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.
Bob Vander Plaats (photo by Dave Davidson, www.TEApublican.com)
Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for government and public policy at the American Family Association, said Thursday on his radio show that his organization has “put a couple of hundred thousand dollars into this campaign” to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention votes this fall.
Fischer was interviewing Bob Vander Plaats, who last month launched a campaign to convince Iowans to remove the three justices from the court over its unanimous ruling that essentially legalized same-sex marriage. Both Fischer and Vander Plaats agreed that the campaign was “the single most important election this Nov. 2.”
The fact that The American Family Association (AFA) was funding the effort was first reported by The Iowa Independent last month, but Fischer’s statements represent the first indication of the investment national anti-gay organizations are going to make in the Hawkeye State.
Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch calls AFA “among the most vigilant and vicious and anti-gay activists operating today.”
I wonder if the people of Iowa realize that this campaign is being financed by a group that believes that gays should be banned from serving in public office, claims that gays are no different from murderers, liars, thieves, and slave traders, claims that gay sex is a form of “domestic terrorism” and that homosexuality ought to be criminalized, and that Hitler filled the Nazi ranks with gay soldiers because gays have no limits to their savagery and brutality?
AFA is probably best known for organizing an 8-year boycott of Disney due to what they believed was the company’s “promotion of a gay agenda.” In Spring 2005 the AFA launched a similar boycott of Ford for advertising in gay magazines and donating to gay-rights organizations.
“It’s no secret that out of state extremist groups are footing the bill for Bob Vander Plaats’ spiteful efforts to corrupt our judiciary,” said Carolyn Jenison, executive director of LGBT-rights group One Iowa. “Iowans deserve to know whether Bob Vander Plaats is willing to defend the hate group that writes his paycheck.”
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