Niazy, Hale, Warnagiris And Our Endless War

Posted on July 29, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Zalmay Niazy Photo Credit: CNN

Veteran Decries Inconsistent Justice by Ed Flaherty

The story of Zalmay Niazy of Iowa Falls has been well-publicized.  He was an interpreter for U.S. forces in Afghanistan for several years, has lived in Iowa Falls for several years, where he has become a valued and respected member of the community. He is now facing deportation back to Afghanistan because his visa has expired.

This is all happening as the U.S. is ending its military operations in Afghanistan and attempting to deal with visa requests from 18,000 Afghans who have served as U.S. interpreters. They now fear for their lives.

On Thursday, July 8, President Biden said, “There is a home for you in the U.S. if you so choose, and we will stand with you just as you stood with us.” Only a Pulitzer Prize-winner of the Fiction award could concoct such a ludicrous and obvious inconsistency.

Less obvious and more removed from the public eye is the contrast between the cases of Marine Major Christopher Warnagiris and Air Force veteran Daniel Hale.  Warnagiris participated in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, and reportedly physically attacked capitol defenders.  He has been charged with multiple offenses, but is still on active duty at the Quantico Marine base while awaiting trial. Daniel Hale, involved with weaponized drones while stationed in Afghanistan, has been in jail for several months and may be sentenced for up to ten years. His offense? He made public details about the use of U.S. weaponized drones, including the fact that, contrary to our government’s official statements, the drone program killed many more civilians than targeted “terrorists.”  

I hope by the time this article appears that Zalmay Niazy has gotten a green light to stay in the U.S. as long as he wishes.  And I hope that the July 8 words of President Biden regarding Afghan interpreters bear fruit in reality. I also hope that Major Warnagiris is promptly removed from active duty. If found guilty, part of his punishment must be a dishonorable discharge from the Marines. As for Daniel Hale, a truth-telling, non-violent veteran, I hope that Judge O’Grady imposes a very lenient sentence on July 27, and that President Biden grants him a pardon.

History will not treat kindly the U.S. involvement since 1980 in Afghanistan.  But at least we need not further dishonor our country’s reputation by ignoring the plight of these victims. Niazy and the Afghan interpreters who worked with the U.S. military served veterans nobly. Hale, asserting the rights of US soldiers to speak truth, honors veterans.  Warnagiris, if found guilty, should be punished even more than his January 6 peers because of the high responsibility he has as a senior officer to defend the Constitution.  He has dishonored veterans.

(Editor’s Note: On July 27, Daniel Hale was sentenced to 45 months in prison).

~ First published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Reprinted with permission of the author.

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What Work Will We Do?

Posted on July 28, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Field workers. Provenance unknown.

Conventional wisdom is there is a worker shortage in Iowa.

“Companies are really at a tipping point with respect to their workforce,” Iowa Business Council Executive Director Joe Murphy said in an interview with Perry Beeman of Iowa Capitol Dispatch. “They need people more than ever.”

The surge in demand for products and services in the second year of the coronavirus pandemic notwithstanding, there is no shortage of workers. It is a shortage of jobs people want to do.

My colleague Tony Lloyd put it this way: “Can we stop saying that ‘Companies can’t find workers’ and start saying ‘Many corporate work environments are toxic. Workers weren’t thriving before the pandemic. Now they realize that life is short.’ The way you spend your time is the way you spend your life.”

Anyone who worked on a farm knows how hard physical labor can be. Factory workers are well attuned to the toll repetitive tasks take on their bodies. Retail workers figure out ways to eek out a living on low wages. People who are self-employed–housekeepers, landscaping contractors, beauticians and barbers, child care professionals, crafters and creatives–often feel one step from the debt collector with slim chances of making it. We go on working partly because we want to, yet mostly because we need income in 21st Century society.

Labor unions of the post World War II era framed what worklife can be: a 40-hour work week with paid overtime, a safe work place, vacations and holidays, health insurance, sick leave, and other perquisites. About one-quarter of all U.S. workers belonged to a union in the mid-1950s, yet only 10.8% of U.S. workers were union members in 2020. The union membership rate of public-sector workers (34.8 percent) continued to be more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.3 percent), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While we are friends of organized labor, their model has not worked for the majority of Americans in the workforce.

