Illinois delegates to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago react to the Sen. Abraham Ribicoff nominating speech for George McGovern, Photo credit – Wikimedia Commons
The sense of presidential déjà vu is palpable. With the Democratic National Convention scheduled to begin on August 19 in Chicago, we have a president who must address a loss of confidence less than, yet similar to that Lyndon Johnson faced in 1968. I suggested on July 1, “Biden has not changed during the last week. He needs space to see where his campaign is heading after the debate, one in which he admits he did not do well.” He has been given space by many of us, yet the time for a decision is upon us. At most, he has the next week to address the nation and clear the air. No, his July 3 fundraising email titled, “I’m running,” was not persuasive. Nor was his July 3 “vow” to his political supporters to stay in the race.
The 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago did not turn out well. Hubert Humphrey was nominated from smoke-filled rooms of the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago while protesters chanted “The whole world is watching.” Humphrey lost the general election to Richard Nixon with third party candidate George Wallace peeling off 46 electoral votes. It was an election I felt at the time Humphrey should have handily won. It broke my teenage belief that Democrats has brought the country together after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Nixon? Would history have been different if he had the immunity granted to a president by the U.S. Supreme Court this week?
Joe Biden is a decent man, one who can’t make everyone happy. Biden and Johnson stand apart from their peers in the amount of legislation passed during their first full term. Biden’s legislative accomplishments are highlighted by bringing the country out of the coronavirus pandemic, yet much more than that. At the same time, the Israel-Hamas War and Biden’s response to it broke faith with generations of American people born after 1980. The race to defeat Trumpism in November will be hard-fought no matter who Democrats pick as their nominee. Biden is the presumptive nominee as he has the delegates. So was LBJ. An air of uncertainty hangs over July, and is something Biden must address and soon.
Whatever Joe Biden does to clear the air will be welcome. It doesn’t change how hard we must work to elect Democrats in November. Everyone I know is willing to do the work.
President Johnson and family watching the 1968 Democratic National Convention on television. Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons
Oakland Cemetery, Solon, Iowa. Photo credit: Paul Deaton
Happy Independence Day from Blog for Iowa.
This is one of my favorite explanations about Independence Day from National Geographic Kids: “Also called the Fourth of July, Independence Day marks the historic date in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress. The written declaration stated that the American colonies were tired of being ruled by Great Britain.” That word “tired” really hits home.
Have a happy Independence Day! Cut back on the fireworks, moderate consumption of stuff you know you should, and rest up for the campaign of a lifetime as we head into the November election!
There’s a lot of chatter about the energy demands of artificial intelligence. As Iowa looks at inviting new data centers into the state, the usual suspects are dragging out the same old sawhorses to devise worn out solutions to meet this demand. One of the ideas floated was re-opening the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Palo, Iowa, owned by NextEra Energy. That would be a bad idea.
Erin Jordan of the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported, “John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy, which has owned Duane Arnold since 2005, told Bloomberg on June 12 he had inquiries from potential data center customers interested in the 600 megawatts generated by the Iowa reactor. ‘I would consider it, if it could be done safely and on budget,’ Ketchum said.”
The stickler here is “on budget.” When has refurbishing a nuclear power plant been done, one closed down after being damaged in the August 10, 2020 derecho, and four years into de-commissioning? I suspect zero is the number. How does one budget for that? What if they run into something unexpected? Who pays? NextEra would likely seek to be indemnified from unexpected costs.
In 2010 I wrote, “On December 16, 2010, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed the license for the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo, Iowa for an additional 20 years, extending the license to the year 2034.” The power plant would serve its normal term of 20 years, and the renewal followed a process to extend it by 20 more. How long can Duane Arnold’s life be extended? At some point, basic components, like concrete and rebar can show fatigue. Extending the life of Duane Arnold beyond 2034 would have been a dicey proposition. In fact, it was not viable and NextEra decided to shut it down early.
Iowa has been asleep at the wheel regarding nuclear power. During public hearings on the license extension, very few people made comments. I suspect people who engage about the value of nuclear power have their arguments. I would propose a completely different approach from letting companies like NextEra drive the locomotive toward supplying data center electricity.
