Kelcey Brackett – A Good Pick Up Opportunity in HD 91

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Dave Bradley
I am proud to share that today I received notification from the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO President Ken Sagar that I have received their endorsement. This is of particular significance on this first day of May, Workers’ Day. #STANDWITHWORKERS
Growing up in a working family, I know the hard work that everyday Iowans do to provide for their families. I will fight for the rights of hard-working Iowans, the right to safe working environments, fair
Kelcey Brackett

Fom Kelcey Brackett’s facebook page https://www.facebook.com/kelceybrackettformuscatine/

Iowa’s House District 91 brings up a good opportunity to flip a Republican seat to a Democrat in this fall’s election.

The sitting representative, Gary Carlson, decided to retire last March. While Carlson was no shoo-in to win this seat again, incumbency is a a powerful weapon in an election. With Carlson’s retirement the power of incumbency has been removed from the equation. With that, Kelcey Brackett’s years on Muscatine City Council may carry some more weight.

House District 91covers the lower half of Muscatine county, including the city of Muscatine and some surrounding precincts.   

Brackett has been a resident of Muscatine for 22 years and involved in the community during that time. We go to his website for more information: 

“I am an Iowa native and I have lived and worked in Muscatine and the surrounding area for the past twenty years. An opportunity to provide a better life for my family brought me here in 1998 and I have called Muscatine home ever since. For a time I operated my own business, providing tech support services to small business, this showed me how integral the small business owner is to communities like ours and difficulties that go along with running one.

In addition to working with the business community, I have been involved with the community in other ways by volunteering with different groups and events to help those in need. This has shown me the great strength that is required by so many in our community to make ends meet and raise a family.

The past two years on the Muscatine City Council have shown me that while our local government is crucial to our everyday lives, we need to make some corrections at the state level in order to have the right tools locally.

I have spent most of my career fixing things that are broken.

My goal is to bring this same approach to the Iowa State House.”

We first met Kelcey Brackett about five years ago. I was immediately impressed with his ability to see through all the verbiage and cut to the very heart of a problem or situation. Brackett was also quick to understand how various solutions might impact groups that others did did not even see as having a stake in the question. In short Brackett has an incisive mind.

Along with that incisive mind, he also has empathy for the parties involved. Hopefully the next session of the legislature will be dealing with ways to dig Iowa out of the disaster left by the mishandling of the pandemic. I believe we will want representatives who can cut quickly to the heart of problems and offer solutions based on practicality and not ideology. That describes Kesey Brackett.

Sending a republican to the state house from district 91 will be sending a person whose solutions will be handed to them by the party with an expectation that representative vote for the party’s solution or be ostracized. At such a critical time Iowa needs a representative who will truly represent the people of his district, not the party.

##################################

From Johnson County’s Democratic Newsletter:  Tonight at 6:30!

## Brace and Brackett / Potluck Insurgency Fundraiser

Per Rosanne Cook, Potluck Insurgency will be hosting a fundraiser for two great Democratic candidates for the state legislature this Sunday, August 2nd, at 6:30pm.

Chris Brase is a retired firefighter and former State Senator who is running to retake his State Senate seat, and Kelcey Brackett is a dynamic member of the Muscatine City Council who is running for Iowa House.  Potluck Insurgency will hold a fundraiser, proceeds to be split between the two candidates, on Sunday, August 2nd at 6:30pm.  We will first hear briefly from both candidates, and then they’re planning on taking lots of questions.

These candidates are in eastern Iowa — both in the Scott County/Muscatine area, Kelcey’s House district (91) is part of Chris’ Senate district (46). Even though winning the majority in the Iowa Senate may not be within reach in 2020, we need to help make some gains and Chris is a strong candidate.

As for the Iowa House, Kelcey’s House district is very flippable. The Republican incumbent is not running, and Kelcey has a lot of name recognition in Muscatine where he’s on the City Council.

The suggested donation is $25, but contributing more is encouraged if you can! Click here to visit the ActBlue page for this fundraiser and reserve your spot today. 

If you can’t donate, you can still invited to attend: please contact potluckinsurgency@gmail.com if you’d like the Zoom link or if you have any questions.

