Harreld New UI Pres And Other Thoughts

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Dave Bradley

old capital winter

With the announcement of the new U of Iowa president as a person of big business the Board of Regents once more sticks a shaft into the university.

Branstad and Rastetter have done little to hide their disdain for the University over the years. Not sure what to expect will happen, but just guessing based on Branstad’s vendetta on unions and Rastetter’s agreement on that we can expect a real push against the public unions at the school. If Branstad could get a majority of Republicans in the Iowa senate and maintain his majority in the Iowa house, Iowa can be the new Wisconsin.

Like so many I am very disappointed in this hire, but little surprised. I expect this to lead to a diminishing of Iowa’s academic standing in pursuit of making it more business like.

kim davis destroyed
Hat tip to democraticundergound for this twitter

Clerk Refusing to Issue Marriage Licenses
What a great idea! Let every government official decide what he or she can do based on their conscience. For instance, if I were a county clerk and part of my duties included issuing gun permits, I would say Hell No! Pretty much every religion, code of ethics and set of laws actually does name killing as an offense whereas Jesus himself never said anything against homosexuality.

So I would urge other Kim Davises of the country to dig deep into their religious background and stop issuing gun permits because guns are often used as weapons in killing and your religion, I am fairly sure, condemns killing. That should be in line with every one’s religious convictions.

And I have no doubt that right wing politicians at every level will applaud and defend your right to stand against judicial tyranny by not issuing gun permits!

Mara Liasson
Mara Liasson is best known as an NPR reporter. Few seem to remember that she is also an employee of Fox News. My take has always been that she is an employee of Fox mostly because she is an employee of NPR and thus Fox can trade off the good will of NPR. Somehow, Juan Williams got let go by NPR for similar reasons, yet Liasson trundles on as a dual employee.

Liasson garnered attention last week by reporting on NPR last week that if VP Joe Biden were to get in the presidential race, then Hillary Clinton would have some competition. Bernie Sanders backers were really taken aback by this statement and let it be known that their man was providing quite a challenge to Clinton. Liasson ignored Sanders.

This is a strategy that has been employed throughout many recent campaigns – when a corporate news source wants to hurt a candidate they give him or her NO air time good or bad. Liasson was simply doing her Fox business on NPR. What’s that old saying? No one can serve two masters?

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The Angry Rich Man May Cause Some Soul-Searching

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Dave Bradley

donald-trump-angry-

Much as I really don’t want to, it is just hard to ignore the Don-Don. He is as gentle and quiet as a rampaging bull elephant trumpeting loudly to warn everything in its path to get out of the way. While Trump doesn’t have the heft of a bull elephant, he does have a couple of things that serve as heft in this society – an outsized bankroll and celebrity.

Like so many I am sitting in wonder at how this man whose life is the antithesis of nearly everything we are told that the Republican Party believes in. Three marriages and publicly reported affairs, expressed belief that some taxes must be raised and an expressed belief in universal health care. The only thing Trump seems to have in common with his chosen party is that all the ills in this country have been caused by a scapegoat population. Like many politicians before him, Donald Trump saw what direction the parade was going and jumped in front of it.

Here in Iowa, Republicans were once thought of as being actually conservative as in being careful with money and resources. Mr. Trump is neither, nor does he exhibit any of the other traits of traditional Republican Iowa such as church attendance and leading a quiet life. The current chair of Iowa’s Republicans has seemed to want to bring back that style in the last couple of years.

Which brings me to the question, if Donald Trump secures the nomination of the Republican Party will the Iowa Republican Party back Trump even though the Trump persona is in so many ways in conflict with what the Iowa Republican Party stands for? Will the Iowa Republican Party surrender it ideals for electoral victory?

There is an age old philosophical question that never seems to get resolved – Do the ends justify the means? Stated a little bit differently the question is whether it violating some moral guidelines is alright in order to achieve some perceived higher moral good. We have seen this played out in many instances over the years from this opposing abortion. To the end of ending abortion, anti-abortionists have employed what most consider the most immoral of all acts, murder.

