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.
The U.S. military discharged 443 people last year for being gay.
That statistic comes from Servicemembers United, which opposes “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and seeks its repeal. It’s lower than in previous years: There were 627 such discharges in 2007, for instance.
From a Servicemembers United press release:
“As expected, this record low in total annual ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ discharge numbers reflects a continuing downward trend, as military commanders continue to ignore this law that is clearly outdated and which impairs their unit readiness,” said Alexander Nicholson, a former U.S. Army interrogator who was discharged under ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and the current Executive Director of Servicemembers United. “But this new number still means that 443 lives were unnecessarily turned upside down in 2009, 443 careers were unfairly terminated, and military units unexpectedly lost a valuable asset 443 times last year as two wars raged.”
According to the group, that figure doesn’t include discharges from the reserves or the National Guard, so the full number of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” discharges is higher. Whether the law actually gets repealed this year or not, last month Defense Secretary Robert Gates took unilateral measures to curb its enforcement.
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