Jess Mazour, Coordinator of Conservation for the Iowa Sierra Club. provides a weekly Facebook update. Also, ICYMI check out her recent appearance on Iowa Press where she successfully faced down Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, vice president of government and public affairs for Navigator CO2. I wrote a review of the show here. You can follow Iowa Sierra Club on FB and Twitter
This weekend on Iowa Press the panel clearly seemed stumped as far as how to discuss what the Republicans are doing in the Iowa legislature. I think it must be a coping strategy of denial, “everything is fine, just keep doing what we’ve always done, stay the course” …while Iowa goes down in flames. Republicans are allowing guns near schools at a time when the leading cause of death to children in America is guns. They are taking food away from poor kids, banning books, punching down on trans kids, stripping the state auditor’s office of power to do its job and more.
Moderator Kay Henderson opened the show announcing cheerfully, “The Iowa Senate pulled an all-nighter and the legislature passed a broad education bill… another eventful week at the Iowa statehouse.”
Woo-woo, an all-nighter, that sounds cool! Yes eventful, just another day at the office, folks. Are we having fun yet?
On and off throughout this episode they chuckled and smiled while trying to sometimes defend the indefensible and otherwise discuss the impossibly bad and nonsensical legislation the R’s are ramming through. Sorry but trying to crack jokes and display light-hearted banter while covering how Iowa Republicans are ruining our state is offensive to viewers who are fervently hoping we’re going to get through the post-Trump years and still have an intact democracy. Not that there is anything wrong with professional humor. But most professions don’t put their inside jokes on display to the outside world. They should stop the on-air tee-hee-heeing while discussing the horrifically hurtful things Republicans are doing as if there is nothing at stake! And they should try to adopt a sense of alarm in their tone like Meteorologists do when they are reporting a tornado in the area.
There were a couple of hardee-har-hars about still being awake at 4 am when the R’s passed their late night crappy bills that no one wants. Did they just want to make it known that they really do work? Because that fact is not reflected by what we see on the weekly Iowa Press program.
I will give one shout out to Dave Price who let it drop that Bobby Kaufmann, son of Jeff Kaufmann, chair of the Iowa Republican party, is on the Trump payroll. This was already reported awhile back but still good to put it out there on the air. And the panel gets a little credit for apparently not being thrilled about kid Kaufmann’s bill trying to control the Democrats’ caucus procedure.
To be fair, they seemed tired. It must be exhausting trying to come up with ways to describe what the Republicans are doing without really coming out and saying it.
The panel talked about the backward child labor law changes and actually gave credit to the R’s for being forced to not make the new law as terrible as they wanted to. Did they credit Democrats’ resistance or public pressure for the failure to pass the worst possible bill? Not really. Stephen Gruber-Miller, Statehouse reporter for The Des Moines Register, gave a nod to the good old GOP saying it was because the Republicans “looked hard” at it. Oh, please.
Not naming names on this today – you can watch for yourself but they fell all over themselves trying to make R’s not look so bad for pushing through new rules that let kids work later. One of the panelists actually tried to explain with a somewhat straight face, how difficult it is for restaurants to get through the dinner rush when a kid can’t work past 7 pm on a school night because 7 pm is “not even close” to being through the dinner rush. Such a tragedy. Thanks for helpfully letting viewers know about this very good reason to turn to children to fix our economy and messed up partisan problems. If you’re new here that last line was sarcasm.
Hardly anyone I know still watches Iowa Press. The program needs to go away or change its format to match the current level of ongoing catastrophe that is Iowa at the hands of the Republican trifecta. Iowa Press should give up trying to do what they’ve always done. Ditch the Iowa Nice – it only benefits the evil Republicans. Bring in some columnists, other journalists, writers, anyone with some perspective that can discuss these issues in a way that educates, not placates.
And why does everyone on the show have to be connected to a Des Moines media outlet? There is a lot of journalistic talent in Iowa. Change the format. Get into the issues. This show in its current form is not helping our current situation.
Andrew Wortman lets loose in a rant on why youth in America will no longer vote for Republicans. We are just beginning to see this rebellion taking place. Young voters have long been the most unreliable voters historically. However GenZ and Millenials are breaking the mold on that.