Watching various campaigns and hot button issue discussions over the past couple of decades those on the right seem to have little problem employing the practices of lying, omission and wild exaggeration to achieve what they consider a moral good. Just based on those observations one could easily conclude that in right wing eyes the ends do justify the means. One may also question whether the conclusions, such as keeping wages low, keeping wages below poverty level or stopping action to affect climate change that they seek to achieve are moral.

So the Republicans have a populist demagogue leading their polls who in so many ways is in counterpoint to perceived Republican values. Were Trump to win the Republican nomination will state party apparatus such as Iowa’s get behind Trump for the purpose of winning the election despite his open violating of Republican guidelines? Will Iowa’s party leaders speak highly of a man with multiple marriages and affairs, with multiple bankruptcies, with very questionable business practices at times, who fans the flames of racism and who uses employees almost as props to his ego?

If Trump is nominated will rank and file Iowa Republicans justify a vote for this man as seeking a higher good despite real problems with the means provided? One can almost hear the justifications pouring forth from the likes of a Bob Vander Plaats as claims God as working in mysterious ways. Will we hear the likes of Joni Ernst, Steve King , David Young and Rod Blum telling us that Trump is indeed a good person and will work for the good of all citizens when evidence indicates he won’t?

However, whether Trump is the nominee or not, all have been tainted by not responding to his racist scapegoating in an immediate and forceful way. To a lesser extent each current Republican candidate is tainted. Backing one of them may require a bit less moral gymnastics, but each of them also have an “ends justify the means” problem when it comes to countenancing things like lying on climate change, poverty and extreme income inequality.

Or as Kenneth Galbraith once said:

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

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Reminder: Voting Machines Can Still Be Hacked

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Dave Bradley
Will the machine record the way you vote correctly?

Will the machine record the way you vote correctly?

While media focuses on the horse race aspects of the next presidential race and adherents of one candidate or another argue into the night of nuanced aspects of policy, most have forgotten one aspect of elections that could have a major impact on the 2016 election – Americans still vote on machines that can be easily hacked.

Once again we had some surprising results in an election in 2014. Once again electronic voting machines are in the middle of the controversy. Once again, rather than those in power being open and honest about the process, cover ups ensue.

While Republicans have shifted the debate about election fraud to blaming folks who ineligible to vote and have focused on making it harder to vote for millions of citizens, once again the easiest path to election fraud lies in the software of electronic voting machines.

Prof. Beth Clarkson of Wichita State University, head of the school’s National Institute of Aviation Statistics, saw some disturbing trends in the 2014 election in Kansas. This election was expected to see Republicans Gov. Sam Brownback, Sen. Pat Roberts and Secretary of State Kris Kobach to be handily defeated. Instead all won handily. Clarkson could not help but be suspicious.

From a story and interview on bradblog.com this week Brad Friedman (long time critic of electronic voting machines) explores what happened in Kansas with Clarkson. Here is a short excerpt from the story:

Confirming a theory initially reported by two other statisticians in 2012 [PDF], Clarkson has found that computer-reported results from larger precincts in the state, with more than 500 voters, show a “consistent” statistical increase in votes for the Republican candidates in general elections (and even a similar increase for establishment GOP candidates versus ‘Tea Party’ challengers during Republican primaries). Those results run counter to conventional political wisdom that Democrats perform better in larger, more urban precincts.

The larger the precinct size, she explains on today’s program, the higher the percentage of the vote for the GOP candidate. Clarkson finds “that is the case, and that is a relationship that is unexplained and very troubling.” Previously, statisticians Francois Choquette and James Johnson found a similarly unexplained relationship while examining reported vote totals in Iowa, New Hampshire, Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Even more disturbing, in hopes of further testing her theory, Clarkson has filed a lawsuit under the state’s public records act in hopes of auditing some of the so-called “paper trails” from the state’s unverifiable touch-screen voting systems, but Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach (a long-time GOP vote suppression champion) is fighting her access to those records in court. Kobach’s full response is here [PDF]. The response from the Sedgewick County Election Commissioner Tabatha Lehman is here.

