Voice Vote Hides Cowardice

Posted on May 15, 2021 by Dave Bradley

We Need To Know How Our Representative Stands – For or Against The Big Lie?

hat tip to democraticunderground.com

Wednesday morning The Republican Party made a show of one of the biggest acts of cowardice this democracy has seen in a long while. In order to shut Congresswoman Liz Cheney up, they needed to remove her from the leadership ranks of their party. But they couldn’t do it in the light of day as democracy dictates. They had to do it in the dark behind closed doors so that no one could see who were among those putting the proverbial shiv in Cheney’s back.

Cheney’s sin is that she is standing up to the would be dictator of the US, Donald Trump. Instead of following the rest of her party down the path of supporting what has become known as the “Big Lie” – that Trump actually won the 2020 election but it was stolen from him – Cheney has decided to follow the truth. This has gotten her into hot water with her party in the US House.

But Party leader Kevin McCarthy learned a few months back that having a vote to remove Cheney in open view of as democracy says he should can be hazardous to getting what you want. Too many GOP representatives apparently knew how a vote against someone for speaking the truth would look back home. So they voted to keep Cheney because voters would see their votes.

Thus McCarthy changed the rules and made the process not even a real vote, but a voice vote behind closed doors. That way those of us in the unwashed throngs will never know and I assume never be told, how our representative voted. So cowardly. I have submitted a question to Miller-Meeks office to ask how she voted. I do not expect a response.

If I did get a response, how could I ever verify what the office said. Try to ask others in the room? Besides, admitting to a vote one way or another would piss off one side or another. If she admits to voting to oust Cheney she will piss off those who believe Cheney’s telling the truth is fundamental to how democracy should work. To replace Cheney with someone who will undermine democracy by supporting the Big Lie and undercutting election integrity is a sin and the sinner should be removed from office.

On the other hand, if Miller-Meeks admitted to supporting Cheney that will piss off the pro-trumpets who deeply believe that despite all evidence somehow their hero had the election stolen from him. They couldn’t possibly vote for someone who wasn’t a true believer like they are. 

Thus I don’t expect a reply. If I do get a reply I expect the answer to be unclear so that it will be nearly impossible green an answer. McCarthy put his party onto a lose-lose situation and about their only way to try to not look bad either way is to ignore questions concerning this vote. Sort of an implicit lie I would call it.

Calling it an implicit lie makes me think that this is perhaps the first time I have ever said that the congress member from Iowa’s second district might be lying. The congress members that I am thinking of are Jim Leach and Dave Loebsack. These guys were honest as the day is long.

That is not to say I agreed with what they said. I certainly had problems with the policies Jim Leach stood for. Yet he didn’t lie. Loebsack never did either. In the world of divisiveness spawned by the so-called Reagan Revolution, this was unusual. It is sad to see that this district may become yet another district where lies and misleads become the norm.

Here is a little minute and a half video from Meidas Touch showing what the now Trump Party is devolving into:

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Right Wing Group May Not Get Away With Suppressing Iowa Votes

Posted on May 14, 2021 by Trish Nelson

Alert from Progress Iowa

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 13, 2021

LEAKED VIDEO: RIGHT-WING GROUP CLAIMS CREDIT FOR WRITING IOWA’S VOTER SUPPRESSION LAW

Progress Iowa demands public release of all communication between Republican legislators, Governor Reynolds, and the Heritage Foundation as they claim to have “helped draft” the voter suppression law after working “quietly with the Iowa state legislature”

Des Moines, Iowa — Advocacy group Progress Iowa is demanding answers after a leaked video shows a right wing out of state group claiming credit for writing the widely criticized voter suppression law passed by the Iowa legislature and signed by Governor Reynolds earlier this year.

Heritage Action for America’s Jessica Anderson is seen in a leaked video reported by Mother Jones as saying that her organization “helped draft the bills” and that they “worked quietly with the Iowa state legislature.”

