EXTRA! Finkenauer Announces For U.S. Senate

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Abby Finkenauer for U.S. Senate announcement video

Abby Finkenauer Announces Campaign for U.S. Senate: Finkenauer Promises to Take Blue-Collar Values to Washington To Fight For Iowa Families

Cedar Rapids, Iowa (July 22, 2021) — Today, Abby Finkenauer, the daughter of a union pipefitter-welder and a tireless fighter for Iowa’s families, announced her campaign for the U.S. Senate.

“I’m running for Senate because Democracy is worth fighting for and Iowa is worth fighting for,” said Abby Finkenauer. “My dad was a union pipefitter-welder, and my mom worked in the local public schools, and they couldn’t give me a trust fund or debt free college — but they taught me that when there’s work to be done, you do it. I believe that Iowans deserve jobs that aren’t just paychecks but pay enough to build a future, health care that’s affordable, and the opportunity to succeed right here at home in Iowa. And I intend to get it done.”

About Abby Finkenauer

Abby comes from a working-class family in Dubuque County. Her father is a retired Union pipefitter-welder, and her mother worked for the Dubuque Community Schools. She learned the value of public service and giving back to the community from her family, including her grandfathers — her mother’s father served as Lieutenant in the Dubuque Fire Department, and her father’s father earned a Purple Heart serving our country in World War II. Her family couldn’t give her a trust fund or debt-free college, but they taught her more important values – how to treat people with respect, to never think you’re better than anyone else, and that when there is work to be done or a problem to solve you say “yes.”

Abby channeled her family’s tradition of public service by running for the Iowa House of Representatives when she was just 24 years old – and winning. While serving in Des Moines, Abby was proud to fight for working families like hers. She opposed massive corporate giveaways to out-of-state companies, fought to make high-quality healthcare available to all Iowans and supported high-quality education for all students.

Four years later, Abby ran for Congress, went on to become the youngest woman to flip a congressional seat from red to blue and became one of the first women to represent Iowa in the House of Representatives. On her first day on the job, Abby walked into her congressional office with her dad’s old sweatshirt under her arm – a sweatshirt peppered with burn holes from his days as a union pipefitter-welder. She brought it with her to always remind her why she was there: to fight for the people of Iowa.

In Congress, she was proud to become the youngest women ever to pass a bill in the House when she worked with Republicans to help small businesses grow. Introducing more than 20 bipartisan bills, she funded the Children’s Health Insurance Program, strengthened Iowa’s flood prevention infrastructure and fought for Iowa’s schools and rural communities by being willing to work with anyone, of either party, to get things done.

A lifelong Iowan who chose to stay in Iowa even while watching so many of the friends she grew up with move out of state, Abby and her husband Daniel were married in August 2020 in their backyard in Cedar Rapids, where they continue to reside.

Paid for by Abby Finkenauer for Iowa

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Miller-Meeks: Divisive Blabbermouth

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Mariannette Miller-Meeks on the political soapbox at the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 13, 2010. Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Mariannette Miller-Meeks ran a successful fourth campaign for congress and now represents Iowa’s Second Congressional District. People argue with that statement, saying they stopped counting the votes, yet it is accurate.

Her first three campaigns (2008, 2010 and 2014) were won consistently by Dave Loebsack, even in 2010 when Republicans began taking back control of the state. Loebsack won in 2010 with 51 percent of the vote to Miller-Meeks’ 46 percent.

Her several campaigns created many opportunities to hear her speak and ask questions over a 13-year period. She is a relatively known entity.

What is new and a bit unexpected, is she used her long awaited victory to become a blabbermouth. Today, my Google Alert finds Miller-Meeks saying something noteworthy to someone a couple of times a day. With her regular appearances on FOX News, she attempts to carve a peculiar narrative of her drawn-out election victory. I preferred it when our district’s member of Congress had less to say and wasn’t constantly spinning talking points.

During the time constituents were represented by Jim Leach and Dave Loebsack, we didn’t hear from them much. Our expectation was we wouldn’t hear from them unless it was important. We are used to our member of Congress being above the fray. Leach and Loebsack were the ones who evaluated data and legislation with their district foremost in mind. While Leach was definitely a Republican, he presented an image of bi-partisanship that won him many district fans. Miller-Meeks evaluates legislation based on her partisanship first and make no pretense about it.