Most small, family-run businesses I know seek to avoid hiring people unless they must. Everyone from the owner to the dish washer pitches in to help get required daily work done. Yet small businesses have been and continue to be acquired by larger ones, or are run out of business through market competition.

American business favors a structure where management expenses are minimized, and to do that, scale is important. The bookkeeper for a $1 million dollar a year operation may stay busy, yet the better use of such labor is said to be that same bookkeeper managing a portfolio of ten or twenty such operations. To do that businesses need scale. Scale well-serves the owners of business–the richest one percent among us–but that’s where trouble came in. It was noticed during the pandemic.

Scaling business to reduce overhead costs, and taking the individual decision-making aspect out of operating a small office or outlet within a large corporation is what created the “toxic work environments” to which Lloyd referred. If there is will to do something about it, I don’t see it in public. As we answer the question, “What work will we do?” our options are limited by the corporatization of the United States.

Wouldn’t it be great to work like this:

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

Sony Music Publishing or Sir Paul McCartney, who knows?.

Unfortunately, even something as simple as “getting by” gets complicated. How we spend our days is made more difficult by the corporatization of worklife and the increasing divide between the richest people and the rest of us. The question remains unanswered.

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Liz Mathis Announces For U.S. House

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Paul Deaton
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Loebsack Endorses Finkenauer For U.S. Senate

Posted on July 27, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Dave Loebsack

Abby Finkenauer Earns Endorsement of Congressman Dave Loebsack

Cedar Rapids — Yesterday Abby Finkenauer, candidate for U.S. Senate, was endorsed by former Congressman Dave Loebsack.

“Abby is one of the hardest workers I have ever seen, and I don’t say that lightly. Abby knows it’s never about her — it’s about the people she is fighting for. She knows what working people have gone through, because working Iowans are family to her. While Senator Grassley has lost his way, forgetting the people of this state, I know Abby has the grit and determination to stand up for us every day and improve the lives of working people. Iowa needs Abby Finkenauer in the U.S. Senate, and I’m proud to endorse her,” said former Congressman Dave Loebsack.

“I’m honored and excited to be endorsed by my friend Congressman Dave Loebsack,” said Abby Finkenanuer. “In Congress, we worked side-by-side to pass legislation to lower prescription drug prices, make an historic investment in Iowa’s infrastructure, and provide quality and affordable child care. I’m proud of that record. But while Iowa’s working families have been waiting for action, the U.S. Senate — led by politicians like Senator Grassley and Senator McConnell — has failed to act. I’m running for Senate because Iowa’s working families deserve a U.S. Senator who is completely focused on them.”

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Reasons To Source Food Locally

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Paul Deaton

The author’s garden yield on Saturday, July 24, 2021.

Despite near drought conditions most of this growing season, our garden is producing the best crop I can remember. Our ability to irrigate is most of that. I’m also becoming a better gardener. We don’t have it as bad as California does.

Because of dry conditions over an extended period of time, California farmers are letting fields go fallow. Without rain or irrigation there is no point in putting seeds in the ground. California Governor Gavin Newsom issued three drought emergency proclamations this year, in April, May and July. The state called for residents to reduce water use by 15 percent to stretch supplies and protect water reserves. While this drought is not the worst on a 1,000 year time line, it is bad and if it continues it will affect what shoppers see in grocery stores. It goes without saying prices will trend upward.

Because of drought in western states, what we do in our Midwestern back yards increases in value.

When Michael Pollan released this video in 2010, the landscape for local food was different. His focus was on the amount of fossil fuel it took to produce vegetables in California and distribute them across the United States. He also discusses the energy required to make processed foods, like Hostess Twinkies. While avoiding global warming remains a reason to eat locally, with drought made worse by climate change, supply becomes an issue. If California farmers are not planting crops, if almond trees are not sustainable there, how will we get nutritious food? There are few better solutions than growing one’s own and sourcing locally.

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Had To Post This Toon

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Thanks to EarlG at democraticunderground.com

let’s make it two:

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Sunday Funday: Dog Days Of Summer Edition

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Dave Bradley

This is the time of year when the heat rises and tempers grow short. This year is even worse due to a higher than normal outbreak of heat, the western US and Canada on fire with smoke spreading across the country and flooding seemingly every where in the world. In short, all the predictions of what climate change will bring are starting to come true.

