President Lyndon B. Johnson addressing crowd at rally on Sept. 28, 1964. Photo Credit – LBJ Presidential Library.
A lot changed in political campaigns since I worked my first for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Democrats and Republicans are now at a place where established patterns repeat each cycle: marching in parades, having a booth at the county fair, putting up sign advertising, and canvassing voters. These may be comforting, yet campaign action has moved.
Both major parties use big data to inform their campaigns.
Perhaps the most dramatic change was the way Trump campaigns used Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to scrape personal data about tens of millions of voters from the internet, and then custom target voters with tens of thousands of distinct daily ads designed to either persuade people to vote for Trump or not vote at all.
Progressive radio host Thom Hartmann wrote that on the day of the third presidential debate in October 2020, team Trump ran 175,000 variations of ads micro-targeting voters. These ads were, for the most part, not publicly seen.
This is way beyond showing up to meet candidates at a county fair.
Despite this use of technology, elections reduce to staying engaged with candidates, and working to cast an informed vote. That pressure from social media to disengage from politics? Someone is working to make us feel that way. We must resist and vote for who best serves our interests.
I reviewed the candidates and for me, Democrats on the ballot deserve our votes. That’s for whom I will vote on Nov. 8.
~ First published as a letter to the editor of The Little Village on July 15, 2022
On July 11, Ed Fallon interviewed author and climate activist Bill McKibben on his program The Fallon Forum, after release of the new book The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened.
McKibben said in the interview this book is the closest he will com to writing a memoir of about a decade of his life as he promotes ThirdAct.org, a place where Americans over age 60 can engage in contemporary social issues and take action.
“’Experienced Americans’ are the fastest-growing part of the population,” according to the Third Act website. “10,000 people a day pass the 60-year mark. That means that there’s no way to make the changes that must be made to protect our planet and our society unless we bring the power of this group into play.”
“We’re in a world of hurt,” Fallon wrote. “Bill’s take on ‘what the hell happened’ is thoughtful, provocative, and hopefully inspiring.”
Click on the player gadget below to listen to Fallon’s interview of McKibben. The audio is posted with Ed Fallon’s permission.
Ed Fallon Interviews Bill McKibben on the Fallon Forum, July 11, 2022
Ed Fallon is host of The Fallon Forum, a weekly radio program, podcast, and more. Learn more about him at FallonForum.com.
I’ve written about the environment on Blog for Iowa since my first post on Feb. 25, 2009. Never in the time since then has there been more happening regarding degradation of our environment. As Scott Duncan’s graphic above indicates, it is getting a lot hotter on most parts of Earth. Methane and carbon dioxide emissions are rising, the oceans are getting warmer, ice sheets at the poles are melting, and there is a general lack of political will in the United States and elsewhere to do enough to reverse our course.
More than 40 percent of U.S. population lived in counties affected by climate disasters in 2021, according to Sarah Kaplan and Andrew Ba Tran of the Washington Post. In a report issued June 27, Kayrros, a firm that analyzes satellite data, said methane emissions have climbed despite the launch of the Global Methane Pledge at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, last fall. The firm said that “global methane emissions so far appear to be going in the wrong direction.”
“Sadly, we have taken the ocean for granted, and today we face what I would call an ocean emergency,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told delegates at the June opening of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. “We must turn the tide. A healthy and productive ocean is vital to our shared future.”
Despite substantial evidence of environmental degradation that affects human life and society, President Biden’s plan to address the climate crisis fell flat in the Congress because there were not enough votes to pass it with a divided U.S. Senate.
“The reality we face implores us to act,” Al Gore said.
In Iowa we tinker around the edges of addressing the climate crisis. Decisions like the one I wrote about in 2009, which stopped Interstate Power and Light from building a coal-fired electricity generating station in Marshalltown, have been driven by economic factors rather than any concern about the environment. “You don’t like coal? Fine! We’ll use natural gas which is cheaper anyway,” they might have said. Neither the government nor industry in Iowa takes action on the climate crisis unless there is a positive, monetary effect on someone’s bottom line. Human health and well being has been a secondary consideration despite the warnings of public health officials like I was back in the day.
