Change of topic! Back to policy issues that affect ordinary Americans’ everyday lives! As Chairman of the Health Education and Labor committee Senator Bernie Sanders describes what is being done to improve access to affordable health care in America.
Happy Friday!
Vote “No” on Airport Expansion
by Ed Fallon
If you’re a resident of Polk County and concerned about (1) fiscal responsibility, (2) CO2 pipelines, or (3) climate change, vote “NO” on November 7 on the proposed $350 million bond to expand the Des Moines International Airport.
(1) Fiscal responsibility. Debt always carries risk, and $350 million would be by far the largest debt Polk County taxpayers have ever incurred. That level of debt is also likely to reduce the County’s bond rating.
Other jurisdictions are putting public money into the venture, including:
That’s the short list. Taxpayers might want to ask what else could have been done with those funds. Improve bus service? Lower property taxes? Repair potholes? Or maybe a down payment on bringing Amtrak service to central Iowa?
(2) CO2 pipelines. In a conversation with the airport’s executive director, Kevin Foley, I learned that Concordia Group has been hired to convince voters about the purported benefits of expanding the airport. Concordia is run by long-time Republican political activist, Nick Ryan. Ryan is also Senior Advisor at Summit Agricultural Group, whose CEO is Bruce Rastetter.
Summit is behind the largest of three CO2 pipelines proposed to tear through a total of 2,000 miles of rural Iowa. Much of Summit’s pipeline route involves forcibly taking landowners’ property through eminent domain.
Bottom line is, airport expansion proponents are contracting with an entity associated with a web of corporate and political interests engaged in activities counter to the best interests of Iowa and most Iowans.
(3) Climate change. Airplanes account for a whopping five percent of global warming. If we’re serious about our climate goals, we need to cut back on, not expand, air travel.
Passenger rail is the obvious alternative. If we had trains as fast and efficient as China’s, one could travel from New York to Los Angeles in 15 hours!
High speed rail isn’t a pipe dream. In fact, 15 years ago, Iowa was on track to secure an Amtrak route from Chicago to Iowa City, and eventually to Des Moines and Council Bluffs. Under Governor Culver, the state received $53 million toward the effort, in anticipation of a $20.6 million state match. But Culver’s successor, Terry Branstad, failed to honor the state’s portion and instead sent the $53 million back to Washington, DC.
If the state isn’t willing to invest in rail, cities and counties across central Iowa should step forward. Polk County should lead the charge.
To be clear, the proposed airport expansion is not about addressing current need. It’s about building bigger to attract more air travel. And more air travel = more climate change.
What amazes me is that people and governments who “get” climate change are pushing this.
The City of Des Moines “aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% between 2010 and 2030, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.”
Expanding the airport will make impossible to reach that goal.
Polk County’s Board of Supervisors commits to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040. Yet the Supervisors voted unanimously to pursue the airport expansion.
Sadly, many elected officials still buy the tired, failed mantra, “If you don’t grow you die.”
Here’s a metaphor to rebut that fantasy: the human body. We don’t physically grow until we die. If we did, we’d be 600 pounds and dead at age 40. Any physical expansion beyond 19 years of age is problematic.
So why is it so hard for politicians, business professionals, academicians, and the media to take action consistent with reality?
Compartmentalization, in part.
One thing Foley said really struck me: “We’ll do anything we can do to reduce our climate impact, providing it’s not a huge expense.” I get it. Foley is focused on the airport. He may like train travel. But he’s the airport guy.
Similarly, Jay Byers, head of the Des Moines Partnership, must toe the status quo: “While Des Moines and Iowa continue to keep passenger rail service on track, there are still a lot of shorter-term transportation needs that need to remain a priority. We have a really great opportunity to continue to move forward and complete our goal and objective of a new airport terminal at the Des Moines International Airport. The same thing with the big-time investments we need to continue to make in our roads and our bridges and other infrastructure.” (from The Business Record)
Essentially, we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Damn the torpedoes — in this case, the climate change torpedo — we’re sticking with bigger airports, wider highways, more cars, trucks, and airplane travel.
A 2015 letter in the Des Moines Register from Robert Fischer sums it up: “2014 has gone down as the world’s hottest year in recorded history due to humanity’s relentless burning of fossil fuels. Yet in the same year, the Iowa Department of Transportation announced plans to widen long stretches of the state’s interstate highway system to six lanes and the Des Moines airport wants to spend $800 million on a terminal expansion. If completed, both of these projects would significantly increase the amount of carbon sent into the atmosphere.”
There you have it. On November 7, the voters of Polk County get to decide. The power is in our hands on this one. Let’s vote down a bad idea and insist that Central Iowa cities and counties put their (our!) money where their climate pledges are.
Former State Rep. Ed Fallon directs Bold Iowa and hosts the Fallon Forum. A discussion of the proposed airport expansion can be heard on this week’s edition of his talk show at fallonforum.com.
Watch the Sierra Club’s weekly Lunch and Learn every Friday at noon. Last week’s topic was the Republican Government Reorganization bill and report on findings of the Boards and Commissions Review Committee.
“This is obviously an attempt to restrict the public’s access to state government agencies – fewer members on boards, fewer boards, fewer opportunities for citizens to interact so it reduces opportunitiess to give public input and reduces opportunities for public oversight of state government functions. The work on this committee was done largely in scecret. It was done with subcommittees of 2 people and they did that in order to avoid open meetings law. The details were created with little public input and it shows throughout the report. In fact only one public session was allowed…” Pam Mackey-Taylor
Thom is not usually optimistic, so I thought I would share this today.
UPDATE: 10/2/23 – Here is the link to the podcast of Lawrence O’Donnell’s interview with Cassidy Hutchinson. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-will-be-fully-cooperative-cassidy-hutchinson-on-trump/
If we survive the Trump years it seems as if it’s going to be the women who stood up to save democracy. Fani Willis, Letitia James, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, and Cassidy Hutchinson.
The full episode of Lawrence O’Donnell’s hour long interview with Cassidy Hutchinson does not appear to be available on YouTube or on the MSNBC website. In order to see the entire interview I suspect you have to subscribe to Peacock. If you missed it, the best you can do now is catch a few clips that do not do it justice. Hopefully, it will be available at some time in the future because it was by far the best media interview of the ones I’ve seen, including Maddow’s. Below is a highlight from the show followed by Cassidy’s full testimony before the January 6 committee that every American should see.
By the way, Cassidy’s book Enough is the #1 best seller in biographies and memoirs on Amazon beating out Elon Musk. I devoured Cassidy’s book Enough over the weekend. It is a detailed account of how things went down and her growing feelings of unease during her tenure at the White House. She wrote about her childhood, her relationships with her family and her father who, although she doesn’t come out and say it herself, had a personality much like Donald Trump, based on some of her anecdotes about him.
Interestingly, when she later reflected on why she was not alarmed about Trump’s behavior sooner, she said that when Trump had anger outbursts or behaved badly, instead of thinking he wasn’t fit to be president, she felt sad and blamed herself for not doing enough for him, not making his job easier for him, not being good enough at her job. Growing up with a father that seemed to have the same brand of crazy as Donald Trump, she would have had to learn at a very young age how to placate, make excuses for him, and blame herself.
Happily, she came through it okay. She found her way and extricated herself from the craziness just in time to save herself and hopefully, in time to save democracy.
She will go down in history as a great American patriot and hero.
Watch: Full Jan. 6 Committee Hearing – Day 6
(8:40)
While doing some morning reading the other day I ran across this list of the 10 elements of authoritarianism. As the state and the nation and world all go through changes that shatter the old ideals of self determination and start to creep back to authoritarianism, I thought it important to post this list:
What are the Top 10 Elements of the Authoritarian Playbook?
Divide and rule: Foment mistrust and fear in the population.
Spread lies and conspiracies: Undermine the public’s belief in truth.
Destroy checks and balances: Quietly use legal or pseudo-legal rationales to gut institutions, weaken opposition, and/or declare national emergencies to seize unconstitutional powers.
Demonize opponents and independent media: Undermine the public’s trust in those actors and institutions that hold the state accountable.
Undermine civil and political rights for the unaligned: Actively suppress free speech, the right to assembly and protest and the rights of women and minority groups.
Blame minorities, immigrants, and “outsiders” for a country’s problems: Exploit national humiliation while promising to restore national glory.
Reward loyalists and punish defectors: Make in-group members fearful to voice dissension.
Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.
Organize mass rallies to keep supporters mobilized against made-up threats: Use fear-mongering and hate speech to consolidate in-group identity and solidarity.
Make people feel like they are powerless to change things: Solutions will only come from the top.
For those who want a more in depth discussion of each of these elements I recommend that you go to the original report here.
You can sure recognize much of what the MAGA Party and Donald Trump have done and are doing as they continue their assault on American democracy. As many have noted January 6th was only a dress rehearsal for what is to come.
