cross-posted to Daily Kos

When Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman was running for president in 2003, I started getting e-mails from his campaign regularly. I had never donated to him, but I figured that he must have bought the Iowa Democratic Party’s e-mail list before he decided to bypass the Iowa caucuses.

At some point during Lieberman’s campaign against Ned Lamont in 2006, I unsubscribed from the list.

So I was surprised to find the following message from “Joe Lieberman” (sending address “info@joe2006.com”) in my in-box this morning, with a subject line of “Opting back in to the Joe Lieberman mailing list”:

You have requested to be opted back into the Joe Lieberman email list.

To confirm your subscription, please click this link or paste it into your browser:

(https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:OptIn/state:Confirm/signupId:6421/mid:4121.85946391)

If you do not wish to be added to our list, no further action is required.

What a lie. I never requested to be added back on his e-mail list, and I never would do so now that he is actively campaigning for John McCain.

He is probably just trying to build a bigger list so that he can make the case against our eventual nominee.

Talk about a guy who learned all the wrong lessons in life.

Anyone else out there get the same e-mail?

UPDATE: To clarify, this e-mail came to my other account (the one that uses my real name), not to the address that is published in my profile here and at various other blogs (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com).

At Daily Kos, commenter josephk says

the email, as has been described and the process through which it found its way into the diarists inbox … looks more like a ‘live email address confirmation’ for a specific demographic

Live confirmed email addresses that have a certain demographic profile (in this case a Liebermann supporter) are of much more value than just a random list that is 2 years out of date

there is nothing ‘dark and nefarious’ as the diarist suggests, nor is it as innocuous as You suggest

it is just simple email marketing

Well, yes, I get e-mail marketing messages all the time, but they don’t (and shouldn’t) start with the deceptive claim that I asked to be opted into their list.

Elected officials and policy advocates are getting increasingly annoyed by Hillary Clinton’s decision to make this nominating contest about her really bad proposal to suspend the gas tax this summer and pay for it with a windfall tax on oil companies.

Today Tom Harkin weighed in on the issue, telling reporters that Congress will not take up this proposal. Even if the gas tax holiday were enacted, Harkin suggested, consumers would not benefit much, and the Iowa Department of Transportation would lose about $75 million in revenues to rebuild infrastructure.

Friends of the Earth Action, which supported John Edwards for president and had been sitting out the campaign since he left the race, today endorsed Barack Obama, largely because of the gas tax issue:

“We endorse Senator Obama because we believe he is the best candidate for the environment,” said Friends of the Earth Action President Brent Blackwelder.  “The ‘gas tax holiday’ debate is a defining moment in the presidential race.  The two other candidates responded with sham solutions that won’t ease pain at the pump, but Senator Obama refused to play that typical Washington game.  Instead, Obama called for real solutions that would make transportation more affordable and curb global warming.  He showed the courage and candor we expect from a president.”

Friends of the Earth Action ran radio and television ads on behalf of Edwards in the early-voting states, and the group is now running this ad supporting Obama:

As I’ve said many times, I would vote for either Obama or Clinton in the general and have no strong preference between the two. I would hate to see Hillary gain the inside track for the nomination through this kind of political posturing, though. It’s such a bad idea on so many levels.

Obama appears to be feeling the heat on this issue. A few days ago his campaign put out a television ad calling the gas tax holiday a “bogus” idea that would just help big oil companies (click the link to view that ad). However, his closing ad in Indiana and North Carolina moves away from that issue to a more general message:

Meanwhile, Clinton seems to think she has hit pay dirt, and has made the gas tax the focus of her closing ad in the states that will vote tomorrow:

For a laugh, I highly recommend this diary by Matt Stoller, CONFIDENTIAL/URGENT POLITICAL PROPOSAL, which skewers Hillary’s proposal on the gas tax by presenting it in the format of those scam e-mails promising to make you rich.

Please put up your predictions for the Indiana and North Carolina primaries in the comments. I say these results will be mirror images of each other: Obama will win NC 55-45, and Hillary will win Indiana by the same margin.

The mainstream media’s atrocious coverage of this presidential election campaign should concern every Democrat, no matter which candidate was your first choice.

While it’s no surprise anymore to see pundits overwhelmingly supporting Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, even I was shocked to read this diary by Clinton supporter alegre.

She pointed out this post by Time magazine’s blogger Mark Halperin, who is about as mainstream as they come and whose blog is probably read by almost every journalist covering this campaign. The post is called, “You Can’t Make This Up,” and here is the entire text:

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the favorite, Big Brown.

Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

Ha ha–get it? The woman picked the female horse to win the race, but not only did that horse lose to the big brown front-runner, she had to be put down afterwards! You can’t make this up!

Does anyone think Halperin’s editors would have let a comparable post slip through?

You Can’t Make This Up

Barack Obama enthusiastically picked a horse named Great Black Hope to win the Kentucky Derby and compared himself to the horse. Great Black Hope finished second. The winner was the favorite, Flyer.

Great Black Hope collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

No, they wouldn’t, and it’s unlikely any journalist would even try to make fun of Obama identifying with a horse that lost and had to be put down after a race.

Sick.

I held back this diary for several days so as not to publish something written hastily in anger.

But five days after the fact, I remain disgusted that the only member of the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) to vote against the construction of a new coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown was Darrell Hanson, the lone Republican on the panel.

Putting Democrats in positions of power is supposed to be good for the environment. Unfortunately, John Norris and Krista Tanner failed to deliver “the change we need” when they voted to approve the application of the Interstate Power and Light Company (a subsidiary of Alliant Energy).

Here are few things you should know:

1. The IUB punted instead of seizing an opportunity to kill this proposal, and thousands of Iowans may suffer the consequences.

2. The conditions the IUB put on the plant’s construction may have been well-intended, but they do not eliminate the harm that would be done by burning more coal near Marshalltown.

3. It is still possible that the plant will never be built. However, that in no way excuses the IUB’s action, which prolonged this process and harmed environmental and public-health advocates, as I will explain below.

Join me after the jump for more on why IUB chairman Norris will never get my support in any Democratic primary for any office he may seek in the future.

Please put up a comment if you know of an important event I’ve left out.

Keep me posted about upcoming events by e-mailing desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com.



Monday, May 5:

Free screening of the documentary film “For the Bible Tells Me So,” which explores questions such as, “Does God really condemn loving homosexual relationships?  Is the Bible an excuse to hate?” The film will be shown at 6:30 pm at Drake University in the Parents Hall in the Olmstead Center. The documentary’s director, Daniel Karslake, will be there for a discussion after the screening. More on the movie:

Through the experiences of five very normal, Christian, American families, including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child or family member.  Includes the respected voices of Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard’s Reverend Peter Gomes, & Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg.

Tuesday, May 6:

It’s World Asthma Day in connection with Asthma Awareness Month. I mention this because thousands of Iowans will become more aware of asthma if the coal-fired power plant approved last week by the Iowa Utilities Board ever gets built in Marshalltown.

The Iowa Global Warming Campaign, Sierra Club and I-Renew are hosting a special “green” event on Tuesday, May 6, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Fairfield Public Library, 140 West Adams in Fairfield. The event offers free admission and refreshments and will feature a film screening of “Global Warming: the Signs and the Science,” a film that uses expert dialogues on global warming to talk about how we can reverse its course. After the film, attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and participate in a discussion about the film and related issues.

Wallace House Foundation dialogue dinner, “The Greening of Des Moines” beginning at 6 pm. Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie, Lynnae Hentzen of the Center for Sustainable Communities, Marian Gelb from the Iowa Environmental Council, and Bob Riley from the Waterworks Board are confirmed for the event. Former Des Moines Mayor Preston Daniels will be one of the facilitators. Dialogue dinners invite community experts and residents to gather around the dinner table for a shared meal and facilitated conversation about a current issue. Reservations are required and can be made by emailing anntaylor@wallace.org or calling 515-243-7063. Cost is $20 per person for the program and catered meal. Dialogue dinners are recorded so participants must sign an authorization and release. The Wallace House Foundation is located at 756 Sixteenth Street in Des Moines.



Wednesday, May 7:

Come meet Nate Willems, candidate for Iowa House District 29, at a house party hosted by David Adelman, 2841 Gilmore Avenue in Des Moines, 5 pm to 7 pm. Suggested guest donation: $25. To RSVP, call (515) 491-1015 or e-mail willemsforhouse@hotmail.com. Willems is running for the seat being vacated by Democrat Ro Foege, who is retiring. This is an important hold. You can donate to the campaign through this page at Act Blue.

Join Ed Fallon at the Young Professionals Club gathering, starting at 5:30 pm at the Raccoon River Brew Pub, 200 10th St. Des Moines.

Thursday, May 8:

Celebrate Nurses Week with Womankind Author Nancy Harless, who will be at the Des Moines Public Library’s Central Library in downtown Des Moines at 6:30 pm. “Womankind: Connection and Wisdom Around the World” is a collection of women’s stories gained from Harless’s international nursing experiences and travels.  The Iowa nurse and author invites readers along on her real-life journey through inspiring, sometimes heart-wrenching stories. Harless will visit the library to discuss the writing of Womankind and to answer questions from the audience. Her books will be for sale by The Book Store and she will be signing them following the program.

House party for Ed Fallon at the home of Cory Ernst in Altoona. Space is limited so RSVP to Jamie at (515) 822-4284.

Reservations due for The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa Annual Award Dinner, which costs $50 and will be held on Tuesday, May 13 at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, 1000 Walnut Street in Des Moines (Reception at 6 pm, Dinner at 7 pm). The Keynote Speaker will be The Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, retired Episcopal Bishop of Washington, second woman in the United States to be elevated to the office of Bishop. The Interfaith Award will be presented to Rekha Basu. The Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus will perform. For more information or to RSVP, email tiaiowa@dwx.com or call (515) 279-8715.

Women volunteers are needed to create “wellness bags” for women cancer patients, which will be distributed through John Stoddard Cancer Center and Mercy Medical Center. To volunteer for this event, which will be at Southridge Mall on May 8 from 7 pm to 9 pm, contact Kelly Thevenot at 287-3881 or Kelly.thevenot AT macerich.com.



Friday, May 9:

The Iowa Renewable Energy Association will be sponsoring a free screening of the film “Revolution Green” at the Solon Public Library (event starts at 6:30 pm, film starts at 7 pm). “Revolution Green” shows how truly sustainable biofuels are not only possible but are being made in America at this time. After the film, we will discuss the real-world experience in our own, local community of making and using sustainable biofuel. This is biofuel that consumes no food crops and cuts carbon emissions hugely. Please come and join the discussion of sustainable transportation options for our area. Popcorn and tasty tap water provided! (please bring your own bowl & cup, containers available if you forget) Save gas! Please car pool and share rides by checking www.carpoolworld.com or calling I-Renew at (319) 643-3160.

Saturday, May 10:

It’s the beginning of the sixth annual Bike to Work Week, which runs from May 10-16. Lots of information about the week’s special events, plus discounts for commuters who participate, can be found at BikeIowa’s Bike to Work website.

It’s the first day of the farmers’ market in downtown Des Moines, which runs from 7 am to 12 pm on Court Avenue and a couple of side streets. I think there will be a Bike to Work week event at the market too.

Greater Des Moines Hike To Help Refugees, starting at 11 am at Gray’s Lake in Des Moines. The event will raise money for the UN Refugee Agency and for Lutheran Services of Iowa Refugee Resettlement Program. You can participate even if you are unable to do the 4.5 mile hike. For more information, go to www.hiketohelrefugees.org.

May 10 is also World Fair Trade Day. I am not aware of any local events marking this, but click the link if you want more information or ideas about how to get involved with the fair trade movement.

On Saturday and Sunday, Greenpeace is organizing “Mommy Meetups” related to global warming all over the country. More information on that is after the jump.

The Democratic primary in Iowa’s third Congressional district is 30 days away, and Leonard Boswell still has not agreed to debate Ed Fallon.

Fallon’s campaign put out a press release yesterday criticizing the incumbent for dodging debates. The full text is after the jump, but here’s a key paragraph:

Fallon said his campaign received nine invitations to debates and forums and he accepted them all. Further, the Des Moines Register and KCCI offered Congressman Boswell three alternative dates to accommodate his schedule. “I have no doubt that if Congressman Boswell wanted to debate, he would find the time,” said Fallon. “What I find discourteous is his excuse that he is simply too busy. I don’t think a Congressman can be too busy for the voters.”

If I were an incumbent whose voting record was not in line with the values of my Democratic constituents, and I had been successful in diverting the mainstream media’s attention from those issues, I probably would not be eager to debate a challenger either. Boswell may also be afraid of making a mistake in the debate, which would then provide an opening for negative media coverage.

Of course, it would not be politically correct to give the real reasons for not debating Fallon, so the Boswell campaign will hide behind the “too busy” excuse.

By the way, after the Fallon campaign’s previous press release challenging Boswell to debate, I sought an official response from the Boswell campaign and got the following reply from press secretary Betsy Shelton on April 23: “We are currently working with KCCI and the Des Moines Register to see if we can find a date that is mutually acceptable.”

I’m trying to get an official comment about whether Boswell’s rejection of the debate is now final, and I will update this diary if I get one.

UPDATE: On Monday morning I checked my e-mail and found the following reply from Shelton:

Congressman Boswell is currently helping to pass the Farm bill and other measures that benefit Iowa families.  We were unable to find a date which works.

That’s too bad. I know he visits the Des Moines area from time to time, because I saw him on Sunday morning at an event in Waukee organized by the Des Moines Jewish Federation. I regret that he didn’t make it a priority to set aside time for a debate on one of his visits to the district this spring.

You can educate yourself about Boswell’s voting record by clicking this link (sound has been added to the animated cartoon at that site).

You can learn about the differences between Fallon and Boswell on the issues by clicking here.

The latest press release from Fallon’s campaign is after the jump.

Come on, Tom Latham, you know you want to retire. It’s not fun being in the minority party, is it? And from the looks of things, Republicans will be in the minority for a long, long time.

Yesterday Don Cazayoux narrowly won a special election in Louisiana’s sixth Congressional district. That district has a partisan index of R+7, meaning that it votes about 7 percent more Republican than the national average. The GOP should have no trouble holding a seat in that kind of district.

Jonathan Singer put up a good post on what this means at MyDD. I liked this part:

The attacks linking Cazayoux to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama didn’t work. They simply didn’t. Yes, the Republicans pulled in more votes and a greater share of the vote than they did last month in the first round of balloting. So what. This is a very Republican district and yet despite of this lean and the fact that the GOP tried to make this election about Jeremiah Wright, they still lost.

This race was very much put forward by the chattering class as a referendum on Obama’s coattails (which proved to be strong in the very Republican-leaning Illinois 14th congressional district earlier this year), and Obama’s coattails passed the challenge. Simply put, the Republicans may have thought they had found a silver bullet in Obama and Wright (and Pelosi, too, for that matter), but they didn’t.

Markos keeps his post-election thoughts short and simple:

Tonight’s results will get picked apart for analysis by lots of people in the coming days. But in short, it will become obvious that Cazayoux’s margin of victory came from black votes — you disrespect that community at your own peril. And second of all, Republicans once again failed, in a blood red district, to scare voters into submission by running scary ads against scaaaary national Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Voters, even in solidly conservative districts, are simply not that scared of Democrats anymore. It’s Bush they’re terrified of.

One last thought — Democrats now have a 235-199 advantage in the U.S. House. They started the cycle 233-202.

While I remain concerned about the possibility that John McCain could be the next president, it looks like this will be a banner year for the Democrats in the Congressional races.

By the way, if the Republicans can’t hold a seat with a partisan index of R+7, I don’t think we need to worry about Iowa’s third Congressional district, which is D+1.

UPDATE: Comedy gold, as Republicans try to spin this outcome as “a warning shot to Democrats”:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

When was the last time Demo Memo, noneed4thneed and I agreed on something related to this year’s presidential campaign?

We’re all against the terrible idea of temporarily suspending the federal gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I have already written about why this is bad policy, but I want to call your attention to this post by Chris Bowers, which explains how disastrous Hillary Clinton’s idea is politically on several levels.

You should read Bowers’ whole post, but here are some of my favorite passages:

  2. Clinton is threatening other Democrats on the gas tax holiday, claiming that opposing it means you are with the oil companies.

[there’s a YouTube here you can watch if you click through to Open Left]

     Not only is that nonsensical, it is reminiscent of the many times that Bill Clinton favored legislation in the face of opposition from the left: NAFTA, welfare reform, the telecommunications act, the Defense of Marriage Act, etc. She isn’t taking on the oil companies with this proposal, she is taking on the American left, just as her husband frequently did while he was President. Clearly, we can expect more of this if she were to become President.

  3. So, why is Clinton taking on the left and helping out oil companies? To score political points. Her campaign has said this in public [….]

     Given that one of the two or three main image problems the Democratic Party has faced over the past couple decades is the perception that we don’t stand for anything and lack core values, publicly stating that a policy proposal is good because it is helping you in the polls is extremely damaging. Of course, it is also the sort of language that both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton use on a regular basis, and which we should obviously expect a lot more of should Hillary Clinton become President. This will have lasting, negative effects on the image of the Democratic Party.

  4. Where did this policy come from? This isn’t a policy that Clinton has been campaigning on for a while–she just came up with in over the last two weeks. Given that she is willing to make some new gimmick the centerpiece of her public policy discussion on a whim in order to score political points, how can we ever believe that she won’t just dump whatever current policy proposals she has if, in so doing, she believes she can score political points with some right-wing gimmick policy?

[…]

The gas tax holiday episode collects all of my worst fears about a possible second Clinton presidency in a single, dark, place that I haven’t entered since the 1990’s. Are we to suffer through another Democratic President who will make impromptu, right-ward shifts toward bad policy, justified in nonsensical, Orwellian language, all the while claiming such a move must be done because it will score huge political points even though it is ultimately a bad political calculation, and then threaten the entire Democratic Party to fall in line behind such a move or else? This is basically all of my worst fears about Hillary Clinton becoming President rolled up into one giant ball of tin-foil and dropped on my front porch.

That about sums it up for me.

Clinton supporters claim that her proposal is different from John McCain’s, because she would impose a windfall tax on the oil companies to make up for the lost revenue from the gas tax holiday.

But if you know anything about how Congress works, you know that the part about the windfall tax would probably get stripped out by amendment (plenty of Congressional Democrats vote with Republicans when it comes to oil companies), or in the conference committee. Then we’d be stuck with the gas tax holiday that Hillary has been demagoguing on for the last couple of weeks, and oil companies would benefit.

By the way, I mentioned a few days ago that Hillary’s proposal seems hypocritical in light of her opposition to a similar gas tax holiday in 2000.

But that very same year, Obama voted to temporarily suspend the gas tax in the Illinois Senate. So he has not always taken a principled stand against this dumb idea either. (hat tip to Jeralyn at Talk Left)

Speaking of Talk Left, Big Tent Democrat made a brilliant observation yesterday. Commenting on a report that the gas tax holiday idea is “DOA” (dead on arrival) because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have spoken out against it, Big Tent Democrat noted that

it is funny how they can not declare FISA telco immunity DOA or how they could never declare Iraq funding without a date certain DOA. I have little respect for the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer.

Me neither.

It sounds like he is leaning that way.

Ron Paul had a strong showing in several states that may be closely contested assuming Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. I would think Nevada would be very much in play, for instance.

Clearly a significant portion of the Republican base is still not sold on McCain. As I wrote last week, Paul got nearly 16 percent of the Republican primary voters in Pennsylvania (about 128,000 people). That was more than John Kerry’s winning margin in Pennsylvania against George Bush in 2004.

Remember Lurita Doan, the chief of the General Services Administration whose misconduct was uncovered last spring during hearings convened by the House Government Reform Committee?

I learned from this editorial in the New York Times that she finally got the axe:

It has been 11 months since investigators found that Lurita Doan, chief of the General Services Administration, violated the Hatch Act’s ban on politicking on the job, asking her staff how they could “help our candidates.” This week, the White House finally got around to ousting Ms. Doan from the government’s principal agency for awarding rich contracts in goods and services.

The White House blandly praised Ms. Doan as it pushed her out. There was no mention, of course, of gross misbehavior when she suggested turning her agency into a patronage clubhouse. Nor was there mention of the fact that her call to the aid of the party came during a briefing for top G.S.A. managers – organized by the White House and delivered by a Karl Rove political operative – on targeted Democratic politicians.

TPMmuckraker provides much more background on her misconduct and her firing (which did not include any admission of wrongdoing).

Take a trip down memory lane and watch Congressman Bruce Braley’s hilarious questioning of Doan from March 2007:

That has to be one of the highlights of Braley’s first term.

If you want to know the details about the pledged delegates and superdelegates for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, keep an eye on the 2008 Democratic Convention Watch site. On the left side of the front page, they are continually updating the delegate counts. Almost every day a superdelegate or two declare their allegiance.

The Daily Kos has also put a delegate counter at the top of the front page, and MyDD has its own counter on the front page of that site, but I think the Democratic Convention Watch blog has the most complete information.

If you want to know where Clinton and Obama currently stand against McCain in any state, check the front page of MyDD, where you will find electoral vote counters on the upper left and upper right side of the screens. These are continually updated with the latest state polls.

I noticed today that for the first time in several weeks, both Obama and Clinton lead McCain in electoral votes. For a long time both were behind, and then for a week or so Clinton was leading McCain while Obama trailed him.

The counters show maps of the U.S. with the states in red or blue, so you can see at a glance that Clinton and Obama have very different paths to victory against McCain.

Today Obama would be projected to beat McCain 275-263 by winning all of the Kerry states except New Hampshire, plus Iowa and Colorado.

Clinton would be projected to beat McCain 287-251 by winning most of the Kerry states except Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and New Hampshire, plus Iowa, Ohio, Florida and Missouri.

The electoral vote trackers change almost every day, so keep checking the front page of MyDD if you are interested.

Apparently you can spend more than a million dollars on a wedding in Des Moines. I thought that level of absurdly conspicuous consumption was limited to places like Chicago or New York, but Cityview sets the record straight in an article on Des Moines extravagances.