A lot of Iowa environmental activist bandwidth is being taken up by the fight to stop three different Carbon Capture and Storage proposals. Art Cullen cut to the chase in a July 15 editorial in the Storm Lake Times, saying, “The pipelines will get buried. The Iowa rainmakers will get theirs as we pretend that we are addressing the planet being on fire.” It is hard to give up on the fight against CO2 pipelines, even if it plays out like some of the other transportation proposals to take oil, electricity, liquefied CO2, or other commodities across county lines.
What is a climate activist to do? I would start by learning about big scale solutions and getting involved in electing candidates willing to take action on them. I reviewed The Decarbonization Imperative: Transforming the Global Economy by 2050 by Michael Lenox and Rebecca Duff here. It’s a good place to start. A couple of things seem clear. Individual action is unlikely to solve the climate crisis. Large scale solutions take technical skill to design and political will to implement.
I recommend readers become part of the solution to the climate crisis by getting involved in efforts to implement large scale environmental projects. In most cases, that begins at the ballot box with voting for candidates willing to do the work.
Depiction of hydrogen molecule. Photo Credit – Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Why in the world should we be concerned about hydrogen? The answer comes from utility companies and can be summed up in two words: hydrogen blending.
Gas companies across the country are proposing to blend hydrogen gas with methane to burn in our gas-burning furnaces, boilers, stoves, water heaters and other home appliances.
If you use gas in your home, you’ll want to know: Is hydrogen potentially more leak-prone than methane? Why might it require that we buy new furnaces, boilers, and stoves? How would hydrogen blending contribute to climate change?
For answers to these and other questions about hydrogen in the home, join Physicians for Social Responsibility for a webinar on Zoom: “Hydrogen Pipe Dreams: Why Burning Hydrogen in Buildings is Bad for Climate and Health.”
A big shout out to iowastartingline.com for exposing a quiet portion of the coming election here in Iowa. As they note this November not only will there be the usual elections for offices there will also be what is a little quirk in Iowa’s process to cast a YAY or NAY on a couple of Iowa’s current Supreme Court members.
Usually this almost a perfunctory vote since few citizens follow what courts do in general. But this year due to a convergence of several story lines, this judicial retention vote may produce an unexpected consequence.
The first story line is that the current governor, Kim Reynolds is not wildly popular in the state. The last polling I have seen has her approval numbers under 50% which is a very bad indicator. The poll also had her opponent, Diedre DeJear only a couple of points behind.
The second story line is that the US Supreme Court made a truly unpopular decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed women the right to make their own medical decisions for themselves, including the choice to have an abortion. The decision on the legality of abortions has been put back on the states. Kim Reynolds has been openly and loudly supportive of this decision.
However, Iowans in general and women in particular in Iowa favor their right to make their own choices. The most recent poll I could find for Iowa was from last September.
Things may have changed, but I bet not that much.
The third story line is that Iowa’s Supreme Court is almost fully Republican appointed. This is quite an unbalance especially since Reynolds signed a bill that gave the governor more power in picking the justice nominating commission. Many people might like to see balance restored. As it is now Iowa’s Supreme Court seems to be built to be a rubber stamp for the legislature and the governor instead of being a place to appeal an injustice.
In this particular vote, Justices Dana Oxley and Matthew McDermott are up for the retention vote. Both voted to reverse Iowa’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion.
Iowans may remember a retention vote from 2010 when the radical right pushed to have justices removed because of the Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage. From the iowastartingline story:
When judicial spots open up in Iowa, a nonpartisan commission studies the credentials of different Iowa lawyers who were nominated for the position. The commission then nominates the individuals it finds most qualified.
For the supreme court, the state judicial nominating commission nominates three people for the governor, who then makes the final decision.
After serving a full year, each judge and justice faces a retention election where Iowans vote “yes” or “no” about whether a justice should remain on the bench. A majority of “yes” votes allow a judge to serve a full term.
The last time Iowa Supreme Court justices were removed through a retention vote was in 2010, following conservative activists’ organizing a “no” vote campaign in response to the court legalizing gay marriage.
