“We have a long way to go, but I’m certain we’re on the right path,” said Biden at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner.

The event took place against a backdrop of sagging poll numbers for Democrats nationwide. Gov. Chet Culver’s approval rating is at an all-time low, and Iowa Democrats have reportedly grown more dissatisfied with President Barack Obama since he took office in January.

Biden seemed to address those growing concerns directly. “This is no time to be frustrated,” he said. “We never thought change would be easy. All of you knew it would be hard.”

Even though political commentators have dwelled on the slow pace of health care reform over the past several months, he said, Democrats have already made achievements that would be considered landmark in any other year — confirming Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, passing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and withdrawing U.S. troops from major cities in Iraq, among other things.

Shortly after the event began, before Biden took the stage, Democrats in the U.S. Senate overcame a key hurdle for passing their sweeping health care reform package, winning 60 votes to begin a floor debate on the measure.

“Tonight, we have more momentum than we’ve ever had in the history of the discussion of health care in America,” Biden said.

He also told the crowd that though there is still much more work to do to turn the economy around, he expects job growth to begin early next year. (That’s good news for incumbents up for reelection in 2010, though he didn’t put it in those terms.)

Before Biden spoke, Gov. Chet Culver addressed the crowd. “I will always, always stand up to fear and injustice, and I will always make the tough decisions,” he said. “I will never, ever back down.”

Democrats also heard speeches from U.S. Reps. Bruce Braley and Leonard Boswell, who said Democrats were “combat-ready” ahead of the 2010 campaign.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin taped a video message for the event so that he could be in Washington, D.C., for the health care vote.

Though the prospect of so many dangerous new neighbors may have stirred mixed feelings about the prison in any small community, the publisher of the town where the prison was built says citizens are happy with the way it worked out.

Bob Wood has been publisher of The Florence Citizen in Florence, Colo., since 1987, and he was a writer there for six years before that. As communities in Iowa and Illinois consider the possible transformation of the Thomson, Ill., prison into a federal “supermax” facility, Wood’s experiences could prove useful for analyzing the potential impacts of such a plan.

The U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, also known as ADX Florence or “The Alcatraz of the Rockies,” opened 15 years ago. It sits on 37 acres of land, contains just under 500 beds for prisoners, and is one of three correctional facilities that comprise the Florence Federal Correctional Complex, each with a different security level.

“Our area is the headquarters for the state prison system, so prisons were nothing new to us,” Wood said in a telephone interview with The Iowa Independent Thursday.

“When the Bureau of Federal Prisons originally started looking, we had an old Catholic school and monastery that had been closed down and already had a lot of classroom-type buildings and offices. Our economic development council was actively seeking somebody to fill that property. They got in touch with the bureau, but that was not deemed to be a suitable location, so they started looking at other properties here in Florence.”

The residents of Florence didn’t just actively promote their community as a good spot for the new prison, they raised money to purchase a tract of land for it. Once the land was purchased, they donated it to the Bureau of Prisons.

All of this took place, of course, before the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building and the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., when terrorism was not on most people’s minds. If citizens of Florence knew then what they know now about the types of people who could be housed in the prison, would they have put so much work into attracting it?

According to Wood, they would.

“We get questions all the time from people wanting to know if we are concerned about housing terrorism suspects. Well, we already have them,” he said. “We’ve had Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski and some of those others — Zacarias Moussaoui — have all been house there.

“Granted, [if it weren't for recent terrorist attacks like 9/11 and the OKC bombing], there wouldn’t be as many of them. But this is such a secure facility, I don’t know how they could ever possibly communicate with each other and plan something.”

Because the facility houses the most dangerous inmates in the federal prison system, most are kept in seven-by-12-foot cells for 23 hours per day. The one free hour is spent exercising alone in a separate concrete chamber that resembles an empty swimming pool. Specific architectural features, including strategic placement of windows, prevent prisoners from even knowing their exact location within the facility. In a 2007 report with CBS News, the warden described the setting as “a clean version of hell.”

To the facility’s neighbors in Florence, the hell behind the prison walls is hardly noticeable.

“It is very isolated,” Wood said. “We hear very little from it. It just really doesn’t effect the community at all. People find it hard to believe that is true, but we honestly just rarely hear from them. They handle their own medical emergencies and all of those types of things.”

The one thing Wood would tell the people of Clinton, Iowa, and other communities near Thomson as they consider a similar facility nearby is to talk to others who have been through it.

“I went to Sheridan, Oregon to assess the situation there,” he said. “I found what happened there to be very similar to what has happened here. They have the same complaints: That it did not bring immediate financial benefit, but it did, in the long-term, begin to show up.”

