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 great piece in The Washington Times Tuesday reveals a remarkable degree of hypocrisy from some GOP critics of last year’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill.
More than a dozen Republican lawmakers, while denouncing the stimulus to the media and their constituents, privately sent letters to just one of the federal government’s many agencies seeking stimulus money for home-state pork projects.
The letters to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, expose the gulf between lawmakers’ public criticism of the overall stimulus package and their private lobbying for projects close to home.
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., for example, sought more than $50 million for two projects in his state, the Times found. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, also blasted the stimulus bill as wasteful, yet two days before voting against it, Bennett “privately forwarded to [USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack] a list of projects seeking stimulus money,” the Times notes.
“I believe the addition of federal funds to these projects would maximize the stimulative effect of these projects on the local economy,” he [Bennett] wrote.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also drew the Times’ spotlight.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, was yet another lawmaker who voted against the stimulus and later backed applications for stimulus money in two letters to the Agriculture Department.
“If the funds are there, Sen. Grassleys going to help Iowa, rather than some other state, get its share,” spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said.
Still another vocal stimulus opponent, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., was also busy lobbying for pork, the Times discovered, even as he was accusing the Democrats of promoting the “same old, tired big spending agenda.” A Wilson spokeswoman defended the discrepancy, telling the Times that the lawmaker “opposed the stimulus as a ‘misguided spending bill,’ but once it passed, he wanted to make sure South Carolina residents ‘receive their share of the pie.’”
Some government watchdogs had a different take.
“It’s not illegal to talk out of both sides of your mouth, but it does seem to be a level of dishonesty troubling to the American public,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
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