Don’t count your health care chickens before they are hatched.

Half of the GOP 2010 gubernatorial field take aim at corporate income tax.

Democratic senate hopeful Bob Krause urges Iowans to speak out against agriculture monopolies.

Western Iowa official cited for using city equipment to plow his own driveway (and getting paid overtime to do it).

Liberal bloggers rate their favorite political haikus.

Divine Sense of Humor?

Does anyone else see the humor in how God timed what the National Weather Service has called an “epic and extremely dangerous” winter storm to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference? Despite the recent publication of e-mails indicating key scientific data used by the UN to justify alarmism over so-called global warming was likely falsified, the limo driving, jet setting, eco-warriors are determined to press ahead with policies that would increase the cost of energy, stifle industry, and threaten jobs

IFPC Action encourages stewardship of God’s creation rather than the earth worship that seems to lie just beneath the surface of most climate change propaganda…

The e-mail message marks the second time in the past week that IFPC has questioned the scientific community’s consensus regarding climate change. In an e-mail dated Dec. 2, the organization linked to and quoted from a Web site jointly partnered by several religious organizations that contains a declaration that has been signed by several religious and conservative leaders including James Dobson, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rev. Manny Torres, radio entertainer David Wheton and Wendy Wright, current president of Concerned Women for America.

According to the site, the billions of people worldwide in poverty would be further oppressed and victimized by climate change legislation. Action items on the site advocate many of the same items that non-religious environmental and conservation groups have pushed for several years (i.e., lowering use of public drinking water and recycling used clothing and electronics).

The IFPC noted in the e-mail a recently adopted position statement: “Over-taxation forces parents to work longer hours, spend less time parenting, and creates disincentives for handling social problems at their proper levels.” The correlation was that increased taxation would be necessary if governments intended to address climate change.

“Man is the most indispensable resource on the face of the plant, and any attempt to reduce alleged anthropogenic global warming must be balanced against the harm it might cause,” wrote WallBuilders President David Barton, one of the founding signers of the declaration. “History repeatedly reaffirms that solutions to major problems — whether economic, medical, educational, scientific, etc. — come not from government-implemented programs but rather from unfettered free-market solutions. The proper care of creation and the environment will be no different, and that is a care to which most Christians are committed.”

President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and numerous other government officials and American scientists have or will gather in Copenhagen for the U.N. Climate Change Conference. Despite the appearance of e-mail messages hacked from a British university’s server, and several conservative American groups pointing to their content as evidence that climate change is a hoax, the vast majority of scientists throughout the globe have reiterated their belief that countries throughout the world must act now in order to save the planet.

During an interview on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Dean said Grassley’s statements that government-run health care will result in so-called “death panels” is nothing but a short-term political tactic aimed at killing reform legislation and embarrassing the president.

“Chuck Grassley is probably not going to have a vote that matters at the end of this because the Republicans aren’t going to play,” he said.

Grassley said in a statement Thursday that he and his colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee have decided to kill a provision to require Medicare to pay for end-of-life counseling sessions for anyone who would like it. Grassley said repeatedly on Wednesday that the provision could lead to government-mandated euthanasia for elderly Americans, an idea that has been thoroughly debunked by political analysts, policy experts and even several of Grassley’s fellow Republican senators.

Dean said regardless of what Iowa’s senior senator says, the provisions will be in the final bill.

“They’ll be in the bill,” he said. “This has nothing to do with ‘death panels’ or any of that stuff they’re just making that up. I think at the end of the day you’re going to have a decent bill, and that is part of it.”

No one besides “the most faithful of the far right” believe Grassley is being honest in his criticism, Dean said, which will hurt the long-term prospects of the Republican Party.

“This is not going to work,” he said. “We’re going to have to pass this thing with the big majority the American people gave us, and this vocal minority is going to have to accustom itself to the changes. And they will, because an awful lot of them are already on a government-run health care. It’s called Medicare and they like it.”

Here is the interview:

Reitsma wrote two notes before shooting himself. One was to his family. The other was a four-word note to the bank’s local branch manager: “Welcome to the kill.”