Caterers and event planners describe cakes that cost more than $5,000 or take more than 30 hours to make. The article culminates with several paragraphs on a dinner for 14 friends that cost $25,000 “just in food and wine costs.” Many foods were flown in to Des Moines for the meal. My favorite example was vinegar that sells for $250 a liter, which the host requested because he “likes his foie gras glazed in it.”

Consider this an open thread to discuss ridiculous extravagance you have observed or heard about. For instance (this is a true story), one of my college friends attended a wedding reception where butternut squash soup was served featuring the couple’s initials written in heavy cream in every bowl.

IowaPolitics.com got a scoop from John McCain’s event in Des Moines yesterday:

Clive businessman Marty Parrish was escorted from Sen. John McCain’s town hall meeting by Des Moines police and members of the Secret Service after asking McCain if he had called his wife Cindy an expletive in 1992.

Parrish, an ordained Baptist minister who holds a master’s degree in political science, was questioned by Secret Service agents before being released. He was not charged in the incident. Parrish asked whether McCain called his wife Cindy an expletive related to the female anatomy, as has been alleged in the book “The Real McCain,” written by Dem strategist Cliff Schecter.

McCain’s response got him a round of applause from the crowd: “There’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language, so I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.”

In an interview with IowaPolitics.com, Parrish said his intentions were simple in posing the question to McCain. The former Joe Biden campaign worker stressed he is very concerned about the Republican presidential nominee’s temperament.

“We have a man whose temper can get the best of him,” Parrish said. “What I am worried about is his temper.”

For background on the anecdote recounted in Schecter’s book, read this post at MyDD.

I’ve said before that the public needs to become aware of McCain’s anger management problem. Kudos to Parrish for asking a question none of the journalists assigned to McCain’s campaign would dare ask.

And just to show that no candidate is wrong 100 percent of the time, McCain made some sensible remarks about the farm bill yesterday.

A new study should give city officials new incentive to plant and preserve more trees in urban areas:

Children who live in tree-lined streets have lower rates of asthma, a New York-based study suggests.

Columbia University researchers found that asthma rates among children aged four and five fell by 25% for every extra 343 trees per square kilometre.

They believe more trees may aid air quality or simply encourage children to play outside, although they say the true reason for the finding is unclear.

The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Hat tip to Natasha Chart, who put up a link to this article at Open Left.

Blog for Iowa published this important post from the Iowa Farmers Union about a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists called CAFOs Uncovered: The Untold Costs of Confined Animal Feeding Operations. Here are some key findings:

Misguided federal farm policies have encouraged the growth of massive confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, by shifting billions of dollars in environmental, health and economic costs to taxpayers and communities […].

“CAFOs aren’t the natural result of agricultural progress, nor are they the result of rational planning or market forces,” said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist in UCS’s Food and Environment Program and author of the report. “Ill-advised policies created them, and it will take new policies to replace them with more sustainable, environmentally friendly production methods.”

[…]

The report also details how other federal policies give CAFOs hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to address their pollution problems, which stem from the manure generated by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of animals confined in a small area. The report estimates that CAFOs have received $100 million in annual pollution prevention payments in recent years through the federal Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which was established by the 2002 Farm Bill.

“If CAFOs were forced to pay for the ripple effects of harm they have caused, they wouldn’t be dominating the U.S. meat industry like they are today,” said Margaret Mellon, director of UCS’s Food and Environment Program. “The good news is that we can institute new policies that support animal production methods that benefit society rather than harm it.”

Instead of favoring CAFOs, the report recommends that government policies provide incentives for modern production methods that benefit the environment, public health and rural communities. The report also shows that several smart alternative production methods can offer meat and dairy at costs comparable to CAFO products.

[…]

In addition to steering taxpayer dollars away from CAFOs, the report also urges Congress to enforce laws that encourage competition so alternative producers can get their meat and dairy to consumers as easily as CAFOs. Making CAFOs, rather than taxpayers, pay to prevent or clean up the pollution they create is also critical, Gurian-Sherman said.

Meanwhile, earlier this week the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production issued its final report on “Putting Meat on The Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America.” Click the link to find links to pdf files of the executive summary and the full report. The authors concluded that “The current industrial farm animal production (IFAP) system often poses unacceptable risks to public health, the environment and the welfare of the animals themselves […].”

After outlining the harm that industrial farm animal production does to public health, the environment, animal welfare and rural communities, the Pew commission issued six important recommendations:

   1. Ban the non-therapeutic use of antimicrobials in food animal production to reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance to medically important antibiotics and other microbials.

   2. Implement a disease monitoring program for food animals to allow 48-hour trace-back of those animals through aspects of their production, in a fully integrated and robust national database.

   3. Treat IFAP as an industrial operation and implement a new system to deal with farm waste to replace the inflexible and broken system that exists today, to protect Americans from the adverse environmental and human health hazards of improperly handled IFAP waste.

   4. Phase out the most intensive and inhumane production practices within a decade to reduce the risk of IFAP to public health and improve animal wellbeing (i.e., gestation crates and battery cages).

   5. Federal and state laws need to be amended and enforced to provide a level playing field for producers when entering contracts with integrators.

   6. Increase funding for, expand and reform, animal agriculture research.

The Des Moines Register reported on Wednesday that some representatives of industrial agriculture allegedly tried to use financial leverage to influence the findings:

A Pew Commission report accuses some livestock interests of trying to disrupt a wide-ranging study of the industry by threatening to yank financing for scientists and universities.

The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production study released Tuesday called for a vast overhaul of the industry.

Advertisement

“While some agriculture representatives were recommending potential authors for the technical reports to commission staff, other industrial agriculture representatives were discourage those same authors from assisting us by threatening to withhold research funding for their college or university,” commission executive director Robert Martin wrote in the foreword of the report released after 2 1/2 years of study.

Martin didn’t detail those incidents in the report, and a spokesman declined to comment on the allegations.

[…]

The commission, which included key Iowans including the head of the University of Iowa College of Public Health, found that livestock industry powers have too much influence on how government regulates the industry. That presents too much of a public threat in the commission’s view.

The 15-member panel called for a range of actions industry groups have vehemently opposed, including local zoning of confinements, a ban on use of antibiotics as a growth enhancer and stiffer regulations on emissions on everything from manure application to how hogs are housed.

“We found significant influence by the industry at every turn: in academic research, agriculture policy development, governmental regulation, and enforcement,” the study said.

Industry pressure on scientists who study farm-related pollution has been a hot topic nationally in recent years and was detailed in a 2002 Des Moines Register report, “Ag Scientists Feel the Heat.”

Representatives of industrial agriculture have been whining that the Pew commission was biased against them from the beginning. They simply refuse to acknowledge reality when it comes to the drawbacks of CAFOs, routine use of antibiotics, and our aspects of our current food system.

It’s time to end the worst practices of CAFOs and the public policies that promote them. As the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, CAFOs would not be profitable if they had to pay for the hidden health and environmental costs of their operations.

It would be a terrible mistake for the Des Moines school board to go down the path outlined in the Des Moines Register on Friday:

Fine print in a new statewide election law gives the Des Moines school board the option to cut short controversial member Jon Narcisse’s three-year term, a move he says would be “an assault against democracy.”

[…]

Eric Tabor, chief of staff for the Iowa attorney general’s office, said the Legislature has the authority to alter school board terms. Secretary of State Michael Mauro said there was “absolutely, unequivocally, no intent to put any board member in any district in jeopardy.”

Boards are instructed to consider the number of votes board members received in the last election when they decide how to meet the law’s requirements. Patty Link won 4,021 votes and Narcisse 3,029 in September.

[…]

Phil Roeder, spokesman for the district, said a few options would comply with the law:

– Shorten Narcisse’s and Link’s terms by one year, with re-election in 2009.

– Decrease Narcisse’s term and increase Link’s by one year, with re-election in 2009 and 2011, respectively.

– Alter the 2008 election terms so that one or two members are elected to one-year terms; Narcisse and Link would then be up for re-election in 2009 and 2011, respectively, or both in 2011.

I don’t care what the law allows them to do–any solution that appears to favor Link (a well-connected and well-liked white woman) over Narcisse (an outspoken critic of district policies who is also the only African American on the board CORRECTION: Teree Caldwell-Johnson, who is African-American, also serves on the Des Moines school board) would be a disaster.

If the goal is to get Narcisse off the board sooner, I doubt making him into a martyr is going to achieve that. He was elected precisely because of his criticism of past leadership on the school board and in the district administration.

I know people involved in the Save & Support Our Schools organization who strongly backed Narcisse’s candidacy. They felt that too many Des Moines school board members had failed to ask tough questions of superintendent Eric Witherspoon over the years. (The current superintendent, Nancy Sebring, seems to be more responsive to community concerns.)

The school board should find a way to implement this new law without appearing to single out Narcisse for punishment.  

Joe Trippi wrote an interesting piece for Campaigns and Elections called “What I Should Have Told John Edwards.”

Trippi regrets that when Edwards asked him if he should drop out of the presidential race, he

didn’t go with my gut.

I didn’t tell him what I should have told him: That I had this feeling that if he stayed in the race he would win 300 or so delegates by Super Tuesday and have maybe a one-in-five chance of forcing a brokered convention. That there was a path ahead that would be extremely painful, but could very well put him and his causes at the top of the Democratic agenda. And that in politics anything can happen-even the possibility that in an open convention with multiple ballots an embattled and exhausted party would turn to him as their nominee. I should have closed my eyes to the pain I saw around me on the campaign bus, including my own. I should have told him emphatically that he should stay in. My regret that I did not do so-that I let John Edwards down-grows with every day that the fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continues.

[…]

It was a longshot, to be sure, but there remained the chance of a three-way battle going all the way to the convention. I thought we could make a big dent in Ohio by appealing to middle-class working people. The same in places like Kansas, Colorado and the Dakotas. It was possible to make those a dead-heat for all three candidates in terms of delegate wins. And today, as I write this, I realize we might have had as many as 500 delegates heading into Pennsylvania and North Carolina, two states that would probably be strong for Edwards.

That would mean Edwards, Obama and Clinton would go into the convention without any of them close to sealing the nomination. You would have had months of Obama and Clinton banging away at each other, with Edwards able to come across to weary Democrats as a welcome, fresh face. You’d have the electability argument begin to play to Edwards’ advantage, since he always did well against McCain in polling. These possibilities and more played through my mind.

Let me make clear that in January, I was 100 percent behind Edwards staying in the race until the convention, even though it was obvious after the New Hampshire primary that his chance of becoming the nominee was virtually zero.

I wrote front-page diaries for the national blog MyDD on Ten Reasons for Sticking with John Edwards and why all Democrats should be glad to see Edwards stay in the race. That second piece included the following passage:

The bottom line for me is that Edwards is talking about the issues in a way that Clinton and Obama never have and never will. In the debates, his campaign rallies, and his television advertisements, he is calling attention to problems that the corporate media filter out all too often.

Many Obama supporters are frustrated that Edwards has not dropped out of the race and endorsed their candidate. They think he is only splitting the anti-Hillary vote.

I think everyone should be happy that Edwards will hang in there, even though others are currently favored to win the nomination. I believe that the Republican hate machine will not unload on Clinton or Obama until they are certain that Edwards is out of the race. Since Obama has not yet faced tough scrutiny from the media, it is all the more important for Edwards to stay in the mix.

Since January the Democratic primary race has degenerated into identity politics and personal attacks, with little focus on issues Edwards brought to the table, like the excesses of corporate power.

Nor has his departure brought the Democratic contest to a rapid conclusion. When Edwards was on one of the talk shows in late March (I think it was Leno), he said that when he dropped out, he expected that the Democratic nominee would have been decided by mid-March. So quitting the race didn’t achieve the goal he had in mind.

In my heart, like Trippi, I feel disappointed that Edwards did not stay in for the duration. If he had been there for the debates, the moderators might have asked a few more substantive questions, or the Clinton and Obama campaigns might have altered their own strategies.

On the other hand, I doubt very much that given the media environment of late January, Edwards could have won 300 delegates on Super Tuesday, as Trippi suggests. If he had won fewer than 100 delegates, the pressure on him to drop out would have been so overwhelming (with major donors and superdelegates jumping ship) that I doubt he would have had a very good showing in Ohio on March 4.

My head tells me that one way or another, the media and the Democratic power-brokers would have been able to force Edwards out long before the primaries in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina.

What do you think? Leaving aside whether you think Edwards had any chance of winning the nomination at a brokered convention, do you think the Democratic Party and our eventual nominee would have been better served by having him stay in the race longer?

Got this press release from Ed Fallon’s campaign today:

Fallon Receives PCCI-A Endorsement

Thursday, May 1, 2008 (3:30 PM CDT) – Ed Fallon today announced his endorsement by the Progressive Coalition of Central Iowa – Action (PCCI-A). Board President Vern Naffier notified Fallon today that the board of PCCI-A had voted unanimously to support him in his bid to unseat incumbent Congressman Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s Third District.

Fallon expressed his gratitude for the endorsement, saying, “I’m grateful to have the support of PCCI-A. These folks are community activists who have been working on issues that have always been a focus of my own political and community involvement.”

Earlier in the campaign, one of PCCI-A’s member organizations, STAR*PAC, also endorsed Fallon’s candidacy.

PCCI-A is a 501(c)(5) corporation that exists separately from PCCI, a 501(c)(3) organization. Naffier acknowledged that PCCI-A would not be making a financial contribution, as Fallon does not accept contributions from PACs and paid lobbyists.

Even if Fallon took money from PACs, the value of an endorsement like this can’t be measured in dollars.

It’s obvious that Congressman Leonard Boswell will be able to outspend Fallon in the traditional paid media, and it seems unlikely that Boswell will take a chance and debate Fallon on the issues.

Fallon’s best chance is to mobilize large numbers of progressive foot-soldiers, such as those in PCCI-A, to get out the vote for him. These people are well-known in their neighborhoods and have large social networks.

I don’t expect a very high turnout on June 3. This race is winnable for Fallon with enough people pounding the pavement for him.

There’s a lot going on over the next few days in addition to tulip time in Pella (May 1 to May 3). Please put up a comment in this thread if you know of anything else happening this weekend that I’ve left out.

Thursday, May 1:

One Iowa presents May Day Mayhem–Free Food, Cheap Drinks with other LGBT and progressive professionals. Special guest Evan Wolfson from Freedom to Marry. Star Bar, 2811 Ingersoll in Des Moines, from 5 pm to 7 pm. Light appetizers, cash bar, and a chance to mingle with other LGBTA Professionals. Please RSVP by April 30th (288-4019).

Ed Fallon will be at Green Drinks, Saints Rest Cafe, 919 Broad St. in Grinnell, beginning at 7 pm

Friday, May 2:

Ed Fallon will be at the Eastside Senior Center, 1231 E. 26th St. in Des Moines, beginning at 11:45 am

Comedian Jeff Kreisler will do a show for the Polk County Democrats, Val Air Ballroom, 301 Ashworth Road, West Des Moines. Dinner will be served at 5:30 P.M., program begins at 6:30 P.M. Cash bar available. Regular tickets – $25.00 per person (Dinner and show only) 5:30 P.M. Host Reception with Elected Officials and Jeff Kreisler – $75.00 per person (includes dinner and drink tickets). Tickets are available by calling 515-285-1800; for $27.50 at the Val Air box office or through any Ticketmaster outlet. Senator Tom Harkin will also be there.

Saturday, May 3:

Iowa Citizen Action Network 2008 annual convention, 10 am to 5 pm at the Hilton Garden Inn, 8600 North Park Drive in Johnston (suburb of Des Moines). Jim Hightower will be the keynote speaker. More details about the day’s workshops are after the jump, or you can see a flier for this event at

http://www.iowacan.org/ICANCON…

Iowa Corridor’s second annual Hike to Help Refugees in Iowa City (more details are after the jump)

Maifest parade in the Amana Colonies, starting at 10 am (Ed Fallon will be there)

I-RENEW is hosting a tour of the Clipper Turbine Works, the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the U.S., in Cedar Rapids at 1 pm. At 3 pm, Brian Crowe from Iowa’s Office of Energy Independence will speak about the agency’s activities at the Coffee Talk Café, located off Kirkwood Avenue down the road from Clipper. More details about these events are after the jump.

An Edwards supporter I’m still in touch with online brought these links to my attention, and I felt they were worth sharing. A few weeks ago, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared at a “Compassion Forum” and answered some questions about God and prayer backstage.

The Christian Broadcasting Network’s website has some transcripts and audio clips. Here is

Obama answering the question, “In the quiet moments of your day, what do you pray for?” (click through for the audio link)

“I pray throughout the day but at night before I go to bed I have a fairly simple prayer. I ask that God forgives me for my sins. I thank him for all that he has given me especially my family which is a great treasure. I ask that he give peace to people in need and people in trouble and I ask that he makes me an instrument of his will. I figure that covers a lot of ground.”

That’s a good prayer, and it certainly does cover a lot of ground.

I was blown away by Hillary’s response to the question, “When you stand before God, what might a question be that you’ll ask Him?” (this is an excerpt, click through for the whole text):

I would ask how could a loving God have let so much despair, suffering and pain be part of the human experience? What were you teaching us? What were you modeling for us? We know that you had your son suffer excruciatingly and he died for us and I can’t thank you enough for that gift but so many people who seem so innocent have also suffered so much. Was there any point at which you thought you could perhaps just you know, reach out and just lessen it a little or did you expect us to do that? Was that our job? Is that what we were called to do with the gifts that you gave onto us?”

All I can say is, I would like to be there when God answers those questions.

Speaking of religion and politics, I have avoided writing about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, because I don’t feel I have anything unique to add to the discussion.

Obviously, I don’t believe Obama agrees with the more offensive comments Wright has made. On the contrary, this conjecture by Obama supporter Matthew Yglesias has the ring of truth for me:

it’ll hurt him electorally because Obama’s going to have a hard time explaining that I take to be the truth, namely that his relationship with Trinity has been a bit cynical from the beginning. After all, before Obama was a half-black guy running in a mostly white country he was a half-white guy running in a mostly black neighborhood. At that time, associating with a very large, influential, local church with black nationalist overtones was a clear political asset (it’s also clear in his book that it made him, personally, feel “blacker” to belong to a slightly kitschy black church). Since emerging onto a larger stage, it’s been the reverse and Obama’s consistently sought to distance himself from Wright, disinviting him from his campaign’s launch, analogizing him to a crazy uncle who you love but don’t listen to, etc.

So I am not the least bit worried that Obama shares Wright’s views.

I do get depressed thinking about the endless attack ads that will feature Wright’s inflammatory remarks (juxtaposed with Obama not putting his hand over his heart and Michelle Obama saying this is the first time in her adult life she’s been proud to be an American). It fits so well with the typical Republican playbook against Democrats: brand them as extremist and unpatriotic.

At least this has come out in the spring, rather than after Labor Day, when it could have done the most damage to our likely presidential nominee. On the other hand, I’m annoyed that Obama was able to keep Reverend Wright under wraps until after most of the states had voted.

If Wright had been a household name six months ago, I do not believe Obama would have won the Iowa caucuses.

When I think of all the Obama supporters and leaners who told me last year that John Edwards was unelectable because he has a big house and got an expensive haircut, I just shake my head. Some people imagined that Obama’s media honeymoon would never end, and the Republicans wouldn’t be able to dig up anything damaging about him.

UPDATE: My husband and I loved Jon Stewart’s segment on the media’s coverage of Reverend Wright during The Daily Show on Wednesday. Catch the rerun on Thursday if you can.

A envelope from the Boswell campaign arrived in the mail today. Inside was a letter from Al Gore asking me to donate $20.00 to Boswell’s campaign, symbolizing the 2000 election “when Leonard stood by my side”. The text was identical to a recent e-mail Gore sent out on Boswell’s behalf, which I reproduced at the end of this post.

Unlike Matt Stoller, who is mad that Gore is helping Boswell’s campaign, I can’t fault him for getting involved. It won’t change the minds of many Gore voters like myself, who favor Fallon, but it might activate other Gore supporters who are unreliable primary voters.

Frankly, I’m more annoyed at Gore for sitting out this presidential election. He would have been a much better candidate, and probably a much better president, than either Hillary or Obama.  

But what’s done is done.

Getting back to the third district primary, I received a copy of an e-mail sent out by Wesley Clark’s political action committee, WesPAC, which solicits donations for the Congressional campaigns of three veterans, including Boswell. Here are the relevant portions of that e-mail:

Dear [Recipient],

We need veterans like Ashwin Madia, Tim Walz, and Leonard Boswell in Congress to lead us out of Iraq  and to support our troops. Click  here to donate to their campaigns today!

It’s no surprise that a war veteran, Senator Jim Webb,  has led the fight in expanding the GI Bill to give our troops the  education benefits they were promised. Those who have worn the uniform know first-hand how much our troops have sacrificed and what it takes to  support members of the armed forces.

That’s why it was critical our community helped elect  Jim Webb in 2006, and it’s also the reason I’m backing three veterans who  are running for Congress this fall. Though 30,000 Americans have signed a  petition in support of Senator Webb’s GI Bill, our opponents are already  weakening the bill because it is too “generous” for our troops.  We need more veterans in Congress who will help bring our soldiers home  from Iraq and stand up for those who have defended our nation.

Join me and support veteran candidates Ashwin  Madia, Tim Walz, and Leonard Boswell by donating to their campaigns  today!

[…]

Leonard  Boswell

In 2006, WesPAC helped Leonard Boswell fight off a  “swiftboat” attempt on him in Iowa, and our efforts helped  re-elect Leonard. As a 20-year veteran of the Army, he too supports an  expanded GI Bill for our veterans and has pushed for increases in funding  for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We can’t afford to lose a true American hero like  Leonard in Congress, and we can’t take it for granted that the right-wing  won’t smear him again this November. Help re-elect Congressman Boswell  by donating to his campaign now!

http://www.actblue.com/page/3vets

The insight of those who serve in the armed forces is  too often lost in our nation’s dialogue about foreign policy, health  care, education, and veterans issues. With your support, we’ll strengthen  the voices of those who have risked their lives for our country by sending 3 veterans to Congress in 2008.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Wes Clark

I wish Boswell or one of his high-profile supporters would defend the Congressional votes that prompted Ed Fallon to run in this primary. But from the incumbent’s perspective, the less said about that, the better.