Republicans are so flabbergasted over their inability to connect with young voters it’s almost comical. You wanna know why they hate you and upwards of 90% of them will never vote for you
@GOP? I’ll break it down for you (Thread)
1.) Your Reagan-era “trickle-down economics” strategy of tax breaks for billionaires that you continue to employ to this day has widened the gap between rich and poor so much that most of them will never be able to own a home, much less earn a living wage.
2.) You refuse to increase the federal minimum wage, which is still $7.25 an hour (since 2009). Even if it had just kept up with inflation, it would be $27 now. You’re forcing people of all ages but especially young people to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities.
3.) You fundamentally oppose and want to kill democracy; have done everything in your power to restrict access to the ballot box, particularly in areas with demographics that tend to vote Democratic (like young people and POC). You staged a fucking coup the last time you lost.
4.) You have abused your disproportionate senate control over the last three decades to pack the courts with religious extremists and idealogues, including SCOTUS—which has rolled back rights for women in ways that do nothing but kill more women and children and expand poverty.
5.) You refuse to enact common sense gun control laws to curb mass shootings like universal background checks and banning assault weapons; subjecting their entire generation to school shootings and drills that are traumatizing in and of themselves. You are owned by the@NRA.
6.) You are unequivocally against combatting climate change to the extent that it’s as if you’ve made it your personal mission to ensure they inherit a planet that is beyond the point of no return in terms of remaining habitable for the human race beyond the next few generations.
7.) You oppose all programs that provide assistance to those who need it most. Your governors refused to expand Medicaid even during A PANDEMIC. You are against free school lunches, despite it being the only meal that millions of children can count on to actually receive each day
8.) You are banning books, defunding libraries, barring subject matter, and whitewashing history even more in a fascistic attempt to keep them ignorant of the systemic racism that this nation was literally founded upon and continues to this day in every action your party takes.
9.) You oppose universal healthcare and are still trying to repeal the ACA and rip healthcare from tens of millions of Americans and replace it with nothing. You are against lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs that millions need simply to LIVE/FUNCTION in society.
10.) You embrace white nationalists, Neo-Nazis, and other groups that are defined by their intractable racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and intolerance. You conspired with these groups on January 6th to try to overthrow the U.S. government via domestic terrorism that KILLED PEOPLE.
11.) You oppose every bill aimed at making life better for our nation’s youth; from education to extracurricular and financial/nutritional assistance programs. You say you want to “protect the children” while you elect/nominate pedophiles and attack trans youth and drag queens.
12.) You pretend to be offended by “anti-semitism” while literally supporting, electing, and speaking at events organized by Nazis. You pretend to hate “cancel culture” despite the fact that you invented it and it’s basically all you do.
13.) Every word you utter is a lie. You are the party of treason, hypocrisy, crime, and authoritarianism. You want to entrench rule by your aging minority because you know that you have nothing to offer young voters and they will never support you for all these reasons and more.
14.) You’re so hostile to even the notion of helping us overcome the mountain of debt that millions of us are forced to take on just to pay for our post K-12 education that you are suing to try to prevent a small fraction of us from getting even $10,000 in loan forgiveness.
15.) You opened the floodgates of money into politics via Citizens United; allowing our entire system of government to become a cesspool of corruption, crime, and greed. You are supposed to represent the American people whose taxes pay your salary but instead cater to rich donors
16.) You respond to elected representatives standing in solidarity with their constituents to protest the ONGOING SLAUGHTER of children in schools via shootings by EXPELLING THEM FROM OFFICE & respond to your lack of popularity among young people by trying to raise the voting age
17.) You impeach Democratic presidents over lying about a BJ but refuse to impeach (then vote twice to acquit) a guy whose entire “administration” was an international crime syndicate being run out of the WH who incited an insurrection to have you killed
18.) You steal Supreme Court seats from democrats to prevent the only black POTUS we’ve ever had from appointing one and invent fake precedents that you later ignore all to take fundamental rights from Americans; and even your “legitimate” appointments consist of people like THIS (sub-thread refuting CJ Roberts criticisms of people attacking SCOTUS’ legitimacy)
19.) You support mass incarceration even for innocuous offenses or execution by cop for POC while doing nothing but protect rich white criminals who engage in such things as tax fraud, money laundering, sex trafficking, rape/sexual assault, falsifying business records, etc.
