Often pictures convey complex thoughts much better and quicker than words ever can. Not only that, nearly every one who views a pictorial presentation takes away a different meaning:
Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt it has been over 100 years. All other major economies have health care for their citizens. Only in America are the citizens the mere pawns of the oligarchs.
I feel like a certain current president and have decided to only work one day this week and the jet off to one of my palatial estates. So the quiz may be skewed a bit to the early part of the week. Hopefully you can remember that long ago.
Hey, kids, here’s a little video that reminds me of a certain president and his congress and base as played by Jane Powell:
Jane Powell & Fred Astaire perform “How Could You Believe Me” in the 1951 musical “Royal Wedding”
Another “WTF” week.
1) The current administration is losing personal like a bad Walmart. What cabinet member is said to be considering leaving already?
2) Early in the week Rudy Giulliani was said to be in line for this man’s cabinet post until he said what man made the right decision to recuse himself?
3) Troy Price was picked to lead what Iowa group last week?
4) Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi et alia announced what new Democratic slogan this week?
5) July 26, 1944 what major change in Army policy began in training facilities and was finally made official policy on July 26, 1948 by Pres. Truman?
6) The current head of the Boy Scouts of America is also the CEO of what huge firm needing government approval for a coming merger?
7) The current president claimed he deserved a position among presidents only below what other president at the Boy Scout Jamboree?
8) What senator returned to Washington from cancer treatment for stage 4 kidney cancer to vote against Republican wealth care?
9) Parents for what infant born with a terminal in Great Britain have withdrawn their appeal for treatment?
10) The current president’s plan to fire his attorney general and replace him during what congressional break seems to have been stopped by Democrats?
11) Iowa’s Grassley let the current president know that there was no room in the Judiciary Committee’s calendar to deal with what process?
12) July 30, 1975 one of the great mysteries of the modern era began when what former Teamsters’ Union leader was last seen outside a restaurant near Detroit?
13) Hooray for Iowa Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald who said Iowa taxpayers should not have to pay a $2.2 million settlement in what case decided last week?
14) After tweets from the current president condemning her, Senator Lisa Murkowski unscheduled hearings on what?
15) Speaking of condemning senators, the current president and his staff are trying to find primary opponents for what two western senators up for re-election in 2018?
16) In a strange series of tweets Wednesday morning the current president appeared to change military policy toward what group of soldiers?
17) With a delay between the first incomplete sentence of the above tweet and the next tweet Wednesday, the military thought the current president was about to take what action?
18) Voice actress June Foray died Wednesday. She was best known for voicing what cartoon characters of the 1960s?
19) Just what we need. The world now has a new “richest man.” Who now holds the title with an estimated worth over $90 BILLION?
20) Was he joking? The current president claimed at a campaign rally that someday he would be added to what national monument?
Hard to believe, but after destroying Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback is picked to be “Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Department of State.” May he do for religion what he has done for Kansas.
Answers:
1) Secretary of State Tillerson
2) AG Jeff Sessions
3) The Iowa Democratic Party
4) “A Better Deal” (wish they could do better than that)
5) Integration
6) AT&T
7) Abraham Lincoln
8) Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. Sounds like more of a hero than McCain!
9) Charlie Gard
10) recess. He was looking to make a recess appointment.
11) confirming a new attorney general
12) Jimmy Hoffa
13) the sexual harassment award against the Republican Senate Caucus. They did the crime, they should pay the fine!
14) confirmation hearings for Interior department nominees. Keep fighting
15) Flake of Arizona and Heller of Nevada
16) transgendered soldiers
17) declare war on North Korea
18) Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha Fatale of the same show\
19) Jeff Bezos of Amazon
20) Mt. Rushmore. That is if his administration doesn’t open it to oil drilling or mining.
Andy Borowitz, take it away:
Jeff Sessions Urges Melania to Work Harder on Campaign to Stop Cyberbullying
Bravo, Congressmember Loebsack!
