Celebrate Pride Month by demanding equality for all.
Des Moines, Iowa — Progress Iowa Executive Director Matt Sinovic issued the following statement as we celebrate the start of Pride Month:
“Iowans believe that we all deserve dignity and respect, no matter our race, income or who we love. Iowa was once a leader in equality, and became one of the first states to recognize marriage equality and to enact comprehensive non-discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“But now, lawmakers like Governor Kim Reynolds are stripping away decades of progress to push their extreme, partisan agenda. Queer stories and perspectives in books and school literature have been designated as obscene material this session by Republican legislators, and Governor Reynolds’ discriminatory trans-athlete ban will sideline children and prevent them from playing sports with their friends, missing out on critical social and team building experiences.
“This Pride Month, we must demand Republican elected officials stop playing partisan games with the lives of LGBTQ+ Iowans. Iowa was once a national leader for civil rights, and we need to ensure that our state is leading that charge once again.”
Progress Iowa is a multi-issue progressive advocacy organization. Year-round, we promote progressive ideas and causes with creative earned media strategies, targeted email campaigns, and cutting-edge new media.
Last week, Iowa Select withdrew a construction permit application to build a 5,000-head hog factory in Tama County!
The secret sauce? Public pressure! The neighbors organized and put direct pressure on Iowa Select to drop their plan which would have built the hog factory near the homestead of Iowa’s beloved “Butter Cow Lady,” the late Norma Lyon. Norma’s son and seven other neighboring families placed an ad in the local shopper, contacted Iowa Select decision makers and started to plan a press conference when they got the news last week that Iowa Select withdrew its application.
This isn’t the first time that a factory farm developer backed off as a result of public pressure, and it won’t be the last. If you hear rumors of factory farm construction in your community, please contact the CCI Statewide Headquarters at 515.282.0484. Together, we can protect our water, our land, our communities, and our quality of life from factory farms.
Eric Lyon, a Tama resident, expressed his argument as to why construction should be delayed.
“Because not even one neighbor was contacted by either land owners, Iowa Select, Crystal Finishers, for citing large commercial hog factories — because Iowa Select made no good faith effort to be good neighbors that they advertise being, — because the DNR’s (Department of Natural Resources) own employees a few years ago when the permit was denied in another area that it would be nearly impossible for the DNR with their manpower to check every manure management plans phosphorus index — for every hog confinement field that was applied for,” Lyon said.
Let’s be clear. When Republicans talk about “freedom” what they really mean is they should be free to do whatever they want without being tethered by rules, regulations and laws that are there to create a fair and just society. By “freedom” they mean their morality is the only morality that should apply. What others think and what works best for the common good is an infringement on their “freedom.” By “freedom” they mean they should be “free” to impose their will on everyone else. They use the word “freedom” as a dog whistle to others who also want to have it their way or the highway and think rules should not apply to them.
So who wouldn’t want rules? Anyone who would be willing to and could get away with lying, cheating, stealing or killing wouldn’t want rules.
Republicans have abandoned Democracy. They now want you to think Democracy is bad because they don’t want to be constrained by majority rule. They don’t want to be constrained by what is best for everyone. They think what is best for them is Right. They think this for no rational reason. Something is Right because it is best for them. It’s really that simple. They have become amoral. As a result, Americans are becoming less and less free in the true meaning of the word.
Thom Hartmann writes about this in his newsletter today. Check out and subscribe to Thom’s newsletter here.
And watch out for trolls. There are fake Democrats out there going after Democrats in full force right now. I’ve been spotting them more and more in unexpected places.
A nation cowering in fear of mass shootings is not free. Neither is a nation where a simple accident or illness can result in homelessness. Or a nation where a raped woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term at the point of a gun.
Only when Big Gun, Big Pharma, Big Church, Big Insurance, Big Oil, and every other special interest group in America empowered by SCOTUS to corrupt our political system are brought back to heel will America become the “land of the free..”
This is one of my favorite flag photos taken by BFIA’s own Paul Deaton. Please have a meaningful and respectful holiday.
Below is a short statement about the history of Memorial Day. But to me, Memorial Day is also about community. I remember growing up in a small Iowa town where there would be, if not a parade, a gathering on the town square with a ceremony. Taps was played by a member of the high school band. The American legion members would line up and fire a solemn salute. Family members long moved away would come home and visit grave sites and lay flowers. Then there would be family picnics. It was about gathering together as families, friends and as Americans, and remembering the home town Americans who had died in service to their country.
No, Memorial Day isn’t about a long weekend road trip, backyard barbecue or sales. The real meaning of the national holiday is much more somber.
