The law called for the death penalty for HIV-positive people convicted of having gay sex and life imprisonment for those found guilty even of touching someone from the same sex “with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” In Iowa, groups outraged at the legislation turned their focus to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley due to his alleged association with the secretive group known as “The Family.”

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa (file photo).

The group, a fellowship of powerful Christian politicians, had ties to Uganda legislators pushing the anti-homosexuality legislation. Des Moines-based One Iowa, the state’s largest gay-rights organization, called on Grassley to denounce the law and use his position in “The Family” to stop its passage.

Initially, Grassley balked at their request, saying through a spokeswoman that he is not a member of the Ugandan parliament and is unfamiliar with the particulars of the law. He followed up that statement by telling reporters that he was too busy “reading bills in Congress without reading the bills in another 190 countries.”

Finally, after a week of pressure from activist groups and the media, and numerous other conservative politicians and Christian leaders that were linked to the law publicly coming out against it, Grassley denounced the legislation as “un-Christian.”

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

Grassley said his “commitment to traditional values” and “respect for life” holds true both in the United States and around the world. So with that in mind, after he learned more about the proposed legislation through the U.S. State Department, he was able to conclude that it is wrong and should be rejected.

“Based on what I’ve been able to learn about the legislation and from the stand point that I’m a born again Christian, I can tell you that I don’t agree with this un-Christian and unjust  proposal, and I hope the Ugandan officials dismiss it,” he said.

For days, Grassley has taken heat from gay-rights groups that felt he should speak out against the legislation. They targeted the Iowa Republican because of his reported association with a secretive group of Christian politicians that has ties to Uganda legislators who introduced the anti-homosexuality law.

Initially, Grassley balked at their request, saying through a spokeswoman that he is not a member of the Ugandan parliament and is unfamiliar with the particulars of the law. He followed up that statement by telling reporters that he was too busy “reading bills in Congress without reading the bills in another 190 countries.”

After a week of pressure from activist groups and the media, numerous conservative politicians and Christian leaders that have been linked to the law have publicly spoken out against it, including Rick Warren, author and leader of California’s Saddleback Church, and U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla..

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com)

“Subsequent to inquiries like yours this week, [Sen. Grassley’s] office contacted the U.S. State Department to get more information,” said spokeswoman Beth Levine. “The office was told that the administration hasn’t made an official statement, but an assistant secretary has privately relayed concerns to the Ugandan president.”

Des Moines-based One Iowa is conducting a petition drive demanding Grassley denounce the bill, which originally called for people convicted of being a homosexual to be  sentenced to life in prison. People who test positive for HIV would have been executed along with anyone who has homosexual sex more than once.

According to a report by Bloomberg News, the death penalty and life imprisonment portion of the law have been dropped, however it still contains portions that would sentence homosexuals to prison. The bill is expected to be presented to the Ugandan parliament in two weeks.

Activists felt Grassley could have an impact on the situation due to his reported affiliation with a group of lawmakers known as “The Family.” Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet, who has written a book about the group, said Grassley has been involved with the secret fellowship of Christian politicians since the 1980s and has been active in African affairs on the group’s behalf.

Levin said Grassley has not been in contact with “The Family” on this or any other issue and has never lived at or attended a prayer meeting at the group’s townhouse on C Street near the U.S. Capitol.

“He worships at Prairie Lakes Church in Cedar Falls, and on the rare occasion he’s in Washington on a weekend, he worships at Woodlawn Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia,” Levin said.

She said Grassley hasn’t participated in a Sunday prayer breakfast often associated with “The Family” in “probably 10 years,” and when he did it was made up of senators of all faiths and denominations, “including Protestant, Catholic, Mormon and Jewish.”

Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, right, visits with Cedar Rapids flood victims on the one year anniversary of the massive 2008 floods (Iowa Independent file photo).

However, while the figure may be massive it remains less than a third of the $3.6 billion in disaster recovery funds that have been promised to Iowa.

While more than 20 individual funding streams exist, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s funds have been the most utilized by Iowans. The agency’s Other Needs Assistance (ONA) funds, jointly administered by FEMA and the Iowa Department of Human Services for victims immediately following a disaster, has spent all but roughly $1 million of the $136.5 million allocated to Iowa.