According to Mother Jones, Anderson claimed credit for an entire campaign to influence the legislature:

“Iowa is the first state that we got to work in, and we did it quickly and we did it quietly,” Anderson said. “We worked quietly with the Iowa state legislature. We got the best practices to them. We helped draft the bills. We made sure activists were calling the state legislators, getting support, showing up at their public hearings, giving testimony…Little fanfare. Honestly, nobody even noticed. My team looked at each other and we’re like, ‘It can’t be that easy.’”

Click here to read the full report in Mother Jones.

“Iowans deserve to know who is writing their laws, and we will immediately be filing open records requests to get to the bottom of this,” said Matt Sinovic, executive director of Progress Iowa. “This video shows what we have suspected all along: Iowa’s voter suppression law is part of a national effort to undermine our democracy, and Iowa Republicans were leading the charge to take away our ability to cast a ballot and conduct fair elections. The Governor and Republicans in the legislature must release every bit of communication they’ve had with the Heritage Foundation, so we can know the truth about their work with this shadowy group.”

The new voter suppression law was immediately challenged in court by the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, and has already resulted in nearly 300,000 Iowa voters being moved to ‘inactive’ status by the Secretary of State.

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Progress Iowa is a multi-issue progressive advocacy organization with a network of more than 75,000 progressives. Year-round, Progress Iowa advocates for a stronger middle class, first-class public education, and fairness for all Iowans under the law.

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Iowa House Democrats Live

Posted on May 13, 2021 by Trish Nelson

Iowa House Democrats live Tuesday on Blue Statehouse Alert Facebook live event

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What Is The Democrats’ Killer App?

Posted on May 12, 2021 by Trish Nelson

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How To De-Fund Fox News

Posted on May 11, 2021 by Trish Nelson

click on the image to go to https://unfoxmycablebox.com/

Watch this podcast then go to UNFOXMYCABLEBOX.COM

90 MILLION CABLE SUBSCRIBERS V 3 MILLION
DIE HARD FOX VIEWERS
THE MATH IS ON OUR SIDE

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How Australia Is Trying To Solve The Murdoch Media Problem

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Trish Nelson

Rupert Murdoch

Australia is trying to do something about the problem of right wing propaganda in their country where Rupert Murdoch owns a 59% share of the metropolitan and national print media markets.

Australia has one of the highest levels of media concentration in the world. News Corp apparently plans to expand its reach in the country.

Former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull are making their case for dismantling the Murdoch hold on their media and they are using the January  6 insurrection in the U.S. as an example of what can happen when the media is allowed to run amok through unregulated ownership.

America should follow suit. We need to stop saying it’s too hard and start figuring it out. As things now stand it seems Democracy is unsustainable in the current media environment and it seems to be getting worse instead of better.

This week in Eric Boehlert’s Press Run newsletter is a look at how Australia is trying to solve their Murdoch media problem. You can subscribe for free to the Press Run newsletter or you can donate if you appreciate information about our broken media system.  You can also listen to the newsletter.

Imagine if the toxic nature of Rupert Murdoch media’s lies and bullying became so overpowering in America that a bipartisan movement sprang up against it. Imagine if former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush came together to demand a Congressional inquiry into Fox News and the danger Murdoch poses to our democracy.

That’s what recently happened in Australia, when former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull — occupying different parts of the political spectrum — joined forces to denounce the Murdoch media cancer that’s eating the country. They’re urging the government to take steps to diversify media ownership and to break up the dangerous coalition that now exists between right-wing politicians and the Murdoch press, which serves as an unaccountable, but extremely powerful, entity in Australian politics.

Parliament hearings were held after Rudd’s petition to establish a royal commission into media diversity became Australia’s largest-ever e-petition, and the country’s third largest petition of any kind.

Turnbull:  “We are drowning in lies.”

So is America.

Read more

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Why Does No One Say Failed President?

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Not that I want to waste anymore of my time and effort on Donald Trump, but sometimes you just have to get it out of your system. As we enter the fourth full month of the Biden Presidency the long shadow of the last president still casts somewhat of a pall on the country.