Also I just wish to make a special note of the opening line of the original report:
Authoritarian takeovers rarely happen overnight. Today’s authoritarian playbook is a process that happens piecemeal and is hard to distinguish from normal political jockeying.
We wish former President Jimmy Carter a happy 99th birthday today. Thank you for all you have done, Mr. President!
Henry Wallace of Iowa pretty well nailed today’s Republicans many years ago.
While this is bad for the country no matter how you slice it, there are some aspects to this brinksmanship game that MAGA Republicans seem to love to play. For instance they are walking out on a deal they made just a couple of months ago. You can’t trust them on anything.
Trump seems to think that a shutdown stops his being prosecuted. For being a former government official, he is sure going to be surprised when he finds out it isn’t.
And so far the only folks cheering for a shutdown are a few MAGA Republicans, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Just in case you were wondering their loyalties lie.
President Biden made a great speech Thursday on democracy. Earlier in the week his would-be opponent gurgled something about beating Obama and Biden starting WWII. Sounds like a certain candidate is slipping into dementia as he also slips into the prison system. Can the MAGA party find no one else?
It is as if the whirl wind is coming for the MAGAs.
A) Former top aide to Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, started doing the book promotion circuit for her new book named what?
B) Whoopsie. Donald Trump’s week started Monday with a New York State judge declaring Trump and his adult sons had committed what crime?
C) President Biden gave a great speech on democracy Thursday. Where did the President give this speech?
D) Embattled Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey had about how much “emergency” cash stuffed in various places around his house?
E) As part of the punishment for his crime in New York the judge canceled business certificates for what Trump business in New York?
F) As part of the above punishment the judge called for what to happen to the above business?
G) Besides having cash stuffed around his house in New Jersey, Senator Menendez also had what other valuables hidden there?
H) What long term California senator died Friday morning?
I) Last Sunday saw the return of a space capsule which returned to earth with samples of what?
J) In truly important stuff, the media is going gaga speculating on a relationship between Taylor Swift and what pro football player?
K) With a shutdown deadline looming what major issue dominated MAGA senators this week?
L) With a shutdown deadline looming what faux issue did MAGA representatives focus on last week?
M) In a bizarre speech Monday in South Carolina, Candidate Trump declared that whales were being killed by what green energy source?
N) In yet another strange rant at a Michigan rally Trump said what would electrocute people if they got wet?
O) What US General is having to employ a personal security service after Trump declared the general was a traitor and should be executed?
P) An eyeless beetle from SE Europe nears extinction because of its popularity due to its name. What is its name?
Q) Amazon and UPS announced hiring goals for the holidays. Can you tell us what either business will be hiring this holiday season?
R) FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the FCC will begin hearings to restore what internet related rules abandoned under the Trump administration?
S) In Iowa Governor Reynolds pushes for more tax cuts for the wealthy as what low paid state workers discuss striking for more pay?
T) A man was denied entry into a Philadelphia Phillies game last week because of his emotional support animal. What kind of animal is his emotional support animal?
Bob Menendez was caught doing exactly, exactly, exactly what Clarence Thomas was doing. – Liam Nissan
Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com
Answers:
A) “ENOUGH”
B) Fraud
C) At the John McCain library in Tempe, Arizona
D) $480,000 so let’s say half a mil.
E) The Trump Organization – that pretty much covers it.
F) Dissolution – assets to be sold off
G) he had gold bars, too.
H) Diane Feinstein at age 90
I) dust from asteroid Bennu
J) Travis Kielce of the KC Chiefs
K) How John Fetterman dressed on the floor of the senate
L) Impeaching President Biden
M) Windmills. A few years ago he (Trump) said windmills cause cancer.
N) Batteries used in electric boats
O) Former Chair of the Joint Chief Mark Milley
P) The Adolf Hitler beetle. Seems the guy who named the beetle in the ’30s was a big Hitler fan.
Q) Amazon says 250,000 – UPS 100,000 – remember labor is tight right now
R) Net Neutrality
S) Grad Student Assistants
T) An alligator
One man, Kevin McCarthy, is responsible for the looming government shutdown, because he won’t bring to the House floor a funding bill supported by a majority of senators from both parties, the administration, and a majority of House members. It’s the Speaker’s Shutdown. – Bill Kristol
Boy, if anyone wants to commit political suicide take notes from today’s MAGA party.
And that was just this week. What is amazing about all this is that there are Americans out there who are totally aware of all these problems and still back MAGA to the hilt. Certainly there are hundreds of elected officials across the country are so fearful of losing their position if they say anything against Trump that most in MAGA Party shuts up in fear of Trump.
