Just Hoping I Can Survive Covid Kim’s Leadership

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Man oh man. Over the past two weeks I have been trying to figure out just what Iowa’s vaccination system is. My search has felt like one of those Russian nesting dolls. I finally figure out how to get inside the top doll only to find another copy of the doll underneath. And I keep going.

I had been talking to friends and relatives who have been vaccinated to figure out what they did that I didn’t do to get the vaccine – what was the system? After several conversations I finally realized on Wednesday that there was no system. Right now it is a catch as catch can set up with various hospitals or pharmacies doing some small amount of vaccinations depending on where you live.

Got to say for about the tenth time during this pandemic – Way to Go, Governor! Not like you didn’t have some time to prepare for possible vaccinations. At least 3 months since Pfizer was first approved.

Perry Beeman at the Capitol Dispatch wrote on the lack of a system Thursday:

Gov. Kim Reynolds on Wednesday defended the state’s delay in setting up a centralized COVID-19 vaccine scheduling system, which is still weeks away.

At the governor’s news conference, a reporter asked why Reynolds’ administration is just now moving to set up a central vaccine scheduling system when then-President Donald Trump had discussed starting vaccinations before the November election.

“We tried to take the infrastructure that we have and make that available,” Reynolds said. “Some of the problem is really a lot of our systems are so antiquated and they’re siloed and they’re not operating at a capacity that we need them to.”

Reynolds compared the problem to when the state realized there was no central count of intensive care beds day to day, even though each facility had the information. The state then came up with a way to track that. 

Well, no time like the present my Mom used to say. Hope you are preparing now. A little late, but better than next June.

Got to congratulate you on not consulting anyone on changing Covid-19 precautions last week. Maybe no one told you, but there are other people who should be involved in decisions.

Here’s hoping we can survive your “leadership” until we can find a competent leader.

Posted in Covid-19, Kim Reynolds | Tagged | 2 Comments

Trump Still Clouds The Country

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Thanks to EarlG at democraticunderground.com

Donald Trump is living the egomaniacs wet dream. For a guy who wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every wake –  the guy who wants all the attention all the time – Trump has achieved his dream. He is dominating airwaves as few ever have. 

The few that have gotten the attention that Trump is getting started major wars or overthrew the government of major countries. Trump tried to overthrow the government of the United States. He didn’t get the job done, but he came a lot closer than most of us would care to consider.

The impeachment is only focusing on the insurrection on January 6th and some of the events leading up to the insurrection. While there were other events during the Trump presidency that in any other presidency would have led to an impeachment, such incidents were so frequent as to become the norm and thus not stand out as so egregious. It literally took a violent, deadly attempt on his part to overthrow the government to be impeached.

Beyond the insurrection, the Trump presidency was known mostly for its trademark incompetence and corruption. What little that did get done was often bad for the country and offered a big payoff for somebody in the administration with some reward for the Trump family among the lucre. I offer the USPS as exhibit A.

So while our attention is once again turned toward Trump, in an almost dark corner of the media universe, newly minted President Joe Biden continues the work of REBUILDING the WHOLE DAMN GOVERNMENT that he inherited. Trump left Biden a ship of state that was full of holes and no patching material because the Trumpers had sold it.

Faced with an economy that has been upended by a pandemic that was allowed to run unrestricted by the previous administration, Biden and his team started say one to put together plans and systems to bring the country off its knees. Biden hasn’t even been there a month yet most Americans are feeling optimistic again, believing that we once more can beat conquer whatever tries to take us down.

One pundit whose name escapes me was asked on the Stephanie Miller Show the other day what grade would he give President Biden so far. “What comes above A+?” was his answer. But it will take time to fix what Trump broke – including the USPS. 

Yet Biden will not be without opposition. With the US Senate at 50-50 the Democrats may have to compromise a bit more than they want. In Republican led states, legislatures and governors are doing all they can to disenfranchise Democrats before the next election in order to take power in what seems to be the only way they can – by cheating. 

Don’t forget, also, that most of the radio and TV stations in this country are owned by corporations that are right wing and therefore disposed to be against whatever Biden and Democrats do.

So dig in America. We can get beyond the pandemic, we can get beyond the disastrous 4 years of the Trump Administration if we work together and follow the lead of President Biden and VP Harris.

The scourge of the Trump years will continue to resurface on occasion as his policies are rejected with new and hopefully more airtight laws. 

One last thought. I can’t get over how so much of what went on in the past four years seems to be straight out of an old time Mafia novel – think of The Godfather if you will.