If the federal government moves forward with purchasing the Thomson Correctional Center, communities like Clinton and Thomson will, like Florence, see an immediate but temporary economic boost from workers hired to renovate the facility.

“We had some benefit when they were building because many of the construction workers lived in town,” Wood said. “They filled up all the rentals, most of the hotels were full, and the restaurants were always busy. But once that construction phase was over, it took a long time for any real economic impact.”

Because prison guards and other federal prison employees are promoted from within the system, Wood said it took time for locals who hoped to work at the Florence facility to make their way in. Nearly all open positions at the prison were initially filled by existing employees transferred into the area from elsewhere, but now several from the community work there.

The prison has certainly benefitted the local economy, Wood said, but not all of the promises officials made in the planning stages have come to fruition. Officials spoke of a major boon to the region in increased demand for agricultural products and laundry services, for example.

“They promoted that would happen, but I don’t think that every really happened,” Wood said.

Although many Americans would fear the possibility of having suspected terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in their backyard, Wood says that no one in Florence is concerned about that possibility. Wood also knows that the Florence prison is nearing its full capacity, so the federal government will likely have to find a home for its detainees elsewhere.

“It’s not talked about in restaurants. You can go in, have a cup of coffee and hear the conversations around you, and I’ve never heard that [there is fear],” Wood said. “The only time it seems to come up is when the New York Times or someone calls and wants to do a story about it. Then the residents are talking about the media doing the story, but I honestly don’t think people here would be intimidated by that.”

U.S. Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska are two of three members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who have yet to say whether they will act to prevent a planned Republican filibuster of the Senate’s health care reform bill. (The third is Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.)

(Update: Nelson, citing a personal history of rejecting “efforts to obstruct,” has said he will vote to allow the bill to move forward.)

“[Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid has scheduled a critical vote this Saturday night that will allow the Senate to take-up his bill,” the RNC wrote today in an e-mail that urges supporters to contact Lincoln’s and Nelson’s offices.

“This is the best opportunity there will be to stop President [Barack] Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi from imposing their government-run health care plan on America.”

Speaking with reporters on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin predicted that the planned filibuster would fail because “no Democrat wants to be the one that stopped” health care reform.

Democrats, who currently control the Senate, will need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. That means, in addition to holding their caucus of 58 votes together, the Democrats will need the support of independent Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

Perhaps more notably, Vice President Joe Biden will still headline the dinner (as far as we know). That will put him pretty far outside the Washington beltway as the Senate’s health bill is finalized.

Sholom Rubashkin, who was recently found guilty of 86 charges related to money laundering and fraud in connection with the raid, was set to go back on trial Dec. 2 in Sioux Falls, S.D. on the immigration offenses.

The order for dismissal by Reade follows a request by federal prosecutors filed early Thursday morning.

According to the government’s calculation of the sentencing guidelines, due in large part to the amount of loss associated with defendant’s fraud and false statement convictions, any convictions with regard to Counts 1 through 72 would be entirely eclipsed by defendant’s recommended guideline sentence on the counts for which he has already been convicted. This is not to minimize the importance of those counts, but at least for the purposes of the advisory sentencing guideline range, any convictions on Counts 1 through 72 would have no impact upon defendant’s sentence. However, any evidence of immigration violations would be relevant conduct that the Court could consider at sentencing even without a second trial.

In the government’s estimation, now that defendant has been convicted on the most serious offenses charged in the pending indictment (in terms of potential penalties), and given that a jury has determined defendant committed crimes by making false statements about the harboring of undocumented aliens at Agriprocessors, Inc., and his knowledge of undocumented workers at Agriprocessors, Inc., dismissal without prejudice of Counts 1 through 72 and the forfeiture allegation is the most appropriate and efficient manner in which to proceed in this case. Dismissal will avoid an extended and expensive trial, conserve limited judicial and prosecutorial resources, and lessen the inconvenience to witnesses. The public interest has been substantially served because of the convictions and jury findings noted above. The government asks that such dismissal be without prejudice so criminal charges and the forfeiture allegation could be reinitiated based upon a change in circumstances or a reevaluation of present
circumstances.

According to documents filed with the court, Rubashkin’s legal team had no objection to dismissal of the charges.

Prosecutors also noted in their motion to dismiss that the current financial condition of Agriprocessors, Inc. as a company “and the fact that it is an empty shell” were justifiable reasons for not pursuing possible forfeiture charges.

Rubashkin, 50, and other senior members of the Agriprocessors management and executive team still face a state trail, currently scheduled to begin next spring, on alleged violation of child labor laws.

Currently, Rubashkin is being held by federal authorities, pending a decision in a bail hearing held Wednesday.

