Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
In an effort being called “National Blackout Day,” African-American activists are urging blacks across the country today to refrain from making any purchases to protest what they view as racial injustices happening across the country.
The event is in response to the harsh criminal charges given to six black Louisiana teenagers known as the “Jena 6″ and other racial inequities blacks are experiencing in communities across the country.
News of the Nov. 2 boycott was being spread through emails and blogs. Belinda Creighton-Smith, a pastor in Waterloo, said she received an email about the event.
“I will buy nothing today,” Creighton-Smith said. “Not even my daily cup of cappuccino.”An email circulated among 40 black leaders and residents in Des Moines on Oct. 11. Clothier Jermaine Parkey, owner of Hip Hop Heaven in Des Moines, said he hadn’t heard anything about the boycott.
“It wasn’t up on my radar,” he said.
The idea for the one-day boycott emerged from southern radio talk show host Warren Ballentine, the Rev. Al Sharpton and others, according to an Oct. 30 story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Tammy Joyner. She quoted Ballentine as saying the boycott is “more a symbolic than economic stab at the nation’s problems.” Joyner’s story today quotes an official who doubts much economic impact will be felt by such a boycott. Estimates put black spending power in the U.S. at between $600 and $700 billion annually.
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