News Desertion

 Ever since CNN became the first 24-hour news network, it has been difficult for news to report just the facts. After all, in 24 hours how much news rises to the level of consequential except to those who are involved? Nonetheless, the news is now an endangered species on the local level as newspapers are either gobbled up by conglomerates or shuttering up in less populous areas. On the TV front, it is much the same as local channels are bought up by companies like Gray Television or Sinclair Broadcast Group. With the consolidation of news media on the local level, there are fewer eyeballs on the ways that government officials fail us or how business interests expand their influence, and frankly, even fewer human interest stories that remind us that there is good going on as well.

Democracy thrives by factual information being widely available for all who care to know it. Today's media is more marketing than it is news. Hence to attract a certain demographic, you have right- and left-leaning flamethrowers like Tucker Carlson or Michael Moore and then form stories that conform to a prospective. Other than Reuters or the AP, most news is preferential to the way it treats stories. Of course, there is a long history of this. And somehow democracy has survived the disparity between what is true and what people believe.

However, with the evolution of social media, the blurring of fact and fiction is widening; to the point ere at one time Jon Stewart was the most trusted news anchor in America. I'm not dissing Jon Stewart, as we have seen recently comedians can come across as very credible (see:  Volodymyr Zelenskyy), but clearly, people are struggling with understanding their world and the bipolarity of how news is reported. With the ability to pick and choose your sources on social media, we are rapidly submerging into a gray area where it is not shared or even common knowledge on anything and the barn door is wide open for out-and-out propaganda to pose as news.

So, I am left with this question: Did the news desert us or did we desert the news? A case for both can be made and particularly when people stopped paying for reliable news sources via transitioning away from newspapers and magazines and even network news in favor of web-based sources which have, up to now, been harder to monetize around. At the same time, the consolidation of news media is the egg in the chicken and the egg analogy. 

It may be argued that this is a temporary problem and that the marketplace will eventually solve it as people seek out reliable sources. I don't see that happening. Using a different analogy, people know that there are healthier food choices, but we lean into salty, sugary junk food because it tastes so good. And like junk food, sometimes we feel bad about it, but we go back to it. News as we've known it is dead and its replacement is partisan news--not as healthy for us, but we can't seem to get enough of it.   

Gimme Back My Freedom of Rest

  Iowa lost its mind in 2017 when Terry Branstad signed into law and allowied category 2 fireworks to be sold legally in the state (category 1 are things like sparklers and the like). This past year, the  governing Republican triumverate went a step further and said that cities have little say where they can be sold (even though cities and counties may continue to bar them from being set off in incorporated areas). Needless to say, the jury is back and has had enough, as places like my neighborhood sound like eastern Ukraine with explosions that can wake a sane person out of a night's sleep and cause pets to run for cover before, during, and after the 11 pm curfew for unincorporated areas. Also, there is no telling what effect it may have on the PTSD-suffering among us. 

And I am not against fireworks, I know that all the cities of any size have wonderful displays of them annually and it is a, pardon the pun, blast to see them. But, seriously, unless you are a pyromaniac or have a death wish, you are as likely to end up in the hospital, lose some degree of hearing, and/or make some poor decisions if you are blowing off firecrackers for the fun of it.  There were an estimated 11,500 emergency room-treated injuries involving fireworks in 2021. (down from 15,600 in 2020, when many public shows were canceled due to the pandemic). But the types of accidents seen ranged from burns, demolished eardrums, and, loss of limbs (e.g., hands, fingers).

From a story from today

At least three people — including a child — died and more were injured in fireworks accidents across America over the July 4 holiday.

In Montebello, California, police reportedly found a severely injured man unconscious and not breathing around 6:30 p.m. Monday. He died at a hospital and reportedly used illegal fireworks.

In Mount Vernon, Indiana, 11-year-old Camrynn Ray McMichael died in a firework accident Sunday night. Police were investigating his death.

Look, if you are in the highest-risk category, typically men between the ages of 20-24, and you want to do something fun with explosives, study, and become a professional demolitionist or pyrotechnician, heck even take up amateur or professional rocketry. But for the sake of those who value our freedom (of sleep), do us a solid and curb your enthusiasm. And to state lawmakers who thought it was a good idea to make it possible for others to profit from others' misery, you really can't call yourself a public servant can you?

In Iowa, if you want to let key legislators know what you think of the Senate File 2285 signed into law, here are a couple of folks to communicate with besides your own district's Representative and Senator:

Floor manager Mike Kelmish who also is on the Appropriations Subcommittee for Health and Human Services and the Legislative Council for Health Policy Oversight Committee

Legislative Email: mike.klimesh@legis.iowa.gov

Home Email: mike@graphicsinc.biz

In the House, it was floor managed by Brent Siegrist who sits on the local government committee:

Legislative Email: Brent.Siegrist@legis.iowa.gov

Home Email: siegrists1@cox.net

Also, since she signed the bill, you might also want to send a shoutout to Governor Kim Reynolds.

I'm tired of being tired and from June 1 to July 8th and late December, I have no right to sleep. Until I do, these leaders should be awakened to what they've created.

Considering Independence Day 2022

 In 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was written. Thomas Jefferson enumerated why the original thirteen colonies found it necessary to seek independence from the British Crown. In it, he listed the following "injuries and usurpations": 

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Clearly, these were excellent reasons to seek freedom and independence. However, in 2022, how are we doing with our independence in terms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and self-rule? Some might say that we traded in one kind of authoritarianism for another where the executive, judiciary and the legislative bodies in states have outsized power over the day-to-day existence of women, people of color, and those lacking financial means to influence. It would seem that the "checks and balances" are failing many and therefore our self-governance is being usurped. Thankfully, our form of government does have an essential safeguard, the power of the electorate to vote for change and this has likely kept us from entering into a second civil war. However, when the halls of Congress are largely occupied by self-serving interests and wedge issue wars are being promulgated by monied interests to prop up economic interests who largely do not represent the vast majority of us, it is right to ask how will we continue to make this experiment in representative democracy work? For too long the interests that guide our state are largely economic and the welfare of the residents has taken a back seat to those interests that fuel the economic engine. This is not a new phenomenon, but it has become outsized and power has been consolidated along the way. 

With each gerrymandering of a district or removal of authority of a city or county, local law has been reduced and therefore the freedom of those impacted by the law. In a way, we are being micro-managed by power-grabbing entities that have formed an unholy alliance--such as church and state, industry and state, parties and supporters. Freedom shouldn't be this hard, but it has been made so by professionalizing politics and underlying bureaucracies, pitting neighbor against neighbor by militarizing the public sphere, and creating an environment of chaos by undervaluing and encouraging propaganda over education. And on top of all this, we have allowed a hellscape to be carved out of our environment such that massive effort will need to be undertaken to support the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of people living not only in this country, but around the world.

Paraphrasing Meridith Willson, we've got trouble, right here in the US of A. Without a coming to grips with how we got here and working together to change the dynamics in place, I fear the state of the union looks quite bleak. So here is an exercise I would like us all to consider, if you were responsible for writing the 2022 version of a declaration of independence, what might you say?

Decisions, Decisions: How The Supreme Court Is Decimating Our Democracy One Decision At A Time

 Today, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Clean Air Act didn't apply to carbon dioxide and therefore can't be regulated by the EPA. “Hard on the heels of snatching away fundamental liberties, the right-wing activist court just curtailed vital climate action,” Jason Rylander, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, responded in a press statement Thursday. The court ruled that only Congress can make laws regarding the level of CO2 emissions. Interestingly the case came to the court due to then-president Trump trying to relax the guidelines which a federal court put a hold on. The result of this ruling is likely to create a free-for-all among states who want to loosen the law versus those who wish to strengthen it. In the meanwhile, global climate change continues and temperatures and sea levels are rising. “Today, the court strips the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the power Congress gave it to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the minority joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent.

The decision is impactful to the EPA's ability to do its job. Whether it is limiting emissions from power plants to operating the existing cap-and-trade carbon offset policy, it may also give a peek into other backward steps the court and its conservative majority likely will take. “Congress did not grant EPA in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by the five other conservative justices. Further, he added, “On EPA’s view of Section 111(d), Congress implicitly tasked it, and it alone, with balancing the many vital considerations of national policy implicated in the basic regulation of how Americans get their energy,” Roberts wrote. “There is little reason to think Congress did so.” In instances like this, he said, “[a] decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.” 

Regardless of this decision, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed to serve as the watchdog over the nation's environment and enact policies to preserve it, but you would think that this was some kind of fly-by-night operation that requires Congress to hold its hand to do its job. Also, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are a little difficult to maintain when the court is treating people like the frogs in the warm water experiment. Suffice to say, with the slew of recent decisions that have been handed down by this court, democracy as we know it is likely to fail us. It would seem like nobody can wrestle the steering wheel away from these unelected lifers, but the court could be expanded to lessen their impact.