In the first place, Bill Gates is supposed to be solving the problems that prevent society from moving forward with new nuclear power. He has a test site in Kemmerer, Wyoming using a small modular reactor, not old-style behemoths like Duane Arnold. Let Gates see if he can solve nuclear power’s problems and then do this thing right. That should play out before we look at re-opening Duane Arnold to run for less than a decade. I am skeptical Gates is actually doing much different, yet he invested time and resources to solve the problems.
Better yet, public utilities are supposed to be experts in providing electricity to users. Let them come up with their own solution beginning with a blank page. If a data center requires the electricity it takes to run a small city, let the utilities figure out how to do that. Will there be government money to pay for this boondoggle? I hope not and say let public utilities figure out how to finance it without government dollars.
I am weary of hearing about Duane Arnold. In my mind, the plant is shutting down, and that’s what they told the Gazette on the first approach for the recent article. Real solutions to our energy problems exist. More are being developed. It’s time we pursued the latest technology rather than hitching Duane Arnold up to the wagon for one more trip to market. We owe it to our future and our progeny to innovate. So we should.
Past and perhaps future public school. Photo Credit – Wikimedia Commons
There has been a coordinated effort on the part of billionaires to dismantle the American public school system. Iowa has been a part of this effort. Senator Bernie Sanders, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), released a new report last week. Here is the press release:
WASHINGTON, June 25 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) today released a new report detailing the coordinated and growing effort to undermine, dismantle, and privatize the American public education system. This report comes after Sanders led the committee in a hearing last week titled, “The Immediate and Long-Term Challenges Facing Public School Teachers: Low, Pay, Teacher Shortages, and Underfunded Public Schools.”
Written by the HELP Committee’s Majority Staff, the report focuses on the impact of school privatization policies in the form of private school vouchers, which harm public schools, fuel education segregation, largely benefit wealthy families, and provide tax breaks for the wealthy and large corporations.
According to the report’s new analysis, over the past decade, state funding for the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools has barely increased, by an average of just 1 percent a year after adjusting for inflation. During this same time, state spending on tax breaks and subsidies for private schools has skyrocketed by 408 percent, or $7 billion. These costs do not include 9 states that recently enacted, but have not fully implemented, their universal private school voucher policies – which will likely cause costs to further spike in coming years.
“Over the past decade, there has been a coordinated effort on the part of right-wing billionaires to undermine, dismantle and sabotage our nation’s public schools and to privatize our education system,” said Chairman Sanders. “That is absolutely unacceptable. We can no longer tolerate billionaires and multi-national corporations receiving massive tax breaks and subsidies while children in America are forced to go to under-staffed, under-resourced, and under-funded public schools. On this 70th anniversary year of Brown v. Board of Education, let us recommit to creating an education system that works for all of our people, not just the wealthy few.”
The American public K-12 school system serves about 91 percent of students across the country and employs 3.5 million teachers. Funded through taxpayer dollars, the system relies on 44 percent local funding, 46 percent state funding, and only 10 percent in federal funding. However, in the last three years, an unprecedented number of states with Republican-led legislatures have expanded their private school voucher programs, draining hundreds of millions of dollars from state budgets and public education systems to fund private schools.
One example the report examines is Arizona. In 2022, Arizona passed the nation’s first universal-eligibility private school voucher program. Originally forecast to cost $65 million in Fiscal Year 2024, the state later warned that the program could cost $944 million annually, subsidizing many students who never attended public schools to begin with. This could result in a $320 million gap in the overall state budget. While 92 percent of Arizona’s students are enrolled in public school, less than half of new K-12 education spending in the state’s FY24 budget would go towards public education. With the money it spends on private school vouchers, Arizona could hire 15,730 more public school teachers and pay them at least $60,000 a year.
Some additional findings from the report include:
Families who can already afford to pay for private education benefit the most from private school vouchers. For example, early data from states like Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin show that the majority of students – 65 percent to 95 percent – who participate in private school voucher programs never attended a public school in the first place.