Originally called Decoration Day, Monday’s holiday honors all soldiers who died during service to the nation.
Memorial Day was declared a national holiday through an act of Congress in 1971, and its roots date back to the Civil War era, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
Unlike Veterans Day, Memorial Day honors all military members who have died while serving in U.S. forces.
“In Flanders Fields” is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during the First World War by Canadian physician Lieutenant-ColonelJohn McCrae. He was inspired to write it on May 3, 1915, after presiding over the funeral of friend and fellow soldier Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who died in the Second Battle of Ypres. According to legend, fellow soldiers retrieved the poem after McCrae, initially dissatisfied with his work, discarded it. “In Flanders Fields” was first published on December 8 of that year in the London magazine Punch. Flanders Fields is a common English name of the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France.
The legislature has adjourned. Thus Progress Iowa ha ended their daily newsletter. Earlier this week they sent out a great summation of the bad deeds of our Republican legislature. All for the rich and none for the poor I would put it:
2022 Legislature Adjourns: A string of attacks on working families
Des Moines, Iowa — Iowa lawmakers have officially concluded the 2022 legislative session. Republicans spent the session pushing Corporate Kim Reynolds’ harmful agenda and passing bills that attack working families and marginalized communities.
“Once again, Corporate Kim and the Republican-led legislature have failed Iowans,” said Matt Sinovic, Executive Director of Progress Iowa. “While we’re happy to see the Governor’s terrible proposal for private school vouchers fail, this session has been a disaster. Republican legislators spent most of their time this year attacking working families, bullying kids and targeting our public schools and educators. The laws they passed will make the Reynolds Workforce Crisis worse, all in an effort to give massive tax breaks to the rich and wealthy corporations. We need leaders who reward work, not wealth. Iowans deserve a Governor and legislature that prioritize Iowa families and make our state a place people want to live, work and raise a family.”
Harmful bills passed in 2022
An unfair 4% flat tax that will provide massive tax breaks for corporations and the ultra wealthy, while actually raising taxes on the lowest income earners in Iowa
Massive corporate tax cuts
Banning transgender girls playing female sports
Slashing hard-earned unemployment benefits from 26 to 16 weeks
An inadequate, under inflation 2.5% funding increase for Iowa’s public schools
Making child care centers less safe by allowing 16-year-olds to watch children without supervision
Making child care centers less safe by allowing adults to watch more children at one time
Allowing law enforcement to search and seize garbage placed outside the home, going against an Iowa Supreme Court ruling
Changes to Iowa’s judicial selection process, allowing Governor Reynolds to stack the Court as she sees fit
Making the penalties for manufacturing, possessing, or delivering heroin the same as methamphetamine, perpetuating a racist war on drugs
Making public schools less safe by preventing K-12 public or charter schools from performing health screenings on students without written permission from a parent or guardian.
Changes to the state’s bottle bill that favor corporate greed, not the need to recycle
Let me add that Corporate Kim Reynolds was unsuccessful in her attempt to undermine Iowa’s once vaunted public school system. She won’t give up until we are competing with Mississippi for the bottom.
In light of Republicans dominance in Iowa, I thought this quote from Republican Legislator Brad Zaun really sums up how arrogant Republicans are and how they demean democracy and Democrats. From Wednesday’s Capital Dispatch:
“I just I’m very frustrated about this. And I will tell you this. I look forward to when the minority party does not have power in this decision. And I look forward to our side being in the supermajority because what’s being done with these great Iowans is disgusting.” — Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, on the defeat of four governor’s appointees to the state judicial nominating commission who failed to win a two-thirds majority of votes.
STATEMENT: Why doesn’t Kim Reynolds care about our kids?
Des Moines, Iowa — Progress Iowa Executive Director Matt Sinovic issued the following statement in response to the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school where 18 children and three adults were killed:
“Our hearts ache for the victims and the families impacted by the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School in Ulvalde, TX. But this feeling is all too familiar.
“These senseless acts of violence keep happening. Enough is enough. When will Republican politicians like Kim Reynolds give up the empty ‘thoughts and prayers’ and actually take action to address the plague of gun violence in our country?
“When we drop our son off at daycare, we’re not allowed to know if there’s a loaded gun on site because of a rule the Reynolds administration created. When we pick our older son up from 4-year-old preschool, he tells us about the lockdowns they practice.”
“Our kids live in a world created by Kim Reynolds. Where their lives don’t matter as much as her corporate donations and support from the gun lobby.”