Whether the MAGA cult followers are looped into the cult through self-delusion, fear, hate of the same people that the cult hates or simple laziness someday their cult hero will be dealt with in the way he deserves. At that point most of the cult members will either have dealt with the trauma of realizing that what they believed in was false or they will have to deal with it.
Most of us at some point in our lives go through a personal assessment. Such assessments are often triggered by a personal trauma, such as finding out that a hero is really a zero – or finding that something you thought ordinary was truly extraordinary.
I bring this up after reading an awakening story by Robert Reich this week on his sub stack email. Reich as most know is height disadvantaged. Sadly, as often happens in this country those who are a bit different become targets of bullying. Reich had those problems.
Because of this bullying the school Reich attended assigned him a type of bodyguard service to escort him to the restroom. Over time an older boy kind of stepped up to volunteer to help Reich. The young man was just a good kid who did good things like helping a youngster who was bullied. Reich knew him as Mickey.
As they grew, they parted ways. Reich lost track of his helper. From Robert Reich’s sub stack email:
Years went by, and I grew into a teenager who no longer needed older boys to protect me from bullies. I lost track of Mickey.
It wasn’t until September of 1964, my freshman year in college, that I heard what had happened to him.
Early that summer, Mickey had traveled to Mississippi to register Black voters.
{skip}
Mickey — whose full name was Michael Schwerner — was among the first wave of volunteers to arrive in Mississippi.
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That night, after they paid their speeding ticket and left the jail, Price followed them in his police car, stopped them again, ordered them into his car, and took them down a deserted road, where he turned them over to a group of his fellow Ku Klux Klan members.
The group beat Mickey, Goodman, and Chaney with chains.
Then they murdered them. And buried their bodies in an earthen dam that was then under construction.
{skip}
When the news reached me that Mickey, who had protected me from childhood bullies, had been tortured and murdered by white supremacists — by violent bullies who would stop at nothing to prevent Black people from exercising their right to vote — something snapped inside me.
It was as if I got a new pair of eyes. I began to see everything differently.
When the news reached me that Mickey, who had protected me from childhood bullies, had been tortured and murdered by white supremacists — by violent bullies who would stop at nothing to prevent Black people from exercising their right to vote — something snapped inside me.
It was as if I got a new pair of eyes. I began to see everything differently.
There will be some cult followers that will never snap out of the pull of the cult, but at some point most will have an awakening moment. Will they react for the positive the way Robert Reich did? Or will they double down on the hate and the fear and the selfishness?
2 minutes (this is Jaime Raskin of Maryland speaking at the Biden impeachment diversion)
Whether the government is shutdown when this post appears is immaterial. Once again we have the MAGA Republican Party doing their best to hurt our country and the people of this great country based only on their whims. They threaten this shutdown after making a very public agreement last May to avoid any talk of a shutdown until after next year’s election.
Senate MAGA Leader Mitch McConnell admits that threatening to shutdown the government is very bad for his party, yet here they go. This shutdown will hurt anyone not in the top .01 of wealth. Immediately there will be government workers furloughed without pay. Military personnel will still be working but without pay. The poor will be cut off from benefits this poor children will go hungry.
Millions upon millions will be immediately be affected.
Beyond that the credit of the US will once again go down causing interest on the money borrowed by the US to rise. This will affect all but the richest who will benefit as they buy bonds. Stock markets will tank as seniors who have savings in stock accounts will watch their life savings go down thanks to MAGA.
MAGA Republicans know this, yet they do nothing but utter a few platitudes that mean nothing and are as useless as their “thoughts and prayers” statements after a mass shooting. It is their way to look like they care when they really don’t care. If they cared they would actually do something.
Once again, MAGA Republicans will do nothing to stop a shutdown. What is really sad is Iowa’s congressional delegation. As the deadline nears for the shutdown, they talk but actually do nothing mirroring their activity on guns. Mumble some platitudes but do nothing thus assuring that the gun sales and mass murders will continue.
Iowa’s delegation mumbles platitudes claiming that threatening shutdowns is not good. Where is the action to put those words into effect? The Des Moines Register on Thursday posted these thoughts in an editorial.
Shutdowns cause real harm without achieving their goals
Iowa’s four members of the House, all Republicans, are all relatively new to the chamber, and together they make up less than 1% of the body. But with the Republicans’ majority being just 10 seats, 222 to 212, dissent from any voice is magnified, which has been evident throughout McCarthy’s nine months as speaker.
