Branstad, who has for months flirted with the notion of re-entering politics, will deliver a speech to students, faculty and staff of Des Moines University in a closed session, with a news conference to follow. He has served as president of the school for six years but is expected to announce his retirement during his speech.

The announcement comes as no surprise after Republican Party of Iowa Executive Director Jeff Boeyink quit his position with the party to run Branstad’s as of yet unannounced campaign earlier this week. It also follows Branstad forming a candidate committee with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board last week. The four-term governor has repeatedly said he would make an announcement about his plans by mid-October, and the conventional wisdom was that his campaign was a foregone conclusion.

“This is the next natural step in our exploratory process as we move from a volunteer effort to the acquisition of professional staff and financial resources to take Terry Branstad 2010 to the next level of effectiveness,” said Rick Schwarm, Branstad’s longtime friend who is leading the former governor’s exploratory committee. “This appointment does not signal any change in Terry Branstad’s status as a potential gubernatorial candidate. He continues in his role at Des Moines University and will make his plans known at a future date.”

Prior to joining RPI, Boeyink served as president of Iowans for Tax Relief where he worked for more than two decades.

Branstad filed paperwork to form an exploratory committee for a potential 2010 run for governor last week. He has long said he will announce his intentions by mid-October.

Branstad filed paperwork for a gubernatorial exploratory committee Wednesday morning.

The ad compares Branstad’s tenure to other things from the 80s “that we would never want to bring back today,” Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Michael Kiernan said in a release announcing the ad.

For more than a month, Iowa Democrats have treated Branstad like an already announced candidate. When a group trying to convince Branstad to enter the race launched a statewide radio advertisement, the IDP issued a point-by-point counter attack it called a “corrected version of the misleading radio ad.”

The party has also included Branstad on a Web site dedicated to attacking the statements and records of Republican gubernatorial hopefuls called IowaKnowsBetter.com.

“This ad is very lighthearted — sometimes a sense of humor is the best way to get a message across, and humor is very much called for in this case,” he said.

Iowa Democratic Party officials have not made a decision whether to air the spot on broadcast television at this time.

“I’ve tried to use every latest technology to keep in touch with constituents. Representative government is a two-way street,” he said. “I’m one half of that, my constituent’s the other.”

When President Barack Obama told Congress that “it’s time to deliver” on health care reform while traveling oversees, Grassley made headlines by telling the president “you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us ‘time to deliver’ on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.”

The team at Gawker, a Web site of dedicated to gossip and news, were particularly hard on Grassley, publishing an article titled “Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley Uses Twitter to Exhibit Insanity, Illiteracy.”

Grassley said he met with the president Wednesday and joked about the issue.

“I think he joked something about, Chuck, I thought it was important that I be in Normandy or something like that as a recall,” he said. “And I agree with him that he should have been there.”

He never intended to criticize the president for spending time with his family, only for criticizing Congress when he knew members were working hard on health care legislation.

“I didn’t resent having the president have a night out with his family or sightseeing in Paris,” Grassley said. “So if that was what people thought that was all I was talking about, no. What I was trying to do is express frustration with the president who knows we’re working hard and even expressed at this meeting [Wednesday] how hard we were working — that he would say you’ve got to get it done.  You know, our staffs were working those very Saturdays that he said that.”

“No other image depicts as clearly the freedoms and ideals of our country than the American flag.  It’s the symbol our men and women in uniform have fought for over 200 years,” Grassley said in a prepared statement. “The American flag has been proudly flown in times of battle, of victory, and of national tragedy. It is the most recognized symbol of freedom and democracy in the world.”

Grassley has cosponsored similar legislation twice before. In 2006, the amendment passed the Senate Judiciary Committee but fell one vote short of the two-thirds of the Senate needed for the amendment to be sent to the states for ratification. In 2000, the Senate fell four votes short.

Grassley said that the American flag should be protected from those who would desecrate it and demonstrate a basic lack of respect for our national heritage.

Overturning a Texas law in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning an American flag in protest is a form of political speech protected under the First Amendment. Congress later passed a federal anti-flag-desecration law, and the high court invalidated it on the same grounds in 1990.