John McCain is coming to Des Moines on Thursday, and the Iowa Democratic Party and Moveon.Org are planning public events to mark the occasion. This is from an e-mail the IDP sent out this week:

Democratic Activists are needed to help welcome John McCain to Des Moines This Thursday!

Wednesday Night:

Sign Making/Pizza Party to help make all the signs needed for Thursday’s big event. This will be from 6:00 PM-8:00PM at 420 Watson Powell, Des Moines IA, 50309.

Thursday:

Thursday we will be staging a counter protest to McCain’s visit; please join us at 12:30 PM at the IDP office, 420 Watson Powell, Des Moines IA, 50309, where we will meet as a group and then proceed over to make our voices heard across the street!

If available please contact Jeff Perry at jperry AT iowademocrats.org or 515-974-1703.

Moveon.Org sent this e-mail out as well:

With the Obama-Clinton primary still underway, John McCain has largely gotten a free ride in the media. He’s coming to Des Moines on Thursday, hoping to get lots of fluff media coverage. Well, we’re not going to let that happen.

MoveOn members in your area will be putting on a fun event called The Bush-McCain Challenge to make sure local voters and the media know that a McCain presidency would equal Bush’s third term. We’ll have a carnival-style table where people can answer questions and win prizes if they can tell the difference between Bush and McCain’s stances on issues. Media will be invited to come.

Can you help out at The Bush-McCain Challenge table this Thursday between 12:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.? It will be fun, and the more the merrier. Event details and RSVP link are here:

WHAT: The Bush-McCain Challenge in Cleveland

WHERE: 501 Grand Avenue, across from the Convention Complex, Des Moines, IA, 50310

WHEN: Thursday, May 1 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

RSVP: http://pol.moveon.org/event/ev…

We’ll supply the questions and decorations. We need your help to ask the questions at the table, or to hand out flyers to people walking by-promoting the challenge. Local media will be invited and national media who fly around with McCain will receive photos and local news clips of the event to incorporate into their reporting. We’ll also put the best clips from these events around the nation on YouTube.

We saw the impact of regular people fighting back locally during President Bush’s Social Security privatization tour.1 In town after town, we and coalition partners matched or beat Bush’s media coverage by planning events surrounding his local visit that showed why he was wrong.

The Bush-McCain Challenge will be a lot of fun. Together, we’ll make sure voters realize that electing McCain would, in effect, be voting for Bush’s third term.

We hope you can join us for this event. Thanks for all you do.

-Adam G., Lenore, Anna, Noah, Ilyse and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team

 Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

1. Video of pushback events held during President Bush’s Social Security privatization tour

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=742&…

Incidentally, if you are a Moveon.Org member but are not a fan of Barack Obama, you can opt out of their Obama-related action e-mails and still receive their other e-mails. I appreciate that!

I’ll have more to say on this later tonight, but for now I’m posting the press release I just got from the Iowa Environmental Council.

For Immediate Release: April 30, 2008

IUB Approves Dirty Coal Plant for Marshalltown

The Iowa Utilities Board said “yes,” with conditions, Wednesday to a proposal by Alliant Energy to build a 630 to 660 megawatt coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown, Iowa.

“We are disappointed that the Iowa Utilities Board and Alliant Energy are moving Iowa’s energy policy backwards with a dirty coal plant. This coal plant is simply the wrong choice for Iowa’s economy and our environment. When other states are saying no to coal plants, Iowa is risking its future as a renewable energy leader by betting on this imported and outdated energy source,” said Nathaniel Baer, energy program director for the Iowa Environmental Council.

Clean air advocates say mercury, carbon and other air pollutants still don’t have to be Iowa’s legacy as today’s IUB decision is only a first step in a decision-making process over this proposal, which includes additional decisions by the Board and by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The Iowa Environmental Council, Community Energy Solutions, Iowa Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Iowa Farmers Union and Iowa Renewable Energy Association were represented by the public interest law firm Plains Justice in a proceeding at the Iowa Utilities Board regarding approval of the proposal. In briefs and in testimony before the IUB, Plains Justice maintained that clean energy sources like wind and energy efficiency could meet the energy needs of Iowa consumers at a lower cost, and with considerably less environmental impact, than the proposed coal plant.

The IUB approval was conditional: Three conditions must be met as follows…

1.      The coal plant must co-fire five percent biomass within the first two years of the plant’s operation, and 10 percent biomass must be co-fired by the fifth year of operation.

2.      Alliant’s energy mix must include 10 percent renewable energy by 2013 and increase one percent each year for the following 15 years, to reach a total renewable energy portfolio of  25 percent by 2028.

3.      The Iowa Utilities Board will have authority to require Alliant to install carbon capture and sequestration technology at the plant when it becomes feasible.

“Despite the final decision, we appreciate the Board’s thorough consideration of the many risks that this proposal brings. The Board’s three conditions for use of biomass, renewable energy, and future carbon capture technology may help to offset some of these significant risks, but we’ll need to look at these conditions in more detail. We look forward to being engaged in the coming steps of this process,” said Baer.

n  End

For interviews, call Nathaniel Baer, 515-244-1194, extension 206.

I posted this around the blogosphere on Monday, but forgot to cross-post here. -desmoinesdem

Congressman Leonard Boswell’s campaign has been giving the incumbent an image makeover as the June 3 primary approaches.

I learned from direct-mail pieces this month that Boswell is “Taking on George Bush for the Changes We Need,” as well as “working to bring the troops home every day” and “Taking on powerful interests” to deliver health care to all Iowans.

These campaign communications bring to mind Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: “What you do shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.”

Progressive Kick has created a website that shows in quite an entertaining way what Boswell has been doing during his six terms in Congress. Let’s just say he hasn’t been much of a crusader against powerful interests.

Join me after the jump for more.

The Iowa Utilities Board meets this morning to decide whether to approve a new coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown.

I’ve written before about how our state should focus on energy efficiency, conservation and new electricity generation through renewable sources, rather than expanding the use of coal, which has to be imported into Iowa and carries with it huge environmental and public-health costs.

The websites of the Iowa Environmental Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists explain why we should not increase our dependence on fossil fuels, especially coal.

The Iowa Medical Society and other public-health advocates have also made a strong case against the proposed coal-fired plants in Marshalltown and Waterloo. This op-ed piece by Maureen McCue explains why:

Each proposed coal plant would likely emit around 100 pounds of mercury a year, much of which would end up in our lakes and streams, and eventually, our bodies. The Environmental Protection Agency states that “on balance, mercury from coal-fired utilities is the hazardous air pollutant of greatest potential public-health concern.”

In expressing their concern about coal-fired power plants, Texas’ Catholic bishops noted that mercury poses a particular risk to “unborn life.” Thousands of women of child-bearing age have elevated levels of toxic mercury in their blood, which could lead to reduced IQ and neurologic impairment in their children.

Many of Iowa’s waterways, including parts of the Cedar, Upper Iowa and Mississippi rivers have fish-consumption advisories warning Iowans not to eat more than one meal a week because of elevated mercury levels. The Idaho governor, a Republican, banned coal plants in his state because “the health implications of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants far outweigh any economic benefits.”

[…]

The EPA’s own scientific advisory board, the American Medical Association, the American Lung Association and other health organizations have challenged current air-quality standards, such as those for fine-particulate matter, as insufficient to protect public health. Coal plants, which contribute to ozone and smog, are responsible for hundreds of premature deaths a year, increasing asthma hospitalizations, other respiratory ailments and cardiac disease.

The American Academy of Pediatrics noted that young children are particularly susceptible because their lungs aren’t fully formed and they spend a greater percentage of time outdoors.

The Des Moines Register’s editorial board came out against the coal-fired plant in Marshalltown but has been printing guest opinion pieces and letters to the editor on both sides.

Links to many of the Des Moines Register’s editorials and op-ed pieces for or against the Marshalltown plant can be found by clicking here (there’s a “related stories” bar on the right-hand side of the screen).

I’ve noticed that supporters of this project are trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, local supporters and representatives of organized labor talk about how many jobs will be created by the construction and operation of the new plant.

On the other hand, supporters say not to worry about increased greenhouse gas emissions from the new plant, because once it is built, Alliant will take offline or renovate older, less efficient facilities. If economic gains in Marshalltown come at the expense of other communities where Allliant facilities are located, doesn’t that suggest that Iowa’s economy on the whole would not benefit from this plant?

Here’s hoping the Iowa Utilities Board will reject the proposal. The rumor mill says it will be a 2-1 decision, with John Norris casting the decisive vote one way or another.

Looks like the backers of the Polk County Courthouse renovation plan needed to do a better job of getting supporters to vote by absentee ballot:

A $132 million plan to renovate the Polk County Courthouse and build an eight-story annex next door suffered a double-digit loss today at the polls.

The result was a victory for anti-tax campaigners, who said the proposal would burden property owners during uncertain economic times.

Voters, 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent, ultimately rejected supporters’ arguments that the bond issue represented an urgent need for a courthouse some consider cramped, outdated and unsafe. […]

The proposal was projected to add $23.24 to the annual property tax bill on a home valued at $100,000. The borrow-and-build plan needed 60 percent approval to pass. The measure failed 17,603 to 13,453.

Voter turnout – 31,056, or 11 percent – was lower than some early predictions today. More than 80 percent of the 2,499 absentee ballot voters sided with the courthouse proposal.

They need to start holding referenda on the same date as regularly scheduled elections. I don’t see why this vote couldn’t have been held on June 3, when many more voters in Polk County are likely to be voting in third Congressional district primary.

Although this vote wasn’t as lopsided as last summer’s “Destiny” tax proposal vote, which only got 15 percent approval, it again highlights the lack of public trust in county officials to borrow and spend our money wisely. I don’t have an answer for how to deal with this. I think multiple poor decisions by county officials over a number of years have contributed to the problem.

Meanwhile, I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before some big tragedy occurs due to the overcrowded conditions at the Polk County Courthouse.    

I wrote last week that people should avoid drinking tap water out of plastic bottles, because safer alternatives are available.

Dawn Sagario wrote a piece for the Des Moines Register about growing concerns surrounding the presence of bisphenol-A (BPA) in baby bottles:

Looking at studies done on animals, a federal report released earlier this month found “some concern” that exposure of fetuses, infants and children to low levels of BPA during development “can cause changes in behavior and the brain, prostate gland, mammary gland and the age at which females attain puberty.”

Sagario writes about how parents and some retailers are taking steps to reduce babies’ exposure to BPA, which is good to know.

I was disappointed to read this passage in the article, however:

But Sam Beattie, food safety specialist with Iowa State University Extension, said people shouldn’t be tossing those plastic bottles just yet.

“Should people be concerned? No,” said Beattie, who is also an assistant professor in food science and human nutrition at Iowa State. “There has been no direct correlation associated with consumption of BPA to any human malady.”

Beattie said the amounts of BPA given to animals in studies is more concentrated than the amounts to which humans are exposed.

Most people already have BPA in their systems. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in 93 percent of more than 2,500 urine samples from people ages 6 and older.

Beattie said he’s been drinking out of polycarbonate water bottles for 30 years, and he’ll continue to do so.

I’m guessing that Professor Beattie is not getting 100 percent of his caloric intake via plastic bottles, like millions of bottle-fed infants are.

Also, I doubt that Beattie is heating up all of his food and drink in those plastic bottles. Bottle-fed infants have all or most of their meals reheated in the plastic, which can increase the amount of hormone-disrupting chemicals that leach out.

As an adult, Beattie is no longer at risk for going through early puberty. But think about the babies who are drinking from plastic bottles every day.

It makes sense to be on the safe side and use glass baby bottles, or at least plastic bottles that do not contain BPA.

A final word of advice for parents who exclusively bottle-feed, or whose babies sometimes drink breast milk from bottles: this page has tips for bottle-feeding techniques that help promote a secure attachment with your baby. The gist is that you mimic certain aspects of breastfeeding (switching sides, making skin-to-skin contact and eye contact, always holding the baby while feeding) when giving the baby a bottle.

The conservative pundits who favored Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson for president are fully on board with John McCain, but he still has a big problem with other elements of the conservative base.

Exhibit A: the results from the GOP primary in Pennsylvania last week. More than two months after it became clear that McCain would be the GOP nominee, he gained just under 73 percent of the vote from Pennsylvania Republicans. Ron Paul got almost 16 percent (more than 128,000 votes), and Mike Huckabee got about 11 percent (more than 91,000 votes).

Think about that. More than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania went to the trouble of voting for someone other than McCain last Tuesday.

McCain did the worst in conservative counties where Republicans need to run up big margins to have any hope of winning statewide in Pennsylvania:

Mr. McCain’s worst showing was in Juniata County, near the center of the state. He received only about 59 percent of the vote, while Mr. Paul took nearly 28 percent. In 2004, President Bush won Juniata with 72 percent of the vote.

Mr. Bush had his biggest win that year in southern Fulton County, with 76 percent of the vote. Mr. McCain picked up 71 percent there, but Mr. Huckabee had 21 percent, his highest percentage in the state.

The conservative Washington Times has more bad news for McCain:

The McCain campaign has said it is on the same timeline for uniting the Republican Party as then-Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. In that year, Mr. Bush won 73 percent of the Republican vote in Pennsylvania’s primary, held April 4. His biggest challenger was McCain himself, who won 23 percent, despite having dropped out of the campaign weeks earlier.

But McCain was a far more imposing figure in 2000 than Paul and Huckabee were in 2008, and McCain has also had more time before Pennsylvania to consolidate his lead than Bush had in 2000. To continue to post less-than-dominant showings will only prolong talk that McCain has more work to do within his own party.

And to truly match Bush’s 2000 performance may be out of the question for McCain. Out of 18.5 million votes cast in the primaries so far he has won 43.2 percent. By contrast, Bush finished 2000 with 62 percent of the Republican primary vote.

Then I learned from this diary by sarahlane that Ron Paul says he doesn’t plan to campaign for McCain, and Paul supporters outnumbered McCain supporters at the Nevada Republican Party’s state convention last weekend.

Finally, the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a complaint against McCain with the Federal Elections Commission. If you’re too young to remember Judicial Watch, this group repeatedly attacked Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s.

Click the link to read the MyDD post by Jonathan Singer. Judicial Watch’s FEC complaint relates to a possibly illegal in-kind contribution from a foreign national to McCain’s campaign.

As I’ve mentioned before, prominent bloggers have filed a separate FEC complaint relating to McCain’s failure to abide by the spending limits imposed on candidates who agree to take public matching funds during the presidential primaries.

Buried at the end of a detailed post on the dueling delegate counts provided by the Clinton and Obama campaigns, Chris Bowers put forward a great idea for a Michigan/Florida compromise:

If I were in charge, I would seat Florida’s pledged delegates as is, and seat the pledged delegates from Michigan Clinton 73-55 Obama. From that point, I would strip both states of their superdelegates. This way, the voters of the two states are not punished, but the superdelegates who are responsible putting both states in this mess are. I actually think that this should become the standard punishment for states that flout the primary calendar: keep the pledged delegates, but strip the superdelegates with no possibility of reinstatement. I also really like the idea of superdelegates whining that they should be seated at the convention. That would be an hilarious press conference.

I have written before that it would be suicide for Obama to go into the general election campaign having argued for ignoring the primary votes in Michigan and Florida. I was open to a revote, but the Obama campaign made sure that didn’t happen in either state. Bowers’ idea makes a lot of sense to me. Rank and file voters should not be punished for the screwups of party leaders.

Meanwhile, JedReport put up a good diary at Daily Kos blaming the superdelegates for prolonging the primary election campaign.  

I think the extended race is on balance good for the Democrats, because voters are being energized all over the country (click here to read about the surge in Democratic voter registration in Oregon).

But if you’re an Obama supporter who’s frustrated that the race continues, JedReport’s diary indicates that your anger at the Clinton campaign or the media is misplaced. The superdelegates could have brought down the curtain on this race two months ago, but they have stood on the sidelines.

My only quibble with JedReport is that the pledged delegate count, which he thinks should guide the superdelegates’ decision, does not necessarily reflect the will of the people.

So far there have been at least two states (NV and TX) where Obama emerged with more pledged delegates despite having fewer people turn out to support him.

Also, the caucus systems in many states produced lopsided delegate counts that (in my view) do not reflect the will of the voters. Does anyone really think that Minnesota Democrats would have favored Obama over Hillary by a 2-1 margin in a primary?

Not only that, one caucus-goer in Wyoming had as much influence over the pledged delegate race as 19 primary voters in California (here is the link).

I’m for changing the system to ban caucuses for purposes of presidential candidate selection. Also, I would want to change the way pledged delegates are allocated so that no candidate could lose the popular vote in a state while winning the pledged delegate count.

Of course, this does not excuse the strategic failure of the Clinton campaign to have a game plan for the caucus states.

But if we are going to ban superdelegates, or require superdelegates to get behind the pledged delegate leader, then we better have a more equitable system for allocating the pledged delegates. It’s wrong for Obama to net as many pledged delegates from a low-turnout caucus state as Hillary netted in the Ohio primary blowout.

Over at Iowa Independent, Douglas Burns has put up another post complaining about the tough bill on public smoking that the legislature adopted earlier this month.

Burns offers 10 ways to deal with the smoking ban which, in his words, will introduce “a radical cultural change in many shot-and-a-beer, small-town taverns that dot the Iowa landscape.”

One of his suggestions is:

2. Take your anger out on Gov. Chet Culver, Big Brother Democrats and Turncoat Republicans

To be a one-issue voter for the rest of your life is crazy. But the smoking ban is an example of effete urban Iowans monkeying around with the small businesses of rural Iowans. If it’s smoking today, what’s next for government intrusion into small businesses? Will we go the way of New York City and ban certain fatty foods to the point where chicken-fried steaks must be served without gravy?

With statehouse races in the fall, smokers and those who don’t like the creep of big government into Iowa life should send a message by voting against smoke ban supporters. Better yet, contribute to their opponents. The ban was generally a Democratic brainchild and product, but some Republicans jumped off the Bridge Over the River Common Sense on this one, too.

I’ve got 10 suggestions for the smokers like Burns who feel oppressed by “effete urban Iowans” (which isn’t even accurate, if you look at the list of legislators who voted for this bill):

1. Quit using that “what will they ban next, fast food?” analogy. The smoking ban is nothing like the government trying to control people’s consumption of fatty food, because eating unhealthy food doesn’t affect other people’s health the way second-hand smoke does.

2. Acknowledge that your choice to smoke in a bar or restaurant prevents employees of those establishments from choosing not to inhale smoke. It’s easy for you to say that people who don’t like smoking should get another job. Maybe that “shot-and-a-beer, small-town tavern” is the only game in town for that employee. Maybe family obligations require someone to work evenings and weekends, when a large portion of the jobs available are in restaurants or bars.

3. Recognize that what seems inconvenient to you may allow pregnant women to avoid second-hand smoke and the increased risk of miscarriage and stillbirth that accompanies it.

4. Remember that pregnant women exposed to second-hand smoke have a higher risk of delivering a low-birth-weight baby, which is associated with a greater chance of various health problems.

5. Instead of complaining about having to step outside for a cigarette, think about the future babies who will not have an elevated risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome because you did not expose their pregnant mothers to second-hand smoke.

6. Think of all the men and women who work in that place you like to smoke who will no longer have to work in an environment that raises their chance of getting cancer, heart disease or chronic lung problems.

7. Recognize that this smoking ban will probably save you money if it pushes you to smoke less or even quit.

8. Take up Burns’ suggestion to pursue the free smoking-cessation counseling offered by the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Division. Then you can treat yourself to something nice with the money you save on cigarettes.

9. If you own a restaurant or bar where smoking has been allowed up to now, take heart; research in other parts of the country suggests that you will not lose business because of the smoking ban. I know that I eat more often at the Waveland Cafe in Des Moines since the owner made it smoke-free last November.

10. If you own a different kind of business where smoking has previously been permitted, remember that smoking bans bring hidden economic benefits to many businesses, including “reduced absenteeism, reduced insurance costs, and reduced cleaning and maintenance costs.”

Feel free to add to my list in the comments section.

On the last day of the 2008 session, the legislature approved big raises for Iowa’s top elected officials, the Des Moines Register reported on Monday.

Governor Chet Culver (D) would get nearly a 10 percent raise, Attorney General Tom Miller (D) would get about an 11 percent raise, and 23 percent pay hikes would go to Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge (D), Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey (R), State Auditor David Vaudt (R), Secretary of State Mike Mauro (D), and State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald (D).

The article says the raises are intended to bring the elected officials’ salaries in line with what the top administrators of several state departments receive. It seems like quite a big jump to me, though. I would be happier with a law granting routine cost-of-living adjustments to top elected officials.

What do you think?

On Tuesday, April 29, Polk County is holding a referendum on whether to renovate and expand the Polk County Courthouse. Polls will be open from 7 am to 8 pm.

I am voting yes, because the current facility poses a fire hazard and a threat to the safety of the judges, courthouse employees, and members of the public.

Delaying construction on this facility will only increase the eventual cost while increasing the chance of death or injury in the meantime.

The Des Moines Register is also urging readers to vote yes on the referendum and published lots of information about the proposal in Monday’s edition.

UPDATE: Around 7:15 pm on Monday, I received a robocall paid for by Citizens for Reasonable Justice, which made the case for voting no on this referendum, and directed me to their website:

http://www.citizensforreasonab…

I think it’s disingenuous for them to say let’s just wait until after the recession is over and then adopt a more modest plan for renovating the courthouse.

First, we all know these anti-tax groups will fight any proposal to spend money on this, no matter how big, no matter what the phase of the economic cycle.

Second, if we kick the can down the road for another five years, the cost of adding on to the courthouse will increase, not decrease.

Over at Daily Kos, Markos has a post up about “Clinton’s shameless hypocrisy on the fuel tax”:

   Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday criticized Barack Obama for opposing the concept of suspending the gas tax during the peak summer driving months, a plan both she and Republican John McCain have endorsed.

   The idea to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day was first proposed by McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, as a way to ease the economic burden for consumers during the summer.