“There have been a few theories advanced,” to explain the statistical pattern. “The one I find most probable is that the voting machines are being manipulated. Their vulnerability seems to me a fairly high-probability explanation for this particular pattern. It fits exactly what you’d expect to see if people are flipping the votes within voting machines.”

The interview is at the bottom of that same article here. It is sixty minutes in length. The interview with Clarkson actually begins about 20 minutes in. For the first twenty minutes, Friedman sets up the whole electronic voting hacking story.

Remember that policies from universal health care to climate change response to protections for labor and the ability to organize to such basic questions as fair taxation are decided by these elected officials. Americans are not free if they do not have verifiable elections. Without that our democracy is a sham. Next year’s election will be crucial to returning our country to a balanced society. Allowing election theft to happen at all is one of the great crimes in America.

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Donald Kaul Weighs In On The Other Donald

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Trish Nelson

donald kaulOtherWords.com

Trump’s No Outlier

When it comes to the way he treats workers, the Donald is as Republican as capital gains and Richard Nixon.

By Donald Kaul

There are those who would have you believe that Donald Trump is an aberration among Republican presidential contenders — the black sheep uncle who shows up half-drunk at family gatherings, insults the guests, scandalizes the women, and otherwise brings dishonor to the clan.

Don’t believe them.

Trump is as Republican as capital gains and Richard Nixon.

You might even say that Trump’s the quintessential Republican politician — he’s just willing to say out loud what the rest say only in private. Think Mitt Romney and his infamous “47 percent” remarks, which Romney intended for a fat-cat Republican audience only.

Trump was at it again the other week with a plan for making Detroit’s auto companies more competitive. He would have them pull their manufacturing jobs from the relatively high-paying plants of the north and move them south — to Tennessee, say — where employees are willing to work for less.

Once Detroit workers have learned their lesson and are desperate for jobs, his plan continues, he would offer to move the factories back and pay lower wages than even Tennesseans are willing to accept.

Can there be a more Republican plan than that? Pit workers against each other, driving wages down and profits up. It’s called the free enterprise system.

Republicans know that catechism well, but they don’t talk about it in public. They talk about freeing workers from the tyranny of unions and allowing them to negotiate their wages on their own — as Adam Smith and God intended them to.

Give them this: The Republicans have done a brilliant job of selling that nonsense to the American public. Even famously labor-friendly Michigan is now a so-called right-to-work state. It’s as though the Vatican became Presbyterian.

Without the countervailing force of unions, corporations are free to run roughshod over the hard-won economic and political gains made by the working classes over the past 100 years.

Michigan, once one of the most progressive states in the union, is now ruled by free enterprise Republicans. And it can no longer repair its roads, support its schools, or keep its parks open.

Do you want better roads? Then, these Republicans say, you must pay for them by cutting Social Security, health care, and pensions — not to mention wages.

That death of the American middle class has occurred in parallel with the decline of unions in this country. That’s no coincidence.

The labor movement was behind virtually every progressive advance of the 20th century. The 40-hour work week, pensions, paid vacations, sick leave, safety rules, employer-paid health insurance, and the banning of child labor — all these bore the union label to one degree or another.

In a sense it was the labor movement that created the middle class in this country.

Then the powers that be convinced a good share of the American people that they’re consumers rather than workers — and unions are bad for consumers. Hard-won labor rights, according to this mindset, make things more expensive.

But they also make it possible for ordinary working-class Americans to live a comfortable life, take vacations, and send their kids to college. At least that’s what they used to do. I fear those days are gone forever.

The Republicans will have to get rid of Trump, of course. He scares the horses. They’re going to have to find a candidate who walks like Trump but talks like Fred Rogers, the beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood man.

Could it be Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin? He has a proven record as a union-buster and has yet to utter a single original thought. Of late, however, he’s been yanked into Trump territory by his fear of the tea party.

How about Marco Rubio, the Chinese take-out candidate? You read one of his speeches and an hour later you’re hungry. There’s no substance.

Take heart. At least we don’t have Michele Bachmann to worry about. That’s something.

Donald Kaul has written columns for half a century, beginning with a long stint at the Des Moines Register that made him a household name (in a good way) throughout Iowa. OtherWords began distributing his columns in 2001 following his retirement from the Register. Kaul, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary in 1987 and 1999, lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. You can read more about his career in this column. He regularly writes OtherWords commentaries.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The FCC And Internet Investment

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Paul Deaton

al franken on net neutralityTo the Editor of the Des Moines Register

In her Sept. 1 Des Moines Register opinion piece, “Congress must protect net neutrality,” Clayola Brown gets it exactly wrong.

She wrote, “the FCC’s approach to net neutrality is a serious mistake,”  adding, treating the Internet as a common carrier utility could “dramatically cut back the new investments needed for the next phase of the Internet economy.”

What a bunch of bunk.

Title II protections were authorized by a bi-partisan vote of the U.S. Congress, giving the FCC authority to protect net neutrality. What the FCC did was restore these protections after millions of people urged the agency to do just that.

The rules set in February haven’t hurt investment and there’s no plausible reason to suspect they will. On the contrary, companies like Comcast, Google Fiber, Verizon and AT&T have made new investments in their Internet networks since the ruling.

For example, Comcast is rolling out new gigabit fiber services, called “Gigabit Pro” to 18 million locations.

What the FCC rules have done is provide a regulatory framework upon which Internet service providers will have to compete for business. The result has been investment in infrastructure.

As Brown asserted, “investment means jobs,” so what’s the problem?

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Denial and Denali

Posted on September 3, 2015 by Paul Deaton
Denali Photo Credit - Wikimedia Commons

Denali Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons

Environmentalists are having trouble wrapping their head around a president who visited Alaska above the Arctic Circle on Wednesday to speak on the need to mitigate the causes of climate change, while at the same time on Aug. 17 approved Royal Dutch Shell’s exploration and development of oil there.

It’s not that hard because the challenge of our time is the lack of political will to take action to reduce CO2 emissions in a culture dependent upon fossil fuels. The problem is politics, not physics.

Bill McKibben expressed the sentiment concisely:

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It’s no use crying Bill McKibben’s tears.

In 2014, the U.S. used 6.95 billion barrels of crude oil with 27 percent being imported, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. That’s 19.05 million barrels per day, including biofuels. Most of it is for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, heating oil and liquefied petroleum gas. (The EIA explains how the oil was used here).

During President Obama’s administration the U.S. took substantial action to reduce dependence on imported oil. During the eight years of President George W. Bush, the country imported 28.6 billion barrels of oil or 3.574 billion barrels per year on average. In 2014, the U.S. imported 2.68 billion barrels or 25 percent less than the Bush average.

The rub is that in order to reduce imports, the Obama administration encouraged domestic production through an all of the above strategy that included hydraulic fracturing and increased exploration and discovery like Royal Dutch Shell had been doing in the Arctic in 2012. The strategy worked, and has been revitalized, but at what cost?

Doing nothing about global warming is not an option. The Obama administration has been and is doing something significant. As much as some would like to shut down the coal trains, end hydraulic fracturing and stop drilling for oil – leaving fossil fuels in the ground – it is only beginning to happen under Obama. Whoever is president in 2017, an “all of the above” strategy would mean quite different things with a Democrat or Republican in office.

Scientists understand the basic physics of global warming, and mostly have since the mid-1800s. As long as there is demand for fossil fuels, there is no reason to think exploration and discovery by oil companies will end any time soon. The problem with denial is not so much with political climate deniers. The physics will out, hopefully not too late.

A bigger problem is denial of our addiction to fossil fuels. Most continue to use them like there is no tomorrow. A reckoning is coming and it will take more than renaming that mountain to climb it.

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Wages And Private Sector Unions

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Paul Deaton

labor movementAs we approach Labor Day, the lockout of United Steel Workers at six Allegheny Technologies plants is a sad commentary on the state of affairs of public sector unions.

“Management has locked out more than 2,000 workers in an effort to extract concessions on health and retirement benefits from union members,” according to Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times.

“ATI is demanding steep increases in out-of-pocket health care expenses and the elimination of pensions for new hires, essentially creating a two-tier wage and benefit system. In addition, ATI wants to expand the use of outside contractors and impose work rule changes that would turn workers into casual laborers, with irregular and unpredictable shift times, less access to overtime pay and worse working conditions,” according to Evan Winters of the World Socialist Web Site.

It is no secret that American business has been working to shed pension and health insurance liabilities, and for the most part has been successful during the post-Reagan era. If they had their way, companies would seek to eliminate most operational liabilities from having employees by outsourcing and using temporary, part-time workers without benefits.

That the company (through a third party) is able to offer temp workers as much as $3,000 per 84-hour week without benefits – plus a guaranteed layoff if a new contract between labor and management is signed – is a demonstration of the power of capital in this capital intensive industry. The average annual wage for a USW worker at Allegheny Technologies is $90,000, which includes mandatory overtime.

If $90,000 per year plus benefits seems like a lot, the work is physically demanding, dirty, repetitive and resoundingly dull. For long-time steel workers, it is a way of life, fraught with injury and physical deterioration. On a scale of wage justice, steel workers should be at the higher end of the range.

Yet the company can, and likely would pay a premium rate to keep the plant operating, albeit at a lower rate of efficiency, until the union contract is settled – or when the temporary workers are made replacement workers. Hiltzik called it a “race to the bottom,”  and friends of labor would agree.

The union is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. On the one hand, some members believe USW leaders are too cozy with Allegheny Technologies management, according to Winters. Rank and file may or may not accept a deal presented for a vote. On the other hand, if there were no USW, management would long ago have made the changes they seek in this new contract.

In 2014, 6.6 percent of private-sector workers in the U.S. were union members, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Iowa, it is slightly higher at 6.9 percent, or 84,791 union members. As a right to work state, there are another 7,500 private-sector workers who are not union members, but work at a company where the pay and benefits are set by a union contract.

The Allegheny Technologies lockout is a case where each contract negotiation has become an opportunity to break the union, rather than to make adjustments in pay and benefits to serve both employees and the company. Because of the capital intensive nature of the steel industry, labor is required to keep plants operating. Just not workers represented by a union.

Posted in Labor | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Expanding The Electorate In Iowa

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Paul Deaton

go vote(Editor’s Note: Three candidates lead the presidential primary race in Iowa summer polling, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Political action is expected to heat up toward the end of the year, especially as families gather for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. There is a case to be made it doesn’t much matter which one of the three is the Democratic nominee because, as Sean McElwee pointed out, “progressives do not need a charismatic leader. Instead, they need to invest in unleashing the disgruntled progressive majority.” To the extent the Iowa Democratic Party is working toward that end, there is a possibility to keep Iowa a purple state. Maybe readers do, but I don’t see that happening as school begins and summer ends. Here is McElwee’s case for electing a progressive by expanding the electorate).

If Everyone Voted, Progressives Would Win
By Sean McElwee, Al Jazeera

In preparation for the 2016 presidential election, Democrats appear united around one candidate, while the Republican contest remains far from secured. Many on the left, who view Hillary Clinton’s stances as a tame brand of liberalism, have attempted to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to run. But the progressives do not need a charismatic leader. Instead, they need to invest in unleashing the disgruntled progressive majority. A longer-term strategy for progressives should be to strengthen unions and boost turnout among politically marginalized populations.

“If everybody in this country voted,” the economist John Kenneth Galbraith said, “the Democrats would be in for the next 100 years.” There is strong evidence to support his claim. A 2007 study by Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler found that nonvoters are more economically liberal than voters, preferring government health insurance, easier union organizing and more federal spending on schools. Nonvoters preferred Barack Obama to Mitt Romney by 59 percent to 24 percent, while likely voters were split 47 percent for each, according to a 2012 Pew Research Center poll. Nonvoters are far less likely to identify as Republican, and voters tend to be more opposed to redistribution than nonvoters.

Read the entire article on Al Jazeera here.

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Steak Not Cake

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Paul Deaton
Listen live Mondays at 11 am

Listen live Mondays at 11 am

Dear Friends,

This weekend, I attended a most incredible, eclectic gathering of around 2,000 farmers, rednecks and environmentalists. People arrived via pick-up truck, Prius and Harley. They came to support Lee County landowners fighting to stop the Bakken pipeline. If one needed a reminder that the passion for liberty and justice still burns strong in America, this was it. I’ll save that story for next week, when we’ll have some video clips and photos to share.

Over the weekend, a new Iowa Poll showed Hillary Clinton’s lead over Bernie Sanders had shrunk to a mere seven percentage points in the Iowa Democratic Caucus. On the Republican side, two non-politicians – Donald Trump and Ben Carson – lead the other 15 candidates by ten percentage points!

Of course, the mainstream media and the political elite mostly miss the essential message that these polls reveal: Across the political spectrum, people are fed-up with establishment politicians.

Really? Who knew? Aren’t we all just thrilled with the way things are going in Washington, at our Statehouses and at City Hall? We’re not the least bit upset that the richest Americans are hoarding more and more of the wealth we toil to generate. No one’s bothered by the bloated military budget and the larger and larger chunk of our tax dollars it eats up. Folks are fine with our government spying on us like never before. We’ve got no complaints about politicians fiddling while climate change scorches the southwest and threatens to drown most of Florida. And we’re all fine with the obscene amount of money in elections – and the onslaught of attack ads that comes with it.

Enough sarcasm for one morning. The message to the Political and Corporate Elite is this: You have failed. We’re at the end of our rope, and we’re ready to shake up the political universe. We’ll express our dislike of your business-as-usual candidates through our enthusiasm for presidential aspirants with zero political experience (Trump and Carson) and a candidate who, despite years of political experience, has always been an outsider and consistent voice for reform (Sanders).

Will the Establishment hear? Or will they continue to believe that the masses can be satiated with another sliver of cake when they’re starved for steak?

Join us live every Monday from 11:00-12:00 noon CDT on KDLF 1260 AM (Des Moines) and online. Call (515) 528-8122 to add your voice to the conversation. The program re-broadcasts Wednesday on KHOI 89.1 FM (Ames) at 4:00 p.m. and Wednesday on KPVL 89.1 FM (Postville) at 7:00 p.m. Podcasts available, too.

Thanks! – Ed Fallon

EVENTS

Now-December – Utilities Board deliberations pipeline (ND, SD, IA, IL)
In Iowa, for details on the evolving schedule, visit https://iub.iowa.gov/. For questions on how you can have your voice heard in the process, contact Ed Fallon at fallonforum@gmail.com or the Bakken Pipeline Resistance Facebook Page.

September – Just Faith Meetings (Des Moines metro)
The Center for Social Ministry regularly offers the Just Faith classes to anyone who is interested. It is an in-depth look at the call for social ministry, with both a Catholic and an ecumenical version:
– Mondays 6:30-8:30 p.m. at SS John & Paul Church, Altoona
– Tuesdays 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at St. Timothy’s Episcopal, WDM
– Wednesdays 6:30-8:30 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal, 6th & High, DM
– Thursdays 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m., Catholic Pastoral Center, 6th & Locust
– Thursdays  6:00-8:00 p.m. at Friends House, 4211 Grand Ave, DM
– Sundays 4:00-6:00 p.m. at Windsor Heights Presbyterian Church
If you would like to register for a group, click here.  For more information about Just Faith, contact the Center for Social Ministry at (515) 782-3054 or centerforsocialministry@gmail.com.