When asked to picture farm life, many people envision idyllic settings similar to this fall plow scene painted by renowned Iowa artist Grant Wood. While such images are often accurate, they also obscure the real stresses that make up the daily lives of rural residents. (Photo courtesy Deere Art Collection)

Stories like Reitsma’s are becoming more frequent in states like California, Maine and Colorado. Experts say Midwestern states like Iowa are better prepared to deal with rural mental health problems, but the risks are still high.

“To farmers there is a real kinship with the land and livestock,” explained Dr. Mike Rosmann, executive director of AgriWellness. “Ownership of a family farm — sometimes a farm that has been in the family for generations — is the triumphant result of a multitude of struggles. Losing the farm or the livestock is viewed as an ultimate loss, one that brings shame to the generation that has let down its forebearers and has dashed the hopes of successors.”

The psychological attachment farm families feel for their land and livestock is one of the lessons of the 1980s farm crisis — a time when farmer suicides and rural violence made front page news across the nation. Back then, Iowa and Nebraska, two states severely impacted by the farm crisis, developed crisis hotlines designed specifically to serve the needs of agricultural workers. Today, in the wake of natural disasters and in the midst of economic uncertainty, the hotlines are experiencing a spike in activity, likely helping to prevent more tragedies.

The Sowing the Seeds of Hope program provides behavioral health services to uninsured, underinsured and other at-risk farm and ranch families and ag workers in seven states. Despite droughts, floods and ongoing economic challenges to family-sized farm operations, the suicide rate has not increased in states that have these services.

AgriWellness and Iowa State University Extension jointly sponsor the Iowa-based Sowing the Seeds of Hope hotline, which serves rural people in seven Midwestern states. It is the nation’s largest crisis help line for agricultural workers, and the calls are coming more often than they did even a year ago.

Though many of the calls the hotline has received from Iowa have been related to the impact of last year’s floods, Rosmann noted that, “More recently, we have seen an uptick in calls that are related to market prices for swine and dairy.”

“In addition to the 20-percent increase in calls [when comparing the first four months of 2008 with the first four months of 2009], the content of the calls is changing,” Rosmann said. “The callers are reporting much more severe economic turmoil, more mental health symptoms and significant increases in mental stress.”

In times of inclement weather — for instance, severe storms, floods or droughts — the hotlines experience increased activity. The callers in these situations, according to Rosmann, are distraught but do not have the “intensity” of the callers during tough economic times.

“You probably aren’t seeing as many [suicides] in the states, like Iowa, where we have hotlines,” he said. “The hotlines have the effect of reducing the isolation and they create a vehicle people can use to contact someone. We don’t have quite as many suicides in any of the states where we have the hotlines and have other additional support services. [We have heard] that there were two suicides reported out of North Carolina, where there is no hotline. The same is true of California — there is no hotline there — or in Colorado.”

The statistical evidence of suicide reduction creates a good argument, he said, for why Congress should approve funding for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network that was authorized as part of the 2008 farm bill. The network creates a national crisis hotline for rural workers and also mandates additional behavioral health services in geographically rural regions.

There is insufficient data that examines suicide by occupational group, but several studies have demonostrated that suicide by farmers differs somewhat from suicide patterns by urban residents. The table above illustrates how farmers, if they decide to take their own lives, often align themselves with the cycles of farming. (Source: AgriWellness)

Federal officials, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, have signaled their awareness of the ongoing problem, but additional solutions may be hard to come by. “I’ve talked to farmers whose loved ones have committed suicide over this. I do understand,” Vilsack said during a rural community forum this week in Wisconsin.

Despite Vilsack’s recognition of what’s happening in rural communities, he said that he does not see many opportunities for additional federal intervention to turn things around. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which recently approved $760 million in new farm loans, is considering restructuring loans and providing temporarily higher support payments, but ongoing discussions in the halls of Washington, D.C., will provide little comfort for agricultural families who field daily calls from creditors. Even if the idea is implemented, it is unlikely to be enough on its own.