   Obama does not support the “gas tax holiday” and has said the average motorist would not benefit significantly from such a suspension; by some estimates, the federal government would lose about $10 billion in revenue.

   “My opponent, Senator Obama, opposes giving consumers a break,” Clinton said, campaigning in North Carolina. “I understand the American people need some relief.”

For once I agree with Markos–this is a bad, bad move by Hillary Clinton. His main point is that she’s a huge hypocrite, because she argued against a similar gas tax holiday when she was running for the Senate in 2000.

Even worse from my perspective, she has flipped to supporting a horrendous idea floated by McCain. I explained why suspending the gas tax is is bad policy in this post.

It’s bad politics as well, because Hillary adopts the Republican “tax relief” frame to score a political point against our likely Democratic presidential nominee. She should never suggest that McCain is more sensitive to the needs of consumers than Obama is. That is flat-out wrong.

This is not how she should be making her case against Obama.  

It’s a very busy week. Please put up a comment if you know of anything important going on that I’ve left out.



Tuesday, April 29:

IowaPolitics.com and Drake University are hosting a forum at which top leaders from Iowa’s House and Senate will discuss the 2008 session and election year. The forum will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Levitt Hall in Old Main at 2507 University Ave. on the Drake University campus. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. More details about the event and how to reserve a spot are after the jump.

The DNR will convene a stakeholders meeting at 1 pm and a public meeting at 6:30 pm in the Scott County Administrative Center, 600 W. 4th St in Davenport, to discuss air pollution in Scott County. A recent DNR report showed that fine particulate matter air pollutant levels in Scott County have exceeded Clean Air Act standards from 2005 through 2007. More background and details are after the jump.

Ed Fallon will appear on Mac’s World Radio Show, 98.3 WOW.FM (show starts at 2:45 pm)

Metro Arts Alliance of Greater Des Moines and other hosts present a reception to honor the artists selected for the City of Des Moines 2007 Performance Report, Following Your Lead: The Road Ahead, 5-7 pm 800 19th Street (corner of 19th and Center) in Des Moines

Sierra Club, Iowa Global Warming Campaign and I-RENEW present the Everyday is Earth Day event, featuring a free film screening of “Global Warming: the Signs and the Science,” 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Cedar Falls Public Library, 524 Main St. in Cedar Falls (more details about this event are after the jump)



Wednesday, April 30:

The DNR will hold a stakeholders meeting at 1 pm and a public meeting at 6:30 pm to discuss air pollution in Muscatine County (more background after the jump). The meetings will be at the Muscatine County Conservation Board Environmental Learning Center, 3300 Cedar Street in Muscatine.

Tom Henderson, chairman of Polk County Democrats (live) and Comedian Jeff Kreisler (via phone) will appear on Mac’s World, 98.3 WOW-FM, 3 pm to 4 pm.

Thursday, May 1:

One Iowa presents May Day Mayhem–Free Food, Cheap Drinks with other LGBT and progressive professionals. Special guest Evan Wolfson from Freedom to Marry. Star Bar, 2811 Ingersoll in Des Moines, from 5 pm to 7 pm. Light appetizers, cash bar, and a chance to mingle with other LGBTA Professionals. Please RSVP by April 30th (288-4019).

Ed Fallon will be at Green Drinks, Saints Rest Cafe, 919 Broad St. in Grinnell, beginning at 7 pm

Friday, May 2:

Ed Fallon will be at the Eastside Senior Center, 1231 E. 26th St. in Des Moines, beginning at 11:45 am

Comedian Jeff Kreisler will do a show for the Polk County Democrats, Val Air Ballroom, 301 Ashworth Road, West Des Moines. Dinner will be served at 5:30 P.M., program begins at 6:30 P.M. Cash bar available. Regular tickets – $25.00 per person (Dinner and show only) 5:30 P.M. Host Reception with Elected Officials and Jeff Kreisler – $75.00 per person (includes dinner and drink tickets). Tickets are available by calling 515-285-1800; for $27.50 at the Val Air box office or through any Ticketmaster outlet.

Saturday, May 3:

Iowa Citizen Action Network 2008 annual convention, 10 am to 5 pm at the Hilton Garden Inn, 8600 North Park Drive in Johnston (suburb of Des Moines). Jim Hightower will be the keynote speaker. More details about the day’s workshops are after the jump, or you can see a flier for this event at

http://www.iowacan.org/ICANCON…

Iowa Corridor’s second annual Hike to Help Refugees in Iowa City (more details are after the jump)

Maifest parade in the Amana Colonies, starting at 10 am

I-RENEW is hosting a tour of the Clipper Turbine Works, the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the U.S., in Cedar Rapids at 1 pm. At 3 pm, Brian Crowe from Iowa’s Office of Energy Independence will speak about the agency’s activities at the Coffee Talk Café, located off Kirkwood Avenue down the road from Clipper. More details about these events are after the jump.

The Tulip festival in Pella runs from May 1 to May 3 as well.

Poligirl wrote a good diary about an op-ed piece by Elizabeth Edwards in today’s New York Times: “Bowling 1, Health Care 0.”

She slammed the media for its superficial coverage of the presidential campaign during the past year, and particularly during the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary:

Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.

Political junkie that I am, I do know something about Joe Biden’s health care plan (no thanks to the mainstream media). Elizabeth Edwards tells it like it is:

What’s more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I’m not talking about my husband. I’m referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden’s health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.

And it’s not as if people didn’t want this information. In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: “I want to know more about Senator Biden,” participants would say.

But it was not to be. Indeed, the Biden campaign was covered more for its missteps than anything else. Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment. I suspect that there was more coverage of the burglary at his campaign office in Hartford than of any other single event during his run other than his entering and leaving the campaign.

Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?

The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate.

I said many times last year that if Biden had the media hype Obama was getting, he would be a strong contender for the nomination. He had a great stump speech and performed better in every debate than Obama did, but all you heard from the leading analysts was that Biden was a gaffe machine.

Thanks again to poligirl for including a link to an audio interview of Elizabeth Edwards talking about her op-ed piece.

How many presidential campaigns will our infotainment complex get wrong before they finally give people the news coverage they deserve?

A while back I stopped reading the “Edwards should endorse Obama” diaries at Daily Kos, because I was tired of getting drawn into arguments with Hillary-haters in the comment threads. Moreover, I really don’t care whether John Edwards endorses a candidate–it wouldn’t change my feelings about either of the contenders.

When Elizabeth Edwards recently confirmed that she prefers Hillary’s health-care plan and will appear alongside Clinton when she campaigns in North Carolina, some of the Obama fans at Daily Kos went ballistic. Again, I avoided those diaries, because I am tired of trying to explain to people that yes, many health-care experts agree that some form of individual mandates are needed in order to provide truly universal health care.

Today longtime Edwards supporter Benny put up a rant at the EENRblog about somebody’s open letter pleading with Elizabeth Edwards to endorse Obama. I wasn’t planning to read the diary Benny was complaining about, but edgery highlighted an amazing assertion that prompted me to click over.

This statement in Bcgntn’s diary is what grabbed my attention:

Senator Clinton may believe without Lyndon Johnson the Civil Rights Act 1964 would not have come into being.  I recall those years.  People were out on the streets in protest.  The community concluded it was time for a change.  The President merely signed the papers.  

I’ve written before about how annoyed I was in January when the Obama campaign took Hillary’s comments about LBJ and twisted them into some allegedly racist remark denigrating Martin Luther King Jr.

But that’s not my main point today. What that Obama supporter wrote reflects a fantasy shared by too many Obama supporters, in my opinion: namely, that if he is elected, Obama is going to do what his people-powered movement demands.

One of my biggest concerns about Obama has always been that he seems likely to make far too many concessions to the Republican agenda or to DC pundits’ conventional wisdom. He has chosen not to lead on some of the key battles in the U.S. Senate. He talks a lot about finding consensus and bringing people together. His strategy for winning the open-primary states has been to maximize his support among Republicans and independents who cross over.

When you look at his very cautious voting record and avoidance of leading on any controversial issue, it seems highly unlikely to me that he will govern like a progressive. There will be many days when Obama has to choose between doing what Tim Russert and David Broder would like, and doing what the Obama fans at Daily Kos would like, and I think the Kossacks will be the disappointed ones on those days.

I’ve raised this point with several thoughtful Obama supporters, such as Populista, the 14-year-old who will probably be a great progressive leader someday. The consensus seems to be that if he gets elected, Obama will have to listen to the activists who have done so much to support his presidential campaign. He has empowered people who are the change we’ve been waiting for.

This to me seems as deluded as saying that the civil rights legislation of 1964 happened because the “community concluded it was time for a change.  The President merely signed the papers.”

I am not old enough to remember 1964, but I challenge any Obama supporter to find me one historian of that period who will agree with that contention. The fact is, LBJ dragged Congress kicking and screaming to do much more on civil rights than probably any other president could have gotten passed.

Don’t discount the importance of presidential leadership. People were out in the streets protesting the Vietnam War for years before we finally got out of there.

If Obama gets elected, he will not have the clout with Congress that LBJ had. But even if he did, I simply don’t see Obama as the kind of leader who would go to the mat to push a strong progressive agenda through a resistant Congress. He seems more likely to move halfway toward the Republican position, then declare victory.

Like I always say, I would love to be proven wrong if Obama does manage to get by John McCain. But don’t imagine that the people-powered movement will be calling the shots, and President Obama will just be signing the papers.

Very dishonest.

Over at MyDD, Josh Orton picked up on a story from Sunday’s New York Times, which

exposes two more broken McCain pledges: to not to fly on corporate jets, and to not exploit his wife’s wealth for campaign advantage.

First, the campaign finance side – by exploiting a loophole left open by the non-functioning FEC, McCain flew for months on a corporate jet owned by his wife’s company, but only paid a fraction of the cost […]

Not only is he exploiting a loophole to save millions, he’s actually going back on an earlier pledge. In early 2007, McCain’s campaign swore off the practice of using corporate jets […]

Oh yeah, and McCain is also breaking a promise not to use his wife’s vast wealth for his presidential campaign. Click over to Orton’s diary for details on that.

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post had a good write-up of McCain’s recent visit to New Orleans. The candidate criticized the Bush administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, but conveniently failed to mention his many Senate votes “against relief measures for Katrina victims” and “against an investigation into the failures of the government response” to Katrina. The article notes that “McCain also voted against providing additional funding for first responders’ communication systems”.

If you click that link you can also view a slide show of George Bush and John McCain celebrating with a birthday cake for McCain in Arizona on August 29, 2005, the day the levees broke in New Orleans.

Speaking of McCain in New Orleans, MoveOn.Org sent out an e-mail with details on the results of

its recent petition drive, and the media coverage they were able to generate:

Amazing. The very morning that John McCain visited New Orleans, 140,000 of us signed a petition calling on him to reject the support of extreme right-wing evangelist John Hagee, who said that Hurricane Katrina was a case of God punishing the city for its sins. At the same time, a group of local MoveOn members rallied outside his town hall event with the same message. McCain was asked about the issue at the event, and again by reporters after.

Almost instantly, the fact that McCain was pandering to the far right while playing “centrist” in the Big Easy became a national news story. The Associated Press and Reuters covered our actions, and the New York Times, Boston Globe, and MSNBC all reported on the disturbing links between Hagee, McCain, and the city of New Orleans.1

Best of all, the Baltimore Sun quoted New Orleans MoveOn member Harry Greenberg as saying, “Shame on John McCain for using New Orleans for a photo op while still courting support from hatemongers like Hagee.”2

A big “thank you” to the New Orleans MoveOn members who bravely spoke out for all of us against McCain’s courtship of hatemongers. And thanks to all of you who reacted so quickly to support them. We’ll be spending a lot more time in the next few months telling the truth about John McCain, and we’re glad you’re part of the effort.

-Eli, Daniel, Wes, Laura, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team

 Sunday, April 27th, 2008

P.S. If you want to get involved with rapid response actions like Thursday’s rally in New Orleans, consider joining your local MoveOn Council. You can join a council near you by clicking here:

http://operationdemocracy.org?…

Sources:

1. “McCain sharply critical of Bush response to Katrina,” Reuters, April 24, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3612…

“McCain to New Orleans: Never Again,” Associated Press, April 24, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3613…

“McCain Goes Where Few Republicans Dare, Deep in Democrats’ Territory,” New York Times, April 26, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3614…

“Hagee retracts Katrina comment,” Boston Globe, April 25, 2008

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3615…

“McCain criticizes Bush, Congress on Hurricanes,” MSNBC, April 24, 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24…

2. “MoveOn calls for McCain move on Hagee,” Baltimore Sun, April 24, 2008

If you aren’t already convinced that the housing market is in big trouble, maybe this article from Saturday’s Des Moines Register will change your mind:

Iowa’s largest home builder, Regency Cos. of Des Moines, has laid off the entire staff of its home building business and left behind 300 homes that lenders and buyers will now have to sell or finish.

Jamie Myers, president of Regency, told 103 people working at Regency Homes offices in West Des Moines and Cedar Rapids on Friday afternoon that their jobs had been eliminated and that construction would halt. Myers said it became impossible for the company to continue after a lending agreement with Wells Fargo & Co. ended in December without a renewal.

“We don’t have the cash flow to pay them,” he said of employees.

Myers said it’s hoped that enough money will be generated from the sale of homes already built to pay lenders and contractors.

Myers didn’t rule out a bankruptcy for the company, which concentrates in the Ames, Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and Iowa City areas.

The prize for the most absurd spin of the week has to go to Rich Krier of Krier Homes Inc. in Indianola, who

didn’t see Regency’s troubles as a particularly bad omen for the Iowa home building industry. “It’s like a borrower having a problem with a bank,” he said.

He cannot be serious. Regency is not just like any old borrower. We are talking about the giant among home-building firms in Iowa. If Wells Fargo pulled the plug on their loan arrangement, they must be pretty sure that the housing market is in a severe downturn.

The archives of the Bonddad Blog have plenty of material explaining the housing bubble and subsequent downturn.

I wish we could get back some of that prime farmland that home-builders turned into suburban housing. Clearly the new housing that has been built in recent years exceeds market demand in Iowa.

Daily Kos user GregMitch put up a diary today today to mark two years since Stephen Colbert’s priceless routine at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

He not only roasted George W. Bush, he absolutely skewered the enabling White House press corps (“We, Americans, didn’t want to know, and you had the courage not to try to find out”).

Watch part 1:

Then watch part 2, which includes my favorite parts (as well as a funny line about John McCain):

Then watch part 3:

I still can’t believe he delivered some of those lines.  

Thanks to Betsy Muse of BlueNC for compiling this roundup and writing the text that goes with it. -desmoinesdem  

We’re down to the final days before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries.  We have a complete primer on the North Carolina primary process posted at BlueNC.  

Blue Indiana has this first in a series posted at this link.  

In North Carolina the excitement has spilled over to the down ballot races.  It’s the biggest year I can remember in my voting life.  I was 14 the last time North Carolina had a say in who would be the Democratic nominee.  I’m almost 46.  At this rate it may never happen again in my life, so I’m enjoying every minute of it.  I can even get past the negative ads so that I can celebrate the unprecedented voter registration numbers and so that I’m prepared to help the other North Carolina races take advantage of the organization efforts once all eyes are on to the next state.  

The rest of the the roundup is after the jump.

The non-profit organization Iowa Interfaith Power and Light (IIPL) is looking for a full-time executive director.

The complete job listing is after the jump. Click over if you or someone you know is qualified for this job and is committed to doing this kind of work. IIPL is “mobilizing the religious community to become leaders in the fight against global warming.”  

Progressive Democrats of America, a grassroots political action committee (PAC) created in 2004, endorsed Ed Fallon today in the Democratic primary to represent Iowa’s third Congressional district. The Des Moines chapter of the group had previously endorsed Fallon last month.

A press release from the Fallon campaign quoted the candidate as saying,

“PDA is pleased that I’m challenging Congressman Boswell due to his record on voting with the Republicans to support President Bush’s agenda on the Iraq War, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless surveillance, torture, ‘free-trade’ agreements, bankruptcy ‘reform’ that hurts the middle class, and billions in corporate welfare for big oil and gas companies.”

[…]

“Because I’ve never taken money from PACs or paid lobbyists, PDA won’t be making a contribution to my campaign,” Fallon said, “but they will encourage their members to make individual contributions. They want to help give our next president a Democratic congressman who will support progressive, Democratic policies.”

The full text of the press release is after the jump.

Other national organizations that have endorsed Fallon include eQualityGiving and Democracy for America.

When I went to West Des Moines Valley High School during the 1980s, it was common to hear people call someone a “fag” or say disparagingly, “That’s so gay.” I didn’t know of a single kid in our large graduating class who was gay or lesbian. I remember our school newspaper doing a feature on two gay guys at my school–only the writer and the newspaper adviser knew who they were, and apparently they both had girlfriends for cover. They certainly didn’t feel safe enough to come out of the closet when we were in high school.

While high school students today are more aware than they were 20 years ago, bullying and harassment of gay teens or those perceived as gay remains a problem. Friday, April 25 was the national Day of Silence, “a nationwide event to protest harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students”. According to the Des Moines Register, students at about 40 Iowa high schools planned to participate.

We shouldn’t be content to let teenagers tough this out, hoping that life will get better someday. A tolerant atmosphere can make the difference between life and death for some young people. Daily Kos user “a girl in MI” wrote this moving diary today to mark the sixth anniversary of her own suicide attempt.

In the comments to her diary, BrooklynWeaver posted a link to the Trevor Project:

The Trevor Project operates the nations only 24/7 crisis & suicide prevention helpline for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth. If you or a friend are feeling lost or alone call The Trevor Helpline. There is hope, there is help.

The Trevor Helpline number is 1-866-4-U-TREVOR, or 1-866-488-7386.

On a more positive note, I got an e-mail from One Iowa promoting their upcoming “May Day Mayhem” event for LGBT professionals:

May Day Mayhem!

Bring in Spring with other LGBT Professionals! Join One Iowa for Happy Hour!

Free Food, Cheap Drinks. Enjoy your May Day with other LGBT and progressive professionals.

Special guest Evan Wolfson from Freedom to Marry

Thursday, May 1

5:00 – 7:00 PM

Star Bar, 2811 Ingersoll, Des Moines

Light appetizers, cash bar, and a chance to mingle with other LGBTA Professionals.

RSVP by April 30th

One Iowa would like to thank Wells Fargo Pride for sponsoring the Mayday Mayhem Happy Hour.

The Des Moines Register published an editorial on Thursday urging readers not to buy bottled water:

“Iowa’s capital city ranked best on our list of U.S. cities with the cleanest drinking water. The insurance industry center and home of the Iowa Caucus had the second-lowest level of bacteria in its drinking water” and was among the best for the lowest levels of lead,” according to the report.

As summer approaches, this is yet another reason to avoid purchasing bottled water. A better option is getting a sturdy plastic bottle and refilling it at the tap – which is probably cleaner anyway. While bottled water may sit on the shelves for ages, the Des Moines Water Works conducts performance tests several times a day, according to interim general manager Randy Beavers. Bottled water is an environmental and financial hazard. The bottles are shipped thousands of miles across the country in gas-guzzling trucks. Most aren’t recycled or reused, but end up in landfills. While it’s nothing to drop a dollar or two on a bottle of water, tap water averages a fraction of a penny per gallon.

I agree with the general point about not buying bottled water.

However, it’s a very bad idea to keep refilling plastic bottles from the tap. I used to do that before I learned that chemicals can leach from the plastic to the water:

Reused Plastic Bottles Can Leach Toxic Chemicals

The same studies found that repeated re-use of such bottles-which get dinged up through normal wear and tear and while being washed-increases the chance that chemicals will leak out of the tiny cracks and crevices that develop over time. According to the Environment California Research & Policy Center, which reviewed 130 studies on the topic, BPA has been linked to breast and uterine cancer, an increased risk of miscarriage, and decreased testosterone levels.

BPA can also wreak havoc on children’s developing systems. (Parents beware: Most baby bottles and sippy cups are made with plastics containing BPA.) Most experts agree that the amount of BPA that could leach into food and drinks through normal handling is probably very small, but there are concerns about the cumulative effect of small doses.

Even Plastic Water and Soda Bottles Should Not Be Reused

Health advocates also recommend not reusing bottles made from plastic #1 (polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or PETE), including most disposable water, soda and juice bottles. According to The Green Guide, such bottles may be safe for one-time use, but re-use should be avoided because studies indicate they may leach DEHP-another probable human carcinogen-when they are in less-than-perfect condition.

[…]

Safe Reusable Bottles Do Exist

Safer choices include bottles crafted from safer HDPE (plastic #2), low-density polyethylene (LDPE, AKA plastic #4) or polypropylene (PP, or plastic #5). Aluminum bottles, such as those made by SIGG and sold in many natural food and natural product markets, and stainless steel water bottles are also safe choices and can be reused repeatedly and eventually recycled.

If you live in the Des Moines area, you can buy reusable SIGG bottles at Campbell’s (there is a coating on the inside so that the aluminum does not come into contact with what you are drinking). Otherwise, you can order SIGG bottles or other brands of safe reusable bottles at ReusableBags.com.

If you’ve got small children, I highly recommend getting non-plastic reusable sippy cups and water bottles for lunch bags. SIGG is a brand we’ve been happy with. They are not dishwasher-safe, which is a little inconvenient, but we feel better knowing that chemicals are not leaching into our children’s water.

Des Moines Register reporter Thomas Beaumont wrote an article for Thursday’s edition about the Boswell’s campaign’s Ralph Nader direct-mail pieces, which I diaried here and here.

I had been wondering why Boswell was playing the Nader card with six weeks to go in the campaign, and Beaumont advances a strong hypothesis:

The two mailings circulated this week in Iowa’s 3rd District mark a stepped-up effort by Boswell, a six-term Des Moines Democrat, to cast doubt on Fallon’s loyalty to the party. The mailings coincide with the distribution of absentee ballots for the June 3 primary.

Meanwhile, Al Gore sent out an e-mail fundraising appeal on behalf of Boswell, which I’ve put after the jump.

