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 interview with the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, former Gov. Terry Branstad said those who say he’s not conservative enough for the Republican Party “don’t know me.”
One of Branstad’s rivals for the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nomination was quick to respond, saying the former governor’s critics know him all too well.
Former Gov. Terry Branstad
“It was Terry Branstad on the other end of the phone when he called lobbying me to raise the cigarette tax when I was Speaker [of the Iowa House],” state Rep. Chris Rants said. “It was Terry Branstad wielding the veto pen when he gutted our education reform legislation because Republicans wouldn’t go along with all the spending he wanted. It is Terry Branstad’s signature on the largest tax increase in Iowa history.”
Branstad went on to complain about the “confrontational right,” saying politicians can no longer disagree respectfully.
“You ought to be able to have a healthy disagreement and still have a good relationship and try to treat people with respect,” he said. “I think we’re losing that in politics.”
Rants questioned this line of thinking.
“Opposing the Branstad tax and spend record doesn’t make someone a member of the ‘confrontational right,’ it just makes them a fiscal conservative.”
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