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.
Johnson County Democrats saw two high-profile appearances at Thursday’s monthly central committee meeting, as presidential candidate Bill Richardson shook hands and John Edwards campaign director David Bonior spoke.
The two did not run into each other. Bonior spoke at the beginning of the meeting and said, “Bill Richardson used to work for me. He was chief deputy whip when I was whip. Say hi for me.”
Richardson, governor of New Mexico, arrived just before 9 p.m. in the final stop of a long campaign day. He shook hands and chatted with nearly everyone in the crowd of 60, but made no remarks to the whole group.Earlier in the evening, he spoke at a “job interview” event on the University of Iowa campus.
Bonior was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and rose to the number two post in the Democratic leadership before his Michigan district was dismantled by Republicans in the 2002 redistricting. He ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for Michigan governor that year.
Bonior attended the University of Iowa on a football scholarship from 1963 to 1967. “I played fanny back, as in ‘get your fanny back on the bench,’” he said. After that brief reference to his Hawkeye days, Bonior got down to the business of promoting Edwards: “This is an insurgent campaign fighting for working people.”
Edwards is holding on to his 2004 supporters, said Bonior. “He loves the state, I love the state, I met my wife here. She was president of SNCC — the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — in the civil rights movement here. John Lewis was national president, and I went on to serve with him in the House. She was a serious activist. I wasn’t, but she straightened me out.”
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