In other news, KCCI television released the first public poll of the Democratic primary in the third district. It shows Boswell leading Fallon 52-28, with 20 percent undecided. Boswell’s campaign manager, Mark Daley, said the poll shows

what we’ve seen all along. We’ve got a congressman who’s been there. Who’s been very effective” […]

Fallon told KCCI:

“If I were Boswell, I’d be really concerned that only 52 percent of Democrats was supporting me. An incumbent is usually a lot better after serving for 12 years,” […]

“People are very unhappy with Boswell’s continued support for the war. His lack of leadership on environmental issues,” Fallon said.

My big question about this poll is what turnout model did KCCI use? I don’t think anyone in either campaign has any idea how many Democrats will vote in this primary. About 38,000 people in the third district voted in the June 2006 gubernatorial primary.

Fallon presumably has a better chance if turnout is low, because his supporters are highly motivated to vote for him, and his campaign is focused on a field operation to identify those supporters.

Boswell has better name recognition and more money to spend on paid media, so he would probably benefit from high turnout in the primary.

It’s hard to keep up with all the reasons to oppose John McCain. Last night I wrote about his opposition to a bill that would make it easier for victims of job discrimination to seek legal redress.

If you care about that issue, you can sign the petition on “Equal Pay for Equal Work” at Momsrising.org.

Meanwhile, I learned from this diary by TomP that Friends of the Earth Action is running an ad against McCain on CNN. The ad highlights McCain’s support for the nuclear power industry:

TomP’s diary also includes this great quote from Friends of the Earth Action president Dr. Brent Blackwalder:

You know how self righteous John McCain can be when he talks about corporate pork and earmarks, but do you know why he opposes the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill?  He plans to vote against it not because it could lavish $1 trillion on the profitable oil, gas and coal industries, but because he wants to add hundreds of billions of dollars more in earmarks for the nuclear industry!

On a related note, I got an e-mail today from the Sierra Club slamming McCain’s proposal to suspend the federal gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The Sierra Club notes that the real effect of that policy would be to

[r]aise oil company profits by another 18 cents per gallon — by eliminating the federal gas tax without guaranteeing that Big Oil won’t just keep prices high and take the difference to grow their record profits even more.

The Sierra Club also has an online petition you can sign, which sends this message to McCain:

The best way to deal with high gas prices is to cut, not expand, giveaways to Big Oil. Please vote to end taxpayer-funded subsidies and tax breaks for Big Oil and use that money to invest in clean, renewable energy.

Earlier this week, I got the latest newsletter from Smart Growth America, which also blasted McCain’s proposal to declare a summer holiday from the federal gas tax:

An artificial and temporary reduction of gas prices will simply guarantee that absolutely no money goes towards having suitable roads and bridges for those filled-up cars to drive on – not to mention alternatives to congestion, like commuter rail and transit. Instead, we can send the full price of gasoline directly into the pockets of oil companies. (An estimated $10 billion in transportation revenue would be lost, or enough to fully fund Amtrak rail service for 6 years or so.) Meanwhile, we fall farther behind in maintaining our infrastructure: Rust doesn’t take the summer off.

But that’s not all. To coincide with McCain’s photo-op in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward today, Moveon.org Political Action launched its own online petition calling on McCain to reject the endorsement of right-wing pastor John Hagee. I knew about Hagee’s anti-Catholic bigotry, but I wasn’t aware that Hagee once said, “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”

Surely there couldn’t be any more shameful news about McCain to emerge within this 24-hour period, right? Wrong. I learned from Natasha Chart’s post at MyDD today that during a recent visit to Alabama, McCain’s campaign used free prison labor to get out of paying to set up for a private fundraiser.

I guess a campaign that is way behind its Democratic rivals in fundraising has to save money wherever it can.

But it would be more honest for McCain to curtail all campaign spending between now and the Republican National Convention this summer, because he is not complying with limits imposed by his decision to take public financing last year.

If I’ve missed any recent disgraceful behavior coming from the McCain camp, please let me know in the comments section.

Read this diary that Asinus Asinum Fricat posted at the EENRblog: The Obscene Scam that is Food Flavorings.

He talks about MSG in particular and its effects on human health and the obesity epidemic.

In honor of Autism Awareness Month I should add that many children with autism, ADD or ADHD find that their symptoms improve on a diet that is free of certain food additives (among other things).

For more information on the “Feingold diet,” click here.

Our “effective” Democratic leaders in the Iowa House and Senate have pushed through the Livestock Odor Research and Air Modeling Study. The Senate passed the bill late last night.

Leigh Adcock of the Iowa Farmers Union explains why this is a “seriously flawed piece of legislation”:

Research has already been done on cost effective ways to mitigate odor.  Included are better siting methods, and the use of biofilters and covers on lagoons.  Iowa’s taxpayers should not be required to fund another round of studies on proven technologies when the legislature has not shown any willingness to act on the information already gathered from previous studies.  Instead we should require producers to implement what we already know.

Minnesota has enacted ambient air quality standards that limit hydrogen sulfide to 0.05 parts per million and is working on limiting ammonia emissions.   Missouri, Nebraska, and Colorado regulate sulfur emissions and emissions of other types.

[…]

Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, two odor causing gases emitted from confined feedlot operations, are known to cause serious respiratory problems.

The bacteria found within particulates emitted from livestock operations create lung inflammation that leads to non-allergic asthma.  Twenty-five percent of those who work in confined feedlot operations have some form of respiratory disease, 10% higher than the United States working population as a whole.

Rekha Basu’s latest column for the Des Moines Register showed how many times the Iowa legislature has blocked action to alleviate the pollution caused by CAFOs.

Most of her examples come from the years when Republicans controlled both chambers of the legislature. It is discouraging to see that the livestock industry continues to trump public-health and environmental concerns even under Democratic control.

In the Iowa Senate, some lawmakers including Joe Bolkcom (D, Iowa City) offered good amendments, but those were rejected on a voice vote, so that we don’t even have a record of how individuals voted.

I do have the breakdown of how senators voted on the final version of the odor-study bill, and I’ve put that after the jump. It was not a party-line vote. If your senator voted against this waste of taxpayer money, please give him or her a call to say thanks.

I’m trying to dig up the final vote for the Iowa House as well and will update this diary with that information when I find it.

If I were an adviser to Governor Culver, I’d tell him to veto this bill. It’s the right thing to do on the merits. We simply don’t need more study of this problem. Spending $23 million over five years on more study wastes our money and kicks the can down the road. Using state funds to implement the measures that are working in other states would be a wiser use of taxpayer dollars.

The odor-study bill is a far cry from what the governor proposed to the legislature concerning this issue in January.

Finally, a veto would be cheered by environmentalists who are disappointed that the governor hasn’t made it a priority to push for local control over the siting of CAFOs (also known as agricultural zoning at the county level). Culver has said he is for local control, but he didn’t put much muscle behind that during the 2007 or 2008 legislative sessions.

Noneed4thneed noticed that Steve King (who represents Iowa’s fifth district in Congress) spoke at the GOP’s second district convention last weekend. He wonders whether King might be weighing a run for governor in 2010:

http://commoniowan.blogspot.co…

All I can say is, may it be so.

I’ve been hoping that King would get bored with being in the minority party and retire from Congress. In all likelihood the GOP would hold on to the seat, but maybe they would elect someone less embarrassing.

If Chet Culver running for an open governor’s seat beat a Congressman from eastern Iowa by 100,000 votes, I’m guessing that as an incumbent running against a Congressman from western Iowa, Culver would win by 200,000 votes or more.

This morning I saw a friend who is an Edwards delegate to the third district convention coming up this Saturday. He was complaining that he’d received no direction from the Edwards campaign, or from prominent Iowans for Edwards, about what he should do.

Before the county conventions in March, the Edwards campaign did almost nothing to shore up support from delegates elected on January 3 at the precinct caucuses (besides an e-mail from Roxanne Conlin and Rob Tully that went out two days before the county conventions, urging delegates to stick with Edwards).

Today Lynda Waddington reported at Iowa Independent that

Yesterday, Iowa delegates that are pledged to Clinton and those who remain pledged to the suspended presidential run of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards received a full-page, full-color reminder of the upcoming Democratic district conventions.

Click the link to see the visual of the mailer, but here is a key excerpt aimed at the Edwards delegates:

“John Edwards ran his campaign with compassion and conviction and lifted this campaign with his deep concerns for the daily lives of the American people. He and I both put forth universal health care plans, not because it was easy, but because health care for every man, woman and child is vital to giving every American family the opportunity for the American dream.

Together, let’s make universal health care a reality. I would be honored to have your support at your Congressional District Convention.”

It will be interesting to see if this works. At the county conventions, most of the Edwards delegates who switched moved toward Obama. I know of some like my friend who favor Clinton, though, partly because the Clinton health care plan is closer to what Edwards proposed.

One of the worst rulings the Roberts Court has handed down was in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. The five-member conservative majority ruled that the plaintiff lost her right to file a discrimination complaint related to unequal pay because she didn’t file the lawsuit within 180 days of the first discriminatory action by her employer.

Never mind that Lilly Ledbetter didn’t know for many years that she was being short-changed by her employer, which was paying male colleagues substantially more for doing the same job.

The U.S. House passed a bill seeking to remedy this egregious ruling last July. The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

would put into law a clarification – wage disparity based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, and disability is not a one-time occurrence. Every discriminatory paycheck represents an ongoing violation. Employees would still have 180 days to challenge the discrimination, but from the last check, not the first.

You would think everyone would recognize the value of this bill. Does it make sense for the courts to grant legal immunity to employers that manage to keep their discriminatory behavior a secret for many months? Or does it make sense to allow employees to file a lawsuit within 180 days of the time they have learned about the violations?

The U.S. Senate took up this bill today, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took time off from the presidential campaign to go back to Washington and vote for it.

But John McCain skipped the vote. Though 56 Senators voted in favor, Republicans were able to block it with a filibuster. McCain confirmed today that he would have opposed this bill if he’d been in the Senate chamber:

“I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what’s being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems,” the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. “This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system.”

Right, he’s “all in favor” of equal pay–he just doesn’t want women who are denied equal pay to be able to seek legal remedy for that discrimination.

Clearly wage discrimination doesn’t bother McCain nearly as much as the idea that we might have more women filing lawsuits against employers who have been cheating them for years.

If you know any women who might lean toward McCain because they think he is a reasonable moderate, let them know about his stand on this issue.

The Polk County Democrats forwarded via e-mail an open letter signed by many well-known Democratic attorneys, including Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, prominent plaintiff’s attorney Roxanne Conlin, superb defense attorney Alfredo Parrish, Iowa Democratic Party chairman Scott Brennan, and past IDP chairman Gordon Fischer.

I agree with them that Polk County needs to renovate its courthouse, which is unsafe and inadequate in many ways.

I will be voting yes on April 29.

From Local Party Activists:

BUILDING FOR JUSTICE VOTE YES ON APRIL 29TH

TO OUR DEMOCRAT FRIENDS:

Our courthouse is the last bastian of direct democracy.  It is the place where any citizen with any complaint can have their issue heard and resolved.  It is also the place where criminal justice is delivered.  Access to our courthouse is the cornerstone of our republic.  Access requires a safe and secure environment, free from intimidation.  

Our Polk County Courthouse is more than 100 years old.  It is overcrowded, unsafe, and without adequate security.  The condition of our courthouse negatively impacts the delivery of justice and access guaranteed to all.

We must do something now.  A plan to fix our problem will come before the voters on April 29th.  Please join us in supporting the courthouse referendum.  The project has been carefully studied.  It is reasonable and sensible in scope, it fully restores and utilizes our historic courthouse, and solves our problem now and for future generations.

Let’s come together as our community did over 100 years ago to solve this problem and create a legacy for generations to come.  Justice deserves nothing less.

Vote “YES” on the Polk County Courthouse Referendum on April 29th.  For further information visit: wwwbuildingforjustice.org.

Marc Beltrame

Ray Blase

Scott Brennan

Roxanne Conlin

Guy Cook

Gordon Fischer

Tom Henderson

Bill McCarthy

Al Parrish

John Sarcone

Tom Whitney

Ed Fallon’s campaign put out a press release yesterday challenging Congressman Leonard Boswell to agree to debate him. I’ve put the whole release after the jump, but here is a key excerpt:

Fallon has received invitations to eight debates and has accepted them all. “Unfortunately,” Fallon said, “Boswell has declined debate invitations from WHO Radio, the League of Women Voters, and Women for a Stronger America. Some of these groups have issued multiple invitations since February and have yet to receive any response from the Boswell campaign.”

“Clearly, with our economy in shambles, skyrocketing gas prices and no end in sight to the Iraq War, voters want to know how Boswell and I differ in our plans to address these and other pressing issues,” Fallon said.

Debate organizers have told Fallon’s staff that the Boswell campaign insists the Congressman is too busy in Washington to participate. “That’s puzzling,” Fallon said, “since the Congressman made time for the Drake Relays Parade this weekend and appears able to attend many fundraisers. I think in this case, actions speak louder than words.”

I contacted Boswell’s campaign to find out if he had indeed cited his busy Washington schedule as an excuse not to debate Fallon.

Press secretary Betsy Shelton e-mailed me today to say, “We are currently working with KCCI and the Des Moines Register to see if we can find a date that is mutually acceptable.”

Here’s hoping the candidates will debate at least once or twice before June 3.

Fallon’s press release also responds to recent direct-mail pieces from the Boswell campaign highlighting Fallon’s support for Ralph Nader in 2000. Click “there’s more” to read the whole thing.

The Polk County Democrats sent out an e-mail request from the Iowa House Democrats. Someone who will be managing a Democratic House candidate’s campaign is coming to Des Moines for training next week and will need housing in Polk County the nights of April 29 and 30.

If you have a spare room or fold-out couch for a campaign manager next week, please call Mehgan Lee Operations Manager/Deputy Finance Director for the Iowa House Democrats:

Work: (515) 974-1702

Her cell phone number was also in the e-mail, but I’m not going to post that on a public blog.

Looks like Hillary is winning this thing by about 10 percent, 55-45 with 94 percent reporting.

If you just consider Pennsylvania’s demographics, that isn’t too surprising. However, we’re coming out of a month in which she was massively outspent by Obama, and the media narrative has been that she is unlikely to win the nomination now.

The official memo from the Obama campaign notes that Clinton failed to make significant gains in the pledged-delegate count. True, but what does it say about Obama that he couldn’t close the deal despite spending more than his opponent and having generally more favorable media coverage?

As a memo from the Clinton campaign pointed out earlier today, Obama spent a lot of money on negative advertising and negative direct-mail pieces in Pennsylvania. He still couldn’t make the sale.

I like the way Todd Beeton (a Clinton voter in the California primary) reacted to the spin from Obama-leaning analysts at MSNBC:

I have to say I was amused to hear Keith Olbermann announce with child-like glee at 8:01pm that the race was too close to call and how that had to make the Clinton campaign nervous. The subtext of his enthusiasm was clearly shadenfreude that Hillary Clinton was going to underperform expectations. I thought to myself: where the hell has he been? Time after time exit polls overestimate Barack Obama’s performance, not to mention that on election nights past, namely Feb 5th and March 4th, neither California nor Ohio, solid Clinton wins both, was called for her right away either. And sure enough, 93% in and she’s still up by the magic 10%.

Then just a few minutes ago, Keith asked an uncomfortable Tom Brokaw whether it is wise for Hillary Clinton to be Bush to Obama’s Gore in Bush v. Gore.

Riiight.

Seriously, at what point are these guys going to start holding their own candidate accountable for why this thing is still going on instead of complaining that Hillary is competing in contests that she is winning.

But Todd, didn’t you know that the Clintons are evil, and everything bad that happens to Obama is orchestrated by them?

I am glad that Clinton didn’t listen to the Obama fan clubbers who demanded that she drop out a month ago. There was record-breaking turnout today in a state that has not influenced the nominating process in recent history. Oh yeah, and Democrats made huge gains in voter registration in a critical swing state this past month.

In other news, a Democrat almost won a special election in Mississippi’s deep-red first Congressional district. Looking like a great year to be a Democrat!

My husband dumped this in the recycling bin today, thinking it was the same mailing we got from Congressman Leonard Boswell’s campaign yesterday. But no, although it uses the same color scheme and the same “scary font,” this is indeed a separate mailing emphasizing Ed Fallon’s support for Ralph Nader in 2000.

I’ve transcribed the piece that arrived today after the jump.

An action alert went out on the Iowa Sierra Club list this morning:

From: Lyle Krewson

Subject: HF2688 up for Senate debate

The Senate Majority Leader  gave the list of bills for today. It includes HF

2688, the Odor Control Bill–please contact your State Senator now!

We do have amendments being offered but no amendments were included during

House debate last week.

ACTION NEEDED:

We need you to contact your State Senator to vote NO on HF2688. Below is a

sample email that you may personalize–always be sure to include your name

and mailing address on an email to a Legislator.

You may find your Iowa State Senator by going to this weblink and using your

address or 9-digit ZIP code: http://www.legis.state.ia.us/F…

If you wish to call your State Senator, the switchboard # is: 515-281-3371.

The rest of the alert, which includes more details about this bill and some talking points for you to use, is after the jump.

What’s going to happen in Pennsylvania today?

Markos predicts a Clinton victory by 8 percent and more than 200,000 votes:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Obama supporter poblano backs up his similar prediction with some interesting analysis:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com…

If Obama keeps this one close (within 5 percent), it will be viewed as a blow to Clinton. If she crushes him like she did in Ohio, it will not be enough to win her the nomination, but it will increase doubts about Obama’s ability to close the deal with Democrats. He massively outspent Clinton over the past six weeks in Pennsylvania.

I think Clinton will win, but not in a blowout: 53-47.

Put your predictions in the comments section.

Tuesday, April 22:

Trash Pick-Up on the Downtown Streetscapes & Trails in Des Moines, 1-4 pm. This clean-up event is organized by Operation Downtown, Des Moines Parks and Recreation, and Riverfront Development Authority. For more information on how you can make a difference or to request a reservation form, email ParksVolunteer@dmgov.org or call (515) 208- 0277.

Earthapalooza at the Iowa City Public Library, 6 pm to 9 pm (Details are at the end of this post.)

Grinnell College student rally at the South Forum Lounge, 7 pm (Ed Fallon will be there.)

Wednesday, April 23:

Democracy for America brings back “Night School”:

Join us as we kick off the 2008 semester with Writing a Field Plan on Wednesday April 23 starting at 8:30pm Eastern.

Our special guest trainer will be Helen Strain, from the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood. Helen will provide expert advice and answer your questions as we outline how to write a campaign blueprint for victory: The Field Plan.

RSVP now: www.dfalink.com/fieldplan

I’ve put more details about that event after the jump.

Thursday, April 24:

Green drinks at the Mars Cafe, 2318 University Avenue in Des Moines, starting at 5:30 pm (Ed Fallon will be there.)

House party for Ed Fallon at Chet’s Firestation, 1041 8th St. in Des Moines, starting at 7 pm. “If you want to join us, call or email Jamie at jamie@fallonforcongress or (515) 822-4284.”

Saturday, April 26:

Sustainable Ecological Economic Development (S.E.E.D.) Mid-Term Conference at North High School in Davenport, 9 am to 4 pm. I’ve put the press release about this event after the jump.

House party for Ed Fallon at the home of Rachel Tone and Bob Schulte, 726 Polk Blvd Des Moines, 5 pm to 7:30 pm. “Come join us for live piano music with Sam Salamone and wine/cheese. Also for every $50 donation you will get a raffle ticket and a chance to win door prizes of the hosts’ art and jewelry! RSVP Jamie at (515) 822-4284.”

Note: I can’t find details about house parties or other campaign appearances on Boswell’s campaign website, but if someone can point me to a place where I can find those, I will start including them in my posts about upcoming events.  

I’ve mentioned before that it’s scandalous for the Washington press corps to cover for John McCain’s legendary anger management problem after the way they collaborated in making Howard Dean and Al Gore look angry and unstable.

Washington Post reporter Michael Leahy wrote this long article on McCain’s temperament for the paper’s Sunday edition. Read the whole thing. It begins with an anecdote about McCain blowing up at Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley in 1992, and Republicans who know McCain share many other stories as well.

One of the most appalling discusses McCain’s behavior after an election-night victory party for Arizona Republicans in 1986:

After McCain finished his speech, he returned to a suite in the hotel, sat down in front of a TV and viewed a replay of his remarks, angry to discover that the speaking platform had not been erected high enough for television cameras to capture all of his face — he seemed to have been cut off somewhere between his nose and mouth.

A platform that had been adequate for taller candidates had not taken into account the needs of the 5-foot-9 McCain, who left the suite and went looking for a man in his early 20s named Robert Wexler, the head of Arizona’s Young Republicans, which had helped make arrangements for the evening’s celebration. Confronting Wexler in a hotel ballroom, McCain exploded, according to witnesses who included Jon Hinz, then executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. McCain jabbed an index finger in Wexler’s chest.

“I told you we needed a stage,” he screamed, according to Hinz. “You incompetent little [expletive]. When I tell you to do something, you do it.”

Hinz recalls intervening, placing his 6-foot-6 frame between the senator-elect and the young volunteer. “John, this is not the time or place for this,” Hinz remembers saying to McCain, who fumed that he hadn’t been seen clearly by television viewers. Hinz recollects finally telling McCain: “John, look, I’ll follow you out on stage myself next time. I’ll make sure everywhere you go there is a milk crate for you to stand on. But this is enough.”

McCain spun around on his heels and left. He did not talk to Hinz again for several years. In 2000, as Hinz recalls, he appeared briefly on the Christian Broadcasting Network to voice his worries about McCain’s temperament on televangelist Pat Robertson’s show, “The 700 Club.” Hinz’s concerns have since grown with reports of incidents in and out of Arizona.

We need to educate Americans who think McCain is a reasonable moderate about this side of his personality.

Also worth reading is Elizabeth Edwards’ latest blog post on McCain’s inadequate health care plan.

After she criticized his plan this month, McCain went on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos to call her criticism a “cheap shot.” Elizabeth Edwards had noted that McCain benefited from government health care coverage his whole life, but McCain pointed out that he didn’t have access to good health care while he was a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam.