At the top of one of the crime families is Don Trump. His family business is ostensibly travel with hotels and golf courses. That is his cover. Mostly his business is accumulating power at all levels. He “owns” congress men and women. He owns nearly half the US Senate. He owns 2/3rds of the Supreme Court and over half of the lower courts in the country. He is affiliated with Governors at the state level who do his bidding in order to gain his blessing and the love of his followers.

He has the loyalty of nearly half the police in the country and they are willing to bend rules to do what they believe will help Trump. And while he has no army per se, he has bands of loyalists throughout the country who will do his bidding at the drop of an ask. This includes harassing protestors, starting protests, harassing Democratic governors.

This all culminated with his ask that these loyalists come to Washington, DC to overthrow the government to keep him in power. 

Like all things, soon this will all be a bad dream. However, every January 6th should be memorialized with silent vigils to remind us just how close we came to seeing our democracy end.

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Historian: Trump Could Be Convicted (But Not Because Republicans Have A Spine)

Posted on February 12, 2021 by Trish Nelson

Political historian Heather Cox Richardson has quite a bit to say about the way things are right now, where we’ve been and where we might be going.

“If you look at the way the political culture seems to be sliding, it looks to me like we are doing what we did in the 1860’s and the turn of the last century and the period after WWII, when we reclaimed American democracy, as Lincoln said “of the people, by the people and for the people.” And it’s time. If you look at the timing of all the events I just said, we are overdue for that kind of a renewal. And I have faith we’ll do it.”

Posted in Blog for Iowa | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Biden And Harris Inaugurated, Capitol Stormed And Parties Divided

Posted on February 11, 2021 by Trish Nelson

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

by Ralph Scharnau

The November 2020 elections resulted in impressive victories for the Democratic Party. The final certified tally showed Biden the winner with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris won the race for national office at the top of the ticket. And Democrats also now control both houses of Congress.

The transition from the previous administration turned into a jarring fiasco. Trump, the loser, zealously tried and failed to overturn the certified election results, insisting, without proof, that he had actually won reelection by “a wide margin” and the election was “stolen.”

Trump used lawsuits and appealed to friends, elected officials, state supervisors of elections, and the courts to overturn Biden’s victory. These efforts uniformly failed. And he even said that a cabal of socialists, left-wing Democrats, and the media rigged the election against him.

Trump’s most ardent supporters heeded his call to march on the Capitol, standing by and ready to compel lawmakers to proclaim his victory and feed his need for egoistic adulation. Incited by Trump’s inflammatory words, hundreds went to the Capitol. And some extremists became a mob that ransacked congressional offices before the insurrection was quelled by National Guard forces.

Many people turned away in horror from the violence they witnessed on January 6. But most Republicans who broke with Trump over the Capitol insurrection soon returned to the party he continues to control.

Democrats remain united. They believe that the inciters and perpetrators of the Capitol assault must be held responsible and punished.

The Democrats’ majorities are very slim in the House and the Senate. They want to use their new majoritarian status to pursue a progressive agenda. They seek to reverse four years of the Trump administration marked by chaotic and incompetent actions and untruthful pronouncements.

From the moment he took office, the new President laid out an ambitious agenda. He used a flurry of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations to dismantle Trump administration policies that caused great damage to the nation.

Biden swiftly acted to replace Trump’s pandemic response and reverse his environmental actions.

President Biden immediately ramped up the federal response to the COVID-19 virus. Biden plans to curb the coronavirus pandemic by speeding vaccine spending and targeting distribution to high-risk populations and thereby reduce new infections. Biden created an advisory COVID-19 panel of experts and plans to rejoin the World Health Organization.

Environmentally, the President will rejoin the Paris Climate Accord; rescind the Trump rollbacks on vehicle emission standards; impose a moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge; and revoke the Keystone XL pipeline permit.

President Biden also took action on other issues. He extended a federal moratorium on evictions and on federally guaranteed mortgages. He called on Congress to cancel up to $10,000 in individual student debt.

Biden protected Dreamers, children of immigrants, from deportation while opening a chance for permanent resident status and a path to citizenship. He ended the Trump practice of finding and deporting undocumented immigrants. And he wants to double the minimum wage.

Biden and Harris reflect the amazing diversity of America. This deeply divided nation will continue the struggle to become a place of healing and hope for all, regardless of politics, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, social class, or religion/spirituality.

Ralph Scharnau

February 4, 2021

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ALEC Provides Free Campaign Software To Republican Legislators

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Trish Nelson

exposedbycmd.org/2021/02/05/alec-gives-lawmakers-free-data-program-run-republican-operatives/

The American Legislative Exchange Council provides a “constituent management program” worth thousands of dollars and run by a leading Republican political data operation to its overwhelmingly Republican legislative members at no charge, in potential violation of its charitable tax status and state gift and campaign finance laws, the Center for Media and Democracy has learned.

