Steve King

U.S. Rep. Steve King is hoping to derail health care reform legislation scheduled to be debated in the U.S. House by trying to harness the Tea Party protests that took place throughout the summer and once again bringing them to the nation’s capital on Saturday.

King announced Friday that “will join his Republican colleagues and Americans from across the nation” at the U.S. Capitol at 1 p.m.

“Republicans and other participants will deliver a message that the American people reject a government takeover of health care,” King said in a statement.

However, King’s event appears to be hastily planned. Levi Russell, a leader in the national Tea Party Patriot movement who participated in Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s health care protest Thursday, told the liberal blog Talking Points Memo that he was unaware that the gathering was taking place.

Paul McKinley

Senate Majority Leader Paul McKinley, R-Chariton, followed through on his promise Friday and dropped out of the 2010 campaign for governor.

McKinley said last month that when former Gov. Terry Branstad made his candidacy official, he would withdraw. While Branstad has yet to formally enter the race, he’s hired staff and begun holding campaign events, making McKinley’s departure inevitable.

In a press statement, McKinley said he plans to devote attention to winning back a Republican majority in the Iowa Senate.

“The actions taken by the Culver administration and the Democrats in the Legislature during the last three years have made it abundantly clear that Iowa needs new leadership and a new direction,” McKinley said. “I am confident that next November, Iowans will elect a Republican governor and add many more Republicans to the Legislature. With Republicans leading the way in Iowa, our state will finally get serious about curbing our out-of-control spending and higher taxes brought forth by Governor Culver and legislative Democrats, we will finally get serious about making it easier to create good jobs and we will give our citizens a greater voice in their own government.”

McKinley’s departure leaves six men battling it out for the GOP nomination to take on Gov. Chet Culver — Branstad, state Sen. Jerry Behn, businessman Christian Fong, former state House Speaker Chris Rants, state Rep. Rod Roberts, and businessman Bob Vander Plaats.

“The campaign now on hhs.gov is not purely informational because it expressly has visitors ‘affirm’ their commitment to work with congressional leaders to enact legislation this year,” Grassley said, and added that this “looks like the type of violation the law was written to prohibit.”

An online initiative by the U.S. Department of Health and Human services has come under fire by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who believes the effort is state-funded propaganda.

At Grassley’s request, a legal opinion on the subject was issued by the American Law Division at the Congressional Research Office this week, and those officials also agree with Grassley that the HHS initiative is an inappropriate use of funds and that it may violate at least three areas that govern use of appropriated funds.

“If the expenditure for the letter writing campaign to the President, supporting the President’s position with regard to health care reform proposals, is not deemed sufficiently ‘informational’ or educational, that is, that it is not a communication with the public ‘regarding its functions, policies, and activities,’ then it may be argued that it may be in violation of the general appropriations rider in Section 720, Division D, of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 as a ‘publicity or propaganda’ campaign involving a grassroots lobbying effort directed at the President.”

According to the opinion, HHS may also be in violation of another section for the Omnibus Act that prohibits publicity or propaganda “designed to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress.”

Finally, the legal opinion points to a possible violation of the U.S. criminal code that denies use of federal appropriations for state campaigns that are designed to influence government officials.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius contends that the initiative allows individuals to share personal stories and ideas regarding reform.

“The ‘State Your Support’ link allows individuals to express their support for health insurance reform,” she wrote in a letter this week to Grassley. “Individual who state their support and provide contact information are then notified of updates to information on the HealthReform.gov website and are occasionally invited to health reform-related events in their area.

“…[T]he Department has been careful to comply with all legal requirements with respect to this link and its other communications with the public.”

If the sword-clattering from both sides sound familiar, its because these type of disagreements — whether or not a federal agency is engaging in propaganda or pure information distribution — aren’t unusual. The players on either side vary depending on who is in control of the agencies, and the specific topic.

For instance, four years ago House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called use of taxpayer funds for government propaganda campaigns “underhanded tactics” while chiding the Bush administration.

The aide also confirms she will file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission next week.

Later in the day, that aide was outed by The Des Moines Register as Mark Daley, longtime Democratic strategist and a Conlin adviser. He also confirmed she is looking into possible staff and consultants.

Conlin said last month that she would likely join the field of Democrats vying to defeat Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Bob Krause of Fairfield, Tom Fiegen of Clarence and Sal Mohamed of Sioux City have already declared their candidacies.

Conlin, a former president of the nation’s trial lawyers association who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1982 and has built a reputation as one of the country’s leading civil rights attorneys, promised to raise $10 million for the campaign without taking contributions from lobbyists or political action committees.

The latest victims are identified as adults in Dubuque, Polk, Mills and Monona counties. To date, there have been 11 confirmed H1N1 deaths in Iowa, including 10 adults and one child.

“While school-age children have been most affected by the H1N1 virus over the past several weeks, surveillance is starting to show an increase in adult illness,” said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, state medical doctor.

Symptoms of H1N1 influenza are similar to seasonal flue and include a fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some infected with the virus also experience diarrhea and vomiting.

“With H1N1 vaccine continuing to be allocated to states on a staggered basis, many adults are not yet in the priority group targeted for vaccination,” Quinlisk said. “Until more vaccine becomes available, it’s important for all Iowans to continue to take personal action to prevent the spread of illness.”

