Lies and the lying liars…
The person in the video reminding Miller-Meeks that the last time they spoke she lied to his face about no Medicaid cuts, is Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works.
Call Miller-Meeks’ office. A great, easy to use calling app. is 5calls where you can call one rep. or all four reps. and senators.
Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121
DC Direct: (202) 225-6576
Davenport: (563) 232-0930
Indianola: (515) 808-6040
sageforsenate.com
I attended the Nathan Sage town hall event last night in Iowa City at Big Grove Brewery. Nathan Sage is a Democrat running to defeat Joni Ernst. His website boasts:
“Raised in a trailer park in Mason City. mechanic, marine, veteran, sports broadcaster, Knoxville Chamber president, husband and father.”
Now that’s a guy that can win. I counted heads and I’d say there were close to 100 people in the room. The crowd didn’t look like your typical Iowa City crowd and that is good, I think (although there were a few of us typical Iowa Citians there).
Clean water and equal opportunity were two of several themes. Ernst has left veterans behind. Congress is made up of millionaires. Working people need a seat at the table. All good.
My impression was this. He is plain spoken, and unpretentious. He grew up in small town Iowa and has seen hard times. He doesn’t use political-speak, he talks like a regular person. Not the way Rs say Trump talks like a regular person. Sage talks like a sane, reality based, regular person.
He is a Democrat who is meeting the moment we are in. I hope his candidacy takes off. He is one regular Iowan who has had enough, just like the rest of us.
ACLU Know Your Rights Training
Before you hit the streets- join our know your rights training on June 10th at 7 PM ET.
On June 14th, while President Trump’s military parade takes place in the capitol, communities across the country will mobilize en masse for the No Kings national day of action– standing in bold defiance of any attacks on our rights.
This moment builds on the energy of Hands Off! and May Day mobilizations, uniting people in every corner of the country- rural and urban, red states and blue, and everything in between.
Together, we’ll send a powerful message: We reject authoritarianism and we will not stand by as our freedoms are eroded. The power of the people is- and always will be stronger than the people in power.
Before you mobilize- join our Know Your Rights Training. This training will prepare you to show up safely and confidently at this nonviolent action. Whether you’re marching, rallying, or supporting from the sidelines, you’ll learn how to protect yourself, your community, and stand up for your rights.
At this training, we’ll make sure you:
Join our know your rights training and together we will build the knowledge and strength to take nonviolent action on June 14th and beyond.
Because when we know our rights, we can defend them. Let’s get ready.
Notice of Accessibility: The ACLU strives to create inclusive and accessible events that enable all individuals to fully engage with its programming. For this event, we are providing ASL and live closed-captioning services.
Not as if we didn’t know this was coming. The question was just how to sell it and when to do it. But we all knew that the tariffs that King Donald is using to create mass confusion throughout the world and I would suggest the tool he is using to manipulate stock markets would be passed on to us.
Tariffs are taxes. These taxes will be passed on to the consumer. It will be a regressive tax on those least able to pay – the poor and middle class. The wealthy will find ways to avoid these taxes just as they do most of our taxes. Corporations will use the broad cover of ‘tariffs’ to raise prices almost certainly beyond that justified by any tariff if a tariff really applies
1.5 minutes:
You can bet that now that someone has breeched to dam there will be a torrent of other retailers rushing through the breech in a flood of price raising.
Will there be any collusion on the price raises? Well, with only a few major companies in every category it is not too hard for information on prices to be acquired.
You may want to consider starting your Christmas shopping early, like now. You know prices will be considerably higher before Christmas and with Trump’s yo-yo negotiating with himself, who knows what may or may not be on the store shelves come November and December.
By the way – remember the reason why we are importing so much? Do you remember Ronald Reagan and his so-called ‘Reagan Revolution?’ That was the period when the government was turned over to the wealthy and the corporations. Remember how unions in the private sector were stripped of any power.
One way to dump unions and their wages was to simply close up shop in the US and either move their factory overseas or hire other companies to do their core work overseas and import it back to US.
So corporations screwed us back in the 80s and 90s and now they are set to do it again in the 2020s. Thanks, Republicans!
Pramilla Jayapal (D- Wash) summarizes how bad the cuts are (1 minute)
Thom Hartmann has a real way of making hard to understand concepts pretty straight forward. In his daily letter for Wednesday, Hartmann explained how MAGA lawmakers are more than willing to take medical care away from 14 million Americans so they can increase handouts ( handouts, folks, think of that!) to the wealthiest among us.