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Sunday Funday: Get An Absentee Ballot Edition!

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Dave Bradley

From progressiowa – 1 minute:

Let the above video remind you that even though it is only early August, it is definitely time to be sending in a request for an absentee ballot for this year’s election. Most of you have heard that the current administration is doing all they can to foul up the USPS in an effort to stop us from voting. The USPS the other day made it known that if you are planning to vote by mail this fall, plan for at least one week for a ballot request to be filled and at least a week for the return trip to the county auditor.

In Iowa, we can request a ballot by printing a request and sending it to your county auditor. You can print the request from the Secretary of State’s website here. As long as you are on the SOS website take the time to check your registration here.  

If you are not registered this is the best time to get that fixed long before the election. You can register online or download and print a voter registration form to mail to your county auditor here. I have to admit, in some things Iowa does make it easy. If all else fails,call your county auditor’s office for help. Those telephone number can be found here. Don’t make us have to come and get you.

On to the quiz:

  1. 55 years ago July 30th, President Johnson signed into law what bill that he hope would be the first part of a national health program?
  1. Louis Gohmert, congress member from Texas was announced to have coronavirus Wednesday. What did item Gohmert say may have been a contributing factor?
  1. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was photographed holding a notepad with what potential VP candidate’s name at the top?
  1. Americans are dying of the coronavirus at what rate?
  1. Our Dear Leader suggested what should be delayed until it could be done safely?
  1. Iowa’s oldest state park, Backbone State Park near Maquoketa celebrated what anniversary of its opening last week?
  1. Hurricane Isaias has a path that has it skirting or possibly hitting what coronavirus ravaged state?
  1. Speaking of hurricanes, what state was just missed by Hurricane Douglas last week?
  1. If the election has not been decided by noon on Jan. 20, 2021 who will be president at that time?
  1. What former Republican presidential candidate and recent attendee at the Tulsa rally died of coronavirus Thursday?
  1. A survey by Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand found great dissatisfaction with what Branstad initiated policy?
  1. Dear Leader spoke with Russia’s Putin Thursday but he (Trump) never brought up what highly contentious issue with Putin?
  1. Baseball’s Back! Well, maybe not all of baseball. What two teams are at least temporarily sidelined due to coronavirus infections on their teams?
  1. What national leader gave the eulogy for congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis?
  1. The Republican Presidential campaign quietly quit advertising in what once swing state last week indicating that the state was lost for this cycle?
  1. What professional sports league cancelled their pre-season schedules due to the coronavirus?
  1. What group of CEOs testified before a congressional subcommittee on anti-trust?
  1. 1.4 million Americans filed for unemployment last week. How many weeks in a row have unemployment filings topped 1 million now?
  1. Probably the only person happy about this is Vladimir Putin. Dear Leader announced he would withdraw 12,000 troops from what ally last week?
  1. People across the US last week received unsolicited packs of what through the mail from China?

The US is averaging about 70,000 new cases of coronavirus a day. If we had airplane crashes at that rate we would be having a 200 passenger plane crashing every 4 minutes or 15 per hour. When Airplanes crash, we as a society usually try to stop the cause of those crashes.

 

 

Answers:

  1. Medicare and Medicaid
  1. Wearing a mask. Only Louie could come up with this.
  1. Kamala Harris
  1. One per minute (@1440 per day)
  1. This fall’s elections
  1. 100th
  1. Florida
  1. Hawaii
  1. The Speaker of the House, probably Nancy Pelosi
  1. Herman Cain
  1. Privatized Medicaid
  1. Russia paying bounties to Afghanis for killing American soldiers
  1. The Miami Marlins had half of their team test positive for CV. The team they had been playing, Philadelphia, also decided to take a few days off just in case.
  1. Barack Obama
  1. Michigan
  1. The NFL
  1. CEOs of the tech giants. Specifically Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon
  1. 19
  1. Germany
  1. Seeds – if you got them, do not plant them. 