Email from Congress member Dave Loebsack concerning the pending legislation to dramatically slash access to healthcare in this country:
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The defeat of the Republicans latest attempt to take health care away from millions Friday morning set the stage for Democrats to come forward with with a bold plan that will cover all Americans at a much lower rate than we currently pay. That plan is simply extending Medicare to all Americans.
The contrast between what Republicans wanted to do to screw average Americans that was played out in broad daylight and the potential of what “Medicare For All” must be promoted to the hilt while the memory of the Republican atrocity is still bright in our memories.
Congress will be going on their annual August hiatus soon. No better time for Democrats to coalesce around a strategy of “Medicare For All.” No better time to take that message to town halls in their states and districts and in the states and districts of Republicans who just tried to put the screws to all Americans.
Do not forget, every Republican proposal would have ended up costing every American much more in premiums, deductibles and co-pays if they were lucky enough to still be able to get insurance. For the tens of millions who couldn’t get insurance well it was just game over. Delivering huge tax breaks to their wealthy donors was much more important than having citizens have access to health care.
Democrats, don’t miss this opportunity. As the old saying goes, strike while the iron is hot and the picture of Americans dying because of lack of access to healthcare is seared in the collective psyche.
Medicare For All!
Image of Earth 7-6-15 from DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory)
A recent article at Nuclear News reminds us the world is on the cusp of an energy revolution.
“The cost of renewables like solar and cell batteries for electric vehicles are making the carbon-based economy obsolete, with the turning point only a few years away,” author Christina MacPherson wrote.
The age of centralized, command-and-control, extraction-resource-based energy sources (oil, gas, coal and nuclear) will not end because we run out of petroleum, natural gas, coal, or uranium,” Stanford University professor Tony Seba recently said. “It will end because these energy sources, the business models they employ, and the products that sustain them will be disrupted by superior technologies, product architectures and business models. Compelling new technologies such as solar, wind, electric vehicles, and autonomous (self-driving) cars will disrupt and sweep away the energy industry as we know it.
Seba sees oil consumption collapsing after 2020.
When we consider the use of coal in Iowa, there are many of us who remember the coal trucks plying the streets and alleys of our childhood, dropping loads of the black stuff down chutes leading to a basement coal bin and then to our gravity furnaces. Through the winter, people shoveled coal into burning embers to heat their homes. Coal ash was shoveled out and in the spring, it was tilled it into gardens and spread on fields. Coal ash was also sent to dumps. On the farm, coal was purchased with seeds, feed and grain. It was part of a background to life that did not consider the potential harm to human health we now know it represents.
Those born in the 1950s and before have living memory of how natural gas replaced coal for home heating. The conversion was driven by much lower natural gas cost compared to coal. Similarly, lower costs of renewables will drive the move away from fossil fuels. We are almost at that point, as MacPherson indicated, and the business community is recognizing the reality by investing in renewables.
A recent article by Eva Zlotnicka for Morgan Stanley reiterates this point.
Economics and improving technologies, not regulation, are the driving forces behind many of the sustainability trends in global markets today. Our energy commodities team’s fundamental analysis of power-generation economics shows that longer-term coal can’t compete with natural gas or renewables, even on an unsubsidized basis. In a recent report, the team cut its 2017 coal-burn forecast by around 4%, and now sees only a modest year-over-year improvement, with most of those gains lost by 2018, due to ongoing competition from natural gas and renewables.
The 45th president made much of reviving the coal industry during his election campaign. The trouble for him is the market is heading a direction that not even he and his fossil fuel friends can stop. He can roll back all the regulations he likes and the market will continue to drive the switch to renewable energy.
Many of us were disappointed when President Trump announced his decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement. It was all hat no cattle.
There is almost no disagreement in the scientific community that fossil fuel use contributes significantly to planetary warming and related climate change. However, that’s not the point. What gave rise to the Industrial Revolution continues to work, and as renewable energy costs decline and become cheaper than the cost of fossil fuels and nuclear, bankers, manufacturers, and service industries will convert because it makes business sense to do so.
