Sorry, just kidding. Howard Dean, the Democrats’ best DNC chair ever, is not running again as far as we know.
There is a Democratic National Committee chair election coming up Feb. 1. Know the candidates and lobby your DNC rep. who you support. It is crucial that Democrats GET THIS RIGHT.
Here is some info I received from DNC Iowa member Sandy Opstvedt:
There are several candidates who are considering running for DNC chair. The three who I know have confirmed & are actively campaigning are Ben Wikler, Martin O’Malley, & Ken Martin. There will be regional candidate forums in January. I don’t know the details yet. The DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee meets Dec 12 in DC at which time they will discuss and set election details. Dec 13 the DNC Executive Committee meets. Scott Brennan serves on the Rules & Bylaws Committee & I serve on the Executive Committee. We will have more information after that. The next IDP state Central Committee meeting is Dec 14.
The video below is a interview of Jane Kleeb with Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles. You can follow them both on Blue Sky. Kleeb delivers an amazing amount of info about the DNC and the upcoming election process. Find out how you can get involved. Most of the video is about the DNC, just a little about Nebraska.
Two panels discuss how we can build a progressive media network going forward. The focus is on internet media. I didn’t catch all the names of the panelists but Tara McGowan of Courier News and Leigh McGowan (Politics Girl) were great. I try to follow them on social media. Hope you have time to listen. After posting about media issues for years I feel it is a huge turning point that the media problem has finally made its way into the national dialogue in a substantial way.
Indivisible led the Trump resistance from 2016 to 2020. Across the country Indivisible members contacted legislators and did the on the ground work of democracy that helped the democratic party win control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms. A few posts ago I pondered who would lead the grassroots through these perilous times. Indivisible is raising money and putting out a guide, Indivisible: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink. Click here to find your group.
From our inbox – here is an action alert from Indivisible.
“This plan will not solve all our problems. It’s a plan to limit harm, fracture their coalition, and build ours so that we can survive this period. It’s a plan to protect our democracy and its residents so that we do not fall off a cliff into full-blown authoritarianism. Most importantly, it’s not a hypothetical plan — it’s a practical, actionable plan that we are already executing on with local Indivisible groups.” – Ezra Levin
A week after the election we had 40,000 people join us for the launch of the new Indivisible Guide, Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink. Within a couple weeks after launch, we had more new Indivisible groups form than at any point since 2017. In recent weeks, Leah and I have joined Indivisible groups from across the country for their regional or statewide convenings, all reporting an enormous surge of energy. We can tell you first hand, people are sad, angry, determined, and organizing.
I’m going to tell you about the three main areas of work we’re planning for 2025, and yes,I’m going to ask you to help us fund it. That’s my job as co-executive director of Indivisible, and it includes telling you this: I believe there is no national organization in the country better prepared, better run, or better positioned to organize a mass localized, nationwide response to the coming threat. Eight years ago we were a typo-filled Google doc, and today we are a full fledged, battle-scarred national operation with policy, organizing, communications, and technical expertise.
Leah and I founded Indivisible in a moment like this. Yesterday was the eight year anniversary of the original Indivisible Guide. Back then, we had a wave of energized people looking to take collective action as we faced an incoming wannabe authoritarian regime. We didn’t have all the answers, but we knew the future would be brighter if everyday people organized to fight back. Indivisible was made in, and for, this moment.
We are going to fight, and we are going to win — that’s what we’re built to do, but we need your support to do it. At a high level, here is what that looks like:
Absorb and harness the surges of energy. We are currently overwhelmed with the number of new Indivisible groups and new Indivisible members coming through our front door. We expect additional waves to come when Congress convenes on January 3, after the inauguration on January 20, and then in response to heinous administrative and legislative actions by the incoming MAGAs through the year. I don’t want this energy dissipating — I want it directed to effective, on the ground work that can make a difference over the next two years.
Defend, defeat, and delay nationally. Trump has a minuscule majority and a deeply unpopular agenda. For the next two years, we’ve been forced into a defensive posture, responding to the agenda MAGA puts forward. That does not mean we have to accept that agenda. We won’t stop everything but we can stop some things, and we can delay things we can’t stop — using up valuable time they have to do harm. That means peeling off Republicans where we can and stiffening the spines of Democrats to fight back. This demands both entrepreneurial and rapidly reactive work nationwide across blue, red, and purple geographies.
