We Should Have Known

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Trish Nelson

photo/Bloomberg

*UPDATED*  After every mass shooting, a reporter interviews friends, family and neighbors of the perpetrator who invariably say, “we didn’t see the signs.”  Then upon further examination, it turns out that there were all kinds of signs, but no one put 2 and 2 together. That’s what we have going on in this political moment.

Donald Trump has us on a slippery slope to fascism with the help of the MAGA Republican party. We didn’t get here overnight. There were dozens of stand-out moments I can think of off hand and I bet you can too.  In this week’s spotlight we turn to the recent example of Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, about whom Iowa didn’t see the signs.

Here are a couple of signs about what was to come with Joni.  At the time I found these two ads to be laden with violent themes and just plain gross. People made fun of them but perhaps they were too weird for our brains to absorb properly making us unable to assign meaning.  These two campaign ads were dubbed “Shot” and “Squeal.”  Both were from the 2014 campaign during Barack Obama’s second term. Just two examples but it is obvious that we were in trouble if you look at the imagery in these ads.

I haven’t written anything yet about Ernst’s “Well, we’re all going to die” remark or her follow up video which was another even more shocking display of contempt for Iowans who, probably regretfully now, sent her to DC.  My impression of the coverage and the internet convo about her comments is that even the best writers have been having a real hard time coming up with words to convey just how terribly egregious her remarks were.

It was a display of contempt toward her fellow Iowans from one of our elected officials, the likes of which we’ve never seen. In my opinion, we should be calling for her to resign. And even though the “Well, we all are going to die” video and the “tooth fairy” video have gone viral and everyone with a media outlet or podcast or social media account has been hammering on them, everything I’ve seen so far still has been an understatement of just how telling these remarks are.

That is of course, until Steve Schmidt weighed in. Check out his video below.

For those who haven’t seen the Pro Publica article about Ernst’s ethical/relationship issues mentioned in the video, here is the link.
propublica.org/article/joni-ernst-congress-military-relationships

Two Democrats have announced their campaigns to oust Joni Ernst in 2026.

Nathan Sage https://www.sageforsenate.com/

 

JD Scholten https://www.scholtenforiowa.com/

Posted in Blog for Iowa | Tagged , | 2 Comments

JD Scholten Running For U.S. Senate Against Joni Ernst

Posted on June 3, 2025 by Trish Nelson


J.D. Scholten came close to defeating Steve King in the 2018 election for Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. Scholten lost by only 3.3 percentage points or approximately 10,000 votes. This was King’s closest general election challenge in his nine terms representing the heavily Republican district.

King won the 2018 election, but as I remember it, the Republican party could see the handwriting on the wall and after King was stripped of committee assignments for controversial remarks, he was defeated in the 2020 primary. And that is how the 4th ended up with do-nothing MAGA-R Randy Feenstra, currently being challenged by Democrat Ryan Melton.

According to The Des Moines Register:

“We’re the only one who’s ran for federal office, and not only did I do that, we moved the needle 24 points in 2018 and this year’s shaping up to be similar to that,” he said. “I’m the only one who has won in a Trump district like I did last fall and every single race I’ve over-performed the top of the ticket, so if it’s about electability I think I can be the best candidate for Democrats.” – J.D. Scholten

Check out J.D.’s Substack, You’re Probably Getting Screwed
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Here’s the announcement in the Iowa Capital Dispatch:

J.D. Scholten launches run after U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s statement on Medicaid

by Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch
June 2, 2025

Iowa Rep. J.D. Scholten, D-Sioux City, launched a run to challenge U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst Monday in the wake of her remarks at a town hall that garnered national backlash from Democrats and health care advocates.

Ernst made her controversial remark, “we are all going to die,” at a Parkersburg town hall Friday after a person in the crowd shouted “people will die” as she was discussing funding cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The cuts are included in the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House in May.

Though Ernst told the crowd there would likely be changes to the bill from the Senate, she supported the cuts that “make sure that those that are not eligible by the federal standard for Medicaid are not receiving Medicaid.”