So here you go Iowa. Vote Kim Reynolds out. Replace her with a governor – Diedre DeJear – who respects women’s rights to make their own medical and personal decisions. Then also vote ‘NO’ to retain Justices Oxley and McDermott and give the new governor a chance to reshape Iowa’s very right leaning Supreme Court.
One thing that probably defines Iowa and the midwest more than anything is the county fairs leading up to the state fair. Now is the prime time for the county fairs. Small towns across Iowa dress themselves up to greet the county fair showers and goers. Youngsters with farm backgrounds clean and preen their livestock for show. Entrants for vegetable judging prepare their wares.
There are judgings for everything from tomatoes to talent. There may be some shows, some car races, maybe even a demolition derby and of course that magical cuisine know as “fair food.” Many of the county denizens spend some time preparing their fair entry or spend some time at the fair grounds greeting friends and neighbors.
The county fair is perhaps the quintessential experience of life in Iowa. Right now is prime time for the fair. So walk away from that computer, get up and go to the fair. See you at the fair.
Unfortunately reality will still be here when you come home.
A) Americans and the world were treated to some incredible photos of space taken by what last week?
B) Americans were once again transfixed by the January 6th committee this week as the committee showed the connections between militia groups and who?
C) The FDA approved a different corona virus vaccine made by what company?
D) 988 is the new crisis call number for what?
E) Iowa’s Polk County recorded a case of what new contagious disease? This is Iowa’s second case.
F) Despite being told by oversight agencies to keep texts, the Secret Service deleted text messages from what dates?
G) A girl of what age had to leave her home in Ohio in order to have an abortion performed in what state?
H) The girl in that case was impregnated by rape. The Indiana AG is looking to bring charges not against the rapist, but instead against who?
I) Who said this last week? “Since we don’t control the air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air, so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move.So it moves over to our good air space. Then, now, we got we to clean that back up.”
J) A video released from what recent mass shooting shows police doing nearly anything but stopping the shooter?
K) July 20, 1969. The world stopped for a moment to watch as what space adventure took place?
L) During his testimony to the January 5th Committee White House lawyer Pat Cipollone said who should get a Presidential Medal of Freedom?
M) A Missouri resident swimming at Three Fires Lake in Iowa’s Taylor County a week and a half ago was diagnosed with a case of what?
N) Fully 110 years after victories in the 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon, what athlete is finally declared the sole winner of those events?
O) According to the Russian lawyer for Brittney Griner, the athlete had what for the use of cannabis?
P) From Portugal to Croatia, in Spain and France, what is raging as the continent experiences heatwave after heatwave?
Q) The people of which country persuaded its leader to resign and leave the country by setting his house on fire?
R) What former White House staffer appearing on CNN casually remarked that it took a lot of work to stage a coup?
S) Rep. Liz Cheney dropped a bomb at the end of Tuesday’s January 6th Committee hearing when she stated that who had called a witness?
T) Expect months of legal wrangling after Twitter sued what billionaire after the billionaire backed out on a deal to buy Twitter?
Inflation up 9.1% – ExxonMobil profits up 283% – Gavi Begtrup tweet–
comment – Any connection you think?
Eric Swalwell – abortion and disinformation (3 minutes)
Answers:
A) The James Webb Space Telescope
B) Donald Trump
C) Novavax
D) Suicide prevention and Mental Health crisis
E) Monkeypox
F) January 5th & 6th, 2021
G) 10
H) the doctor who performed the abortion
I) That, folks, is Herschel Walker an actual Republican candidate for the US senate in Georgia
J) The Uvalde school shooting
K) Men (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) walked on the moon
L) Then VP Mike Pence (Pence was only doing his job)
M) brain eating amoeba. Very rare, usually fatal.
N) Jim Thorpe
O) a doctor’s prescription
P) Forest fires
Q) Sri Lanka
R) John Bolton
S) Donald Trump
T) Elon Musk who backed out of his deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion last weekend.