As a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is prohibited from engaging in any electoral activity as a condition of its charitable tax-exempt status, and in most states, contributing something of value to legislators or their campaigns would trigger gift or campaign contribution limits subject to public disclosure.

According to ALEC CARE training materials obtained by CMD, the program comes “preloaded with constituent information,” and can enable robocalls or send text messages to constituents. The training also revealed that the “data vendor” (Voter Gravity) has access to users’ data.

This follows a 2015 blog post where Voter Gravity announced that it was “fully integrated with the Republican National Committee database.” Ned Ryun added, “Our ultimate goal is to outmaneuver the left philosophically and politically.”

In 2014, voter data operations on the Right, including the Koch’s i360, the RNC, the NRCC, and Ryun, met with GOP operatives and candidates “behind closed doors to discuss how to synchronize their sometimes competing tech efforts,” Politico reported.

Read more..

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And be sure to check out ALEC Exposed in iowa

Click to access Iowa.ALEC_.report.pdf

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Reynolds Failed To Consult Health Officials Before Ending Covid-19 Precautions

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Trish Nelson

Reynolds at an earlier COVID-19 press conference

The governor is so over COVID!  But this raises the question, who did Kim Reynolds consult before ending COVID-19 precautions?

BREAKING: Reynolds didn’t consult health officials before ending COVID-19 precautions

Potluck Media Network || By Nikoel Hytrek

Governor Kim Reynolds did not consult with the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) before ending the state’s limited mask mandate and gathering requirements, according to a number of legislators who participated in a phone call with IDPH director Kelly Garcia.

Reynolds has faced an outpouring of criticism in response to her decision. Health officials, legislators, and members of the public have shared their responses online and in the press. At one point the hashtag #COVIDKim was even trending nationally on Twitter.

“It’s mind-boggling to me that the Governor didn’t consult her own public health experts when making such a major public health decision for our state,” said Rep. Lindsay James, of Dubuque. “The only sense I can make of such an egregious omission is that this is all about politics, not the well-being of Iowans.”

Currently, according to Reynolds, Iowa is 47th in per capita vaccine distribution and 46th in administering the vaccine to citizens.

Data from the New York Times shows that Iowa is the worst state for efficiently administering vaccines with 7.5 percent of the population receiving one vaccine and only 2.8 percent getting both doses.

As of today, Iowa has almost 325,000 cases and 5,110 deaths, according to the state.

The Potluck Media Network is a project of Progress Iowa

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Adam Schiff Talks To Al Franken About Impeachment #2

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Trish Nelson

The Al Franken podcast is awesome and of course funny.

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Three Iowa Republicans In The US House Support Greene

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Just for the record, the three Republicans representing Iowa in congress at this moment voted to support congress member and Qanon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene to keep her committee assignments.

That is Ashley Hinson, Randy Feenstra and the hopefully temporary Mariannette Miller-Meeks. 

That is two votes taken and two votes that appear to be against what many would term Iowa values.

When Donald Trump incited an insurrection to overthrow congress and keep himself as president these three amigos supported Trump in his efforts by voting NOT to impeach him.

Now the question is whether a member who believes in wild conspiracy theories including things like “Jewish space lasers” and that the murders at Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School were a “false flag’ operation (among many conspiratorial beliefs) deserves to be allowed to make laws. Once again, Iowa three amigos said yes Marjorie Taylor Greene should be allowed on committees.

Are these the views of Iowans? Lord, I hope not. One of Iowa’s core values has been to stay away from the extremes. Trump and Greene are the very extremes in American politics. Allowing the extremes to fester, even supporting the extremes is bad for the country and Iowa.

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Sunday Funday: Only A Year Ago Edition

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Just a year ago America was coming under the throes of a couple of illnesses that were about to rage out of control to make 2020 one of the worst, if not the worst year on record. On February 5th, 2020 Donald Trump was acquitted in his impeachment trial by the US Senate. Senator Susan Collins of Maine said that Trump “Learned a pretty big lesson.”

The only lesson that Trump learned was that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted and the spineless politicians in his party would bail his ass out no matter what. 

The illness Trump in turn helped lead to perhaps the biggest single disaster in American history. On Feb. 6th, 2020 the first American’s death was directly tied to the corona virus. There have been 500,000 more in the year since, more than any single war in American history. Trump, having been freed from any scrutiny by his spineless party, proceeded to address the Pandemic as if he were a two-year old. His party followed his lead.

This is black history month. Expect a few questions in that genre today.