Miller-Meeks’ no vote on the American Rescue Plan epitomizes her partisanship. No Republican in the Congress voted for the law. At the same time Iowans specifically benefited from features of the law. Although the congresswoman has been less vocal about the benefits, her staff is in a position to have to help Iowans with the programs. While voting no, she gains favorable attention by helping constituents.

It is more than she speaks excessively. Miller-Meeks is purposely divisive and the district has not seen this for decades. Jim Leach’s reputation was built on being the guy who could be persuaded to cross the aisle on legislation. Miller-Meeks votes against laws she recognizes will pass without her vote and enjoys the benefit of Democratic policy among voters. She is able to cynically say, “I voted against that bill” to her base, while her staff helps constituents secure benefits. Perhaps the correct descriptive term is Rep. Miller-Meeks is a “divisive blabbermouth.”

For the present, the congresswoman is who she is and as she speaks openly and often, constituents have a chance to get to know her. I doubt people are as tuned into her daily activity as we are at Blog for Iowa. Her frequent unexpected and divisive statements are money in the political bank for Democrats–a reserve that will be spent as Democrats identify a candidate and begin the 2022 Congressional campaign.

Let her go on talking. There will be a price to pay before her term is up.

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Iowa’s 2022 Campaigns Haven’t Truly Started

Posted on July 21, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Small yet mighty turnout of Democrats at the July 17, 2021 Solon Beef Days parade in Johnson County.

The deputy chief of staff to Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks was recently bragging on Twitter, “When you got $1.17 million in the bank and no democrat opponent.” With it he posted an image of an apparently happy, but not smiling congresswoman.

Not so fast buckaroo! There will be opponents… and money.

If you’ve been following along, there are currently only two declared Democratic candidates for statewide office in Iowa: David Muhlbauer for U.S. Senate and Ras Smith for Governor. Others are kicking the tires on runs for congress, senate and governor, but until the districts are defined–hopefully in September–a lot is up in the air. For the time being Muhlbauer and Smith have the Democratic playing field to themselves. One hopes they are taking advantage of their early entry into the 2022 campaign.

If I were a Republican, I’d say the current districts, with a few tweaks to even out population growth, could serve. We became a Republican state with these districts. There is no evidence they want that or are planning anything but accepting the first map from the Legislative Services Agency. Republicans are also good at keeping secrets, so who knows? What they do shall be revealed.

To fill the absence of campaigns, I walk in parades where it makes sense, write letters to the editor and blog posts, and try to support the county party from a distance in my Republican pocket of Iowa’s most Democratic county. I donate a small, monthly amount to the Iowa Democratic Party and get no further than the state borders with my donations.

I could speculate about potential campaigns but what would be the point? After the drubbing we took in 2020, it seems best for Democrats to keep our powder dry until we know something. As we get through redistricting, and the rest of this post-pandemic summer, we’ll find out where we are heading. I’m okay with periodic gaps in the action.

This morning I opened my father’s King James Bible and found the well read passage from Romans 13:12, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” We’ll be casting off the tweets of Miller-Meeks’ staff. Democrats have to work smarter because, as Alexander Pope put it in the 18th Century, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Democrats can’t afford to be fools in 2022.

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Shrinking The Tax Gap

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Paul Deaton

Last Wednesday, I participated in an online briefing with former IRS Commissioners Fred Goldberg Jr. and Charles Rossotti on modernizing the IRS and shrinking the tax gap.

Goldberg was appointed as IRS Commissioner by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 and served three years. Rossotti was named IRS Commissioner in 1997 by President Bill Clinton. He served five years. Both former IRS commissioners are members of the group Shrink the Tax Gap, which states each year there is a tax gap of $574 billion in taxes that are owed to the IRS but not paid. Their position is simple and clear. Most people pay their taxes. Some people don’t, and that’s not fair.

In an article by James Q. Lynch, Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (IA-01), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said of bills the committee was marking up, “I think that these bills disrespect taxpayers.”

What if we collected taxes due the IRS to help pay for them? Would that respect taxpayers?

Hinson supports expanding the child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan, but has concerns about the price tag of the bill that includes sending payments averaging $423 a month to about 35 million families with children. Hinson, like every Republican member of Congress, voted against the American Rescue Plan. When we are talking about price tags, the elephant in the room is the hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes created by the tax gap.