September 17 – Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship
Do you know someone who works tirelessly in defense of their community against the oil and gas industry’s harms? Nominate them for the FracTracker and Halt the Harm Network Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship. Nominations open until August 17. To nominate someone visit: http://www.fractracker.org/get-involved/sentinel-award.

October 2-3 – Celebrate 40 Years with Iowa CCI (Des Moines)
Join Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement to celebrate 40 years of tackling tough issues and to lift up the People and Planet First agenda. There will be live music and dancing, food, and big-name doers and thinkers. For more information or to register, go to http://iowacci.org.

October 3-5 – Stop the Frack Attack National Summit (Denver, CO)
Join movement leaders, community activists and people affected by fracking across the country. We are gathering in Denver, CO to share stories, become better spokespeople, learn about clean energy alternatives, celebrate victories, and strengthen this national movement. We will also be taking to the streets of Denver to protest the harm that fracking causes to our health, our climate, and our communities.

October 8 – Faith in a Changing Climate Reception (Des Moines)
Three climate champions will be recognized at this dinner event sponsored by Iowa Interfaith Power & Light. It features keynote speaker Fr. Robert “Bud” Grant, professor of theology at St. Ambrose University, speaking on “From St. Francis to Pope Francis: A Theology of Relationship with All God’s Creation.” The dinner and reception are from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, 601 Grand Ave. Reservations are $60 per person, which includes dinner ($25 of which supports the mission of Iowa Interfaith Power & Light and is tax-deductible). Contact Susan Guy at director@iowaipl.org.

October 31 – ISIS & Waging Peace (Des Moines)
Methodist Federation for Social Action’s fall statewide gathering will be led by Jeffrey Weiss, Catholic Peace Ministry Peace Education Director. It’s at 10:00 a.m. in Fellowship Hall at First United Methodist Church, 1001 Pleasant Street.

November 11-28 – Walk to Paris for Climate Action (Normandy-Paris)
On 11 November (Veterans Day in the U.S.), Ed Fallon and Steve Martin (who last year walked across the U.S. for action on climate change) will set-out from the coast of Normandy, France, walking over 350 kilometers to arrive in Paris on November 28 for the start of the United Nations Climate Summit. Contact Evelyn Davis at evelyn@climatemarch.org.

November 30-December 11 – U.N. Climate Summit (Paris, France)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders from government, finance, business, and civil society to galvanize and catalyze climate action. He has asked these leaders to bring bold announcements and actions to the Summit that will reduce emissions, strengthen climate resilience, and mobilize political will for a meaningful legal agreement. Visit http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/.

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ACLU Names Allen Honorees

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Paul Deaton

ACLU - Iowa(Editor’s Note: The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa created the Edward S. Allen award. Here is their release about the ceremony coming Oct. 2 in Des Moines).

August 27, 2015

I’m excited to announce that we have named three remarkable Iowa leaders as the first-ever recipients of the ACLU of Iowa Edward S. Allen award, named after the Iowa State University math professor who founded the ACLU of Iowa in 1935. The honorees this inaugural year are Dennis Barnum, Mary Garst, and Art Neu.
The past year marked the passing of all three, who have done much to defend and advance civil liberties for all Iowans. As a result, to recognize them in a fitting way, the ACLU of Iowa created a new award to recognize such individuals, living or deceased. Find out more about the Allen Award honorees’ accomplishments.
We created the Edward S. Allen award to ensure that we had the ability to recognize Iowans who are long-time civil liberties heroes. While the ACLU of Iowa staff and board work tirelessly to defend civil liberties, we cannot do it alone, and it is important to recognize members of our community who give of their own time to expand and protect civil liberties in our state.
Please join me and the ACLU of Iowa staff and board at our 80th Birthday Bash on Friday, October 2 to celebrate our 80th year and recognize these three Edward S. Allen Award honorees.

ACLU of Iowa 80th Birthday Bash
Friday, October 2, 5:30-8 p.m.
World Food Prize Building, Des Moines

We hope to see you there!
Sincerely,
Jeremy Rosen, Executive Director

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