Ernst posted an “apology” video Saturday after she drew national criticism for her response. Filmed in a cemetery, Ernst posted a video on Instagram where she sarcastically said she wanted to “sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall.”

“I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,” Ernst said in the video. “So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”

She recommended “for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Scholten announces run

The comments prompted Scholten, a professional baseball pitcher for the Sioux City Explorers and state legislator, to launch his campaign for U.S. Senate. In a video posted Monday, Scholten said he “wasn’t planning on doing this right now, but I just can’t sit on the sidelines” following Ernst’s comments.

“Cutting vital services to give bigger tax breaks to billionaires isn’t just bad policy, it’s theft from people like you and me,” Scholten said. “Maybe it sounds crazy to run against an insider with enough arrogance to laugh at her constituents, but I’ve ran hard races before.”

Scholten ran twice for Iowa’s 4th Congressional District seat, in 2018 and 2020. Though he lost both elections, he was short by an unexpectedly tight margin — losing 47% to 50% to former U.S. Rep. Steve King in 2018 in the longtime conservative stronghold. In 2020, backlash against King for inflammatory comments made on issues like abortion exemptions and white nationalism led to his primary defeat by U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, who currently holds the seat.

The Democratic state lawmaker said he is running to tackle wealth inequality and improve America’s health care systems.

“I fundamentally believe that we deserve more than a GoFundMe broken healthcare system, a JBS food system and Dollar General economy,” Scholten said. “Ultimately, this race is not about Joni Ernst, and it’s not about me. It’s about the people in Iowa who deserve better: Better representatives who fight against the billionaire elites and special interests who hurt us.”

Nathan Sage, a Mason City Democrat, and Scholten are currently the only Democrats who have announced their bids for the seat. However, more Democratic challengers are expected to join the field, including Iowa Sen. Zach Wahls, D-Coralville. Wahls released a statement Friday criticizing Ernst’s comments, saying Iowa “need leaders who will fight for us, not gut health care funding that over 700,000 Iowans rely on.”

“It is of course true that we are all going to die, but our Senators shouldn’t be the ones killing us,” Wahls said.

National Democrats blast comments

National Democrats were quick to respond to Ernst’s comments, saying it further proved that Republicans are aware the Medicaid cuts will lead to preventable deaths. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin made a statement denouncing Ernst’s video Saturday.

“Thoughts and prayers have a new meaning for the Republican Party with Joni Ernst doubling down on her cruel words,” Martin said. “It is immoral and un-Christian to do nothing to prevent people from dying but unfortunately, Trump, Ernst, and the Republican Party are hellbent on putting their own constituents at risk.”

Iowa’s junior U.S. senator is far from the only Republican facing backlash for their support of the budget reconciliation bill that includes substantial federal funding cuts to public assistance programs. GOP members of Congress nationwide have faced fiery crowds at public events for months, met by shouts and jeers from constituents upset about actions taken by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service and potential cuts to public assistance programs including Medicaid as well as veterans’ benefits and Social Security.

Several Iowans who depend on Medicaid for themselves or their family also decried Ernst’s comments. Patrick Kearns, a registered nurse at the Iowa City VA Medical Center who has two adult children with disabilities on Medicaid, said he wished he was surprised by Ernst’s comments, but that he was not. Kearns said he believes Ernst’s comments reflect how many Republicans view people on Medicaid, pointing to Elon Musk, a former special government employee in the Trump administration, making social media posts referring to people on federal aid programs as a “parasite class.”

“She accidentally said the quiet part out loud … People are going to die, and why are we bothering to keep these folks alive?” Kearns said. “And I mean, (to say) that I’m horrified by it is pretty mild, but I guess the worst part of it is that I’m not surprised.”

Ernst and other Republicans have presented the changes to Medicaid as a means to stop waste, fraud and abuse in the system, and limit the public health coverage to people in need through restrictions like work requirements. At the Friday town hall, Ernst pointed to “illegals that are receiving Medicaid benefits” and unemployed adults who do not have disabilities as the people being removed from Medicaid through the GOP tax and spending bill.

“What we do need to do is make sure that those that are part of a vulnerable population have access to Medicaid and receive those full benefits,” Ernst said. “So what we’re trying to do is strengthen Medicaid by directing the dollars to the people that actually meet the requirements of the program.”