Add the public health, environmental, business and economic value of renewables together and a scenario where energy companies may start divesting themselves of coal and oil operations emerges.
How will the U.S. exit the Paris agreement? 45 didn’t say. Will his administration follow the four-year exit process outlined in the agreement, or will he remove the United States from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), exiting in about a year? If the drivers of transformation in our energy system are economic, what whit of difference does his decision make?
The agreement posed no financial risk to the United States, according to Morgan Stanley. It seems doubtful other nations will follow the United States out of the agreement, although some may. The pursuit of the goals in the Paris Agreement by remaining countries, combined with the efforts of U.S. states and cities acting on their own, offer the best chance to reduce carbon pollution in the atmosphere.
Nonetheless, an energy revolution is going on and at this point little politicians do seems able to stop it.
Photo Credit – Des Moines Register
I can’t believe we have to cover this Iran sh*t again.
Point 1: The 45th president doesn’t like the Iran Deal. While he twice certified Iran’s compliance with the July 14, 2015 agreement between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—plus Germany), and the European Union, each time his State Department under Rex Tillerson undercut any positives.
“Today I’d like to address Iran’s alarming and ongoing provocations that export terror and violence, destabilizing more than one country at a time,” Tillerson said in April after the first certification. According to Time Magazine, he proceeded to lay out a long list of bad things Iran is doing, from sponsoring terrorism to oppressing its own people to violating U.N. constraints on its missile program. When it came to the nuclear deal, he said it failed to ensure Iran won’t become a nuclear state in the future and said the administration was conducting a “comprehensive review of our Iran policy.”
The comprehensive review was ongoing when Tillerson made the second certification last week. The 45 administration proceeded to impose more sanctions on Iran.
We get it. 45 called the agreement “bad,” “horrible,” “stupidest deal,” etc.
Point 2: There was no question Iran was pushing the limit of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). I posted about this March 5, 2010:
The reason Iran is in the news is reasonably straightforward. As signatory of the NPT, Iran has the right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology. The trouble is that in 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) determined that Iran had not been forthcoming about its uranium enrichment program, as required by the NPT. The IAEA conducted an investigation and their Board of Governors reported Iran’s noncompliance with the NPT to the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council demanded that Iran suspend its enrichment programs. The Council imposed sanctions after Iran refused to do so. When the uranium enrichment facility in Qom was made public in 2009, this heightened awareness of Iran’s apparent belligerence precipitated the current discussions between the parties about further sanctions and/or diplomacy. The corporate media latched on to an easy news story.
Point 3: President Barack Obama chose diplomacy. He initiated discussions about nuclear non-proliferation with Iran. Crazy, no? To actually talk to Iran and engage the European Union and the P5+1 states in the deal. The deal was consummated and is in effect. It stopped Iran’s nuclear program. As 45’s administration indicated with its certification of Iran’s compliance, the Iran Deal is working.
Point 4: While 45 hasn’t fulfilled a campaign promise to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal, he remains deeply suspicious of it according to a Sunday article in the Los Angeles Times. The war hawks in Washington, led by former U.N. ambassador John Bolton wanted 45 not to certify compliance. On its own terms the agreement has accomplished its purpose of preventing Iran from enriching uranium to develop technology to make a nuclear weapon, things of which they were well capable in 2009.
On any given day one might say, “who knows what the hell Trump will come up with?” In a dangerous world we should be thanking President Obama for avoiding war with Iran and stopping its nuclear program, something that can’t yet be said about his successor in the Oval Office.
Terrace Hill, Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons
It seems too early to be talking about the 2018 Governor’s race. However, people are politically active and there is a gaggle of candidates.
I have no preference today and assume they are all serious about their campaigns. Here’s my first look at the race.
I favor Corbett over Reynolds on the Republican side because I know and worked with him during my transportation career. I heard him speak in 2015 at the Climate Reality Leadership Corps training in Cedar Rapids. He did some good things after the 2008 flood devastated downtown Cedar Rapids. Because he’s still got an R behind his name, that pretty much disqualifies him for me in the general election.