20.) You are the reason we can’t pass:
—Universal background checks
—An assault weapons ban
—The ‘For the People/Freedom to vote’ Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act
—The ERA & Equality Act
—The Climate Action Now Act
—The (Stopping) Violence Against Women Act
—SCOTUS expansion
21.) You do not seek office to govern, represent, or serve the American people. You seek power solely for its own sake so you can impose your narrow-minded puritanical will on others at the expense of their most fundamental rights and freedoms like voting and bodily autonomy.
22.) Ok, last one. You are trying to eliminate social security and Medicare that tens of millions of our parents rely on and paid into their entire lives. And you did everything to maximize preventable deaths from COVID leaving millions of us in mourning.
There just didn’t seem to be enough exciting news on the climate change front to use space for Earth Day yesterday. Earth Day is significant, but only one day during which a lot of politicians and other notables pretend to care. Every day, every moment should be a moment that you ask yourselves “does his add to the problem.
But today’s headlines are again focused on guns and how some folks in this country seem to think they can kill anyone and then claim they were endangered. A boy kicks on the wrong door BLAM! Woman turns into the wrong driveway BLAM! A cheerleader gets in the wrong car BLAM! A little girl’s ball rolls into a neighbors yard BLAM! Is this civilization? Do you think this is what the founders envisioned for this country?
Yet Fox News bought its way out of a lawsuit that might have delved into how they have been central to making this a fearful, hateful country where so many are armed and ready to kill.
Another eventful week
A) “Rapid unscheduled disassembly” was the classic way the SpaceX company described what event?
B) Who is Ralph Yarls?
C) In the ongoing saga of The Governor versus the Mouse what move did DeSantis threaten Disney World with last week?
D) A law to allow children to work passed the Iowa senate after an overnighter last Tuesday. What two lobbyists were giving most credit for this odious bill?
E) The big news of the week was Fox News’ stunning settlement with what company they accused (without evidence) of rigging the 2020 election?
F) Climate change becomes an imminent threat above 350 PPM as measured at Mauna Loa observatory. What was the most recent readings?
G) Mike Lindell – the ‘genius’ behind the MyPillow – was ordered to pay $5 million to a data analyst who did what?
H) Senator Dick Durban, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has invited who to speak to the committee about “Supreme Court ethics”?
I ) As the country waited for the SCOTUS decision on the status of mifepristone Wednesday, the SCOTUS decided what on Wednesday?
J) What major development took place in the trial for murdered HS Teacher Nohema Graber of Fairfield last week?
K) Oops – almost forgot to ask how much did Fox settle the lawsuit against them for?
L) While we are at it, what other company has a $2.7 Billion defamation lawsuit against Fox?
M) The new Iowa Education Director was confirmed by the Iowa senate Monday. As director, Chad Aldis lacks what very necessary credential?
N) Whoops! Who dropped a bomb on a city in their own country Friday?
O) What book published in 1962 is usually given credit for spawning the environmental movement in the US?
P) The Boy Scouts of America are out of bankruptcy. They will establish a $2.4 billion fund for victims of what by the organization?
Q) After 25 years, Netflix announced it will end what portion of their business that they were founded on this coming September?
R) As Germany shuts down its remaining nuclear power plants, what other European nation announced the start up of the largest nuclear reactor last week?
S) April 19th, 1995 what major terrorist attack took place in the US?
T) In 1969 – one year before the first Earth Day – what river caught fire thus illustrating our environmental problems?
Cash-strapped Fox Forced to Sell Kevin McCarthy. – Andy Borowitz
Those of us who have lived in Iowa all or most of their lives know that Iowa has been the butt of many comments on how the state is backward, the populous dumb and way out of step with modern life. Those of us who lived here knew that Iowa was a very modern state with some pretty smart cookies among the populous.
Iowa didn’t brag about the jewels within its borders. We just performed and ignored the insults.
Sadly, it looks like this governor and her lackey legislature has decided that it is their mission to make what was once an insult become a truth about the state. In steps that seem designed to make the barbs and insults true this year’s legislature has gone about taking the state back decades and destroying the public commons.
