What if gerrymandering is a problem better solved by mathematicians and computer scientists than politicians and political scientists? What if we could move to a system that didn’t consider race or partisanship at all — one that had no pre-assigned winners and losers, costly litigation or drag-out fights in state capitals?
districts be convenient and contiguous, preserve the integrity of political subdivisions like counties and cities, and to the extent consistent with other requirements, reasonably compact.
Much of the nation has been overwhelmed by the composure and courage of the students from Marjory Steadman Douglas High School. The courage they have shown in the face of the usual intimidating practices of NRA politicians and other stooges has been amazing. Courage that has been sadly lacking in all previous iterations of America’s unique disease of mass gun violence.
Everyone has been amazed except for their teacher, Jeff Foster. Mr. Foster is an AP government teacher at MSD High. Among the subjects in his course are special interest groups including the NRA.
Many of the high-profile Stoneman Douglas seniors are in the same AP United States Government and Politics program this year, helmed by Jeff Foster, who helped create the AP government curriculum for the entire Broward County Public Schools system.
Foster is going on 20 years teaching AP government classes. He worked in finance for a few years before his mother suggested he try substitute teaching. He fell in love with it and went on to get his masters in education.
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On the day of the shooting, Foster taught the AP Gov students about special interest groups, like the NAACP, American Medical Association, and the National Rifle Association. His lesson plan that day included a discussion about the Columbine and Sandy Hook school shootings, with emphasis on how every politician comes out afterward a tragedy to say the right thing about changing gun regulation. The students learned how the NRA goes to work as soon news reporters and the public move on to the next story.
“That’s not the NRA’s fault, that’s our fault,” Foster says. “We lose attention and that’s why interest groups run the country. If it’s not the NRA then it’s another group.”
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The following day the students were scheduled to have a test on the special interest chapter. The exam was supposed to include a free response question asking students what techniques the NRA used to be successful. The students were supposed to discuss how the NRA used mass mobilization, campaign contributions, and litigation to push their agenda forward.
Remember that even though Jeff Foster is an amazing teacher, every teacher that your children and grandchildren, your neighbor’s children and all the kids in your town encounter will have a lasting effect on them. Teachers that teach the critical thinking that will hopefully someday pull this country out of the control by the oligarchs.
Now, ask yourselves, are these the people we want handling guns in schools. Or, perhaps a better solution would be to limit access to guns and to engineer in safety solutions much as we have done to cars, other machinery and utilities like gas and electricity that if not handled properly can kill.
Kudos to Jeff Foster for preparing those young citizens to stand up to intimidation. Kudos to other teachers who labor under unreal expectations from politicians who live in fantasy worlds and yet are able to affect the lives of future citizens.
Steve Mnuchin, overlord of Dear Leader’s economy was heckled at UCLA last week. He asked that the video of the heckling not be made public. So we at blogforiowa.com feel that we should do our part to deny his request. Therefore here is at least a short news report of the incident.
There used to be a time in this country when hecklers were allowed to speak their mind in this country. Now they are dragged out by burly well-armed police for telling the Emperor that he has no clothes. Mnuchin so far is most famous for his insane fiscal policies, spending our money like a drunken student and impressing his trophy wife with some new bills just off the printer.
Things are just getting crazy anymore. I’d take a break, but the store might not be here when I get back.
Dear Leader only presidents part time. Right now his company is having some problems with a hotel in what country where owners are trying to break a contract with his company?
FBI counterintelligence is investigating a business deal done by what senior administration official in Vancouver?
“White lies matter” was the message as what high level administration resigned after admitting she lied for Dear Leader?
March 4th, 1918 – 100 years ago – the first case of what that would become a pandemic is recorded at Funston Army Camp, Kansas?
In a late night vote on Wednesday night Iowa senate republicans passed a banning abortions after how many weeks of pregnancy?
Jarvanka is a term meaning what?
”We have nothing to fear but fear itself” famously stated what American on this date in 1933?
Drivers Beware! California will be allowing what on their roads by April 2nd?
Taking a dive! What new surprise policy from Dear leader drove the stock market into a tailspin Thursday and Friday?
Rounding out their late Wednesday night rush of bills, Iowa senate republicans also voted for what tax cut in a state that can’t pay its bills?
What giant credit scoring company announced it had lowballed the number of victims of its huge screw up from last year?
Dear Leader is looking to the Supreme Court to stop what traditional power of the federal court system?
Facing a large budget cut, what cabinet department head came under fire for buy a $32,000 dining room set for his office?
Georgia threatened to pull tax breaks from what company when the company ended discounts for NRA members?
Crispus Attucks is the first to die on March 5, 1770 during what early British-American confrontation?
Since the shootings in Parkland, Florida Iowa has had how many threat incidents in their schools?
Who said he would have taken on the Parkland shooter even if he were unarmed?
What top administration official said that “abortion would end in our time” Tuesday?
Early primary turnout by Democrats in what state is sending shock waves through the Republican establishment?
How many states filed suit against the ACA claiming the new tax bill made it unworkable?
Answers:
Panama – it sounds like a goofy comedy movie down there
Ivanka Trump
Hope Hicks
The Spanish flu
6 weeks
It is a conglomeration of the first names of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump
FDR
True driverless cars (no human in vehicle to override)
Tariffs on steel and aluminum – or aluminium for our British readers
$1.5 Billion
Equifax – why hasn’t congress done a damn thing – oh never mind
The power to issue an injunction on a law or order such as the travel ban
Ben Carson at HUD
Delta Airlines
The Boston Massacre
13
Dear Leader (as one comment said he sounds like Captain Underpants)
Mike Pence
Texas
20 led by Wisconsin and Texas
once again thanks to EarlG at democraticunderground.com
One of the major problems of our over saturation of news and not so much news sources is that often much of what we are fed daily is a current update as if this is all happening in a vacuum unconnected to other current events or to events in history. Without tying many of these strings together into a narrative our current mess becomes a jumble of disorganized threads.
However, digging through similar threads in history can often bring clarity to the current mess and offer some insights as to where we are going.
With that in mind I stumbled across a couple of diaries at dailykos.com that really helped in understanding that the current administration is in one sense the continuation of rule by the elite that has gone on probably since time immemorial and in another sense perhaps the culmination of the drive to end the New Deal since FDR’s inaugural.
We need to understand this to make sense of some of the maneuvers that the Republican Party has made in the past several decades. These diaries also helps to make sense of why those who will suffer most under the rule of the elites will oftentimes be those who support them most.
During the 1936 U.S. election campaign, Dodd wrote a public letter warning that the defeat of Roosevelt’s programs would produce a fascist dictatorship financed by an American billionaire: “There are individuals of great wealth who wish a dictatorship….There are politicians who think they may gain powers like those exercised in Europe. One man, I have been told by friends, who owns nearly a billion dollars, is ready to support such a program and, of course, control it.”
The diarist then digs deep into a speech given by Ambassador Dodd where he uses historical examples to make sense of the turmoil in the world of the 1930s. The diarist has the whole speech in the diary but also pulls out some of the best quotes from Dodd:
With the breakdown of the old Roman democracy after the enormous success of the Punic Wars, great group leaders contending for personal and group advantages brought the Republic to the verge of collapse.
Governments from the top fail as often as those from the bottom; and every great failure brings a sad social reaction, thousands and millions of helpless men laying down their lives in the unhappy process. Why may not statesmen study the past and avoid such catastrophes?
No scheme has ever worked well more than a decade or two without popular support…
We must not think our generation is the only one that has suffered from violent economic and social disruptions.
In conclusion, one may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realise that no system, which implies control of society by privilege seekers, has ever ended in any other way than collapse.
In his second diary, War on Error follows the history of the attacks on the New Deal from FDR to the point now where New Deal programs are directly in the sight of today’s radical right progeny of the radical right of FDR’s era, through the 50s and down to today. Not surprisingly one of the threads throughout these decades is the perversion of religion.
