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.
As former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney held two pubic events and several private functions in Central Iowa Monday, he was greeted by newspaper ads calling on him to urge his church to stop funding campaigns to ban same-sex marriage.
Californians Against Hate, a group formed in the run up to a vote to amend the California Constitution to take away the right of same-sex couples to marry, purchased ads in The Des Moines Register, The Ames Tribune and the Iowa State Daily Student asking Romney to “urge the Mormon Church to stop its nasty campaign to ban gay marriage.”
The ad, which is appearing in newspapers across the country in cities where Mitt Romney is visiting.
The group has been running the ads since January in newspapers around the country, usually while Romney is visiting that state, including the New Hampshire Union-Leader, The Boston Globe and The Salt Lake City Tribune.
Last week the same ads ran in four San Diego publications. In addition to the San Diego ad buy, a demonstration was held at Romney’s book signing in front of the Mormon owned Deseret Bookstore in La Jolla, Calif.
Members of the Mormon church donated more than $30 million and thousands of volunteer hours to the campaign to approve Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot initiative narrowly approved by voters that defined marriage as a heterosexual union in the state’s constitution and overturned a state Supreme Court ruling that briefly legalized same-sex marriage. The church has also been active in campaigns to ban same-sex marriage in other states.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Iowa since the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled last April that the Defense of Marriage Act passed by lawmakers in the 1990s was unconstitutional.
Romney spoke and signed books in Ames and Des Moines Monday. The topic of same-sex marriage was not brought up at either event.
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