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.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley is once again taking heat from social conservatives, this time in response to a speech he gave over the weekend at an Iowa Christian Alliance banquet.
Controversial Christian radio personality Steve Deace slammed Grassley in a blog post Monday morning, calling his speech “a long, rambling, incoherent embarrassment of something which may have resembled a speech that not only killed the event but continued on well into the body’s decomposition process.”
Deace pointed to the elements of the speech and of Grassley’s record in the Senate that most upset him, including his vote last year for a bank bailout and his support for Earthpartk, an indoor rain forest at one time expected to be built in Iowa.
He then criticized several amendments offered by Grassley to health care reform legislation, in particular, an amendment that would clarify “reporting requirements for tax-exempt organizations.” Deace fears that the language of the amendment opens the door to discrimination against churches that refuse to hire homosexuals or to consider women applicants for pastoral positions.
Perhaps in the future some Democrat will come along and decide these ministries need to be investigated because they think homosexuality is a sin, so government needs to intervene and look at their finances, too?
Grassley is helping to grease the skids for that to happen in the future because when you’ve been in Washington too long you see everything as a problem for Washington to handle. Yet another reason why the slogan of our nation’s capital ought to be “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
Potomac Fever is a deadlier disease than H1N1 and HIV put together.
Grassley has a long record of going after nonprofit organizations, specifically Christian ministries, that he believes are engaging in financial misconduct. In 2007, Grassley announced the Senate Finance Committee would investigate six prominent televangelist ministries who were believed to be improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles.
Deace’s afternoon radio program has been the platform for sevearl calls for a social conservative to primary to Grassley in 2010.
Follow Jason Hancock on Twitter
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter