Don't Let Us Be Sick

 The late songwriter, Warren Zevon was on my mind yesterday, as I dreaded what I expected to be the darkest underbelly of politics on display in the CNN 'presidential' debate. Zevon wrote "Don't let us get sick, don't let us get old. Don't let us get stupid, all right? Just make us be brave and make us play nice and let us be together tonight." Anyone watching the debacle would be amazed that the usually curmudgeonly Zevon would be seen as the optimist in this unsettling setting. What I saw were two old men baring their teeth when this country likely needed them both to jointly agree to step aside due to apparent incapacitation and legal complications. Their joint belligerence and distaste toward each other would have been better served in a wrestling cage than as two trying to convince a skeptical nation that we would be served well by either of them. Add to it the nonsensical lies and self-serving rambling talking points; no one can say that it was time well spent.

I am done trying to defend to others that either party has the best interest of We the People in mind when they decide to cast their lot with these two old hickory nuts. Democracy is failing us at this moment if we can't stop this train from rolling into the station. I hope that clear-headed people on all sides are able to recognize the craziness of the moment and act on that information. Rage against the machine! Insist that the party conventions open themselves up to floor votes and put forward candidates that are reasonable or at least coherent. We have no other choice, if we hope to have a functioning and actually democratic country.

We can argue the relative merits of voting for the party over the candidate, but in the end, one of these men would be the leader and face of this country for the next four years and we would either be sweeping up after one of them or swept up in a net by one of them. Maybe we have a national COVID brain fog or something, but there is no healthy scenario that I can see if either Biden or especially Trump are sworn in again. As Zevon wrote, "I thought of my friends and the troubles they've had to keep me from thinking of mine." It is time to think about our friends. Please, don't let us be sick.

Welcome to Sh#tSt#rm V.2024

 

I seldom look back at the columns I've written before (and judging by the editing, maybe I should) but the promised sh#tst#rm happened in 2023 and it was worse than imagined. So, I told you so. But what will likely happen is a consolidation of power that will make any progressive person's head swim. Already the governor is rejecting federal programs that, get this, help living, breathing children so that they can be poorly served by underfunded state-run programs. Add the latest mass shooting in Perry and the business-as-usual approach of offering more support to the police than the victims (in addition to the requisite "thoughts and prayers") and the zero chance that anything substantive will happen to change the gun laws to address the fact that kids are dying at the hands of other kids who get guns at home (cue the cries for "parental rights"). Then add an election year and the shoving of an already unpopular agenda down the throats of all Iowans who reject much of what is being offered. For instance more tax cuts despite the need to pump money into childcare support, education, and inspection services for eldercare centers.

Democrats are pointing their fingers in the right direction but voters have limited options for change to actually occur. So many uncontested races that assure that conservative and decidedly more MAGA-interested senators and representatives will be ruling the roost for the foreseeable future. One party rule is never a good thing. Certainly, it hasn't helped in any country (Russia) or state (Alabama) to improve the lives of the average citizen. 

The Sh#$storm To Come

 2022 set another low bar year for the state of politics in Iowa. Not only were Democrats pushed further out of power in the state of Iowa, we managed to becoming unceremoniously dumped by Democrats for our formerly much vaunted 1st in the nation caucus status. It has been argued for years that caucuses are as undemocratic a process as has ever been invented, but it still sucks when it is your team pulling the plug. This means that Republicans will continue to have their caucuses while the Democrats figure out how to stop the hemorrhaging on a statewide level.  Meanwhile Republicans in this state are being looked at as how a party should be run with deep pocket out-of-state corporate and cultural causes running our state's legislative processes.

Fun times to be in Iowan, that's for sure, Hoss. In 2023, we can look forward to Republicans draining more money away from social safety net items in favor of depleting counties tax bases and to skim public education monies to fund charter schools and private/religious schools. Along the way, they will likely make it more unfriendly to be a member of the LGBTQA community and may take a stab at defining marriage in Iowa to be between a man and a woman while simultaneously enforces the most draconian abortion laws that can be legislated and defended in the courts. Add to this pro-ethanol legislation that will further decimate our already pathetic waterways, more handouts to agricultural adjacent business enterprises, and anti-labor legislation to keep our labor pool under-valued. Then, look forward as more investments are made in technical education and higher education looks for additional belt-tightening by letting faculty positions go and increasing adjunct professors while reducing research roles that don't pay for themselves.