  1. President Biden Thursday called for a diplomatic end to the war on what small Middle-East country?
  1. Hey it is Super Bowl Sunday! Who was the first black QB to win the Super Bowl?
  1. We almost had a coup last month. What SE Asian nation did have a coup early last week?
  1. That clause in the constitution that says the VP can cast a vote in the senate to break a tie came into play when who cast a vote for the Covid-19 package Friday morning?
  1. Methinks this one is a lie for sure. Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Ga) stated in that past that California wild fires were ignited by what?
  1. One more for the Super Bowl. When did two black head coaches oppose each other in the Super Bowl?
  1. Iowa is very near the bottom in number of vaccines for corona virus administered. What percent of Iowans have been vaccinated?
  1. The House voted to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from House committees. How did Iowa’s Republicans in the House vote on this issue?
  1. Loving v. Virginia (1967) was the Supreme Court case that allowed what between races?
  1. My Pillow is getting competition. What hero of a high school shooting says he will start a pillow company to compete directly with My Pillow?
  1. Fox News is being sued by what voting machine company for $2.7 Billion?
  1. In the Iowa State House, Speaker Pat Grassley will enforce rules on wearing jeans but not on wearing what public health need during the pandemic?
  1. Actor Hal Holbrook died last week. He was best known for two roles, one of which involved portraying what super star author from a previous era?
  1. Deaths from corona virus passed what sad milestone in Iowa Thursday?
  1. The state of North Carolina announced that it would no longer issue license plates with what symbol on it?
  1. What US ally declared the Proud Boys as a terrorist group in their country?
  1. Russia is claiming fantastic results for its version of a corona virus vaccine which is named what after an early USSR space program?
  1. September, 1963 the 16th Street Baptist Church in what Alabama city killing four young girls and adding impetus to a future civil rights bill?
  1. September, 1957 saw national TV news covering the integration of what southern state capital’s high school?
  1. Who said this – “If not us then who? If not now, then when?”

This is just personal taste, but if I were a lawmaker I’d be less worried about making a bill bipartisan if the other party had sent a mob to murder me 4 weeks ago. – Zack Borenstein

Oops! This just in:

Answers:

  1. Yemen
  1. Doug Williams of the (oddly) Redskins in 1988
  1. Myanmar (aka Burma)
  1. VP Kamala Harris (just wanted to make sure you hadn’t forgotten her)
  1. Jewish space lasers
  1. 2007 when Tony Dunge’s Colts played Lovie Smith’s Bears
  1. 6.2% as of Friday
  1. They voted to keep her on the committees.
  1. Marriage
  1. David Hogg
  1. Smartmatic
  1. Face masks
  1. Mark Twain
  1. 5,000
  1. The confederate battle flag
  1. Canada
  1. Sputnik
  1. Birmingham
  1. Little Rock
  1. The recently departed John Lewis

What is systemic racism you ask? When a 9 year old African American child gets handcuffed and assaulted with a chemical agent, while the courts decide if the QShaman gets organic food in prison.

Now ya know. – gfano2 tweet

Posted in Covid-19, Humor | Comments Off on Sunday Funday: Only A Year Ago Edition

Change My Pants?

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Dave Bradley

Beth Wessel-Kroeschell from her legislative web page

During the first few weeks of the legislative session, House Democrats have repeatedly called on Republicans to follow the advice of public health officials and require that legislators, staff, and visitors wear masks in the State Capitol  to help stop the spread of COVID-19 (as of this week, five confirmed cases have been detected in the Iowa House). Republicans have refused to institute a mask mandate because Speaker Grassley claims it cannot be enforced on the House floor.

So, yesterday  I wore jeans in violation of House Rules to prove him wrong. First, I was asked by the Chief Clerk to change my pants and I refused. Next, because of my jeans, Speaker Grassley refused to let me speak against a bill that would end diversity plans in Iowa school districts.

We are in the middle of a pandemic that has killed thousands in Iowa and hundreds of thousands across this country. Republicans will crack down on Democrats wearing denim but can’t muster the courage to have lawmakers and others at the Capitol wear masks to save lives?

Can you chip in today to help House Democrats hold Republicans accountable and make the Capitol safe for legislators, staff, and visitors?

By refusing to follow public health guidelines like face coverings and social distancing, Republicans are putting all who work at and visit the Capitol in danger. It’s time House Republicans step up and do the right thing.

Chip in to help us hold the Republican majority accountable in the Iowa House.

 

Thank you for your support. As President Biden says, “Truth over lies.”

 

Beth Wessel-Kroeschell

State Representative, District 45

Quick Comment:

Once again, Republicans use public office to make Iowa a national laughingstock. Rather than take on serious issues of the majority of Iowans in a serious way Republicans go about the business of passing the Koch approved ALEC legislative agenda that is on desired by the far right wing (that is their rich donors) of their party.

From Rachel Maddow this week (3 minutes):

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