More than $750 million of the total disaster recovery funds promised to Iowa remains unallocated or earmarked for specific projects or entities.

State officials involved in recovery efforts are to quick to point out that such a massive recovery will take time, and that especially mitigation projects need to be methodical and thoughtful in order to prevent future disasters. They also point to the fact that Iowa remains ahead of other natural disaster sites in the nation in terms of receiving and distributing recovery funds.

Much of the recovery effort in Iowa centers in northeastern Linn and Johnson counties, where Cedar Rapids and Iowa City were both hard-hit by June 2008 floods. Local officials in Cedar Rapids, who were displaced from their facilities by the flood, continue to debate and accept public comment regarding the future of certain structures. Until plans such as those are closer to reality, it is difficult for the Rebuild Iowa Office or other state and federal agencies to allocate funds to the projects.

According to figures from the Rebuild Iowa Office, more than 39,800 Iowans have registered with FEMA, and more than 35,000 Iowans have visited disaster recovery centers throughout the state. In addition to the 85 Iowa counties eligible for federal assistance, 77 counties are also eligible for state and public assistance.

A detailed look at the various funding streams, the amounts that have been promised/allocated to Iowa, what’s been approved for local use and the totals spent as of Dec. 4 are in the chart below:

The Iowa Legislature Web site also makes a document available for download with estimated disaster recovery funding by county.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa (Lauren Victoria Burke/wdcpix.com)

Des Moines-based One Iowa is conducting a petition drive demanding Grassley denounce the bill and use his influence to stop it. The reason they believe Grassley could have an impact is his association with a group known as “The Family.”

“The Family, a fundamentalist group of powerful politicians in America and abroad has ties to Uganda legislators pushing this horrific affront to human rights,” the group said in a press release. “Our very own Sen. Grassley is a member of this so-called ‘family.’”

If the law were passed, gays and lesbians convicted of having gay sex would be sentenced to life in prison. People who test positive for HIV would be executed, as would anyone who has homosexual sex more than once.

The bill also criminalizes advocacy of LGBT issues, which most believe would ultimately ban organizations  from working in the country on HIV and AIDS prevention.

According to National Public Radio, “The Family” is a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse. Investigative journalist Jeff Sharlet, who has written a book about the group, told NPR’s Terry Gross that Grassley “has been very involved in African affairs on behalf of ‘The Family.’”

Sharlet says Grassley has been involved with “The Family” since the 1980s.

Grassley’s office could not be reached for comment.

Both The Des Moines Register’s Jason Pulliam and Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson were listening in, but when it came time to write a story, both came to very different conclusions about what it is the two Democratic mayors actually were saying.

The Register’s headline said “D.M., C.R. mayors ask Grassley to back Obama on economy,” and opened with “The top elected leaders from Des Moines and Cedar Rapids have called upon Iowa’s congressional delegation to support President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plans.”

At Radio Iowa, the headline was “Mayors of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids praise rather than rebuke Grassley,” and opened by explaining that the conference call was set up to bash Grassley but the mayors ” seemed conciliatory.”

While both stories make it clear the mayors are supportive of Obama’s plan and think Grassley should support it, Radio Iowa’s focuses almost entirely on how the two Democratic mayors seemed to want to avoid getting into it with Iowa’s senior senator and highest ranking Republican. There was no mention of “seeming conciliatory” in the Register’s account, as a much more combative tone was presented.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette and Associated Press accounts are very similar to The Register’s and probably a lot closer to what The Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery Now, the organization that set up the conference call, were hoping for. It’s up to the reader to determine who is right (or who they trust) since the audio of the call is not available on the group’s Web site, but it’s always nice to see events coverered differently by competing media and it’s another example of why a more diverse media landscape is always better.

That .8 must mean that Lincoln, Nebraska is splitting out its electoral votes by ward or something. (An exaggeration, but only slightly. Nebraska splits its votes by congressional district, which is why Omaha has seen both a Sarah Palin visit and a Barack Obama office grand opening in the past week.)

