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 “troika” of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama have put the political interests of gay-rights activists ahead of military readiness and unit cohesion, U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, said after the U.S. House passed an eventual repeal of the ban on military service for openly gay men and women.
“The nation’s military is currently fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” King said. “This is not the time to subject our fighting forces to a rushed and risky experiment in social engineering. As lawmakers, our responsibility to our troops could not be clearer: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Repeal.”
After an amendment ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” won a major vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, the House voted 234 to 194 to include an amendment overturning the military’s 17-year-old ban on open gay service into the fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill.
Iowa’s delegation split down party lines on the vote, with King and U.S. Rep. Tom Latham voting against and U.S. Reps. Bruce Braley, Dave Loebsack and Leonard Boswell voting in favor.
Boswell, who served 20 years in the military, including two tours of combat in Vietnam, released a strong statement in support of the vote, saying, “I served alongside great men and women who, regardless of sexual orientation, were courageous military leaders that I trusted with my life and the lives of the troops under my command. The character and strength of a solider is reliant on their courage, loyalty, honor, and ability to do their job – not their sexuality.”
As for King’s use of the work “troika,” it literally means a group of three, but it is commonly used to describe the Soviet Union’s punishment of dissidents during the Stalinist era. It isn’t the first time King has used the phrase to describe Democratic leadership.
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