I’m getting pissed at all the Biden bashing. He’s brought us away from the brink of a terrible cliff. A little gratitude and support would be nice. – Teri Velazquez
Economic professor for the common person and former presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren puts forth a very clear analysis of why we are in the inflation spiral that is straining many household budgets currently. She also offers a very common sense solution to the situation.
Yes, the government does have a role in controlling inflation – a very crucial role. But that role must be based on a very reality based analysis of the problem. The radical right has take the opportunity to blame inflation on rising workers wages.
Since workers wages have not kept pace with inflation since the start of Ronald Reagan’s presidency and are not doing so now, that dog won’t hunt. It is an old trope that is no longer credible.
Nor is President Biden singularly to blame. Inflation is a world wide phenomena. Biden does not control the world, nor can he dictate terms to worldwide corporations that would help curb inflation. Nor can he dictate monetary policy for the Federal Reserve.
What Biden can do is somewhat limited as it should be. America does not want a dictator. The very root causes of the current crisis dates back to policies that allows corporations to merge into monopolistic style businesses. Along with those policies has been a hands off policy on enforcing anti-monopoly laws. Corporations can now act with near impunity.
It is interesting that the last three Democratic presidents – Clinton, Obama and Biden – came into office with a nation in crisis. With solid policy, they were all able to pull the country from the brink. In all cases as the nation’s fortunes improved the media and the radical right Republican Party immediately began to erase the memory of Republican malfeasance that ran our country into the ditch.
In the case of Obama’s presidency, he came into office with the nation and the world on the brink of a worse depression than that the Republicans guided us into under Herbert Hoover. Obama’s policies and willingness to stick to the strategy drove us out of the ditch and into a solid economy.
Similarly, Biden came into office with an American and world economy on the very edge of crashing. Along with that he inherited a pandemic so grossly mismanaged by the previous administration that the government was practically missing in action. The previous administration was focused on ending our form of government, not in fixing the crisis.
Through solid policies both monetary and health care policies that got vaccines out to the majority of the populace in record speed, Biden’s policies turned a disaster into a great story of perhaps the greatest recovery ever.
As with Obama, the radical right has used their media to spew false propaganda that erases the memory of the disastrous previous administration while blaming problems on the wrong reasons. Typical radical right playbook maneuvers, but since they own most of the media it is hard to correct.
Remember that Biden administration policies have recovered almost all jobs lost by the previous administration. These policies have also led to wage increases unlike that which have been seen for a long time. Biden’s policies have worked a near miracle.
Just imagine how bad things would be if Trump or any radical right were president. We would be teetering on the brink while being told how great things were.
Republicanelected officials often walk to their own beat. Out in Colorado, a Republican county election official gave unfettered access to voting machines to Republican party leaders after the 2020 election.
Down in Georgia, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina tried to get the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to literally change vote count so that Donald Trump would win the Georgia electoral votes. Now that his role is being investigated by the Fulton County Georgia attorney, Graham is refusing to submit to a subpoena.
Donald Trump himself was also caught trying to interfere with the vote count in Georgia. He has refused to cooperate with the investigation. There are tapes of his attempt to interfere. Trump has also been caught attempting to tamper with witnesses of the January 6th committee hearings . Next week Liz Cheney promised evidence of another attempt to go with an attempt to tamper with witness Cassidy Hutchinson. Witness tampering is a very serious offense.
Republicans across the board are finally waking up to the facts that Trump and his compadres have committed felonies in an attempt to invalidate the 2020 election. Which brings us to Iowa where Republican leaders led by senior senator Chuck Grassley are very slow on the uptake of the realization that Trump will be proven to have led – LED – an attempt to overthrow our democratic form of government.
Here is a message to Grassley – and the other elected Republicans including Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson, Marionette Miller-Meeks and Governor Kim Reynolds – the time to abandon Trump and call for real justice was a year and a half ago.
As more and more evidence piles up showing Trump expect elected Republicans to suddenly get religion on the subject of justice. Expect couched announcements calling for justice concerning the insurrection without mentioning their own support/ involvement of Trump.
