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.
[Commentary]
George W. Bush is officially a lame duck. That was the pronouncement in Saturday’s New York Times after support for the Senate immigration bill crumbled last week:
"With low approval ratings and the race to succeed him well under way, his ability to push his agenda has faded to the point where he can fairly be judged to have entered his lame duck period."
Now, lame duckness is an amorphous state. Bush is by no means out of power, and in fact, holds (almost) all the cards on the No. 1 issue of the day, the Iraq War. But he is certainly weakened politically and at least on the domestic front, he won’t be able to accomplish anything without the help of Congressional Democrats.
The publication of this “News Analysis” by Timesman Jim Rutenberg also allows respectable people in Washington to talk about whether Bush is a lame duck, how much of a lame duck he is, and what it means now that he is a lame duck. The meme is out there. Expect the phrase lame duck to pop up a lot on the Sunday talk shows in the coming days and weeks.
And in a bit of unintended irony, Don Evans, former Secretary of Commerce and longtime Bush friend, told Rutenberg that Bush would continue to press ahead as he had done as a young oil man in Texas. But as most Bush-followers know, his oil career was a huge flop. His company, Arbusto Energy Inc., was mocked as “Ar-bust-o” after failing to extract much oil, and he eventually sold the company for a lot of money under highly questionable circumstances. Suffice it to say, if Evans was trying to build Bush up, the analogy he chose was pretty lame.
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