A Tough "Roe" to Hoe

 With the US Supreme Court decision now official, people now are right to question what will a post-Roe world look like. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 states are likely or certain to ban abortions leaving 24 and the District of Columbia as places where it may remain legal. In Iowa, with a Republican stranglehold in all the key places, our state legislature is likely to either limit the window of abortion or ban it outright in the next legislative session. In addition, there may be an amendment offered to our state constitution banning abortions permanently, though that would require a majority of Iowans to vote for it.

Currently, Iowa ranks 20th in quality of life for children according to MSN and a high degree of maltreatment of children (65.6 children of 1000 in reported cases of abuse or neglect).  

All of this leads to a simple decision, do Iowans truly prize their liberties and choose to maintain their rights, like the state motto says or do we revert back to a place where women's life and healthcare decisions are limited by the draconian state they live in? We already know where our governor stands on this and her party leaders. The line that prevents them to exert their will is dotted by the November 2022 election which strongly favors them. If ever there was a time to get involved in state politics, this would be it. Support those candidates who support you and the things you believe in.

A Government "Shutdown" of a Different Kind

What a week it has been and not a whole lot to be supercharged about. SCOTUS has said that you can pretty much carry a gun anywhere you want except near their homes and other "sensitive" areas. You realize that justice is not blind, but is being blinded by the Six Stooges that are the majority opinion of the aforementioned case. 

At about the same time that Congress takes action on sensible gun laws, the courts decide to become activists for gun rights. Is this coincidental or a way to allow the Republicans to say "Well, at least I tried--but the SCOTUS knows better, I guess"? This political impotence is dangerous to democracy and having a religiously-bent, free-market-leaning Supreme Court just exacerbated this. 

Add to it the circus of Congressional hearings that will likely not lead to anybody being convicted of anything and at the least, opens the window for profiting from decidedly criminal behavior, particularly if the mid-term elections are the bloodbath that is being "predicted" by the media and pollsters.

Then stir in profiteers who are making money and flaming inflation in their wakes and whose campaign contributions make it difficult to go after for ripping all of us off. Even the Federal Reserve Bank admits that hoisting interest rates won't help us out on gas and groceries, but will likely keep people out of housing that they are already having a hard time affording. So there's that.

So what do we have to look forward to? Essentially a government "shutdown" by being made impotent through greed, power grabs, and flagging belief in it as an institution by a weary public. And this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg as other rights will likely be dissembled by the social architects in judges' robes (the next being Roe V. Wade). In so doing, the patriarchs and oligarchs win and democracy fails unless we stop rewarding the corrupt by throwing the wrong "bums" out. Mid-term elections are not glamorous, but they are important nonetheless. Hold the line while we still have a line to hold.

Before We Leave Town

 Politicians are notoriously brave when they are a) retiring b) when they are in the minority c) actually believe in what they are fighting for d) know they will be defeated/choose to retire, so you have to ask: why do they wait so long? This leads me to the current bipartisan gun legislation. Of the 10 Republicans involved, 4 are retiring at the end of their terms. Not having to worry about the NRA or Second Amendment or Die folks, certainly frees them up to vote their conscience and have a meaningful legacy. For the other 6, their re-election cycles are far enough off that they feel they can do "something" as people have been asking them to do (also most are at an age where retirement is not out of the question). 

But what will that something look like? It certainly does not look like raising the age of people owning semi-automatic assault-like rifles or banning those weapons again (as happened in 1994) is part of the agenda. On the other hand, enhanced background checks for buyers under the age of 21 and measures to close the so-called "boyfriend loophole," which would prevent domestic abusers from owning guns are likely to be helpful. Still, if we are trying to reduce gun violence in schools and items in the House-passed bill, the "Protecting Our Kids Act," which includes the prohibition of the sale or transfer of semi-automatic firearms to people aged under 21, a federal statutory framework to regulate ghost guns and new federal criminal offenses for gun trafficking, were met with widespread opposition by the GOP.

So it would seem that bipartisan also means the bill with the least resistance to pass--which also means that the parts that are not terribly helpful. For instance, arming teachers or putting armed guards in schools will be seen as wins by gun lovers, but another loss of freedom for school kids. And this is what frustrates the public, our leaders have power, and choose to use it to address the periphery, but not the problem of too many guns in the hands of people who believe they are justified in using them. This is the elephant in the room and it isn't leaving.