Proactively protect in the states where we have control. In 2017 we had only six Democratic trifecta states. In 2025, we’ll have fifteen. And we control even more mayorships and city councils. There is enormous opportunity to go on offense in the states and cities to protect residents and offer a safe-haven to red state residents under threat. Throughout the Obama years, GOP governors did everything they could to undermine the Obama agenda — our Democratic leaders should be using their power in this moment to protect democracy, progress, and people.
This plan will not solve all our problems. It’s a plan to limit harm, fracture their coalition, and build ours so that we can survive this period. It’s a plan to protect our democracy and its residents so that we do not fall off a cliff into full-blown authoritarianism. Most importantly, it’s not a hypothetical plan — it’s a practical, actionable plan that we are already executing on with local Indivisible groups.
What we need. Indivisible’s single largest source of funding is our grassroots donors. That is core to who we are, and with the tough fights ahead of us, we’re counting on that support now more than ever.
Our goal is to raise $400,000 from the grassroots before the end of the year to meet the immediate influx of demand for support from new and existing Indivisible groups. That funding will ensure our groups are prepared to defend our democracy and take on the Trump administration from Day 1. So, if you’re able to give today, please click here to pitch in.
The Statue of Liberty is a universal symbol of freedom, democracy, hope and the end of slavery
From the On Tyranny series by Timothy Snyder, lesson #4 of twenty.
“The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away. And do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.”
Freedom and Responsibility:
“What if freedom is actually a collective project. What if in order for each of us to be free all of us have to do something if only a little something. And what if the signs that we see, the symbols that we see, little visual aspects of our reality, what if they are moments of choice for each of us and for all of us.”
Reports released by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and KFF show Republicans want to cut billions from Medicaid and put health care at risk for 627,900 Iowans in order to fund tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
As the largest health insurance program in the country, providing health care to more than 70 million people, Medicaid is an essential pillar of our health care system. The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid to cover more working Americans who do not make enough to afford private coverage. Now, 40 states, both red and blue, have expanded it, saving lives, keeping hospitals open, saving states money, and improving the well-being of countless Americans. Medicaid is jointly funded by the federal government and the states, and it is supported by 76 percent of Americans. It covers one in four Americans, including kids, moms, seniors, people of color, rural Americans, and people with disabilities. Every family knows someone who counts on Medicaid. If MAGA Republicans get their way, Medicaid will be cut — taking health care away from hardworking families across Iowa, instead of helping them.
The GOP is putting health care at risk for 627,900 or 20 percent of Iowans including:
46,000 seniors,
274,000 children,
And 81,000 people with disabilities.
Republicans will create a $434,000,000 hole in the Iowa state budget to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.
Iowa has a trigger law which means health care will immediately be ripped away from 191,100 Iowans if the GOP succeeds in gutting funding for Medicaid expansion.
Key Points: The GOP Plan to Gut Medicaid
Republicans Want to Gut Federal Funding for Medicaid, Forcing States to Cut Benefits and Kick People Off Coverage. Three proposals would dramatically reduce federal funding for Medicaid: block grants, per capita caps, and reducing Medicare matching rates. Currently, the federal government pays between 50 percent and 77 percent of enrollees’ Medicaid costs, and more for certain high-value services. Republicans’ proposals to slash billions in federal funding from Medicaid would strain state budgets and leave tens of millions of people uninsured.
Republicans Want To Cut The Lifeline That Keeps Rural Hospitals Open. Medicaid helps fund rural hospitals by ensuring more patients can pay for their care. Rural hospitals in Medicaid expansion states are 62 percent less likely to close. In 2023, over 600 rural hospitals were at risk of closing in the near future, almost all of which were within non-expansion states. If Republicans cut Medicaid expansion, more rural hospitals will be forced to close their doors.
Republican Proposals Would Decimate Access To Essential Services Like Maternity Care And Long-Term Care. Medicaid is the single largest payer for long-term care, maternity care, and mental health services. Nearly a third of adults have received maternity care, home health care, or nursing home care through Medicaid. Nearly one in five adults struggling with mental illness have access to care through Medicaid. If Republicans have their way, millions of people will lose access to essential care.
Republicans Want To Throw Millions Off Their Coverage By Adding Burdensome Work Reporting Requirements To Medicaid. By imposing so-called work requirements, Republicans seek to cut Medicaid and kick millions of people off the rolls. Research shows, including research from analysts at Iowa’s Legislative Services Agency, that work reporting requirements cost states money and do not improve people’s ability to find work. In Georgia, a GOP alternative to Medicaid expansion emphasizing work requirements cost taxpayers $26 million, only provided coverage to 3,500 people, and resulted in consulting firms pocketing 90 percent of the funding. If Republicans succeed in pushing work requirements, up to 21 million Americans could be denied Medicaid coverage.