Iowans with questions about H1N1 should visit the IDPH Web site or phone the toll-free Influenza Hotline at 1-800-447-1985.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Creative Commons photo by Cosmic Smudge via Flickr)

WASHINGTON — How effectively will the U.S. House health care bill cover children? Turns out, it depends on where they live.

The $894 billion health reform bill working its way toward a House vote this week would repeal the Children’s Health Insurance Program, shifting some low-income kids into Medicaid and others into private plans that would both cost more and guarantee fewer benefits. Which program the youngsters tumble into hinges, not on need, but on the state where they live — a design some advocates call “the lottery of geography.”

Read more at The Iowa Independent’s sister site, The Washington Independent.

In that campaign, which Reed lost by more than 20 percentage points, the Marion Republican claimed that Harkin’s support for same-sex marriage also meant he supports marriage between “any 2, 3 or multiple people of any and all sexes. Heck, as far as he is concerned, you could marry your horse if it makes you happy.”

During a debate later in the campaign, Reed said Harkin had “an eight-year history of becoming the Tokyo Rose of Al-Qaeda and Middle East terrorism.”

In an interview Thursday with conservative blogger Craig Robinson, Reed said he learned a lot from his 2008 defeat and promises a campaign that focuses less on personal attacks and more on the issues.

“Last time, I took the race personally. This time, it’s about the people. So the vitriol and the remarks are not going to be there this time because there is too much at stake. This campaign has to be about defeating Dave Loebsack and what he votes for in Washington.”

Reed is expected to square off in a primary with Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the party’s 2008 nominee in the 2nd district, and Steve Rathje, who Reed defeated in 2008 for the right to take on Harkin.

In June, Culver’s deputy chief of staff, Phil Roeder, told The Iowa Independent that 100 percent transparency was one of the most important aspects to the program’s success. Bill Allison, a senior fellow with the non-profit government transparency watchdog the Sunlight Foundation, said at the time that the key for Iowa is to ensure there is one spot where citizens can go to follow the money, and that money can be tracked easily with searches by ZIP code or county, a goal that appears to be met by the new website.

Information can be sorted by county, project type, keywords and administering agencies. Information provided on each approved project includes the recipient of the I-JOBS funds, the name and location of the project, the amount of funding, the total cost of the project, and the expected completion date.

The information can be viewed in a list or on an interactive map.

“I-JOBS is for all of Iowa, and this new online tool shows where funds are being committed and how they are supporting local projects,” Culver said in a statement.

But Civic Skinny, the anonymous gossip columnist for Des Moines’ Cityview, says the contest is as much about revenge and staking a claim on 2012 as it is about who gets to challenge incumbent Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

[According to a source] “A part of this is settling scores, another part is Iowa caucus related and, yes, [part is] the contest on the ballot,” this person said. He, or maybe she (“Keep my name out of the mix,” she, or maybe he, said) continued: “There was bad blood between Doug Gross and Bob Vander Plaats during the ’02 GOP gubernatorial race [which Gross lost to Tom Vilsack], especially at the end. The two ripped one another, nearly allowing Rep. Steve Sukup, as the good guy, to win a razor-thin, three-way primary race. As it was, Gross barely exceeded the minimum threshold of 35 percent to avoid the battle going to a state convention. Since then, Gross sided with [loser Jim] Nussle in his poorly run ’06 [gubernatorial] effort that saw Vander Plaats join the ticket after dropping his primary candidacy.”

There’s more: “Differences continued during ’07 and early ’08 with Gross leading the Mitt Romney effort in Iowa and Vander Plaats chairing the Mike Huckabee campaign, which won. Both former Governors are quietly preparing encore efforts. Huckabee will deal with high expectations; unclear yet what commitment Romney would make to Iowa a second time around. Huckabee has endorsed Vander Plaats in the ’10 GOP primary, as you know. With a ’10 victory, a newly re-inaugurated Terry Branstad would be in the thick of the action with governors and former governors dominating the field — possibly including Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, even George Pataki, who made early stops in Iowa in ’05-06, only to defer to Rudy Giuliani when he made his candidacy clear. A governor Branstad would likely remain neutral, but not necessarily his political team with a data base of updated names.”

In other words, Gross is still pissed, and one reasons he’s backing Branstad is so he can settle a few scores.

Gross, who served as Branstad’s chief of staff when he was governor, has become a controversial figure for Iowa social conservatives thanks to a series of Op-Ed columns he penned earlier this year calling on his party to be more inclusive and focus less on social issues that are turning off a younger generation of voters.

Robert A. Bischoff, was charged in September with sexual misconduct, unprofessional conduct and disruptive behavior in the practice of medicine by the state board. The Board believed Bischoff engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a former patient in 2007, and that the patient stole his prescription pad and illegally obtained prescription drugs. The board also alleges that Bischoff made inappropriate sexual advances toward a female co-worker in 2006.

Bischoff was the subject of a number of complaints from female patients who said that he engaged in inappropriate touching as well as unprofessional comments. It was reported that the doctor viewed and stored pornographic images on a workplace computer, and that he frequently became angry and yelled at co-workers and other providers.

On July, Bischoff completed a board-ordered comprehensive physical, neuropsychological, mental health, sexual misconduct and substance abuse evaluation. The results of the evaluation, according to the board, concluded that Bischoff is not safe to treat patients at this time.

According to the agreement, Bischoff will not treat patients “until the resolution of the pending contest case before the Board, whether in the family clinic, a hospital or any other setting.”