With our re-elected governor gunning for a seat at the national table, you can be sure that immigration policy will be talked about while simultaneously ignoring the workforce that makes Big Ag in Iowa grow. There will be the rancorous cries of how Joe Biden is the chief cause of inflation and why Iowans can't have nice things. In other words, look out for the sh#$storm that will be rolling this way after the beginning of the new year. 

As for Democrats, you will have the opportunity to take a deep look inside and understand what is possible to do to move the dial in this state and what is not. The stranglehold that Big Ag has on this state is not to be under-estimated. A new mantra may have to be WWFBD? What Would the Farm Bureau Do? So far they have figured out a way to make farmland out of reach for the next generation of independent farmers, they have made the DNR as impotent a state agency as possible and have brain-washed a great number of rural Iowans that Republicans are the only party to vote for. And let's face it, they will run the legislature from now until doomsday unless they are seriously out of step in Iowa's mostly rural counties.

Democrats will need to recognize that unless our candidate pool gets better and the bench gets built up, we are going to be hard-pressed to keep or gain statewide offices. In this case, I want to point at the example of Rob Sand as a way forward. He showed that you can be a watchdog for Iowan's interests and keep your job. Tom Miller, a AG that has done more good for Iowan's was kicked to the curb because he was painted as being out of step with the conservative social agenda. The governor wanted her own AG and, guess what, she got her wish. It is the job of Democrats to show why this is a terrible thing for Iowans.

The GOPandemic that was ushered in November will be hard at work driving their agenda. It will be a difficult two-years, but it could also be the best two years Iowa Democrats have had in a while, if the sh#$storm is as bad as I suspect it will be. Iowans, we've had tornados, windstorms, polar vortices, and even a Derecho, but the 2023 sh#$storm is heading our way and it will leave a CAFO-like mess in its wake.

Yes, Things Suck But...

 Things do suck and they probably will continue to do so. Now, what are we going to do about it when people are telling you the real problems aren't the ones you face daily? For instance, when ads on TV tell you that left- or right-wing agendas are going to ruin "our democracy" what do you even do with that information? Our democracy is already ruined by those gatekeepers of government who depend on corporate interests to be elected and re-elected, to be recommended to judgeships, and to be named to important decision-making commissions. It is ruined by underfunding or undermining government protections of people and the environment. It is ruined by nationalism over globalism. So yes, things do suck, but not for the reasons that campaign ads that we are being drowned in say they do. Because mostly, they don't have much to do with the things we worry about on a daily basis.

A big reason that they suck is we no longer vote solely for issues that affect us, but for the perception that one party or person is the only true protector of our way of life. We are consumer tribalists. That is we are predisposed to thinking that one party or person is cool and the other is not. We are being sold imagery (homespun images of farms, flannel, and family or shady images of scary-looking people with bleak voice-overs telling us how they threaten our existence) and framed issues with talking points that are focus-grouped in a way that soon enough we repeat them aloud as if they were our own ideas.

When people say we are sheeple, they may not be wrong (though they may also be sheeple for repeating it because they heard it someplace on the internet). And maybe if we would embrace our sheeple-ness, we could do better. Sheep hang together, they frolic, and yes, they stray (but can be brought back into the fold with proper coaxing). We want to believe we are individualists because you guessed it, that has been the message we have gotten in choosing blue jeans, as well as what our history books mostly taught us. Sheep are social beings and so are we. I am pretty sure sheep don't do everything in lockstep and we don't have to either. Nonetheless, we do have to decide to stop the suck.

If things suck, it is because we are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems we face. Who wants to figure out what to do about the overcrowding of the planet, the neverending diaspora of people, the lack of drinkable water, the escalating planetary temperatures, the limited arable land, the constant warring, etc. when we can boil elections down to how bad candidate a is and how great candidate b is at defending our freedoms? We have been told that freedom is the most important thing we can fight for, but not how awesome the responsibility of what we do with that freedom can be. We auction off the future of our offspring for the promise of the quick fix of the moment and somehow think that is the best use of our freedom?

Maybe we just suck? We suck because we want others to fix things for us or leave it to us to fix them ourselves. We suck because if it takes a village, someone has to want to build the village (and make sure everyone has a hut). We suck because we listen to the fearmongering voices and think, "hmm, maybe I am superior than the person who will cancel out my vote." We suck because we pretend that others are the cause of why things suck when it is actually a tautology of sucking. We suck because we suck.

But we don't have to suck. We do have to hold those we elect accountable for doing fewer things that suck for us all. We do have to vote, even when it sucks to do so. We do have to call bullshit when we see it, including on people who are choosing to be a posse that stops us from exercising our important freedoms (like voting and speaking up at public forums). We can actually research issues and be informed about what we are voting for or against. We can ask to be on commissions, run for school boards, and volunteer at polls. We don't have to believe in the inherent good or bad of people, we do have to act on our own hopes. At the end of the day, if things suck, it is because we allowed the suck to win. And nothing will ever suck harder than that.

The Big Lie Is Not Election Fraud

There is an old joke: How do you know a politician is lying to you? The answer: Their lips are moving. In Iowa, the Republican party has been on a "Freedom Tour" featuring the governor and her potential allies for attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer, and auditor. They showed up for a visit by none other than Doanld Trump who saidmechoing Kim Reynold's campaign ad, "The Iowa way of life is under siege."  Under siege from what, you may ask? Certainly Trump was not terribly concerned when the Capitol was really under siege, but how the crowd in Sioux City reacted was according to script. They accepted this lie as gospel and cheered him and later Reynolds, Grassley and others on.

But ask yourself this question, are you any more free now than you were four years ago in Iowa? The answer is likely no, particularly if you are an employee of a business or organization that was happy for you to work from home during the pandemic, but now requires you back on-site (even though productivity increased), a school teacher trying to do your job but facing mobs who demand schools curriculum to be "inclusive" of right-winged propaganda and cruel to non-binary conforming kids, or a woman wanting to exercise your reproductive rights with very few exceptions or trying to access services for child care when there is a drastic shortage of options, or a recent graduate saddled with debt and with a degree that was limited due to COVID protocols. 

It is unlikely that the Republicans will be able to push their agenda far in Washington, DC (though not through a lack of trying and likely to gum the works to make the case that Joe Biden isn't fit to lead because they will create distractions and posture about things that Biden would likely veto if he is the last line of defense) and that is precisely why voting in this mid-term election is so important on a local and state level. State legislatures like here in Iowa are likely to pass more legislation that constricts women's reproductive rights, continues to pull public funds away from public education and limit the scope of educational curriculums and supports, and continues to cut taxes and simultaneously making funding for state-supported social services including public health, mental health, child care, and alternatives to mandatory sentencing even more limited. In Iowa's case because of budget surpluses, there is no reason to rob Peter while simultaneously starving Paul, but it will likely happen because they are determined to showcase how awful government can be when you cave to special interests and stop it from doing the one basic thing government is supposed to do, support the people who need a leg up.

The majority of Republican leaders whose names aren't Cheney or Kinzinger, have told us that they are the thin red line between elections being fair and square, but what seems to be true is that they are just sour and sore losers. Even when their own tell them that elections have not been rigged, they "believe" they are and have right-winged disciples foment dissent. Their message seems to be we'll stop the step by stealing rights. In Iowa, you could vote early and be pretty sure your vote would be counted. Now, if you have a piece of handwritten information wrong on your early voting packet, your vote could be nullified. 

No, the big lie is that Republicans are going to make you freer by their policies that hurt women, blue and white collar workers, parents, and lower-income individuals (many of whom are of the white, Christian, evangelicals that are their own true-believing base). They are dogging Joe Biden because he has worked hard to provide opportunities to more Americans than his predecessors and during a time when the global supply chain is playing catch up due to unleashed demand post-Covid and with corporate interests raking in massive profits, especially those in the gas/oil industry. I get it. Whoever has the wheel is always faulted for whatever people are worried about in the moment. The difference here is that Republicans are not offering better ideas, just mean-spirited critique.