Iowa has not yet seen the brunt of the burgeoning mental health crisis, largely because it remains ahead of the curve on rural mental health issues. The Hawkeye State not only provides an outlet for stress with its hotline, but it also offers follow-up care to agricultural workers who need it. The Iowa hotline has about 37 or 38 providers who have been contracted to give follow-up support to callers, Rosmann said. That means that Iowa residents need only travel 30 to 40 miles to access additional services.

“For many people that sort of distance is actually preferable because some don’t want to see a provider in their own town,” he said. “This usually has nothing to do with quality of care at local mental health centers, but has to do with the perceptions of what others might say if a family is seen going to the local facility or provider. So there is a perception of stigma attached to accessing behavioral health services, but that varies from person-to-person.”

In other states, rural residents tend to have more difficulty accessing mental health care.

“It’s a very complex picture,” Rosmann warned before beginning to explain the problems surrounding behavioral health services in rural America. “We have seen in Iowa the loss of psychiatrists and psychologists in rural areas. There just aren’t enough. But, we are better off than some other states. South Dakota is just terrible, and in Montana there just aren’t any psychologists and psychiatrists in rural areas. Residents there might have to travel 150 or more miles to get a court-ordered neuro-psychological evaluation because of lack of access.

“The numbers of appropriately-trained providers of psychology, psychiatry and substance abuse counseling in rural areas is half that of the same professionals in urban areas — and it is worsening.”

Further complicating the access issue for rural Americans is that there are very few medical educational tracks currently available that train health care professionals about the specific concerns that are often seen in more rural settings. And, outside of the rudimentary knowledge provided within those few agricultural medicine courses, there is no national curriculum in place for behavioral health professionals who intend to service rural areas.

“You simply can’t provide the information these professionals will need during a two-hour lecture,” Rosmann said. “We need a whole textbook and curriculum on agricultural behavioral health, and that is one of the things that we are now undertaking at AgriWellness.”

The organization plans to offer a six-hour course to professionals as a part of its upcoming biennial convention next month in South Dakota. Rosmann said that while recent discussions regarding mental health parity in conjunction with national discussions of health care reform are “a noble goal,” they don’t necessarily translate to actual access in rural areas.

“Having it on the books doesn’t mean that it is going to be adequately implemented,” he said. “I don’t know if it is a goal we are going to be able to achieve easily because parity requires the distribution of professional providers in ways that are quite different then where we are at currently. So, we are going to have to somehow get providers into the rural areas, and we’re going to have to change the reimbursement structure. Both of those are hard to change, but they are proper goals in my opinion.”

An Iowa sisterhood formed out of shared grief, has no interest in increasing its numbers. In fact, the five founding Iowa women are hard at work to decrease their prospective membership pool.

Tiffan Yamen, Kate Safris, Janet Petersen, Jan Caruthers and Kerry Biondi-Morlan discovered one another in 2003 after each had experienced the death of an infant daughter. Although the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s deaths are different, the immediate understanding they had for one another’s grief sparked a friendship. And, from that that friendship, sparked a mission.

The women, all from Des Moines, founded Healthy Birth Day, an organization devoted to preventing stillbirth and infant death through research, education and advocacy. Their latest project, Count the Kicks, launched officially in June.

Petersen, a state representative who lost her daughter Grace in July 2003 to a true knot in the umbilical cord, first met Yeman, who had lost her daughter Madeline, also to a knotted cord, just seven weeks earlier. Through mutual friends the two women were introduced to Caruthers and Biondi-Morland, whose daughters Jayden and Grace, respectively, were also stillborn, and Safris, who lost daughter Emma to congenital heart defects shortly after her birth.

The Count the Kicks awareness campaign was developed by the five Iowa women pictured above who founded the Healthy Birth Day organization. Each of the women lost a daughter to either stillbirth or infant death and don't want other parents to experience the same.

“At that point we just looked at one another and said ‘enough.’ We knew we had to start doing something about this,” Petersen said. “There are a lot of things for bereavement available, but what we wanted to do is make sure that no one had to go through the same things we had gone through.”

The Count the Kicks awareness campaign is the group’s first effort to reach out directly to pregnant women with a plan of action that can alert families to possible complications. Radio public service announcements featuring celebrities were followed by whimsical posters and brochures intended for doctor’s offices and clinics. All materials produced by the group outline the importance of counting fetal movements daily during late pregnancy.