President Joe Biden proposed spending more money on the IRS so it could pursue tax deadbeats. We’re talking about people who have unpaid tax bills, not creating new taxes. Republican U.S. Senators want no part of this.

“What Republican senators object to here is training IRS investigators on people and corporations who are deliberately trying to cheat the system (not to mention the American people) and have the resources to do so,” wrote Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos. “Instead, (they) would clearly rather just keep the IRS focused on smaller fish, who may have messed up some calculation on TurboTax, for instance. Why? Because the small fries aren’t delivering enough to GOP campaign coffers, that’s why.”

Paying taxes is so basic to being an American I believe most voters would support collecting taxes due. Yet that’s not how our government is evolving. The Republican minority seeks to retain control over the tax system to benefit the minority of wealthy Americans.

In Sunday news, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) announced Biden’s plan to fund the IRS is officially off the table in the bipartisan infrastructure bill because he got “pushback” from fellow Republican lawmakers who dislike the idea of giving the IRS the tools it needs to collect taxes owed. Portman is a key negotiator for Republicans on this bill. It will be up to Democrats to pass this provision through reconciliation in the separate $3.5 Trillion infrastructure bill to which their caucus has agreed.

Do your job Congress. Shrink the tax gap.

For more information about Shrink the Tax Gap, click here.

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Summer Community Parades Are Back Despite Pandemic

Posted on July 19, 2021 by Paul Deaton
County Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass and State Senator Kevin Kinney lead the Johnson County Democrats entry in the Solon Beef Days Parade on July 17, 2021.

Most people along the parade route reacted positively to the Johnson County Democrats entry in the Solon Beef Days Parade on July 17. All over the state, parades have re-emerged as a social activity after missing last summer because of the coronavirus pandemic. While the parade was a positive event reflecting community values and attitudes, it’s clear the pandemic is not over as vaccinations lag behind what is needed.

Nationally, 161 million people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing 48.5 percent of the population. We are about the same percentage in Iowa with a million and a half people, or 49.0 percent of the population, fully vaccinated. The daily rate of vaccination has slowed considerably during parade season.

On Friday, Nick Coltrain of the Des Moines Register reported the majority of hospitalizations for COVID-19 are among people who are not vaccinated:

Almost all of the people hospitalized with COVID-19 since the spring have been unvaccinated against the disease, spokespeople for three of Iowa’s largest health care systems said.

At the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, upward of 90% of patients admitted due to COVID-related illness since April have been unvaccinated, spokesperson Laura Shoemaker told the Des Moines Register. About 95% of patients hospitalized at UnityPoint facilities since March 2021 were not fully vaccinated, spokesperson Macinzie McFarland said. And at MercyOne’s Des Moines hospitals, 97% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 were not vaccinated, spokesperson Clara Johnson said in an email.

The COVID-19 vaccine has been widely available to anyone 16 and older since April 5.

Iowa City Press Citizen, July 16, 2021

It was fun giving small American flags to children lining the parade route on Saturday. We live for such moments of small joys and happiness. However, the potential for disaster looms in the fall when children are required to return to in-person instruction at schools around the state.

We know the way to avert disaster is to get a higher percentage of the population vaccinated. Yet there is not an approved vaccine for children under age 12, and poor vaccination rates among school-aged children who are eligible. With the combination of low vaccine rates, a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, and a population that clings irrationally to the idea that the COVID-19 vaccine is in some way dangerous or not needed, trouble is fermenting in Iowa.

While enjoying parade season, I hope our actual experience in the fall proves me wrong about new, school-based COVID-19 outbreaks. We have the information to do what is right. Yet as raconteur, philosopher and satirist Ron White said, “You can’t fix stupid.” That’s where we are with half Iowa’s population.

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Sunday Funday: County Fair Season Edition

Posted on July 18, 2021 by Dave Bradley

One of the unique aspects of midwestern life is the county fair. Stretching back to when some states were still territories the county fair has been one of those icons of American life that many harken back to as “the good old days.”

Actually fairs go back to Europe of the 18th century. The county fairs seemed to reach a peak in the 1950s to 1970s. A time when many folks of an area had the means and some money to go to the fair and before the big box stores and then the internet stole their attention away.