Kearns said he doesn’t believe the people Ernst says are abusing the Medicaid system exist, though he does think there is major fraud and misuse of Medicaid funds happening through large health provider and insurance companies. The Medicaid cuts will not target entities or individuals actually abusing the system, Kearns said, but instead push people in need to drop out of the system by adding new barriers in getting coverage.

Kearns said he and his wife are “relatively savvy” through education and years of working in the Medicaid system — but that “every time one of those quarter-inch thick envelopes arrives from from the state, we’re like, ‘oh my God.’”

Receiving Medicaid is already an arduous process for the people it is intended to serve — and adding new requirements will only make getting care more difficult for these populations, he said.

“The idea that somebody that’s able-bodied and able to work would put themselves through the process to enroll in Medicaid, I think it’s laughable,” Kearns said. “… Folks that have disabilities or that have severe medical problems that necessitate them going into long-term care or whatever else — they need social workers to help marshal them through that system. This is not something that you know the general person off the street can do.”

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.

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Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner On Iowa Press

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Trish Nelson

Janice Weiner

As of this posting, the transcript was not available on the Iowa Press page.  Here is a snippet from the conversation. Video below.

Erin Murphy:

The governor was sitting in that chair last week and she told us that she would like to see the pesticide bill make it to her desk in hopes that that can still happen in the future. That bill passed the Iowa Senate with Republican support, was not considered in the Iowa House yet again. Democrats voted against that. Is that a debate you assume you’ll be having again next year?

Janice Weiner: I hope not… because we’ve already seen it 2 years in a row and it passed the senate on a razor thin margin…I heard what the governor said and she’s entitled to her opinion but she’s not entitled to her own facts. And the fact is this bill is not just about labeling. It’s about holding foreign pesticide companies harmless, and we should not take away Iowans’ day in court. And I think that’s why we saw it stall yet again.

Murphy:  The common pushback on that is if this product continues to face lawsuits and is ultimately pulled from the shelves it’s going to put Iowa farmers in a very difficult position. Do you not share that concern?

Weiner:  The product is not going to go away. There are already generic versions. There’s a lot of opportunity out there on the market. The product is not going anywhere.

 

Posted in Blog for Iowa | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Robert Reich On Medicaid Work Requirements

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Dave Bradley

Here is an oldie (looks like 2019) that is still SO relevant (2 minutes)

This may come as a real surprise to many of the MAGA congress members spouting the “waste, fraud and abuse” BS but most people who are enrolled in Medicaid are already working. As a matter of fact I recall that just a few years ago Medicaid was Walmart’s medical benefit for its “associates” or employees since pay was so low they could qualify.

As you have heard me scream over and over and over we could simply save so much more money and lives if we simply went to universal health care. You would think that if MAGAs were as sincere about wanting to save money they would be 100% for universal health care. So you can discard any thoughts that MAGAs want to save money and lives. That is theater.

Since we are currently stuck in the MAGA version of reality which is truly divorced from true reality, I shall turn to Robert Reich to put some true reality around the MAGA call for work requirements. This should be required reading for any MAGA congress critter:

Right now, the Senate is taking up Trump’s “Big Beautiful Budget Bill” (really a Big Bad Ugly bill) that just emerged from the House.

If enacted, it would be the largest redistribution of income in the nation’s history — from the poor and working class to the rich and super-rich.

How? The tax cut mainly benefits the wealthy. A major source of funding is at least $715 billion of cuts in health care spending, mostly from Medicaid. 

<< snip >>

The bill cuts Medicaid spending by requiring Medicaid recipients to work.

Republicans are spreading lies about this work requirement.

Here are the facts you need to know — and share:

1. 64 percent of adult Medicaid recipients already work.

Many recipients work in jobs that don’t typically offer health insurance and pay little — which makes Medicaid vital. These people aren’t freeloaders mooching off the system, as Republicans claim. They’re barely scraping by.

2. Adults on Medicaid who aren’t working have good reasons not to.

— 12 percent are primary caregivers.