“Counting fetal movements isn’t something we came up with it,” Biondi-Morland explained. “The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have a brochure on it, and they are the ones who set the parameters. We just noticed patients weren’t actively seeking out that information and physicians weren’t actively promoting it. It is something that’s been known for a long time, we just want to promote it and place it at the front of pregnant mother’s minds.”

The women are promoting counting fetal kicks as a pro-active task women and their families can do, something that can help create an early bond with the baby.

“This is a positive message, not a scary message,” Petersen said. “I did have someone who worried that this message might scare women, but I don’t see that. Women are encouraged to a do a monthly breast self-exam. That message is not intended to scare them, but intended to save their life. The same is true of this count the kicks message.”

It’s a message that Iowa First Lady Mari Culver is proud to help promote. She and University of Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz recorded public service announcements that have ran statewide, encouraging pregnant women to keep track of fetal movements.

“Chet and I have been so fortunate,” Culver said. “We have had two healthy pregnancies that resulted in two healthy babies. We want all Iowans to experience that. So, the when the women approached me about doing this, I could see that there was a real need to get this preventative message out. I was glad to do it.”

And, the Count the Kicks program already has someone who can speak directly to the benefits of counting kicks. Jennifer McCune, of South Sioux City, was 37 weeks into pregnancy with her son, Danny, when she noticed that he wasn’t moving as much has he had been. Three hours later, Danny was born via emergency c-section, the umbilical cord wrapped four times around his neck. She credits a magazine advertisement by First Candle for the knowledge to seek medical help and her son’s life, and has agreed to help Count the Kicks promote their message.

The initiative is first being piloted in Iowa and the Pittsburgh area, funded in part by a grant from the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Once the organization has developed a workable plan, the Iowa women hope to expand the awareness campaign nationally.

Safris admits that in the beginning, the task of launching this campaign seemed quite daunting. She also says that being a part of it, even the parts that were outside of her immediate comfort zone, has renewed her faith in what average citizens can accomplish when they set out to make a difference.

“I remember my husband and I sitting in the car just a few weeks after Emma had died, and I was just so angry,” she said. “My husband looked at me and told me that I could not go through life like that, being that angry. At that moment I realized that I couldn’t be that way, and that wasn’t who I was. The fact that I had a loss was not going to define me in a negative way. I had to make something good of it.

“At the time of that revelation, I had not yet met these women, so I didn’t know yet what that ‘good’ was going to be. Eight years ago [when we lost Emma], I had no idea that I would be here and doing this. I wouldn’t change the fact that I had her and she was a part of my life. She has made me a better person and that has had an impact on other people.”

The women are quick to point out that although stillbirth and infant death aren’t openly discussed, its likely that most people have in some way been impacted by them. Across the nation, about one out of every 150 pregnancies ends in stillbirth.

“We want to remember and honor our daughters — we are all inspired by them to be advocates,” Petersen said. “We want to raise awareness of and advocate for better understanding of why pregnancies end like this, and what can be done to prevent it. We want Iowa to be the safest place in the world for babies.”

The congressman-turned-failed gubernatorial candidate, who headed former President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget at the end of his second term, has founded The Nussle Group, a lobbying firm.  Or, if you prefer the Des Moines Register’s terminology, it’s a “policy consulting firm” that “focuses on guiding groups and individuals through the maze of the federal government.”

Nussle told Ed Tibbets of the Quad City Times that he did not plan to register as a lobbyist himself, but it sounds like at least some of his employees will likely be required to by federal law.

This sort of work is typically lucrative for former members of Congress (when they can get it), but were it not for Nussle’s high-profile OMB appointment after he lost the 2006 gubernatorial election in Iowa, he probably would not have had the star power to strike it out on his own.

Asked by Tom Beaumont of the Register about his own political future, Nussle said that he had no plans to seek elected office (though there was no Shermanesque statement).  Given the political toxicity of lobbyists these days, if Nussle was planning to run for something, he probably would have moved back to Manchester by now.