If you are refusing to wear a mask due to concern your brain won’t get enough oxygen, I’m here to tell you; that ship has already sailed. – YS tweet

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Killing The “Public” Entity

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Dave Bradley
post_office_50278_zearing

Will this one day soon be shuttered?

“Never let a good crisis go to waste” the old political saying goes. Lord knows we have a huge crisis in front of us. Had we had any kind of even substandard leadership, the US may have been able to control the coronavirus. Unfortunately we have some of the worst leadership the world has ever seen in Donald Trump and some very bad leadership at the state level in Kim Reynolds.

Yet no matter how bad they are as leaders, both are doing what they can to make changes that will favor their parties in the aftermath of the virus. Turning the US into a totally privatized society with very special privileges for the rich has long been the dream of the Republican Party. The pandemic and the recovery from it will be giving them a probably one time chance to make some giant overhauls that will be great for the rich and terrible for the rest of us.

You may have noticed over the years that the Republican Party (now wholly beholden to Donald Trump) has put a lot of effort into undermining anything that is done for the whole of society through the government. They have also spent huge amounts of time effort and money creating the perception that “public” anything is always bad.

Remember in this country perception is reality. Thus we have a society that perceives entities such as unions as bad even though in reality unions have done a huge amount of good in this country. We also had the perception that a pretend TV star would be capable of running a country. That was the perception, the reality has been a huge failure. Yet some still cling to the perception.

With the pandemic at reaching new heights daily, reality would dictate that we wait until conditions are much better before sending children and teachers into a Petri dish of virus. Yet Republicans paint a perception that children can’t get sick and want to open schools as normal. We all know a disaster will follow.

When “public” schools fail we can be assured that those who set them up for failure – the Republican Party – will be screaming to turn the education of America’s children over to privatized education system. Thus they will be working to kill a system that has produced some of the greatest scientists and thinkers the world has seen.

We have been watching Republicans preside over the slow strangling of the US Post Office System. Passing legislation that forced a once very successful entity into perpetual debt by forcing them to prepay retirements for 75 years in the future wasn’t enough to kill the Post office, so the current administration has imposed new rules to further choke it.

The administration has forced the Post Office to slow its work, thus putting it at a disadvantage to its competitors. The US Postal System has been the envy of the world for their ability to move such massive amounts of mail at such a low price to the furthest, most remote corners of the country. Leave it to the “party of business” to kill such a well run organization.

Republicans past, present and future have or will work their magic to kill this well run business with its extremely loyal employees. In a couple of years when you are mailing a letter with one of the private mail companies for $5 to $10, remember when you could send that same mail for 50 cents.

What about “public assistance?” Any form of so called “welfare” is looked down on as some sort of moral failure by those who claim that they never needed help from anyone. Yet, when we scratch below the surface we find that at some point most Americans get some aid from other Americans when they hit a rough patch. Iowa’s farm community should be able to remember easily the payments they got after the current administration destroyed corn and soybean markets. It was called a “subsidy.”

Yet, things like public assistance through welfare or food stamps is considered bad and in the sights for Republican destruction. Statistics say those who need assistance usually don’t need it for long. Let’s hope the farmers don’t.

One everyone has an immediate negative reaction to, in part because of the bad media over the years, has been public housing. People need a place to live, even the poor. Due in part to those who say “Not In My Back Yard” public housing has often be consigned to bad neighborhoods. With such a bad reputation, “public housing” has always been a huge target for the anti-public anything Republicans.

And of course there are the “socialist” programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA which are a form of “public” help. These are of course top targets of Republicans. Apparently seniors and the poor should somehow find jobs to pay their living expenses, including huge medical bills. If they can’t then maybe they should do what Ebenezer Scrooge opined and “die and decrease the surplus population.

Do we have an obligation to help our brother? All religions tell us to treat “our neighbor as we want to be treated.” Despite that, Republicans seem to be the only party in the world out to destroy the main vehicle for making that happen – government.

When we look at the myriad of perceived problems with government, the main problem we have is that people who want to destroy the system have often been selected to be in charge of the very system they want to destroy. No business person would hire a candidate who told them in an interview that if hired they will do whatever they can to destroy that business.