On the Democratic side I’m not sure who’s who. Here’s the ones that are running or considering a run in no particular order.
I know the two women best.
This is Andy McGuire’s second bite at the gubernatorial apple (2006 being the other). Her recent tenure as chair of the Iowa Democratic Party should disqualify her for two reasons: over reliance on national campaigns for funding IDP operations, and for running an imperceptible 2016 campaign in my precinct and the ones around me where Trump won. She seems a bit tone deaf to be running again.
I like Cathy Glasson from past associations, mostly with John Edwards’ 2008 campaign. She is like most SEIU leaders I’ve met in that when she gets behind something she puts her all into it. When she says something, she means it and her policies have a lot to like. Mostly she is about the struggle working people face — with a asterisk next to “working people” indicating “strong union” in the definition. I imagine she was pissed when Governor Chet Culver would not support the union agenda. Women I know tell me they don’t see any Democratic women being able to win as governor. I don’t know, but I like her.
There’s also some men.
John Norris has the resume to be governor, but I’d rather his spouse Jackie were the nominee. I suspect his political chops will play well in the areas Chet Culver won.
Jon Niederbach’s campaign tagline is “Bold New Leadership Not Beholden To Any Special Interest.” He’s been president of the Des Moines School Board, and a former board member of Proteus, an organization that provides medical services to migrant workers. Proteus gave me a lot of insight when I was on the county board of health. I’m not sure people outside Des Moines have heard of him, so he will need to work hard on a steep hill to gain name recognition.
A number of Iowa legislators support State Senator Nate Boulton in the primary. First elected to the legislature in 2016, he’s a political newcomer who gained prominence in the first session of the 87th Iowa General Assembly. He argued diligently for Democratic positions and the governor’s office needs that kind of person. Just because he’s popular among legislators, doesn’t mean he’s ready for prime time.
Todd Prichard is from my home town and is now a state representative from Charles City. He announced for governor May 16, then last week headed for Bulgaria in the National Guard. Other than his military service, I’m not sure what distinguishes him from the pack.
Fred Hubbell is a retired business executive whose family founded Equitable of Iowa. If any among the candidates is a household name, he is. The Hubbell family donated Terrace Hill to be the governor’s mansion, and his family have been significant donors to numerous causes, including the 2008 flood recovery, United Way, Planned Parenthood, and the Iowa Democratic Party among others. He announced last week and hasn’t held political office. Hubbell is expected to have few financial hurdles in the governor’s race. Rep. Mary Mascher’s endorsement of Hubbell means a lot.
Finally, former Iowa City Mayor Ross Wilburn is exploring a run for governor. He lives in Ames and little has been posted in media about the progress of his candidacy. Wilburn’s name recognition is less than Niederbach.
A lot is at stake for Democrats in the 2018 governor’s race. Here’s what Johnson County’s Sue Dvorsky had to say:
“We will be a dangerous group of people with nothing to lose. We will be unleashed,” Dvorsky told the Des Moines Register. “We’re gonna win this time, or we’re going down for 40 years.”
Truer words Ms. Dvorsky has never spoken.
Tres Leches Cake Photo Credit – Stu Spivack, Wikimedia Commons
The Cedar Rapids Gazette was sitting on the break room table last week at the home, farm and auto supply store, open to an article about IPERS, Iowa’s public employee retirement plan.
Written by Matt Sinovic of Progress Iowa, the first sentence asserted more of the usual fare from the progressive group, “Once again, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature are inviting an out-of-state attack on the economic security of Iowa families.”
Thanks, but I’d already had my allowable dose of confirmation bias that morning. I closed the paper and started my shift.
That would have been that, except my state representative, Bobby Kaufmann, raised the article in a July 21 update to his legislative newsletter list.