This map from FEMA shows which Iowa counties will be impacted by a project to modernize flood maps. The map also shows 16 Iowa counties that are slated for inclusion in a FEMA pilot mapping program happening this year. Click on the graphic above to download a full PDF version with a legend and additional information.

ELY — It was a cold February day when Pat and Cindy Nulty learned that their home in this town southeast of Cedar Rapids, untouched by last June’s massive flooding, was unexpectedly identified as being in a flood zone by federal authorities.

“It goes without saying that I was stunned,” Pat Nulty said. “We’ve never had any flooding problems and, as far as I know, none of our neighbors have had any either.”

The Nulty family and 50 additional property owners were notified of the Federal Emergency Management Agency flood map change by a letter from Aaron Anderson, Ely’s city administrator.

“I first learned of the change in December 2008,” Anderson explained. “I didn’t alert the residents right away, because I didn’t fully understand what the notice from FEMA meant to the residents and the town. I spent about two months trying to get more information, so that I could help the residents figure out what to do next.”

The Flood Map Modernization Program

Since 1978, FEMA has been charged with producing maps that detail geographic areas at risk for flooding. The maps, which identify areas at highest risk for flood, indicate which property owners should be required to carry flood insurance and also where communities should locate key facilities such as schools, hospitals and emergency services for disaster planning purposes.

FEMA, which is now under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, came under scrutiny by the department’s inspector general for not maintaining and updating maps. The report, filed in 2005, stated that “70 percent of the maps” were “more than 10 years old” and “hand-drawn” and “difficult to update.” Because the maps have not kept up with construction developments and local improvements, the inspector general summarized that the maps have “generally [been] rendered inaccurate and obsolete.”

The highly critical report was filed two years after FEMA embarked on a six-year program to modernize and digitize its flood mapping program. The program, which nearly all agencies and lawmakers agree is needed, is hampered by severe underfunding. The budget of $1.5 billion is less than half of what the Association of State Flood Plain Managers estimated in August 2005 was needed.

While the program has been criticized for poor management, oversight and contractor performance, most of those woes can be traced back to FEMA embarking on an unprecedented program without an adequate budget. As a consequence, the agency has used “best available” data to make flood zone designations. Unfortunately, the “best available” data is often old, out-dated and without precise topographical details.

To add to the confusion, the rules regarding what constitutes a flood zone have changed. Previously only waterways that had at least two-square-mile watershed were considered. Currently FEMA looks at waterways with a one-square-mile (640 acres) or larger watershed to make a flood zone designation.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Despite the use of questionable data to create new flood maps, the preliminary FEMA designation is considered valid unless local authorities or residents band together to disprove it.

“I understand what FEMA is attempting to do,” said Pat Nulty. “I can’t disagree with its importance, but I think they should be using the most accurate and up-to-date information possible to draw these new maps.”

Inaccurate flood maps may cause property owners to be mistakenly identified, which places significant current and future regulatory restrictions on property. In addition, property owners and local facilities erroneously omitted from flood maps could be in unknowing risk.

Once a preliminary FEMA designation has been made, local authorities have a short period of time to appeal it. Homeowners have no appeal process, but can band together to pay for a survey that could change the flood boundaries. FEMA’s technical review fee is $4,800, but homeowners would also need to have a flood study done by a licensed engineer, which typically costs several thousand dollars.

Believing that a mistake had been made in Ely, Nulty worked with the other residents in his Southbrook subdivison, city officials and the subdivision developer to present FEMA with accurate information. Developer Keith Schulte submitted a three-page bulleted list to the agency, outlining the history and surveying of Southbrook. The list included details of “significant channel improvements” that had been made to Southbrook Creek between 2000 and 2001, evidence of out-dated topographic maps showing 5-foot increments, and information on storm water easements.

“I would not have believed this could happen in this country,” Schulte wrote in correspondence with FEMA. “As a federal agency, FEMA’s emphasis should be more about accurate mapping and advising homeowners of realistic flooding potential than about generating maximum low risk flood insurance premium dollars by publishing ‘estimated’ flood maps that they know are statistically flawed.”