A handful of conservative billionaires are playing a major role in funding the school privatization movement led by conservative advocacy groups, think tanks, media outlets, and Republican legislatures. The Bradley Foundation, DeVos Family Foundation, and Koch Foundation are some of the biggest right-wing funders driving the research, state legislation, lobbying campaigns, and legal battles to attack the public education system from all fronts.
Standing up private school voucher programs is decimating the state budgets of early adopters. The report estimates that one year into their new voucher program, the actual cost of Arizona’s program is 983 percent higher than initially projected, and Florida’s universal private school voucher program is already 380 percent higher than what lawmakers estimated.
In just one year alone, the amount that states are spending on private school vouchers could instead: Hire 15,730 more public K-12 teachers in Arizona; Hire 51,667 more school counselors in Florida; Raise wages for each child care providers by $33,500 in New Hampshire, and; More than triple its investment in career and technical education in Ohio.
As Chairman of the HELP Committee, Sanders has introduced legislation that would address the teacher shortage across the U.S. and substantially increase funding for public schools in high-poverty districts. The Pay Teachers Act ensures all public school teachers earn at least $60,000 a year with increases over the course of their career, and would triple funding for Title I – the major federal program that provides resources to low-income school districts. Sanders has also introduced legislation to make public colleges and universities tuition-free and debt free and to cancel all student debt.
Iowa has begun an experiment in private school vouchers. What Sanders is saying is it is not an experiment at all, just a manifestation of the wants and desires of billionaires. What should we do about this. Support Democratic state house candidates in the Nov. 5 election.
The final week of June must have come directly from hell. There was substantial action at the state and federal level — none of it good — and despite that, the presidential debate pushed everything aside leaving a landscape littered with the broken dreams of sensible people. It is difficult to comprehend just what happened. What did happen? What should be our focus going forward?
First things first. The Iowa Supreme Court decision to lift the injunction against the so-called heartbeat bill turned out to be anti-climactic. The law bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically at six weeks of pregnancy before many women know they are pregnant. Despite a thoughtful dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Susan Christensen, scattered protests by political activists around the state, and 60 percent of Iowans supporting access to an abortion, this decision was a sleeper. Can reproductive freedom impact the 2024 and 2026 elections? Yes it can, as I previously wrote. The event of Friday’s Iowa Supreme Court decision release neither helped nor hindered that possibility.
Let’s discuss the presidential debate on Thursday, June 27. I had no interest in watching it live, or afterward, nor did I. I see what you people are saying in your posts. Give it a rest. If it’s time for Joe Biden to withdraw from the race for president and retire, he will. As Biden said on Friday, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.” I sense there will soon be a speech about his campaign.
On Friday, Julie Gammack of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative quoted former Senator Tom Harkin as saying, “Last night was a disaster from which Biden cannot recover.” I love the senator, yet not so fast!
Biden has not changed during the last week. He needs space to see where his campaign is heading after the debate, one in which he admits he did not do well. I see polls taken since the debate flipped from slightly favoring Trump to slightly favoring Biden. Polls are brief snapshots in time and we shouldn’t make much of them. I land the same place Bill McKibben does regarding the post-debate environment.
…the tectonic plates shifted. And in ways that open up the possibility not just of decisively defeating Trumpism, but of pulling the country out of the polarized death spiral we’ve fallen into. But it’s going to take a while to play out, I think—time that we should grant Joe Biden, who’s at one of those hard, interesting, decisive points that come in the course of a life and of a nation. (Bill McKibben from The Crucial Years, June 29, 2024).
I would like to have been a fly on the wall at Camp David over the weekend when three generations of Bidens informally gathered. Those who know Biden recognize any change in course on the path to a nomination (for which he already has the pledged delegates) will be decided by Joe and Jill Biden. If he is considering retirement now, there is no public indication of it.
Overshadowing the presidential debate and parochial issues in Iowa was the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises, et.al. vs.Raimondo and Relentless, Inc., Department of Commerce, et.al. which overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had something to say about this in the following excerpt from her press release after the decision was announced.
June 28, 2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released the statement below following the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, which overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the long-standing precedent that courts provide deference to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous federal statutes.