###
—
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.
Given a chance to stand up for women everywhere as she often claims she does, Iowa’s truly phony Joni Ernst once again folded like a cheap suit as she apparently wilted in the face of a threat from Trump. Does Iowa really want someone with so little courage and integrity speaking (or rather caving) in their name?
1 minute:
After being one of the most powerful and stubborn holdouts against the immensely unqualified Pete Hegseth of Secretary of Defense for very good reasons, Ernst seemed to publicly wilt after a brief call with Trump. Hardly a backbone of steel. More like a backbone of sawdust.
“This change in tone might come as a shock. After all, Ernst’s reputation suggests she wouldn’t be in favor of a guy like Hegseth. In 2019, the details of Ernst’s abusive marriage were thrust into the spotlight. The senator—whose once-sealed, now public, divorce affidavit elicited a slew of tabloid-style attacks—further revealed that she had been raped in college.
<<snip>>
Standing on the other side of similar accusations, Hegseth faces resurfaced rape allegations from 2017—in which he allegedly paid the accuser to stay quiet and have the charges dropped. Hegseth was accused of raping an unconscious victim at a hotel after a Republican women’s conference event in Monterey, California. The anonymous victim stated in the report that she suspected she was drugged, and that she couldn’t “remember most of the night’s events.”
Furthermore, the victim recalled that she had approached Hegseth at the event. Per her recollection, she told him she “did not appreciate how he treated women” after she saw Hegseth rubbing women “on their legs.” The victim recalled gruesome details after coming back to consciousness in an unfamiliar hotel room with Hegseth.
Adding insult to injury, even Hegseth’s mother joined the public discourse by calling out her son’s abuse of ex-wife Samantha.
<<snip>>
And if this wasn’t enough cause for concern for Ernst, given her past, others might have also thought she would have said no due to her entire political platform. Ernst ran for the Senate in 2014 on the premise of fighting sexual abuse in military ranks.
Hegseth is an outspoken opponent of women in combat roles, which was supposedly the very opposite of Joni Ernst’s stand. Once again her backbone of sawdust reveals itself.
On another front, Ernst will have an opportunity to stand up for Iowans in a really big way as she chairs a newly formed caucus on government efficiency. From this position Ernst could have a major role in setting policy that makes sense and saves money for Iowans and all US citizens. Therefore I doubt it will happen.
First she could squelch any talk of doing away or massively cutting back on Social Security, Medicare (or dumping everyone into MA) and Medicaid. The two bonkers billionaires who are. Role playing at government are all in for cutting any program that helps poor and elderly Americans. Iowa has more than its share of those folks.
Ernst could then more than triple the called for cutbacks in spending by endorsing and laying out plans for a single payer health care system. Senator Bernie Sanders has been working for this for decades and proposals go back to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. And one should note this is now a sensitive area for the public following the assassination of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson.
In 2022, citizens of the United States spent an estimated $12,742 per person on healthcare, the highest among wealthy nations. This is nearly twice the average of $6,850 per person for other wealthy OECD countries.
Over the next decade, it is estimated that America will spend between $55 and $60 trillion on healthcare if nothing changes and we continue to cut giant corporations in for a large slice of our healthcare money.
On the other hand, Senator Bernie Sanders’ single-payer Medicare For All plan would only cost $32 trillion over the next 10 years. And it would cover everybody in America, every man woman and child, in every medical aspect including vision, dental, psychological, and hearing. (Ed. note: That is a savings of $23 to $28 Trillion in 10 years)
If we keep our current system, the difference between it and the savings from a single-payer system will end up in the pockets, in large part, of massive insurance giants and their executives and investors. And as campaign contributions for bought off Republicans. This isn’t rocket science.
So, Joni, quit being so phony and look for real world savings that are at your fingertips. You would be a national hero by standing up for real Americans. Back real reform by backing Health Care for All. Or do you not have enough backbone to stand up for what is right and the best deal for all Americans.
The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.
Had to bring this up after seeing it. Polio literally brings back horrid memories from my youth. I am sure there are many out there that have the same reaction. The effects of polio can last a lifetime and be debilitating. My wife’s uncle committed suicide due to the effects of childhood polio when he was in his 50s.
As noted below, polio is not necessarily a childhood disease. FDR caught it at age 39. If not continually contained through vaccinations polio could easily spread quickly. What in the hell are these people thinking?
Reminder: people are vaccinated only as kids for polio in the US not because the protection is lifelong but because there’s a v. low incidence of polio DUE TO THE VACCINE. It’s unknown how many years the current vax protects people for. So yes, this will be a problem for everyone, not just newborns.
I think we will mix in some questions about Christmas carols and songs today.
A) Did I say that? department. What 2024 presidential candidate says fulfilling a promise on lowering grocery prices may not be possible Thursday?
B) Bashar al-Assad is now living in what international city?
C) The Good King Wenceslaus looked out on what feast day to see it was cold and snowy?
D) What former southeastern Iowa congress member died at age 82 last week?
E) 75 Nobel laureates signed a letter to the US senate calling on senators to reject what Trump cabinet nominee last week?
F) The Ohio senate Thursday passed a bill that could force hospitals to administer what two medications on patient request that gained notoriety during the covid pandemic?
G) In the French carol what is Jeanette Isabella requested to bring to the cradle?
H) What world leader testified in his own corruption trial three times last week?
I) The man accused of murdering United health care CEO Brian Thompson was arrested at a McDonald’s in what city?
J) “In the meadow we will build a snowman and pretend that he is” who? “He’ll say ‘are you married’ we’ll say ’no man’.”
K) In New Jersey Monday, Governor Phil Murphy signed a law guaranteeing the freedom to do what?
L) Not yet president Trump Monday promised to end birth right citizenship on day one. However, this is a right guaranteed by what constitutional amendment?
M) And the Time magazine Athlete of the Year is who?
N) This year’s Time Person of the Year must set a record for felony convictions by a person the year with how many?
O) “Strings of street lights even stop lights blink a bright red and green” as who rush home with their presents?
P) Who resigned as head of the Republican National Committee to focus on being appointed to the US senate from Florida?
Q) Uh-oh! What nominee to head up Medicare has stocks in companies that do business to the tune of $33 million per year?
R) “The holly and the ivy, When they are both full grown, Of all the trees that are in the wood,—“ which one wears the crown?
S) According to European scientists what is or was the hottest year on Earth on record?
T) Finally “I saw” what?“Come sailing in on Christmas Day in the morning” ?
Only in America can a convicted felon and rapist be named Man of the Year. – Captain Obvious
Remember that presidential candidate who said he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and get away with it? Seems the same guy is planning an epic theft to take place in broad daylight. Funny that mainstream media fails to bring this up. Fortunately there are still some slices of media that are paying attention, such as Chris Hayes at MSNBC:
(6:37)
What Hayes is telling you is something that we at BFIA warned you about prior to the election. Trump made no effort to stop his skimming and scamming throughout the campaign. He is still doing it during the transition. In short he is making it fully known that he cares little about.
Back in September we noted thatTrump was starting his own crypto company. This seemed like an almost certain step in an effort to move money from us to him under some legalese that Trump will claim is covered under the. “Get out of Jail Free” card he was given by his hand picked SCOTUS last summer.
As the media droned on and on about as supposed assassination attempt gone awry, the Trump men – DonOLD, Junior, Eric and Barron – quietly announced on X that they were jumping into the world of cryptocurrency. Considering that family’s propensity to stretch the law to its breaking point and cryptocurrency’s use to avoid money laundering and tax laws this could be their hugest scam ever.
And think how much huger it could be with the power of the presidency, the protection of immunity, a totally spineless and corrupt MAGA congress, and an extreme right wing, very corrupt SCOTUS to give approval to any laws passed by said congress or issued through executive order. Throw in that Trump recently stated that the President should have some control over the Federal reserve policy just to add to the conglomeration of power. The mind just boggles.
So not only would Trump first return to the trickle-down model with big tax cuts for the wealthy, he will then pivot to what? Manipulating the currency of the US to include cryptocurrency in which he will have a major stake. I am telling you, folks, this could be by far the biggest crime ever conceived.
Trump moves since then seem to be calculated to set us up for the huge move to crypto. Clearing the way for Kash Patel to head the FBI where Patel will do nothing to stop the Trump crime family. Patel will be under AG Pam Bondi who is scared of Trump.
A final hint was to put large crypto investor Elon Musk in charge of a phony “committee” that is charged with recommending spending cuts. Trump even made sure he gave a wink and a nod to Musk’s love of crypto by naming the committee after Musk’s favorite crypto coin, the DOGE. (Department of Government Efficiency). Breaking campaign laws like Musk did to buy the presidency for Trump must have a payoff.
In discussing the Trump move to crypto, Tom Sullivan on Hullabaloo talks about the Senate bill setting up the implementation of bitcoin in the US. He notes that while he doesn’t understandbitcoins themselves he understands the rationale of the rich behind the move:
I’m neither rich enough nor libertarian enough to have invested my time in deciphering how cryptocurrency works, much less invested any of my money. But uber-rich crypto investors, Chris Hayes reports, now have a president-elect ready to backstop their funny money with public money. Even after watching his Friday night report, I still don’t understand how crypto works. But he confirms how oligarchy does.
Like much libertarian dogma, protestations by these shrugging Atlases that government stay out of the way of their Randian penis-enhancement schemes is so much Trumpian puffery. Government is not their enemy. It’s a tool of the moneyed class for making more money.
Matt Taibbi in his heyday understood this. He wrote in Griftopia (2011), “There are really two Americas.” For the grifter class, government is “a tool for making money,” while “in everybody-else land, the government is something to be avoided.”
Elon Musk invested — what other word is there for it? — over a quarter billion dollars in getting Donald Trump reelected. Now it’s time for Trump to pay dividends. Not from his own stash, of course. From America’s. “They’re just backing the truck up to the government,” Hayes warns.
As I discovered when I was very young, when a rich man has a hell of a deal for me, I grasp tightly onto my wallet and back quickly away.
Pay attention and get those letters to your senators and reps ready even if they are Republicans. Now is the time to resist.
Video of Sandy Hook survivors as they prepare to graduate high school last summer(9:10)
I am sitting here trying to come up with some meaningful phrase to try to capture the continuing enormity of what happened 12 years ago today. There is little that can be said except that like in many issues those who stand to make big bucks from the suffering of others – especially the poor and the vulnerable – often are able to exploit such a tragedy to multiply their wealth.
When we have what seems to be a transforming event those who profit from the suffering of others seem to somehow always come up with ways to forestall and sometimes even profit more from the tragedy. Or they often even profit further despite a tragedy.
Just a week ago we had an incident that high lighted what in America has become a true tragedy – how Americans are denied access to the use of their own insurance dollars for their own healthcare. Stories of denials that lead almost immediately to a patients demise have been all over the internet.
Expect the insurance companies to follow the lead of the gun industry and keep a low profile for a while as the politicians they have bought work to lower the temperature of the nation on insurance company malfeasance.Voila, another horrific tragedy (I mean the insurance company denials) swept under the rug with no change.
Not only will the paid shills in congress once again avoid doing anything, they will probably pick up votes from the very voters who are harmed by their action.
So here we are 12 years after the horrendous tragedy in Connecticut. The party that refuses to do a damned thing to stop the insane gun lobby has just taken over our government from stem to stern with no plans giving up their power ever.
And in 12 years death by gun is the leading killer of under-18 year olds in the US.
During the run up to the 2024 election, why didn’t we hear more about clean water and Iowa’s water quality problems from candidates for office? I don’t know, but my prediction is in 2026 water quality will be front and center in large part due to citizen journalists and groups such as Sierra Club of Iowa and CCI who are reporting and organizing local communities and taking action.
With the demise of newspapers, other forms of news and information sharing are cropping up everywhere. Substack is one of those. There is some great journalistic work being done on the growing platform on Iowa environmental issues, particularly water quality. Nina B. Elkadi, of Corn Belt Confidential, is one to follow.
Iowan writing about ag & water. Bylines in National Geographic, Civil Eats, Inside Climate News, High Country News, Barn Raiser, and more.
Elkadi is an Iowa City native and is also a member of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative.
This is an excerpt from a recent post:
Manure spills in the state of Iowa have contributed to what environmental advocacy groups call a water quality crisis. In the capital city of Des Moines, the local water supply has one of the world’s largest nitrate removal facilities. Nitrate is the resulting chemical of manure that is not absorbed by the soil or crops. Due to high levels of nitrate in water, which can cause blue baby syndrome in children and colon cancer in adults, the Des Moines Water Works has to run its nitrate removal system more frequently as the situation worsens — at a cost of anywhere from $10,000 to $16,000 per day, which falls entirely on utility customers.
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)
Sorry, just kidding. Howard Dean, the Democrats’ best DNC chair ever, is not running again as far as we know.
Blog For Iowa 