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.

The full MoveOn.org press release is copied below.

A new 30 second television ad, running in Iowa, Montana and Washington, DC, uses humor to highlight the importance of including the choice of a public health insurance plan in any health care reform legislation. The ad, by MoveOn.org Civic Action, follows an online town hall meeting on the subject Monday night that over 10,000 people participated in – the highest attendance ever recorded by sister organization Moveon.org Political Action for an issue briefing. The ads will run in the home states of the chair and the ranking Republican of the Senate Finance Committee, as well as in Washington, DC, for one week. The public health insurance option has been vigorously opposed by the insurance industry and their allies in Congress.

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) has recently shown a willingness to support the public health insurance option, while Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) remains dead set against it, despite the fact that a recent poll showed that 56% of Iowans want a public health insurance option.[1] The Iowa results mirror polls that show most Americans believe the choice of a public health insurance plan is key to solving our health care crisis.

The television ad, set in a funeral home, uses humor and shows two funeral directors discussing how President Obama’s health care reform proposal, with its inclusion of the choice of a public health insurance plan, will lower people’s health care costs and let them live longer, therefore putting the funeral directors out of business.

“While our ad uses humor to elevate the importance of the public health insurance option, the point couldn’t be more serious,” said Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn. “Senators Baucus and Grassley are at the center of the fight for real health care reform. They have a responsibility to stand with the overwhelming majority of Americans who want the choice of a public health insurance plan – but instead, Senator Grassley and Congressional Republicans have been standing with the insurance companies and special interests.”

The ad campaign follows Monday night’s online town hall meeting on the subject. The town hall was hosted jointly by MoveOn.org Political Action and Democracy for America. The town hall, which over 10,000 people attended, was featured Governor Howard Dean explaining the public health insurance option and taking questions from the on line crowd.

You can hear the town hall at: http://pol.moveon.org/deanforum/recording.html

The ad is viewable online here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms2b57MLqZs

Justin Uebelhor, the organization’s communications director, told the Iowa Independent in an email that the ad would run for at least a week on cable stations in markets across the state and on broadcast stations in Des Moines, and that they are “planning to expand when possible.”

The ad, which will play in the Des Moines and Mason City media markets according to a campaign press release, is a positive ad intended to introduce voters to Greenwald’s campaign.

Greenwald, a Democrat, hopes to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Latham in November.  Previous filings with the Federal Election Commission indicate that Greenwald faces a significant fundraising disadvantage in the race, but two outside groups — EMILY’s List and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — have shown increased interest in her campaign.

Click here to view the ad.

Over 1,000 people — some reports say as many as 2,000 — marched in protest of the May 12 immigration raid at Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meatpacking plant in the U.S. and Postville’s largest employer. The marchers left St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church and snaked through a residential area before pausing briefly in front of the Agriprocessors plant. The group continued through another residential area before moving toward downtown.

As the opposing sides came in closer proximity to one another, the many law enforcement officers on hand visibly tensed. If there was to be conflict, it would most likely happen when the two groups confronted each other from opposite sides of Lawler Street.

The procession, tinged with angry chants and shouts by each group, took nearly a half hour. But, it ended without violence.

Nuclear proliferation and disarmament; United Nations strategy and planning; Middle East and Asian security; emergent powers; U.S. security; all of it. Ready for download and available from one policy research think-tank that is nonpartisan and stresses a multilateral approach to issues.

And what if this public policy resource with a worldwide reach was an independent foundation located not in the D.C. beltway but in the eastern Iowa river-town of Muscatine?The Stanley Foundation (TSF), Muscatine’s internationally focused think-tank, stresses a multilateral approach to its research. For over 50 years, the group has been envisioning a peaceful future through realistic parameters and wide-ranging voices. Even more importantly, they are committed to promoting education of both the public through media outreach as well as the policymakers through conferences, collaboration and advising.

The foundation has been located in Muscatine, Ia. since 1956, when it was founded by engineer C. Maxwell Stanley and his wife, Elizabeth. They don’t offer grants and subsist entirely on an endowment fund that provides an annual budget of about $5.5 million.

Stanley’s son, Richard, has run the foundation since his father’s death in 1984. The Stanley family runs several other foundations and was in the news recently when David Stanley, a former state legislator, was accused of raiding E & M Charities to the tune of $24 million to fund his New Hope Foundation. A lawsuit brought by other Stanley family members was settled out of court in January.

Describing their mission as active global citizenship and TSF has influenced foreign policy decision-making through media production and collaboration with a range of groups.

TSF director of policy analysis and dialog Dr. Michael R. Kraig was in Iowa City last week to moderate a panel on “Civil Society and Terrorism” at the University of Iowa Provost’s Forum on International Affairs. He sat down for a video interview with the Iowa Independent where he explained his views on three different types of terrorism: local, state-sponsored, and transnational.

Kraig believes there’s a gap between “what the public believes our foreign policy should look like in broad terms and the specifics of what our legislators are doing on Capitol Hill.”

He also talked about the some of the foundation’s programming and mission:

From 1980 to 2004, TSF produced “Common Ground,” a radio program that aired on over 200 NPR stations. They still produce radio documentaries, but have also started to do multimedia work.