“Here we are again, my friend, watching the age-old story play out before our eyes. The Republicans are preparing to hand out trillions in tax cuts to their billionaire benefactors, and how do they plan to pay for this latest giveaway to the oligarchy? By ripping healthcare away from 13.7 million Americans, including millions of our most vulnerable seniors who depend on Medicaid for their very survival.
But this isn’t just about healthcare policy. This is about the fundamental question that’s defined America since the New Deal: Are we a society that believes in the common good, or are we returning to the brutal Social Darwinism of the Gilded Age?
Let’s remember how we got here. For most of our post-war history, America operated on a simple principle that both parties understood: we take care of each other. This wasn’t socialism or communism; it was basic human decency codified into law.
When Lyndon Johnson signed Medicaid into law in 1965, he wasn’t just creating a healthcare program. He was affirming that in the wealthiest nation in human history, no American should have to choose between medical care and bankruptcy, between their medication and their mortgage, between living and dying because of the size of their paycheck or bank account.
But then came the Reagan Revolution, and with it, the poisonous idea that “government is the problem,” that the market is a god who must be obeyed (and is owned and run by the morbidly rich), and that every person should fend for themselves in the raw jungle of unregulated capitalism.
That’s when we began dismantling the social contract that made America great.
Here’s what the corporate media won’t tell you: Medicaid isn’t just for the “undeserving poor”; it’s the backbone of our system of long-term care for American seniors.
Our beloved Medicare doesn’t cover nursing home care: Medicaid does. In fact, Medicaid pays for 63 percent of all nursing home care in this country.”
This huge cut and cuts to food programs, schools and other communally supported programs are all done so that money spent for the bettering the whole community will instead be going into the pockets of those who need it least. Instead of bettering the health of the whole community Elon Musk gets a bigger yacht.
We are about to enter what I always call the “Patriotic Season.” It is that time of year when we celebrate the USA. MAGA politicians step out at the many events telling us how great they are and how much they love America even as they work tirelessly to undermine our form of government and turn it into an oligarchy.
Beginning in another week with Memorial Day our attention will be distracted by feelings of patriotism. MAGA politicians will be plying their trade with speeches meant to divide us so we can’t coalesce and fight their anti-American ideas. Look, this country was founded not on every person for themselves. What has turned America into the great country that it is is that we work together to solve problems that we can’e solve individually.
Through D-Day, Flag day (will Trump ruin it with an egotistical parade?), July 4th and then through the rest of the summer with town celebrations and county fairs we will celebrate America. As we do, give thought to what really made America great.
Was it our working together to solve problems such as epidemics, living conditions, transportation issues and a large variety of issues shared throughout the populace? Or was it letting individual amass fortune and power and whatever problems they felt like fixing?
We were birthed in community and it is only through community will we survive, grow and prosper. Oligarchy or authoritarianism as a form of government is antithetical to the US. As you celebrate this summer, remember how we got where we are. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Musk and Bezos are not what made America great. Nor is Trump.
Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com
5 minutes:
I have some questions, please?
Funny, I really haven’t seen the word BRIBE in the corporate media. I wonder why. Maybe they are hoping to fool us into believing it is not a BRIBE! Also, let us be sure to ask our congress members on what they plan to do about this BRIBE!
A) A great week for bad little boys. What former baseball player who was banned from the Hall of Fame for gambling had that ban lifted last week?
B) Here is one from next door to Iowa. The new mayor elected in Omaha is unusual for what two demographic reasons?
C) Who seemingly cynically said in a congressional appearance that “people should not get their medical advice from me”?
D) Which cabinet member is seriously considering backing a TV reality show where immigrants compete for a chance to become a US citizen?
E) What is unusual about Stinky Pant’s nominee for Surgeon General?
F) DHS announced Monday that TPS (Temporary Protected Status) will end for what group of aliens? Returning to their homeland may result in certain death.
G )The WNBA season kicked off this weekend. What WNBA star played to a sold out crowd last week for an exhibition game at her college in Eugene, Oregon?
H) Well the Iowa legislature closed up shop this week. Before doing so they took rights away from what minority group?
I) Speaking of minority groups, what group supposedly racially discriminated against in their home country are being brought to the US by Stinky Pants?