— 10 percent have an illness or disability.

— 7 percent are attending school.

3. So, 93 percent of all Medicaid recipients are either already working or have good reason not to.

The entire work requirement would affect 7 percent at most. In reality, a work requirement would cause many more who are now eligible for Medicaid to lose their Medicaid coverage. The current estimate is at least 8.6 million people.

4. The work requirement kicks eligible people off Medicaid because of its burdensome and confusing reporting requirements.

It’s not really meant to put people to work. It’s a shady way of kicking people off Medicaid to fund tax cuts mainly for the wealthy.

In Arkansas, which tried a work requirement for Medicaid, more than 18,000 people who were eligible lost their coverage when the work requirement was put in place, mainly because of the paperwork reporting hoops they had to jump through.

5. When Arkansas enacted work requirements, there was no significant change in employment rates.

Because, again, Medicaid recipients already have high rates of employment to begin with.

6. If Republicans really want to put people to work, they’d make it easier to get Medicaid — not harder.

After Ohio expanded Medicaid, enrollees had an easier time finding and holding down a job.

Access to health care means people can manage chronic conditions, afford medication, and receive mental health treatment — all of which help people keep their jobs.

Republicans are spouting lies about a work requirement for Medicaid because they’re really trying to push eligible people off it — to help finance their big tax cut mainly for the rich.

Remember: Senate Republicans can afford to lose only three Republican votes. Otherwise, the Big Bad Ugly bill is dead. Please share these facts, and make sure the bill dies.

Call your senators ASAP. Be sure to call their local offices. You are more likely to get through to talk to a live person

Here is Ernst’s contact page: https://www.ernst.senate.gov/contact

Here is Grassley’s contact page: https://www.grassley.senate.gov/contact/

Posted in #trumpresistance, Budget | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Robert Reich On Medicaid Work Requirements

Sunday Funday: It Is Pride Month Edition

Posted on June 1, 2025 by Dave Bradley

40 seconds:

So a year ago Stinky Pants was a freshly convicted criminal with 34 convictions of (I believe) falsifying business records. Today he is president actively taking bribes for various things. This week there seemed to be a sale on pardons. The going price seemed to be a million bucks for a pardon. 

Just an observation: I don’t think this is what the founding fathers had in mind nearly 250 years ago. 

Enjoy gay pride festivals this year. It could be the last year they occur as we go deeper into the fascist nightmare – who knows? We all thought the country would never elect a convict.

Keep the faith!

A) Joni Ernst made national headlines Friday morning when she dismissed a question about cutting Medicaid with what five word answer?

B)  June 1st was the date that Stinky Pants announced there would be a 50% tariff on goods coming from where? Then he quickly extended that date days later.

C) According to Junior Kennedy the CDC will no longer recommend what for healthy children and pregnant women?

D) Hey! Iowa and Nebraska joined the list of states afflicted with what highly contagious disease that is spreading quickly across the nation?

E) TACO was an acronym making the social media rounds this week. What does TACO stand for?

F) Where does the term “lesbian” come from?

G) The administration set a goal last week to arrest how many people a day on immigration violations?

H) The legislature has done its damage. Now Kimmer has until what date to sign bills into law?

I) It is June. This is the month when what body slowly announces its decisions?

J) What do Paul Walczak, the Crisleys, Scott Jenkins and Larry Hoover have in common? 

K) What country was the first to recognize same sex marriages?

L) In a sad commentary on America, one of the most commonly shoplifted items in America is what baby item?

M) Many cybertruck owners report having their trucks knocked out of service when they do what common activity?

N) Let’s see – Musk got $8 million per day. He was in government for 130 days. So he took us for how much?

O) Parliament opened in Ottawa, Canada last week. It was especially noteworthy because who dropped by to lead the opening ceremonies?

P) In what year did same sex marriage become legal nationwide in the US?

Q) The dumbest person in congress, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, announced he will run for Alabama governor in 2026. What must he do now?

R) Not pardoned yet but being considered certain to be pardoned soon are two men from Michigan who tried to carry out a kidnapping of who?