Yet here in Iowa we have Joni Ernst who has said she wants to drastically cut social security, who has voted to destroy the ACA with no replacement and no doubt will fully support the destruction of the USPS who is asking you to ut her back in a position to carry out her destruction.

I would hope that as a person who has a deep stake in our form of government surviving, you will assess Joni Ernst’s push to dismantle our government and tell her “No you don’t.”   

Posted in #trumpresistance, 2020 election campaign, Blog for Iowa, Farming, Joni Ernst, Medicare, Obamacare, Social Security | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Killing The “Public” Entity

Pandemic Shows How Important Unions Are

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Dave Bradley

AFT Leader Randi Weingarten discusses reopening schools: (6.5 minutes)

Thursday we got this email from the Abby Finkenauer campaign:

I’m Ken Sagar, retired president of the Iowa Federation of Labor. But today I’m not here to give you an update on labor issues around the state, I’m here to support my friend, long-time labor ally Abby Finkenauer.

While I was at the AFL-CIO, we eagerly supported her first run in 2018. And although I’m no longer working for a union, I can still testify to her dedication to workers in Iowa.

She didn’t just make promises, she went out and got results for all of us.

Now it’s our turn to help her. Abby’s up against a tight deadline — and we need to rally around her. She needs to raise $5,328 before midnight tomorrow to hit her end-of-July Ad Fund goal. Making a contribution today is directly supporting a pro-labor agenda. Click here. 

Abby’s father was a union pipefitter-welder. She didn’t learn about working Iowans’ issues second-hand. She learned about them by living them — knowing her family’s well-being depended on our ability to ensure fair wages, workplace safety, and comprehensive benefits.

Now it’s even more important to back pro-labor leaders like Abby. Her opponent has taken money from a Koch backed group, AFP, that wants “to take the unions out at the knees.”

Yes, that’s a quote from a former AFP and 2016 Trump campaign staffer. Abby’s opponent has the backing of both groups.

So when I tell you we need to support Abby today, you can see why. Click here and chip in to her campaign today.

Thank you,

Ken

Unions were created to use the collective power of their withholding of labor as a bargaining chip so that workers could also benefit from the fruits of their labor. That came to include decent living wages, decent and safe working conditions and other benefits to be negotiated. I don’t care what product or service you talk about these days, without skilled labor it could not be made or done.

This note serves to remind us just how important unions are in the whole scheme of our economy and our well being. As we continue to spiral downward in the pandemic, Republican leadership that makes no bones that it is beholden to the power of corporations. Thus we saw, especially in Iowa, but also in many other states people being forced to work in awful conditions in the meat packing industry.

Labor is not and should not be treated as disposable parts in a machine. One of the most disjointed ideas during this whole pandemic is that labor is on one hand essential yet on the other hand disposable people who health and safety is of little concern. Iowa’s Governor Kim Reynolds showed her pure disdain for workers by refusing to close meat packing plants to clean up.

An individual worker is a poor match against the power and money of a corporation or governmental unit. Only by using the power that their labor collectively has can they withstand the abuses of the rich and powerful. In the scheme of a  democratic form of government, unions act as a check on the power of corporations and their money and the power of governmental leaders. Without the unions to check the accumulation of the power of money coupled with the power of governments can easily choke democracies. We are witnessing this in front of our very eyes during the Trump Administration.

We are very glad to see Abby Finkenauer proudly standing up for workers and unions. In these days when unions have been battered into submission over 40 years of Republican policies at the state and national level, seeing such a statement is always refreshing.

As the deadline for school reopenings draws near, the country may be looking for the one voice of sanity left to stop policies that will be sending our children and our teachers into what appears to be a cesspool of coronavirus known as the classroom. Mandates for reopening are coming down from on high. Few are involving those who will be in those classrooms -the teachers and the children, or the children’s parents.

Into the fray steps Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers. Teachers will be asked to put their lives on the line. So far their input to the process has not been sought. The AFT, headed by Weingarten, is the second largest teacher’s union. The AFT has said they will sanction local strikes to force school district to make schools safe.