And let us not forget that the Covid-19 pandemic that we should have been beating by now is roaring back thanks to the anti-vaxxers who refuse to to take a proven vaccine. We are once again seeing huge numbers of cases, hospitals filling up and people dying. Unfortunately this is giving the virus a chance to beat our vaccine defenses. 

So now comes my weekly plea: Please get vaccinated, today if not sooner!

A) Speaking of getting vaccinated, what southern governor has done a 180 degree turn and is pleading with citizens inherent state to get vaccinated?

B) As of Friday, the Cleveland Major League Baseball team will no longer be known as the Indians, but as what?

C) In a true surprise at the Olympic Games in Tokyo the highly touted US women’s soccer team lost to who?

D) Paul Hodgkins got his 15 minutes of fame as he became the first person to be sentenced for what?

E) The Bootleg Fire is burning out of control in what western state?

F) How many Iowans face potential eviction as the federal moratorium on evictions ends in the next two weeks?

G) Forty percent of all new Covid-19 cases are taking place in what 3 states in the US?

H) After Speaker Pelosi rejected some of Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s nominees to the special committee on January 6th, what did McCarthy do?

I) What other Republican congress member did Speaker Pelosi nominate to the January 6th committee?

J) Senator Rand Paul said he would prefer charges to the DOJ against what administration Covid-19 leader for (as Paul claims) lying to congress?

K) Rep. Madison Cawthorne of NC called what Covid-19 fighter a “pawn for the Chinese government”?

L) Despite resistance from Republican leaders in Missouri, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered that the state must implement changes to what program that was voted in in the last election?

M) The gun that lawman Pat Garrett killed Billy the Kid with will go on the auction block next month. What will be the initial bid be set at?

N) July 26, 1944 the US Army began the end of segregation in the Army as it desegregated what facilities?

O) Passengers on subways in what country were caught in flood water up to their necks as rain continued over several days?

P) Old Chuck Grassley picked up a major opponent in the 2022 Iowa senate race when who threw her hat in the ring?

Q) Life expectancy went down how much in the US in 2020?

R) A group of states Attorney General reached a settlement with Johnson & Johnson and three major distributors of opioids for how much last week?

S) What former chair of Trump’s inaugural committee is accused of failing to register as a foreign agent of the UAE?

T) 50 years between titles! What team won the NBA title Tuesday night?

Donald Trump demanding endless praise for the vaccine he now demands you don’t take is all the proof you need that the family of raccoons living inside his head have finally chewed through the wiring. – Jeff Tiedrich

Answers:

A) Kay Ivey of Alabama

B) the Guardians

C) Sweden 3 to 0

D) the January 6th coup

E) Oregon

F) 30,000 

G) Florida, Texas and Missouri

H) Withdrew all of his nominees

I) Kinsinger of Illinois

J) Dr. Anthony Fauci

K) Dr. Anthony Fauci

L) Medicaid

M) $2 million

N) training facilities – the official desegregation order did not come until 1948

O) China specifically Henan province

P) Former Rep Abby Finkenauer

Q) 1.5 years

R) $26 billion

S) Thomas Barack

T) The Milwaukee Bucks

Rand Paul Says That Knowing What He’s Talking About Would Make Him Unable To Do His Job. – Andy Borowitz

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Abortions Up In Iowa

Posted on July 24, 2021 by Dave Bradley

From iowastartingline.com:   

There were 4,058 abortions performed in Iowa in 2020, a trend that’s increased over the last three years.

In 2018, there were 2,849 abortions, followed by 3,566 abortions in 2019, according to state data.

The data came from the Iowa Department of Public Health and was released to legislative staff. State Sen. Janet Petersen shared it with the Des Moines Register.

Before 2018, abortions in Iowa were decreasing.

The increase follows the change in the state’s family planning services. In 2017, Gov. Kim Reynolds and legislative Republicans had Iowa withdraw from a federally funded family planning service to a state-run version called the Family Planning Program. The move was intended to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving funding for their family planning services.

The Des Moines Register last week explored reasons given by proponents and opponents of abortion. State Senator Janet Peterson of Des Moines blamed the curtailing of family planning services:

State Sen. Janet Petersen, a Des Moines Democrat, said in an interview that she wasn’t surprised to see the abortion rate rise for a second year.