All they will be doing is highlighting just how craven their decision to throw their lot with Trump was. Where were they when they should have stood up for their country over a con man bent on destroying our form of government? Each and every one chose to back the con man over their country.
People like this have no business in our government. They can not be counted on to make decisions that are best for the country. They were given a test and they failed miserably. As you go to cast your vote this fall ask yourself if you could trust the above named folks to make good decisions. The answer is clearly “NO!”
Those who you can trust based on their records are Admiral Michael Franken for senator. A man with a distinguished career serving our nation; Liz Mathis a state senator with impeccable credentials in the state senate; Christina Bohannan also with impeccable credentials in the state senate; Cindy Axne in the 3rd district who has a record of putting the country and people first.
Finally we have Diedre DeJear squaring off against Corporate Kim Reynolds. If you slept through the early phases of the pandemic, you may have missed Reynolds decisions to keep factories open even as Iowans died. This won’t happen under DeJear.
One final note to Grassley. As the walls close in on Trump and his enablers that put together the January 6th attempt to overthrow our government, you, Mr. Grassley, still have that troubling tweet that indicated that you, Mr. Grassley, had some foreknowledge of the coming insurrection.
As more and more from Trump’s inner circle seek to save their own butts, most likely you tweet will get closer scrutiny. How will Iowans feel if their senior senator was involved in an effort to overthrow our government?
Our third July Feature Friday group is the Sisters of St. Francis of Clinton, Iowa.
I first visited the sisters while working on a nuclear disarmament campaign. They are great peace and justice allies and when they say they will take action, they mean it. When working on a statewide social justice campaign, it is important to include the Franciscans.
Following is a summary of their mission from the website:
The Franciscan Peace Center was created to promoteactive nonviolence in society. Integrating Franciscan spirituality with action, the Center carries out the advocacy work of the corporate public standstaken by the Clinton Franciscans. These issues include nuclear disarmament, immigration reform, abolition of the death penalty, care for creation, abolishing human trafficking, and promoting human rights and decreasing income inequality.
That work can take many forms: influencing lawmakers, prayer, educating individuals, mobilizing citizens to participate in the democratic process, and giving a voice to impoverished and marginalized people. The Franciscan Peace Center sponsors events and programming to help accomplish our advocacy goals and to educate people about active nonviolence.
The Action Alert Digest is a weekly compilation of current news about these mission issues. It also includes opportunities for individuals to take action online to join in advocacy efforts. You are invited to sign up to receive the weekly Action Alert Digest emails by clicking HERE.
For a listing of upcoming programs, please visit the News & Events page.
The Franciscan Peace Center invites you to explore each of these topics to learn what they have done, what they are currently doing, what needs to be done, and how you can be part of the solutions. Are you inspired to make a commitment? Learn how you can make a difference in the Get Involved section of our website.
The Franciscan Peace Center is guided by these principles:
The Two Feet of Social Action
People often think of social action as works of charity. Others label works of charity as social justice. The two feet of social action model, developed by Msgr. Marv Mottet of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, visually makes clear that social action involves both charitable works and social justice efforts aimed at root causes and systemic change.
Catholic Social Teaching
The Catholic Church has a rich history of teachings on social concerns, beginning with Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labor) in 1891 up through the encyclical Fratelli Tutti in 2020. The teachings consist of seven basic themes, which guide concerns of implementation. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has provided a description of the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching, along with a list of the Church documents on social concerns on its website.
The Franciscan action alerts have relevant and meaningful items calling for action. Sign up here.
Al Franken interviewed Anne Nelson, author of the 2019 book, Shadow Network: Media, Money and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. If you read Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, and Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, this could be the next book to read.
Here’s Franken’s June 19, 2022 podcast with Anne Nelson. In it she lays out how dark money brought us to Jan. 6, 2021. The section after 35:00 is about how large blocks of voters don’t read newspapers and have developed an alternative way of news gathering. In essence, they created their own echo chamber (my words, not hers) rendering traditional media, radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, irrelevant.
Definitely worth the listen. If you can’t get enough of Anne Nelson, Blog for Iowa posted a different interview with her here.
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)
Blog For Iowa 