A government shutdown of any duration would hurt Iowans. About 2,000 would stop getting paychecks. Work projects and federal lending would stop. The Biden administration says money for the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program will be in a vulnerable state even with status-quo funding, let alone the bottom falling out.
Those facts should be reason enough for Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn to publicly announce that they won’t support major changes in any temporary bill because doing so risks a shutdown. Such a commitment from four Iowans plus one more representative would make clear that the status quo is the only viable path.
To use that gritty old saying you heard from your parents and bosses “Shit or get off the pot.” Put a little differently, “DO YOUR DAMN JOB OR WE WILL FIND SOMEBODY WHO WILL. Or as I put it to an aspiring politician one day – I can walk out this door and find 50 people who can say what you do, I want somebody who will actually do something about it.
Miller-Meeks, Nunn, Hinson, and Feenstra are all mumble jumble and platitudes with little action. What little action the do do is only to help the wealthy. Iowans need people who will work for the 99% of the state that is not rich.
Christina Bohannan has announced her candidacy. We know that she will walk the walk based on her tenure in the state legislature. Her opponent talks about working for Iowans but when it comes to backing up her words she backs the MAGA party line that puts people last.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 29, 2023
Contact: Adam Zabner adam@zabnerforiowa.com
32 District One Elected Officials Call on Rep Miller-Meeks to Avoid a Shutdown
First District – As Iowans face the prospect of a government shutdown, 32 elected officials from Iowa’s First Congressional district are calling on Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks to make a deal and avoid a shutdown. A shutdown would be disastrous for the first district and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) could run out of funds as soon as Tuesday. The group of elected officials from across the district includes state legislators, the mayors of the first district’s two largest cities, county and city officials, and school board members. The group is calling on Rep Miller-Meeks to “pass a budget and keep the First District’s babies fed”.
Read the letter to The Honorable Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks,1034 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
Representative Miller-Meeks,
We, the undersigned elected officials of Iowa’s First District, are calling on you to pass a budget and keep the First District’s babies fed. Extremist members of your party, like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, are holding the federal government hostage. They have refused to negotiate and are breaking the previous deal made between Speaker McCarthy and President Biden. We worry that Iowans will wake up Sunday morning to a shutdown.
A government shutdown would be disastrous for the people of the First District. Specifically, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) could run out of funds as soon as Tuesday, leaving tens of thousands of Iowans hungry. Farmers right here in Iowa’s First District feed the world, and our representative in congress should make sure that the babies of Eastern Iowa get fed, too.
President Biden understands the importance of avoiding a shutdown, so does Senator Grassley. We’re calling on you to say no to the extremists in your caucus and work to avoid a shutdown. Your allegiance to the hungry babies of Eastern Iowa should come before your allegiance to MAGA extremists.
Signed,
Adam Zabner, Representative, Iowa House District 90
Dave Jacoby, Representative, Iowa House District 86
Melissa Mahon, Keosauqua Mayor
Mike Matson, Davenport Mayor
Bruce Teague, Mayor of Iowa City
Ed Moreno, West Liberty Community School District
Meghann Foster, Mayor, City of Coralville
Eric Van Lancker, Clinton County Auditor
Millie Youngquist, Mayor Pro Tem, Washington
Zacharia Wahls, Senator, Iowa Senate District 43
Cindy Winckler, Senator, Iowa Senate District 49
Elinor A. Levin, Representative, Iowa House District 89
Rod Sullivan, Johnson County Supervisor
Ken Croken, Representative, Iowa House District 97
Ruthina Malone President, ICCSD School Board
Charles Eastham, ICCSD school board member
Janice Weiner, Senator, Iowa Senate District 45
Jon Green, Supervisor, Johnson County
Travis Weipert, Johnson County Auditor
V Fixmer-Oraiz, Supervisor, Johnson County
Monica Kurth, Representative, Iowa House District 98
John Thomas, Iowa City City Council, District C Representative
Rachel Zimmermann Smith, Johnson County Attorney
Molly Abraham, Iowa City School Board
Lisa Williams, Vice President, Iowa City Community School District Board of Directors
Laura Bergus, Iowa City city councilor
Amy Nielsen, Representative, Iowa House District 85
Rebecca Vargas , Vice President, West Liberty Board of Education
Jayne Finch, ICCSD Board of Directors
Shawn Harmsen, Iowa City Council, District B Representative
Megan Alter, Mayor Pro Tem, Iowa City
Kim Painter, Johnson County Recorder
Blog For Iowa 