A thought experiment: can I find any flowering plant that is more prevalent and more despised in Iowa than garlic mustard, featured on this website last year?
Yes, I can.
The first clash between Donald Trump and Joe Biden was indisputably a low point in the history of presidential debates. There were plenty of discouraging moments, when Trump’s incessant bullying left moderator Chris Wallace pleading with the leader of the free world to stop interrupting. More frightening, a sitting president refused to condemn white supremacy and encouraged his far-right militant supporters to “stand back and stand by.”
But near the end, Biden delivered one of the best answers I’ve ever seen him give in a debate.
Dan Guild reviews presidential polling since 1976 to gauge the impact of televised debates. -promoted by Laura Belin
Since the advent of television, politics and indeed history have occasionally turned on a few moments. Seldom do they last longer than 60 seconds (like wit, television values brevity above all else).
Senator Joe McCarthy, and the moment he led, were stopped when he was asked, “Have you no decency, sir?” During the Watergate hearings, Howard Baker summed up the entire scandal when he asked, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”
Carl Olsen, the founder of Iowans for Medical Marijuana, brings us up to date on his efforts to reconcile state and federal drug laws. -promoted by Laura Belin
Retail sales of medical cannabis products began in Iowa on December 1, 2018, implementing Iowa House File 524, which lawmakers passed on the final day of the 2017 legislative session.
Iowans for Medical Marijuana submitted an application to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in January 2019, seeking to exempt Iowa’s Medical Cannabis Program from federal drug laws. That application used the process in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, Chapter 1307, 21 C.F.R. §1307.03. I then began to lobby the state legislature and the Iowa Department of Public Health to support the application.
This piece was co-authored by Emma Schmit, Iowa organizer for Food & Water Watch, and Danielle Wirth, a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Food & Water Watch. -promoted by Laura Belin
Water is life. It’s undeniable. It’s also a fragile, finite resource that requires our protection. As catastrophic events, from drought to wildfires, ravage the United States, it’s clear that time is running out to mitigate the climate crisis and ensure everyone has access to safe, clean water.
While Iowa is known to most Americans for our cornfields, Ashton Kutcher, our cornfields, Hawkeye football, and our cornfields, what most don’t know is that we are enduring a water crisis.
Early voting won’t begin in Iowa until October 5, but signs already point to a high-turnout election, with many more Iowans casting early ballots than in the past. By September 25, more than five weeks before this year’s election, 583,944 people–more a quarter of Iowa’s 2 million active registered voters–had requested an absentee ballot. That number doesn’t include anyone planning to vote early in person next month.
Just before the 2016 presidential election, 693,709 Iowans had requested absentee ballots, and county auditors had received 653,438 completed ballots. We should surpass that number well before November 3. About 41 percent of Iowans voted early in 2016, but the COVID-19 pandemic will surely push that percentage higher.
I will update this page every weekday with the latest absentee ballot numbers released by the Iowa Secretary of State’s office, presented in two tables.