J) Because of the above group, what resettlement organization will no longer help resettle refugees in the US?
K) Homeland Security leader Noem has asked that National Guard troops be pressed into duty to do what?
L) Ukraine is not the only former Soviet territory facing a hostile Russia. While not at war yet, what former Soviet satellite is facing increasing hostility from Russia?
M) There was a lot of player movement in the WNBA’s off season. Where did former Iowa star Kate Martin end up?
N) Talk about the royal treatment. What was built for Stinky Pants and followed him around on his trip to the Middle East?
O) Now it is not just Newark’s airport having trouble. What other hub reported disconnection between planes in the air and air traffic controllers last week?
P) 8647 is a number that shows criticality of Stinky Pants. What former FBI director is now being investigated for putting a reference to that number in a social media post Thursday?
Q) The DOJ is investigating what health insurance behemoth for Medicare fraud?
R) What authors of an upcoming book trashing President Biden’s cognitive abilities have had to hire a crisis PR firm to help the rollout of their book?
S) Who is the WNBA’s all-time leading scorer? She just retired after last season
T) SCOTUS heard a case Thursday that questioned whether the 14th amendment actually confers what?
EVERYONE OUTSIDE OF AMERICA HAS ONE SINGLE QUESTION! WHY NOT STOP TRUMP AND THE CORRUPT TRAITORS WHO’S NOW BEHIND THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER AND DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA? WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE WAITING FOR?? DO YOU NEED MORE EVIDENCE? WAKE UP AMERICA. – Glenn Tunes, Norway
Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com
Answers:
A) Pete Rose – the lifetime ban was lifted because he is dead
B) First he is a Democrat and second he is the first black elected mayor in Omaha. He won by 13 points. The last election the Republican won by 30
C) RFK, jr.
D) Kristi Noem (is this what Hunger Games was about?)
E) She does not have a medical license and she is an internet influencer. Strange background for a Surgeon General
F) Afghans. If they are sent home they will most likely be killed
G) Sabrina Ionescu
H) Trans people
I) White farmers from South Africa
J) The Episcopal Church
K) to help in some yet undefined way on immigration
L) Poland
M) San Francisco Valkyries
N) A mobile McDonald’s with only one customer
O) Denver
P) James Comey. The DOJ claims Comey’s post was a death threat against Stinky Pants
Q) United Health Care – Finally! But I am betting it will be killed quietly
R) Jake Tapper and co-author Alex Thompson
S) Diana Taurasi
T) birth right citizenship.
Walmart CFO John David Rainey: “We’ve not seen a period where you’ve had prices go up this high, this quickly. We’re well equipped and experienced in dealing with price increases that are going up 2 or 3 percent, but not 30 percent.”
Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 15, 2025
Parker Williamson, Press Secretary
STATEMENT: Republican Trifecta Makes Iowa More Expensive. Again.
Des Moines, Iowa — Progress Iowa Executive Director Mazie Stilwell issued the following statement in response to the end of the 2025 legislative session:
“The GOP supermajority with near-complete control over our state government has failed to make life better for everyday Iowans. They had the chance to lower costs for families, but they chose corporations and culture wars. Iowans remember when our public schools were the best in the nation and freedom meant minding your own business. Instead of investing in public schools, feeding hungry kids, or making workers safer on the job, Gov. Reynolds and the GOP rushed bills over the finish line that took rights away from Iowans and made life harder for Iowa families. Iowa is now the first state in the nation to take civil rights protections away from their residents, students will now be shown dangerous disinformation in politicized classrooms, and, once again, the majority party reduced workers’ unemployment benefits in favor of big corporate tax breaks. Bottom line, the Iowa GOP is drunk on their power and have completely lost sight of making Iowans’ lives easier. Reynolds’ decision to retire is a blessing for Iowans. Not only is she out of touch with what Iowans need, she’s only made life in Iowa more difficult, more divisive, and more expensive.”
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Progress Iowa is the state’s progressive communications hub with a network that reaches nearly 100,000. We conduct research, develop winning messages, communicate with Iowans about critical policy issues, and empower people who want to improve our state.
I stumbled on this video while looking for something else. Seeing the name David Cay Johnston lured me in. I hadn’t checked in on Mr. Johnston for a while. I remembered how Johnston was often the only one who was screaming “The Emperor has no clothes” and had the photos to prove it.
So I tuned in and listened to the well sourced story of corruption after corruption by Mr. Johnston. His narrative was spell binding from beginning to end. Hope you have 26 minutes to listen to Johnston as he spells out how corrupt and venal Donald Trump is:
Now if you want to go in depth on the list of Trump corruption Senator Adam Schiff put up a 27 minute video Wednesday. The details will frankly astound you.
The information thatJohnston and Schiff are detailing are public knowledge. However, our MAGA owned media has chosen to mostly ignore the details or what they mean. Instead almost all of the media has been pointed toward telling a bullshit story of President Biden’s health. Distraction while our country is being destroyed. Way to go MAGA media.
And now for an Iowa connection. Last week, two Iowa politicians made headlines as they both made moves to become Iowa’s next governor.
On the one hand, Democrat Rob Sand has been Iowa’s State Auditor for 6 years. His tenure in office has been marked by outright hostility from the current governor and the MAGA super controlled legislature. You might remember Sand being the target of a bogus witch hunt earlier this month.
Sand has been a beacon of integrity in office. The MAGAs in the Iowa legislature were so scared of his integrity when he was first elected that they did all they could to strip any and all power from Sand. Having a guy who followed the law and would call out corruption could really cramp the MAGA style of governing.
On the MAGA side, do nothing congress member Randy Feenstra is strutting his stuff to the world expecting to waltz in and pick up the prize of the governorship. Problem is one of Feenstra’s main talents is to look the other way as Donald Trump lays waste to our laws and the constitution.
Do any search of Randy Feenstra and you will find he lines up 100% with a president who incited an insurrection against our democracy. Feenstra is more than ready to end any and all safety net programs at the drop of a word from Trump. As a congress member he will take away Social Security from the elderly and food from the mouth of babes.
We grew up in an Iowa where a politician was measured by their honesty and integrity. Their concern for the people of Iowa was the utmost concern. Feenstra is measured by his allegiance to a criminal, a liar who is openly and illegally soliciting bribes. Feenstra says nothing. Best I can figure he approves of Trump’s behavior no matter how corrupt.
Is Feenstra the kind of leader Iowans want? A person who will close his eyes to injustice and criminality as long as his side wins? I would surely hope not. But it is really easy to see who Feenstra lines up with and where his loyalty lies. It is not with the people of Iowa.
Your vote is precious. Spend it wisely.
On the Trump administration: “I don’t think they’ll succeed in that effort.”
Rant alert! No problem if you decide to skip my rant. I will not be offended in any way. But still do yourself a favor and watch Trevor Noah’s video below. I happen to agree 100%.
During that painful time when Democrats started falling for the “cognitive decline” media narrative about President Biden I kept trying to tell people, there’s a difference between being old and having dementia. He does not have dementia. And when did ageism become okay?
I’m not an expert on dementia but I know a little something about it, having been a counselor in a nursing home. Joe Biden does not have dementia. When we get older our brains work more slowly, but that doesn’t mean it’s dementia. It can just take longer to respond or think of a word or phrase.
Biden is a guy who can push out a lot of information on just one question. He talks fast and he has to compensate for a life long stutter which he largely overcame. For someone like him in particular, it could be difficult to think of everything you want to say, order it, and remember all your points in a time limited debate situation, for example. Standing next to a madman and trying to make sense of Trump’s insane gibberish is not really humanly possible. Especially with no help from the moderators who acted like nothing was wrong and would not referee. But that wasn’t dementia and it didn’t mean Biden wasn’t doing a good job of governing.
For every person supposedly in his inner circle that was “concerned,” there were others who said he was still sharp as a tack. I saw that too. He was a hard working president who by all accounts kept a grueling schedule.
I think he had enemies.
This is just my observation but some of the most outspoken among the early anti-Biden crowd were former presidential campaign managers – 2 Ds, one R – Carville, Axelrod, Steve Schmidt. I think they were all jealous of Biden’s success and brains. He was still relevant as President of the United States, the most powerful person on earth, while they were relegated to podcasts. Am I being petty and small? So be it. It’s the way of the world, apparently.
Here’s what I believe happened. This is not based on anything I can provide links to, just my opinion. Joe Biden wasn’t going to run for re-election but then started re-thinking it when he realized how devastating it would be if we lost to Trump in 2024. I believe that he believed he was the only one who could beat Trump. I don’t think this was ego. I think it was clear he was the only one who could do it and Republicans thought so too because they were doing their best to destroy him. He had already beaten Trump once. He has said on recent interviews he believes he would have won and I have no reason to doubt that. In 2020 Biden beat Trump by 7 million votes. And this time he would have been running as the incumbent President of the United States.
Yes yes I know, there was polling the media couldn’t stop talking about 24-7, and he sometimes looked kind of frail (which the media made sure we saw). Then everyone freaked out during the debate because as a sane person, Biden kind of froze up trying to come up with an on the spot coherent response to Trump’s insane gibberish on the debate stage.
Democrats panicked and saw all of this through the eyes of Fox News. I’m not saying they watch Fox News necessarily, just that right wing propaganda being dominant in our media ecosystem, it’s sometimes hard even for us to not see things through their eyes, how we know they will frame it. I find myself doing it all the time. Propaganda doesn’t just divide people, it divides brains.
So what do Democrats say following the debate? Not how impossibly, unspeakably bad it would be to have a man like Trump in the White House again, which would have been a super easy case to make. What do Democrats do? Have his back, point at how insane Trump’s ramblings were? Nope. Seemed like it didn’t even occur to the smart party leaders, to be like hey what would happen if we all just had his back and pointed out what a good job he’d been doing and how horrible Trump would be, so horrible Liz Cheney a fellow Republican toured the country telling anyone who would listen that we would not survive a second Trump presidency. And she was drawing huge crowds for this, even in Iowa. And so far, just past Trump’s first 100 days, she could still be right. It is not at all clear democracy will survive four years of Trump.
No, we decide that Biden was the one who was unacceptable, “awful” in fact, I saw one Iowa state senator post on Twitter. Real helpful. Never mind that he was sick that night and probably taking a cold medicine known to temporarily hamper cognitive functioning particularly in old people. Where was that famous democratic empathy for our president? Nowhere to be found. I was sick at heart when I saw some Iowa Democrats, local electeds and candidates for congress, publicly call for Biden to step down as if it was any of their business or as if it would help their campaigns. All the cool kids were doing it.
Listening to DC consultants is something that will hopefully, change as Ken Martin and the current DNC leadership are committing an unprecedented amount of money to state parties going forward. That is a good change for our party.
But I digress.
As Ann Selzer has pointed out in a different conversational context, most polls are commissioned by media companies looking for a certain slant, story, or a continuation of a narrative that gets them the most eyeballs. I believe the media went after Biden because he called out White House press corps and national reporters for doing a crappy job. They deserved it and they knew it. But they got defensive and punished him for it. And Democrats did not have his back. They said he should stop “picking fights” with the media.
Howard Dean went down the same way. It wasn’t the scream, as everyone thinks, although that helped. It was the fact that he stated on Hardball with Chris Matthews that his first act as president would be to break up big media.
The majority of Iowans including Republicans polled in 2022, said they did not want Chuck Grassley to run for U.S. Senate again because of his advanced age (Grassley is nine years older than Biden). We all know how that turned out. Grassley won handily. Just because respondents answered that particular question that way, didn’t mean they weren’t going to vote for him. I believe Joe Biden would have won too. At very least, he had a better chance than Kamala Harris had having been thrown into the race at the last minute after an intra-party knock down drag out fight. I’m guessing millions of Americans could not even name the vice-president.
I knew when Biden announced he was stepping down we were going to lose. It was a loser move on our part. He did the right thing. By then he had no choice. His party had turned against him. After everything he had done for the country, after Trump 1.0. we forced out a perfectly good president and risked electing Trump because we panicked and bought into a media narrative that was highly questionable.
Just goes to show you we can all be affected by the media whose best thing is making relatively minor issues huge and huge issues trivial. Are we all just sheep after all?
I’ll just say one more thing. All we needed was to get Biden over the finish line. Just get to November and after that, he could have stepped down if he was unable to do his job, which no one had been able to point to a single incident of him failing to do his job.
I’m still a loyal Democrat. I don’t feel cynical about our party. Democrats are well meaning people. We all have our disappointments and disagreements with each other. I write this to document how I feel we get played by the media and in the hope it doesn’t happen again.
We now have an anti-democracy Trump regime to fight. But maybe moving forward we can benefit from the wisdom and humor of Trevor Noah who respects his elders.
Blog For Iowa 