If McCain was hoping she would feel too bad to respond, he’s out of luck. She points out some important facts:

Sen. McCain noted that he was not receiving government health care for the six years he was in captivity. That is true. But it has nothing to do with my point – which is that the problem with Sen. McCain’s health care plan is not how it affects us — but how it affects the tens of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions who, unlike Sen. McCain and myself, do not have the resources to pay for quality health care.

That is not a cheap shot, it is a potentially life and death question for tens of million of Americans. And it is a question Sen. McCain must address.

McCain’s health care plan is centered around the idea that we’d be better off if more Americans bought health coverage on their own, rather than receiving it through a job or government program. But maybe since he has never purchased insurance in the individual market, he does not know the challenge it presents for Americans with preexisting conditions.

A recent study showed that nearly nine out of every ten people seeking individual coverage on the private insurance market never got it. Insurers will disqualify you for just taking certain medicines because of the possibility of future costs, including common drugs as Lipitor, Zocor, Nexium, and Advair. People who have had cancer are denied coverage and those who get cancer run the risk of simply being dropped by their insurer for any excuse that can be found. And insurers make it a practice to deny coverage to individuals in high risk occupations, such as firefighting, lumber work, telecom installation, and pretty much anything more risky than working in an office.

Read her whole post. She also has a go at McCain’s strange suggestion that he might create a “special Medicaid trust fund” to help cover people with preexisting conditions.

We should go after McCain now–not wait for the Democratic nomination to be settled.

Last month, while writing about Iowa getting an “F” grade for its open-records law, I commented:

The Register’s editorial board writes a lot about open-records law, and I give them credit for that. Unfortunately, under Gannett’s ownership, the Register hasn’t devoted nearly enough resources to solid investigative reporting.

I wish the editors were assigning more reporters to dig into the information that’s already publicly available.

Former Register editorial page editor Gil Cranberg develops that thought in an op-ed for the independent weekly Cityview, which asks why journalists did not uncover wrongdoing at the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC):

The “CIETC scandal” was truly scandalous – as we’re reminded by the trials that kicked off last week – but it’s a mistake to blame it on a lack of “transparency” or to make it a poster child for Senate File 2378. The overpayments to CIETC executives were hiding in plain sight. The state auditor found them, and made a fuss, without having to issue subpoenas. For all of the ink spilled about CIETC I’m not aware of any that was used to explain how and why the press missed the huge overpayments until many months later when the auditor cried foul.

Sure, it helps to have strong laws to let the sunshine in. But inexperienced citizens can only do so much to uncover wrongdoing. If sunshine laws are to be effective, they have to be implemented by a press with the staff and space to make people sit up and take notice.

Unfortunately, the press is deep into retrenchment mode. Notice how page widths have narrowed? That means less space for news coverage. It’s the rare paper that trumpets how many fewer reporters, copy editors and editors it has, but loss of staff is unmistakable.

In the same issue of Cityview, the author of the “Civic Skinny” column delights in noting that the Des Moines Register just got shut out of the Pulitzers again,

as it has been every year since 1991. What’s more, alack, no Gannett newspaper won a Pulitzer – or was even a finalist this year.

If you want to win a Pulitzer, it helps to put some resources into investigative reporting.

I still don’t have any information about Congressman Leonard Boswell’s internal polling, and six weeks before the June 3 primary, there are still no public polls on this race. However, it’s notable that the Boswell campaign has sent out a negative direct-mail piece focusing on Ed Fallon’s support for Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign.

My husband and I received the latest mailing today. Most of the text is in a bizarre font, in which the letters are not aligned properly and each letter looks as if a tiny piece has been broken off or torn away. The effect is to make the text look unstable, somewhat like a ransom note.

I know nothing about graphic design and have no idea what this kind of font is called. For lack of a better term, I’m calling it the “scary font” in this post.

After the jump I’ve described the visuals and transcribed the text of this mailer.

Every four years, the Republican Party sets out to brand the Democratic presidential candidate as an out-of-touch elitist, and it’s frustrating how well this strategy seems to work for them. I am old enough to remember how they made Michael Dukaksis, the son of middle-class Greek immigrants, out to be more elitist than George H.W. Bush, the son of a senator who grew up in a very privileged environment, attending elite private schools from a very young age.

Progressive Media USA is trying to turn the tables by releasing this web video about “The Fabulous Life of John McCain”:

I have mixed feelings about this strategy. I don’t think we want to say don’t vote for McCain because he married a wealthy woman and has multiple fancy residences.

On the other hand, it is pretty damning to watch video clips of McCain advising struggling Americans to work a second job or skip a vacation, when we’ve just learned that McCain has an American Express “black centurion” card, which is apparently reserved for people who spend more than $250,000 on it each year.

I also like the clip of McCain answering a question about our economic problems by saying, “A lot of this is psychological.” The video closes by asking viewers how McCain can solve our problems if he can’t understand them.

What do you think about this video and/or the general strategy of trying to brand McCain as a super-wealthy elitist?

Every once in a while on one of the national political blogs, a supporter of Hillary Clinton or John Edwards will assert that Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses by busing in thousands of ineligible voters from out of state.

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I am no fan of Obama, and I’ve strongly criticized some aspects of the Iowa caucus system.

But I have yet to encounter any serious observer of Iowa politics who believes Obama won Iowa by cheating. I have been talking to many volunteers for the Clinton and Edwards campaigns in Iowa, and a few staffers, while researching a future diary on how those candidates might have beaten Obama here. Literally no one I’ve talked with has claimed that Obama did not legitimately win the caucuses.

No doubt there were some people from out of state who fraudulently registered to vote here on caucus night. I’ve heard that may have been a particular problem in some areas of Scott County. But I haven’t seen any evidence that the Obama campaign orchestrated any fraud, and there’s no way the cheaters were numerous enough to account for Obama’s margin of victory here.

If you don’t believe me, read this story from the Des Moines Register: Caucuses drew few ineligible voters:

The Register review of voter registration data from all 99 counties reveals a low rate of new voter applications filled out on caucus night by people whose addresses later could not be verified.

Only 1.5 percent of the new voter identification cards mailed to voters who registered on caucus night were returned to county auditors as undeliverable. That’s an indication that the vast majority of new caucus-night voters had a bona fide address in Iowa.

State officials say the low error rate is impressive, especially since caucus-night turnout vastly exceeded expectations and overwhelmed local party officials around the state.

The other argument I hear from the occasional conspiracy theorist on a different blog is that Obama’s campaign bused in large numbers of students from out of state. First, that would have affected turnout in a relatively small number of Iowa’s 1,800 precincts.

Second, as long as those students attend Iowa colleges and live in state most of the year, I have no problem with a campaign helping them get back to their campuses in early January. What’s the qualitative difference between that and my giving someone in my neighborhood a ride to the caucus if he or she can’t drive?

The caucuses never should have been scheduled during the winter vacation of most colleges anyway.  

On Friday my husband and I received the latest direct-mail piece from Congressman Leonard Boswell’s campaign. Like his recent mailings about the economy and the Iraq War, this piece portrays Boswell as a fighter.

It’s not very subtle, with five references to Boswell “taking on” the opposition and three references to him fighting or not being afraid of a fight.

I’ve described the layout of the four-page mailer and transcribed its text after the jump.

I’ve just read this wonderful feature in the Sunday Register about Ronald Autry and his parents, Jim Autry and former Lieutenant Governor Sally Pederson.

The article discusses Ronald Autry’s education and the steps he and his parents took to help him learn to live independently as an adult. It also talks about his parents’ role in creating a new program at the University of Iowa:

The REACH program – Realizing Educational and Career Hopes – is interviewing people who hope to be among the inaugural class of 25 students. It’s only the second program at a major public university in the United States; the other started last fall at UCLA.

“This is the new frontier for special education,” director Dennis C. Harper says.

Students with multiple disabilities will be integrated into the student body, live in residence halls, take classes, do laundry, manage their money.

And learn to fall and get up, just like any young adult.

This sounds like a great program, and I congratulate everyone who helped get it going. It required private fundraising as well as a commitment from the university.

The article reminded me that I haven’t blogged yet about April being Autism Awareness Month. Since becoming a mother I’ve gotten to know several moms of children with autism. It’s a spectrum disorder that manifests in many ways, and most likely has many different causes.

One thing I’ve learned from my friends and acquaintances is that early intervention is extremely important for children with autism. Parents are understandably reluctant to have their children labeled, but if tuned-in parents are genuinely concerned about their child’s development, it’s better to seek out a diagnosis as soon as possible.

Some children with autism respond very well to a special gluten-free/casein-free diet, or extra doses of vitamin B-6 with magnesium, or extensive speech and occupational therapy. I know of some families who have seen so much improvement that their children were able to eventually lose their autism diagnosis.

Not only are the treatment options more likely to work better at a younger age, but a diagnosis may be needed before parents can access some of the state and local services for children with autism.

Lots of resources for families affected by autism can be found on the websites of Autism Speaks and the Autism Research Institute.

However, it’s worth noting that some autistics are offended by the idea that autism is a “disease” that should be “cured”; they want services to support autistics without trying to make their brains function “normally.” The Autism Speaks organization has been particularly criticized by these advocates of “neurodiversity”.

Daily Kos diarist plf515 (who is writing a fantastic series on the Congressional races, by the way) has a learning disability “in the same ballpark as Asperger’s,” which is on the autism spectrum. Last year he wrote a good diary: A little bit special: Things not to say to LD people (or their parents).

I can’t resist ending this diary with plf515’s favorite joke about Asperger’s:

A guy is flying in a hot air balloon, and he’s lost.  He lowers himself over a field and calls to a guy “Can you tell me where I am and where I’m headed?”

“Sure.  You’re at 41 degrees 2 minutes and 14 seconds North, 144 degrees 4 minute and 19 seconds East; you’re at an altitude of 762 meters above sea level, and right now you’re hovering, but you were on a vector of 234 degrees at 12 meters per second”

“Amazing! Thanks!  By the way, do you have Asperger’s Syndrome?”

“I do! How did you know that?”

“Because everything you said is true, it’s much more detail than I need, and you told me in a way that’s no use to me at all.”

“Huh.  Are you a clinical psychologist?”

“I am, but how the heck did you know that??”

“You don’t know where you are.  You don’t know where you’re going.  You got where you are by blowing hot air.  You put labels on people after asking a few questions, and you’re in exactly the same spot you were 5 minutes ago, but now, somehow, it’s my fault!

Last week was disappointing for Iowa environmentalists in several ways, which I’ll discuss in future posts. Thankfully, I opened the Des Moines Register today to find an editorial opposing plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown:

Five years ago, when MidAmerican started construction at Council Bluffs, a Register editorial made just one reference to global warming and declared that Iowa “is on the right course by encouraging development of modern, cleaner-burning coal plants while pursuing renewable fuels and rewarding consumers who use less energy.” The newspaper also praised Alliant’s plans for new generating capacity.

Today, the editorial board has concluded that building a coal-fired plant in Marshalltown is not now the right course for Iowa. The right course would place far greater emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable sources of generation, particularly wind. For power plants, it would encourage a harder look at natural gas, which emits much less carbon dioxide, and would specify that any new “cleaner-burning coal plants” must be able, at least on the near horizon, to capture and sequester carbon dioxide.

For background on strengthening energy efficiency and finding alternatives to coal in Iowa, check out this page on the Iowa Environmental Council’s website.

On the right side of the screen you can click on a pdf file, which is a position paper specifically about coal-fired power plants.

For much more information about coal, including the costs of coal and the impacts of coal-fired generation of electricity, the Union of Concerned Scientists website has comprehensive information.

I won’t be posting often this weekend. I’m going to visit cousins for a Passover seder today (chag sameach to the Jewish Bleeding Heartland readers!). Tomorrow I’ll be spending a lot of time at Earth Day in the Junction.

Have a great weekend, and put up a diary if you’ve got anything interesting to report.

Consider this an open thread to talk about the big Obama rally for change in Des Moines today, or about  any Earth Day events this weekend.

The wonderful nyceve caught this unintentional comedy from John McCain as he answered a question about his health:

“Everything’s fine,” McCain told reporters during a news conference. “Like most Americans, I go see my doctor fairly frequently.”

As nyceve points out in her latest diary, “most Americans” do not go see the doctor frequently, especially not if they are only covered through a Health Savings Account. That’s the centerpiece of McCain’s health care plan, but nyceve gives us a reality check:

If all you’re able to afford is High Deductible Junk Insurance which McBush is pushing as a solution to our healthcare catastrophe, then you don’t to go to a doctor “fairly frequently” as McCain does. You don’t attend to routine health problems because you can’t afford to. High deductible health insurance offers bare bones coverage and is insurance in name only.

So what do you do if you have junk insurance?  You wait and hope and pray that you recover. Some Americans even procure medicine from pet stores which often sell a variety of antibotics at low prices.

Her diary also included a link to this report:

More than a quarter of Americans have skipped or postponed an essential visit to a doctor because it was too expensive, a new MSN-Zogby poll says.

Nearly half (48%) say they pay more in health-insurance premiums than a year ago, and 37% say they pay more out of pocket for medical services or prescriptions.

The results of the poll of 9,765 adults suggest that medical expenses are becoming a heavier burden on household finances, even for middle-income Americans.

Go read the whole diary, which includes a video of a 33-year-old man who was uninsured when he was diagnosed with lymphoma. He describes the choices he had to make while undergoing cancer treatment without health insurance. Of course, no private insurer will sell him a policy now that he has had cancer, a problem McCain’s health care plan would do nothing to correct.

By the way, DemFromCT points out the inconvenient fact that McCain supported George Bush’s veto of Congress’s attempt to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. When will the media stop calling him a maverick?

The Des Moines Register reports, “A Des Moines pizza delivery driver who was suspended after he shot an alleged armed robber said today that he has been fired.”

http://www.desmoinesregister.c…

They are giving him two months’ severance pay (minimum wage only, not making up for tips he would have earned) and, at his request, paying for counseling.

State Senator Brad Zaun (Republican of Urbandale) says he is following through on his threat to boycott the pizza chain:

“I think what he did was the right thing,” Sen. Brad Zaun, a Republican from Urbandale, said earlier this month. “If was in a situation to protect my family, protect myself, to continue being a father, I would’ve done the same thing.”

[…]

“I think it’s the wrong decision by Pizza Hut and I will not be buying any more Pizza Hut products,” he said. “You tell me any Iowan that was in his situation, that had a gun put to his head, how they would’ve reacted differently.”

I feel sorry for this guy. He violated company policy against carrying guns, but his fears for his safety were founded, as he was held up at gunpoint during a shift. Statistically, the gun you carry is unlikely to be used in self-defense, but in his case it sounds like it was.

At the same time, I understand why Pizza Hut is letting him go. If they make an exception for him and some other delivery driver who carries a gun uses it in an unlawful way (for instance, gets road rage and shoots at some car that cut him off), Pizza Hut would face a major liability lawsuit.

My dad, who was an attorney, used to say, “Tough cases make bad law.” In this case, I think that means that the Pizza Hut rules should reflect what’s most safe for the public most of the time, and not this exceptional situation.

Still, I can’t help but feel that this guy did not deserve to be fired. I hope he gets another, better, job offer soon, and I hope counseling will help him deal with this traumatic experience.

I could probably count the number of times I’ve eaten at Pizza Hut in the last ten years on one hand, so I can’t say this episode will affect my likelihood of going there again.

How about you? Are you less likely to order from Pizza Hut now?

Progressive Kick launched this website today, which asks, “Who Does Congressman Leonard Boswell Pull For?–Iowans or Special Interests?

The site links to Progressive Punch tables showing Boswell’s voting record on key issues, and also to Open Secrets tables showing how much money Boswell has raised from various types of interest groups.

If you are not familiar with the Progressive Punch Congressional rankings and scorecards, or with the Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets website, you should be. Those sites contain a lot of important information about our representatives.

UPDATE: Progressive Kick sent me the following press release this afternoon:

Progressive Kick Unveils Animated Web Site Spotlighting Congressman Leonard Boswell’s Voting Record & Campaign Contributions

4/18 For Immediate Release –

whoreallyownscongress.com/Boswell was unveiled today by Progressive Kick. The new web site powerfully demonstrates the links between Congressman Leonard Boswell’s (Democrat – Iowa 3rd) voting record and his campaign contributions. Joshua Grossman, Progressive Kick’s president, said that “the new site is an extremely fun place to learn about Boswell, complete with informative and entertaining animation.”

The site depicts the ways Iowans are being abandoned by Boswell by linking his voting records drawn from the Congressional votes web site, ProgressivePunch.org, along with campaign contributor information from the leading campaign finance web site, OpenSecrets.org.

Joshua Grossman went on to say that “I know of no other web site that presents so much information about a member of Congress’ voting record in such an easy to absorb way as does whoreallyownscongress.com/Boswell.”

Progressive Kick plans to profile many other members of Congress in the months ahead. Grossman said that “Progressive Kick is committed to enabling Iowans and all Americans to learn the truth about their members of Congress.”

Please visit whoreallyownscongress.com/Boswell to verify these claims for yourself! For more information, please contact admin@progressivekick.org.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards were all on the Colbert Report on Thursday.

The whole show was hilarious, so catch the rerun on Friday if you’ve got cable. But I just had to post this You Tube of Edwards doing “The Word” segment (thanks, NCDem!):

Too funny.

On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart absolutely skewered the moderators of that ABC Clinton-Obama debate. Also well worth watching the rerun. I couldn’t find that video on the Comedy Central site yet, though.

This Sunday is Earth Day, and many groups have scheduled events to capitalize on the increased awareness of environmental issues that comes around this time every year.

Saturday, April 19:

Blues for Greens Earth Day Festival, Walnut Street bridge in downtown Des Moines, 9:30 am to 4:00 pm. Lots of eco-friendly exhibitors and music acts. For more information, go to www.bluesforgreens.com. (Note: Ed Fallon will speak at this event at 10:30 am.)

Free classes on babywearing (10 am) and cloth diapering (11 am) by local expert Sarah Reid in the Urbandale Library Conference Room. She writes, “I’ll bring my giant bag of slings and do some demos and discuss the benefits of babywearing and pros and cons of each type of carrier, and then will have open time for questions and trying on the carriers. The diapering class, I bring all my diapers that I bring to the meetings, plus more, and walk through the basics of cloth diapering, including types of diapers, pros and cons of types of diapers, how to launder, etc. We’ll also have time for questions.”

Energy Experts Open House at 527 S.W. Carriage Ct., Ankeny, IA, 11 am to 3pm. People building or remodeling homes can “learn about the house as a system” as well as about geothermal heating and cooling, windows, insulation and more. R.S.V.P. to info@PrairieFoam.com. Go to www.PrairieFoam.com for details.

Wayne J. Bingham, Architect & Author, is speaking about straw bale homes at the Des Moines Art Center at 2:00 pm. (This event is hosted by the Art Center, Center on Sustainable Communities, and Earth Day in the Junction.) Bingham will focus on choices for building shelters that account for climate stability, air and water quality, ecosystems and biodiversity. Consider attending this free lecture by the author of Small Strawbale: Natural Homes, Projects and Designs and Natural Timber Frame Homes.

Nation for Change Obama Rally, 2:30 pm at the west side of the Capitol, E. 9th St. and Grand, Des Moines. (Note: Ed Fallon will appear at this event.)



Sunday, April 20:

Earth Day in the Junction, Railroad Park in Valley Junction, West Des Moines, 9 am to 3 pm. Lots of free events, and lots of exhibitors. The Fallon campaign will be there, but I haven’t heard whether the Boswell campaign will have a table as well. (I will be helping staff tables for two non-profit groups I’m involved with.) For more information on the exhibitors and the events scheduled during the day:

www.earthdayinthejunction.org



Tuesday, April 22:

Trash Pick-Up on the Downtown Streetscapes & Trails in Des Moines, 1-4 pm. This clean-up event is organized by Operation Downtown, Des Moines Parks and Recreation, and Riverfront Development Authority. For more information on how you can make a difference or to request a reservation form, email ParksVolunteer@dmgov.org or call (515) 208- 0277.

Earthapalooza at the Iowa City Public Library, 6 pm to 9 pm. According to a press release:

The Iowa Global Warming Campaign, Sierra Club and I-Renew are hosting a special “Earth Day” event on Tuesday, April 22, which is open to members of the public. The event offers free admission and refreshments and will feature a film screening of “Global Warming: the Signs and the Science.”

(More details about the Earthapalooza event are after the jump.)

Please use this as an open thread to let us know about other events coming up over the next few days.

The non-profit Public Campaign advocates for public financing of campaigns, which “makes elections about voters and not lobbyists and campaign donors.”  

The group has declared April 14-18 “Fair Elections Action Week”:

The Fair Elections Now Act, introduced by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) and its companion legislation in the House represent our best chance to date to see the Clean Elections public financing programs that have been so successful at the state level be enacted for Congress. In the midst of an election season when campaign fundraising and campaign spending are at an all time high, we need to rally behind legislation that will drastically reduce the influence of special interest money on elections, and put the focus of candidates for federal office back on the voters.

I’m proud to say that Senator Tom Harkin is among the co-sponsors of the Durbin bill. As we’ve reported at Bleeding Heartland, Harkin is no slouch when it comes to fundraising under the current system; he started this year with more than $3 million in the bank. Yet Harkin has the good sense to support clean elections reform.

The excessive influence of moneyed interests in Washington is obvious to anyone who follows Congress closely. If we can take a step toward reducing the role money plays in our elections, we may be able to make progress on a lot of other issues.

Unfortunately, Congressman Leonard Boswell is not on board with the House bill on public financing, as this letter to the editor by a former Common Cause intern mentions. It would be great if he had a change of heart on this issue, but that seems unlikely.

Can any Boswell supporter explain to me why he hasn’t stepped up to co-sponsor this bill?

By the way, as you probably know already, Ed Fallon would support this election reform at the federal level. He has strongly advocated for the Voter-Owned Iowa Clean Elections Act, which would create a voluntary public financing system similar to those which enjoy massive bipartisan support in Maine and Arizona.

