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 Daily Caller posts a good round up on the California gay marriage Prop 8 trial, concluded last week and awaiting a verdict from Judge Vaughn Walker. Two random interesting notes. In arguing against the state’s ban on gay marriage, high-powered GOP-associated attorney Ted Olson drew repeatedly on Romer v. Evans, the Supreme Court case that struck down the Colorado constitutional amendment that would have prevented gay people from being recognized as a protected class.
Also, there’s the matter of Judge Walker’s non-political homosexuality…
The Daily Caller:
Walker became a judge after being nominated by George H. W. Bush, but he was first nominated to the bench by Reagan in 1987. He was not confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee at that time because of his supposed “insensitivity” to gays. Walker had served as the lawyer for the U.S. Olympic Committee and sued a group for calling an athletic event the “Gay Olympics.”
Ironically, Walker is openly gay himself. His sexuality, though, has stayed largely under the radar in Perry. Judge Maxine Chesney, who also serves on the federal court, has said that Walker’s sexuality “is not a political part of his life.”
To sum up just some of the topsy-turviness of this Great American court case: The Reagan conservative judge who is hearing the gay-marriage trial is openly gay and maybe insensitive to gay people. A Reagan conservative attorney who is not gay has argued a brilliant case in favor of gay rights. Straight witnesses have declined to testify against gay marriage because they’re afraid of being harassed by gay-rights supporters – i.e., by members and friends of a long-persecuted minority group.
Stay tuned for the rest of the wild ride. Walker is expected to deliver a ruling in the coming days, which is certain to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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