From the AFT’s website:    

Until a vaccine is developed for COVID-19, each community is going to need support in charting a path to safely and responsibly reopen school buildings and other institutions crucial to the well-being and economic vitality of our communities.

The AFT’s detailed, science-based “Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities” features five core pillars based on the science as well as educator and healthcare expertise—not on politics or wishful thinking.

{a list of scientifically sound criteria is listed here – go to website to see}

The blueprint acknowledges Americans’ eagerness to return to some semblance of “normal.” But to do so, we must meet an unprecedented challenge: figuring out how to reimagine our society and the physical places we hold dear—public schools, places of worship, workplaces, restaurants and more—in ways that put our ultimate priorities first: the safety and well-being of working families, especially frontline workers, and the economic health of society.

The comprehensive document shows how, to effectively respond to the crisis, we must plan and align logistics, educational strategies and public health approaches into one coherent response. And we expect the plan to evolve as the data, and the facts, change.

AFT President Randi Weingarten said: “Our blueprint serves as a stark contrast to the conflicting guidance, bluster and lies of the Trump administration. The input of educators and healthcare workers, as well as parents, is crucial in making any reopening plan work. They are the eyes and ears, and are indispensable in making any plan work safely and effectively. We hope this blueprint will be the start of a real discussion on reopening schools, universities and other workplaces that allows our workers and families not only to dream of a safe and welcoming future, but to realize it.”

The whole AFT plan can be read here.  

We need unions more than ever folks. To keep workers from being crushed by the power of money linked with the power of government. Republicans will continue to do all they can to crush unions. Vote for Democrats in 202 for your own sake.

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Leave It All On The Field

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Paul Deaton

Summer in Iowa

(Trish Nelson will return to the editor’s desk on Monday. I hope you found value in some of my posts the last four weeks).

As Joe Biden and company build an organization to defeat Donald Trump part of its energy comes from active Democrats. That’s to be expected. At the same time, the coalition Biden built is broad and more diverse. It has to be to bring in the votes needed to assure victory. Democratic votes alone won’t win the Nov. 3 election.

Democrats are a distance from being able to claim victory over Trump and his enablers.

The deciding factor may well be that much energy to defeat Trump must come from people with little connection to Democrats. Their allegiance is to something else — not politics — and their activism is energized by how the administration negatively impacts them personally. There are also Republicans unwilling to shed Republican values yet who believe electing Trump was a mistake and he must be removed through the ballot box.

With such a coalition, if the president is re-elected we haven’t worked hard enough. A lot can and will happen before the election. The hurricane of information is just forming to wreck havoc on our political life. To win we have to set aside our personal causes and follow the lead of our candidates. We must give up part of our individualism to work toward a greater good. If Angela Davis is on board with Biden almost any liberal should be too.

What does that mean?

Don’t shed a bucket of liberal tears over the current disaster in governance. Is current policy bad? Yes, it is. Are Republicans corrupt? Yes, some of them are. Can it be fixed? I don’t know and the only path to finding out is to hunker down and elect Democratic candidates from Biden on down the ticket to soil commissioner and dog catcher. Liberal tears are a distraction from the fundamental fact that Democrats, and most Americans, are good people with a desire to improve our common life.

Stay focused. Pick a couple of things you can do to support Democratic candidates. Got a few dollars left over in your bank account after monthly bills are paid? Donate part of it to your favorite candidates. Don’t know who the candidates are? Get a sample ballot from your county auditor and study it. Got friends and relatives? Make sure each of them is registered to vote. Encourage them to vote.

Develop a way of dealing with the noise. There will be a lot of radio, television, internet, and print ads. A lot of friends and neighbors will want to talk about “politics” and repeat awful falsehoods. Listen, consider, and think before reacting. Correct people where you can, tolerate where you must. Engender a sense that we are all in this together because we are.

Deal with the coronavirus. We’re no good to anyone unless we are healthy. The first wave of the pandemic is upon us and there is no easy fix to it. Do all the things health professionals recommend: wear a mask in public, get tested for COVID-19 if you have symptoms or have been with someone diagnosed with the disease, wash hands frequently, sanitize your hands immediately after shopping, and stay home when it’s possible to do so.

Don’t pay attention to the polls. The polls indicate Joe Biden stands a good chance of winning the Electoral College. Act like he is ten points behind and do something to further his electoral prospects. Do what you feel comfortable doing. Then pick something outside your comfort zone and try that too.

Above all else, be part of the solution to the disastrous problems caused by current Republican governance. The opportunity we have today is to elect Joe Biden president. Let’s go do it!

If we can make the change in elected officials then we can talk about the long, hard path to re-inventing America to be better than ever. As they say in sports, leave it all on the field.

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Letters From Loebsack

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Paul Deaton

Dave Loebsack

I’ve received a number of official reply letters from Dave Loebsack in the 14 years he served as our congressman. He discusses priorities for the CARES Act follow on bill in this one.

July 28, 2020
Dear Mr. Deaton,

Thank you for contacting my office with your concerns regarding the COVID-19 public health emergency. Iowans and folks across the globe are struggling with the impact of this public health and economic crisis. My priority is to provide Iowa’s Second District with the best representation possible during these difficult times.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak began, I have heard from folks across Iowa about how they have been affected and the relief that is necessary to help combat the significant health and economic consequences of this pandemic. Even in these most trying times teachers, healthcare providers, small business owners, and essential workers, among so many others, have been providing critical support to our communities across Iowa. I am truly inspired by the selflessness and generosity that I have seen in every corner of our communities from those who are dedicated to caring for their neighbors and helping out those who need it most.

I have been working with my colleagues in the House of Representatives to build upon the relief provided by the CARES Act. We continue to see a need for additional assistance for nearly every industry, including aid for our hospital system, protections for workers impacted by this crisis, and support for our small businesses and local governments. I have also joined House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr, and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, among others, to announce a plan to connect all Americans to affordable broadband internet. In times like these, when families are at home, millions of K-12 students do not have access to the highspeed internet needed to take classes and complete their assignments online. As the spread of COVID-19 continues, it shines an even brighter light on the “broadband gap” that exists between urban and rural communities.

Additionally, I recently supported the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 (P.L. 116-142). This legislation revised critical components of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to better assist our small businesses across Iowa. These updates include extending loan forgiveness from a period of eight weeks to 24 weeks, extending the rehiring deadline, increasing the current limitation on non-payroll expenses such as rent and utility payments, and extending the program to December 31, 2020.These revisions are an important step in helping our small businesses financially recover.

I have also called on Congressional leadership to ensure farmers and rural agricultural businesses in Iowa have access to PPP, as well as for increased oversight of the program. I will continue to work with my colleagues to provide the accountability and oversight the American people deserve.

As Congress continues to work on additional COVID-19 relief legislation, please know that I will continue to fight to ensure Iowans get the recovery and relief they need and deserve. My office is here to assist you with any and all concerns you have about COVID-19 or other issues, so please do not hesitate to contact me whenever you feel that I can be of assistance. I am proud to serve the Second District, and I am committed to working hard for Iowans.
Sincerely,

Dave Loebsack
Iowa’s Second District

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Cattle Markets – What Side Are You On?

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Paul Deaton

It seems crazy that cattle producer margins are constantly being squeezed by meat packers as the herd goes to market during the pandemic.

“Between April and May, producers saw their cattle prices plummet,” wrote Jessica Fu in The Counter. “Meanwhile beef prices at the grocery store nearly doubled.”

Opaque cattle markets are a long-standing problem which Abby Finkenauer (IA-01), Dave Loebsack (IA-02) and Cindy Axne (IA-03) hope to resolve by introducing an amendment to the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Democrats’ bill is a companion to the one Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst introduced in the U.S. Senate, S3693. If adopted, it would to increase transparency in U.S. cattle markets and spur added price discovery and competition for Iowa producers using cash markets. From the text of the bill:

This bill establishes that a minimum of 50 percent of a covered packer’s daily volume of livestock slaughter must be purchased through spot market sales from non-affiliated producers.

The author is not a beef eater although many people are. For an explanation of the bill, read more at Successful Farming.