While Schulte’s comments on generating flood insurance premiums might seem far-fetched, the National Flood Insurance Program has been stretched thin. The 2005 claims resulting from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma alone far surpassed the total of roughly $15 billion in claims that had been paid during the entire history of the program. One way for the government to recoup losses is to generate a larger insurance premium base.

For their part, Ely property owners met and began pooling money to fund their own engineering survey, but, before that process was complete, FEMA agreed a mistake had been made.

“Based on results of … re-evaluation of the contributing watershed drainage area, combined with discussions with a local developer pertaining to more accurate and recent topographical data, it has been decided that the new Zone A along an unnamed tributary to Hoosier Creek in the City of Ely will be removed from the preliminary map,” wrote Rick Nusz, an engineer with FEMA.

Not An Isolated Incident

FEMA is in the process of modernizing flood maps in roughly 56 Iowa counties, with 15 counties already completed. Currently, the city of Atkins, near Cedar Rapids, is investigating a new flood designation that has impacted roughly 40 property owners. In nearby Belle Plain, at least two property owners have discovered they have been placed in a flood plain.

“Benton and Linn aren’t the only counties that have been getting new flood maps — and they aren’t the only counties that will be given new maps before this process is over,” said Bill Cappuccio with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Flood Plain Development Program.

“In the case of Ely and Atkins, they were presented with flood zones that had never existed prior to the map updates. That was because the criteria changed for drainage, for when FEMA would and would not map a stream. But in other places we have people questioning how the flood plain became so large, or how it expanded into a certain area. In those cases, it most often has to do with the approximate nature of the maps.”

Communities that have detailed ground surveys completed will likely see few surprises in the re-mapping process so long as FEMA is given access to that information, according to Cappuccio.

“Right now the state of Iowa is trying to collect 2-foot interval contour maps for the entire state,” he said. “That’s being done by using light detection and ranging methods, with the end goal of having two-foot topographical maps for the state.”

Most Iowa counties, even the larger ones, don’t have topographical maps that are accurate to that degree. The Linn County maps used to make preliminary flood maps in Ely, for example, were likely 5-foot intervals or greater. The Benton County maps were at least 10-foot intervals, likely a decade or older U.S. Geological Survey maps.

“The better your topography, the better your approximation,” Cappuccio explained. “In the case of Iowa, much of the approximation that’s been done to this point was done using 1960s- and 1970s-era [U.S. Geological Survey], 10- and 20-foot interval, contour maps. … But, where there is updated information, FEMA is using it.”

While there is little counties and communities can do before FEMA releases new preliminary maps, Cappuccio encourages any individuals with questions regarding new flood designations to contact him and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

“It’s not like every community that’s going to be mapped by FEMA is saying, ‘Oh no. We are going to be mapped by FEMA and we know it’s going to be bad.’ So, you don’t want to over-react on the belief that you’re going to be subject to a map that isn’t based in reality,” he said. “There are communities that have gone through this process and realize that the maps created showed areas that have historically flooded.

“That being said, if a community believes that they have a map that is not accurate, then they need to do everything they can to come up with data that shows the inaccuracies in terms of topography and in terms of surveys and studies.”

In a special ‘campaign comment’ at the end of his evening program, Olbermann said King’s comments represent the far-right fringe of his party’s desperate attacks on Obama as a socialist.

Go simpler, like Michelle Bachmann’s only rival for least stable member of the House of Representatives did. Steve King (R-Iowa)  Fifth District, but 17th century.  Warming up a crowd at a high school in Sioux City for Governor Palin on Saturday, King, who amazingly is still let out of the house each day without adult supervision, said of the Obama candidacy:

“When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship.”

“There’s no freedom to the left. It’s always to our side of the aisle.”

“We choose freedom and liberty.”

Presumably that’s why the congressman’s party was good enough to torture prisoners, eavesdrop on Americans, suspend habeas corpus, demonize dissent, paying news organizations to run favorable stories, and generally come as close to a totalitarian dictatorship as any American president ever has.  To choose freedom and liberty–for Congressman King and invited guests–not for the country.