“I once again think that when they take family planning services away from Iowans and expect abortion numbers to drop, they’re just kidding themselves,” said Petersen, who forwarded the information to the Des Moines Register. The information was included in an email from an Iowa Department of Health legislative liaison, titled “Induced Termination Raw Data.”

Opponents blamed a Iowa Supreme Court decision:

Maggie DeWitte, executive director of the group Iowans for Life, disputed the theory that abortion numbers are rising because Planned Parenthood was kicked out of the public family planning program. DeWitte said birth control is still widely available across the state.

“Access is not an issue,” she said.

Instead, DeWitte blamed the rise in abortions on a 2018 decision by the Iowa Supreme Court, which declared for the first time that the Iowa Constitution protects abortions as a fundamental right.

“When you create a fundamental right, that means you can’t regulate abortions in any way,” she said. “Our hands are tied.”

It continues to amaze me that time after time Family Planning Counseling has proven to dramatically lower abortions. This is what the so-called “Right to Life” group wants. The best way to stop abortions is to stop unplanned pregnancies. That is what is called contraception.

The best way to make contraception work is to make it available to women on a low cost, long term basis with professional medical counseling. We see what has happened here in Iowa. We are only reproducing results that have taken place in all sorts of previous iterations.

In 2009, a privately backed initiative in Colorado that had drastically lowered unwanted pregnancies came to an end.   

The Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI) offered low-income women and teenagers access to low or no-cost contraceptive devices, including IUDs and implants, and trained providers in insertion and counselling techniques. Last year, researchers reported significant drops in the birth rate among teens and young adult women in participating counties. The abortion rate among women between 15 and 19 years old dropped by more than a third; high-risk pregnancies by a fourth.

In July the governor’s office issued a glowing press release, crediting the program with a 40% statewide drop in teen birth rates between 2009 and 2013 – and a 35% drop in abortions.

But, despite the program’s widely reported successes, last Wednesday Colorado’s Republican-controlled senate killed a bill that would sustain and expand CFPI services.

“Unfortunately, family planning is a political issue and science and data gets trumped by ideology,” Greta Klingler, who works for the Colorado department of public health and environment, and who authored the CFPI report, told the Guardian.

“It’s a missed opportunity for the people of Colorado, many of whom still don’t have access to the best most effective methods and services out there,” she said. The program has also been “shown to save the state an enormous amount of money, so there’s the economic piece of this too”.

So  – no surprise. We can slow abortions dramatically with medical counseling and access to contraception. This is the cheapest alternative in terms of money and consequences. Or we can force women to have to make a choice of abortion. Or they can have the child. This will most likely lead to a life of poverty. Certainly the child will not get the breaks that a child of means will get. 

And down the line is the prospect of the Iowa Legislature in league with a far right wing Supreme Court ending access to legal and safe abortions. We all know that we won’t stop unwanted pregnancies. We all know that banning abortions will only drive the poor to back alley abortions and all the horrible consequences of that situation.

And we all know that the well of unwanted pregnancy will have access to a medically safe abortion some place, just as it did in the 1950s.

Once again it looks like Iowa will pick what is by far the worst and most expensive and most societally disruptive choice. 

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Why The Change In Republican Vaccine Stance?

Posted on July 24, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Many of us were surprised early this week when one of the spokesmen against getting vaccinated against the corona virus came out swinging saying that people should get vaccinated:

“Just like we’ve been saying, please take COVID seriously. Enough people have died. We don’t need any more deaths. Research like crazy. Talk to your doctor,” Fox News’s Sean Hannity said last night. “It absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated.” 

What??? But wait there is more:

Steve Doocy, one of the anchors of the network’s popular morning show Fox & Friends, has been advocating for vaccines, and tangling with co-hosts over it. “If you have the chance, get the shot,” he said yesterday. “It will save your life.”

Among others calling for people to get vaccinated and getting vaccinated themselves are Louisiana representative and minority Whip Steve Scalise. He actually took the first Pfizer shot Wednesday. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to call for vaccinations.

The lone holdout these days seems to be Fox’s Tucker Carlson who refuses to say whether or not he is vaccinated himself, although many reports say he is.