Most began as agricultural exhibitions and contests that culminated in a state fair near the end of the summer. Over the years midways with carnival games and rides were added and in many cases live entertainment was added in. As noted the internet and other entertainment venues have eroded the crowds at the county level.

One of the biggest victims of the corona virus last year were the county fairs. So they have some ground to make up this year. Plus as always, this is the place to go to see friends and acquaintances we haven’t seen for a while. If you have time and a few bucks and are vaccinated, why not check out your local county fair.

A) While German Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting the US, what natural disasters are her country enduring?

B) What Des Moines small business owner and activist announced she will make a run for Governor of Iowa?

C) July 19 & 20, 1848 – what group of then disenfranchised Americans met in Seneca Falls, New York to outline plans to get the vote among other priorities?

D) In a revelation in a new book, what Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was so concerned that Trump might have attempted a coup that he and fellow military heads made plans to stop it?

E) Last weekend saw the removal of what two Southern Civil War generals from parks in Charlottesville, Virginia?

F) In what may be a real turning point in climate change, parts of what “lungs of the planet” are now emitting more carbon dioxide than is removing?

G) Perhaps the country’s most famous state fair, what fair was the inspiration for the novel “State Fair” and the subsequent movie and musical?

H) Another shocking revelation that confirmed rumors this week was that there was evidence that what world leader was personally involved in helping Trump win the 2016 election?

I) Senator Lyndsey Graham said he would “go to war” for the principals that what fast food company stands for?

J) By attendance the Texas state fair is the largest. What much shorter midwestern fair ranks 2nd in attendance?

K) Lack of food and medicine were given as reasons for the unusual and very large protests that rocked what Caribbean island nation Sunday?

L) “Horrifying” was Dr. Anthony Fauci’s reaction to the audience cheering for lagging vaccination rates at what conservative get together last weekend?

M) Former president Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalyn celebrated how many years of marriage on July 10th 2021?

N) On July 15th what set of Americans started receiving up to $300/month/child as new child tax credits started?

O) What special edition ice cream flavor was created by Brooklyn-based Van Leeuwen’s Ice Cream that received publicity around the country because of its unusual flavor?

P) In Iowa, what county has declared itself a “second amendment sanctuary county”?

Q) Speaking on voting rights in Philadelphia Tuesday, President Biden said America is facing its most significant test to our democracy since what period in history?

R) Democratic legislators from which state left that state and flew to DC to stop that state from enacting voter suppression laws?

S) Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil was hospitalized after a chronic problem with what?

T) This is the first weekend for what annual month long celestial light show known as what? 

GOP: Life begins at conception and ends at infection. – OhNoSheTwitnt

Answers:

A) Massive floods

B) Diedre DeJear

C) this was the Seneca Falls Women’s Convention 

D) Mark Milley

E) Generals Lee and Jackson

F) the Amazon Forest

G) the Iowa State Fair

H) Putin

I) Chik-Fil-A

J) Minnesota

K) Cuba

L) CPAC (conservative political action committee)

M) 75

N) families with children

O) Mac and Cheese

P) Jasper County

Q) the Civil War

R) Texas

S) hiccups

T) the Perseid Meteor Shower

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And stupid. We should be scared sh*tless of stupid. – Middle Age Riot

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Robert Reich: Don’t Worry About Inflation

Posted on July 17, 2021 by Dave Bradley

From his blog:    

The Inflation Bogeyman

WEDNESDAY, JULY 14, 2021

Friends,

You’re hearing a lot about inflation these days. Don’t buy it. Every time the economy gets a bit of wind in its sails and workers get a little wage increase, conservatives scream about inflation and price increases.

In reality, there’s no inflation. The economy still has huge room to grow without pushing up prices. We’re still 7 million jobs short of where we were in January 2020. Retail and office space is empty. Factories aren’t near capacity.

In addition, companies can easily outsource extra production they need. Meanwhile, unions are so weak as to negate the possibility of wage-price inflation.

The price increases we’re witnessing now are because of supply bottlenecks, as supply catches up with pent-up demand.

To the extent we need to worry about anything, it’s industrial concentration. Too many US industries are dominated by a handful of corporations, which have the ability to push prices higher. That requires antitrust enforcement.

But inflation itself – structural, accelerating price increases – is a total mythology.

Don’t fall for the scare-mongering.