I wasn’t surprised to get this e-mail from the Boswell campaign today:

Iowa Corn Growers Association Votes to Endorse Congressman Leonard Boswell

Des Moines, IA – The Iowa Corn Growers Association Political Action Committee (PAC) voted to endorse Congressman Leonard Boswell today.  “I am very pleased to accept the endorsement of the Iowa Corn Growers Association,” said Congressman Boswell.  “As a hands-on farmer, I have had a relationship with the Iowa Corn Growers for many years. The work they do is crucial to the success and prosperity of Iowa’s corn producers.”

“The Iowa Corn Growers Association appreciates Congressman Boswell’s current work on the Farm Bill.  He provides consistent leadership on behalf of Iowa farmers, and we look forward to working with him in the future out in Washington,” said Max Smith, committee member of the Iowa Corn Growers Association PAC.

The Iowa Corn Growers Association consists of nearly 6,000 members across the state of Iowa.

Boswell certainly is a steadfast supporter of the current federal agriculture policy, and large corn growers do profit from that policy.

Many people, including myself, think that policy benefits a relatively small number of relatively large farms. Corn subsidies in particular have been cited as a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic, as high-fructose corn syrup has been added to so many processed foods and drinks.

I would like to see a shift in our national agriculture policy, which would provide more support for conservation, crop diversity, local food networks and small farmers. I don’t expect much help from Boswell on those issues. But that works out great for large-scale corn growers.

Democracy for America sent out an e-mail yesterday highlighting this new video, “Condi Must Go,” from Brave New Films:

Watch the video and see how many times she told Congress that the U.S. does not condone torture, would not condone torture, has never condoned torture, and so on.

Note that she didn’t say that we do not torture. That’s because Rice presided over high-level meetings at which torture methods were explicitly discussed and authorized.

No, we don’t “condone” torture, because that would be illegal. We just break the law and order prisoners to be tortured without “condoning” the practice.

She is a disgrace and should resign. Sign the petition at:

www.condimustgo.com

By the way, do any of Congressman Boswell’s supporters out there want to defend his vote for the Military Commissions Act? You know, that bill that “gave the President the ultimate authority to determine which interrogation techniques qualify as ‘torture.’” The bill that more than 80 percent of Boswell’s fellow House Democrats opposed.

David Elbert wrote an interesting piece for Wednesday’s Des Moines Register about a mixed-use developments in the “East Village” area of downtown Des Moines. The article’s main focus is a new project that

will have retail on the ground floor, offices on the second and residential units on the third, fourth and fifth floors.

It’s a combination found in stylish developments from Boston to Seattle. Sort of a 21st-century version of the strip mall, without cars and more compact.

Tenants like the concept because the multiple-use design brings people together.

Developers like it because three profit centers – retail, commercial and residential – spread risk in uncertain times.

These neighborhoods offer a good quality of life for people who want a more urban setting, and are good for developers too.

What Elbert didn’t mention is that compact development is also good for the environment; it can reduce the carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming.

First, mixed-use developments substantially reduce emissions from cars, because their residents live close to amenities and have alternatives to driving. The “Growing Cooler” report on Smart Growth America’s website explains why:

“Curbing emissions from cars depends on a three-legged stool: improved vehicle efficiency, cleaner fuels, and a reduction in driving,” said lead author Reid Ewing, Research Professor at the National Center for Smart Growth, University of Maryland. “The research shows that one of the best ways to reduce vehicle travel is to build places where people can accomplish more with less driving.”

Depending on several factors, from mix of land uses to pedestrian-friendly design, compact development reduces driving from 20 to 40 percent, and more in some instances, according to the forthcoming book Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change. Typically, Americans living in compact urban neighborhoods where cars are not the only transportation option drive a third fewer miles than those in automobile-oriented suburbs, the researchers found.

[…]

“Clearly, the development industry has a key role in the search for solutions to offset the impact of climate change,” said ULI Senior Resident Fellow William H. Hudnut, III, former mayor of Indianapolis. “Whether close-in or in suburbs, well-planned communities give residents the option to walk, bike or take transit to nearby shopping, retail and entertainment. Being able to spend less time behind the wheel will benefit our health, our pocketbooks and the environment.”

Implementing the policies recommended in the report would reverse a decades-long trend. Since 1980, the number of miles Americans drive has grown three times faster than population, and almost twice as fast as vehicle registrations. Spread-out development is the key factor in that rate of growth, the research team found.

The findings show that people who move into compact, “green neighborhoods” are making as big a contribution to fighting global warming as those who buy the most efficient hybrid vehicles, but remain in car-dependent areas.

Second, apartments or condominiums in mixed-use buildings like the ones described in Elbert’s piece cost less to heat and cool. If you’ve ever used one of those online tools to calculate your carbon footprint, you know that having a stand-alone house with four exterior walls significantly increases your energy usage.

Thanks to Blog for Iowa, I learned that the “King Corn” documentary will be shown on Iowa Public Television on Sunday, April 20 (Earth Day) at 10:30 pm.

IPTV digital has already shown the film twice this week and will show it again on Friday, April 18 at 10 am and on Monday, April 21 at 9 am.

For more information about this film, which has gotten great reviews, click here.

I learned from the Iowa Voters blog that Steve King (IA-05) and Tom Latham (IA-04) were among the 85 percent of Republicans in the U.S. House who voted against New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt’s bill encouraging verifiable elections on Tuesday.

For details on the bill, click here. Here’s the gist:

H.R. 5036, as reported to the floor by the committee, would authorize funding to reimburse states with paperless jurisdictions that convert to paper-based voting systems in 2008 or provide emergency paper ballots that would be counted as regular ballots in the event of machine failure. The reimbursements would cover the cost of equipment conversion (from paperless touch screen machines to paper-based systems, such as optical scanners or computers with printers) and the cost of developing procedures for conducting hand-counted audits using independent, random selection of at least 2 percent of the precincts for audits under public observation.

Holt noted that two weeks ago, the House Administration Committee unanimously approved this bill. However, after the White House came out against the bill, 176 out of 203 Republicans fell in line.

At his blog, IowaVoter pointed out that the bill King and Latham voted against would have “re-imbursed Iowa for the expense of replacing our touchscreens.” (Two weeks ago Governor Chet Culver signed a law requiring all Iowa counties to use optical scanners and paper ballots.)

But no, King and Latham would rather rubber-stamp the Bush administration’s opposition to a bill that was voted unanimously out of committee.  

We don’t turn on the tv while children are awake, so I won’t be watching. Maybe I will catch the repeat later.

If you watched, let us know how the candidates did.

UPDATE: The consensus in the liberal blogosphere is that the questions were a disgrace, even by the low standards set in other presidential debates this cycle. More than 40 minutes passed before a question on a real issue came up. Hugely important issues were never brought up–instead it was one stupid “gotcha” question after another directed at Barack Obama.

I’m glad I didn’t waste my time.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Judy Woodruff, who moderated the AARP forum for PBS last September, was the only journalist who did well at any of the presidential debates last year. She asked substantive, direct questions about real issues and followed up appropriately. No trick questions, no wasting time on the overblown media flap of the week.

Lynda Waddington has written a good profile of Pat VanZante, who is running in Republican-held House District 71 this year. She sounds like a great candidate. That includes most of Marion County and part of Jasper County.

I would like to see more in-depth coverage of our statehouse candidates and their races at this blog.

I encourage all Democratic campaigns to consider posting here to keep us up to date. I plan to promote all diaries by Democratic candidates in Iowa to the front page.

Congressman Leonard Boswell has been re-branding himself lately as someone who is “standing up to George Bush” and “taking on George Bush for the change we need”.

Which would be great, except that on some of the most important votes he has cast during the Bush presidency, Boswell has sided with George Bush and the Republican majority, rather than with the majority of his fellow House Democrats.

Today Ed Fallon’s campaign put out a press release highlighting one of those votes in connection with recent reports that Bush appointees at the highest level were involved in approving acts of torture.

Here is an excerpt:

Fallon notes his opponent Leonard Boswell, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, has publicly expressed his disapproval of torture. “Unfortunately, it’s clear that his voting record is inconsistent with his public position,” says Fallon.

According to Congressional voting records, Congressman Boswell voted for the Military Commissions Act (S.3930, 09/27/06), which gave the President the ultimate authority to determine which interrogation techniques qualify as ‘torture.’ Fallon says, “Boswell sided with Bush and broke with 82% of House Democrats who voted against this bill.”

The Military Commissions Act also permits the admission of statements into evidence that were obtained by torture, as well as giving retroactive immunity to any officials who authorized acts of torture. It also suspends habeas corpus, allowing the government to detain hundreds of prisoners for years without ever filing charges against them.

The press release also notes that Boswell has to date declined to sign on to H.R. 952, which would prohibit the “extraordinary rendition” of people in U.S. custody to countries where they will be tortured.

I would like one Boswell supporter reading this to put up a comment or diary defending the incumbent’s vote on the Military Commissions Act. Explain to me why Boswell was right to let Bush appointees authorize torture, and let the president order people to be arrested and held without charges indefinitely.

The full text of Fallon’s press release is after the jump.

I don’t plan to ever move again, if I can help it, but we live in a mobile society, and many voters have moved since the last election.

John Deeth wrote an important piece for his blog and for Iowa Independent:

A mailing this week from the Secretary of State’s office could be a nice convenience to recently moved voters, or a headache at the polls. Voters who think they’re updating their address may in fact be canceling their registration.

If you’ve moved to a different county in Iowa and you’ve filled out an official change of address card, you have canceled your registration in your old county but have not registered in your new county until you fill out a separate voter registration form.

Iowa now has same-day voter registration, so you could register at your new address on election day, but to do that you have to bring identification and proof of your new address to the polling place.

Deeth has more details in his post. The bottom line is, make sure you are registered to vote at your new address, or make sure you bring ID and proof of address with you on election day.

Yesterday I received another four-page direct-mail piece from the Boswell campaign. Like one I got last week, this was paid for by Boswell for Congress and not the U.S. treasury. Also like the last mailer, it casts Boswell as someone who stands up to George Bush–in this case, on the war in Iraq.

The front page features a large photo of a young child clutching an American flag and peeking over the shoulder of the man in uniform who is holding him. The text to the left of the photo reads:

In 5 years…

_____________

4,000 killed

30,000 wounded

$1 trillion spent

_____________

It’s time to end

the war and

take care of

our veterans…

The top line of that text is in red–the rest is in large black type.

Page 2 of the mailer features a large photo of Boswell, with this text in large type:

Congressman Leonard Boswell

is working to:

Help our veterans.

End the war.

Page three has two smaller photos on the right side; one of Boswell speaking at a press conference, the other showing him talking with two veterans. The text on the left side of the page reads:

Standing Up to George Bush

Congressman Boswell voted five times to create a timetable for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. In five years of war, 4,000 soldiers have lost their lives and 30,000 have been wounded. A trillion dollars has been spent causing incalculable damage to our economy and creating an historic national debt for our children and our grandchildren. Leonard Boswell is working to end the war that George Bush started.

Standing Up for Our Veterans

A 20-year veteran who understands the true cost of war, Leonard Boswell has worked tirelessly on behalf of our veterans. He voted for the largest VA funding increase in history and fought to improve health care access for our wounded soldiers. He wrote a bill to provide better mental health care for our men and women in uniform and is working to bring the troops home every day. He authored and passed the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Ac.

Leonard Boswell is Taking on

George Bush for the Changes We Need

For more information: www.boswellforcongress.com

Democratic Primary – June 3rd

The last page has a small photo of Boswell talking with a man and a woman, and a small photo of him with his wife Dody. Across the top in large print, it reads:

Congressman Leonard Boswell

Working to End the War and Help Our Veterans

In smaller type on the right-hand side are the following bullet points:

A 20-year veteran – served two tours in Vietnam

Voted five times for a timetable to withdraw the troops from Iraq *

Voted for the largest VA funding increase in history

Fighting to improve health care access for wounded soldiers

Working to provide better mental health care for our veterans

Authored the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act

In very small print next to an asterisk below the photos are the numbers of the bills referred to in the bullet point on withdrawing troops from Iraq: H.R. 1591: RC 186, RC 265, RC 276; H.R. 2956: RC 624; H.R. 4156: RC 1108

At the bottom there’s contact information for the campaign and “Paid for by Boswell for Congress.”

Last month I posted about the “plain language” bill that Congressman Bruce Braley (D, IA-01) shepherded out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The Des Moines Register’s Jane Norman reports that the House approved the bill on April 14 by a vote of 376-1:

“Some find it unusual that this plain language bill was introduced by someone who practiced law for 20 years before going to Congress,” [Braley] said. But he added that clear language has been a passion of his since 1983, when the Iowa Supreme Court adopted plain language requirements for jury instructions.

The bill would apply to many complex government documents that citizens now find tough to understand, including letters from Social Security, Medicare or the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Braley told reporters that he worked closely with Rep. William Sali, an Idaho Republican, on the bill, and that Sali was the one who proposed amending it to make it clear that Internal Revenue Service documents will be included.

Norman wrote that a similar bill in the U.S. Senate has already been voted out of committee.

I should note that while Sali can be a real jerk at times, it’s good that he was able to work with Braley and help bring the GOP along on this sensible government reform.

Just got this e-mail from the Polk County Democrats:

From the Obama Campaign:

Dear Polk County Democrats,

The presidential season is still upon us and it has been fabulous to have watched the campaigns evolve in Iowa and continue to battle their way through the rest of the country.

As we all know, regardless of who the nominee is, we have work to do together as Democrats to elect a Democratic President to the White House and keep our Congress controlled by the Democrats

In the spirit of unity, we wanted to make it clear that the Obama campaign is not promoting a candidate in any of the local, state or congressional campaigns. We reject any efforts that give that impression.

If you have any questions and want to reach our campaign, please don’t hesitate to send an email to iowa@barackobama.com and we will get back to you.

Some of you may have heard about an upcoming Obama rally on Saturday. The Nation for Change Rally is being organized SOLELY by a grassroots group of Iowa Obama supporters who are excited about Senator Obama and would like to spread his message. If you would like more information on the event (Saturday, April 19th at 2:30 pm at Capitol) please email Cheryl Fasano at angelswings51@hotmail.com.

Sincerely,

The Iowa Obama Campaign

Anyone know what this is about? I have not heard of any state, local or Congressional candidates trying to claim they have Obama’s backing.

I know that Ed Fallon is planning to be at that Obama rally on Saturday. Are they worried that the appearance will be construed as an endorsement of Fallon by Obama?

A Public Policy Update from

1000 Friends of Iowa arrived in my in-box this afternoon. It urges citizens to contact legislators to ask them to vote no on House File 2691 and Senate File 2420.

You can find your legislator through this site:

http://www.legis.state.ia.us/F…

To call members of the House, dial (515) 281-3221; for members of the Senate, dial (515) 281-3371.

You can contact Governor Chet Culver’s office at (515) 281-5211, or use an e-mail form here:

http://www.governor.iowa.gov/a…

The full text of the action alert is after the jump, but here are some highlights. The two main problems with these identical bills are:

  1. There is no fix-it-first policy to assure us that maintenance will come first, and in this legislation, the new money could be wasted on expensive new roads.

  2. Public transit does not receive additional, annual funding with the new money. Additional, reliable state funding for transit would help more Iowans avoid high gas prices, and would create more vibrant communities.

Stephanie Weisenbach, program coordinator for 1000 Friends of Iowa, explains why the lack of a “fix-it-first” policy is a problem:

House File 2691 and Senate File 2420 would put up to $126 million more a year into roads. This may look okay on the surface, but here’s the real scoop on this road policy:

The allocation of the funding doesn’t make maintenance the foundation of funding decisions. Sixty percent of it would go to the state for highways, twenty percent to counties, and twenty percent to cities. HERE’S HOW IT WOULD BE SPENT:

   * The Iowa DOT, which would receive a lion’s share of the funding, could waste the money on expensive highway projects for speculative development interests. The legislation lacks language to prioritize maintenance of highways and interstates.

   * Cities could spend their funding on whatever roads they choose- existing OR new – meaning some developers could put the pressure on to fulfill wish lists for new roads.

   * Counties would have to spend their funding primarily on maintenance. However, after learning about the maintenance needs of county roads, it’s obvious that the way this funding would be distributed won’t satisfy maintenance needs of many Iowa counties.

In light of record oil prices and projections that gasoline may cost $4 a gallon soon, you would think that Iowa legislators might see the value of investing more resources into alternative forms of transportation. Unfortunately, you would be wrong:

The Lost Opportunity for Transit:

Transit funding is shuffled to another source or revenue in this legislation, but not increased. In this maneuver of state revenue, the percentage of revenues that transit receives is moved to another pot of money than it’s current source. Its percentage of funding of this mix of revenues was 4 percent in the old system, and 4 percent in the new system due to this legislation. This is essentially the same amount, about 10 million depending on the fluctuation of fees that are paid. Lawmakers could have bumped up that percentage and provided a few million extra dollars of reliable money each year to urban and rural transit systems statewide. But they haven’t.

Iowa’s state funding for public transit seems particularly inadequate when you compare it to what our neighbors to the north provide, as I learned from this recent radio news story:

Legislature “Missing the Bus” On Transit Funding?

April 11, 2008

Des Moines, IA – With gas prices soaring ever higher, more Iowans are turning to public transit to get around. However, such transportation is not getting much attention at the statehouse as the legislative session winds down. With lawmakers making final decisions on dividing up the money, transit providers say they need a reliable, annual source of funding from the state.

John Rodecker with Key Line Transit in Dubuque says his agency only receives about $170,000 a year in state assistance.

“We have a budget of $2.4 million for FY 09. Needless to say, it’s a small drop in the bucket of our overall budget.”

The Twin Cities transit agency in neighboring Minnesota receives 63 percent of its operating budget from its state government. In contrast, Des Moines Area Regional Transit gets only six percent of its budget from the state of Iowa. Manager Brad Miller says that’s not enough.

“State assistance is predicted to go down next year from what it was this year, despite our rising operating costs.”

Miller and Rodecker agree that a stronger commitment to funding transit in Iowa will help conserve limited oil resources and create more vibrant communities.

Dick Layman/Craig Eicher, Public News Service – IA

The full text of the action alert from 1000 Friends of Iowa is after the jump. It contains much more background information on the subject.

After an unusually long and cold winter, we are finally getting some nice spring weather.

But according to the Des Moines Register on Monday,

officials with the Polk County Health Department and Polk County Conservation are concerned that many kids will stay in front of the TV.

The two agencies have teamed up to combat what they say is the increasing threat of “nature-deficit disorder.”

Author Richard Louv identified the term in his 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder.” Louv describes it as the consequences of children being alienated from nature.

Health risks from avoiding the outdoors include obesity and a lack of creativity, said Rick Kozin, spokesman for the Polk County Health Department.

The solution is in our own backyards and neighborhoods, Kozin said. “It’s a health issue with a conservation treatment.”

The role of parents in getting kids outdoors is key, Kozin said. “Children will follow the lead from their parents.”

The Register’s article includes 15 ideas for getting kids in touch with nature, so click the link if you are interested.

It’s tempting to try to keep your kids occupied indoors so that you can get chores done around the house (or spend too much time on your computer). But it’s so important for kids to get exercise outdoors, especially if they are not in school, where recess and P.E. class may be outdoors in good weather.

Any teacher can tell you how much easier it is for kids to learn, and how much better they behave, after they’ve been able to run around outdoors.

According to Dr. Paul Fleiss, a pediatrician, getting exercise with exposure to natural light in the morning helps children sleep better at night (the sunlight triggers brain chemicals that help establish circadian rhythms).

You can learn more about that in Dr. Fleiss’s book, “Sweet Dreams,” which is a good and easy read. Or, just read this article, which is a condensed version of the advice in his book.

Parents, get your kids outside to play this week, even if it’s just for a walk around your neighborhood.

who is repelled by the overheated Hillary-hating rhetoric coming from some Obama supporters. Rebecca Traister has written a good feature for Salon. Go read the whole thing to see how bashing Hillary alienates even some women who have voted for Obama. Traister writes,

I began reporting this story in part because, as a 32-year-old woman who is more liberal than either candidate, and who was quite torn until Super Tuesday, I had found myself increasingly defensive of Clinton in the face of the Obama worship that rules the mostly white, liberal, well-educated circles in which I work and travel. I was confused by the saucer-eyed, unquestioning devotion shown by my formerly cynical cohorts, especially when it was accompanied, as it often was, by a sharp renunciation of Hillary Clinton, whose policies are so similar to her opponent’s. I was horrified by the frequent proclamations that if Obama did not win the nomination, his supporters would abstain from voting in the general election, or even vote for John McCain. I was suspicious of the cultlike commitment to an undeniably brilliant and inspiring man — but one whom even his wife calls “just a man.”

I am a loud feminist and a longtime Clinton skeptic who was suddenly feeling that I needed to rationalize, apologize for, or even just stay quiet about my increasing unease with the way Clinton was being discussed. Meanwhile, I was getting e-mails from men I didn’t know well who approached me as a go-to feminist to whom they could express their hatred of Hillary and their anger at her staying in the race — an anger that seemed to build with every one of her victories. One of my closest girlfriends, an Obama voter, told me of a drink she’d had with a politically progressive man who made a series of legitimate complaints about Clinton’s policies before adding that when he hears the senator’s voice, he’s overcome by an urge to punch her in the face.

Obama fans, you don’t have to like Clinton, but if you want to help your candidate, keep your feelings about Hillary in perspective (or if you can’t do that, at least keep them to yourself).

Your guy’s voting record in the U.S. Senate is almost exactly the same as hers, as big-time Obama supporter DemocraticLuntz has shown. The policies proposed by Obama and Clinton during this campaign are very similar as well.

Remember: your candidate is winning now and will need all hands on deck after the primaries are over. You don’t want to drive away anyone who might otherwise be inspired to volunteer for Obama.

The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa is hosting a “Crossroads” lunch featuring Dr. Hector Avalos this Friday, April 18. He will speak on “Intelligent Design: Science or Religion?” Dr. Avalos of Iowa State University is “a nationally recognized expert on Intelligent Design (ID),” according to the e-mail I just received from the Interfaith Alliance.

The e-mail notes that a movie called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” which advocates for including ID as part of the science curriculum in public schools, is opening in Iowa theaters this Friday:

People who value religious freedom for all people, the separation of church/state, and an excellent standard for educational curriculum in our k-12 schools need to understand Intelligent Design and why it is an important element of the Religious Right’s movement.