So if you are like me and suddenly see a police car make a hard U-turn in the middle of the street in broad daylight, your curiosity gets piqued. That usually does not happen for no reason. In this case Fox and the party they shill for are trying to pretend that this is ‘business as usual.’ I ain’t buying it, nor is anyone.

Usually when there is a huge change on the right, money is involved. That seems to make as much sense as anything. In this case they sudden changes in stance came one day after a precipitous drop on Wall Street.  The reason for the drop was attributed to rising corona virus numbers in the US. This is bringing up memories of last year with millions out of work and businesses closing never to open again.

Were the painful memories that are still really close in time enough to shock the lie machines that Fox and the Republican Party are into reality? Did those lower portfolios touch some place deep in the heart of the likes of Steve Scalise? Or was it something else entirely.

Maybe the stock drop was an alarm, but maybe the real message that is getting through is that pretty much all the dying and all the suffering right now is landing on Republican families who have followed the Hannities and Carlsons and refused to get vaccinated are now getting sick and dying or are seeing their unvaccinated family members getting sick and dying. 

As these families survey the situation, they realize that they are doing the sacrificing that Hannity and Carlson and Trump refuse to do. They are being sacrificed. As a friend told me, when families realized their sons were dying in Viet Nam and the leader’s sons were not, the tide started to turn against the war. 

Maybe it is the threat of massive lawsuits or possible criminal proceedings that has caught the attention of upper management and now they want their butts covered.

Maybe the realization that the right is killing off its base a little over a year before the next election while they are turning off many more got their attention. It may be a combination of all of the above. I have no doubt that at some level money is the key.

Whatever the reason, let us hope that their followers will finally get vaccinated. This will help slow the spread and the mutation of the virus. Every new vaccination no matter what the reason is one more person to the good.

Maybe sometime in the near future the President will have all the things he needs to order at least all federal workers and suppliers be vaccinated. More and more businesses, schools and hospitals (makes sense, right?) are mandating vaccinations. They don’t want lawsuits. Covering illnesses is expensive and never works well. Plus they could simply lose business if seen as a place where a person might get infected. Better and cheaper to get the help vaccinated. 

In France, Macron has mandated that either you get vaccinated or your access to a normal life will be greatly interrupted. So the French have a choice – get vaccinated and join society or live on the edges. The individual has a choice as to what kind of life they choose to live. In the question of public health versus individual rights, in France public health wins.

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Laundering Face Masks–Again

Posted on July 23, 2021 by Paul Deaton

Laundering home sewn face masks is back on the to-do list. It looks like we’ll need them.

On Monday I wrote we are not really taming the coronavirus in Iowa or in the United States as a whole. Too many unvaccinated residents are in social situations without protection. The unvaccinated make up the vast majority of hospitalizations for COVID-19. If you missed it, click here to read the post.

To my point about children returning to school this fall, also on Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended universal masking in schools for everyone older than age two.

While that recommendation was churning in the vessel, both political commentator Sean Hannity of FOX News and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made strong public statements that people need to get the COVID-19 vaccine in their arms. McConnell was particularly direct, with a “get vaccinated or else” statement. Here is the clip:

What gives? Are we at a turning point in addressing vaccine hesitancy? We know Hannity and McConnell are not sincerely concerned about those who died or are afflicted with COVID-19. Was it Monday morning’s 750-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Did they have a come to Jesus meeting… with Jesus? I’m sure I don’t know, other than it is self serving. Maybe they are worried too many of their anti-vaxx constituents will die of COVID-19, yielding the political fight to Democrats.

My cynicism about conservatives’ motivation aside, the increase in number of COVID-19 cases is alarming. While the majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, there have been prominent people who, while fully vaccinated, have contracted a new variant of COVID-19. On the one hand we have to go on living. On the other, there are unknown risks to be addressed.

The upshot is get vaccinated if you aren’t.

If you are vaccinated, the CDC recommends you comply with federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations regarding protection from the coronavirus, including local business and workplace guidance. If a merchant requires you to wear a mask on their property, just do so or walk away. Seek to get along in society knowing the pandemic brought out the worst among some people. Seek safer activities if you are in doubt, the CDC made a handy list.

And launder those reusable masks. Don’t be afraid to wear them in public. A mask won’t kill you but the coronavirus might.

Editor’s note: Sean Hannity spent time on his Thursday radio program back tracking on his encouragement to the unvaccinated to get vaccinated.

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