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.
A draconian anti-homosexuality bill proposed in the Ugandan parliament may be dead, at least for the time being, due to pressure from abroad, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
The law called for the death penalty for HIV-positive people convicted of having gay sex and life imprisonment for those found guilty even of touching someone from the same sex “with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” In Iowa, groups outraged at the legislation turned their focus to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley due to his alleged association with the secretive group known as “The Family.”
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa (file photo).
The group, a fellowship of powerful Christian politicians, had ties to Uganda legislators pushing the anti-homosexuality legislation. Des Moines-based One Iowa, the state’s largest gay-rights organization, called on Grassley to denounce the law and use his position in “The Family” to stop its passage.
Initially, Grassley balked at their request, saying through a spokeswoman that he is not a member of the Ugandan parliament and is unfamiliar with the particulars of the law. He followed up that statement by telling reporters that he was too busy “reading bills in Congress without reading the bills in another 190 countries.”
Finally, after a week of pressure from activist groups and the media, and numerous other conservative politicians and Christian leaders that were linked to the law publicly coming out against it, Grassley denounced the legislation as “un-Christian.”
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