As Trump once again gets press for acting like a two year old trying to figure ways to get back on social media where he has been banned for refusing to follow rules we still don’t see the media standing up to say “Enough! We will no longer cover this BS”

When will we start getting the stories that call Trump’s administration the failed presidency that it was. It failed in nearly every way possible. It failed on domestic policy, it failed on foreign policy, it failed the poor, it gutted the middle class, it even failed many of its rich backers. It failed at the border, it failed on the environment and it really failed with any minority and it really failed women.

Trump was handed an economy that was really humming and went about destroying said economy by doing what republicans do and reinstating the gawd-awful trickle down economics. He then gave the economy a death blow by refusing to deal with the pandemic in an adult manner. For him and his buddies it was just another chance to make some big bucks.

To hear him tell it he even failed at cashing in the way he thought he would as the values of his businesses tanked. Failure, failure, failure.

His presidency has been discredited. All the claims he made to improvements either never happened or were done by someone else. The 2017 tax cuts were slowing the economy by chunks. Not an accomplishment. Operation Warp Speed did little to speed up the deployment of vaccines that had already been for the most part developed.

Lies, lies, lies and lies was the currency of his administration. The disinformation that was central to his presidency continues to be the staple of the Republican Party at all levels. You can’t trust them. Anything a Republican says should be immediately fact checked by whatever news source uses their statements.

Trump was and is a disgrace. His administration was scandal plagued from the get go.  They covered up and misled. We are just now beginning to get the scope of how unlawful and scandalous his administration was. This summer I believe we can expect revelation after revelation of law breaking by both the president and the members of his administration.

Let’s not forget that as the President of the United States Trump helped set up an assault on his own government that was carried out on January 6th, 2021 – perhaps one of the darkest days in the history of our country. The intent was a coupe that would stop the very core of our democracy, the peaceful transition of power.  

Unbelievably Vice President Mike Pence was a target of this assault. Yet all of the Senators and Representatives including Republicans whose very lives were in danger now have a bad case of Republican amnesia about this. 

Contrast that with the first four months of the Joe Biden Presidency. From day one Biden has been doing what this country needs to get beyond the pandemic and put people back to work. He has also helped craft legislation to help get people back on their feet. He is also setting long term challenging goals especially in repairing today’s infrastructure and preparing it for the future.

We don’t need the perspective of time to know that Trump’s presidency was by far the worst ever. It was a failure, discredited and a disgrace to the country, full of scandal and driven by lies and misleads. Amazingly there is hardly a Republican office holder in the country who has enough guts to stand up and say the truth.

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Sunday Funday: Happy Mother’s Day Edition

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Being a Mother is so easy: (3.5 minutes)

On this Mother’s Day perhaps the best trend I see is the number of women involved in the running of the various levels of government in this country. Having women involved on the right seems to make little difference in their authoritarian leanings, having women involved on the left is truly bringing different perspectives to our national outlook.

President Biden boasts some 45.8% women in cabinet level positions. Hard to ignore half of your cabinet. Let us hope this is only the beginning. 

With women in positions of power we will have people who understand what the policies of the government really mean to a family. About time.

  1. Remember that open letter last January from the living Secretary of States against using the military to change the election outcome? It was revealed Friday that what representative was behind having that letter written?
  1. The “recount” in Arizona took a really strange twist this week when recounters brought in UV lights to look for what in the ballots?
  1. Playing the oldies: South Carolina added what method of state execution to replace lethal injections which are now no longer possible do to a lack of drugs?
  1. Bipartisanship is a one way street: What Republican said last week “One hundred per cent of our focus is on stopping this new administration”?
  1. President Biden went to what deep red state to call for support of his infrastructure plans?
  1. A citizen led experiment in Ames, Iowa involves homeowners no longer doing what summertime chore in order to create a better environment for bees and insects?
  1. Nonuplets: A woman in what country gave birth to 9 live babies (five girls, four boys) last week?
  1. May 10,1869. The US is linked from coast to coast when what Railroad tycoon drove the Golden Spike to link the tracks at Promontory Point, Utah?
  1. Mother’s Day became a national holiday under what president?
  1. What “Oracle of Omaha” took a first step toward retiring last week by naming his successor for when he does retire?
  1. What former president tried to sneak around his ban from Twitter by using a process that fed messages to a Twitter account automatically?
  1. A subway overpass collapsed onto a highway killing at least 23 and injuring scores more in what major North American metropolitan area late Monday?
  1. What group is discussing making an example of President Biden over his support for abortion rights?
  1. What woman won two Nobel Prizes and was the mother of a Nobel Prize winner?
  1. This year’s “Best Burger in Iowa” goes to a bar named “Bambino’s” in what small Iowa town?
  1. A really strange high speed chase in Iowa Wednesday morning involved what kind of vehicle and what kind of roads?
  1. In Idaho Falls, Idaho a girl in what grade brought a gun to school and shot two of her classmates and the school custodian Thursday?
  1. Take me out to the ball game: Fans in what city can get tickets to Major League games if they come down and get a Covid vaccination?
  1. The website eachnight.com is offering $1500 to people to do what for 30 days?
  1. “And the rocket’s red glare”: A rocket from what country may reenter the atmosphere sometime in the next week?

I’m a small business owner. We’ve received 300 applications per job opening this year. We pay a living wage with benefits.

There is no labor shortage. There’s a shortage of people willing to work for $7.25/hour with no benefits for power-hungry bosses. – Dan Price

Answers:

  1. Liz Cheney
  1. Bamboo – their crazy idea is that over 40,000 ballots were shipped into Arizona from China and they have bamboo fiber in them.
  1. The good old firing squad.
  1. Mitch McConnell
  1. Louisiana
  1. Mowing the grass. In many cases lawns are being replaced by gardens
  1. Mali
  1. Leland Stanford
  1. Woodrow Wilson in 1914
  1. Warren Buffet. Buffet is 90 years old.
  1. Trump of course
  1. Mexico City
  1. The Catholic Church
  1. Marie Curie – her daughter Irene Jollot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize
  1. Ossian in northeast Iowa.
  1. A semi with speeds up to 90 mph that also wound through gravel roads
  1. 6th grade
  1. New York City
  1. Nap 
  1. China

The short version: the Mueller Report found that Trump committed 11 federal felonies and Barr covered it up, exactly as many of us said 2 years ago. For 2 years, those who said the Mueller Report found crimes took s*** because Barr lied to a federal court. – Seth Abramson

tip of the hat to EarlG at democrticunderground.com

Posted in Blog for Iowa, Humor | 1 Comment

Being The Virus’s Best Friend

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Dave Bradley

President Biden announces updates on national vaccination program (4.5 minutes)

Almost unbelievably, the Iowa legislature passed a bill that will force businesses to not require nor ask for Covid-19 vaccination documentation from customers. Thus they create a situation that is dangerous for business owners, customers and the public in general. 

Why did they do this? I guess it is based on some really goofy idea that an infected person who could be killing their fellow citizens has more rights to do whatever they want than our citizens have rights to remain safe. In one of the most boneheaded, brain dead quotes I have ever seen, we have Republican Senator Jake Chapman, R-Adel stating:  

“Here in Iowa, we will protect Iowans from being forced by tyrannical governments to inject their body with chemicals that they may or may not wish to have.” 

The administration of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has done her absolute worst to manage the pandemic in Iowa. Her focus was always on opening businesses no matter the cost in lives. Understating the effects of the corona virus was vital to keeping the populace complacent.

Now Reynolds seems surprised that nearly half of Iowans are reluctant or are refusing to get vaccinated. It looks like people believed her when she understated the effects of the virus. Nobody could be happier about this than the virus itself. It looks like Kim Reynolds could be their employee of the month.

When we need upwards of 80% to hopefully achieve herd immunity, Reynolds can only produce a little over 50%. But she wants businesses not to do anything to try to keep their businesses Covid free. Thus she and her legislative colleagues create a good milieu for the virus to thrive. 

If the virus were a stable organism that will not be mutating to keep itself reproducing that may be OK. But we have learned from evolution and we see that evolution in action that the virus will mutate to keep its species alive and capable of finding new hosts.