Finally, I want to address the conversations being had regarding IPERS. I want to ensure (sic) everyone that your retirement is safe and will continue to be. There was an unfortunate editorial in the Gazette. I am being complimentary when I call it misleading and partisan. Every two years a committee meets to ensure our retirement fund is solvent. That is all that is happening. Every two years members of both parties get together and examine our retirement system to make sure our promises can be kept. I have said it before and I will say it again: I am a HELL NO on any bill that would negatively impact the retirement promise that has been made to you.
“Sh*t,” I said to myself. “Now I gotta go read that stinkin’ article.”
A long-standing complaint of Blog for Iowa is the legislature does little to address long term plans for IPERS.
“As it stands, there is no long term plan for educational financing, Medicaid, IPERS or property tax reform,” Chad Thompson wrote May 24, 2005. “What we did get was some reshuffling of bank accounts and a further drain on the reserves we do have.”
When Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds brought up the idea of a task force to evaluate modification of IPERS last January, my nerves tensed.
Reynolds, who soon will become the state’s governor, said in remarks at a Scott County Republican Party fundraiser Jan. 26 (reported by Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times), that commitments already made to IPERS members would be honored. “I feel very strongly about that,” she said. However, she also raised the possibility of moving toward a “hybrid” system that would include the current defined benefit pension arrangement as well as a defined contribution component. The latter is akin to a 401(k) system that is common in the private sector.
While Reynolds’ statement garnered attention, IPERS did not seem like a high priority on its own.
Iowa Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald was quick to respond to Reynolds.
On January 30, 2017, I issued a statement telling IPERS members they should be concerned about the future of their benefits.
Since that time, my concern has continued to grow. After witnessing how quickly the legislature and governor were willing to move without input from the people would privatize the investment of employees’ and retirees’ pensions. Individuals will pay more and private companies will reap the benefit.
We have made adjustments over the years to ensure the success of IPERS. We do not need to tear this plan apart, but rather continue to manage it well.
In the context of Governor Reynolds’ and Treasurer Fitzgerald’s January statements, Kaufmann’s assurances raise a flag.
I read Sinovic’s article and one of his issues is the Reason Foundation will be involved with the biannual review Kaufmann referenced.
What should we care who reviews IPERS?
The Reason Foundation, established in 1978, is part of a dark money network of wealthy libertarians that has been at work in our recent elections, according to Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. “Reason Foundation advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law,” according to their web site. Their tagline is “free minds and free markets.”
Fitzgerald and Sinovic are saying the cake is baked regarding the IPERS solvency review. We don’t know the result, but can get a taste of what to expect by reviewing the law Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed this month. Here are some key features of the new Michigan public pension plan reported by the Reason Foundation:
Sound okay? Obviously any change will be viewed with suspicion by IPERS participants. I don’t agree with Sinovic that the Reason Foundation’s involvement is an “attack on the economic security of Iowa families.” What will annoy people is if Republicans try to slam through a hybrid plan similar to Michigan’s as Fitzgerald feared they might.
If, as Rep. Kaufmann indicated, the biannual review is simply to produce solvency, then good job for relieving unnecessary worry. As Fitzgerald indicated, “as state treasurer, an IPERS board member, and trustee of the Fund, I can tell you that Iowa has worked hard over the years to ensure IPERS is on solid ground. And we are.”
If, as Fitzgerald and Sinovic believe, the end result will be major changes to IPERS similar in scope to the Michigan law, that’s something else entirely. Time will tell. Current IPERS participants are forewarned to pay attention.
Sinovic is free to publish his opinion about whatever he is paid to advocate. However, when he posts an article like the Gazette piece he does no favors for Democrats hoping to win back seats in the Iowa legislature in 2018. Readers can see straight through the hyperbole and associate his comments with the Democratic Party. Democrats become defenders of the status quo by default, a status quo Blog for Iowa has been complaining about for 12 years.
And seriously Republicans. You have to pick a Koch network think tank for the solvency review? One that while claiming to be non-partisan favors a certain outcome?
What’s needed in public discourse is a statement of what progressives are doing to ensure IPERS is solvent. We also need a chance to win elections, something Sinovic’s article didn’t help.
Solon Beef Days, July 22, 2017
Sunday my spouse and I took the public library poster she made to the fairgrounds where the county’s seven libraries have a booth for the fair which runs Monday through Thursday this week.
We parked outside Building B, went in, and slid the foamcore board into a slot. It took a couple minutes.
A friend was there setting up an adjacent booth shared by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Veterans for Peace, PEACE Iowa and 100 Grannies for a Livable Future. We chatted for a while, about raccoons, chipmunks, single use water bottles, libraries and why I haven’t attended more events. We then went our separate ways: she and her son to Village Inn, and we to buy the first sweet corn of the season from a local farmer.
I could make similar connections with many fair booth sponsors, almost anyone could.
Last night I volunteered selling tickets at Solon Beef Days, which is the annual festival near our home. We sold about 500 tickets during my shift and had a brief conversation with each buyer.
I knew the voter registration of many who bought tickets. I remembered who they supported, which elections in which they voted, when they donated, and who lived in their households. It’s not that I’m snoopy or a gossip. It just comes with the turf of political canvassing near one’s home for two decades.
Some say we should volunteer to make phone calls and door knock on political campaigns to win elections. That may have once been true, however, the electorate is going through a profound change with the rise in importance of personal computers and cellular technology. That change is not finished.
James Carville is hard to stomach these days, but during the Bill Clinton campaign his fax machine and “rapid response” was a competitive advantage no one else had. It was an innovation that contributed to Clinton’s win.
People don’t talk much about Joe Trippi but he was one of the first to understand a virtual community and its implications for political campaigns. In his book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, The Internet and The Overthrow of Everything he points to the moment he understood it.
“I sat at my PC, crying and watching as people eulogized David (Haines) and mourned him the way you would a good friend.
And that is the precise moment that I got it.
I was attending a funeral on the Internet.
This was not a bunch of individual people sitting in front of a television alone, watching a sad program, reaching on cue for the Kleenex brand tissue. This was a rich, fully realized community, a world of real people interacting with each other, sharing their kids’ first steps and crying on each other’s shoulders when they lost someone they cared about, someone most of us had never met.
Now campaigns have IT staffs but the Howard Dean campaign had Joe Trippi.
Today, people can always be in touch thanks to mobile communications devices and cellular technology. They are also increasingly suspicious of someone or something they don’t know or understand. I suspect that’s natural human behavior writ large as a defense mechanism to easy and increased electronic connectivity.
It’s not that people don’t know or want to know what’s going on in the broader world. World events are filtered by members of much smaller social groups, taking on more specific meaning.
Confirmation bias, the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories, increasingly plays a role in elections by drawing people into smaller, more personal networks of social relationships facilitated by electronic networking. An email, a knock at the door, or a phone call does little to penetrate such relationships in any positive way. Such personal groups may span time and distance but members are hardened into a set of beliefs that becomes resilient. That spells trouble for political campaigns trying to keep up. It deflates the value of phone calls and door knocking in political campaigns.
What to do?
My answer is pretty simple. Make friends with neighbors. Go to the county fair or a church social. Work with seniors in your community. Spend time talking to people at the town festival. Buy sweet corn from a local farmer. While these things don’t seem political, they represent a radical approach to succeeding in politics in response to the Trump phenomenon. Political operatives will adapt to the new model or hate it because small consulting firms that came up since the 2004 election may go out of business using the old one.
The potential exists for a new democratization of political campaigns but no one has cracked the code. That is, no one except Donald Trump, according to cognitive science and linguistics professor George Lakoff.
Maybe once we understand everything we like to hear on the internet is not true there will be a useful democratization of campaigns.
Until then, I’ll look forward to the next trip to the farm to get sweet corn, and my next outing tomorrow to be with people in the physical world. That’s where the action is and where the next winning campaign is being formed. Don’t get left behind.