“Until the Governor does anything – literally anything – to prevent gun violence in our state, we will have to keep asking: why doesn’t she care about our kids?”
“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”: (10 minutes)
When were the inmates put in charge of the asylum called America? This is no way to run a country. Resolve this weekend to use your political power to return America to sanity.
Oy vey!
A) Following the slaughter in Uvalde, Texas stocks in gun companies went up or down?
B) “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.” What president was born 105 years ago today in Brookline, Mass.?
C) Seems like months ago, but it was only last week that CPAC was meeting in what city?
D) What candidate for governor in Texas confronted Texas Governor Greg Abbott at a news conference following the Uvalde shooting?
E) In Iowa Governor Reynolds was denied what piece of legislation as the legislature ended last week?
F) President Biden returned from a trip to what area of the world last weekend?
G) A four judge panel ruled that what politician must testify under oath in a civil investigation in New York?
H) A church in Tennessee lost its tax exempt status after the pastor proclaimed “You can’t be Christian and ..” Do what?
I) Performers Don McLean and Lee Greenwood refused to perform at what convention in Texas this weekend?
J) Joe Garcia of Uvalde, Texas died of what Thursday after his wife was killed in the Uvalde massacre?
K) What NBA coach made headlines after he blasted the country for not standing up to guns?
L ) what is the first clause of the second amendment?
M) An invasion of what earthworm relative threatens to devour gardens especially in California?
N) The Biden Administration has blunted what food shortage crisis with airlifts of the product from Europe?
O) In some good news, Pfizer said that 3 small doses of its covid vaccine would give strong protection to what now unvaccinated group?
P) Guns were not allowed at what convention held this weekend?
Q) Leaders of what Christian Church denomination decided to release a secret list of ministers accused of sexual abuse?
R) Researchers have developed a strain of what plant that will help vegans with a source of vitamin D3?
S) What former US Secretary of State said at the Davos Forum that Ukraine should give territory to Russia to achieve peace?
T) What former White House Press Secretary announced she will work for MSNBC?
Americans Opposed to Being Shot Seek Representation in Washington. – Andy Borowitz
Sam Bee compendium of gun mass shooting shows: (36 minutes). Not sure when this was on – probably over a year ago.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes.
As Sam Bee noted in the above video, it is not video games, it is not mental health, it is not the internet. When all else is eliminated, the answer becomes guns. The easy access to guns. Not just guns but real killing machines. Machines that are made for one purpose and that is to kill.
Why then if these machines are made for killing, why hasn’t some governing body studied the situation and decided that letting killing machines into the hands of everybody is a really bad idea? The answer to that one is one of the major problems with our political system. That is money. Money from corporations and the wealthy who do not see gifts to politicians as donations but as investments.
Over recent decades one of the biggest investors in politicians have been the lobbying arm of the gun industry, the National Rifle Association or NRA. The NRA has poured millions and millions particularly Republican campaigns. Thus Republicans have become basically puppets of the gun industry. Just ask Iowa senators, Grassley and Ernst.
As an aside, let me remind you that even as money dried up for the NRA, they were able to keep the bribery machine primed with money from Russia and Vladimir Putin. Is that still happening? Could be.
While some 90% of Americans want gun safety laws, Republican politicians have an allegiance not to their constituents but to their corporate donors especially the gun industry. If you don’t believe that their allegiance is to their corporate donors you only have to look at their record on climate change and the oil industry or national health care and the insurance industry.
This is where you and your family and neighbors come in. Are you sick of the death? Are you sick of what gun injuries can do? Do you fear that someday your child will be caught in a school shooting situation? There is one thing you can do that will help the situation.
No, it is not praying. After all the ‘thoughts and prayers’ that have been offered up over the past quarter century of death and destruction the situation has only gotten worse. Republicans are only working to sell more guns which turn in to “campaign contributions” to them.
As noted above by Sherlock Holmes, the strategy that remains is to elect Democrats who will actually do something. And as a bonus, there may be some laws pass that will help stop the ever looming climate crisis or legislation that will reform our hodge-podge medical system.
Are you finally sickened enough by the death of children by a killing machine. Then DO SOMETHING! Vote for people who do not wear the shackles of the NRA and help us get weapons of war and killing machines off our streets. Come November vote for common sense Democrats!
Does it ever seem like we have been on a merry-go-round for the past 40 years? Slowly picking up speed but constantly going through the same experiences? We seem to learn nothing along the way that will help us turn the merry-go-round into a vehicle that will move us forward.