Remember also that the past century has shown that when Democrats are in charge the economy does much better and is much more stable than economies under Republican leadership. Just a quick glance at the last 30 years shows that to be true. 

Bush 1, Bush 2 and then the disastrous Trump all drove the economy to the edge where Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have had to come in and save the country and in the case of Obama, the world, from catastrophic consequences of Republican leadership. 

While current inflation is annoying like Robert Reich says it is most likely short term. There are much more concerning economic problems, especially the continuing concentration of capital. As you may know, President Biden has already marked this concentration for special attention.

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So Sad: People Choosing To Die From A Preventable Disease

Posted on July 17, 2021 by Dave Bradley

The doctor in the above video is a short version of what many in the medical community have been saying for the past two or three weeks: The corona virus is now a preventable disease in this country. Thanks to an incredible rollout by the Biden Administration the US has enough vaccines to fully vaccinate every body over the age of 12 in this country.

The vaccinations are free. The side effects are almost nil and the chances of getting infected once vaccinated are well below 1%. The more people who are vaccinated the less the chance of getting infected since there would be fewer and rarer sources for infections.

The vaccines for the corona virus are among the most successful vaccines ever created. The further it is dispersed, the less the chance that a vaccinated person would get infected. But if there are large groups of people who refuse vaccinations, that group of people become a real life Petri dish for the virus to grow and mutate into more virulent strains that may mutate into a virus that is immune to the current vaccinations.

Unfortunately, we have a really large pocket of just plain ignorant fools who despite all the documented success of the vaccines prefer to become part of the Petri dish where the virus will thrive. Since vaccinations have leveled off since early June and with an opening of commerce, the US is seeing and alarming rise in both daily Covid cases and Covid deaths.

We were and still are for that matter within the grasp of nearly stomping out the corona virus in this country. We will need nearly everyone to co-operate. Unfortunately, due to a right wing in this country that only looks at the corona virus as a a wedge issue in the culture wars we have huge amount of people who will not get vaccinated.

Rather than getting vaccinated these people would rather get sick and possibly die to prove something, I am not sure what. That despite how important on a personal and societal level they will prove that they are bigger and ?smarter? than science. 

There is one other large pocket of people in the US who are currently locked out of being vaccinated. That is children under 12. Testing is currently going on for that age group for dosage and efficacy. Most experts expect a vaccine will be ready for them in September. I would hope parents would have their children vaccinated at a high rate.

Meanwhile there will be nearly 30% of Americans who will choose to play Russian roulette with the corona virus. But remember it is not just them playing. As long as they are unvaccinated and continue to offer the virus a place to mutate and grow more virulent, they are a hazard to the whole country. 

From the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) on June 25th:

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in earnest in March of 2020 in the United States, nearly all of the deaths recorded in recent weeks were preventable, occurring in unvaccinated Americans.

According to an Associated Press analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data from May, only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people, or less than 1%. This translates to 5 deaths per day attributed to fully vaccinated Americans experiencing breakthrough infections, and roughly 300 deaths per day in the unvaccinated.

Vaccination has also reduced US hospitalizations significantly: Fully vaccinated people made up less than 1,200 of more than 853,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations in May.

The United States reported 12,830 new COVID-19 cases yesterday, and 341 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker. In total, the nation has confirmed 33,593,763 cases, including 603,238 deaths.

GET VACCINATED!

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The False Hope Of Biomass

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Regeneration of a Montana forest after a fire.

“Earlier this year, the European Union was celebrated in headlines across the world when renewable energy surpassed the use of fossil fuels on the continent for the first time in history,” wrote Majlie de Puy Kamp for CNN.

The European Union pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and approved burning biomass as an alternative to coal, categorizing it as a renewable fuel. They found wood pellets were a suitable, renewable fuel to produce electricity and searched the globe for enough of them.

“The American South emerged as Europe’s primary source of biomass imports,” de Puy Kamp wrote.

Enter companies like Enviva, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets, with four wood pellet manufacturing plants in North Carolina.

The world’s leading authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, explicitly recognizes bioenergy as a renewable energy source that is critical to our low-carbon future. The IPCC also concludes that sustainable forest management is critical to prevent forest conversion to non-forest uses.

We need bioenergy both to replace fossil fuels and to keep forests as forests.

Enviva website.

Not so fast!