Iowa Independent first reported King’s comments, which came during an introductory speech for GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at Sioux City West High School. The comment was referenced Tuesday on Daily Kos and elsewhere.

Those named in the court documents are:

• Abraham Aaron Rubashkin — principal owner and president of Agriprocessors, Inc.
• Sholom M. Rubashkin — Son of Aaron, manager of the slaughtering and meat packing plant at Postville and a company officer.
• Elizabeth Billmeyer — human resources manager of Agriprocessors, Inc. and a resident of Postville.
• Laura Althouse — management employee in the human resources department at Agriprocessors in Postville.
• Karina Freund — management employee in the human resources department at Agriprocessors in Postville.

A total of 9,311 child labor violations, involving 32 minors under the age of 18, are included in the court documents. Seven of the 32 minors were under the age of 16. The alleged violations range from September 2007 to May 12 of this year — the date of the massive federal immigration raid on the plant. All violations are simple misdemeanors, each punishable by up to 30 days in jail and/or a fine of $65 to $625.

An initial appearance has been scheduled before Iowa District Court Judge John Bauercamper for Sept. 17 in Allamakee County.

From the documents filed with the court:

“During the period of Sept. 9, 2007, through May 12, 2008, the persons as listed as employee-victims in the attached Complaint were employed and permitted to work at Agriprocessors’ slaughtering and meat packing establishment. All were under eighteen years of age on each of the dates listed. Throughout their employment these children were exposed to dangerous and/or poisonous chemicals, including, but not limited to, dry ice and chlorine solutions. Several of these employee-victims were also under sixteen years of age during the dates for which they are identified as such in the Complaint. Throughout their employment, these children, while under sixteen years of age, were employed in the operation of or tending of power-driven machinery, including, but not limited to, conveyor belts, meat grinders, circular saws, power washers, and power shears.”

The court documents also enumerate more than 1,500 violations relating to hours worked, including employee-victims under 16 who worked more than eight hours on specified days, and more than 40 hours in specified weeks. According to the affadavit, records indicate that there were instances of children under the age of 16 working before 7 a.m. and after 7 p.m. and, while school was in session, working more than four hours in a day and more than 28 hours in a week.

The Iowa Attorney General found that “all of the named individual defendants possessed shared knowledge that Agriprocessors employed undocumented aliens” and “that many of those workers were minors.”

Chaim Abrahams, plant manager at Agriprocessors, vehemently refutes the charges.

The breakdown of the charges are as follows:

• 3,857 violations of Iowa Code, section 92.8(9) — (“No person under 18 years of age shall be employed or permitted to work with or without compensation at any of the following occupations or business establishments: … Occupations in or about slaughtering and meat packing establishments and rendering plants.”
• 3,857 violations of Iowa Code, section 92.8(19) — “No person under 18 years of age shall be employed or permitted to work with or without compensation at any of the following occupations or business establishments: … Occupations involving exposure to lead fumes or its compounds, or to dangerous or poisonous dyes or chemicals.”
• 790 violations of Iowa Code, section 92.6(6) — “Persons 14 and 15 years of age may not be employed in: … Operation or tending of hoisting apparatus or of any power-driven machinery, other than office machines and machines in retail, food service, and gasoline service establishments which are specified in section 92.”
• 677 violations of Iowa Code, section 92.7 — “A person under 16 years of age shall not be employed with or without compensation, except as provided in sections 92.2 and 92.3, before the hour of 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m., except during the period from June 1 through Labor Day when the hours may be extended to nine p.m.  If such person is employed for a period of five hours or more each day, an intermission of not less than 30 minutes shall be given.  Such a person shall not be employed for more than eight hours in one day, exclusive of intermission, and shall not be employed for more than 40 hours in one week.  The hours of work of persons under 16 years of age employed outside school hours shall not exceed four in one day or 28 in one week while school is in session.”

If no candidate gets 35 percent, the party has to hold a convention to choose a nominee, and that’s a realistic possibility in one Iowa congressional race.The prospect of a convention was a hot topic in Democratic circles in early 2006, and Ed Fallon’s gubernatorial campaign made a big effort to elect delegates at precinct caucuses and county conventions. But the convention talk cooled after Patty Judge left the race to form a ticket with eventual nominee Chet Culver, who won a four-way race (don’t forget Sal Mohamed) with 39.1 percent.