It looks like the Democrats will win the total electoral votes of the 2000s decade while “losing” two of the three elections. It’s like the paradox of the electoral college itself; winning the blowouts doesn’t make up for losing the close ones. The general election is the inverse of the Democratic nomination process, where a 60-40 split in a congressional district’s vote often meant a 3-3 delegate split between Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Obama won an edge by winning more 75 to 25 percent blowouts.

Bill Mazeroski crosses the plate after his Game 7 home run in the 1960 World Series

Not so in the fall, where it’s winner take all (except, as noted, in Nebraska and Maine). Since the baseball playoffs and election season coincide, I like to think of it as the 1960 World Series paradox:

The Yankees outscored the Pirates 55-27 in this Series, outhit them 91-60, outbatted them .338 to .256, hit 10 home runs to Pittsburgh’s four (three of the latter’s coming in Game 7), got two complete game shutouts from Whitey Ford–and lost, three games to four.

1960 went down in history as one of the all-time classic World Series, capped by Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off, game winning home run in Game 7. 1960 was also one of the classic, close finish elections.

The 2004 Series saw the Red Sox break their decades-long jinx and win their first World Series since 1918, but Boston’s John Kerry was not so lucky. This year looks like the flip side; Chicago was knocked out in the first round of the baseball post-season, but looks set to win the World Series of politics.

T. Boone Pickens

LE MARS — Iconic Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has thrown his billion-dollar fortune behind a renewable energy plan diminishing the very black gold that made him rich.

Pickens, the 80-year-old chairman of BP Capital Management and a man CNBC calls the “oracle of oil,” pitched his so-called Pickens Plan in Le Mars Thursday to a crowd of nearly 700 people.

The plan, which Pickens detailed using a blackboard and a healthy dose of front-porch-swing humor, seeks to break the United States’ $700 billion annual dependence on foreign oil through investment in domestic resources, primarily wind and natural gas.

He said the dependence on foreign oil is the major economic and security problem facing the United States.

“I don’t think there’s anyone there who cares one hoot about us — other than our money’s good,” Pickens said.

Pickens, who is spending $58 million on a national advertising campaign and has been pulling crowds like the one in Le Mars at town-hall style meetings around the nation, envisions private industry funding the installation of thousands of turbines in the wind belt, an area he describes as running from Texas to Canada.

He thinks wind energy can provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity supply. He said Iowa would be a “big” player in the emerging wind-energy corridor.

As more wind power electric plants, Pickens sees the natural gas that had been used there going into transportation fuels to replace gasoline and diesel.

The Pickens Plan Web site already has had 4 million hits. Politically, Pickens’ plan is to build a grass-roots and business support base behind the energy plan so he can leverage a buy-in from Congress.

“The leadership is not in place unless you build a fire under their ass — and I’m not kidding,” Pickens told the Le Mars crowd.

Pickens said he had no interest in running for office himself, making a Ross Perot-style independent bid for the White House.

“If I was 60 years old I could beat both of these guys,” said Pickens — whose upcoming book is titled “The First Billion Is the Hardest.”

Pickens, who funded the Swift Boat ads that devastated U.S. Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, insisted under repeated questioning from Iowa Independent following the Le Mars event that he has no intention of backing either U.S. Sen. John McCain or U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

“I’ve said this is a totally non-partisan issue,” Pickens said. “it doesn’t have anything to do with politics. This is about America is what it is. Nothing like that would happen.”

Pickens said he hopes both candidates support his plan and he is ironing arrangements to meet with them soon.

When asked if he was 100 percent absolute on not making an endorsement Pickens said: “That’s not the deal. I want to put the pressure on both of these guys. I want them to come up with an energy plan and I think mine is the best. So, yes, I’d like for them to say ‘Boone has the best plan.’”

Pickens said he had no intention of forcing a competition between McCain and Obama for the support of his growing organization in order to get more of his plan in one of the party’s platforms.

“I don’t think so,” Pickens said. “That’s going to confuse you and everybody else.”

And, although he backed Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and Rudy Giuliani, in addition to the campaign against Kerry, Pickens thinks conservatives who are pushing for more domestic oil drilling this year are off base.