AUDUBON — Democratic congressional candidate Matt Campbell of Manning Tuesday night renewed his challenge to opponent U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, to debate in a formal, televised setting — something King has not done with a balloted opponent since winning his seat in 2002.
With Republican gubernatorial hopeful Terry Branstad advocating for a new system to nominate judges and conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats actively campaigning for the ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices, the results of the fall election could have a long-lasting impact on the state’s judiciary.
Federal officials have released the results of inspections at both Iowa egg farms associated with more than 1,300 illnesses linked to Salmonella-tainted eggs, and the news isn’t pretty.
A Fort Madison officer fired earlier this year after openly carrying on an affair with the police chief’s wife is just the latest sex scandal to rock law enforcement in the Mississippi riverfront town.
Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey has drawn scrutiny — and a new moniker: “lapdog” — for his department’s possible role in allowing the distribution of Salmonella-tainted eggs from Iowa-based Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms.
The sphere of those unaware of the heartache that remains in Cedar Rapids has gotten a little bit smaller.
The British bookmaker Ladbrokes put unannounced, but much-speculated-upon, potential GOP presidential candidate Mitch Daniels at 25-1 to win the White House in 2012.
Those long odds may turn into what horse-racing handicappers call a “good price” if Terry Branstad is elected to be Iowa’s next governor Nov. 2 and continues to sing the praises of the Indiana Republican as he did during a campaign stop in Carroll Wednesday.
A new report by a coalition of environmental groups identifies 39 sites in 21 states where coal ash — the toxic byproduct of coal-fired power production — is being dumped. The groups say that the coal ash is “contaminating drinking water or surface water with arsenic and other heavy metals.”
Clear Channel Communications Inc., which owns WHO-AM and several other radio stations in Des Moines, distanced itself Thursday morning from one its hosts who said the idea that AIDS does not discriminate is a lie.
Iowa Republicans were split Tuesday on a senior party official accusing the president of being a secret Muslim, with some offering wholehearted support while others called the statements a distraction from real issues. At least one critic called the official a “Democratic Manchurian candidate” designed to sabotage the party from within.
“Then the New York Times broke the story that this administration has unilaterally declared de facto amnesty for certain illegal aliens. This end-run amnesty is wholly unacceptable to the American people,” said Conlin Hanna, president of conservative group Let Freedom Ring.
The liberal blog Bleeding Heartland has the scoop on Republican National Committee member Kim Lehman posting a message on her Twitter account suggesting President Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim.
“Nothing will done on it this year, I’m sure of that. It will be difficult to get anything signed by [President Barack Obama] that doesn’t involve amnesty,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, R-Ames.
The gay rights movement has worked hard to convince society that AIDS does not discriminate, but that is a lie, conservative radio host Jan Mickelson said on his WHO-AM show Thursday.
Mickelson was responding to reports that a Republican candidate for the state legislature was rebuked by the state GOP chairman for statements on his Facebook [...]
David Swenson
There is only one way for agriculture to move forward safely, argues Iowa State University economist Dave Swenson, and that’s through increased government regulation of its industries.
Since there is currently no way to satisfy demand for meat and poultry products using traditional farming techniques, Swenson wrote in a recent post on the blog Insider Iowa, “it demands that food regulations evolve to include a priori the risks inherent in modern animal production systems.”
Bob Vander Plaats (photo by Dave Davidson, www.TEApublican.com)
Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for government and public policy at the American Family Association, said Thursday on his radio show that his organization has “put a couple of hundred thousand dollars into this campaign” to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention votes this fall.
Fischer was interviewing Bob Vander Plaats, who last month launched a campaign to convince Iowans to remove the three justices from the court over its unanimous ruling that essentially legalized same-sex marriage. Both Fischer and Vander Plaats agreed that the campaign was “the single most important election this Nov. 2.”
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Recent barbs traded by U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack and his Republican challenger Mariannette Miller-Meeks are, at least on the surface, tied to a specific tax provision included in the health care reform bill pass earlier this year. At their core, however, they speak to how political campaign planning has become such a full-contact national pastime.
The back and forth began earlier this this week, when Miller-Meeks issued a press release that both voiced her concern over a tax-related provision in health care reform and encouraged Loebsack to join her in repealing the provision. Loebsack’s team shot back, noting that a vote was taken in late July that would have removed the provision without adding to the deficit, but that the bill was stopped by Republicans.
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Official voter registration numbers show there are now are 699,707 Democrats, 645,606 Republicans, and 755,513 No Party in Iowa.
The Iowa Department of Economic Development Board is expected to pay a consulting firm $235,000 to prepare a report aimed at developing strategies to assist in the recovery and rebuilding of the Lake Delhi area.
GOP 3rd District Congressional candidate Brad Zaun’s 2001 run in with West Des Moines Police is the subject of a new web video by the Iowa Democratic Party.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that initial weekly jobless claims declined slightly to 472,000. Initial claims need to fall into the 300,000s for the unemployment rate to decline.
Photo: Dave Davidson, www.TEApublican.com
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Terry Branstad’s position on immigration “goes further than other GOP candidates” around the country, according to Politico reporter Carrie Budoff Brown.
In an interview earlier this summer with WHO-AM’s Jan Mickelson, Branstad said a U.S. Supreme Court decision that mandated states provide access to public education to the children of illegal immigrants should be overturned.
“I just think the decision is bad, it’s not a good decision and it should be overturned,” Branstad said.
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In the three months after the Gulf oil spill, BP allocated three times more to its advertising budget than it did in the same three months last year, according to data released Thursday by a congressional committee.
According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is conducting an investigation into the Gulf oil spill, BP spent more than $93 million on advertising from April to July 2010.
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Ben Lange
Ben Lange, the Republican hoping to unseat incumbent 1st District U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, released a web video Thursday attacking his Democratic opponent and distancing himself from attack ads paid for by a nonprofit conservative organization.
Des Moines-based America Future Fund (AFF) released an ad last week alleging Braley supported building an Islamic cultural center two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Braley said the matter is a local zoning issue and that Congress has no role, but AFF’s ad paints a misleading picture of Braley in support of Muslims building “a mosque at Ground Zero, where Islamic terrorists killed 3,000 Americans. It’s like the Japanese building at Pearl Harbor.”
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Matt McCoy
State Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, told The Des Moines Register Wednesday that he is planning to organize a boycott of any businesses who purchase advertising on Jan Mickelson’s WHO-AM radio program in response to remarks he made regarding homosexuality and AIDS.
As first reported by The Iowa Independent, Mickelson said on the air that AIDS discriminates against people who engage in “stupid behavior,” and since homosexuality is a “sexual disorder” that violates natural law, it “isn’t rocket science” to conclude AIDS discriminates against homosexuals. The statement drew immediate outrage from LGBT-rights organizations One Iowa and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), who demanded WHO-AM’s parent company — Clear Channel Communications Inc. — rebuke the host.
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The Obama administration has said its immigration policies are working to keep out illegal immigrants, and a study released by the Pew Hispanic Center today confirms that illegal immigration is down. The study found about 11.1 million illegal immigrants were in the country in March 2009, down from a peak of 12 million in March 2007. The decrease could have been driven by immigration policy, coupled with a sluggish economy, the report says.
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the Republican candidate in Iowa’s 2nd District, recently called on Democratic incumbent Dave Loebsack to join her in opposing a tax law change linked to health care reform — something his office reports he’s already voted to change.
“Miller-Meeks should do her homework,” a Loebsack spokeswoman responded after reading Miller-Meek’s statements in The Iowa Independent.
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