The IPCC states in its guidelines “do not automatically consider or assume biomass used for energy as ‘carbon neutral,’ even in cases where the biomass is thought to be produced sustainably.”

As I wrote in 2015, while the carbon cycle of renewable fuels can eliminate putting fossilized carbon into the atmosphere, and reduces emissions of particulate matter, the amount of CO2 released when burning biomass is about the same as with burning coal. What makes burning wood pellets and other biomass “sustainable” is we would leave more fossilized carbon in the ground.

Burning stuff to release energy that is made into electricity remains problematic in terms of emissions. While windmills, solar panels and hydroelectric generators are not without issues, these forms of electricity generation better serve our future energy needs as we work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As we contemplate the EU’s path to reducing reliance on fossil fuels, there is another issue that gets lost. The quest for wood pellets has greater impact on marginalized communities near forests that are being harvested for fuel. Read de Puy Kamp’s article for more information about these climate justice issues.

“I can’t think of anything that harms nature more than cutting down trees and burning them,” said William Moomaw, professor emeritus of international environmental policy at Tufts University.

While the EU may meet an arbitrary goal of reducing its carbon footprint, by using wood pellets to generate electricity the achievement is more paperwork drill than actual reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Do better Europeans!

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Is Jessica Reznicek A Terrorist?

Posted on July 15, 2021 by Paul Deaton
Jessica Reznicek Photo Credit: Twitter @FreeJessRez

Jessica Reznicek, a 39-year-old environmental activist and Catholic Worker from Des Moines, Iowa, was sentenced in federal court June 30 to eight years in prison for her efforts to sabotage construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

In November 2016, Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, a former preschool teacher, set fire to heavy construction equipment at a pipeline worksite in Buena Vista County, Iowa.

Over the next several months, the women used oxyacetylene torches, tires and gasoline-soaked rags to burn equipment and damage pipeline valves along the line from Iowa to South Dakota. Their actions reportedly caused several million dollars’ worth of damage and delayed construction for weeks.

Catholic activist sentenced for Dakota Access Pipeline vandalism by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy at NCROnline.com. To read the rest of the article, click here.

Reznicek’s criminal penalties were substantial. In addition to jail time, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger included $3,198,512.70 in restitution and three years’ post-prison supervised release after she plead guilty to a single count of damaging an energy facility, according to Common Dreams. It’s hard to argue her protest was intended to be non-violent. She used an oxyacetylene torch to damage the pipeline without knowing if fuel was in transit.

Reznicek is being prosecuted as a terrorist. Is that what she is? It seems unlikely the board of directors or billionaire Kelcey Warren of Energy Transfer Partners felt terrorized. They had reason to know there would be protests during construction, and likely built defense from them into their operating, overhead, and risk management budgets. For ETP, pipeline protests represented business as usual. In 2018 there was a “protect the protests” direct action in Dallas, Texas where demonstrators accused ETP at its corporate headquarters of attempting to silence them with lawsuits.

Like many in the Des Moines Catholic Worker community Reznicek has been willing to break the law in peaceful protest and has been arrested. In 2014, she was detained for nearly 48 hours and then deported after flying into Israel to support Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Des Moines Register. It seems obvious the Iowa Legislature had people like Reznicek in mind when they recently increased penalties for protesters.

I received the first of a series of emails from Reznicek during the Occupy Movement in 2011. She was an organizer for Occupy Iowa, Occupy Des Moines, Occupy the Caucus, Occupy Monsanto, Occupy the World Food Prize, and other direct action protests. She was arrested at some of these protests. It seemed like boilerplate organizing. Whatever cache the Occupy movement may have had, the work she did was straight forward with transparency. It was not a terrorist plot the way in 1995 Timothy McVeigh plotted to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It would be better for the peace and justice movement if Reznicek did not have to spend her time serving time and defending herself in this prominent case. It goes with the territory, though.

The answer is no. Jessica Reznicek is not a terrorist. Society needs more people like her to call attention to injustice. If there is a cost to her protests, she has been willing to accept responsibility. If asked, my neighbors would say justice was served with Reznicek’s prosecution and sentencing. As it plays out in the judicial system, some of us wonder who will step in to fill her shoes in the peace and justice movement. It may be someone, but it won’t be her for a while.

Posted in Climate Action, Energy, Peace | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments