Ashley Hinson’s town hall meeting started late and ended abruptly on time. Throughout, she seemed to be using a filibuster strategy, rambling on in a smooth, polished monotone and not directly answering questions except maybe once when she told a questioner she did not believe the Trump administration had plans to eliminate traditional Medicare in favor of only Advantage plans.
Questions were similar to what we’ve seen at the Grassley events – people concerned about due process, why congress isn’t doing anything, DOGE, the Trump administration’s illegal actions, Medicare, Medicaid, national security, Hegeseth.
After a veteran in the audience who works at the VA told his personal story of how the VA DOGE cuts went down in his workplace, Ashley Hinson stood at the podium and insisted that the firings and cuts needed to happen because some people at the VA weren’t doing their jobs.
What about you, Congresswoman? More than one person at this town hall told you they have contacted you several times and received no response. That sounds like someone not doing their job. You defend Trump and DOGE and the MAGA party and slam Joe Biden but you are not standing up for veterans and people who are struggling in your own district.
Who is not doing their job? Your constituents think it is you.
Defending the indefensible is no easy task even for cold-hearted Republicans. IA-01 Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks escaped by taking off like a bat out of hell down the hall to the nearest exit. Enjoy!
Yesterday was Earth Day. Happy belated Earth Day, mother Earth!
A Not So Silent Spring
by Molly Regan April 2025
A Not So Silent Spring was held in Davenport, Iowa USA. “Hands Off” was the real name of the rally here and in over 2,000 locations across America. But I feel this Saturday 5 April 2025’s protests across our beloved hurting country can also be known as A Not So Silent Spring.
The reason: U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. He stood for over 25 hours and filibustered the dome off the U.S. Senate.
The grit, patriotism, perseverance, hutzpah, and sheer knowledge this man displayed deserves a medal. Sen. Cory Booker deserves an Oscar. He deserves an Emmy. He deserves a Tony. Let’s throw in a statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection. How about a lifetime of free car washes somebody?
Sen. Cory Booker is now the new record holder for filibustering the U.S. senate. Those who have not yet re-engaged in saving our Democracy, certainly were given the boost needed to get back out there by Sen. Booker’s actions. He gave a more than proportional response to the current state of our bruised Democracy. Those kicking our Constitution will soon realise how many people despise them. They’ll find their attempts at destroying our beloved United States Of America won’t work.
At our Davenport “Hands Off!” rally , between 2,000-3,000 people came out. It was tremendous! We were at the new Friends Of MLK Park. Lots of signs like Hands Off Libraries, Honor our Veterans, Empathy Matters, Hands Off Housing, No Kings In America 5051, Hands Off Free Speech, Are We Great Yet?, Hands Off Social Security, Honor Our Constitution, Make Good Trouble Remember John Lewis, Everybody Is Welcome, This Is Some nazi Bullshit, and one of my favorites: OMG GOP WTF Wake Up! Plus hundreds more. On and on.
There were a dozen uplifting speakers. Followed by nearly continuous cheers only interrupted by a train next to the park. Several trains. One blared a long-held whistle we took as a sign of concurrence. Surely, a Union member conductor. We were giddy with pride-filled optimism much like a campaign rally before the Iowa caucus.
It was a thing of national beauty and a patriotic joy forever.
Newly elected DNC vice chair, Parkland survivor (the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in U.S. history) and founder of March for Our Lives, David Hogg has caused a stir among some Democrats with his initiative, Leaders We Deserve, a plan to elect younger and better leaders. The word “primary” came up and got leadership Dems a little anxious. I’ll be honest it made me a little anxious at first too.
In this interview with Symone Sanders he explains it’s not all about age, it’s about effectiveness. He acknowledges there are ineffective young leaders and ineffective older leaders. He said it’s about building leadership to meet the moment and for the future. He said he would not primary any seat Democrats are at risk of losing. He said he would not risk causing Democrats to lose congress in 2026. He’s not trying to blow up the party. That’s good enough for me.
I’m not bashing Democrats. But the old guard has had their chance and look where we are. And I’m not saying turn it all over to the twenty-somethings who can do it better. Or that all of our answers lie with youth. We need young, old and in between in my view. But Hogg has the authority of someone who survived a school shooting where friends were killed and has had to watch the country do nothing about it while he organized and lobbied and raised money and dedicated his life trying to fix America’s ridiculous gun problem that his generation did not cause.
I am on his side. I think Democrats should be happy he’s on our side in the fight against fascism. In the struggle to get Democrats to fight back harder, David Hogg is like our Caitlin Clark and Democrats should be like Lisa Bluder – let him play and don’t rein him in.
This was an excellent interview where Symone asked tough questions and he set the record straight.
Building the movement takes time and we need everyone. Go to Indivisible.org to find out how to get involved. Find events at mobilize.us/
If you can’t protest there are other things you can do. Everything matters. Here is a quote from someone I follow on Blue Sky.
“Don’t let your inability to do everything interfere with your ability to do anything. The protests are having more of an effect than you think.”
In 1944, the year before the end of the Second World War, and Mussolini’s and Hitler’s dictatorships, Woody Guthrie recorded “All You Fascists.” Here it is covered by Pigs and Clover.
Round 2, look at this turnout! Thanks to everyone who took the time and showed up.
State senator and Democratic Leader of the Senate Janice Weiner has taken the mic at both Iowa City protests and has been an incredible leader in her new role.
Corey Booker tells an inspiring story and Mark Kelly explain how and why the protests and calls to members of congress are working and every small act of resistance helps.
If you can’t attend a protest there are other things you can do. Calling congress is a big one and according to some, the single most important action we can take. You can reach any representative or senator through the capitol switchboard. 202-224-3121. Sometimes it’s easier to get through to a local office. There is an easy app, 5 calls that provides brief informational talking points on issues. https://5calls.org/
Do you remember clear back to last week when Stinky Pants threw the stock markets into a wild ride by first calling for ridiculous tariffs around the world and then rescinding them a couple days later? This sent stock markets into a wild roller-coaster ride where if someone had inside information they could have made huge bundles of money.
Reports are that some Republican congress members did just that. Doing so is illegal and has been illegal for a long time. But the lure of a quick score is hard to ignore and many think the rewards would be worth the chance of getting caught.
The venue where such a crime would be New York City where the stock exchange resides. Thus, crimes committed there that violate state laws would come under the purview of New York’s AG Letitia James. Keeping things clean is one thing New York wants to do. Therefore, James jumped in immediately to investigate.
Now, all citizens should be applauding James for her immediate attention to this matter. However, if you happen to be someone who is perpetrating market manipulation through insider information, you might try to shake the investigators off your tail by threatening action against the investigators. Seems like an old mob style response.
And of course that is just what Stinky Pants and his incredibly corrupt gun moll, Pam Bondi did almost immediately. Using their bully pulpit to paint the investigators as the criminals.
Remember that Stinky Pants was (corruptly) given a ‘get out of jail free’ card by John Roberts and the corrupt MAGAs on his Supreme Court. Since James will be prosecuting this at a state level we will see who has what power.
Once again Trump and his mob were so inept in their attempts to steal ?millions? in broad daylight that they practically begged to be caught and tried. And if they win it will be another knife in the body of our once great constitutional form of government.
This is a good place to remind ourselves that 250 years ago this weekend the first volleys of the Revolutionary War were fired in Lexington and Concord. The War was in response to out of control and fully corrupt government back in London. I will leave it to you to draw any parallels you want.
Let me first acknowledge that yes today is Easter. However, with the way Christianity has been misshapen and used as a cudgel in recent decades I will leave it alone only to acknowledge that it is a holiday celebrated today.
Earth Day is Tuesday. Fifty-five years ago in 1970 it was first celebrated to focus our collective spirits on an ailing planet and what we could do to save the only planet that we have and will ever have. There ain’t no ’Planet B,’ folks. Nd if we don’t take care of this one it will no longer support us or the myriads of other forms of life we share living space with.
So take some time this week and think seriously about what you in your own life can do to make life sustainable for all of life on Earth. I would offer quitting eating meat as one suggestion.
A) Payback, by gawd! The Stinky Pants regime has announced legal action against Maine since Maine refuses to ban transgendered athletes. How many athletes are they talking?
B) What US Senator flew to El Salvador Wednesday and was able to meet with the person kidnapped and rendered to that country by ICE?
C) Uniting the right! What two extremist right wing international leaders paid calls on Stinky Pants this week?
D) Another school shooting by a white supremacist at what college campus Thursday?
E) Earth Day: On Earth Day, 2015 what agreement was signed by 174 signatory countries that aimed to keep global warming below 2 degrees C?
F) According to Dean Blundell, loyalists to Stinky Pants have been told to ditch their flag lapel pins and wear what lapel pin instead?
G) With today being Easter and the price of eggs being historically high what are some parents dyeing instead?
H) Besides being Easter, what two other groups have a reason to celebrate today 4/20?
I) The campaign is really started early for next year. Joni Ernst picked up another opponent last week. Can you name him?
J) And while we are at it, who announced a challenge to Ashly Hinson for next year already?
K) China emits the most greenhouse gases (GHGs). What percentage of the world’s GHGs is China responsible for?
L) Stinky Pants is threatening to fire what economists that he can’t really fire because the economist won’t do what Stinky Pants tells him?
M) What is the “greenhouse effect” in environmental lingo?
N) Pretty much unreported on the US mainland, Puerto Rico suffered what disturbance for a couple of days last week?
O) What pillow entrepreneur and buddy of Stinky Pants claims that he is now “flat broke”?
P) A Whistle blower in what area reported DOGE goons breaking into computer systems and giving access to Russian hackers among other crimes?
Q) More than half of our breathable oxygen on this planet comes from what source?
R) What US senator said in an interview that “we (MAGA senators) are all afraid because retaliation is real”?
S) Stinky Pants told an international visitor that his country should get ready because what group of people would be rendered to prisons in his country?
T) Finally for today, Iowa just passed a law that students must pass a citizenship test to do what?
Justice Sotomayor with a bone-chilling warning: “The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress if judicial review is denied unlawfully before re-moval. History is no stranger to such lawless regimes, but this Nation’s system of laws is designed to prevent, not en-able, their rise.”
Tip of the hat to democraticunderground.com
Answers:
A) I am trying to find a number – 2 is what I heard
B) Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen
C) Bukele from El Salvador and Giorgia Meloni of Italy
D) Florida State University in Tallahassee
E) The Paris Agreement. I believe Stinky Pants pulled us out
F) a golden bust of Stinky Pants
G) small white potatoes
H) Stoners (I have no reason why 4/20 is a meaningful number to them) and those who follow Hitler – born on this date in 1889
I) Nathan Sage, executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce
J) Democrat Kevin Techau, a former Iowa commissioner of public safety and U.S. attorney
K) 26%
L) Jerome Powell who is head of the Fed – firing Powell could really tank the markets
M) When the gasses in our atmosphere trap heat and block it from escaping our planet
N) a electric blackout Wednesday and Thursday
O) Mike Lindell
P) National Labor Relations Board – truly scary stuff
Q) the oceans through phytoplankton
R) Lisa Murkowski
S) “Homegrown criminals” in other words US citizens
T) Graduate from high school. May I say what a farce. And let me add – let us see legislators do it first or resign. And the governor does’t seem to have a handle on democracy herself.
When Trump and Musk tout how much money they’re saving by gutting cancer research and Social Security services, know this:
Their IRS cuts will cost $500 billion in tax revenue just this year. That’s more than half the Defense budget.
None of their destruction is actually about saving money. – Hillary Rodham Clinton
And here is a gentle reminder that Miller-Meeks has been invited to a Town Hall in Davenport on Earth Day. Hope you can be there to greet her:
Many of us have been making statements that the deficit is almost exactly equal to the amount of tax cuts for the wealthy that Republicans (pre MAGAs) and MAGAs have showered the wealthy with in this country over the past 44 years. Thom Hartmann broke that down in one of his daily newsletters.
It was very nice to see the numbers in black and white. For the most part these tax cuts have been paid for with borrowed money that you and I will be on the hook for to a much greater degree than any wealthy will unless tax codes somehow go back to pre-Reagan rules.
And do not forget that the borrowed money leaves us, as it does any borrower, vulnerable to someone cashing out. We borrow through the sale of Treasury bonds. If the security of those bonds becomes at all suspect as it did last week, then the interest rates could rise dramatically.
Thus was the source of the bond crisis that caused the sudden turn on tariffs last week that once more made Stinky Pants look like an idiot and a buffoon. The international floating of Treasuries exposed the US just enough that showed the world that at present we are not as reliable of a creditor as most thought we were. A crack in the foundation that could really grow.
Carney (note: current Canadian PM Mark Carney)reportedly got together recently with leaders of Europe and Japan to plan their response to Trump, and — being a former central banker — knew the biggest threat he and other democracies in the world could wield against Trump would be a 1929-style collapse of the US bond markets.
All they’d have to do is to begin to carefully dump their holdings of US treasuries, and it could force Trump to back down to avoid a massive market crash and freeze of the dollar-based system of international finance.
About $8.5 trillion of the US’ $36 trillion national debt is held by foreign governments (as treasuries), including $350 billion by Canada, $1 trillion by Japan, an estimated $1 trillion by China, and between $1.5 and $2 trillion by the EU.
<<snip>>
Republicans are entirely responsible for this loaded debt gun that’s now being put to our heads. Reagan’s tax gifts to billionaires (which is still in effect) have cost America at least $20 trillion; Bush’s have cost us around $6 trillion, plus another $6 trillion for the two illegal wars he lied us into to win the 2004 election; and Trump’s last tax cut cost us an estimated $5 trillion. That’s $37 trillion, and our national debt right now only stands at $36.22 trillion. (ed. note: bolding mine)
And they did it all because of Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santas” theory from 1976, which argued that when there’s a Republican in the White House he should spend like a drunken sailor (which stimulates the economy, creating the appearance of good times) to drive up the national debt.
Then, Wanniski argued, when a Democrat comes into office, Republicans should scream and squeal about the national debt “that our children will have to pay” to force Democrats to “shoot their Santa” of Social Security and other social programs in the face.
At this point let me add a thought for the future. To pay for future tax cuts for the rich, MAGAs are proposing cutting $6 Trillion out of spending that would thus “pay” for the tax cuts. As everybody knows that spending cut is proposed for the most part to come from Medicaid. MEDICAID, for gawd’s sake!
Medicaid is the health care place of last resort for the poor and disabled in this country. So MAGAs (including all of the Iowa delegation)are literally saying they will take health care AWAY from the poorest people in this country to give more money to those who need it least. HOW GODDAMNED CRUEL CAN THEY BE???(Take a minute to compose myself)
And just between you and me, we could save all that and more while giving everyone in this country totally paid for health care including vision, dental and mental health by going to a national health care system! Did you know that? It is not a secret. This has been known for a long time.
But insurance companies are making out like fat rats denying the American public the health care they deserve and pocketing the profits – profits that could be paying your dental bill.
And you can damn bet you that your MAGA congress member knows it. He or she likes to slide those “donation” checks from the insurance companies into the campaign account. Ask them about it some time. You know we are the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have universal health care. We can more than afford it. Ask your MAGA congress member why we don’t have it.
Thom Hartmann discusses Jude Wanniski and the Two Santa Claus theory (10 minutes) – ten years old but still quite relevant as MAGAs shoot for another huge tax cut for the wealthy.
One can certainly bet that “Representative” Miller-Meeks will once again show her disdain for those who are her constituents and blow off a town hall scheduled to try to get her to make a live appearance in front of citizens of her district. They have lots and lots of questions.
Chief among those questions will no doubt be some variation of “Why do you support the anti-constitutional Executive orders and vote for laws that break down the rule of law and the constitution of the US?”
Why is she not fighting for the rights of her constituents rather than bowing disgracefully to Trump in his moves to obliterate the checks and balances of the constitution?
Here is hoping that she shows up. The citizens of Iowa’s first district are good taxpaying citizens whose rights are being taken day and Miller-Meeks is doing nothing. Even worse than doing nothing, she is supporting Trump’s drive to become an unchecked sovereign. That is unacceptable in a representative government.
So the people of the first district simply want to ask her some questions. Tuesday evening, on earth day.
LWV Declares United States in a “Constitutional Crisis,” Announces New Initiative to Mobilize Voters
Washington, DC — Today, Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, and Dianna Wynn, president of the League of Women Voters, released the following statement:
“It has now been 87 days since the start of the Trump administration. From the flagrant disregard for congressional authority and governmental checks and balances to defying Supreme Court orders to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home, one thing is abundantly clear: our country is in a constitutional crisis.
“We the people must fight back. That is why the League of Women Voters is launching a powerful new initiative, Unite and Rise 8.5.
“Unite and Rise 8.5 will engage and mobilize 8.5 million voters between now and November 2026 to protect and preserve our democratic institutions.
“The foundational principles that have sustained our democracy — checks and balances, the rule of law, free and fair elections — are under direct and sustained threat. In this extraordinary moment, we cannot proceed with business as usual. All Americans — no matter who you voted for in 2024 — need to come together, stand united, and fight back to save our democracy. We cannot afford to fail the generations to come.”
About Unite and Rise 8.5: Starting May 1, the League will launch the Unite and Rise 8.5 initiative, which aims to mobilize 8.5 million voters using the power of voter engagement as a cornerstone of our democracy. Unite and Rise 8.5 will showcase the many ways voters can drive change, including through advocacy, mobilization, civic education, and engagement. The initiative is part of LWV’s Women Defend Democracy campaign.
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)
Ashley Hinson’s town hall meeting started late and ended abruptly on time. Throughout, she seemed to be using a filibuster strategy, rambling on in a smooth, polished monotone and not directly answering questions except maybe once when she told a questioner she did not believe the Trump administration had plans to eliminate traditional Medicare in favor of only Advantage plans.
Defending the indefensible is no easy task even for cold-hearted Republicans. IA-01 Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks escaped by taking off like a bat out of hell down the hall to the nearest exit. Enjoy!
Yesterday was Earth Day. Happy belated Earth Day, mother Earth!
Building the movement takes time and we need everyone. Go to 
LWV Declares United States in a “Constitutional Crisis,” Announces New Initiative to Mobilize Voters