In Iowa, our current governor is counting on a landslide victory so that she may run the table and set herself up for future political mountain climbing. She hopes to have an Attorney General to due her bidding in suing the federal government over policies that she does not agree, she hopes to have a auditor who will look the other way while she uses state and federal funds at her personal discretion, and have a secretary of state who will continue to look for measures that make voting more difficult and support the party. The biggest lie of all is that any of this is a good idea. Iowa that would be in the control of only one party can look to places like Kansas to see how that experiment went.  Thankfully, even Kansas saw the error of its way and has surprised the nation in a good way recently.

Big lies are easy enough to pull off for a minute, but it takes a commitment from voters to reverse course. For the sake of Iowa, I hope that voters are committed to staunch the bleeding.

Iowa Attorney General Race: Why it Matters

 Iowans will have a decision on November 8th, stick with 10-term-serving Democrat Tom Miller as Attorney General or give Kim Reynolds her own AG by electing Republican Brenna Bird. Tom Miller has been a thorn in the side of Iowa governors, Branstad and Reynolds, by not supporting their politically-motivated initiatives. However, he has been effective in serving Iowans by accomplishing the following:

Miller led the roughly three-year-long multi-state negotiations in the effort to settle with several U.S. banks over alleged abuses and faulty documentation used in the seizure of homes since the crisis began in 2008. The deal was expected to give up to $40 billion to struggling homeowners, and an estimated "1 million U.S. homeowners who were "underwater" on their mortgages.

His office has helped hundreds of thousands of Iowans with complaints about wide-ranging topics, including "improper debt collection practices, telemarketing fraud and abuse, charity fraud, predatory lending, mortgage, and vehicle complaints.  His office's undercover telephone lines have helped reduce telemarketing crimes that cheat older Iowans and people all over the nation."  

He has also successfully taken on the tobacco industry and through the courts has caused them to pay billions in settlements across multiple states. He continues to work to reduce youth tobacco addiction.

Miller has also established "the nation’s first-ever farm division in an attorney general’s office". Since then, the division has had success in cases against agricultural chemical companies and has "consistently defended farmers against big agricultural companies," according to the Iowa Attorney General's website.

Miller also has "taken a lead in holding accountable the drug companies and others who contributed to the opioid crisis... will work to challenge corporate mergers that would potentially harm Iowa consumers and farmers and... looking into concentration in the fertilizer industry, which has led to high prices for farmers."

Further, Miller issued a report citing "overwhelming" incidents of abuse and "extensive" cover-up that spanned decades in detailing 50 complaints his office received about allegations of sexual impropriety by Catholic clergy, non-clergy or spiritual leaders — including 17 victims who had not previously come forward to report abuse to authorities.

Finally, Miller is a pro-choice and called the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade "a terrible mistake." He said, "I believe that women should essentially make this choice," he said. "That they should have the freedom from government intervention to make this decision with their family, if necessary, and, of course, with a doctor." Miller declined to defend the "fetal heartbeat" law, calling it "far, far too restrictive on women."

 In the wake of a measure passed in 2019 by the Republican-led Iowa Legislature that would have limited the attorney general’s powers to go after Trump administration policies, Miller and GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds agreed he would seek her permission before joining any multistate lawsuits. Under that agreement, she vetoed the bill. The Associated Press reported last year that Reynolds had subsequently denied two-thirds of Miller’s requests.

Miller said the current system works for choosing judges, but he opposes the Republican-backed law that gave the governor more power in choosing people to serve on the state judicial nominating commission.

Contrasting Miller with Brenna Bird, who is the current Guthrie County Attorney, Guthrie county has a population of 10,623 as of the 2020 census) was elected in 2018 and is president-elect of the Iowa County Attorneys Association. She previously worked for former Gov. Terry Branstad and former Congressman Steve King. She has been on record that she "would back our law enforcement, hold the Biden administration accountable and seek justice for victims of crimes." 

She is on record for supporting the 6-week abortion ban saying she would have defended a 2018 Iowa law that would ban most abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy. “I’m 100 percent pro-life, and it will be my job as attorney general to defend the law that the legislature would pass,” Bird said. She has declined to say what kinds of abortion restrictions she might recommend to lawmakers.

Bird also has said she would like to "Give Biden the Bird" and sue the president over COVID requirements, water quality regulations and U.S.-Mexico border policies, key issues for Governor Reynolds who has potential aspirations for higher office and has been speculated as a potential GOP Vice-President nominee.

Bird's willingness to walk lock-step with the Governor has won her a ringing endorsement by Reynolds, but also of Donald Trump, though she accepts the results of the 2020 election, she said, “I do believe that Joe Biden is our president, I have a lot of concerns, though, about election integrity” while simultaneously praising Iowa's election laws.

Latest polling data shows Miller with a 16% lead over Bird, but polling for down ticket races is notoriously limited. If you are an Iowan who really believes our state motto, "Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain," it is clear that there are important differences between these to candidates and keeping Tom Miller as AG should be at the top of your ticket.

Let Us Count How Many Ways We Could Be Screwed By Apathy

 It is no secret that the Republicans hold the upper hand in this election cycle. Voters are locked into two camps and the edge usually goes to the party banging on the weaknesses of the economy. Worldwide, inflation is on the upswing, and the fact that people with idled money to burn pushed the supply chain to the edge of breaking as the pandemic began to subside. This has caused inflation to increase and may take a while longer to go down. Add to that record profits for oil companies while the financial markets act like a rickety rollercoaster at an amusement park. Yet the narrative the Republicans are going with is that it is Joe Biden's fault because he put environmental regulations back into place, hasn't opened up more. public lands to oil leases. Never mind that Biden has dipped into the strategic oil supply twice to offer some relief.  They do not accept any blame for not voting to support infrastructure and job initiatives that are putting Americans in a better financial place and making it easier for new businesses to have needed roads, broadband, and support for workers. However, they do show up for the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and take credit both at the national and state levels.

Republicans want you to worry about all the fentanyl that is being stopped at the border, all the immigrants who are being stopped by the border patrol. And they are being successful because of fear tactics that are packaged up and wrapped in a nationalistic wrapper. They have found the pain points for many people and are looking to reap their rewards. 

In the meantime, they have made it harder through state efforts for voters to vote and for those votes to be counted without political interference. Certainly, the actions in states like Arizona where camo-clad, armed goons stand watch over ballot drop boxes with the blessing of the courts is a model that we can look forward to others emulating and add to the chaos that makes people believe their vote will not count.

Meanwhile, Democrats are raising the very real specter that women's reproductive rights will be at significant danger should the House and Senate flip. Regardless of the national agenda, the Republican leadership at the state level are already in the catbird seat to push this agenda through at the state level. In state's like Iowa, they are also pushing for an adrenalized version of the 2nd Amendment to be passed which will be tested in federal court due to the vague idea of "strict scrutiny" which basically makes any passed pro-gun legislation dare I say it, bulletproof. 

Then add the continual carving of taxes such that education, medical and mental health care are going to suffer and the social safety net will continue to shred. The public/private partnerships will endanger Social Security and likely Medicare and Medicaid. Drug prices will continue to increase for the most vulnerable. It is truly sad to think that the richest nation on earth would shortchange its younger and older generations on the tools they need to live productive lives.

Finally, there is foreign policy. Republicans have already said that Ukraine will not be able to depend on them to help them stave off Russia's onslaught. They will continue to undermine Biden's diplomatic strategies and sow seeds of dissent through House hearings on everything from Hunter Biden to the January 6th Committee. 

Let there be no mistake, there is a power struggle going on for our representative democracy and conservatives are pushing hard at the levers of control to make us more fearful, less democratic, and more likely to pit us against each other. 

The only way to stop this from happening is through our efforts at the polls and in the halls of power. People have got to not be cynical about their vote. It matters. If you want the economy to be better, as we all do, recognize that it is not the fault of a person or party, it is a result of coming through a really unusual period where demand was tamped down due to a global pandemic and market players are trying to make up for lost ground. This will pass, but giving power back to the very people who put us in the unenviable position we are in now is like pouring gasoline on a fire.

You have a voice in all this. In my congressional district in 2020, the House seat was won by 6 measly votes. Can you imagine what a difference it will make if turnout exceeds expectations and the vote is clear and unquestionable? As it stands, it is possible that parts of this country will go into a complete meltdown if there are numerous recounts and extended delays to the tallies. And do you think your staying home is going to make this better?

They say that peace is harder to maintain in places where people doubt they have a legitimate voice. The vote with all of its limitations is still a far better way to exist as a nation than giving in to might makes right thinking. We owe it to each other to fight our battles through the ballot box and I hope you will do your part by voting by or on November 8th.