J.D. Scholten made anti-trust a central issue in his campaign. Following is a short video in which he discusses monopoly control of cattle markets. Iowa is farm country and farmers need anti-trust legislation. They need J.D. Scholten and the Democrats in the Congress.

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Denial, The Coronavirus Is Your Friend

Posted on July 28, 2020 by Paul Deaton

When the U.S. Congress passed the CARES Act there was an unspoken assumption the coronavirus pandemic would be of short duration and gone by now.

Based on this, the Republican president and Republican Iowa governor pushed to “reopen the economy.” As they did we discovered Iowa and the nation were still on the upward slope of a curve of COVID-19 cases. As of Sunday, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported the seven-day average number of COVID-19 cases in Linn County was the highest since the governor declared the emergency on March 9.

Epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci made the situation clear in an interview with the publication MarketWatch. “We are still in a pretty big first wave (of the pandemic),” he said.

Cedar Rapids-based manufacturer Gary Ficken got a CARES Act small business loan to keep his athletic apparel business afloat, according to the Washington Post. He used the money to hire staff back early in the pandemic only to lay them off again when there was no demand for his products.“It ended up being a bridge to nowhere,” Ficken said.

As some of the benefits of the CARES Act expire, the Republican caucus in the U.S. Senate doesn’t know what they want to do. “Half the Republicans are going to vote no to any phase four package,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Sunday. “That’s just a fact.” Senate Democrats don’t have to negotiate with Republicans who are a firm no on any new relief bill, so we may as well stick to our guns.

Already the White House floated the idea of a short term extension of some parts of the original CARES Act. In the meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, the main Republican negotiator, is discussing changing the $600 per week federal subsidy of unemployment benefits in the CARES Act to a new formula of 70 percent of earnings. Again, half the Republicans won’t vote for whatever bill he writes. Late Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the Republican proposal as “pathetic,” saying “it isn’t serious.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it “totally inadequate.”

It is hard to say with certainty what the federal government should do in the form of relief for the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. The U.S. House passed a stimulus bill in May with which the Senate has done nothing. What needs to happen, and fast, is to stop denying we are in a pandemic. Denial is the coronavirus’ best friend.

If you are already past denial, here’s an informative podcast of In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt. Special guest epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, who helped eradicate smallpox and is hard at work on coronavirus, grades our performance on a scientific, sociological, and political basis. He doesn’t mince words about political leadership or the CDC. “There is a special place in hell for some of the people who are lying about how dangerous this disease is,” Brilliant said in the podcast.

Posted in Fiscal Crisis, Progressive Community, progressive values | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Denial, The Coronavirus Is Your Friend

Debunking All The Joni Ernst Attacks

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Paul Deaton

Theresa Greenfield

This just in from Sam Newton at the Theresa Greenfield campaign.

Hi all – As Politifact is slamming the NRSC’s latest false claim against Theresa Greenfield, that now means every political attack that the NRSC and the Ernst campaign have launched against Theresa on TV since the start of the general election has been debunked by an independent fact check.

If you want to see what a campaign with no message in late July looks like, here’s a rundown of how Senator Ernst and the NRSC have been “grasping at straws” to make up political attacks about Theresa, whether it’s objectively false claims about her business record, position on taxes or her pledge to take zero dimes from corporate PACs.

Unfortunately, it’s likely as Ernst continues to lag in the polls and fundraising, her campaign and allies will only become more desperate and misleading.

Sam Newton
Communications Director
Theresa Greenfield for Iowa
Twitter: @SamNewton
greenfieldforiowa.com

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Reality Check: The 1945 Atomic Bombings

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Paul Deaton

Seventy-five years ago, the nuclear age began with the world’s first nuclear weapons test explosion in the New Mexico desert.

In this annotated “silent film”-style video essay from the Arms Control Association, we learn about the events that transpired three weeks later with the atomic attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A more detailed history of the geopolitical, environmental, and humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, the rise of a global disarmament movement, and the work of the hibakusha (survivors of the nuclear attacks) is available in a special free issue of Arms Control Today, available by clicking here.

~The Arms Control Association, founded in 1971, is a national nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies. To learn more, click here to visit their website.

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