Town Halls sorted by date and time. For a list of town halls alphabetically by county please go here. http://www.blogforiowa.com/2017/06/20/schedule-of-joni-ernst-travelling-office-hours/
We attended town halls in Johnson County, Cedar County and Muscatine County last Tuesday.
In Johnson County the staffer merely took comments with no discussion. There were about 30 people and the main topics were health care and internet neutrality. Most comments on health care focused on how bad the Republican proposals were single payer being a much more encompassing system for a much lower cost. The staffer asked for comment cards to be filled out if a constituent wanted a reply. One person noted it would be the boiler plate standard reply and not really answer the questions.
In Cedar County there were 7 folks and the same staffer.The comments focused once more on the huge problems with the Republican health care proposals and all pointed to single payer as a solution that would lower costs and extend health care to most if not all citizens. Comments were also taken on internet neutrality. Once again the staffer merely recorded comments and asked that comment cards be filled out for an individual reply.
Muscatine County was a different staffer and quite a different scene. We arrived about 15 minutes early and the meeting was already in full swing. The staffer was making comments that statements that single payer was not cheaper and asking for sources. One woman who had lost her job to Branstad’s Medicaid privatization was visibly upset about the prospect of even larger cuts in Medicaid. The staffer had a running argument with her as she described her plight. Since the woman herself had to apply for Medicaid after losing her job she was simply scared. It was the first time in her life she had ever needed help. Another member of the audience told her she was the problem and she should get a job.
The town hall then descended into almost anarchy with 6 or 7 conversations breaking out with some occasionally being heard above the din. After about 30 minutes one man declared “We wouldn’t have these problems if Obama hadn’t pushed through that piece of shit.” Another declared “republicans never got to see it.” Both were inundated with responses. The first man left immediately, visibly upset and mad.
The town hall then broke up about 20 minutes before the scheduled end time.
July 25th Tuesday
Hardin County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Iowa Falls Public Library
921 Washington Avenue
Iowa Falls, IA
Audubon County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Audubon Public Library
401 North Park Place
Audubon, IA
Osceola County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Sibley Public Library
406 9th Street
Sibley, IA
Hamilton County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Hamilton County Courthouse
Meeting Room
2300 Superior Street
Webster City, IA
Shelby County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
Harlan Public Library
718 Court Street
Harlan, IA
Grundy County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Kling Memorial Library
Conference Room
708 7th Street
Grundy Center, IA
O’Brien County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Primghar Public Library
320 1st Street NE
Primghar, IA
Black Hawk County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Waterloo Public Library
415 Commercial Street
Waterloo, IA
Harrison County
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
3:30 PM – 4:30 pm
Missouri Valley Public Library
420 East Huron Street
Missouri Valley, IA
July 26th Wednesday
Emmet County
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Armstrong City Hall
519 6th Street
Armstrong, IA
Palo Alto County
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Mallard City Hall
605 Inman Street
Mallard, IA
July 27th Thursday
Fayette County
Thursday, July 27, 2017
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
West Union Community Library
210 North Vine Street
West Union, IA
Webster County
Thursday, July 27, 2017
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Fort Dodge Public Library
Lobby Meeting Room
424 Central Avenue
Fort Dodge, IA
Winneshiek County
Thursday, July 27, 2017
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Decorah Public Library
202 Winnebago Street
Decorah, IA
Allamakee County
Thursday, July 27, 2017
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Robey Memorial Library
Conference Room
401 1st Avenue NW
Waukon, IA
Pocahontas County
Thursday, July 27, 2017
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Pocahontas Public Library
14 2nd Avenue NW
Pocahontas, IA
Clayton County
Thursday, July 27, 2017
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Strawberry Point Public Library
Meeting Room
401 Commercial Street
Strawberry Point, IA
July 28th Friday
Buchanan County
Friday, July 28, 2017
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Independence Public Library
Freedom Room
805 1st Street East
Independence, IA
Delaware County
Friday, July 28, 2017
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Manchester Public Library
Genealogy Room
304 North Franklin Street
Manchester, IA