“This is a seismic shift. Congress passes laws and then federal agencies use their deep knowledge and expertise to implement them. In overturning decades of settled law, this extreme Court has given itself the power to second guess even the most complex regulatory decisions. This decision will result in chaos and undermine our ability to protect the health and safety of all Americans.”
As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Klobuchar has emphasized the importance of the Chevron doctrine, and specifically asked each of Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, all of whom joined today’s decision to overturn the landmark decision, if they would respect Chevron as precedent.
In 2017, during Justice Neil Gorsuch’s Senate confirmation hearing, Klobuchar pressed Gorsuch on his view, articulated as a lower court judge, that Chevron should be overturned. His views on Chevron were part of the reason Klobuchar did not vote to confirm Gorsuch.
In 2018, during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation hearing, Klobuchar questioned Kavanaugh on his views, wherein he stated that “Chevron serves good purposes… [AND] courts should not be unduly second-guessing agencies.”
In 2020, during Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation process, in response to written questions submitted by Klobuchar, Barrett affirmed that Chevron was “a precedent of the Supreme Court entitled to respect under the doctrine of stare decisis.”
Obviously, stare decisis has flown out the window with this and other laws decided by a radical Supreme Court. It is a big deal. For more details, read Senator Klobuchar’s entire statement here.
Like many Iowa Democrats, I was not enthusiastic about Joe Biden during any of the three times he sought support in the Iowa caucuses. The fact is, his administration has performed reasonably well on issues that matter to progressives… and to everyone. He’s not perfect. What president has been? If he continues to run, and he said he will, we must do everything possible to elect him. Our work doesn’t change no matter who is the nominee.
We are all aware of the ticking clock to the November election. After a week from hell, we need to take a moment to collect ourselves, and then get back to work electing Democrats. The consequences of doing otherwise could be worse than hell.
How does one cope with the fact Republicans hold all four Iowa congressional seats? Figure out a connection to some other Democrat. For me, that’s Jan Schakowsky who represents Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, including Skokie, where our child lives. Her periodic newsletters keep me up to speed without all the high drama of following Democratic leadership, and avoids the complaint-filled disinformation of my Republican member.
The passage of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) is always a dogfight. Rep. Schakowsy tells it like it is as a Democrat. The good thing about following her is it gives me a starting point in discussing politics with our child. She is also in the thick of what’s happening. Here is her June 19 newsletter about the NDAA passing the U.S. House:
Last week, I joined nearly all Democrats in voting against passage of the shortsighted and harmful National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025. The original NDAA that passed out of committee 57-1 included numerous provisions that would make life better for service members and their families, including a 19.5% pay raise for junior enlisted troops, a 4.5% increase for all other service members, increased investments in childcare, and a restoration of the full Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). These policies would go a long way towards helping ensure our military personnel and their families have what they need and deserve to thrive.
Unfortunately, the version of the NDAA that made it to the House floor included poison pill provisions that would make it impossible for women in uniform to get access to the reproductive health care they need, eliminate the office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Department of Defense, and attack the rights of LGBTQI+ service members and their families. This bill would do active harm to our national security and military readiness, and I could not vote for a bill that assaults our fundamental freedoms and attacks countless Americans.
In closing, I would like to take time to recognize Juneteenth National Independence Day. It was on this day, 159 years ago, that Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with word of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. At long last, the remaining slaves were freed.
Black history is American history, and it should not be ignored, morphed, nor hidden. Juneteenth is a day for us all to come together to talk about our past and look towards our future. We cannot allow those who peddle fear and prejudice to take our country backwards. I will continue to use my platform to fight for a more equitable nation for all.
Have a great rest of the week, Jan.
If you seek to follow your children’s congressperson, or anything happening in the U.S. House, here is a link to the House master alert page. Follow this link to find a specific congressperson.
Breaker boys picking slate from coal using a coal breaker in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Photo Credit – Wikipedia
A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the United States whose job was to separate impurities from coal by hand in a coal breaker. The use of breaker boys began in the mid-1860s, according to Wikipedia. Although public disapproval of the employment of children as breaker boys existed by the mid-1880s, the practice did not end until the early 1920s, after the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act was signed into federal law in 1916. Later, along came Governor Reynolds, the Iowa Legislature, and a group of lobbyists like the Iowa Restaurant Association to change things around regarding child labor.