S) The first same sex marriage in the US took place in what major city? (Hint: think of the revolution)

T) Finally, Texas state police are using license plate scanner information from across the US to find a young woman accused of doing what?

I could have never conceived that the U.S. President would be far more aggressive against a great university than he would be against a Russian dictator engaged in invading a U.S. ally. Why is it smart to starve cancer research, students on financial aid, innovation in public education and brilliant young people whose dream was to come to America while holding out the prospect of business deals to Vladimir Putin? I cannot imagine. – Lawrence H. Summers, President Emeritus at Harvard

Answers:

A) “We’re all going to die”

B) goods coming from the EU

C) covid vaccines. Remember how badly trump screwed covid up last time?

D) measles

E) Trump Always Chickens Out

F) from the island of Lesbos where the poet Sappho lived

G) 3,000

H) June 14th

I) the Supreme Court

J) All were pardoned by Stinky Pants last week. ( there seems to possibly be some “donations” to Trump involved)

K) The Netherlands

L) baby formula – yet MAGAs want to cut SNAP and Medicaid to give the rick more tax breaks

M) take their trucks through a car wash. 

N) over $1 billion. Nice part time job.

O) King Charles – the focus is on decoupling from the US

P) 2015

Q) Move into Alabama. His residence seems to be in Florida

R) Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer

S) Philadelphia

T) performing a self-induced abortion.

trump is now selling a one-on-one meeting with him for $5 million…where tf is Congress??? – covie

Posted in #trumpresistance, Humor | Comments Off on Sunday Funday: It Is Pride Month Edition

Just A Year Ago Yesterday (May 30, 2024)

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Dave Bradley

image captured from democraticunderground.com

In dizzying speed the mainstream press then did an about face and focused on President Biden’s age.

In less than two months Biden withdrew from the race. Trump’s felony convictions by then were pretty much an after thought. 

Posted in #trumpresistance, Biden-Harris, Blog for Iowa | Comments Off on Just A Year Ago Yesterday (May 30, 2024)

Hey, MAGAs, Here’s Some Places To Find Money

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Dave Bradley

(11 minutes) – Paul Krugman answers questions for Canadian TV:

I refuse to give the current president any ground by calling his extreme right wish list bill what he calls it, we must discuss it since it will be the centerpiece of the current administration and probably the centerpiece of the next congressional elections. This bill is big, ugly and brutal.

The whole concept is to find enough “savings” in our current federal budget so they can justify giving huge tax cuts to those who need it least – the wealthy. While I can barely read a budget or a spreadsheet, I do get a newsletter from some highly informed and educated economists who can read budgets and make recommendations on them.

About a week ago, Paul Krugman’s newsletter had several great suggestions where large chunks of money can be saved. So I will now crib from Krugman’s substack of May 23rd:

But Congress could and should do more. You don’t have to be a deficit fetishist, a fiscal scold — which I definitely am not — to realize that even before the Budget of Abominations America was on an unsustainable fiscal path. So what will it take to get back to a tolerable fiscal position?

It’s a cliché to say that doing this will require making hard choices, that ordinary Americans will have to make sacrifices. And maybe that’s true. What strikes me about where we are now, however, is that we could vastly improve our fiscal position with a series of easy choices — actions that would mainly spare the middle class and only hurt people most Americans probably believe deserve to feel a bit of pain. So here are four things we could and should be doing.

First, get Americans — mainly wealthy Americans — to pay the taxes they owe. The net tax gap — taxes Americans are legally obliged to pay but don’t — is simply huge, on the order of $600 billion a year. We can never get all of that money back, but giving the IRS enough resources to crack down on wealthy tax cheats would be both fiscally and morally responsible, since letting people get away with cheating on their taxes rewards bad behavior and makes law-abiding taxpayers look and feel like chumps.

Republicans are, of course, doing the opposite: They’re starving the IRS of resources and trying to make tax evasion great again. Why, it’s almost as if cheats and grifters are their sort of people.

Second, crack down on Medicare Advantage overpayments. Currently, much of Medicare is run through insurance companies whose payments from the government are based on the health status of their clients — the sicker the people they cover, and hence the higher their likely medical bills, the more the insurance companies receive. Unfortunately, insurers game the system, finding ways to make their clients look less healthy than they really are, and thereby get overpaid.