The Family was founded in April 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant who made his living as a traveling preacher. One night, while lying in bed fretting about socialists, Wobblies, and a Swedish Communist who, he was sure, planned to bring Seattle under the control of Moscow, Vereide received a visitation: a voice, and a light in the dark, bright and blinding. The next day he met a friend, a wealthy businessman and former major, and the two men agreed upon a spiritual plan. They enlisted nineteen business executives in a weekly breakfast meeting and together they prayed, convinced that Jesus alone could redeem Seattle and crush the radical unions. They wanted to give Jesus a vessel, and so they asked God to raise up a leader. One of their number, a city councilman named Arthur Langlie, stood and said, “I am ready to let God use me.” Langlie was made first mayor and later governor, backed in both campaigns by money and muscle from his prayer-breakfast friends, whose number had rapidly multiplied. As Vereide recounted in a 1961 biography, Modern Viking, one union boss joined the group, proclaiming that the prayer movement would make unions obsolete. He said, “’I got down on my knees and asked God to forgive me… for I have been a disturbing factor and a thorn in Your flesh.’” A “rugged capitalist who had been the chairman of the employers’ committee in the big strike” put his left hand on the labor leader’s shoulder and said, “’Jimmy, on this basis we go on together.’” Vereide and his new brothers spread out across the Northwest in chauffeured vehicles (a $20,000 Dusenburg carried brothers on one mission, he boasted).
Just to add to the direness of these diaries comes an analysis by Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo that shows how the current assaults on government are stressing the system:
But while we are glued to the show (the current Trump reality show in the White House – ed.), Richard Haass warns, democracy is breaking down around the world. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes:
Not just democracy but the rule of law and respect for civil society and individual liberty are in decline around the world. One reason is that the United States is failing to set an example that many wish to emulate.
The president’s attacks “on everyone from judges to journalists undermine trust in essential institutions.” Removing promotion of democracy and human rights from the U.S. agenda is not helping. Neither does hollowing out the State Department and the Foreign Service, which Haass does not mention.
Haass continues:
Economic, social and physical insecurity have driven the global trend toward illiberalism. Understandably, those forces place greater emphasis on a government’s ability to deliver tangible goods than on its fealty to intangible ideals such as individual freedoms and human rights. We are seeing this in countries as diverse as Russia, China, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt and the Philippines.
Adding to the trend, China is headed towards reverting to a cult of personality, abolishing term limits and making Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, leader for life.
As I have said so many times before, when it comes to thorough analysis on things fiscal in Iowa, no one comes close to the Iowa Policy Project and its partner Iowa Fiscal Partnership.
So when the Iowa state senate began its sudden rush to push what appears to be a poorly thought out budget that seems to put Iowa on a glide path to emulate Kansas we were eager to see what IPP had to say on the budget.
Mike Owen, the Executive Director of IPP was blunt and on the money (pun intended) in his analysis. The thrust of Owen’s article is that not only is the budget bad, but so is the process the GOP used to pass their budget. The whole article is a must read, but here are some excerpts to give you an idea:
As early as today, a bill may be debated in the Iowa Senate to drastically slash revenue for public services — phased in at a cost of over $1 billion a year, or about one-seventh of the state’s General Fund.
The Senate bill, as does any legislation with a fiscal impact, comes with a “fiscal note.” This analysis by the Legislative Services Agency, using Department of Revenue data, was made available sometime late Tuesday. The legislation itself was introduced a week ago today, and passed out of subcommittee and full committee the following day.
The legislation is so complex that it took the state’s top fiscal analysts a week to put together their summary, which includes four pages of bullet points in addition to tables of data about various impacts. The nonpartisan analysis finds that the wealthiest individuals and most powerful corporations once again are the big winners.
The process, however, has shielded from public view a clear understanding of how the specifics of this legislation would affect two principles central to good tax policy: (1) the purpose of raising adequate revenues for critical services, and (2) raising those revenues in a way that reflects ability to pay — basic fairness of taxation, where Iowa (like most states) has a system that shoves greater costs on low-income than high-income taxpayers.
Every Iowan should read Mike Owen’s short and on point analysis.
If there is a forum in your area today please attend and ask those on the radical right to justify this horrendous budget.
While you are at it, one question that should be asked of every radical right legislature is “How much money have you received from the NRA?”
One more question for the radical right – Do they understand that outlawing abortion in Iowa will not stop abortions? Do they not understand that women will seek abortions if they feel they need to, even to the point of seeking out the infamous “back alley” abortionists from the very bad old days that Republicans seem to believe were the “good old days.”
I wrote to Iowa’s only Democrat in congress, Dave Loebsack, IA 02, about his support for a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mike Doyle (PA), to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) decision to kill net neutrality. Rep. Loebsack has long been a supporter of net neutrality, and this remains true. Below is his reply affirming his continuing support of net neutrality in general, including signing on as an original co-sponsor of the CRA.
Elections matter. We need to elect more Democrats.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
I wrote to Iowa’s only Democrat in congress, Dave Loebsack, IA 02, about his support for a 