Democrats, who at this point have just raised the matter in a news release, are considering a formal challenge to King’s posting.

“Steve King is using his taxpayer-funded website to promote his hateful comments toward a Democratic Presidential candidate,” said Iowa Democratic Party Chair Scott Brennan. “King needs to stop doing his politicking from his government office and get back to the work he was elected to do. He very well may be in violation of House ethics rules by promoting politically charged comments on his congressional site.

“This kind of rhetoric is out of touch with the mainstream values of everyday Iowans, Brennan added. “It is time for King to take these inappropriate remarks off of his congressional website. Taxpaying Iowans deserve better.”

King earlier this month said if Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama were elected president, Al-Qaeda would be “dancing in the streets.” Rosenberg said a commissioner found King’s remarks distasteful.

“Our commissioners were following the story in the media about Congressman King’s comments regarding presidential candidate Senator Obama, and they were wondering what role the commission should have, if any, about that kind of speech,” said Ralph Rosenberg, the commission’s executive director.

The commission will discuss how to address such statements, whether it should take a position, what the position should be and how to communicate it. The commission will meet from 3:30 to 5 p.m. today at the Grimes State Office Building in Des Moines.

“It raised a larger issue: What do you do when an elected official from Iowa says something that you disagree with that it appears has some civil rights or human dignity context? What’s our role?” Rosenberg said. “Do we respond to everything a politician says that we disagree with?”

Rosenberg said he was unsure if the commission will take a vote on the issue.

Commission Chairwoman Alicia Claypool said in an e-mail: “This is an open discussion as nothing specific has been suggested for what form a response might take.”

Gov. Chet Culver called for King to retract his statements.

As a result of a globalization that McCarthy-worshipping Congressman Steve King cannot grasp, the 5th Congressional District Republican’s staggering racist comments about Barack Obama shot around the world, once again making western Iowa appear like a land that time left behind.

Thanks to King the world has a new geographic reference: Sioux City, the capital of yesterday.

Hundreds if not now thousands of news outlets — from ABC News (national) to The Times Of India – have reported King’s overt racist attack on Obama in which the Iowa congressman refers to what he believes are the dangerous “optics” of an Obama presidency.

Here is King:

“I’ll just say this, that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected president of the United States — and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam?

“And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/2062/commentary-kings-racist-rant-rolls-round-the-world/feed 0 http://iowaindependent.com/2061/kings-congressional-opponent-calls-for-apology-for-obama-slam http://iowaindependent.com/2061/kings-congressional-opponent-calls-for-apology-for-obama-slam#comments Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:30:45 +0000 Douglas Burns http://iowaindependent.com/2061/kings-congressional-opponent-calls-for-apology-for-obama-slam Rob Hubler, Democratic candidate for Iowa’s Fifth Congressional District, is calling on Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, to publicly apologize for his statement that if Sen. Barack Obama becomes president, it would be a greater victory for Al-Qaeda than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

“To say Islamic extremists would be ‘dancing in the streets’ because of a possible American president’s middle name is beyond comprehension,” Hubler, a retired Presbyterian minister from Council Bluffs, said.  “We have heard him call Joseph McCarthy an American hero and claim the streets of downtown Baghdad are safer than those of our nation’s capital.  But to say Barack Obama is a link to those who want to destroy the United States is the greatest of insults.”

“Is this the representation western Iowans want to be known for?  Will this rhetoric truly move our country forward,” Hubler asked.  “Nothing less than a public apology by the incumbent and admonishment by the U.S. Congress for his remarks is acceptable.”

“Now we see the tactics of this Congressman for what they really are,” Hubler added.  “Continuous fear and demagoguery, all for the sake of extremism and dividing this country, is the foundation for his re-election campaign.  This only serves our purpose of letting the people of the Fifth District know there is an alternative for Real Representation come Nov. 4.”

]]> http://iowaindependent.com/2061/kings-congressional-opponent-calls-for-apology-for-obama-slam/feed 0