Book banning, trans gender hate, attempts to ban abortion, dismantling public schools, allowing people to consume dangerous raw milk, and now bringing back child labor – the legislature has made sure that Iowa is now what the critics always said we were.
The last one – child labor – sticks out as extra odious in a pile of quite odious laws and bills. But then, the legislature is hell bent on destroying Iowa’s once vaunted public schools, so maybe kids will be better off taking a job at age 14 or so. You can learn a lot of wisdom while shaking cocktails for inebriated adults.
As noted in a video posted by Trish Nelson on here Wednesday,one of the reasons for weakening child labor laws is to make up for a labor shortage in this state. This is a really terrible response to this issue.
Senate despite two Republicans joining every Democrat in opposition
Des Moines, Iowa — AFSCME Council 61, Political Director Melissa Speed issued the following statement after the Iowa Senate passed Senate File 542 despite bipartisan opposition:
“Every Iowan values hard work. And every parent wants their children to have the best possible chance to succeed. But the dangerous child labor bill passed early this morning, before a lot of people were even awake, by the Iowa Senate is every parent’s worst nightmare.
“It’s no surprise that two Republicans joined every Democratic Senator in opposition to rolling back child labor safety regulations. Kids don’t want it. Parents don’t want it. Most Iowans don’t want it. But when campaign donors dangle cash for certain Senators, they can’t seem to help themselves. Sadly, it seems even our kids’ safety is indeed for sale.
“In addition to the cruel nature of this proposal, it’s disturbing how the Republican majority has repeatedly tried to keep information from the public. As discussion began last night, the bill’s floor manager refused to answer even basic questions about the bill. How are legislators and Iowans supposed to engage in the democratic process if they don’t have all the information they need?
“The truth is that supporters of this bill don’t want information to be shared. They know putting kids to work in dangerous situations only benefits their campaign donors. Not Iowans who already know the value of a hard day’s work. And certainly not parents who already worry about their kids’ future. Help with the rising cost of childcare and making ends meet is what everyday Iowans are concerned about. Let’s help the adults and let the kids be kids.”
US federal deficit by president. Makes it clear which is the party of fiscal responsibility. And it ain’t the radical Republican right. pic.twitter.com/sHGMQ4E109
That trend line is more than self explanatory. Were we to go back one more president, you would see that Saint Ronald came into a debt below a trillion dollars and ran up way more debt than all the previous presidents. Reagan left us the “Laffer curve” and over $3 Trillion in debt.
Bush 1 nearly matched Reagan driving the debt up even more. Clinton reduced the debt and produced budget surpluses that were used to pay down the debt. Had Al Gore been chosen as president by SCOTUS in 2001, the debt may have been wiped out. There was even a commission called during the Clinton administration to explore what being out of debt would mean for the economy.
But by selecting Junior Bush as president, SCOTUS avoided the problem of being out of debt. Bush ran the debt up like a drunken frat boy. Obama once again cut deficits as Democrats do when they are in office, but Republicans in congress definitely tied his hands on what he could do, especially in respect to raising taxes.
Then the Trump disaster happened. Excessive tax cuts ballooned the deficit and the national debt. He also left a nation crippled by a pandemic with no plan nor programs to address the pandemic. President Biden inherit a gawd awful mess.
Since being elected president, Biden has attacked the pandemic, rebuilt the economy and cut the deficit. During these massive fixes to the country that was left in shambles by Trump, Republicans in congress have not lifted one finger to help.
Now, Republican Leader McCarthy is threatening to throw not only the US but the whole world economic system into the crapper. Why? I guess because he can. He has power that he wants to use to show he has power. Get it? He is willing to upend the world economy by defaulting on the US debt just to show he can. He must be insane.
To default would be the most irresponsible action a congress has ever committed. Remember, they are the ones who ran up the debt to such enormous proportions.
Please contact your Republican congress member and tell them to quit using the debt ceiling as a bargaining tool. It isn’t a bargaining tool. It is debt they ran up. If they refuse to pay the bills the consequences will be catastrophic.
You guys know how to use google to find your congress members. In Iowa they are all Republicans. So call or write them and make your message clear: defaulting on our debts is bad, really bad. Stand up and raise the debt ceiling. America knows who is at fault in this dispute.