Tuesday, once again we passed by a recurring nightmare – a crazed man with a killing machine shooting children – CHILDREN – to smithereens. The man legally bought the killing machine, actually two killing machines, in Texas where the current governor proudly signed a law that allows every goofball to get killing machine.
Sadly, unless something is done and soon, we will watch this play over and over again. While 90% – ninety percent – of Americans want something done, the Republican Party refuses to do anything. In Iowa, Senators Grassley and Ernst are for all practical purposes on the payroll of the gun industry.
This is Memorial Day weekend. A day we set aside to honor our war dead. Certainly such a day of somber consideration of those who gave their lives for our country is necessary for the collective mind of the country. What most people do not know is that there is a day set aside to commemorate those who have died needlessly of gun violence in this country every year.
That day is next Saturday. According to the websitehttps://wearorange.orgthis day was originally set aside to honor the memory of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago teen who shortly after marching in President Obama’s second inauguration parade was killed by gunfire:
why orange?
On January 21, 2013, Hadiya Pendleton marched in President Obama’s second inaugural parade. One week later, Hadiya was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago. Soon after this tragedy, Hadiya’s friends commemorated her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others. Wear Orange is now observed every June. Thousands of people wear the color orange to honor Hadiya and the more than 40,000 people who are killed with guns and approximately 85,000 who are shot and wounded every year.
It quickly became a way to memorialize the victims of the gun violence pandemic in America that now claims some 40,000 plus lives a year.
Let us not forget that while 40,000 die yearly from gun violence, another 100,000 are injured but survive. Little has been mentioned of the 17 victims of Tuesday’s massacre that survived. Their lives have certainly changed forever. These victims are often forgotten about as our media focuses on the worst outcomes of the incidents.
Gun violence has emotional, medical, financial, and legal consequences for individuals and communities. This page offers basic resources and information to help victims and survivors of gun violence. This list is not comprehensive and there may be other resources available to you in your community.
If you think that in Iowa the chances of such gun violence happening are remote let me remind you that Republicans in Iowa have dramatically loosened gun laws. Add to that the polarizing of our society even in the most remote pockets of rural Iowa by the extreme right through the internet and you can see that like Uvalde, no place is too remote in America from the scourge of gun violence.
For those of us who have been around Iowa for a while we will always remember the massacre by PHD candidate Gang Lu in November of 1991. Here is a recount in 2021 by the Daily Iowan of that day:
It was a quiet, snowy day when enraged former UI graduate student Gang Lu shot and killed five people in two different campus buildings. Among those who lost their lives were Christoph Goertz and Robert “Bob” Smith, both professors of physics and astronomy; Dwight R. Nicholson, chairman of the physics and astronomy department; Linhua Shan, a postdoctoral researcher; and T. Anne Cleary, associate vice president for academic affairs.
And there was one survivor of this massacre, and innocent clerk who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Miya Rodolfo-Siosan survived but her life was changed forever. Ridolfo-Siosan died in 2008 and her obituary in the Berkeley Daily Planet recalled her experience:
“Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, long-time advocate for disability rights, died at 10:45 a.m. December 3, at Highland Hospital, with her brother Renato at her side. Miya was being treated for inflammatory breast cancer. She was 40 years old.
In November 1991 Miya was about to graduate with high honors from the Global Studies program of the University of Iowa. She worked as a temp for the university’s Grievance Officer in the Academic Affairs Office.
Gang Lu, a new Ph.D., un-happy because he was denied a major dissertation prize, entered the office on November 1 and shot the Grievance Officer and Miya. She was the only person not on his hit list, and the last of the six people he shot before turning the gun on himself.
She was the sole survivor of the shooting, living for more than 17 years afterward. As a result of her injuries, she became a quadriplegic.”
The vast majority of Americans want some form of gun safety legislation We are blocked by Republican legislatures who act as puppets of the gun industry. What we can do is vote them out of office this November. If you don’t, the merry-go-round just keeps on spinning. Your vote is extremely important!
And, if you can where orange next weekend and let the world know that YOU are against the slaughter that is going on.
The best thing to do right now is throw as much money as you can to Democratic candidates, volunteer for campaigns and write letters to your local paper calling out the Republican party. Don’t just Tweet. Don’t just post on social media. Act.
Action alert from Indivisible Iowa
Stop asking yourself how & why gun violence happens in America and start asking yourself what you can do to elect people who believe in common-sense gun legislation at the state and federal levels.
EVERY SINGLE IOWA REPUBLICAN IN CONGRESS HAS TAKEN MONEY FROM THE NRA!
EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS VOTED AGAINST:
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)
Celebrate Pride Month by demanding equality for all.