Jill Kozeny, communications director for Grassley, was responding to an Iowa Independent story in which Kiernan attacked the senator’s comparison of civilian trials for terror suspects to the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. Kiernan called Grassley’s comparison “fear mongering” designed to “distract from the larger national security issues facing our country.” He said Grassley was calling into question the constitutional right to a trial by jury.

While questioning U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Grassley was attempting to make the point that assurances from the administration that the suspects would never be acquitted were not enough.

Holder said in response to Grassley’s questions that the likelihood of acquittal is remote, and if it were to happen, the suspects would never be released in the U.S. Justice Department officials told the New York Times that even if suspects are acquitted, the Obama administration will keep them locked up forever as a “combatant” under the laws of war.

“As Sen. Grassley revealed with the questions he asked yesterday, the administration’s argument for trying the terrorists in a federal court is a hollow one because the Attorney General pledged to keep the terrorists as enemy combatants regardless of the outcome in the courtroom,” she said. “The real questions are, why are terrorists being given more rights than U.S. service members fighting overseas, and why are Americans being subjected to an expensive security risk on U.S. soil if the terrorists could end up being held by the United States under military detention, just as they are being held today?”

Kozeny said Holder’s promise that the suspects will be convicted has “threatened the fairness of the trial by jury that is the bedrock of the U.S. Constitution,” a fact she says undermines Kiernan’s attacks.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Capitol Hill (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)

“I’m going to take this out and attack the opponents on this, and be proactive in saying that we have a deal here that’s gonna make it better for the American people,” Harkin said Thursday morning in a conference call with reporters.

Harkin said he “can only hope” that Republicans who have opposed reform efforts will make the legislation a theme in their speeches on the campaign trail.

“I hope it is an issue next year,” he said.

“There are a lot of things that will start going into effect next year, for example, we started a high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions. I want to see [Republicans] say that is not a good deal.”

Harkin noted that the bill prohibits rescission, provides coverage for those who retire early and are not eligible for Medicare, offers tax credits to small businesses that provide health coverage to employees, eliminates co-pays and deductibles for preventative care, allows children to continue on family policies through age 26, and bans lifetime benefit limits.

“The biggest single cause of bankruptcies in Iowa is health care expenses when people bump up against their lifetime limits,” Harkin said. “We banned those. I’d like to see the Republicans go out next year and tell everyone that is a bad deal.”

In addition, Harkin is convinced that voters “are not going to look kindly upon the Republicans for their delaying tactics” in connection with reform efforts.

“Let’s have the amendments. Let’s have the votes. I’m not afraid of that,” he said. “I’m more than willing to have these amendments and have the votes, but you are just going to filibuster the bill — well, it’s time to get to a vote.”

Harkin, who celebrates his 70th birthday today, also renewed his call for members of the Senate to work all weekend, if necessary, in order to pass reform efforts on to the conference committee. He now anticipates that a health care reform bill will be ready for a Presidential signature by January.

Here is a transcript of some of Harkin’s comments:

I can only hope so. I hope that we pass the bill, that it goes to conference and that we give it to the President and he signs it. I hope it is an issue next year. I hope they come out — I hope the Republicans next year, when things start going into effect — there are a lot of things that will start going into effect next year, for example, we start a high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions to go into. I want to see them say that is not a good deal. We stopped recissions, so that insurance companies cannot drop you when you become sick. I’d like to see the Republicans next year go out and say that is a bad deal for the people of America.

We have a new re-insurance for retirees, to cover retirees who aren’t yet eligible for Medicare. We have a provision in there that will provide for coverage for these [individuals]. I’d like to see them go out and tell people from age 55 to 65 that this is a bad deal for them.

We have small business tax credits. Tax credits that go up to about 50 percent for small businesses to be able to get coverage for their employees. I’d like to see Republicans go to every small business in Iowa and tell them that is a bad deal.

Our bill bans lifetime limits. How many times do people go into bankruptcy in this country and in Iowa? The biggest single cause of bankruptcies in Iowa is health care expenses when people bump up against their lifetime limits. We banned those. I’d like to see the Republicans go out next year and tell everyone that is a bad deal.

We provide for no co-pays and no deductibles for certain prevention screenings and wellness benefits. I’d like to see see them go out and say that is a bad deal.

Our bill, next year, would require insurers to permit children to stay on their family policies until they are age 26. I’d like to see the Republicans go out next year and just say that is a bad deal for everyone.

Well, you get my point. I’d love to have this debate next year.

Not only defending — promoting.

You know my old stock thing: Never defend, always attack.