As a side note, calling is best. I have been been writing my Republican congress member (Miller-Meeks) and she nor her staff ever respond. Seems like some of that debt could be reduced by not paying do nothing congress members.
The debt ceiling is not about future spending; future spending is debated when Congress takes up the budget. The debt ceiling is a curious holdover from the past, when Congress actually wanted to enable the government to be flexible in its borrowing rather than holding the financial reins too tightly. In the era of World War I, when the country needed to raise a lot of money fast, Congress stopped passing specific revenue measures and instead set a cap on how much money the government could borrow through all of the different instruments it used.
Beginning in the 1980s, though, Republicans began to use the debt ceiling as a political cudgel because if it is not raised when Congress spends more than it has the ability to repay, the country will default on its debts. Republicans focused on cutting taxes, initially promising that tax cuts would not require any cuts to services because they would nurture the economy so effectively that tax revenues would increase despite the cuts. Immediately, though, both deficits—the difference between what the government spends and what it takes in—and the debt, which is the total sum that the government owes, ballooned.
That skyrocketing debt means that Congress repeatedly has to increase the amount that the Treasury borrows to pay the country’s bills. That is, it must lift the debt ceiling. Congress has raised the debt ceiling more than 100 times since it first went into effect, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan as well as 3 times under former president Donald Trump.
The United States has never defaulted on its debt. When Republicans threatened to push a debt crisis in late 2021, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that a default “could trigger a spike in interest rates, a steep drop in stock prices, and other financial turmoil. Our current economic recovery would reverse into recession, with billions of dollars of growth and millions of jobs lost.” It would jeopardize the status of the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency. Financial services firm Moody’s Analytics warned that a default would cost up to 6 million jobs, create an unemployment rate of nearly 9%, and wipe out $15 trillion in household wealth. {much more at link}
Pay attention to this – especially you senior citizens.
In case you missed it – Democrats press availability Q & A:
“What is Democrats’ role in the process? The role that it’s been in the process with every bill this year which is we are not invited to the table. Which means that the Iowans we represent are not invited to the table.” – Jennifer Konfrst, House Democratic Leader
Can someone please explain how our duly elected representatives can be blocked from participating? Maybe our side should play this game and also start shattering some norms beginning with the Iowa Nice norm.
Meidas Touch legal analyst Michael Popok of Legal AF walks through how settlement pay-outs are considered part of the price of doing business in Murdoch propaganda world. This isn’t the first one. He analyzes what the “$787.5 million Fox settlement with Dominion means to Fox and Murdoch in the context of a BILLION dollars of PRIOR settlements that they have paid, and BILLIONS more to be paid to Smartmatic and stockholders in future class action cases soon to be filed. ”
They are doing this because… ???? In case you missed it, this is Rep. Josh Turek, HD-20, explaining what Republicans are doing to children, people with disabilities, veterans and seniors, for no good reason.
“In Iowa, 46.7% of households receiving food assistance contain one or more individuals with a disability. State Representative Josh Turek breaks down just who the GOP cuts to food assistance will be hurting: Iowa’s children, persons with a disability, veterans, and seniors.”
“What are these people supposed to do? Sell their car so they can qualify for a wheelchair, or food?” – Rep. Josh Turek
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
Jess Mazour, Coordinator of Conservation for the Iowa Sierra Club. provides a weekly Facebook update. Also, ICYMI check out her recent appearance on Iowa Press where she successfully faced down Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, vice president of government and public affairs for Navigator CO2. I wrote a review of the show here. You can follow Iowa Sierra Club on FB and Twitter
This weekend on Iowa Press the panel clearly seemed stumped as far as how to discuss what the Republicans are doing in the Iowa legislature. I think it must be a coping strategy of denial, “everything is fine, just keep doing what we’ve always done, stay the course” …while Iowa goes down in flames. Republicans are allowing guns near schools at a time when the leading cause of death to children in America is guns. They are taking food away from poor kids, banning books, punching down on trans kids, stripping the state auditor’s office of power to do its job and more.
In case you missed it – Democrats press availability Q & A:
They are doing this because… ???? In case you missed it, this is Rep. Josh Turek, HD-20, explaining what Republicans are doing to children, people with disabilities, veterans and seniors, for no good reason.
Blog For Iowa 