For Iowa 
Here is a piece about who Republicans and Democrats are with some demographic information that tends to support Dean's second comment although I don't know if that is the research he is referencing: (If anyone knows the source for Dean's comments, please pass on). What I know about Howard Dean is that his comments tend to be information-based.
http://usconservatives.about.com/od/politics/a/GOPDemDemo.htm
And just to clarify, Gov. Dean was talking about the Republican leadership when he referred to many never having made an honest living, not ordinary Republican voters. Seems fair enough.
It is interesting how people hear the same comments through different filters. When I heard Dean's comments, I didn't hear name-calling; I heard two pretty accurate statements… Howard doesn't give Republicans hell – he just tells the truth and they think they're in hell. (And when Republicans aren't happy, ain't nobody happy! LOL…)
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I think Howard Dean's comments usually tend to be information based as well. As I said, he has a good handle on the issues facing the country. And his comments may very well be accurate as you heard them. Although, let's face it, “honest living” is a judgement call. And are we willing to put our Democratic leadership up to the same test? I guess I just don't see those two comments as issues and I think he needs to be discussing issues as opposed to the demographics of the Republican Party.
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If anyone takes the time to read to the bottom of the sensational headlines, they'd read the one or two sentences barely printed of Dean listing the issues concerning shortcomings of the Republican Party. It's easy to miss if you can't make it to the events and hear him first hand. The reporters can rarely find the gumption to include his fleshed out vision for the DNC in their pieces. It sells more copy to have a ridiculous heading, “Dean vigorously responds to Cheney's Attack on his Mother”, and then use the same none emotional words as every other paper, Dean replied “I don't care what Cheney thinks of my mother.” and then don't add what else he says, which is we aren't going to lose focus, we are going to attack the Republicans and run against them in all states, we have equally moral values dealing with community, education, environment and healthcare, than they do.
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There's no doubt the sensational headlines don't tell the real story. And I can assure you that I'm not responding to the headlines, I'm commenting on his words. If a part of Dean's message is, as you say, that we are not going to lose focus, I would say that even responding to the ridiculous Cheney comment about Dean's mother is losing focus. Why would he even feel a need to respond to such a ridiculous comment? Saying that Republican leadership has never made an honest living is losing focus. And there's no doubt that we have equally moral values. My point is that Dean tends to give the reporters exactly what they are looking for sometimes, the splashy headline that misses the point of his message.
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