Poll after poll, people want this. It is just like the public option. Almost 2-to-1 people support a public option — and among Democrats it is 4-to-1, and among doctors 3-to-1 in this country.

So, I’d like to see the Republicans go out and tell people this is a bad deal.

I also think that people are not going to look kindly upon the Republicans for their delaying tactics on this. Let’s bring it up for a vote. Let’s have the amendments, as we did in our committee. Let’s have the amendments. Let’s have the votes. I’m not afraid of that. I’m more than willing to have these amendments and have the votes, but if you are just going to filibuster the bill — well, it’s time to get to a vote.

During an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Harkin said no one in the Democratic caucus wants to be the person who derails health care legislation.

“We’ve all had our input. We’ve had our debate. But I believe now that the team is together,” he said. “And our team is going to hold together and we’ll have those 60 votes to move ahead.”

Harkin said the bill, which includes a public insurance option that states can opt out of, is not what he would have written. But in order to get the votes needed to move forward it was necessary to put the opt out in the bill, he said.

“I think it’s a reasonable compromise,” Harkin said. “Whether or not a state will opt out or not is up to the states. I would think a majority in every state would want to have that competitive edge a public option would present.”

Here’s video from Harkin’s appearance. His segment starts at 3:45.

When asked if the detainees would put Iowa residents in danger, Grassley indicated that people in Virginia, when faced with a similar situation, expressed safety concerns.

“From what I’ve heard from people around Virginia… that when there was some talk six months ago about housing them in Virginia, and the people of Virginia were very, very scared,” Grassley said, noting that such fears were expressed by the congressmen representing the area.

Grassley also noted that when the facility near Thomson, Ill., which is being considered as a possible detention site, was originally built there were concerns from Iowans.

“I think there was some concern among Iowans in Clinton at that particular time about the prison across the [Mississippi] River, that — even before they were talking about housing terrorists — [caused] some concern about having it there,” he said. “But they didn’t have anything to say over it, but there was some, some of that fear expressed.”

After noting that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has never had an escape from a facility such as the one they are proposing near the state line, and that there had also been no issues with external threats, a reporter on the conference call questioned Grassley if such fears were reasonable.

“Well, you know, it’s not something I’m going to worry about, because I’m opposed to these people coming here in the first place,” Grassley said.

Although Grassley was not aware at the start of the conference call of any telephone calls into his office concerning use of the facility by federal authorities, staff members informed him that he had received 10 calls just today — all of them opposed to housing detainees at Thomson.

U.S. Rep. Tom Latham has indicated that he will introduce legislation Thursday to block any attempt to house Guantanamo detainees in the Midwest.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley has attended a private briefing and various meetings in Thomson and wants further input from Iowa residents potentially impacted before making up his mind.

The national phone survey of 772 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, found that 52 percent believe government action would do more harm than good, and the remaining 48 percent supported change.

The poll showed a distinctly partisan split, as government action was preferred by 54 percent of Democrats, compared to only 40 percent of Republicans.

Women were far more likely to support health care reform. Nearly 58 percent of women would like to see change, compared to only 41 percent of men. The majority of both Republican and Democratic women supported reform (65 percent and 54 percent, respectively). Most Democratic men also supported reform (60 percent), but most Republican men did not (37 percent support).

“Women tend to align with the Democratic Party and its initiatives more so than men,” said Frederick Boehmke, associate professor of political science in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and faculty adviser for the Hawkeye Poll. “Fifty-three percent of women in our sample voted for Obama, compared to only 34 percent of men.”

Just over half of individuals with a high school education or less, some college, or a college degree believed health care reform would do more harm (51 percent, 52 percent and 53 percent, respectively). Those with advanced or professional degrees were most in favor of reform, with 54 percent agreeing that change is needed to control costs and expand coverage.

Respondents under age 35 appeared to be most opposed to health care reform, with 61 percent indicating that it would be a bad move, but the polling team cautioned that the number of respondents in this group was small. Adults ages 55 to 69 were most supportive of reform, with 53 percent saying they prefer it.

The poll also found that 52 percent of respondents disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing, a number that doesn’t surprise pollsters.

“It appears that Americans are frustrated by the lack of tangible legislative results, particularly on health care reform, and the lack of significant turnaround in unemployment since Obama took office,” said Nathan Darus, a UI doctoral candidate in political science. “New presidents are inexperienced as national-level executives. As they learn the ropes, they experience policy failures that play into disapproval.”

Of the 772 respondents, 46 percent were women and 54 percent were men. Twenty-nine percent were Democrats, 40 percent were independents, and 31 percent were Republican. Nearly 64 percent considered themselves moderate, while 20 percent were liberal and 16 percent were conservative. Reported results are weighted by state population.