We’re talking a lot of money here. A Center for American Progress estimate found that

“Medicare is at risk of overpaying [Medicare Advantage] plans between $1.3 trillion and $2 trillion over the next decade”

Third, go after corporate tax avoidance. Much of this involves multinational firms using strategies that are shady and dishonest but legal to make profits actually earned in the United States disappear and reappear in low-tax nations like Ireland.

In 2017 Gabriel Zucman estimated that such maneuvers were costing the U.S. Treasury around $70 billion annually. The number is probably bigger now. There are several strategies that could limit these losses; ideally, major economies would cooperate to crack down both on corporate misbehavior and the nations that enable it.

Finally, we should just get rid of Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut. That tax cut wasn’t a response to any economic needs, and there’s not a shred of evidence that it did the economy any good. All it did was transfer a lot of money to corporations and the wealthy. Let’s end those giveaways.

Four incredibly simple and fairly easily implemented actions that would greatly either increase revenue of decrease outflow. 

Most people do not understand that the “waste, fraud and abuse” that MAGA politicians are constantly spewing is not some individual lone wolves tapping the till. Nope, it is for the most part giant insurance corporations abusing the rules to defraud the Medicare system. Florida Senator Rick Scott’s company was one of the prime examples in the late 1990s.

 

If MAGAs were really serious about the deficit it is long past time for them to step up and tax the people who are most responsible for the debt – the wealthy – and set up ways to collect the taxes. Eisenhower would be proud.

Posted in #trumpresistance, Budget | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Hey, MAGAs, Here’s Some Places To Find Money

The Opposite Of DEI 

Posted on May 31, 2025 by Dave Bradley

(1:45) Pete Buttigieg does a great job of explaining what the opposite of DEI is:

You must understand that when someone says they are against DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) they are in effect saying that they are in favor of the opposite concepts. As Mr. Buttigieg states in the above video, that would be Uniformity, Inequity and Exclusion.

When the current president took over he created an Executive Order to abolish DEI in the federal government. In effect, the current president was making Uniformity, Inequity and Exclusion the policy of the federal government. We have been down this road before, haven’t we.

Where in the constitution does it mention UIE? The constitution was supposedly written as rules for our government not as a sociological guide. One of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, is most. Well known for the phrase “All men are created equal.” We have spent the better part of 250 years trying to bring those concepts to life.

With his EO the current president has turned back the clock to the 19th century – or at least that is what he is attempting to do. Much of the corporate world seems to be in lockstep with the current president as he attempts to end DEI. Some are now finding that loyalty to be a bad decision.

What made me think of the ramifications of ending DEI was a little statement Congress Member Ashley Hinson dropped in her town hall at Elkader last Wednesday. When asked about her vote to cut Medicaid, Hinson made that “othering” statement – “some people aren’t deserving.” 

While some may take that as a statement of rules, my reaction was to immediately take it as a general assessment of society in the US – some people because of their skin color, gender, religion, zip code, whatever should not be included in society. Banning DEI is another way of saying the same thing.

In the case of corporations embracing the MAGA UIE policies are seeing that cut into their bottom lines. Well, by backing UIE they are telling a segment – a rather large segment – of their clientele that they are not wanted. How’s that working out Target? Continuing to support DEI appears to be working well for companies like Costco.

The other reason this came to mind is that we are about to enter June. June has for the most of this century been celebrated as Gay Pride month. Surely the current president will do all he can to throw a wet blanket on the proceedings, but it probably won’t slow things down a bit.

Gay people, their families and loved ones make up a sizable segment of the US population. With a president who is doing all he can to stop international trade, will corporations get behind his discriminating against gays, their families and friends? Sure seems like a very misguided policy.

Party on, says I.

Let me end with one last plea. We are more than a century behind the rest of the world in opening up health care to our citizens. There should never be some idiot congress member making a statement as to someone being “deserving” of health care. Health care should be a right as a human, period.