Even in a three-way race, a convention is a possibility if the math breaks just right. The Republicans came within 1 percent of a statewide convention for governor in 2002, when the three candidates all bunched up in the 30 percentile. Doug Gross emerged as the nominee, with only 35.6 percent.

That same year, Republicans actually went to a convention for the 5th Congressional District. Four strong candidates competed in the brand-new, solidly Republican district, and they landed between 21 and 31 percent each. Steve King landed at the top of that heap, and then turned that lead into a convention win. The rest is history.

Who attends a convention depends on what level of office is involved. For legislative seats, it’s county central committee members, with votes weighted by the size and party strength of each precinct. County offices are nominated by a county convention, made up of the precinct delegates elected at the Jan. 3 caucuses. Congressional district and state conventions are made up of delegates elected at the March county conventions.

The likeliest prospect for a convention is the Democratic race in the 4th Congressional District, with four candidates seeking the nomination. Republicans have two major three-candidate races: the U.S. Senate race and the 2nd Congressional District.

Prospects also exist for conventions in local contests. The definition of percentage is less than straightforward in elections for more than one seat, such as at-large county supervisor contests. To determine the 35 percent threshold in these races, the Code of Iowa specifies a “percentage of votes” method. To get at this number add up all the votes cast for all the candidates, including write-ins. Then divide it by the number of seats available.

For example, look at the 2004 Democratic supervisor race in Johnson County. Eight candidates were running for three seats, and a total of 20,905 votes were cast. Divide that by three, and the baseline for calculating percentage is 6,969.

Johnson County Supervisors, 2004 Democratic Primary	votes	percentage of votes	percentage of voters	TV Percentage
Terrence Neuzil	5,060	72.6%	54.4%	24.2%
Pat Harney	4,627	66.4%	49.7%	22.1%
Rod Sullivan	3,187	45.7%	34.3%	15.2%
Mike O’Donnell	3,060	43.9%	32.9%	14.6%
Rick Dvorak	1,998	28.7%	21.5%	9.6%
John Schneider	1,339	19.2%	14.4%	6.4%
Julie Gilmere	1,134	16.3%	12.2%	5.4%
James Knapp	446	6.4%	4.8%	2.1%
write in	54	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%

This formula does not factor in the common dynamic of under-voting or “bullet voting,” in which supporters of one candidate don’t use all their votes in a vote for two or vote for three race. Instead, bullet voters vote only for their favorite candidate. You can’t use both, or all three, of your votes on that candidate, but you don’t have to use all of your votes. It’s a common campaign tactic, but one that’s usually done sotto voce so as not to alienate supporters of other candidates. If you want to crunch some math, add up the total votes cast for all candidates plus write-ins, then divide it by the number of voters. This will give you a “votes per candidate” number, illustrating how many people cast some sort of bullet vote. In our 2004 sample race, the 20,905 votes were cast by 9,305 voters, meaning the average voter only cast 2.25 votes for supervisor out of a possible three.

Calculating percentage of voters, by dividing the candidate’s results by the total number of voters, produces a lower percentage but provides a more reliable assessment of how many people supported a candidate. Another common, misleading method in a vote in a two-or-three race is to add up all the votes and divide each candidate’s vote by the grand total. This is often seen on local TV and produces seeming paradoxes like candidates winning with 17 percent.

Another seeming paradox happens in a race where four candidates are competing for three seats. It’s possible for a candidate to win support from a majority of voters, yet finish in last place, as in this 2001 Coralville contest. Over half of the voters supported Bream, yet he drew the least support and lost.

Coralville City Council, 2001	votes	percentage of votes	percentage of voters	TV Percentage
Henry Herwig	744	80.0%	70.4%	26.7%
Dave Jacoby	732	78.7%	69.3%	26.2%
Tom Gill	682	73.3%	64.5%	24.5%
Bob Bream	614	66.0%	58.1%	22.0%
write in	17	1.8%	1.6%	0.6%

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