The luncheon will be at Plymouth Congregational Church, 42nd and Ingersoll in Des Moines, from 11:45 am to 1:00 pm. The lunch will cost $8 (payable at the door), and they are asking for RSVPs by Tuesday, April 15. To reserve a spot, call (515)279-8715 or e-mail tiaiowa AT dwx.com.

Welcome to the latest installment of my series about efforts by Leonard Boswell's campaign to make the third district primary about Ed Fallon's faults.

Boswell's staffers and supporters have criticized Fallon for the following four alleged ethical problems:

1. his work and fundraising for the Independence Movement for Iowa (I'M for Iowa)

2. the salary Fallon drew from unspent campaign funds following the 2006 gubernatorial primary

3. allegations that Fallon pondered running for governor as an independent after losing that primary

4. Fallon's stand against taking contributions from political action committees (PACs) while allowing PACs to encourage their individual members to donate to his campaign.

For my take on the I'M for Iowa allegations, see this diary and this follow-up piece.

I addressed the controversy over Fallon's salary from his gubernatorial campaign in this post.

This post looks at the evidence on whether Fallon considered running for governor as an independent.

Follow me after the jump for more on Fallon, Boswell and PACs.

Over at Daily Kos, SusanG published an interesting review of a new book by David Brock and Paul Waldman: Free Ride: John McCain and the Media.

I don’t have time to read many books at this stage of my life, but if you’ve read a political book lately, please consider putting up a review in the diaries section.

You can use this as an open thread to discuss political books you’ve read, want to read, or would like someone to review for Bleeding Heartland.  

Ed Fallon sought to connect Leonard Boswell with unwelcome trends in Iowa agriculture during three campaign events on April 12. An accompanying press release from the challenger’s campaign noted:

Fallon served on the Iowa House Agriculture Committee for six years and believes that the rampant consolidation of the hog industry and the explosion of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are impacting family farming and rural community viability.

Fallon noted that in 1995, a bill (HF 519) changed Iowa law to enable a drastic shift in hog production from family farms to corporate giants such as Iowa Select, DeCoster, Murphy, and Premium Standard.    

Fallon said, “As it happens, the President of the Iowa Senate at that time was Leonard Boswell, my opponent in this race. While I worked with fellow House Democrats to block passage of HF 519, Leonard Boswell helped get it passed in the Senate. ”

Fallon says he [is] disappointed that the Democratic Legislature in Iowa has done nothing on this issue and would recommend a moratorium at the federal level.

It’s not the first time Fallon has emphasized the differences between himself and Boswell on agriculture policy. That Iowa bill passed in 1995 features prominently on the agriculture page of Fallon’s campaign website.

Fallon made the point again in an interview with Iowa Independent blogger Dien Judge last month.

Can Fallon, who represented an urban district in the Iowa House, persuade third-district voters that he is the better candidate on farm issues?

The agriculture page on Boswell’s campaign website reads:

“Iowa’s farmers are among our greatest assets and they deserve our support.”

Congressman Boswell grew up on a farm in rural Iowa and returned to Iowa to farm after his service in the military.  He successfully led his local farmer’s co-op through the farm crisis of the 1980s, when he served as its chair.  Today, Boswell is guided by the values and common sense he learned as a farmer.

In Congress, Boswell has been a friend to agriculture.  He is one of two Iowa Representatives to serve on the House Agriculture Committee and one of only 37 farmers in the entire Congress.  He voted in favor of the most recent Farm Bill, which makes historic investments in conservation, nutrition, fruit and vegetable production, and renewable energy while maintaining a strong safety net for America’s farmers and ranchers.

During his tenure in Congress and on the Agriculture Committee, Boswell has fought for increased market transparency, expanding renewable energy production, increasing value-added agricultural products, keeping marginal land out of agricultural production, increased working lands conservation programs, and to keep a real safety net for our nation’s producers.

Speaking to Iowa Independent, Fallon suggested that Iowa needs to build more local food networks and diversity of crops produced:

“Before I got involved in politics I did some farming, but I messed up my back bad enough that wasn’t going to happen anymore. But to me, we need to create local markets for food products where we can help broaden the base of agriculture. I mean, we’re always going to be a leader. Iowa’s always going to be a leader in corn, soybean, hog and cattle production. But why can’t we also regain some of our status with fruits and vegetables and dairy? There are so many other areas. We can do anything here when it comes to agriculture; we can do it all.”

In the same interview, Fallon acknowledged that he has “a lot more to learn” about federal agricultural policy, since his “focus in agriculture has been on Iowa issues, as they related to the Legislature’s role.”

Boswell seized on that admission in his own interview with Dien Judge, which Iowa Independent published on April 11:

Ask Boswell about his primary race, and he’ll say he’s ready for the challenge. He’s proud of his record and isn’t shy about criticizing his opponent. “I’ve had some very good success with different areas of conservation and energy and alternative fuels, which is something I’ve been involved in for many, many years. And I’ll continue to be there,” said Boswell. He said Fallon is always “trying to think of something to be critical about,” when “by his own admission he knows very little, if anything, about agriculture.”

“But I do know about agriculture, and I’m hands-on. I was actually born in a farmhouse. I spent my years growing up farming, and then my friends and neighbors called me off to the Army and I went off for a period of time. And when I came back, I went right back in the same neighborhood and took the risks and made the investment to farm. We went through a farm crisis, not only running a farm operation of my own but also in leadership of my local cooperative. You know, I have that under my belt. And by comparison, he doesn’t have anything like that.”

Boswell said federal agriculture policy is of the utmost importance to Iowa’s 3rd District, and it’s important to have an experienced hand in the Congress. “I think folks will figure that out,” he said. “And so I’m just going to keep on trying to do the good job that I try to do. We’re not going to hit every ball, but we sure try. And overall, I feel good about what I’ve done. So I bring to the table a lot of things that he just has no ability to bring to the table.”

Boswell has occasionally cited his experience as a farmer to justify Congressional votes that have nothing to do with agriculture. For instance, when a participant in a telephone town-hall meeting asked Boswell to defend his vote in favor of the bankruptcy bill in 2005 (which most House Democrats opposed), Boswell replied:

“I am a survivor of the farm crisis, and saw folks that bankrupted when they really had the ability to pay back,” said Boswell, who owns a cattle farm in southern Iowa. “It seems to me like when we sign our name on the line and promise to pay, that we have a responsibility if we have the ability to pay.”

At the same time, more help and counseling are needed to assist consumers from falling too deeply into debt, Boswell said. He said he worked very hard to not fall into bankruptcy when he faced financial problems with his own farm operation.

Although I can’t find a link right now, I recall Boswell justifying his vote to permanently repeal the estate tax (another Republican-backed effort opposed by most House Democrats) by saying we need to protect family farms. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows in its discussion of estate tax “myths”,

Despite oft-repeated claims that the estate tax has dire consequences for family farms and small businesses, there is in fact very little evidence that it has an outsize impact on these groups.  Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes.

My guess is that anyone in the third district who is satisfied with current federal policy on farm subsidies and other agricultural issues will support Boswell in the June 3 primary.

But bringing up the expansion of CAFOs in Iowa, and connecting that with the law Boswell supported in 1995, could help Fallon with Democrats who are concerned with environmental problems associated with CAFOs. They include city and suburban dwellers as well as some rural residents who have seen the quality of life in their communities decline. Fallon has been an outspoken proponent of “local control” over the siting of CAFOs (currently Iowa law does not grant counties any zoning authority over agricultural operations).

You can read the full text of the Fallon campaign’s April 12 press release on agricultural issues after the jump.

I received this press release from the Boswell campaign about another union endorsement:

April 12, 2008

Iowa Federation of Labor Endorses Congressman Leonard Boswell

Des Moines, IA – The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO announced their endorsement of Congressman Leonard Boswell today.  “I am very pleased and happy to receive the support of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO,” said Congressman Boswell.  “They fight for better pay, better benefits, and better job security.  I will continue to stand up for workers and their families in any way I can.”

“Congressman Boswell had a 96 percent voting record in 2007, and has a lifetime voting record of 85 percent,” said Ken Sagar, President of Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “We look forward to working with the Congressman on labor issues in the future.”

The Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO is made up of more than 400 local unions and 50 councils representing over 55,000 members.

It will be interesting to see whether any unions advertise on Boswell’s behalf this spring.

I would think the main benefit of these endorsements would be additional phone-bankers and foot-soldiers to GOTV for a June primary.

Not long ago I wrote about the earmarks secured by the Iowa delegation in 2007. I commented,

I also get a little tired of self-appointed taxpayer watchdogs expressing righteous indignation about this or that project that got a few hundred thousand dollars from the federal government. The Pig Book shows that the more than 11,000 earmarks in 2007 accounted for about $17.2 billion in federal spending.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spent several times that amount on the continuing war in Iraq in 2007, with little to show for it besides more American casualties.

Today bonddad wrote a great piece called We Can’t Afford The War Anymore. Click through to see the graphics, but here is the key paragraph:

According to the Congressional Budget office, this war has cost $752 billion dollars.  Let that figure sink in — $752 billion dollars.  And it’s getting more expensive.  According to the same report, the yearly increase in costs are increasing at a high rate.  In 2003 total appropriations for the war were $76 billion.  In 2007 they were $165 billion.  And the increase in cost is largely from the ongoing operations.  Operation and Maintenance costs were $46 billion in 2003 and $92 billion in 2007 — a doubling of costs within 5 years.  In addition, procurement expenses over the same period of time increased from $10 billion to $51 billion.  So, the longer this war progresses, the more expensive it gets.

The Iraq War cost nearly ten times as much in 2007 as all earmarks secured by all members of Congress combined.

Remember that next time some Republican rubber-stamp for George Bush’s Iraq policy complains about wasteful government spending.

My husband and I both got direct-mail pieces from Congressman Leonard Boswell today.

I noticed that Boswell for Congress paid for this one, as opposed to the last three campaign-style mailers, which American taxpayers funded.

The front shows a large color photo of Boswell, with a smaller black-and-white photo of George W. Bush in the upper left corner. The text reads:

While Bush squandered a strong economy…

Leonard Boswell has been a

CHAMPION for Iowa’s middle class

When you open the mailer, page 2 consists of a large photo of Boswell standing next to a worker. The text at the bottom reads:

Congressman Leonard Boswell

DELIVERS for the middle class

Page three has three photos of Boswell talking with small groups of men and women. The text on the rest of the page reads:

Leonard Boswell is working to end the Bush recession

-Voted to increase the minimum wage and to support small business

-Helping reduce the cost of health insurance for small businesses through tax credits

-Working to balance the budget and provide tax relief to Iowa’s working families

-Creating thousands of future jobs for Iowans with new ethanol and renewable fuel standards

Leonard Boswell

Taking on George Bush for the Changes We Need

The back page has a photo of Boswell with his wife Dody. The text reads:

Congressman Boswell is working for Iowa’s new economy

-Making Iowa a leader in he green jobs revolution

-Creating high paying, new energy jobs

-Helping reduce the cost of health insurance for small businesses through tax credits

-Increasing the minimum wage

-Providing tax relief to Iowa’s working families

For more information: www.boswellforcongress.com

Democratic Primary – June 3rd

The bottom has contact information for the campaign as well as the notice, “Paid for by Boswell for Congress.”

Friday, April 11, 7pm to 8 pm: House party for Ed Fallon at the home of Gene and Lucy Krauss, 3660 Grand Ave. apt. 240, Des Moines. RSVP to Jamie at (515) 822-4284.

Saturday, April 12, starting at 11 am: Young College Democrats Conference at Grinnell College. Ed Fallon will be speaking there, but I don’t know what else is on the program.

Saturday, April 12, 7 pm: “Clarence Darrow: The Search for Justice,” First Christian Church, 2500 University Ave. in Des Moines. “Gary Anderson, nationally renowned portrayer of Clarence Darrow, depicts the man many consider the most brilliant person ever to argue law.  Darrow was famous for his work in the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.  He fought against the death penalty, social injustice, racism, conspiracy laws, and civil liberties violations.” Co-sponsored by First Christian Church and the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa. Tickets are available at the door and cost $10 for students and $20 for other adults.

Also, if you are the parent of children under the age of 10, you may want to come hear Justin Roberts and his Not Ready for Naptime Players at 11 am on Saturday, April 12, at the Masonic temple in downtown Des Moines (on Park between 5th and 6th). Justin is a Des Moines native (Roosevelt High School class of 1988) and is one of the best children’s songwriters around. Really, even adults enjoy his music! The concert is a fundraiser for the Des Moines Symphony Academy–tickets cost $15.

Please consider this an open thread for posting about any other interesting event coming up soon.

Not long ago I posted about a poorly-researched and poorly-written article by the Associated Press on the rising rate of cesarean births in Iowa.

Lisa Houchins, a mom in Des Moines who is also education director for the International Cesarean Awareness Network, responded to the same article with this letter to the editor that the Register published earlier this week:

Regarding, “More U.S. Women Delivering Babies by Caesarean Section” (March 29): According to the World Health Organization, more than half of all Caesareans in the United States could be avoided. When used properly, a Caesarean can be a life-saving procedure. When used indiscriminately, C-sections introduce unnecessary risks to mothers and infants.

Women who deliver by Caesarean are more likely to have complications, including increased pain and recovery time, infection or death. Babies delivered by Caesarean are also more likely to suffer complications.

Women with Caesareans are at increased risk for miscarriage, infertility and complications in later pregnancies. Also, their future birthing choices can be severely limited. Some hospitals (including many in Iowa) and doctors are attempting to ban vaginal births after Caesareans.

Caesareans may be safer than they were 20 years ago, but that does not make them safer than a vaginal birth. C-sections are major surgery, and they should be reserved for times when there is a true medical indication. I encourage all pregnant women to educate themselves on how to avoid a Caesarean and how to have the safest and most satisfying birth possible.

April is Cesarean Awareness Month, and the ICAN website notes:

What is Cesarean Awareness Month? An internationally recognized month of awareness about the impact of cesarean sections on mothers, babies, and families worldwide. It’s about educating yourself to the pros and cons of major abdominal surgery and the possibilities for healthy birth afterwards as well as educating yourself for prevention of cesarean section.

Cesarean awareness is for mothers who are expecting or who might choose to be in the future. It’s for daughters who don’t realize what choices are being taken away from them. It’s for scientists studying the effects of cesareans and how birth impacts our lives. It’s for grandmothers who won’t be having more children but are questioning the abdominal pains and adhesions causing damage 30 years after their cesareans.

CESAREANS are serious. There is no need for a ‘catchy phrase’ to tell us that this is a mainstream problem. It affects everyone. One in three American women every year have surgery to bring their babies into the world. These women have lifelong health effects, impacting the families that are helping them in their healing, impacting other families through healthcare costs and policies, and bringing back those same lifelong health effects to the children they bring into this world.

Be aware. Read. Learn. Ask questions. Get informed consent. Be your own advocate for the information you need to know.

There is lots of information on the ICAN website, so if you or your partner or your friend is pregnant, I encourage you to check it out. C-sections can be lifesaving procedures, but it makes sense to take reasonable steps to avoid having unnecessary surgery.

The ICAN of Central Iowa website has statistics comparing c-section rates in the largest Iowa counties and hospitals.

If you want to avoid a cesarean birth unless it is medically necessary, ask about c-section rates when you are choosing a provider.

Don’t induce labor without medical need (for instance, because you hit your due date, or because you don’t want to go into labor over a weekend), because trying to induce a cervix that isn’t ripe is more likely to lead to “failure to progress” and a resulting c-section.

Consider getting a certified doula to help with childbirth education during pregnancy and to support the mother during labor. The website of Doulas of North America explains the benefits of having a doula:

Women have complex needs during childbirth and the weeks that follow. In addition to medical care and the love and companionship provided by their partners, women need consistent, continuous reassurance, comfort, encouragement and respect. They need individualized care based on their circumstances and preferences.

DONA International doulas are educated and experienced in childbirth and the postpartum period. We are prepared to provide physical (non-medical), emotional and informational support to women and their partners during labor and birth, as well as to families in the weeks following childbirth. We offer a loving touch, positioning and comfort measures that make childbearing women and families feel nurtured and cared for.

Numerous clinical studies have found that a doula’s presence at birth

   * tends to result in shorter labors with fewer complications

   * reduces negative feelings about one’s childbirth experience

   * reduces the need for pitocin (a labor-inducing drug), forceps or vacuum extraction and cesareans

   * reduces the mother’s request for pain medication and/or epidurals

Research shows parents who receive support can:

   * Feel more secure and cared for

   * Are more successful in adapting to new family dynamics

   * Have greater success with breastfeeding

   * Have greater self-confidence

   * Have less postpartum depression

   * Have lower incidence of abuse

Click through to find links to some research. Dads, don’t worry about the doula trying to take your place during labor. My husband is a huge advocate for doulas. She doesn’t do your job–she just helps the mother with practical advice based on training and the experience of attending many births. She will not freak out to see the mother in pain, and she will be able to reassure both parents if panic sets in while labor is progressing normally.

I know women who would have ended up with c-sections if not for their doulas. In one case, the baby was presenting with the cheek rather than with the crown of the head. The medical staff were convinced a c-section was the only way to get that baby out, but the doula encouraged the mother to try leaning and squatting in some different positions during and between contractions. After a few tries, the baby shifted, and the rest of the labor was over in less than 20 minutes.

The usually-fascinating diarist poblano (see diary history here) has put up an interesting analysis of how a possible “unity bounce” for our nominee would affect the general election outcome.

Poblano cites a piece by Chuck Todd, who argues:

Currently polls show McCain either narrowly ahead or even with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It is impressive considering how poorly the GOP, and specifically the president, are viewed by the public.

  But it is a faux lead. If the de facto Democratic nominee is clear within the next 4-6 weeks, that person will see a poll bounce. And according to GOP pollster Steve Lombardo, it could be one heck of a bounce, like post-convention. He anticipates the Democratic candidate will move up 10 points once the primary race is over.

Click through to see how poblano calculates a bounce like that would affect Obama’s chances of winning key states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

I hope he’s right, although I am not convinced that such a large “unity bounce” would materialize.

Meanwhile, Daily Kos front-pager smintheus showed yesterday that the extended primary season has a lot of benefits for the Democratic Party as a whole. Look at Pennsylvania, where the primary is almost always meaningless. Democrats are registering enormous numbers of new voters as both Clinton and Obama mobilize supporters. Also, large numbers of people registered as independents or Republicans have switched to Democrat:

Perhaps the most remarkable news is that Democrats now hold a majority in two suburban Philadelphia counties that have been predominantly Republican for many years, Montgomery and Bucks.

[…]

And nearby in both Chester and Delaware, where four months ago Republicans had about 65,000 more registered voters per county, the deficit has been cut to 35,000.

[…]

All in all, there have been massive Democratic gains this winter in suburban Philly. Democrats also picked up another 50,000 registrations in Philadelphia.

[…]

What does it mean for the April 22 primary? Philadelphia and suburbs have added about 140,000 new Democrats this year, the rest of the state another 167,000.

Even if some of these people are Democrats-for-a-day who want to vote for Obama in the primary just to dispense with Hillary, the majority are likely to vote again for Democrats in the general election.

Keep in mind that Gore won Pennsylvania by about 200,000 votes, but Kerry only won by about 100,000 votes. The people mobilized to participate in this exciting primary season could make the difference between us or McCain winning that crucial state in November.

Relax, Obama supporters. Let the primaries play out and stop screaming for Hillary to drop out now.

If you still don’t believe that the idea of Barack Obama as a consistent opponent of the Iraq War is a “fairy tale,” read this diary by Marcy Winograd:

By dusk on Wednesday, the California Obama campaign had purged almost all progressive anti-war activists from its delegate candidate lists.  Names of candidates, people who had filed to run to represent Obama at the August Democratic Party National Convention, disappeared, not one by one, but hundreds at a time, from the Party web site listing the eligibles.  The list of Obama delegate hopefuls in one northern California congressional district went from a robust 100 to an anemic 23, while in southern California, the list in Congressman Waxman’s district almost slipped out of sight, plunging from a high of 91 candidates to 17.  Gone were strong women with independent political bases.  

Who was left standing, still in the running for the Sunday delegate caucuses? The bundlers and their girlfriends, the men and women who skirt campaign finance laws by bundling cash, a bundle of $2,000 here and a bundle of $2,000 there — and some, though certainly not all, of the Obama precinct captains, loyalists from day one.

If CA is any example, progressive leaders in Penn better watch their back.

In anticipation of Sunday’s populist delegate caucuses, the Obama campaign deleted 950 from its list of 1700 delegate hopefuls. The Clinton campaign only knocked off 50 of their 950 delegate candidats.

[…]

Who did the Obama campaign kick to the curb?  Brian Leubitz, a Calitics blogger with a mighty pen, Tad Daley, former policy advisor to Cranston and Kucinich and a career fellow with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Alan Toy, a disabled rights activist and Chair of the American Civil Liberties Union chapter in Santa Monica, and a nameless, yet tireless grassroots volunteer who toiled nights making precinct maps …. and me.

Marcy Winograd.

In case you’re wondering where you’ve heard Winograd’s name before, she was the peace activist who challenged Congresswoman Jane Harman in the Democratic primary for her district in 2006. Harman won that primary by a 2-1 margin, but the challenge did seem to improve her voting behavior.

As Winograd mentioned, one of the bloggers at the California progressive community blog Calitics was among those purged from the delegate candidate list. Calitics already put up a bunch of links to news reports about the purge of anti-war activists from the Obama delegate lists:

I just spent about 40 minutes at a bar in Oakland talking with two absolutely crushed Obama supporters who got cut from the delegate list in CA-9. They couldn’t believe what happened. And they want answers.

I guess they weren’t the change they’ve been waiting for after all.

When will the Obama campaign remove Colin Kahl, the guy who wants to keep 60,000 to 80,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at least through the end of 2010, from his position as coordinator of Obama’s working group on Iraq?

UPDATE: The Obama campaign caved after a public outcry:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008…

It still worries me that their instinct was to get peace activists off the Obama delegate lists.