Governor Reynolds signed Senate File 542, an act relating to youth employment, into law on May 26, 2023. Legislators, the governor, and lobbyists had every reason to know the new law conflicted with standing federal law. The U.S. Department of Labor weighed in almost immediately, saying outright that Iowa’s new child labor law conflicted with federal law. Republicans and their crew did not care.
After the Iowa child labor law passed, restaurants and other covered workplaces began to enact its provisions. NOT SO FAST! said the feds, who fined improper users of child labor tens of thousands of dollars in accordance with federal regulations. The governor decried the penalties as EXCESSIVE! and scheduled a press conference in North Liberty on June 24 to air grievances.
Unaware as she appeared to be at the time to what is actually going on in Iowa — namely severe flooding in Northwest Iowa — she did cancel the labor press conference to spend time where she should have been all along, touring the flooded areas, asking President Joe Biden and FEMA for help, and doing what is right for Iowans in time of natural disasters. The latest news is Governor Reynolds plans to reschedule the child labor press conference on how mean the federal government is for enforcing the law.
What in the Sam Hill is going on? They knew the new law conflicted with federal law. I don’t believe it is about that. All roads lead to abortion in Iowa politics and here’s a connection.
Historian, raconteur, and chronicler of our daily lives in the United States Heather Cox Richardson wrote the following on the second anniversary of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization:
In the decision, written by Alito, the court said that the right to determine abortion rights must be returned “to the people’s elected representatives” at the state level. This construction of American law is central to the right-wing project of dismantling the federal government which, under the Fourteenth Amendment, is charged with protecting equal rights in the states. Centering the states, which determine who can vote within them, enables a minority to dominate the majority. (Letters to an American, June 24, 2024).
Does the federal government have primacy through the Fourteenth Amendment in protecting the rights of children who work outside the home? Despite being wrong in Senate File 542, Reynolds and her Republican crew make the assertion that children should be allowed to work under less restrictive rules and employers should be held harmless. Iowa, and other similar Republican states, attempt to drive the train of what is permissible within state boundaries. The ultimate goal of bad laws, and ensuing lawsuits and conflicts, is the distraction from a coarsening of Iowa life which includes restrictions on abortion, defunding public education, and in this case a permissive child labor law. A majority of Iowans support protecting children (and all workers) in the workplace. Republicans in our government simply don’t care because they have an agenda of dismantling the federal government and cementing themselves in power.
Groups like the one who quickly scheduled a counter-press conference in North Liberty on June 24, headed by State Senator Zach Wahls, County Supervisor Rod Sullivan, and others, are important to hold the line against the governor’s aggressive approach to implementing bad labor policy.
At our most human level, we know abusing children in the workplace is wrong. What is worse is when our government favors the desires of business to keep their costs low and permits such abuses. Even if it means breaking federal law. Everyone knows it is wrong for children to work in coal mines. Our government should know that by now. Thank goodness the coal fields in Iowa have diminished or Republicans would be revisiting using breaker boys again.
I’ve always been of the opinion that this fight is fundamentally about personal privacy and choice, self-determination, and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not specifically abortion. But that messaging ship has long since sailed.
By the time this post is published we will likely know or be close to knowing the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision on the Republicans six-week abortion ban. Either way it goes, there is still hopeful news. Here’s some from Politico.
“A new coalition of abortion-rights groups is marking the second anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade with a pledge to spend $100 million to restore federal protections for the procedure and make it more accessible than ever before.
“In plans shared first with POLITICO, groups including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Freedom for All are banding together to form Abortion Access Now — a national, 10-year campaign that will both prepare policies for the next time Democrats control the House, Senate and White House, and build support for those policies among lawmakers and the public. At a private event Monday evening in Washington, they will pitch a group of influential progressives on going on offense at a time when abortion is outlawed in a third of the country.”
BFIA editor’s note to loyal BFIA followers – Paul Deaton will be taking over Blog for Iowa for the month of July. Please be sure and tune in for some excellent articles that are sure to be packed with info, commentary and analysis.
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