A radio documentary called “Brazil Rising” will be released in June as part of their project “Rising Powers: The New Global Reality.”

According to Keith Porter, who is TSF’s director of communication and outreach, “Rising Powers” is designed to “spark discussion among Americans about the way the world order is changing and what it means for the United States.” TSF partners with KQED on radio projects. They will launch a “Rising Powers” Web site that will grow as more countries are profiled. India and Turkey are in line for coverage after Brazil.

Last year, TSF’s series of dialogues called “Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide” brought together emergent liberal and conservative thinkers. In one pairing, unpaid advisers for Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama co-wrote “The Next Intervention,” an editorial in the Washington Post. A longer version of their collaboration, “America and the Use of Force: Sources of Legitimacy,” was collected with nine other liberal/conservative conversations in a book. The series was described as “an alternative to the distortions and oversimplifications of today’s polarizing political environment” and largely succeeded in painting otherwise polemical arguments into workable solutions.

Porter said that the detailed policy work usually comes first and is followed by public outreach and a media campaign. Currently, the foundation is conducting a U.S. nuclear policy review to be ready for the next president’s administration. When the policy plan and report is complete, TSF will produce information to be disseminated through media channels, public speakers, citizen groups and other communications.

Another project will form a basis for a northeast Asian security group where none currently exists. Porter said, “There is no permanent security alliance like ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).” So TSF will “take what happening in the Six-Party Talks and turn that into a regional association like ASEAN.” He said this project is typical of the TSF mission of “trying to get countries to talk to each other [through] multilateral solutions.”

Porter said he’d like to see:

“American leaders and American media take our global connections more seriously. People who work on foreign policy issues all the time can look at Main Street in Anytown, U.S.A. and find a dozen connections between that and the rest of the world …  that doesn’t get reflected very often in what our political leaders tell us. It doesn’t get reflected very often in what we see in the media and I think, regardless of that, it’s starting to make an impression on average Americans.

People are beginning to see how their fates are connected to the rest of the world … there is a direct one-to-one connection between U.S. national security and global security … we ought to be doing everything we can around the world to promote security, stability, better lives for people and, beyond being just the right thing to do, it will have good, positive influence and effects on us.

I do see recognition of that among people. I don’t see it necessarily among political leaders. I don’t necessarily see it among the media but it’s an idea that the public just grasps immediately. I find that encouraging.”

He summarized the Stanley Foundation mission: “We really believe that both the policy community and the public have to be engaged in these issues to bring about the change that we want in the world.”

TSF distributes a monthly e-mail newsletter, “think.” about their current program work. They also publish a quarterly magazine “Courier” that has TSF papers and policy analysis. Both are available at the Stanley Foundation Web site.

She spoke with the Iowa Independent after the event.

Cebula is the president of the Sisters of St. Francis in Clinton.

Ashford University psychology professor John Ivens read his vision of “What Peace Looks Like.” The full text was printed in the Clinton Times-Herald newspaper. He was preaching to the choir of peace proponents, save one person: Craig Johnson, who was at the event to support the war.

He carried a sign that read: “Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, War Never Solved Anything.”

Judy Wick brought an Italian peace flag to the event. Her daughter carried the flag in Rome, Italy, at protests before the start of the war.

Wick said she carried the flag for both of her daughters. Her youngest daughter, Emily Wick, recently served in Iraq at Air Force bases in Baghdad and Kirkuk with the USAF.

Bilingual Maria Ramirez recited the Prayer of St. Francis in Spanish before she joined the crowd for the English translation.

And Mohammed Asaadi of the Clinton Islamic Society translated Muslim prayers for peace.

The closing prayer was led by Rev. Anthony Herald, Pastor of Jesus Christ Prince of Peace Parish.

More information about the Sisters of St. Francis can be found at: http://www.clintonfr…

Before she volunteered for Sen. Joe Biden’s campaign, Karen Nichols of Coralville was an Obama supporter. She served as the precinct captain for Joe Biden at her caucus in January. But when there weren’t enough Biden people to send a delegate, Edwards, Dodd and Richardson supporters threw their support behind her, so she could become an uncommitted delegate at the county convention.

She wore a wireless microphone for the Iowa Independent during the Johnson County convention to give an insider’s perspective of the process.

In part 1, she registers, meets other non-viable delegates, and talks with Edwards, Clinton and Obama supporters.

In part 2, Nichols makes her final choice. Did she go with Obama, Clinton or Edwards?

Edwards delegate Will Jennings explains his support for the second-place Iowa finisher in this video:

Jennings predicted that Edwards delegates would split evenly between Obama and Clinton.

Husband and wife delegates Amish and Jennifer Trivedi of Iowa City are also Edwards supporters. They describe some of the issues Edwards brought to the presidential campaign in this video:

The county convention is also a chance to create a party platform. DeDe Dancing was gathering delegate signatures to add an amendment to the platform that would make possession of small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor crime. She said this would help keep jails from overcrowding.

Here is a short interview with the party activist:

Room assignments for county delegates.

Edwards supporter Tom Carsner smiles for the camera at the Johnson County convention.