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.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, one of a handful of national anti-gay groups that lead the effort to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices last year, wrote on his blog Thursday that not only did the country’s founders not intend for the First Amendment to protect Islam, but Muslims do not have a constitutional right to build mosques in the United States.
“Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. …
Our government has no obligation to allow a treasonous ideology to receive special protections in America, but this is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do right now with Islam.
From a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America.”
Fischer claimed in 2010, while his group was spending around $140,000 in Iowa to oust three Supreme Court justices, that Adolf Hitler was gay and hired gays to be Nazi stormtroopers for their “savagery,” that homosexuals should be banned from public office, and having fewer homosexual students would reduce teen suicide rates. In December, he called for homosexual sex to be made illegal because it was as dangerous as intravenous drug use.
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently classified AFA as a hate group. However, conservative Republicans considering a run for president have still courted the Mississippi-based organization.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty recently appeared on Fischer’s radio program, where he said he would reinstate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans homosexuals from serving openly in the military.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich helped bankroll AFA Action’s effort to oust the justices in Iowa based on their unanimous ruling overturning a state ban on same-sex marriage. Gingrich quietly donated $125,000 to them in 2010, in addition to his monetary support for other groups involved in the anti-judge campaign.
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn), who appears to be edging closer to running for president, told Fischer in an interview Thursday that she would support using all of the natural resources “God has given us” in her platform for her energy policy.
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