And aș for that “waste, fraud and abuse” that MAGAs are trumpeting that they are after. If they want to find it they should start looking in the corporate books of for profit hospitals, nursing homes, health care clinics and insurance companies. Bet that is where you will find 99% of the “waste, fraud and abuse.”

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How Volunteers Are Defending Iowa Lakes

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Trish Nelson

Iowa Driftless Water Defenders asked for volunteers to visit one of Iowa’s endangered lakes over Memorial Day weekend and make a video about their personal relationship to the lake in order to highlight the loss of Iowa’s public waters to pollution and call for the end of our #NoSwimEra.

From Driftless FB page:

Max, who’s been running the concession and boat rental at George Wyth Lake for about 10 years, has noticed a huge downturn in the number of people at the beach lately.


The 48 Lakes Initiative is a Driftless Water Defenders project, with help from:

Progress Iowa
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement
Food & Water Watch Iowa
and volunteer reporters all over Iowa

If you would like to participate in the 48 Lakes Initiative, they are still seeking volunteers.  This will be a summer long effort. 

Driftless Water Defenders | 504 E. Bloomington St, Iowa City, IA 52245 | (319)-541-4240 | admin@driftlesswaterdefenders.com

For more volunteer videos go to Driftless Water Defenders on Facebook.
Visit their website at https://www.driftlesswaterdefenders.com
Follow on Twitter and Instagram
#48Lakes #NoSwimEra

Make a donation

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Ashley Hinson Booed At Elkader Town Hall

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Trish Nelson

Hinson reading prepared statement praising Donald Trump.

Elkader is:

78 miles from Cedar Rapids
74 miles from Waterloo
57 miles from Dubuque
42 miles from Decorah
140 miles from Grinnell
114 miles from Tama-Toledo

The lying was so egregious it almost made me swoon.  The crowd was super polite considering  they were being lied to so much. “Without this (big beautiful) bill you would be much worse off,” she said.

Hinson making a fast exit at end of town hall in Elkader

The town hall was 50 minutes long. She escaped as soon and as quickly as she could, making a zippy exit at the end reminiscent of  Miller-Meeks smashing the elevator button to get away from a questioner.  KCRG-TV9 reported they attempted to talk to her after the meeting but she was unavailable.

Elkader is out in the sticks of Iowa, no offense to Elkader. It’s a nice town. But obviously the event was located as far away as they could get from the population centers of the district.

I saw some commentary from folks who were there that Ashley used a good chunk of time reading a prepared statement instead of answering questions. From what I saw on the live stream, she was reading the prepared statement as fast as she could and did not let outbursts from the crowd stop her. Commenters also said as the town hall went on,  it seemed like a lot of questioners were plants throwing softball questions. I suppose they relied on their tele-town hall model of hand-picked questions from people they know.

Talk about control freaks.

I find it hilarious and pathetic that Republicans make it sound like their offices are so welcoming and efficient, helping callers.  But most people I know who call report leaving messages and no one ever getting back to them or if they do it’s a form letter.  In fact that’s exactly what one of the town hall attendees said when he got the mic. But when they are getting local media coverage, it’s “Oh, just call our office and we’ll be happy to help you and I’ll be happy to follow up on that.” That’s what she told a person who was worried about losing her Medicaid. We didn’t mean you. Just those other undeserving people who will be losing their health care, not you. There is a lot of fear-mongering going on, she said. Democrats are lying about Trump’s BBB.

I don’t know if the town hall actually started before the video started because she was already talking when it began. At about 7 minutes into her prepared statement which was of course full of untruths, blaming Democrats and the previous administration, and praising Donald Trump’s big beautiful bill (that she was proud to vote for!), the crowd started calling for her to go to questions. Eventually, she did but I didn’t last past her first smooth, GOP talking-point answer to a person (obviously a non-plant) who asked,

“I have watched Donald Trump sign executive orders that are illegal and against our constitution. I have watched Donald Trump berate and condemn judges who did not decide in his favor. What are you going to do to protect these judges from Trump’s vindictiveness?”

Blah, blah, blah, she replied, without intonation.

The crowd jeered and booed her some, but not near what she deserved.

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