So those who refuse vaccines, but expect to have no restrictions in public becomes the perfect food source for a mutated Covid virus. As the virus invades a food source, it will proliferate throughout the body creating more and more viruses to spread to other host. These viruses may have mutations.

As they continue to mutate, they may eventually mutate around the ability of vaccines to continue to offer protection. And BINGO we have an ultra-pandemic with nothing to protect people from the virus’s wrath.

By the way, let me remind you that death by corona virus is particularly nasty. Descriptions often sound like a very slow drowning experience, not happening in a few minutes, but over days, maybe even weeks of gasping for air. There are much more complications but that one is more than enough to get my attention.

For those who do survive, we have no idea what the long term effects may be. Even if a person was asymptomatic, there may be problems pop up down the road. If a person did have symptoms they may be having problems for the rest of their lives. This may show up in long term heart or lung problems or other systemic problems that may manifest itself with a lot of pain. We just don’t know. We do know the vaccines work.

What we do know is that with the explosion of Covid in India, you can bet the virus is mutating. You can also bet that those mutations will get to Iowa. Actually there already are Indian variations in Iowa. Giving this virus an environment to survive and maybe even flourish again is just Palin stuff, stupid, stupid.

And that is Reynolds style of leadership.

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How Is Mother Earth Doing On Mother’s Day?

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Dave Bradley

CNBC mini documentary 20 minutes long

Why am I writing about climate change when Earth Day was just a couple of weeks ago? Because everyday should be a day when we take care of the only option we have for living in the universe. There is no “Planet B” option where we can step into a spaceship and be to a new home in a couple of days. There is no new world for us to easily explore and conquer. This is it.

Just last week the new “normal” temperatures for the US were calculated. The average normal temperature for the US went from 52.2 degrees F for the period 1970 to 2000 to 53.2 degrees F for the period 1990 to 2020. That is a full degree in 20 years and is a huge leap. 

Normal temperatures are calculated every ten years by taking the high and low readings for the previous 30 years and crunching them to take the wobble out of weather stats. Thirty years of data should create a fairly stable set of “normals.” 

What better day to comment on the health of our Mother Earth than Mother’s Day? The report on Mother Earth is not good. We have seen more and more symptoms in the past few years. Bigger storms, longer droughts, huge wild fires, much more extreme temperatures and continuing ice melting that is causing seas and oceans to rise.

From globalchange.gov we get this 3000 foot view:   

“Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented increases in temperature at Earth’s surface, as well as in the atmosphere and oceans. Many other aspects of global climate are changing as well. High temperature extremes and heavy precipitation events are increasing, glaciers and snow cover are shrinking, and sea ice is retreating. Seas are warming, rising, and becoming more acidic, and flooding is become more frequent along the U.S. coastline. Growing seasons are longer, and large wildfires occur more frequently. Many species are moving to new locations, and changes in the seasonal timing of important biological events are occurring in response to climate change.

These trends are all consistent with a warming world and are expected to continue.

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and land-use change, are primarily responsible for the climate changes observed in the industrial era, especially over the last six decades. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% over the industrial era. This change has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, driving an increase in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in Earth’s climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities will continue to affect Earth’s climate for decades and even centuries. Humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at a rate far greater than it is removed by natural processes, creating a long-lived reservoir of the gas in the atmosphere and oceans that is driving the climate to a warmer and warmer state.

Beyond the next few decades, how much the climate changes will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere; how much of those greenhouse gases are absorbed by the ocean, the biosphere, and other sinks; and how sensitive Earth’s climate is to those emissions.”

As we have witnessed in the past few years we are are seeing extreme weather grow more extreme. Australia has been recording temps in the 120 degree F range for the past half a dozen summers. Greenland continues to shed massive glaciers. Fires in the US west have charred millions of acres. Hundreds are dying as temps hit over 100 degrees F on continental Europe.

One good sign is that we now have a President and an Administration that is committed to actually reverse climate change. President Biden is not just making campaign speeches. He is making commitments through proposed programs with actual money budgeted to make such programs happen. As he does this millions of jobs will be created!

This is what the country needs!

Posted in Environment | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments